From On Startups:
hipmunk [hip-muhnk], 1. verb: To bring sexiness and simplicity into an existing industry with a fresh approach that delights people. Example: The real estate mortgage industry really sucks. Someone should hipmunk it. 2. noun: Startup funded by Y Combinator that makes it easier to find flights.
The word disruption is thrown around way too much. It’s often used to describe ideas that are not disruptive. Recently though, I’ve noticed a trend of YCombinator backed startups that follow a similar theme: Go after an industry or process that is excruciatingly painful and make it better. Sure all startups are about solving a pain point, but in the case of Hipmunk and others, the pain is chronic and unbearable.
Find Something Tied To A Process That Consistently Sucks
Some things are just a pain and never ever change. The industries that can be hipmunked are ones that you repeatedly ask yourself “Why hasn’t anyone made this better?” It can’t be a temporary cure either, it needs to be a full blown relief of pain. In the case of HelloFax , it seemed like a silly idea at first to most. Fax machines are a thing of the past it would seem, but in reality they aren’t. With all of the innovation we’ve had, trying to send a fax is still a pain. EFax is cumbersome and real fax machines are far worse. Every blue moon, there is no way to do anything other than send a fax. It’s still horrible. With HelloFax, they took a process that consistently sucks and made it just work.