Today, I’m publishing a new page on my website: Request for Startups{:target=’_blank’}. It’s my personal list of opportunities that I’d like ambitious and talented individuals to pursue by building products. I’ve kept this list internally for a while now, but there’s no reason it should just collect dust in my file hierarchy. I have a gut feeling that some of the opportunities in this collection are of significant value to the world.
Some of the ideas in here are ones I’ve considered working on in the past, but can’t due to the level of commitment required. These are ideas that can only be pursued by entrepreneurs who are willing to bet the next 5 years of their careers on them. 5 years is a worthwhile amount of time to put in to something you truly believe in.
If I were an angel investor, I’d consider seed funding startups solving these problems because I find them very interesting.
The ideas span industries and levels of abstraction.
Over the last few years, I’ve accumulated hundreds of ideas for products, of which many I’ve spotted organically and many I’ve generated through controlled observations. However, this list that I’ve published today exclusively contains a select few organically spotted opportunities, arising from a mix of realization, observation and intuition.
If you’re an entrepreneur or venture capitalist working on any of the problems in my RFS, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Or if you’re just a reader and would like to shed light on any of the opportunities or are aware of startups working on any of the ideas, don’t hesitate to reach out.
The phrasing Request for Startups is obviously inspired from the startup incubator Y Combinator’s Request for Startups{:target=’_blank’}. While YC’s RFS is an assortment of open-ended calls to innovate industries, my RFS is a collection of mostly specific ideas or specific niches I see as open within industries.