Ask HN: What industries are underserved by software?

Post by Ididntdothis » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

jermaustin1 wrote: post #80

Ididntdothis wrote: post #11

When I was contractor I did a lot of niche apps for small businesses. I think it comes down to your ability to sell. I suck at it so not much success for me. But there is a ton of opportunity if you are willing to talk to people about their needs and then go out to sell. You won’t be the next unicorn but you can make decent money and it’s fun working with small business owners. Add: I often saved them countless hours…

Some of my very first consulting gigs were around access and excel automation with VBA. They paid well for being a 19-year-old kid still living with mom and dad. Now most of my consulting now is: - Bringing web-apps up to date (mainly by getting rid of a lot of jQuery that could just be JavaScript, or shockingly common could just be CSS) - Refactoring hard/impossible to understand 2000+ line methods (least favorite -…

Post by psalminen » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #48

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #13

I've started looking at software to help with residential construction tasks, i.e. the construction of a single-family house. My impression so far is that there's so much variability in what they encounter, that most tasks are best handled ad hoc by experienced tradesmen. But I'm not certain; it's possible that that's just the status quo, not how it needs to be.

I wonder if there's a "JIRA" for house-building. One could have predefined tasks or even modules ("garage", "pool", "foundation laying", etc.) for each new house, and tracking issues and final checks would be a bit easier/more organized.

Post by dhruvkar » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

Stranger43 wrote: post #78

dhruvkar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> problem is rarely that they are undeserved but that they are stuck with an nearly good enough computer platform and too much complexity This is true for large, enterprisey companies. But I'm talking about companies in $7-15M range who have bookkeepers downloading 35 excels each month and then run their custom Excel process to enter into a basic ERP system, so they can send out emails to each of the 35 employees to…

The problem is that it kind of isn't because there is no clear way for your app to work with the app their employee's use for taxes or the desktop apps used by their supplier/customers. At the end of the day the 35 spreadsheets represent an workflow that your generic app will likely not automate, it's also not an empty market as every region have 5+ companies selling the magic silver bullet for mid-sized company book…

Post by edanm » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #51

fennecfoxen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you are describing the Silicon Valley ideal, but things like "finding a good business to start" are very much a traditional approach, and I am confident they will teach you about how to do market research to this end in business schools.

Is it a traditional approach? I've met a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, and I have heard of almost nobody starting from "I have started a business, now what should we do" being successful. Bezos arguably took that approach, but that story gets told so much precisely because it was unusual. More often it turns out like Webvan, where the lack of deep domain knowledge means making noob mistakes that kil…

Post by gitgud » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

jermaustin1 wrote: post #80

Ididntdothis wrote: post #11

When I was contractor I did a lot of niche apps for small businesses. I think it comes down to your ability to sell. I suck at it so not much success for me. But there is a ton of opportunity if you are willing to talk to people about their needs and then go out to sell. You won’t be the next unicorn but you can make decent money and it’s fun working with small business owners. Add: I often saved them countless hours…

Some of my very first consulting gigs were around access and excel automation with VBA. They paid well for being a 19-year-old kid still living with mom and dad. Now most of my consulting now is: - Bringing web-apps up to date (mainly by getting rid of a lot of jQuery that could just be JavaScript, or shockingly common could just be CSS) - Refactoring hard/impossible to understand 2000+ line methods (least favorite -…