What are the odds something that needs greasing is called zerk and is only one hamming distance away from something else that also vastly benefits from greasing?
Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
131–140 of 152 posts
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#132> Our device has 4G, Wifi and LoRa for comms...
How many of the sites are in range of a LoRa network?
I rarely hear of LoRa the US, although it seems like a great fit for many IoT use-cases.
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#133> Our device has 4G, Wifi and LoRa for comms... How many of the sites are in range of a LoRa network? I rarely hear of LoRa the US, although it seems like a great fit for many IoT use-cases.
nice thing about LoRa is that it's fairly easy to setup coverage for your own facilities if you need it, so existing network coverage is less important.
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#134That's fascinating, my father works in Australian mine sites and I can't wait to tell him about this. He wouldn't be a potential customer, he'd just be fascinated as I am.
I love that this is borne of a real world need for an industry not initially related to software, identifying cross-industry problems is what a lot of founders have trouble doing because they don't have much exposure to other industries.
Applying software to other industries is what really gets me excited. Do you mind me asking what city you're currently operating from? Good work identifying the problem and building a solution, good luck and I wish you all the best.
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#135As an Australian developer and entrepreneur, I cannot express how proud I am of you guys for launching what appears to be such a well-thought out and executed idea. Seriously, well done. I am curious as to what issues you've encountered in terms of getting people to sign up, is it the outlay required for these companies to switch over, is the migration process from traditional manual paperwork to your system a deterr…
thanks for the encouragement. Its good to find another aussie in these parts... We have not had a problem getting customers to sign up, aside from the normal nobody wanting to be first customer - the outback handshake came in handy here. The outlay required is the labour to fit the tags to each zerk - some plants have 1000's of them, so a fitter @$120/hr has to visit all of them pull the zerk off and fit the tag. Whe…
There are a few Aussies around here, but we definitely are not the majority, haha. The Aussie startup/tech space is quite tiny, especially in Queensland where I am from. One thing Australia is good at is quality over quantity. I see you guys being lumped into the same league of success as Atlassian, Envato, Canva and the handful of other startup successes.
Presumably, even though the labour for a fitter being $120/hr is quite high, the savings that companies will make in the long-run not having to repair broken machines that would have lasted a lot longer through regular greasing is the winning equation.
I'd love to connect and follow you guys on LinkedIn.
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
thanks for the encouragement. Its good to find another aussie in these parts... We have not had a problem getting customers to sign up, aside from the normal nobody wanting to be first customer - the outback handshake came in handy here. The outlay required is the labour to fit the tags to each zerk - some plants have 1000's of them, so a fitter @$120/hr has to visit all of them pull the zerk off and fit the tag. Whe…
There are a few Aussies around here, but we definitely are not the majority, haha. The Aussie startup/tech space is quite tiny, especially in Queensland where I am from. One thing Australia is good at is quality over quantity. I see you guys being lumped into the same league of success as Atlassian, Envato, Canva and the handful of other startup successes. Presumably, even though the labour for a fitter being $120/hr…
We are QLD based as well. Tim is Sunny Coast, Pete is Brisbane and I'm GC. DM us on linkedin.
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#137> Our device has 4G, Wifi and LoRa for comms... How many of the sites are in range of a LoRa network? I rarely hear of LoRa the US, although it seems like a great fit for many IoT use-cases.
we have LoRa network in Australia, we have not yet tested on it. We have the capability but it keeps getting pushed down the product roadmap
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Others have tried, 20 years ago before the tech was mature, think windows 98, serial cables, beige industrial tech - we discovered them after we had started. There probably will be followers, especially now we are public. The number 1 risk is user adoption - ie the guys who have to do the greasing hate it. We have the opportunity to implement it and learn all of the lessons before the followers catch up
Thanks for the reply. Yeah I just noticed, https://assalub.com/en/products/manual-lubrication/luberight... offer something similar but hopefully you can take it to the next level by reducing the friction and get passed the user adoption risk. Best of luck!
Yeah we saw this after we had our prototype and customer orders. We have never seen any in the field.
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#139This reads like a parody of the quintessential SV startup.
how? It's neither a "productivity tool for people building startups" nor a "sell customers subscriptions for stuff they don't need" nor a "Uber for toothbrushes", which I would see as the quintessential genres ;)
Re: Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
#140> We are building a HaaS (Hardware as a Service - is that a thing?) business model: we charge customers upfront for the hardware and then a software subscription fee. Oh god. The rest sounds great, but this sounds like the worst of renting and owning combined. How do your customers react to this model? Can the devices be used without the subscription?
This is the satellite TV business model or Starlink, or most LTE ISPs.