5 ms·

Ask HN: What are your top three pain points?

Curious to hear from others what your top three pain points are? What would you throw money at someone to fix? pain point n. a level of difficulty sufficient to motivate someone to seek a solution or an alternative; a problem or difficulty.

relaunched 14y ago
This type of question comes up a lot. I can appreciate you are using the highly regarded problem / solution, vitamin not a painkiller approach to finding an idea, but STOP! HN probably isn't a good place to start. We're not typical. For example: I want a tool to help me memorize new VIM commands...probably not a good business. Start with a problem you care about...cause you'll be working very hard on it, for a long time, to turn it into a business. When you find a problem, seek some sort of confirmation. Then, build an mvp and see if folks will use it. Good Luck
- bkyan 14y ago
  I totally agree that we're not typical, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're a bad niche to go after. On average, this is a well-educated and wealthy group, although a lot of us are cheap bastards... (hi staunch!) ;-)
- sparknlaunch12 14y ago
  > This type of question comes up a lot. I can appreciate you are using the highly regarded problem / solution, vitamin not a painkiller approach to finding an idea, but STOP! Appreciated this is a bit of a niche user base however was just testing the HN waters. Wanted to see if any common themes came up.
AznHisoka 14y ago
I'll give you 1: A Mobile app review exchange program Something like LinkExchange for mobile apps. A legitimate service where users exchange reviews in the App Store. But you don't have the obligation to write a positive one. The service is meant to give both parties some initial social proof, and constructive feedback on what needs to be improved. I'm not talking about fake paid reviews you can buy for $10 for 50 or whatever. I'm talking about real reviews from users who actually downloaded the app and tried it.
- sparknlaunch12 14y ago
  What is the pain point this would solve? Mobile App Developers looking for honest reviews of their apps?
  - AznHisoka 14y ago
    app developers looking for social proof/reviews
staunch 14y ago
Buying lunch and dinner at the office. Related: keeping fridge stocked with drinks. BUT I'm a cheap bastard. I wouldn't pay much over my own price of these things for someone to take care of them for me. In an ideal world it wouldn't cost me anything additional. How that could work is if you could make an affiliate-style deal with restaurants to take 5% (or whatever) of their money. Same thing with drinks. I buy them at a supermarket. You could buy them from a wholesaler and get them to me for the same price I normally pay. To make these really big I think they absolutely have to be low-margin busineses. It's easy to do these kinds of business if you charge a lot but I think they could be huge if you figured out how to do it on a very low margin.
- JoeCortopassi 14y ago
  Use these guys at our office, check them out: http://www.betterworks.com/ http://www.betterworks.com/
  - staunch 14y ago
    Funny enough I'm 3 blocks away from them in Santa Monica and have met some of those guys. I've checked it out before but it didn't seem to be quite what I want -- going to sign up and give it a shot. Thanks for the reminder.
    - relaunched 14y ago
      Hurry up on that. They seem to be facing major layoffs.
      - staunch 14y ago
        Just read that story. Guess they just built out sales/marketing way too fast. Says they've still got $5M in the bank though, so they'll be around a while.
  - sparknlaunch12 14y ago
    > Use these guys at our office, check them out: http://www.betterworks.com/ http://www.betterworks.com/ . Interesting concept however it takes a while to work out what they actually do. Their landing page doesn't exactly demonstrate the USP: "Local perks and rewards for employees: Use BetterWorks for an engaged and more productive workforce." It is attractive as an enterprise solution. One way to incentivize your workforce in this current climate.
damoncali 14y ago
Customer acquisition cost.
PonyGumbo 14y ago
I would love to be able to offload my support queue a few days a week.

relaunched 14y ago

This type of question comes up a lot. I can appreciate you are using the highly regarded problem / solution, vitamin not a painkiller approach to finding an idea, but STOP! HN probably isn't a good place to start. We're not typical. For example: I want a tool to help me memorize new VIM commands...probably not a good business. Start with a problem you care about...cause you'll be working very hard on it, for a long time, to turn it into a business. When you find a problem, seek some sort of confirmation. Then, build an mvp and see if folks will use it. Good Luck

bkyan 14y ago
I totally agree that we're not typical, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're a bad niche to go after. On average, this is a well-educated and wealthy group, although a lot of us are cheap bastards... (hi staunch!) ;-)
sparknlaunch12 14y ago
> This type of question comes up a lot. I can appreciate you are using the highly regarded problem / solution, vitamin not a painkiller approach to finding an idea, but STOP! Appreciated this is a bit of a niche user base however was just testing the HN waters. Wanted to see if any common themes came up.

AznHisoka 14y ago

I'll give you 1: A Mobile app review exchange program Something like LinkExchange for mobile apps. A legitimate service where users exchange reviews in the App Store. But you don't have the obligation to write a positive one. The service is meant to give both parties some initial social proof, and constructive feedback on what needs to be improved. I'm not talking about fake paid reviews you can buy for $10 for 50 or whatever. I'm talking about real reviews from users who actually downloaded the app and tried it.

sparknlaunch12 14y ago
What is the pain point this would solve? Mobile App Developers looking for honest reviews of their apps?
- AznHisoka 14y ago
  app developers looking for social proof/reviews

staunch 14y ago

Buying lunch and dinner at the office. Related: keeping fridge stocked with drinks. BUT I'm a cheap bastard. I wouldn't pay much over my own price of these things for someone to take care of them for me. In an ideal world it wouldn't cost me anything additional. How that could work is if you could make an affiliate-style deal with restaurants to take 5% (or whatever) of their money. Same thing with drinks. I buy them at a supermarket. You could buy them from a wholesaler and get them to me for the same price I normally pay. To make these really big I think they absolutely have to be low-margin busineses. It's easy to do these kinds of business if you charge a lot but I think they could be huge if you figured out how to do it on a very low margin.

JoeCortopassi 14y ago
Use these guys at our office, check them out: http://www.betterworks.com/ http://www.betterworks.com/
- staunch 14y ago
  Funny enough I'm 3 blocks away from them in Santa Monica and have met some of those guys. I've checked it out before but it didn't seem to be quite what I want -- going to sign up and give it a shot. Thanks for the reminder.
  - relaunched 14y ago
    Hurry up on that. They seem to be facing major layoffs.
    - staunch 14y ago
      Just read that story. Guess they just built out sales/marketing way too fast. Says they've still got $5M in the bank though, so they'll be around a while.
- sparknlaunch12 14y ago
  > Use these guys at our office, check them out: http://www.betterworks.com/ http://www.betterworks.com/ . Interesting concept however it takes a while to work out what they actually do. Their landing page doesn't exactly demonstrate the USP: "Local perks and rewards for employees: Use BetterWorks for an engaged and more productive workforce." It is attractive as an enterprise solution. One way to incentivize your workforce in this current climate.

damoncali 14y ago

Customer acquisition cost.

PonyGumbo 14y ago

I would love to be able to offload my support queue a few days a week.