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

Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 103 posts

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#81

Post by whatusername »

josefresco wrote: post #15
mojombo wrote: post #6

Classifieds. CraigsList is not the be-all end-all of buying/selling things locally online. It may be a tough nut to crack, but it won't be hard to radically improve upon their horrible user experience. I would love to see some competition in this space.

Not going to happen. Craigslist is at that early Google period where everyone who uses it for the first time never looks back and is uber-loyal to the brand. A slick competitor with a great interface and new tools still has to climb that huge Ebay/Facebook-style mountain (no users no stuff, no reason)

no no no no no no. Craigslist can't scale like google did because it's LOCAL. If I'm the only person in my country using google - I still have value. If I'm the only person in my country who uses craiglist - it's useless. My local craigslist sucks. There's pretty much nothing there but spam.

Just make sure that when you launch - that you're not targeting SF/NYC.

(I will admit - there is local competitors that you would have to beat in most markets - so it's still tough - but it's not always cl.)

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#82

Post by ibsulon »

conover wrote: post #63
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #54

Blackboard and other proprietary software that colleges use. Blackboard sucks and could be easily replaced by hacking together open source solutions and presenting it in a slick package (like 37 signals) but tailored for college instead of business.

I couldn't agree with this more. I work with Blackboard's software on a daily basis and it is a aweful, unstable mess. The only problem is that Blackboard seems intent on sueing any competitors out of business using patents (see desire2learn)

d2l is awful in its own right - the University of Arizona uses it and I'm absolutely boggled as to how this software was ever sold. It's not terrible from the student's perspective, but the professor/TA interface is abysmal. It reminds me of interfaces from the 90s, before we had figured out things like going to the next page without a specific button to save the current page.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#83

Post by sh1mmer »

iamwil wrote: post #56
mixmax wrote: post #7

Look at a lot of big traditional B2B businesses. They haven't gotten much coverage because they aren't sexy and visible to the normal consumer. - ERP ssystems are impossible to understand for the people that work with them, and require an army of highly paid consultants just to get it up and running. - financial software for large companies doesn't allow managers to see numbers in real-time, is difficult to get numbe…

Right you are, but you'll find that even though you've got the technical and design chops to blow the current systems out of the water, the sales cycle for these large corporations are pretty long. Part of the problem is that when things cost beyond a certain amount they need approval. With approval comes delays and red tape. You'll have to have some sort of pricing and buy-in strategy for you to be able to get the l…

I remember asking a friend who wrote software why it cost what it did. Their answer $20k is the amount an average middle manager can sign off without running it up the chain.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#84

Post by sh1mmer »

tokenadult wrote: post #74
robfitz wrote: post #49

visas / immigration. you're looking at $400-900 an hour for lawyers to point you to the right webpage and tell you whether or not your particular situation fits through a loophole. corporate setup & startup paperwork of all sorts. also housing rental contracts, contractor... contracts. etc. patent applications. it's so hard to find good examples and templates. i'd pay to have something that said "type your overview h…

visas / immigration. The perceived value of immigrating is high enough that the price is not objectionable to many clients. They just want to make sure it is done right. In a market I used to work, by far the most successful immigration lawyer was regarded as a sleazy guy by most of the other immigration lawyers. But he projected WEALTH, and that was perceived by clients as the ability to succeed with a case. So he h…

Having been through the immigration process myself with a corporate immigration lawyer who used an online system for streamlining I can attest to this.

Lawyers are there to do 2 things, spot anything which might become a problem before it does, when it becomes a problem get your back. No 100% automated online system could do that.

However an automated system could probably reduce costs a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#85

Post by Retric »

conover wrote: post #63
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #54

Blackboard and other proprietary software that colleges use. Blackboard sucks and could be easily replaced by hacking together open source solutions and presenting it in a slick package (like 37 signals) but tailored for college instead of business.

I couldn't agree with this more. I work with Blackboard's software on a daily basis and it is a aweful, unstable mess. The only problem is that Blackboard seems intent on sueing any competitors out of business using patents (see desire2learn)

I think some of these have been invalidated:

http://mfeldstein.com/all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invali...

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#86

Post by markbao »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #54

Blackboard and other proprietary software that colleges use. Blackboard sucks and could be easily replaced by hacking together open source solutions and presenting it in a slick package (like 37 signals) but tailored for college instead of business.

Funny you say that—I'm a startup partner with the submitter of this Ask HN, who linked me your comment, and I'm working on another startup that's trying to do that.

Screenshot of general page:

http://screenshots.markbao.com/bbcd72149092d041f5aa310f2f2d3...

http://screenshots.markbao.com/c637d2dc73f4b51c5e74111b86d7e...

One of the biggest problems with LMS (USPTO Blackboard patent 6,988,138) is that they're often hard to use, so teachers don't use them. I'm trying to change this by making things mindlessly simple, and using words they're already familiar with (Attachments, like with email):

http://screenshots.markbao.com/cecd9f592564abe2cd5cac2ae8060...

It's certainly not to the caliber of Blackboard, but I'm trying to target the long tail who just want websites and not huge, bloated LMSs, and scale up from there. Release early iterate often! It's going to be charged on a yearly basis by school, which includes unlimited teachers, file storage included.

It's mostly going to be a sales and marketing learning experience for myself.

Let me know if you think there is a market for this in middle schools/high schools/college... contact email/AIM is in profile.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#87

Post by masonlee »

eli wrote: post #47
ciscoriordan wrote: post #31

Text messaging. It's been discussed here before but it's worth repeating.

This is difficult to tackle if you don't already have a serious presence in the mobile industry.

There are still a lot of innovations you can make here without replacing the SMS backbone wholesale.

For example, users interact with user interfaces, not messaging layers. If you can get people using your interface, you can switch the messaging layer where appropriate. Notice Google now sending IM to SMS?

At my startup, Borange, we send group SMS for free on the iPhone, and are working with metadata and a user interface to innovate around sharing social availability and impromptu invitations, one of SMS's big use cases. When the time is right (read PUSH for iPhone?), we'll migrate users to a modern mobile messaging layer, and keep our backwards compatibility with free SMS for interacting with the rest of the world.

Check us out, by the way. We just launched our iPhone app and are looking for investors and partners who believe in the Matrix and major change in the communications space. http://www.borange.com.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#88

Post by icefox »

yan wrote: post #27
icefox wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that everyone knows that the music world is changing and wants in on the pie and so far Apple has done the best job. The bad part is that they are doing a pretty good job. The hardware is nice and works, the software for the most part does work and gets music easily and cheap to users who are for the most part happy. A high obstacle. Let others try attacking the music problem and instead try one of the…

That's assuming that the current lone model of "searchable mp3 catalog online for $ per song." There are many different ways to profit from music: artist interaction, live venues, merchandise, provide a quality recommendation/review service, etc. The current market is skewed heavily towards what the content that the industry thinks will sell, which receives the bulk of marketing. Not to mention the fact that the mark…

The biggest thing I fear about music is that it is emotional. People want to be in a band and will work for less then minimum wage while living out of a van so they can maybe make it big, but really just to play music. Combined with the fact that in the mind of the consumer a song is near worthless means that the money has to either come from selling massive quantities, aka iTunes and they only break even or something else. And everything that is something else that I have heard of isn't that revolutionary.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#89

Post by nazgulnarsil »

markbao wrote: post #86
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #54

Blackboard and other proprietary software that colleges use. Blackboard sucks and could be easily replaced by hacking together open source solutions and presenting it in a slick package (like 37 signals) but tailored for college instead of business.

Funny you say that—I'm a startup partner with the submitter of this Ask HN, who linked me your comment, and I'm working on another startup that's trying to do that. Screenshot of general page: http://screenshots.markbao.com/bbcd72149092d041f5aa310f2f2d3... http://screenshots.markbao.com/c637d2dc73f4b51c5e74111b86d7e... One of the biggest problems with LMS (USPTO Blackboard patent 6,988,138) is that they're often hard…

one of the simplest things that blackboard manages to screw up is the message board. each class should have a board generated for it for that specific semester with a message area, a collaborative blackboard (auto generated for each thread and saved!), and assignments posted all on one page. I suppose you need a widescreen monitor to really get it all laid out nicely.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#90

Post by netcan »

russell wrote: post #14
mixmax wrote: post #7

Look at a lot of big traditional B2B businesses. They haven't gotten much coverage because they aren't sexy and visible to the normal consumer. - ERP ssystems are impossible to understand for the people that work with them, and require an army of highly paid consultants just to get it up and running. - financial software for large companies doesn't allow managers to see numbers in real-time, is difficult to get numbe…

This is an area that has huge potential. The problem is that the scale is beyond the capabilities of the small startup. I'm involved in something that might have the right model. My client acquired some quite capable, but rough around the edges, software from a supplier that went belly up. The intention is to fix the bugs, enable low cost (non-programmer) customization and spin it off as a separate company. There may…

For the purpose of disruption, which vertical?
Post reply on HN