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Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

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Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#121

Post by AndrewKemendo »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #116
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #85

Rapid generation of high quality 3D models of existing objects. Process should be independent of object size eg. a coke can should use the same process as a car and process time should scale with object size. Think somewhere on the order of 10,000 models per day throughput. There's $BNs waiting for you. It's ridiculously hard.

Do you know what has been tried before or references to other attempts?

Yes there have been a million attempts since the early days of 3D. Most of them are photogrammetry or structured light setups of some kind, that aren't fast enough and don't scale for sizing. Part of it is logistics of getting objects through a scanner, with the accuracy being poor or muddy at best.

IMO it should be done with a mixture image segmentation and procedural generation.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#122

Post by pc86 »

contingencies wrote: post #66
Jtsummers wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, most toaster ovens I've seen have about 2-3 times the footprint of the average toaster, with additional height. This is actually pretty reasonable as you can use the toaster oven instead of the oven or microwave oven for many tasks (it's a less specialised tool than a toaster).

Last I read, US homes are the second largest in the world, after Australia. In Asia, many people live in apartments and that space is unavailable / non-negotiable. In addition, microwaves are not nearly so widely used.

To be fair, Australian homes need to be larger to house all the spiders.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#123

Post by analogwzrd »

zelon88 wrote: post #52

Not sure how much startup potential there is, but in my industry we struggle with adhering to procedures, and the root cause of that is because our procedures are written in the dark by management that doesn't always have a complete picture or much insight into what they're enforcing. The problem that creates is that employees only look for work-around's for the procedures (because they are misguided or misinformed m…

I'm not sure what industry you work in or what size company, but my old department had a similar situation.

It sounds like your processes are either immature (no one really knows what the best way to do things is) or tribal (you have to know the right guy to talk to to find the information or knowledge you need).

Premature optimization is god awful, because it locks you into a world of pain - your business is inefficient and the people actually trying to follow the procedure find it incredibly painful and limiting.

If your process is immature, you need to invest some time and money into finding out what the best way to do whatever it is you're doing. If your process is tribal, you need to find the guy or guys that understand what's happening and pick their brains about everything they know. Their implicit knowledge needs to become explicit. In my situation, I found that just agreeing on common definitions was a huge help.

If you're grossly inefficient, don't write a procedure for a bad process...you're just ingraining inefficiency. Once you've found a good process, then write the procedure so you can train your people to repeat good, efficient practice.

And maybe most importantly, train your people to the procedure but make sure they understand it on a level so they know where it doesn't apply and give them authority to deviate from the procedure when necessary.

Sorry if none of that applies to you. I'm just speaking from my few limited experiences.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#124

Post by misiti3780 »

ThomPete wrote: post #88

I posted a similar question last year great discussion there too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799007 I would suggest we make a monthly of these as they provide important insight into industries.

that is a great idea!

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#125

Post by pc86 »

ruairidhwm wrote: post #112
kolbe wrote: post #45

Not my industry, but a friend of mine in law was discussing how incredible her in-house software is for managing billable hours relative to all her past companies. I poked around, and most law firms, even very deep pocketed ones, use somewhere between a bad tech system and no tech system to manage and track their work. A small team could easily collaborate with some law firm (maybe take an investment from a few law f…

I'm a lawyer and a programmer and run a legal-tech startup. The largest issue I've found with lawyers and technology is that they don't understand it, and there is a lot of fear around it. Most of the time I spent selling my software was assuaging the risk-averse mindset that exists in the profession, rather than advertising the benefits. I actually gave a TEDx talk on this point as I think it's an enormous issue in…

Is your talk up somewhere? That sounds very interesting.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#126

Post by AndrewKemendo »

whataretensors wrote: post #117
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #85

Rapid generation of high quality 3D models of existing objects. Process should be independent of object size eg. a coke can should use the same process as a car and process time should scale with object size. Think somewhere on the order of 10,000 models per day throughput. There's $BNs waiting for you. It's ridiculously hard.

Where exactly are the $BNs in this tech? Also, any datasets? I'd love to experiment.

See other responses for the markets it would serve. Use 3D modeling by hand pricing as a comp (Low end $10/model, average in the $50-100/model range, sky's the limit for super HQ stuff).

Not sure what kind of datasets you're looking for. You'll see actual products to test with.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#127

Post by 6stringmerc »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #85

Rapid generation of high quality 3D models of existing objects. Process should be independent of object size eg. a coke can should use the same process as a car and process time should scale with object size. Think somewhere on the order of 10,000 models per day throughput. There's $BNs waiting for you. It's ridiculously hard.

What kind of structural integrity do you have in mind? Something with the density of industrial packing foam? I've seen set pieces constructed / carved from such material and it can be painted quite well. Putting aside the environmental / toxicity concerns for a moment regarding the type of material to be used, I'm genuinely curious how "rigid" such pieces might need to be.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#128

Post by patmcguire »

ggcdn wrote: post #37

As a structural engineer, I see a good opportunity to make reinforced concrete design software available in a SaaS format. The competition is outdated, clunky, requires local installation and messing about with licenses. Design firms are paying $1000-$3000/year per user/seat for what amounts to a pretty basic app. Unfortunately, there are very few people that understand both computer science and structural engineerin…

I have a friend who works in construction glass. (It's NYC, that's a big market). They ship millions of dollars of complex, custom molded glass every year. Everything's kept track of by emailing excel spreadsheets.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#129

Post by sharemywin »

ggcdn wrote: post #62
tacostakohashi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the total size of this market - how many users/seats are there out there for this?

Not sure. In the US there are about 281,400 civil engineers [1]. I couldn't find more detailed information on structural engineers. -Assume about 10% are practicing structural engineers who need to design concrete structures = 28140. -Assume a company wants 1 license for every 2 engineers = 14070. (I base this off the fact that my company has 6 licenses for 12 engineers, but we may be higher than average) -Assume we…

So, current market size about 10k * 14,070 = 140M.
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