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Ask HN: What service would you pay $1k/mo for?
- Rekaiden 10y agoA good place to live, not much else.
- meira 10y agoA service that makes me make $2k/mo before pay
- jrbedard 10y agoAn outstanding Bloomberg terminal alternative
- seppin 10y agowith a better design /s
- Taylor_OD 10y agoLead/sourcing generation tool with direct dials, cell phones, email (personal and work), for every software developer, senior developer, lead developer, architect, dir of sw development, vp of sw development, CTO, and CEO in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. I would pay a lot of money for a tool that actually works, updates its database, and has companies other than the IBM/mega corporation.
- pvsukale3 10y agoQuestion : If someone starts this type of service , where would they get this data in the first place?
- Taylor_OD 10y agoThey would hire a team of sales/researcher people to call into companies and get this information. That's what the company I currently use does but they are more focused on the IT vertical than software development.
- mtrimpe 10y agoChildcare.
- nkassis 10y agoSeconded, that would be a good deal around where I live.
- TorKlingberg 10y agoAre you asking us as individuals or business owners/leaders? If the later, say so or you will get 90% irrelevant answers.
- AimHere 10y agoHe's asking us as potential customers for his next startup, of course!
- andrewmcwatters 10y agoA service that can double my income.
- impostervt 10y agoA guarantee that, after 6 months of this service (or whatever), I won't be fat anymore.
- johnnyfaehell 10y agoHire a personal trainer, spend that on the personal trainer and just do what the personal trainer tells you. Even a bad personal trainer will get results if you're spending that sort of money.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoWill they, even if the person hiring that trainer is actually undisciplined and unwilling to put in the work? (Or potentially has a medical condition of some sort?)
- johnnyfaehell 10y agoI would say yes, if you start spending that amount of money on a trainer, you're generally going to do what they say. If they were truly unwilling they wouldn't start paying a bunch of money for the top level service of a PT.
- impostervt 10y agoHow do I find a good personal trainer? I've met some and don't know how to distinguish the good from the meh. I guess for 1k a month I'd want something more than that. I know HOW to workout and eat right...I just don't. I need a willpower pill. :\
- dustingetz 10y agowillpower pill is literally what a personal trainer is
- Bartweiss 10y agoHonestly, find someone fit, ideally someone who does some kind of competitive athletic, who uses the trainer and recommends them. Personal trainers can be excellent, but the low end is "dangerously incompetent". The only requirement for starting a service, or getting hired at many gyms, is being buff and knowing how to look competent on some machines. As a result, there are plenty of PTs peddling junk-science nutrition, or giving out plausible-but-harmful workout routines that undervalue stretching or produce dangerous imbalances and overextensions. Assuming you don't need someone teaching you how to be healthy, though, things get easier. Some trainers focus on education and drop unmotivated clients, but some offer "willpower pill" as a decent chunk of what you're paying for. Knowing that someone expects you at the gym at 7PM, and will pump you up to not bail early, can do a lot of good.
- yoodenvranx 10y agoIf I would have that kind of spare money I'd like to have a private secretary who takes care of all the small things like booking flights, booking hotels, doing taxes, sorting mail, sorting documents, administrating my software licenses and netflix/github/dropbox/... subscriptions, and all those other things.
- neals 10y agoI didn't realize I want this. And thinking about it... I can afford this and might actually go and get this. A part time secretary of some sort... any startups doing this?
- forgotmyacc 10y agoread the 4-hour work week :)
- aesthetics1 10y agoTake a look at Magic (https://getmagic.com/signup https://getmagic.com/signup). If you are fine speaking with your assistant via text, this could be a good option.
- jdc0589 10y agopart of me really wants to try magic. Has anyone here used them to arrange services/purchases/etc... when money was not unlimited? How good are they at figuring out what I'm willing to pay for stuff and working within those bounds? I'm not a total cheapskate (obviously, im considering using this crazy service), but I'm also fairly concerned about getting the best deal/value I can for things.
- Bartweiss 10y agoI've only purchased through basic Magic, which applies a markup to your purchase instead of a flat rate. They were good at matching user preferences on simple stuff (get me a pizza), and had a healthy reluctance to go outside your stated preferences ("what with?" "surprise me" "are you sure, any specifics?"). The markup was substantial on a small purchase, but that's irrelevant for the hourly service. On the other hand, "get me a plane ticket from X to Y on Z day" quickly snowballed into enough expense and difficulty that my friend abandoned it and booked himself.
- tmcpro 10y agoUnlimited Uber rides
- chuinard 10y agoSounds ridiculously overpriced.
- Shanea93 10y agoI don't know, with unlimited Uber rides I could start a long distance delivery company: Want to take a taxi from Manchester to London because you hate the train or want to arrive overnight? Fantastic, that'll be £50, even cheaper than taking the train and you don't have to take a taxi from the train station. Need to same-day-deliver 50 tons of Plywood? Fantastic, I'll order 50 ubers and we'll move it a hundred KG per taxi and have it done by the end of the day, how does £250 sound? Cheap enough? The power of the word "unlimited" is almost magical. Of course, Uber would go out of business pretty quickly so £1,000 / month wouldn't get them very far, but to me, it doesn't sound too overpriced. I just hope there's no fine-print.
- Bartweiss 10y ago"Unlimited", like "arbitrage", is business-speak for "someone is going bankrupt". Hence the sad reality that "unlimited" anything is usually just "a lot". I remember being pretty disappointed when I learned that deals like "unlimited candy" generally just deliver more candy than is healthy for one person to eat. I also remembering being floored by the story of American Airlines offering actually-unlimited flights for $250,000. And as you point out, that turned out to be a stunningly bad deal for the company. http://business.time.com/2012/05/08/the-250000-airline-pass-that-was-worth-every-penny/ http://business.time.com/2012/05/08/the-250000-airline-pass-...
- sandGorgon 10y agoslack/hipchat + trello + github/gitlab + jira issues + continuous integration + docker repository rolled into one. All with mobile apps. i would easily pay you 25 bucks per person. EDIT : i would start with Phabricators codebase and go from there.
- xiaoma 10y agoGitlab is closing in on that pretty fast.
- zegerjan 10y agoGitLab doesn't have apps yet, although there are those from other companies like Trident[1]. Other than that, chat is provided by mattermost, and can be enabled in 30 seconds. All other feature are all already available, right now. [1] http://somerobots.com/ http://somerobots.com/
- ian0 10y agoAnalytics, customer support & automated marketing are converging. I would pay 1k/mo (scaling far higher with volume) for a solution that is implemented by a (reasonably) on-site team over the course of a few weeks that can interact with the various teams responsible to integrate (dev) and use (marketing/support/management) it. I would sacrifice features, which seems to be the de-facto differentiator in these classes, for a product which supports an opinionated but well thought out product development strategy. One based on the current norms for iterating products based on feedback from customers and funnel data. - I work in payments / e-comm
- doublerebel 10y agoI just started using Resend.io, which has all 3 of these features in a simple package. The founder has been responsive and the product keeps improving. I was looking for a simple Intercom replacement, Intercom has become very complex.
- Raphmedia 10y agoAnything that allows 500+ users. As an example, Jira cloud monthly is US $1,500 for 501-2000 users.
- Bartweiss 10y agoThere are a bunch of studies showing that you get weird market distortions at regulatory "cliffs". The classic example is that a company with 49 workers might see marginal profit from a 50th worker, but would suddenly hit the health insurance cutoff. Since insuring all 50 workers is expensive, the value of hiring one more person is massively negative. ...does this happen with B2B software pricing? Jira probably isn't expensive enough, but are there lots of companies doing elaborate limbo to keep their user count for a service just under a pricing threshold?
- texthompson 10y agoDaycare.
- beachwood23 10y agoI'm currently paying $2k a month for a service. I pay Remote Year that sum, and they provide consistent workspaces, living spaces, and travel to a different country every month. The jury is still out on whether it is actually worth that value; in many of the countries, a workspace membership and acceptable housing can be found for $600-900 / month. They attempt to make up the rest of the value in the community that they provide.
- kraftman 10y agoDo you stick with the same people each month? Seems like quite a markup to pay for not doing it yourself, and you could use the extra $1-1400 for social activities?
- storyinmemo 10y agoYes, they move the entire cohort together.
- gkuan 10y agoindividual: child care, higher education that improves career prospects, insurance business: certain high-end dev environments & tool suites, contract automation
- shae 10y agoI'd pay $1k a month for quality higher education on topics that interest me. My interests have a wide range, but I mostly want to learn math and physics and university classes are too expensive for their quality.
- colinbartlett 10y agoI would pay that much for a small, private, furnished office within walking distance of my apartment. I work from home and generally enjoy it. But living and working along side my wife in a small one bedroom apartment in New York City presents its challenges. There are plenty of coworking spaces but none close enough that I can walk to and I refuse to become a slave of the commute. I simply need a tiny room with a door I can close, wifi, a desk and a chair.
- adamqureshi 10y agoI thought i was the ONLY one in this exact situation. I moved out to long island. ;-)
- TACIXAT 10y agoAnything that gave me a return on that investment.
- verteu 10y agoA service to fix my chronic back pain. I already spend 1-2k / month on useless physical therapy and alternative medicine.
- kranner 10y agoFoundation Training fixed mine. I have no affiliation with them. There is a set of downloadable videos for sale but this explains the basic idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-K7jtcJ0Dc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-K7jtcJ0Dc
- verteu 10y agoI appreciate the suggestion! I will check them out tonight :)
- gmarx 10y agoDeadlifting & squats worked for me
- almostkorean 10y agoThere are real back pain specialists (as in MDs), my brother is one. I herniated a disc in my spine doing deadlifts and also went through useless physical therapy. My brother gave me two injections in my spine it's about 90% better. The pain was so bad I could hardly sit still for more than a couple hours, so it was affecting my work among other things. Google "back pain specialist" in your area, it's covered by health insurance most of the time. Strangely, back pain specialists have a big patient education problem. Nobody knows they exist even though so many people have back pain.
- verteu 10y agoThanks for the recommendation :) Unfortunately I've already seen several physiatrist MDs and gotten 2 epidural injections that didn't help.
- ericamerica 10y agoI feel that, I've spent thousands. What finally got it under control: strength training (coached by a physical therapist), finding/releasing the spasms (trigger point massage + trigger point acupuncture), consistent good posture (sitting, standing, sleeping). It was an education! Good luck, keep going, it's worth it.
- b3lvedere 10y agoUnlimited really good food for 10+ people
- alphydan 10y agoA domestic robot to clean/tidy the house (dishes, laundry, dust, vacuum) + cook at home.
- franze 10y agoA Meeseks Box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUYvIAP3qQk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUYvIAP3qQk
- darod 10y agoi pay 1200 a month for health insurance for me and my wife.
- colept 10y agoA service like AirBnB where you can check into any one bedroom apartment nationwide so you can travel and feel like you have a home.
- tmaly 10y agoI think a early education service for toddlers that has play, projects, STEM etc all built in. Everyone wants the best for their kids and this is one thing many people spend big on. The local Montessori wants $2k a month for full time 5 days a week, but I think there are other opportunities that could be realized with some technical input.
- edent 10y agoA chauffeur. I currently pay the equivalent of $650/mo to park my car, catch a train, then a subway to get to my office. But the trains are frequently standing room only, delayed, and noisy. My alternative is to pay around $300/mo to park my car, take a coach, then a subway. The coach is more pleasant (seating! WiFi! Power sockets!) but takes longer due to the various stops around town. In both cases, the services are infrequent. When I've worked in India or ZA, it's quite common to have a chauffeur. But that only works with the massive disparity in wages. That's less likely in the industrialised world. I could rideshare - but that's fraught with risk. I could take a taxi, but that would quadruple my cost. So, if you can find a way to make autonomous cars work in the UK - and can charge a per-journey fare - let me know!
- Bartweiss 10y agoI'm really curious what autonomous cars are going to do to urban planning. The demand for car-fleet services will rise as they become reasonable ways to commute, but that's not the whole story. Presumably there will be a lot of people who still want to own a car (e.g. for weekend trips), but no longer need to park near their office or a train station. If you have a short commute or predictable schedule, it'd be far easier to just send your car "home", or even pay for remote parking somewhere you don't live and use it like a privately-owned Uber. Great for reducing parking demand, but with the potential to create a weird reverse-commute of empty cars streaming out of cities just after 9:00AM. And on a similar note, there's a possibility of more congestion from circling traffic. "I'm just popping into the store quick, drive around empty until I get back". Exactly what someone with a chauffeur might do today, but cheap and easy. Hell, will we see a HOV-lane-equivalent arise on highways where non-empty cars get priority status? Or a reverse solution, where empty cars are low priority and have to keep right like semis? ...I've completely abandoned your point, but there are so many questions! It's going to be fascinating to see how universal-chauffeur traffic works.
- smidgen2 10y agoRent. Yup, that's about what I'm paying for rent nowadays. Seriously can't afford another $1k/mo service.
- throwaway2016a 10y agoI pay this for daycare (actually slightly more). I also pay about 1/10 of this to membership to a non-profit hackerspace where I have access to a 3d printer, electronics bench, laser cutter, etc. Other than that... if one of my side project takeoff, I would pay an outsourced programmer to work on my side projects that I don't have time to fix myself. (I'm a programmer myself but there are only so many hours in the day)
- antjanus 10y agoThis will sound a little weird but a food service. I eat mainly organic food and/or local food and always really high quality stuff. I spend over $300/week on myself, my wife, and my toddler-aged daughter. If someone can figure out a decent (dietary restricted) meal plan and get me the food in a box every week, I would not mind paying that $1K for it (as it would be cheaper than what I currently pay). A lot of the food box services that are out there currently are either more expensive than the store (and still charge on top of it for the service) or have a super crappy selection, or just not enough food. There is one service that I continuously used until I moved and dropped $150/week on it and that was Houston's "Rawfully Organic" because it was on par with store prices, really good variety, and awesome community.
- madamelic 10y agoYeah, I am working on something like this right now. What are your dietary restrictions? I see menu planning and grocery shopping as completely unnecessary pain (and honestly, people are bad at it). The hope for the service is to basically make it where it makes the menu and orders the groceries then all you need to do is cook it. :) It isn't a subscription box, it makes customized menus but I definitely see the strong benefits of Blue Apron and the like, I just see them as unnecessarily rigid.
- jklinger410 10y agoIt can't shop for you, but there's an app called Eat this much (https://www.eatthismuch.com/ https://www.eatthismuch.com/) that does some of the planning for you.
- jotato 10y ago+1. My family is in the same boat. A good meal planning/delivery service that provides healthy meals with local ingredients where possible would be great. Heck, I would pay the same as my grocery budget now (~1300/mo) just to avoid going to the store. The biggest factor for us is dietary restrictions. For example, my wife is going through a "elimination" plan right now trying to find what foods are triggering health problems. One ingredient that is off our table is garlic. It is hard finding a variety of meals that don't include garlic. A service would be welcome!
- arenaninja 10y agoA full-on nanny. Someone who can take my kids to/from: school, doctor's appointments, activities, prepare/give them food, help with homework if I'm coming back late. Child rearing takes a lot of your time!
- kapauldo 10y ago10 leads
- xem 10y agotaxes. oh wait, it's already the case.