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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?

#31

Post by juskrey »

chollida1 wrote: post #27

Data management. 1) Cleaning the data as it comes in rather than in batches so we can use it sooner, invalid data is discarded, outlier detection, normalizing inputs etc.... 2) Warehousing of the data with proper indexes so you can perform some advanced queries on unstructured data 3) Some data is sent in bulk at the end of day, some of the data is streamed in fire hose style. How can we preprocess the fire hose data…

Will hedge funds take such a huge risk of using 3rd party centralized (or centrally developed) data management system?

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

#32

Post by bigmattystyles »

LeanderK wrote: post #28
bigmattystyles wrote: post #3

Not in my industry but I'm part of an HOA and I swear 2/3 of what the people paid to administer it do seems streamlinable/automatable with lots of opportunity for making money along the way. Every time I deal with them I proclaim to myself, STARTUP! Then I forget about it..

What does HOA stand for?

Homeowners Association - Might be US thing - but basically Condos / Townhouses / even neighborhoods form associations to take care of the 'commons' / enforce a look for the neighborhood, etc... There's usually a monthly payment. Repairs / work orders / disputes are settled through them. There's bylaws...

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

#33

Post by scrollaway »

juskrey wrote: post #24
scrollaway wrote: post #11

Content and patch distribution for video games: Data integrity, progressive downloads, file-level patching, compression, encryption, and platform/version branching. It's quite mind-boggling; nobody is really doing it on an industry-scale level. Every video game developer has their own way, all of which have their own problems. It is a very hard problem. Blizzard actually came up with a very good system, but it's not…

I have devoted 10 years to game content distribution, packing, compression etc. (Now not in gamedev anymore) This is a very easy problem which usually solved by attaching fairly simple script which is aware of your file formats to any commercial installer system. Some companies are even selling more or less standard solutions for that, but in reality from any given 1000 games 900 will have very different data formats…

I think the "900 different data formats" problem is something that will go away as we move towards better tools which cover all the standard use cases.

Gamedev is riddled with really smart people that reinvent the wheel all the time because they found a way to micro-optimize this or that. They get to do this because until recently, there was no "good enough" solution for a wide range of games (or the "solution" was priced with enough zeroes to make bill gates cringe).

But you saw how popular Unity got, and how fast. That's the games industry in a nutshell: ripe for solutions that work for more than just one studio.

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

#34

Post by IanCal »

contingencies wrote: post #13

Normally I live in China, and rarely eat western breakfast. Recently I returned to Australia to spend some Christmas time with my extended family. A few mornings ago, I put some real bread I cut from a sourdough loaf in a toaster. Due to its irregular size, when it popped it didn't pop out completely, resulting in a sort of "toaster is too hot to insert fingers, toast is too hot to hold, toast is ready, find metallic…

Did pulling the lever up not push the toast out?

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

#35

Post by flamesnare3 »

chollida1 wrote: post #27

Data management. 1) Cleaning the data as it comes in rather than in batches so we can use it sooner, invalid data is discarded, outlier detection, normalizing inputs etc.... 2) Warehousing of the data with proper indexes so you can perform some advanced queries on unstructured data 3) Some data is sent in bulk at the end of day, some of the data is streamed in fire hose style. How can we preprocess the fire hose data…

I think Palantir provides solutions to this problem

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

#36

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

contingencies wrote: post #13

Normally I live in China, and rarely eat western breakfast. Recently I returned to Australia to spend some Christmas time with my extended family. A few mornings ago, I put some real bread I cut from a sourdough loaf in a toaster. Due to its irregular size, when it popped it didn't pop out completely, resulting in a sort of "toaster is too hot to insert fingers, toast is too hot to hold, toast is ready, find metallic…

They make toasters for oversized slices.

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

#37

Post by ggcdn »

As a structural engineer, I see a good opportunity to make reinforced concrete design software available in a SaaS format. The competition is outdated, clunky, requires local installation and messing about with licenses. Design firms are paying $1000-$3000/year per user/seat for what amounts to a pretty basic app.

Unfortunately, there are very few people that understand both computer science and structural engineering.

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

#38

Post by takinola »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #12
takinola wrote: post #10

As a SaaS provider, one of the key indicators of a customer at risk of churn is the presence of another competitor in their account. A service which notifies you once an account signs up for a competing service would be immensely valuable in helping to target retention activities.

As a SaaS provider, would you be ok with having your competitors find out when one of their customers signs up with you?

I am ok with my competitors using the same Adwords or other marketing tools I use so I am not sure why this would be different.

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

#39

Post by contingencies »

IanCal wrote: post #34
contingencies wrote: post #13

Normally I live in China, and rarely eat western breakfast. Recently I returned to Australia to spend some Christmas time with my extended family. A few mornings ago, I put some real bread I cut from a sourdough loaf in a toaster. Due to its irregular size, when it popped it didn't pop out completely, resulting in a sort of "toaster is too hot to insert fingers, toast is too hot to hold, toast is ready, find metallic…

Did pulling the lever up not push the toast out?

With irregular pieces on this and other toasters I have used, part of one piece of toast can block the further vertical motion of the carriage at the top portion of its linear range.

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

#40

Post by mb_72 »

contingencies wrote: post #13

Normally I live in China, and rarely eat western breakfast. Recently I returned to Australia to spend some Christmas time with my extended family. A few mornings ago, I put some real bread I cut from a sourdough loaf in a toaster. Due to its irregular size, when it popped it didn't pop out completely, resulting in a sort of "toaster is too hot to insert fingers, toast is too hot to hold, toast is ready, find metallic…

Cut thinner slices; the toaster doesn't need 'fixing'.
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