Education. Health care. Music. Three industries within which I would never try a startup due to such twisted incentives and resistance. Much respect to those who do try even when they know the odds.
Good thing there are plenty of start-up opportunities in Telecom, Energy, and Agriculture. </sarcasm>
The way I see it: Education is seeing growth in charter schools, MOOCs, iTunes U, etc. Healthcare is changing under Obamacare[1]. Music is now brought to you by Rdio and Spotify.
Agriculture probably does have a huge number of opportunities for startups, actually. There's some international protectionism and subsidies, but overall, it's not too bad.
That aside, I think most industries have significant amount of twisted incentives and resistance. The challenge to building a successful company is finding an opening with a narrow problem or stakeholders.
Good luck! We recently launched ours - web app that turns multiple Internet devices into a stereo system; all devices play the same audio at the same time.
