Hi, there 👋 This is Houston issue #23 and here are the five interesting problems that we found this week:
Minimalism is one of the biggest trends but it's hard to get started
"I am really getting into this whole idea of minimalism because one of my really good friends is into it. I feel that there's this broader trend of minimalism going on thanks to Marie Kondo, the minimalists, Instagram aesthetics, etc. But I don't know where to start?... It does feel that there will be a category leader that takes over this space in the way Headspace did for meditation."
Quora for personal healthcare.
“Seems most sites are split between disparate forums peddling "bro-science" and informational sites run by providers.” Via Sam Cash
A Pocket or Instapaper but for design components
"Request for tool: I want a chrome extension that will capture components I see out in the wild that I like. Still trying to figure out the best way to facilitate this workflow." via Peter Zakin
People Ops as a Service for Remote Teams (multiple problems to solve) "
Every remote company is figuring out nonsense like this themselves. From payroll, insurance, taxes, benefits, etc. just hiring people in various US States is a huge burden (forget about international hires)" via Phil Freo
Aggregating feedback from users across channels is still a pain
"Request for Startup: Tool for synthesizing customer feedback and issues from email, reviews, dedicated support systems, etc. and making it available to the development/product teams" via Max Child
Quick Community Updates
Surprise! We're back! We're incredibly sorry for disappearing for the last few weeks. We have a lot of updates so buckle up!:
Did we die? You might know that there are two peeps behind Houston. For the past couple of months, we've been working incredibly hard on a new project/product and that has made it really hard to work on anything else (including Houston). This is not an excuse but we wanted to keep you in the loop ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Houston: we will continue to send weekly newsletters in the format you love. Period❤️
Houston+: we're changing the format! Based on the feedback we received we think it might be a lot more useful for you guys if we focus on highlighting key trends that will open up interesting problems to solve (e.g. Machine Learning → Data Labeling) and going deep on one problem. The current format elaborates on a lot of the problem but it might not provide a lot of depth/insights. If you're a subscriber please reply and let us know what you think. We respond to every email! New email format goes out today! Thank you so so much for your patience as we figure this out(:
This week was YC's demo day! The bad news is that it made impossible for us to post. The good news is that a lot of the problems we listed this week (and maybe next week😉) are heavily influenced by some of the emergent trends we saw last week. Enjoy(:
If you find Houston useful then please send this email to a friend. Let's see and share more great problems to solve 🙌
🚀Houston+ is a weekly addition to Houston where we go more in-depth into the market opportunity, current solutions, and potential challenges of every problem we publish on Houston. It's $5/month and the best way to support this project(: