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Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

news.ycombinator.com

41–50 of 91 posts

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#41

The problem with questions like these: There is a difference between what people say they will pay for, vs what they actually pay for; as many failed startups found to their chagrin. Unless somebody actually gives you their credit card, what they say they will pay for is largely an imaginary game (sorry if this comes out too negative)

Which reminds me of a book once linked here on HN[0], The Mom Test[1]. Although (as far as I remember) not directly treats about this exact thing (or maybe it does?), it brings a lot of other very interesting points in general topic of coming up with the new business idea. I can definitely recommend, pure knowledge without fluff.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28667439

[1] http://momtestbook.com/

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#42
post #39

IMO this kind of question will get "faster horse" kind of responses, not "a car" kind of responses (context: https://www.inc.com/michael-graber/people-would-have-asked-f... ) Don't focus on price. Don't focus on other people's ideas. The word "need" is overloaded; too many people will tell you the solution they think they need and not the emotional need itself that is not being met by a solution. Instead, try to unde…

It’s a catch 22 as you could potentially be solving a problem that someone doesn’t even know they have.

The journey of identifying a shortcoming and attempting to address it is a critical part of the product journey.

If you don’t understand what you are solving chances are you won’t be the best at it.

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#43
I'd pay $10/month for a news website that didn't cram a ton of ads and tracking into every page, covered a bit of everything, and was genuinely well-balanced. I don't particularly mind if it was left- or right-leaning in each article so long as it averaged out to be close to the centre overall.

I actually think it's a pretty good potential application for a GPT-3 style prose-generating AI - I'd happily accept something that was 'readable' (for GPT-3 levels of readable) without human bias, editorialization, and sensationalization. The hard part is getting unbiased facts to turn into articles.

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#44

I run a successful SaaS and while we have 2 engineers including myself, sometimes there are issues that are outside of my skill level (usually devops or db-related) or just aren't worth it for me to deal with on my own. I would likely pay 3 figures a month (maybe low 4?) just to have the privilege to field technical questions a couple times per month and ensure I can get good advice/help quickly. It's not that I don'…

I'm curious about this. What if you could pay for a stack overflow bounty? I'm sure there's folks who would happily earn a side hustle answering questions there at $50-$100/ea

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#45

The problem with questions like these: There is a difference between what people say they will pay for, vs what they actually pay for; as many failed startups found to their chagrin. Unless somebody actually gives you their credit card, what they say they will pay for is largely an imaginary game (sorry if this comes out too negative)

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#46
Easily configurable Asset pipelines service

Not for images/videos so much but instead focused on GLTF, Step and other 3d file formats

There is a huge wave of 3d apps/games coming to browsers. WebGPU starting to roll out this year will just further accelerate that trend. Many of them feature user content that will have to be converted and optimized to be used

At https://flux.ai we had to build our own pipeline to optimize geometries, triangle counts, auto correct UVs, convert step and other file formats to gltf.

I wish there would have been a turnkey service to just plug into!

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#47
post #37

A viable YouTube competitor, including its social and recommendation features, but without the ad-based business model making it so... fraught. I am happy with (and pay for) YouTube, but I'd love competition in this space.

Just out of curiousity, how would someone go about competing with YouTube? Build a prototype, raise a bunch of $$ from investors? Do you need to come in with domain / technical experience? Do you target a niche first?

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#49
post #3

Not necessarily anything new, but I've been looking for a clean and simple todo / project planning web application for an affordable price and ideally e2e encrypted. From what I've seen most solutions that look appealing are focused on teams and have set their pricing accordingly. I just need a todo app that goes a little further with a kanban board, sprints. Full e2ee would be the cherry on top.

We are using Basecamp as a team and have been really happy with it. I think their free tier should work well for a single person and I could see myself using it if I was working solo.

Re: Ask HN: New web service idea that you would pay for?

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Todoist and have beeen happy with it. You can even do a kanban board.

That's what I use currently, but kanban boards look and feel like an afterthought to me. Sprints would also be nice to have.

Can you provide an example of a todo or project management app that does sprints well?
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