Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was just answering the OP. With all these downvotes for that I have nothing more to say.
Sorry but I have no idea who you are or what you are talking about. What kind of market are you referring to?
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Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
301–310 of 734 posts
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#302It's not really start up material but Sage/MAS is basically crap for companies that need custom work. The door warehouse I worked at basically needed 2-3 parallel system (1-2 of them being us scribbling on paper) because we custom fabricated doors and MAS was basically useless for passing that kind of thing around. P.S. If any of you are in Austin I recommend Hull Supply, they're good people.
Can we get in touch? Currently building something in this space and would like to understand your problem better. My email is in my profile!
I left Hull/Texas in April 2015 but if you want to bug somebody http://hullsupply.com/page/contact/
ask to be transferred to Gabe, I'm sure he's still IT there.
P.S. I don't know if he'll remember the name but Axel -from the cage and lockshop- if you want a name to drop.
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Check out Striim http://www.striim.com/ It's a native streaming platform so your data will be cleansed, processed, scanned for outliers event-by-event rather than in batches. We have dozens of streaming connectors IT/Enterprise/Web data sources. We also support initial load for your firehose data. For unstructured data, we have support for RegEx based parsers. Shoot me a message if you have any more questions. We hav…
We solved RegEx and can guarantee worst-case linear time matching for any number of expressions. We should talk! www.watchful.io
guarantee worst-case linear time matching for any
number of expressions
It's open source, and match time is linear in the length of the input string.
(Disclosure: I work at Google on a different open source project)
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#304A request/approval system. The current offerings are laughably unusable.
Can you elaborate some more?
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#305My wife is a corporate attorney. They pass drafts of contracts around by email using MS word with change tracking enabled. Some sort of attorney targeted simple revision tracking front end using git would be a mighty step forward.
Be very careful trying to solve this "problem". While MS Word change tracking may seem abhorrent to you, most lawyers are well trained in its use and are very comfortable using it. Also, switching costs are huge. A lawyer would not only need to see the benefit of an alternative but also convince all other lawyers they work with to put aside the solution they are already comfortable using and try something new.
I should note - yes, my wife sees no problem at all with this workflow.
My understanding of the workflow is that they will send a clean copy as well as the redline to each other. Sometimes someone will in response further modify the wrong copy, and send back, which causes problems as it becomes unclear what was accepted and what was not and someone has to manually go through and check things. I hear that complaint come up - so I know there is at least one pain point involved.
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#306Industry: Any tech company that hosts sensitive/regulated data. The problem: privlidged access management and auditing. The solution: Cyberark, but not $250k to cover 1,000 servers. Ain't nobody got money for that.
I feel like this is a common/old enough problem there should be some open sourced solutions for it already.
In linux land, there is Teleport, which is relatively new. There are probably some other options, but I liked the POC I did with teleport, it just needs to mature a hair.
In windows land.....I've got nothing, hence the problem.
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
The entire Real-Estate industry is ripe for disruption. Exactly why are we paying 6% to "agents"? What are "agents" actually doing? 10+ years ago the need for "Real Estate Agents" was there as information was not readily accessible. Things like "what kind of area is this property in", "what are schools like" "what are prospects for this area 5 years down the road" and so on. All this information (and MUCH more) is cu…
Wife's a real estate agent so I have some insight. Agents mainly do two things: 1. If selling they can put your house into MLS. 2. For buyers they can let you into a house. Being able to do these things requires NAR membership, a state license, and other fees and cost real estate agents thousands per year. Also driving meetings clients at houses takes gas and time. Also your 6% commisiion is paying for all the other…
If that's all most agents are doing, that's worth maybe 0.5%.
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#308Many doctor offices still have horrifying paper record systems, don't use e-invites, etc. Companies are fixing this but the market is still huge. I don't know why the few companies that are in the IoT space for oil and gas aren't scooping up literally billions in missed opportunities for sticking cell-enabled sensors on oil platforms, fields, etc. Then there's the next billion dollars waiting for whoever starts stick…
Great ideas. Some thoughts:
GP offices: Plenty of solutions already - generally regionally based or by payer. Also an issue with vets, hairdressers etc - pick an appointment based niche. (Have invested in 2 niches, advised others)
Wireless sensors for industry: Thousands of players here, including network providers and different tech stacks. The game is to find a niche that is easy to enter and pats well. (Have invested in wireless water metering, advised others)
Drone inspection: Plenty of players here, but it's a find-a-niche that you can sell to play, and you need operators for each application. (Have advised drone and drone application companies)
Anything on a drone: Drone's don't last long in the sky. (as above)
Trains: Trains get solved at the political level. Good luck in the USA. (am train lobbyist)
Motorbike safety: Check out where Dainese and BMW are going - air bags et al. I spend a fortune on BMW gear. (Motorcyclist)
GUI HUDs: The main player failed (Skully - internal issues) . I know of at least one early stage company attempting a generic HUD solution. (have met, not invested the early stage one and decided, luckily, that I didn't like the Skully people and did not pre-order.)
Motorbike storage: Has been a huge market since the 90s when you could only get adventure boxes from one supplier - in Munich. Now the problem is solved by countless suppliers and manufacturers - unless you buy a sports bike, which have a very different use-case. My first adventure trip was in 98 and I needed to self-assemble, now you can ride out of several branded dealerships with a capable round the world bike. (have motorbiked round what world - in pieces)
VR: The use-case is really only games so far. See Playstation. (have 2 VR kits)
Lighter than Air: Capacity and cost versus shipping are the issue, while air-cargo is well solved. Meanwhile the Helium market is stuffed. But I love the industry too. (read Bill Gate's recommended book on international shipping etc.)
Low income cooking: Those low income people are time-poor, poorly educated (the US system is dreadful) and marketed too by monster franken-food companies that price under the cost of decent food. Yes - its a hard problem to solve. (don't get me started)
Education: Indeed. Start with politics and how schools are funded.
Taiwan: (sadly) Why would you pay more than $1 over market?
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#309In real estate, developing with MLS data. - There are over 900 regional MLS providers each with different schemas. - You use RETS, a complicated, non web standards interface for downloading data. - MLS data is plagued with errors and denormalized data making queries difficult.
The entire Real-Estate industry is ripe for disruption. Exactly why are we paying 6% to "agents"? What are "agents" actually doing? 10+ years ago the need for "Real Estate Agents" was there as information was not readily accessible. Things like "what kind of area is this property in", "what are schools like" "what are prospects for this area 5 years down the road" and so on. All this information (and MUCH more) is cu…
Reminds me of the piece that Freakonomics did on real estate agents. It's probably worth the read for anyone about to buy/sell a home.
Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wife's a real estate agent so I have some insight. Agents mainly do two things: 1. If selling they can put your house into MLS. 2. For buyers they can let you into a house. Being able to do these things requires NAR membership, a state license, and other fees and cost real estate agents thousands per year. Also driving meetings clients at houses takes gas and time. Also your 6% commisiion is paying for all the other…
On 2, buyers can be let into the home by the seller's agent.
True a buyer could be let into a home by sellers agent and even use the sellers agent to purchase the home. Agents love this! Its called getting both ends of the deal. It doubles the agents commission. Does not benefit buyer at though and actually is a bad idea.