How can we fix the Market for Solutions?

How many highly-educated, ambitious college grads and FAANG alumni start companies chasing low-value problems, because finding the high-value ones is too hard?

If I want funding to develop a patent, why do my options look like this?

What if investors could directly fund product R&D within existing companies, taking risk in exchange for a future share of revenue?

What if new Builders easily get funding against a signed LOI or customer contract (a kind of “startup factoring”)?

What if investors could directly fund product R&D within existing companies, taking risk in exchange for a future share of revenue?

-What if companies could submit anonymized data or contracts into “dark pools”, and receive programmatic recommendations for solutions?

For example, say you’re building a product for a niche market worth “only” $50 million. Who will invest in you?- VCs won’t touch you because the math doesn’t work out — they need investments that have a shot at returning the portfolio.- Banks won’t touch you because they only know how to underwrite going concerns — businesses with operating history... See more

It is still really hard for Builders and Customers to find each other. If you don’t believe me, just look at the cost of advertising. In an efficient world, Customers and Builders would be instantly matched at low cost. Instead, companies deploy hundreds of billions of dollars on marketing each year.

-What if there were incentives — or requirements — for large institutions to create sandboxes where authorized Builders can access real problems and testbed ideas?