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Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

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Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#441

Post by icebraining »

reitanqild wrote: post #421
Qwertious wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My simple advice is to stop looking for ideas and to start looking for problems. I concur, and add that HN could really help OP by complaining about random stuff here. Just complain about the first thing that comes to mind that's been bugging you, OP will really appreciate it!

Easily fixable phones and laptops. My phones and laptops are small enough and lightweight enough. Making them bulletproof is too expensive. But making them easier to fix, documenting the process and authorizing repair shops would do be great. PS: I don't need to be able to hot-swap parts. PPS: pro models from Dell and HP at least are often quite easy to disassemble and fix and I think you can often source parts from…

Buy a Thinkpad? I went from opening it for the first time to having the internal screen cable replaced and working fine in a couple of hours.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#442

Post by qxmat »

Stop trying to make the perfect product: make something small and fail/succeed fast.

Once you stop being an external observer and commit to delivering a product, your understanding of the wider market will improve... before long you'll see profitability in places you didn't know existed.

There's nothing wrong in delivering something simple first. Most of the consulting businesses out there simply 'solutionize' Excel spreadsheets (i.e. add a web or mobile frontend to an internal process). Take the post room in my building as an example: they've just upgraded to an electronic system dispensing with the time consuming/error prone ledger entry and paper slip delivery. Someone sold them a 'CMS' with a package input form and email alert... As scope increased they added bar code scanning and a check-digit shelf allocator.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#443

Post by tomericco »

We were at this situation a few months ago.

We are a great team, backed by great investors, but could not find a good idea (after we pivoted from the last one).

It took us 2 long months. But we finally made it (hopefully).

My conclusion is pretty simple - take a "fast moving water" area, and build a product with proved market fit around this area. If you can't recognize this "fast moving water" area, use VCs and investors to understand what they are excited to invest in, what sound sexy for them.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#444

Post by icebraining »

0xbear wrote: post #406
Frondo wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's mine: fix income inequality and the staggering inequality in the distribution of wealth worldwide. How is that a startup? I dunno, maybe there's a small part of that big problem that you can start tackling. Maybe it has to do with some facet of the economy you're improving/making more efficient, maybe it has to do with influencing policy. That's for you to figure out. Find a big, big problem, and then look for…

People who start companies are typically looking to increase “wealth inequality”.

Not really, most companies are small and don't pay more than a decent income even for the founders. VC-funded startups are an exception, not the rule. Even among software companies, I'd say, if you look beyond the US.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#446

Post by blooberr »

sound_and_form wrote: post #396

Make this. Somebody make this. Maybe it's not the obnoxious, catch-phrasey SaaS bulls*t you wanted to do, but it will change the world and you can be proud that you made it. There are millions of blind people in the world. They shuffle around with rudimentary technology. Literally sticks. But they still have ears. Synesthesia. Process the visual 3D world with a camera. Use head tracking. Convert it into an immersive…

Is there anything out there close to what you're describing?

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#447

Post by Jean-Philipe »

nnq wrote: post #439

STOP. Just go work for someone else, please! Pretty please! Find someone with vision, and work for/with him/her instead. Or merge as equal partners. You sound like really competent people, but working under people without their own vision and without their own ideas is a wrist slashing inducing experience... The people with the ideas/vision should be in charge, not ever the other way around! If you're execution peopl…

I so disagree. I've met so many "people with vision" who were far off with reality and ultimately failed miserably. Most successful startups I know, including my own, have pivoted - i.e. they had the wrong vision to begin with and figured out something else along the way. The team was what made them succeed.

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#448

Post by oelmekki »

rmetzler wrote: post #438
oelmekki wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, good point. I don't like to rant usually, but this is for the good cause. I'm annoyed I feel the internet is turning more and more hateful. I'm annoyed writing and fixing tests takes half of my time when writing code. I'm annoyed business people only see the difference of salary asked and not what experience brings when having to choose between a junior dev and a senior one.

> I'm annoyed writing and fixing tests takes half of my time when writing code. Then just don't write tests and wait for what happens, when you find a bug 6 month into production. ;-)

There's got to be a solution between those two extremes :)

I've started writing only integration tests, this is cool because most of the time it only breaks during refactoring when there actually are regressions. I've also made myself a chrome devtool to record my interactions with browser and generate capybara tests out of it, so it's quite fast to write and rewrite, it never happens anymore that I think "oh, maybe that change is not worth it".

But the thing is, this only works for apps/features having a web interface. I do more and more system programming, and I have no idea how to do integration testing on this (I think about using docker, but this would be even slower than piloting a browser).

So yeah, anyone who can solve the tests burden problem while still making code as robust, I'm interested.

(btw, you'll still find a bug in 6 months in production with 100% test coverage ;) )

Re: Ask HN: We have a great team and capital but can't find a good idea

#450

Post by icebraining »

sauwan wrote: post #107

Here's my idea. All I ask for is a free one if you use it. A drone fence. Hear me out. Problem: Fencing is FUCKING expensive. For many people who want to keep animals out (garden, animals pooping in the sandbox) buying a fence is really cost prohibitive. Plus they don't always work anyways. Solution: Self driving drones with IR cameras in specific locations. Place a camera or two in strategic locations, and have a dr…

A turret or two seems more practical: http://pyvideo.org/pycon-us-2012/militarizing-your-backyard-...
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