7 ms·

What should you build?

69 points by jamiegreen 3y ago

pierat 3y ago
Was thinking about this with my SO doing fiber arts today. Was thinking about a small 2d scanner/ccd camera in the profile of a SpO2 sensor. Connects with Bluetooth. Would take pictures of garments, fabric, yarn, etc for purposes of color matching in a store. The app would have color calibration with white LEDs. 2 main functions: "store" and "match". Store would allow storing color samples. Match would show the samples you have and %fit to the stored sample/samples. Could easily integrate with online stores for matching colors as well. But yeah, I don't have the capital to do this. Maybe someone else can run with it.
- fellowmartian 3y ago
  Sounds like you can make it with an iPhone app and a 3d printed lens cover. Obtain all iPhone models, run calibration for each with known samples, and store the profiles. It’ll work similarly to those heart rate measurement apps.
- didgeoridoo 3y ago
  Have you seen https://colormuse.io/ https://colormuse.io/ ? I absolutely love mine. Seems to do what you’re looking for.
  - pierat 3y ago
    Wow, go figure. Thats pretty much what I was envisioning. Except it's pretty pricy. I was also thinking a clip-based device, but I can see how an eyeglass would also be good. (I was thinking of a clip so you could have white balanced LEDs on the same and opposite sides of the ccd chip.) But yeah, thats definitely the thing. Thank you!
  - lattalayta 3y ago
    https://www.nixsensor.com/ https://www.nixsensor.com/ is another option in this space
  - bradknowles 3y ago
    There are lots of spot colorimeter/spectrophotometer devices. A more famous one is the Pantone CapSure. Unfortunately, while that device is calibrated, it's only going to match to the nearest Pantone certified color, as opposed to capturing and storing the color that was actually sampled. Better spot colorimeter devices will have two different calibrated white LEDs and use both of them in sequence, to get a more accurate measurement of the true color of the object you're sampling. The big trick with these devices is the color library that they're matching against. Sometimes you really do want to match against the Pantone library, and I don't believe any devices other than the official Pantone CapSure can actually measure against that library. But most paint manufacturers, etc... have their own color library, and there are a lot of other color libraries out there. And many of those libraries are exclusively licensed to only one particular spot colorimeter device. So, sometimes you need to have multiple spot colorimeters/spectrophotometers in order to be able to use all the libraries you want. Yes, I have several, including the Pantone CapSure and the ColorMuse. No, none of them are perfect. They're all missing one or more libraries that I might want to use.
tikkun 3y ago
Related: Paul Graham: "Almost all founders learn brutal lessons during the first year, but some learn them much more quickly. Obviously those founders are more likely to succeed. So it could be a useful heuristic to ask, say 6 to 12 months in, "Have we learned our brutal lesson yet?"" "The most common lesson is that customers don't want what you're making. The next most common is that it isn't possible to make it, or at least to make it profitably." Can you make it? Will people want that? Will it make money?
- esafak 3y ago
  It is an unnerving situation for founders, because the product might sell if you just added a critical feature, focused on a specific segment, changed the pricing model, etc. You could be one step away from success. Or you might not. It takes luck, pluck, and faith.
  - tikkun 3y ago
    That part is easier if you're building for yourself. Related PG tweet: "When young founders build something that they don't want themselves but that they believe some group of other people want, 90% of the time they're building something no one wants." And also related: https://mitchellh.com/writing/building-large-technical-projects https://mitchellh.com/writing/building-large-technical-proje...
- tararara 3y ago
  What makes this important lesson harder is that the image of a founder has become an identity for so many young and talented people. Getting past that and wiping it out to start again, is really hard.
- segh 3y ago
  Two related questions to ask yourself as an early founder: 1. If my company were to fail, why would it have happened? 2. What would have to be true in order for the company to succeed? (From Rob Fitzpatrick's "The Mom Test")
- tomxor 3y ago
poisonborz 3y ago
So the article comes up with the grand firework of a thought of > Make something that people want I still find this kinda complicated to follow in practice. Make something that you want. What you need, day to day at best. You longed it for long, searched all the possibilities and it just doesn't exist yet. It helps with motivation, and you know the basics to start from. Other people/the market can then help steer it in the right direction.
- jamiegreen 3y ago
  Yeah I fully agree doing this is super hard in practice. If you want it, for sure that can be a great place to start! Also, although “make something people want” is pretty simple, still people forget it all the time (Including me btw). So it’s as much a self reminder as anything!
- beezlewax 3y ago
  The thing is people often don't know what they want. You can show them an innovative solution to a problem they were having and they might want that.
smcleod 3y ago
How about building something that’s good for the planet? Or something that significantly reduces people’s living costs? Or something to increase equality and equity? There is far too much priority placed on making profits in tech and not nearly enough doing what’s actually good for people.
- Veen 3y ago
  What are you doing that contributes to those ends (aside from sermonizing on forums)? I had a quick look at the website linked in your bio, and it seems you're a working stiff toiling for a for-profit company, building shit for other for-profit companies, just like the rest of us.
  - smcleod 3y ago
    I’m definitely no angel - I just think the normalisation of chasing profits and the culture it’s created is broken. Years back I took a (big) pay cut to work with a non-profit. We brought affordable internet to low income and refugee status apartment buildings, developed tools to help those that are homeless or at risk of becoming, wrote at-cost software for the non-profit and community health sector. I was there for 7 years as their head of platform engineering and automation. A very rewarding experience.
    - spacephysics 3y ago
      The reality is people put them and their family first. Those that have they luxury to pursue such endeavors, should if they want to. Others, after a 9-5 and spending time with their loved ones, want to just decompress. And that’s okay. Others, with the little time they have left, want to work towards not working for someone. That should be what’s encouraged. Because that is more likely to produce jobs, give freedom to those that profit, and has a higher chance of something good happening (versus working for a corporation until retirement - which is perfectly fine, but a path none the less) I also have a gripe with individual citizens being responsible and taking the burden of climate change. Why should the working class, whose taxes have gone up, wages stagnated, be continually punished with higher costs due to proposed carbon taxes, or initiatives that drive the price of staples up purely due to climate change. That just foments resentment and contributes to the opposite of such activists goals. Policies are too one sided. We should be pushing for reasonable policies, that acknowledge the enormous progress oil and gas has given the world, and understand changing it rapidly will cause more harm to people than good, and in all likelihood will delay projects. We should look at proven solutions, like nuclear technology. Invest in renewables, in research fusion research and the likes. But the vast majority of social platforms represents a very very small percentage of people, and those that actually tweet/post/etc represent an even smaller percentage. The hard truth is when things like gas and food increases, Americans notice that pain far more than what may happen 30 years from now. They care about how their family will do in the next week, month, and few years. Punishing them to try and understand the problems via monetary taxes, or guilting them to participate in activists activities, or pushing education material that puts shame to what real education should stand for, won’t work. It will backfire.
vsareto 3y ago
I still don’t know a good source for finding business problems to solve. You end up having to talk to people which is slow and won’t give you a large list. Ideally I’d want a huge list to pick from.
- reducesuffering 3y ago
  Maybe the first thing you should build is a way to source business problems to solve. Then once you've built that, your its ideal customer.
- przybytniewski 3y ago
  You can start with notes of problems you meet daily or ideas you come up with. If you want to pursue someone else ideas, most likely you won't have the determination to build things for years, fail and learn from these mistakes. It takes time, tears and sweat and a lot of failures to actually build something successful, it won't be a one night sucess from idea taken from someone.

69 points by jamiegreen 3y ago

Was thinking about this with my SO doing fiber arts today. Was thinking about a small 2d scanner/ccd camera in the profile of a SpO2 sensor. Connects with Bluetooth. Would take pictures of garments, fabric, yarn, etc for purposes of color matching in a store. The app would have color calibration with white LEDs. 2 main functions: "store" and "match". Store would allow storing color samples. Match would show the samples you have and %fit to the stored sample/samples. Could easily integrate with online stores for matching colors as well. But yeah, I don't have the capital to do this. Maybe someone else can run with it.

fellowmartian 3y ago
Sounds like you can make it with an iPhone app and a 3d printed lens cover. Obtain all iPhone models, run calibration for each with known samples, and store the profiles. It’ll work similarly to those heart rate measurement apps.
didgeoridoo 3y ago
Have you seen https://colormuse.io/ https://colormuse.io/ ? I absolutely love mine. Seems to do what you’re looking for.
- pierat 3y ago
  Wow, go figure. Thats pretty much what I was envisioning. Except it's pretty pricy. I was also thinking a clip-based device, but I can see how an eyeglass would also be good. (I was thinking of a clip so you could have white balanced LEDs on the same and opposite sides of the ccd chip.) But yeah, thats definitely the thing. Thank you!
- lattalayta 3y ago
  https://www.nixsensor.com/ https://www.nixsensor.com/ is another option in this space
- bradknowles 3y ago
  There are lots of spot colorimeter/spectrophotometer devices. A more famous one is the Pantone CapSure. Unfortunately, while that device is calibrated, it's only going to match to the nearest Pantone certified color, as opposed to capturing and storing the color that was actually sampled. Better spot colorimeter devices will have two different calibrated white LEDs and use both of them in sequence, to get a more accurate measurement of the true color of the object you're sampling. The big trick with these devices is the color library that they're matching against. Sometimes you really do want to match against the Pantone library, and I don't believe any devices other than the official Pantone CapSure can actually measure against that library. But most paint manufacturers, etc... have their own color library, and there are a lot of other color libraries out there. And many of those libraries are exclusively licensed to only one particular spot colorimeter device. So, sometimes you need to have multiple spot colorimeters/spectrophotometers in order to be able to use all the libraries you want. Yes, I have several, including the Pantone CapSure and the ColorMuse. No, none of them are perfect. They're all missing one or more libraries that I might want to use.

tikkun 3y ago

Related: Paul Graham: "Almost all founders learn brutal lessons during the first year, but some learn them much more quickly. Obviously those founders are more likely to succeed. So it could be a useful heuristic to ask, say 6 to 12 months in, "Have we learned our brutal lesson yet?"" "The most common lesson is that customers don't want what you're making. The next most common is that it isn't possible to make it, or at least to make it profitably." Can you make it? Will people want that? Will it make money?

esafak 3y ago
It is an unnerving situation for founders, because the product might sell if you just added a critical feature, focused on a specific segment, changed the pricing model, etc. You could be one step away from success. Or you might not. It takes luck, pluck, and faith.
- tikkun 3y ago
  That part is easier if you're building for yourself. Related PG tweet: "When young founders build something that they don't want themselves but that they believe some group of other people want, 90% of the time they're building something no one wants." And also related: https://mitchellh.com/writing/building-large-technical-projects https://mitchellh.com/writing/building-large-technical-proje...
tararara 3y ago
What makes this important lesson harder is that the image of a founder has become an identity for so many young and talented people. Getting past that and wiping it out to start again, is really hard.
segh 3y ago
Two related questions to ask yourself as an early founder: 1. If my company were to fail, why would it have happened? 2. What would have to be true in order for the company to succeed? (From Rob Fitzpatrick's "The Mom Test")
tomxor 3y ago

poisonborz 3y ago

So the article comes up with the grand firework of a thought of > Make something that people want I still find this kinda complicated to follow in practice. Make something that you want. What you need, day to day at best. You longed it for long, searched all the possibilities and it just doesn't exist yet. It helps with motivation, and you know the basics to start from. Other people/the market can then help steer it in the right direction.

jamiegreen 3y ago
Yeah I fully agree doing this is super hard in practice. If you want it, for sure that can be a great place to start! Also, although “make something people want” is pretty simple, still people forget it all the time (Including me btw). So it’s as much a self reminder as anything!
beezlewax 3y ago
The thing is people often don't know what they want. You can show them an innovative solution to a problem they were having and they might want that.

smcleod 3y ago

How about building something that’s good for the planet? Or something that significantly reduces people’s living costs? Or something to increase equality and equity? There is far too much priority placed on making profits in tech and not nearly enough doing what’s actually good for people.

Veen 3y ago
What are you doing that contributes to those ends (aside from sermonizing on forums)? I had a quick look at the website linked in your bio, and it seems you're a working stiff toiling for a for-profit company, building shit for other for-profit companies, just like the rest of us.
- smcleod 3y ago
  I’m definitely no angel - I just think the normalisation of chasing profits and the culture it’s created is broken. Years back I took a (big) pay cut to work with a non-profit. We brought affordable internet to low income and refugee status apartment buildings, developed tools to help those that are homeless or at risk of becoming, wrote at-cost software for the non-profit and community health sector. I was there for 7 years as their head of platform engineering and automation. A very rewarding experience.
  - spacephysics 3y ago
    The reality is people put them and their family first. Those that have they luxury to pursue such endeavors, should if they want to. Others, after a 9-5 and spending time with their loved ones, want to just decompress. And that’s okay. Others, with the little time they have left, want to work towards not working for someone. That should be what’s encouraged. Because that is more likely to produce jobs, give freedom to those that profit, and has a higher chance of something good happening (versus working for a corporation until retirement - which is perfectly fine, but a path none the less) I also have a gripe with individual citizens being responsible and taking the burden of climate change. Why should the working class, whose taxes have gone up, wages stagnated, be continually punished with higher costs due to proposed carbon taxes, or initiatives that drive the price of staples up purely due to climate change. That just foments resentment and contributes to the opposite of such activists goals. Policies are too one sided. We should be pushing for reasonable policies, that acknowledge the enormous progress oil and gas has given the world, and understand changing it rapidly will cause more harm to people than good, and in all likelihood will delay projects. We should look at proven solutions, like nuclear technology. Invest in renewables, in research fusion research and the likes. But the vast majority of social platforms represents a very very small percentage of people, and those that actually tweet/post/etc represent an even smaller percentage. The hard truth is when things like gas and food increases, Americans notice that pain far more than what may happen 30 years from now. They care about how their family will do in the next week, month, and few years. Punishing them to try and understand the problems via monetary taxes, or guilting them to participate in activists activities, or pushing education material that puts shame to what real education should stand for, won’t work. It will backfire.

vsareto 3y ago

I still don’t know a good source for finding business problems to solve. You end up having to talk to people which is slow and won’t give you a large list. Ideally I’d want a huge list to pick from.

reducesuffering 3y ago
Maybe the first thing you should build is a way to source business problems to solve. Then once you've built that, your its ideal customer.
przybytniewski 3y ago
You can start with notes of problems you meet daily or ideas you come up with. If you want to pursue someone else ideas, most likely you won't have the determination to build things for years, fail and learn from these mistakes. It takes time, tears and sweat and a lot of failures to actually build something successful, it won't be a one night sucess from idea taken from someone.