Ask HN: A niche area that is in need of innovators

Physical commodities trading is still ripe with issues at least at some of the ags majors (if you don't know who runs this industry, pick up Merchants of Grain - not much has changed).

For example, as recently as about 5 years ago (when I left), freight prices were sent by brokers on Yahoo Chat to a fresh grad who could then rapidly quote prices when traders needed it.

There's a bunch of things associated with a trade that need to get done - the futures position (it might be worth structuring something interesting, instead of just going for vanilla - the market makers in that space are WAY behind equities/fixed income/currencies), the FX hedging, compliance, etc. Market risk is another are just filled with opportunities - the key is to focus on UX, or they'll stick with Excel.

These processes are not, or badly, automated because the IT departments are large, political animals and the traders (who run the companies and are the major shareholders) are the type of people happy to deep dive into a war zone and have kalashnikovs pointed at their belly in the hope of a 20-30% discount, or who can trek 10 hours in the jungle to meet and charm the extended family of the man responsible for a country's grain exports, thus impressing him and securing a monopoly for life.

Still, since the work is by its very nature extremely human intensive, saving any time from the trader point of view, even for work that is traditionally passed down to the new guys, is very valuable, and the companies make enough money not to need to worry about the size of the bill, if the product is of a good enough quality. Adding reliability is another great angle. Catching a mistake on the FX hedging (traditionally one of the biggest sources of mistakes amongst the less technically inclined) as it happens, rather a few months later when the trade is unwound, might mean a few years' salary saved.

Of course, that would require gaining the trust of the traders. Good luck with that. Half a decade working closely with them should do it... and then you're up against the CTO defending his domain. Trust is way more valued than skill, although both are important.

Great industry though. Meritocratic, fast paced, high stakes, really interesting people. I miss it often.

I'd look within. If you just ask us, you won't actually have the insight.

What in life have you personally been frustrated with? What made it frustrating? What it didn't have to be that way? What would the better version of the world look like?

If you can't think of anything, then I'd get out and live more and study some along some tech-related path. The first will help you understand more of the world is and the second will give you more ideas about how the world could be.

Talk to friends who work in non-Tech industries, ask them their most time intensive/monotonous task. It can be industry/domain specific or not. If they can’t think of any specific, ask people lower down the food chain, e.g. interns, new joiners, etc. They will be probably given a lot of boring grunt work then see if someone would pay for it and if you can automate it.

The author of the article was working within a call center and got to see how it could be disrupted, price.

Not a perfect formula, but you can start to see areas that need improvement. Also make sure companies are willing to pay for it.

Every area that does not (fully) include computers or technology. Try philately, bonsai cultivation or hitch-hiking.

I can think of a few in regulatory compliance industry. I have systems that can sort of solve these problems, but it could be done much better. I may even try to build better versions at some point in the future if I can get my current things finished off my plate.