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

#1

Post by choogi » Fri, May 04, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

This has been done two other times before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13139638 (2016), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799007 (2015)

Both threads generated a lot of really interesting discussion, and I was curious what the discussion would sound like if this were asked again in 2018.

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

#2

Post by tixocloud » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

From a technical side of things: - data management - faster analytics software - test and learn optimisation - faster model deployment

From a business side of things: - loyalty program/rewards - pricing optimization - financial services to underserved customers including entrepreneurs, families, millennials, freelancers, etc.

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

#3

Post by SteveNuts » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

Open hardware and software for PLCs for manufacturing.

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

#4

Post by kodablah » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

I'll take a startup in a box. I want Kubernetes, Elastic, Kibana, FileBeat, Prometheus, Consul, Grafana, databases, HTTP gateways, etc all set up on on the cloud (or set of servers) of my choice and a dashboard that lets me add users (e.g. like a modern Webmin/cPanel+WHM) and make minor config changes if I don't want to run these myself. I want those things HA and I want stable hostnames for them (e.g. Consul DNS on every box). Then I want an empty app template where I can provide a few things: commands to build my app (including dependencies), a systemd conf for start/stop of my app, a config value to tell you where the logs will be, a config value to tell you how to consume metrics from me (e.g. a local HTTP path for prometheus), etc. I feel like we're close with Helm and Kubernetes but I'll be damned if coordinating and setting all of this stuff up HA, getting notified of failures, getting notified when I need to add more servers, being cloud-independent, etc isn't an extreme burden to entry.

I want to write code and deploy, not spend most of my time on ops or marry myself to a cloud vendor. I started my company as the only tech person and I feel like I have to be more admin than dev even though I'm doing the same thing as everyone else.

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

#5

Post by Pinbenterjamin » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

We run background checks, and there is definitely a space for public record aggregation.

We directly interface with those interested in the results of the check, and there is an overwhelming amount of work in building integrations with schools, applicant tracking systems, hospitals, public records, courts...

We spend most of our time building XML and JSON parsers to cram their data into our models.

If there was a company that provided a single interface to this data, you could write your own ticket. I know we aren't the only company in this space with this issue.

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

#6

Post by rayiner » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

Inter-operable video and phone conferencing without prior setup required. Probably half the video conferences I’ve tried to participate in in the last year have been a disaater, with people having technical problems dialing in, dropping out, etc. Even phone confernces (using VOIP conference providers) have awful quality. I want to be able to email some people a link, and with no account creation, registration, or software install required, get an extrwmely high quality low latency (comparable to FaceTime) voice/video conference.

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

#7

Post by hashkb » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #4

I'll take a startup in a box. I want Kubernetes, Elastic, Kibana, FileBeat, Prometheus, Consul, Grafana, databases, HTTP gateways, etc all set up on on the cloud (or set of servers) of my choice and a dashboard that lets me add users (e.g. like a modern Webmin/cPanel+WHM) and make minor config changes if I don't want to run these myself. I want those things HA and I want stable hostnames for them (e.g. Consul DNS on…

Aren't you talking about Heroku?

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

#8

Post by kodablah » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

hashkb wrote: post #7

kodablah wrote: post #4

I'll take a startup in a box. I want Kubernetes, Elastic, Kibana, FileBeat, Prometheus, Consul, Grafana, databases, HTTP gateways, etc all set up on on the cloud (or set of servers) of my choice and a dashboard that lets me add users (e.g. like a modern Webmin/cPanel+WHM) and make minor config changes if I don't want to run these myself. I want those things HA and I want stable hostnames for them (e.g. Consul DNS on…

Aren't you talking about Heroku?

No. Some of my quotes: "set up on on the cloud (or set of servers) of my choice", "being cloud-independent", "not [...] marry myself to a cloud vendor", etc.

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

#9

Post by scrollaway » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

Patch distribution for games. Every desktop game does its own thing, with its own CDN, incompatible with other engines.

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

#10

Post by hashkb » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #8

hashkb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you talking about Heroku?

No. Some of my quotes: "set up on on the cloud (or set of servers) of my choice", "being cloud-independent", "not [...] marry myself to a cloud vendor", etc.

If you bought all of this pre-made from a vendor, you'd be tied to that vendor, subject to their pricing whims, support SLA, etc. Maybe they'd be multi-cloud, maybe not.