Show HN: A way for entrepreneurs to connect with business problems to work on

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3664769

by hansy • 14 years ago

54 22 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

http://repp.herokuapp.com

Originally, my partner and I built this app internally (just in the past few days) to find trends and commonalities in our customer development process in the commercial real estate industry. However, as we kept getting responses about pain points in these professionals' lives, we decided that this information would be really useful to any entrepreneur looking for problems to solve.

Right now the web app is super basic with no login or authentication. It's like a basic notepad.

Ultimately the question is, do you find this sort of information useful? If not, what would be useful?

Vivtek2• 14 years ago

Wow! I personally find it fantastic! Where is this data coming from? How do you get industry people to complain there?

hansy6• 14 years ago

A combination of reaching out to professionals on twitter and cold-emailing.

We were doing this for market research anyway, so we decided to throw our information in web app form.

I am worried about scaling though.

bootload2• 14 years ago

14 points but nobody giving feedback? Here's some. It's not really apparent for first time users what is being shown here:

- Is it a stack of peoples input or a hierarchical list?

- Can items go up/down?

- Can you vote?

- Why are the buttons green?

- There's a number on them is that how many votes the item has?

Maybe a quick into paragraph explaining it's use? Maybe a series of mouse-over hints to tell users the mechanics.

hansy6• 14 years ago

All valid points.

- a stack of inputs ordered based on number of points

- items can go up and down (again based on number of points)

- anyone can vote (although technically the people with the pain point should vote)

- using twitter bootstrap (because I can't design) and one of the buttons you can use is green

- yes the number on the green buttons is votes

I apologize for any confusion in features. I wanted to keep this as minimalist as possible so the industry professionals don't think they are overwhelmed with information. I can see how this can be confusing. I tried putting some of the information in the uservoice widget, but that's probably not the best place to do so. Any suggestions on how I can inform users what's going on without cluttering the page (pop-overs sounds like a good idea)?

bootload2• 14 years ago

"... pain point ..."

What is a pain point? Is it a problem? ... don't apologise I'm just looking at it like a n00b.

"... Any suggestions on how I can inform users what's going on without cluttering the page (pop-overs sounds like a good idea)? ..."

If users find it hard. A series of lo-tech screen caps showing a real example or a hi-tech video leading users through would do the job. Removal or explanation of any jargon. Seek feedback from actual users to get the best results.

deepkut• 14 years ago

First impression from someone a bit tired on a Sunday night (sorry!), I don't quite understand what this is.

Second impression: How much will "Dealing with people" help anyone? I don't mean to sound like a cynic, and this could be valuable if you get the right "culture" on here, but I think you need more.

Vivtek2• 14 years ago

Oh, come on, it's like a brainstorming session in tweet format (140 characters and everything). The idea is to take very little time from the complainer, and let him/her just say what's most irritating about his/her day. Make it as easy as a tweet and nobody has a problem saying what's on the top of their minds. I think it's brilliant.

sotu25• 14 years ago

Thanks for the comment Vivtek. Why do think this is brilliant? What would be useful from these tweet-like brainstorms?

nostrademons• 14 years ago

Interesting. By far, the biggest problems seem to be "people".

I wonder if it follows that the best thing one could do to alleviate workplace suffering is to create an AI capable of running the economy and then entomb all people in the Matrix.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

This is immensely useful. i do something similar when I need an idea. I just search twitter for "wish app for", or "<NAME OF WEBSITE> sucks because".

code_pockets• 14 years ago

It is a valuable app for people looking for startup ideas. It even validates a point that PG makes on one of his essays when he talks about how the current CRM is nothing more than a fancy to do list (not his exact words).

Thanks for sharing, I've bookmarked it.

eriklarson• 14 years ago

I think you are onto something here. However, for this to be more useful, you need to also ask which industry/position the user's in. "Distractions when working" is too general to develop a product. However, if you know this person is an "air traffic controller", then you can start thinking of a problem solution -- technical-oriented or not.

hansy6• 14 years ago

We intended this to target commercial real estate agents, but you bring a good point in that by asking for a user's industry, the app can be applicable to almost any professional field.

atonechris2• 14 years ago

The idea is really solid. And the execution is good for a MVP. I agree with the previous posts, it needs some more explanation. I'm not sure you need to add anything, just edit whats there already.

I would try some other tag lines besides "why does your day suck" . I understand that your going for but I think its too abstract to get good solid ideas. I would try something like "what would make your life easier". That way the site is yielding useful info with every query.

Great start though! Excited to see where it goes.

atonechris2• 14 years ago

Also the idea of a simple voting system, as the site grows that would be really useful. And a comment for people working on it to say what they're building and how they're solving the problem would be cool.

hansy6• 14 years ago

This is a big component of what we'd like to build out. We see so many entrepreneurs building so many different services that often these industry professionals just don't know about them. Connecting the two parties is our primary goal.

I would be interested to know specifics on the 'voting system' you brought up as well as any other ideas you might have! Thanks for the feedback.

rjhackin• 14 years ago

Clickable - http://repp.herokuapp.com

SuperChihuahua• 14 years ago

Good idea! I've added a link to it at: http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/New-ideas/Methods-gen... Under the section "Solve A Problem To Find New Ideas"

hansy6• 14 years ago

Oh nice thanks!

mapster2• 14 years ago

This is super useful for entrepreneurs or anyone serving this market. What do real estate profs think re: its utility?

Could this be a site addon (widget) which aggregates to your site in 'lenses' (i.e., real estate, veterinarians, etc.)?

hansy6• 14 years ago

It's still super early for the professionals to see any utility (if any) the website offers. We've been contacted by a few wanting to talk in depth about some of the problems they have and solutions they think might work.

Could you explain your widget idea a little bit more? If everything goes well in the CRE market, we would like to branch out to different industries.

mapster2• 14 years ago

A script code to copy/paste for users to interact with on their site. Submissions would be fed to the main site. You could frame the running list as a 'what burns me' or 'if I could fix one thing' theme. With FB integration etc.

Show HN: A way for entrepreneurs to connect with business problems to work on

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