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Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

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111–120 of 155 posts

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#111
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Screenhero was the best way for me to remotely support my parents computers. I know there are a thousand tools out there for this, but Screenhero was so incredibly simple that it beat out everything else.

I've used it for this, but much prefer setting up TeamViewer on their computers with my account so that I can hop on their computers anytime to check on updates, virus scan, etc. without them even needing to be present. I still need their help with they accidentally disconnect from the internet. I would like to have a conversation with the companies who put an unlabeled physical (or key combo) wifi power switches on…

Some laptops have a BIOS setting for what that switch toggles.

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#112
People are so desperate to find viable business ideas. We discuss to death MVPs, fake landing pages, articles describing how to find and validate ideas and find first customers.

Yet, no one notices when business opportunity stares them in the face.

Go and duplicate screenhero. It's not that hard (Screenhero was written by 4 devs and 1 designer). They did YC in winter 2013 and got acquired by Slack in Jan 20015, so it's less than 2 years.

You have a validated product that many people love and are willing to pay for and enough of a "outside of Slack" market to sustain a small company.

On launch you'll get free PR just by announcing "Screenhero alternative".

And if you do a good job, it's likely that Atlassian (or some other Slack competitor) will want to acquire you for a tidy sum.

Lot's of the hard code has been written for you (libraries for stun firewall traversal, vp8 for the video codec). You need to write a simple backend for matching people and 2 desktop apps (mac and windows).

It's not easy but it's also not a problem that requires breaking new ground, just solid engineering.

What we get instead are pleas to Slack to not kill stand-alone Screenhero and bemoaning that someone didn't write OSS (aka free) clone.

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#113
post #29

I wish this was forked instead of killed. Everytime I use Screenhero, it has been butter smooth. I would be ready to pay $3/month for screenhero standalone or a pay-per-use. I'm not interested in Slack, the use cases are clearly different. I think Slack missed or rather killed an opportunity here, they could have kept Screenhero (and use it to upsell Slack) and also integrated it in Slack. Not only that but it took t…

Sounds like a business opportunity!

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#114
post #112

People are so desperate to find viable business ideas. We discuss to death MVPs, fake landing pages, articles describing how to find and validate ideas and find first customers. Yet, no one notices when business opportunity stares them in the face. Go and duplicate screenhero. It's not that hard (Screenhero was written by 4 devs and 1 designer). They did YC in winter 2013 and got acquired by Slack in Jan 20015, so it…

You mean you could make a YouTube clone in a weekend? It's easy to fall into this way of thinking. But hey, maybe you will build the next Screenhero, or TeamViewer. Or maybe you'll end up as one of the thousands of other versions of this nobody has ever heard of. The idea is usually not the hard part.

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try out eul: https://eul.im It's a native desktop client for Slack, Skype, Slack, Facebook, etc. It's only 4 MB, it has minimal CPU usage, and it can handle hundreds of thousands of messages without lag.

Its disingenuous to claim its 4MB when the first thing it does when you run it is download 500MB of data in order to function.

It needs a browser (~50 MB, not 500) to do authentication once, then it works without it.

I'm not happy about it, but there's no other way.

It's still a native app, you don't have to always have a web browser running any more.

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#117
post #114
post #112

People are so desperate to find viable business ideas. We discuss to death MVPs, fake landing pages, articles describing how to find and validate ideas and find first customers. Yet, no one notices when business opportunity stares them in the face. Go and duplicate screenhero. It's not that hard (Screenhero was written by 4 devs and 1 designer). They did YC in winter 2013 and got acquired by Slack in Jan 20015, so it…

You mean you could make a YouTube clone in a weekend? It's easy to fall into this way of thinking. But hey, maybe you will build the next Screenhero, or TeamViewer. Or maybe you'll end up as one of the thousands of other versions of this nobody has ever heard of. The idea is usually not the hard part.

No, but you can probably build YouTube in two years. (Yes, including their global CDN.)

Also, “exact replacement for killed product” is a realy good advertising pitch to differentiate from those thousand other versions. It worked for The Old Reader, and later Feedly, when Google Reader was killed.

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try out eul: https://eul.im It's a native desktop client for Slack, Skype, Slack, Facebook, etc. It's only 4 MB, it has minimal CPU usage, and it can handle hundreds of thousands of messages without lag.

That's like claiming that World of Warcraft is only 4MB because that's how big the launcher is. It also creates folders in the wrong place[0] (1 directory above %APPDATA%). [0] https://i.imgur.com/FTZhjuX.png

Good catch, thanks! Will be fixed in the next release. I'm not good with Windows stuff.

I don't agree with your WOW example. The browser is downloaded only for authentication, it's not used after that. The actual app is indeed 4 MB, and it has minimal CPU/RAM usage, unlike web browsers and WOW :)

Yes, downloading 50 MB for authentication sucks, but you still get a light native app.

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#119
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1gb of ram for an IRC client.... I don't know... :|

Except they actually have IRC and XMPP gateways available if you're RAM constrained or are a console cowboy type.[0] [0]: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...

Why not use run an open-source IRC server then?

Re: Screen sharing in Slack, made interactive via Screenhero acquisition (YC W13)

#120
post #112

People are so desperate to find viable business ideas. We discuss to death MVPs, fake landing pages, articles describing how to find and validate ideas and find first customers. Yet, no one notices when business opportunity stares them in the face. Go and duplicate screenhero. It's not that hard (Screenhero was written by 4 devs and 1 designer). They did YC in winter 2013 and got acquired by Slack in Jan 20015, so it…

Sadly this is not true. There are so many excellent applications and SaaS - but they die very fast.

If the company which builds an excellent solution does not get acquired they will learn the meaning of the word "hell on earth": customer acquisition baby. Customer acquisition is not easy.

Of course, customer acquisition is easier if your product does not suck - but not so much.

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