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

Post by alphor » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:06 AM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #221

6stringmerc wrote: post #134

A monthly subscription service for a fee of $5 - $10 where every month I get a new kind of quirky instrument (shaker, wind, wood block and stick, whistle, triangle, or other noise maker) as a surprise by mail. The point of the service in the music industry is to inspire new sounds and the device can either be kept or given away to somebody without a lot of second thought. Getting stuck is a big problem. Also in music…

$5 doesn't even pay for shipping, sadly. Amazon still pays a average of $6 per order.

Post by daveguy » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:12 AM UTC

tacostakohashi wrote: post #246

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…

The problem here seems to be that users/customers insist on customizing any such app to death. Personally, I think the optimal ticket system would have this data for each ticket: * A unique, prefixed ticket # (JIRA gets this right) * An assignee (like an email To:) * A reporter (like an email From:) * A one-line summary (like an email Subject:) * A multi-line body (like an email body, but ideally with markdown) * Att…

Post by braindead_in » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:15 AM UTC

buckshee wrote: post #455

braindead_in wrote: post #402

We are an human powered audio/video transcription service and have lots of training data that can be used for training a speech recognition system. An ASR-as-a-Service in the cloud kind of platform where we can use our data to continuously train and improve the models would be very useful for us.

>human powered audio/video transcription service Mind sharing the name? I have friends doing ASR in college and they may be interested in your company. Though since their focus is on research/publishing papers, they may stick to standard datasets. But knowing about a new data source is always welcome. Thanks.

Post by philtar » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:25 AM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #154

devoply wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could employ some sneaky tactics to ferret out if a customer's browser visits a competitor's website... without letting the competitors or the custom know.

Or as this is otherwise known, "spying on your customers."

Post by Avshalom » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:27 AM UTC

bb611 wrote: post #447

Avshalom wrote: post #266

There's probably a SaaS in locksmithing. http://masterkeypro.com/ is sort of the only entry in the market and cores/companies-that-need-key-schedules change just often enough that say $5-10 month could gain traction.

Essentially inventory management for locks, including the specific bitting(s) for each lock? That actually sounds really fun to build, not terribly challenging, and probably has huge market reach. One quick challenge though, my understanding is that the average org that needs this either contracts or has full time staff who manage their locks. Those are normally guys who manage this by placing the 10 cores they need…