I don't know, but if you're looking for ideas, try here:<p><a href="http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html</a><p><a href="http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html</a><p><a href="http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html</a><p><a href="http://www.quora.com/Startup-Ideas/As-of-2012-what-are-some-Frighteningly-Ambitious-Startup-Ideas-other-than-the-ones-mentioned-by-Paul-Graham" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Startup-Ideas/As-of-2012-what-are-some-...</a><p>If I had to recommend one area to explore, I'd say something to do with lightweight, portable electrical power. As handheld and portable computing devices proliferate, battery life and recharging shenanigans are becoming more and more obnoxious. Especially at airports like O'Hare where electrical outlets are in short supply. A breakthrough in fuel cell technology or something of that nature would be nice.<p>Also, anything based on allowing people to self-organize into groups for mutual purposes, in such a way as to reduce (or eliminate) the status of "government" as-we-know-it as the default mechanism for communal / collective initiatives.
One of my heuristics here is to look for misuse of technology. Look for people persisting in their use of a tool unsuited for a particular task. It means they really really want something new, and might even pay for it.<p>An example: some of the biggest projects on Kickstarter (in terms of dollars) are about totally unanticipated uses of the site, like consumer electronics and game development. Surely this means something.
I haven't heard of anyone working on equity crowdfunding. It's like kickstarter for startups, only you get actual stock in the startup. The JOBS act, signed in April, allows for this. Previously, only "accredited" investors could get in on that kind of thing.<p>Whoever makes this kind of site will have to jump through some hoops, so that will rule out 95% of the possible competition right up front.<p>Interesting Forbes article on it:
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/06/06/what-you-need-to-know-to-profit-from-crowdfunding/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/06/06/what-you-ne...</a>
Usually its in plain sight ... try something that affects you daily.<p>For me its paying bills ... it sucks, so now im building something to make it suck less.<p>When I built my last house I also found things that sucked like components for hanging tvs on the wall. I wanted a junction box that was interchangeable and could work specifically for each tv, so I made that too.<p>There are probably hundreds of thousands of valuable things no one has executed well on yet, it does not mean no one has tried and just because someone has tried and failed it does not mean it is less valuable either.
Location based tasking for professional journalists (word, photo, video, radio) that is 100% anonymous (including payment). Disrupt the need for every news gathering organization on earth to maintain ANY foreign bureaus. Users of this app ARE the bureau.
An actual, disruptive solution to the US healthcare crisis. There's a ton of economic value to be created, but the current ecosystem is shockingly resistant to non-incremental innovation.
Confidentiality agreement negotiations. If you could streamline the process and get an NDA agreed in an hour, take a slice of each NDA signed (licence), you would be rich and loved.
The question you should be asking is which one of the many complex problems haven't been solved. Company building is a secondary stage. Of-course you'd want to solve a problem that would make you rich.