Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 52 posts

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#31

Post by nothrabannosir »

I've been looking for rentals in London lately, here's my frustration. Perhaps this already exists and I can't find it (please tell me): a good, map-based UI for refining search for rentals.

When I'm looking for a house to rent in London, it's always lists. I never lived there, so I see area codes and addresses, and they mean nothing to me. W3? Somedisuch park?

So now, I first go to all those sites, sort by price, some obvious filters, write down the addresses in an excel sheet and pass that to a maps API. Then I have to check is there a bus close? Subway? Nightbus? &c. It's a huge chore.

I'd like big map with all the listings, and filter controls on the left. Like for the tech compare & review sites. Max price, min price. Smoking y/n. Pets y/n. Iterate and refine the searches. Hover over a listing: info. Buttons on each info box to remove individual listings, or favorite / star. Perhaps some of my own comments. Slowly iterate iterate until I get a list of 4 or 5 that look most promising. If possible, allow overlaying with custom maps, or at least have info about transit (nightbus can be a requirement for some, subway for others).

I wouldn't even mind seeding some of the data, if I had to. At least it'd give me a good overview overlapped with transit.

Does that already exist?

EDIT: Worst part about my current workflow is updates. Last time I checked was last month. Okay, now what changed? I can't know efficiently.

EDIT2: Well whaddaya know, searched again and here's what comes up https://www.padmapper.com/ . Okay, I guess that's a solved problem! :) great

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#32

Post by aepearson »

bliti wrote: post #3

You won't get real answers here. Go and talk to people in the real estate market and listen to their pain points. Forget about finding actionable data on the web. The real world has it available right now. Just pick up the phone.

This should be a lesson at all "coding bootcamps" - learn to pick up the phone and talk to people.

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#33

Post by mcjiggerlog »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #31

I've been looking for rentals in London lately, here's my frustration. Perhaps this already exists and I can't find it (please tell me): a good, map-based UI for refining search for rentals. When I'm looking for a house to rent in London, it's always lists. I never lived there, so I see area codes and addresses, and they mean nothing to me. W3? Somedisuch park? So now, I first go to all those sites, sort by price, so…

If you're looking for whole flats zoopla has a really powerful map-based search where you can manually draw areas on the map that you want to search in.

If you're looking for a flatshare then you can search on a map on Spareroom, or there's http://kangaroom.net/ which I found recently and is very slick.

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#34

Post by mrborgen »

cscharenberg wrote: post #26

You might talk to some realtors and investors in commercial real estate. I know one guy who complains extensively about all the spreadsheets they mess with to do investment return projections. He wishes it were a web-based app he could access. He says this is an endemic problem in the industry where there are some very high-priced tools for modeling, but not much at the lower end. A SaaS might have a place taking ove…

Sounds like an interesting problem to tackle. I'd be interested in getting in touch with your friend. Mind dropping me a mail? My email address is per@forlagetpropell.no.

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#35

Post by mrborgen »

aepearson wrote: post #32
bliti wrote: post #3

You won't get real answers here. Go and talk to people in the real estate market and listen to their pain points. Forget about finding actionable data on the web. The real world has it available right now. Just pick up the phone.

This should be a lesson at all "coding bootcamps" - learn to pick up the phone and talk to people.

Not just to all coding bootcamps students, but to all coders/founders/creators. I've met very few who actually do it, spanning from amateurs to experienced developers.

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#36

Post by mrborgen »

omegant wrote: post #22

The biggest pain I found living in London (that can be solved in a week) is bus lines visualization. I find almost impossible to visualize the route of a bus, much less to combine two routes to get to a point. The official site gives line number information from point to point, but no visualization. I don't know if the London transports has an API with real time information, but it could be cool to have all the buses…

Doesn't Google Maps work well for this?

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#37

Post by mrborgen »

a5seo wrote: post #13

Problem: I have a 30+ variations of the same photo, and I only need the "best" one. Help me find it with the help of Turk. I bootstrapped a real estate related web app and sold it for a bit over $10M. My advice is that unless you enjoy creating stuff for technology laggards (i.e. people who adopt things only begrudgingly), avoid that industry.

Mind sending me an email or connecting on LinkedIn? I'd be very interested in getting your input in the future: per@forlagetpropell.no https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=92593053

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#38

Post by lordnacho »

A week is a pretty short time, especially if you haven't previously integrated all the parts you need for the app (maps, geolocation, Facebook, push, etc).

But if you have, you could do a mashup that does this:

As you walk around London, have a look at the local area. If there's a flat to be shared nearby, send a notification. If you want to share a flat, make a screen that tells people about your flat.

IMHO that's more than enough work for a week.

Re: Ask HN: Which problems can we build an MVP for in a week?

#40

Post by cssmoo »

supercoder wrote: post #6

If you're going to tackle something in the area of real estate for your MVP, I'd advise being careful not to create something that is a two sided market place. So if the app requires people to list property, but as well as users to view the properties etc then it's something that will be hard to gauge any traction on quickly as you'll need both sides to be rapidly signing up. Developing a product that is focused on e…

That's pretty good advice and not how I'd considered that sort of thing before. Thanks for posting.
Post reply on HN