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Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

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Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#131

Post by pavel_lishin »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #90
saosebastiao wrote: post #56

These questions pop up every now and then, and while I get the intent, you're not gonna get anything useful out of it. The idea that someone who knows how to code can disrupt an industry that they are not a part of is disingenuous, and the examples that you can find are exceptions, not the rule. It's also extremely naive and presumptuous...what makes you think people in the industry haven't already tried? People who…

The idea that someone who knows how to code can disrupt an industry that they are not a part of is disingenuous Uh, no. The idea is that you identify the problem, build the team to solve it, build something quick that can prove that you can solve it in a better way than others, iterate to the point that CAC < LTV, scale.

And there's nothing precluding someone in the industry from being a part of that team, to bring understanding of the problem space.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#132

Post by ggcdn »

fsloth wrote: post #87
aith wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you got an example/names of existing software? I'm interested to see what kind of features they have.

Tekla Structures has dedicated reinforcement concrete design features. The licence cost is probably closer to 10k per seat. You need computational geometry, computer graphics, and structural engineering expert level domain knowledge to implement anything. You need to create traditional 2D machine/construction design drawings from the 3D models. Then you need to sell it to corporations, whose work, most of all, must b…

In my original post, I was more leaning towards member design software, such as spColumn and S-Concrete.

These are much more standalone, and don't have many of the issues you listed.

No one I know is using the automated concrete design built into analysis programs like ETABS, Tekla, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#133

Post by saosebastiao »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #115
saosebastiao wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So hire people that already know the industry?

Yes exactly. Often they don't have the tech skills or desire/will to start something themselves, but are happy to join you if they recognize that it's a big enough problem.

If your expertise is organizational and can put together the right team with those that do have the domain knowledge, I'll concede the point. But domain knowledge is irreplaceable if you actually want to solve hard problems with scalable markets.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#134

Post by 6stringmerc »

A monthly subscription service for a fee of $5 - $10 where every month I get a new kind of quirky instrument (shaker, wind, wood block and stick, whistle, triangle, or other noise maker) as a surprise by mail.

The point of the service in the music industry is to inspire new sounds and the device can either be kept or given away to somebody without a lot of second thought. Getting stuck is a big problem. Also in music it's important to collaborate and giving gifts is a good way to make connections and impressions.

Great tie-in with various Manufacturers or even retailers to get rid of excess stock / failed impulse buy items / etc.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#135

Post by a3camero »

david927 wrote: post #75
kolbe wrote: post #45

Not my industry, but a friend of mine in law was discussing how incredible her in-house software is for managing billable hours relative to all her past companies. I poked around, and most law firms, even very deep pocketed ones, use somewhere between a bad tech system and no tech system to manage and track their work. A small team could easily collaborate with some law firm (maybe take an investment from a few law f…

Most law firms, even small ones, use 'Time Matters'; it's actually quite sophisticated and is now a De Facto standard for the industry.

Here's another product used by major law firms called "Carpe Diem": https://www.tikit.com/products/large-law-firms/time-recordin...

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#136

Post by AndrewKemendo »

6stringmerc wrote: post #127
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #85

Rapid generation of high quality 3D models of existing objects. Process should be independent of object size eg. a coke can should use the same process as a car and process time should scale with object size. Think somewhere on the order of 10,000 models per day throughput. There's $BNs waiting for you. It's ridiculously hard.

What kind of structural integrity do you have in mind? Something with the density of industrial packing foam? I've seen set pieces constructed / carved from such material and it can be painted quite well. Putting aside the environmental / toxicity concerns for a moment regarding the type of material to be used, I'm genuinely curious how "rigid" such pieces might need to be.

Perhaps I should have specified that I am talking about Computer Generated 3D models, not physical models.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#137

Post by dharma1 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #85

Rapid generation of high quality 3D models of existing objects. Process should be independent of object size eg. a coke can should use the same process as a car and process time should scale with object size. Think somewhere on the order of 10,000 models per day throughput. There's $BNs waiting for you. It's ridiculously hard.

My friend's working on this, for generating 3d floor plans from point cloud data. It's a pretty complex problem.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#138

Post by bdangubic »

seancoleman wrote: post #41

In real estate, developing with MLS data. - There are over 900 regional MLS providers each with different schemas. - You use RETS, a complicated, non web standards interface for downloading data. - MLS data is plagued with errors and denormalized data making queries difficult.

The entire Real-Estate industry is ripe for disruption. Exactly why are we paying 6% to "agents"? What are "agents" actually doing? 10+ years ago the need for "Real Estate Agents" was there as information was not readily accessible. Things like "what kind of area is this property in", "what are schools like" "what are prospects for this area 5 years down the road" and so on. All this information (and MUCH more) is currently readily available online. I have purchased and sold 4 homes in the last 6 years and agent I have worked with has made many tens of thousands of dollars and I can tell you with utmost precision that she hasn't spend more than 10 hours total. My wife and I scouted locations, went to open houses, did research online for things that are important to us and finally called the agent and said "we want to make an offer." Other than that the only other time we called is for her to let us into a home if there was no open house soon.

10+ years ago we had other "agents" that made a lot of money, e.g. "Travel Agent" in Travel&Leisure industry. Then internet came along and now we have 1,000's of websites that have replaced what Travel Agents used to do...

For Real-Estate I think MLS is just a start a small piece of the puzzle, someone very smart is going to disrupt the whole industry and make many billions of dollars.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#139

Post by grizzles »

dvdhnt wrote: post #2

Semi-related... I work in wellness and healthcare. I don't know about you, but I despise filling out the same forms over and over again when seeing new healthcare providers. I'd love to start a service modeled after granular smartphone permissions where (a) I check in at a new office (scan a code, they scan my code, beacon, something like that) (b) the office then requests x, y, and z information (c) a push is sent t…

We just built something like this for the health market. Users can auto-sigin to websites with one of their identities or set it to ask for each visit. Here is a lil demo I made that uses Craiglist as an example: http://tricorder.org/cl When the user goes to your website, say wellness.com/newcustomer, there are javascript APIs to get at your standard data, that brings up a perm dialog and if the user accepts, the data is sent to the website. Send me an email (profile) if you want to talk biz, tho was planning to open source it. Auth is very solid, but its currently android only.
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