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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?

#421

Post by rafaelm »

eli wrote: post #250

It's still surprisingly hard to send email newsletters. I want software or a service that sits on top of mailgun/ses/my own SMTP server and handles list management, templating, link redirection, and analytics. And that stores everything in a way that makes further data mining easy. Lots of services solved the just sending email part. And lots of mailchimp type services offer a complete product geared towards marketer…

Besides Sandy which aj0strow already mentioned, there's another solution called Mailtrain. It's open source and has some of the missing sendy features. I've been meaning to try it for a while now.

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

#422

Post by treehau5 »

vinay427 wrote: post #416
treehau5 wrote: post #414

Not sure, but if it involves automating more jobs away, wank off.

I don't understand this idea that everyone needs jobs, all of the time. Ideas are not created so that jobs can be created, and workers on a societal level don't work so they have jobs. They work so the business operates and serves society. Why not develop ideas and businesses that provide value to all of society and provide benefits such as a basic income that compensate for the fewer workers needed?

> Why not develop ideas and businesses that provide value to all of society and provide benefits such as a basic income that compensate for the fewer workers needed?

Because this is a pipe dream that ignores the decades long of suffering it will take to reach that state, if ever.

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

#423

Post by scardine »

maxlamb wrote: post #331
scardine wrote: post #144

A ticketing system that doesn't sux (I like RequestTracker, but it shows its age). Top players are ridiculously overpriced. My management style is like this: every task/request is numbered, placed in a queue and assigned to a professional. What I expect from my ticketing system: - every manager should be able to assign tasks to someone and set the order they must be executed. He needs know what his team is doing and…

how about using an app like Trello for that?

Currently we use a mix of trello, smartsheet, slack and god knows what. It is a mess.

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

#424

Post by pbnjay »

athollywood wrote: post #418
pbnjay wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in this industry? Where could I learn more about #2? Sounds like something up my alley...

I am. Google "fiber optic DAS" and you will find quite a lot. http://www.aogr.com/magazine/cover-story/fiber-optic-sensors...

Yeah I found a few articles but not a whole lot of specifics. You're suggesting something like this box? http://www.optasense.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/FiberOpt...

I feel like it'd be really hard to break into this field without some data to play with. Catch-22...

If you have access/desire to share some data like this I'd love to chat more (email in bio). Sounds like an interesting problem.

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

#425

Post by vinay427 »

treehau5 wrote: post #422
vinay427 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this idea that everyone needs jobs, all of the time. Ideas are not created so that jobs can be created, and workers on a societal level don't work so they have jobs. They work so the business operates and serves society. Why not develop ideas and businesses that provide value to all of society and provide benefits such as a basic income that compensate for the fewer workers needed?

> Why not develop ideas and businesses that provide value to all of society and provide benefits such as a basic income that compensate for the fewer workers needed? Because this is a pipe dream that ignores the decades long of suffering it will take to reach that state, if ever.

Certainly, but automation seems inevitable at this point because it actually is beneficial to most of society, in terms of productivity. I don't think becoming less automated to save jobs is any less of a pipe dream.

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

#426

Post by j15t »

athollywood wrote: post #383

The oil and gas industry is ripe with potential start ups. Here are a few that come to mind: 1. A better system for automation and measurement. Current solutions aren't ideal when it comes to setting up new systems as well as updating and maintaining existing systems. We build several million dollar facilities a month and each one has automation and measurement equipment that has to be individually set up and program…

Hi, would you happen to have any additional information on #3? (links to companies that require these services and/or industry reports)?

I am work with technology that might be useful for this type of application. Thanks!

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

#427

Post by athollywood »

pbnjay wrote: post #424
athollywood wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am. Google "fiber optic DAS" and you will find quite a lot. http://www.aogr.com/magazine/cover-story/fiber-optic-sensors...

Yeah I found a few articles but not a whole lot of specifics. You're suggesting something like this box? http://www.optasense.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/FiberOpt... I feel like it'd be really hard to break into this field without some data to play with. Catch-22... If you have access/desire to share some data like this I'd love to chat more (email in bio). Sounds like an interesting problem.

All of our data is proprietary unfortunately. This leads to another start up idea: a data consortium company for this type of work. I don't think we would mind giving the data up if there was a legitimate way to do so and if there was some benefit for us (I.e. advancing the rate of progress in this field).

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

#428

Post by solresol »

sidlls wrote: post #185
bdangubic wrote: post #138

Earlier 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…

The real estate industry is very heavily regulated and, worse, these regulations are extremely fragmented. Any disruption is going to have to deal with that. Also, agents for basic residential purchases where the property is about as mundane as it gets provide very little value. However good agents will do proper diligence by inspecting the public records for the property. That part may be disruptable with software a…

6% !??!?

Australian here: on my last house sale, I did a deal with the agent where if he got a price above a quite-high threshold that he would get 3% instead of his usual rate. This was seen as a remarkably generous offer, unheard of in the industry.

I've only once seen someone use a buying agent: husband and wife were both hospital doctors with three young active kids and they figured they valued their time enough that they would pay for a real estate agent to short-list properties for them.

I wonder what is so much more difficult about real estate in the USA that it requires so much more in the way of services.

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

#429

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

jlgaddis wrote: post #309
bdangubic wrote: post #138

Earlier 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…

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.

The TLDR on this piece is that since commission is a fraction of sale price, the primary incentive for agents is to just get a sale, and fast, rather than maximise sale price, as even tens of thousands extra adds only a little to their cut, so their time is better spent pushing the property through the sales pipeline and moving on to the next one as quickly as possible.

There's a study which draws similar conclusions:

> Our central finding is that, when listings are not tied to brokerage services, a seller's use of a broker reduces the selling price of the typical home by 5.9 to 7.7 percent, which indicates that agency costs exceed the advantages of brokers' knowledge and expertise by a wide margin.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w13796

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

#430

Post by flylib »

bdangubic wrote: post #138
seancoleman wrote: post #41

In 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…

checkout Opendoor

https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth-emulat...

https://www.opendoor.com

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