4 ms·

You are being provocative, ok. But there is plenty of space for start up innovation in many sectors, just not any more social apps, agreed on that.

dextorious 15y ago
I agree about all those other sectors. It's just I'm tired of seeing all those "social" startup stories, and the thousands of posts in the intertubes typically from some aforementioned startup employee/founder using all the half-baked or ill-suited technologies du jour, and posting something better suited for Comp Sci 101 as a huge discovery. That's what I deserve for scouting all over for some relevant Python/Ruby/Web dev etc articles, I guess. (disclosure: I work in a startup, but one developing, gasp an actual product (!), sold to the customer etc, employing several PHD guys to code in good ole C and implement new hardcore algorithms for our class of problems.).
- viandante 15y ago
  Agreed, I also somehow see a big distance between the start up community and the real world. The term "big data" is an amazing example of this. Everybody speaks about "big data", yet companies are left dealing with "middle data" with old painful spreadsheets. Everybody writes about listening the "customer". Yet, as you also imply, nobody seems to really care. I work in finance/controlling and yet I never managed to have a discussion about the domain problems of my field with those start up people, maybe there is a problem right there... p.s. can you put a link at your start up?
itmag 15y ago
What are those other sectors? Not an insult btw. I genuinely want to know.
- dextorious 15y ago
  Well, how about medicine, biology, finance and banking, industrial production, logistics, printing, transportation, etc, just off of the top of my head? There are tons of stuff to do a startup on besides some social gimmick.
  - itmag 15y ago
    Cool. The reason I ask is because I am always trying to come up with ideas (see http://ideashower.posterous.com http://ideashower.posterous.com) but I feel I keep circling around a few domains when I brainstorm ideas. I could do well to expand my vision. If you have any ideas in those areas please do share :)
    - viandante 15y ago
      As dextorious pointed out, there can be many ideas. You should focus on something where you have some domain knowledge. Said that, pricing may be a cool idea, I wrote a thesis on price differentials across countries, if you want to share that, let me know. For me, I am starting with something really small, yet really difficult for me being a beginner: pivot tables on the top of a database. There are some reason I am doing it, but mainly it is because excel is really slow with what I call 'small data' and it also has strange row limits. Also, I want to provide an easy way to build pivot tables on the server side, so people don't have to send excel files around. Project is here: https://github.com/kfk/proj00 https://github.com/kfk/proj00. It is really just a scratch.
      - gruseom 15y ago
        pivot tables on the top of a database That's interesting. As far as I can tell, pivot tables were a hack that MS added to Excel in response to Lotus Improv, which was an early 90s attempt at a higher-level spreadsheet that Steve Jobs raved about for years. Perhaps you can restore them to their original glory. because excel is really slow with what I call 'small data' and it also has strange row limits Can you elaborate? What do you call 'small data'? And what are the strange row limits? I'm interested in these things because I work in an Excel-related space, which I would be happy to discuss offline (email in profile).
        viandante 15y ago
        1 = Yes, that's exactly what I think we need here. A perfect example is the "data frame" concept in R (that you can implement as a list of tables in other languages). Excel doesn't have decent high level abstractions of your data, that forces the user to do a lot of boiler plate work that can be extremely time consuming and dangerous (as the more more manual work, the more mistakes). 2 = Excel 2003 limits (still used in my company): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifications-and-limits-HP005199291.aspx http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifica.... Especially when you make deep analysis (first 10 customers of segment B, low margin products, lost due to low margin products, pricing, etc.), you hit the limit and you are forced to do bad things (like using 12 columns instead than 2 to represent 12 months). 3 = As 'small data' I just mean all those data people use in companies. Usually those are the result of extracting data using a business warehouse system (ie cognos) or financial data submitted by entities (ie 30/40 files from different parts of the world of PnLs to consolidate...) or KPIs, or... you get the idea... p.s. I will be sending you an email later today. It would be really great to discuss those concepts.

dextorious 15y ago

I agree about all those other sectors. It's just I'm tired of seeing all those "social" startup stories, and the thousands of posts in the intertubes typically from some aforementioned startup employee/founder using all the half-baked or ill-suited technologies du jour, and posting something better suited for Comp Sci 101 as a huge discovery. That's what I deserve for scouting all over for some relevant Python/Ruby/Web dev etc articles, I guess. (disclosure: I work in a startup, but one developing, gasp an actual product (!), sold to the customer etc, employing several PHD guys to code in good ole C and implement new hardcore algorithms for our class of problems.).

viandante 15y ago
Agreed, I also somehow see a big distance between the start up community and the real world. The term "big data" is an amazing example of this. Everybody speaks about "big data", yet companies are left dealing with "middle data" with old painful spreadsheets. Everybody writes about listening the "customer". Yet, as you also imply, nobody seems to really care. I work in finance/controlling and yet I never managed to have a discussion about the domain problems of my field with those start up people, maybe there is a problem right there... p.s. can you put a link at your start up?

itmag 15y ago

What are those other sectors? Not an insult btw. I genuinely want to know.

dextorious 15y ago
Well, how about medicine, biology, finance and banking, industrial production, logistics, printing, transportation, etc, just off of the top of my head? There are tons of stuff to do a startup on besides some social gimmick.
- itmag 15y ago
  Cool. The reason I ask is because I am always trying to come up with ideas (see http://ideashower.posterous.com http://ideashower.posterous.com) but I feel I keep circling around a few domains when I brainstorm ideas. I could do well to expand my vision. If you have any ideas in those areas please do share :)
  - viandante 15y ago
    As dextorious pointed out, there can be many ideas. You should focus on something where you have some domain knowledge. Said that, pricing may be a cool idea, I wrote a thesis on price differentials across countries, if you want to share that, let me know. For me, I am starting with something really small, yet really difficult for me being a beginner: pivot tables on the top of a database. There are some reason I am doing it, but mainly it is because excel is really slow with what I call 'small data' and it also has strange row limits. Also, I want to provide an easy way to build pivot tables on the server side, so people don't have to send excel files around. Project is here: https://github.com/kfk/proj00 https://github.com/kfk/proj00. It is really just a scratch.
    - gruseom 15y ago
      pivot tables on the top of a database That's interesting. As far as I can tell, pivot tables were a hack that MS added to Excel in response to Lotus Improv, which was an early 90s attempt at a higher-level spreadsheet that Steve Jobs raved about for years. Perhaps you can restore them to their original glory. because excel is really slow with what I call 'small data' and it also has strange row limits Can you elaborate? What do you call 'small data'? And what are the strange row limits? I'm interested in these things because I work in an Excel-related space, which I would be happy to discuss offline (email in profile).
      - viandante 15y ago
        1 = Yes, that's exactly what I think we need here. A perfect example is the "data frame" concept in R (that you can implement as a list of tables in other languages). Excel doesn't have decent high level abstractions of your data, that forces the user to do a lot of boiler plate work that can be extremely time consuming and dangerous (as the more more manual work, the more mistakes). 2 = Excel 2003 limits (still used in my company): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifications-and-limits-HP005199291.aspx http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifica.... Especially when you make deep analysis (first 10 customers of segment B, low margin products, lost due to low margin products, pricing, etc.), you hit the limit and you are forced to do bad things (like using 12 columns instead than 2 to represent 12 months). 3 = As 'small data' I just mean all those data people use in companies. Usually those are the result of extracting data using a business warehouse system (ie cognos) or financial data submitted by entities (ie 30/40 files from different parts of the world of PnLs to consolidate...) or KPIs, or... you get the idea... p.s. I will be sending you an email later today. It would be really great to discuss those concepts.