5 ms·

Startup Weekend: Problems

36 points by transburgh 18y ago

andrewhyde 18y ago
This is in response to Dave McClure visiting Startup Weekend SF this weekend. Your pitch is selling a problem, what are problems that you have? What products that you would like to see solved... generally on a smaller app basis (us being at Startup Weekend and all). We used UserVoice for this, btw.
drumdance 18y ago
an Ajax toolkit for building flowchart style UIs. So many web apps could benefit from more visual, floating, drag & drop UI
tomsucks 18y ago
Apparently my login for Uservoice is only half correct, because it doesn't throw an error but sends me to your site still logged out. I'm very annoyed with the whole thing so I can't even vote on your projects. Have fun with uservoice.
- andrewhyde 18y ago
  Is it an error because we are using a subdomain? i.e. you are logged into uservoice.com but not problems.startupweekend.com? Just a guess.
  - tomsucks 18y ago
    Uservoice is just very finicky about my passwords and such. I logged in with Gmail afterward and that worked, then I tried to link it to my account using a l/p that I know is good, and so it apparently accepted it and forwarded me to problems.startupweekend.com where it suggested I log in. I had a lot of fun doing that dance, and hope to never do it again.
    - rrwhite 18y ago
      Known bug related to domain aliasing (session cookie set on one domain and not the other). Sorry about that, we're working to get that fixed.
mynameishere 18y ago
An idea I've thought about but abandoned personally: Getting market prices/reviews for services (contrasted with goods. That is, the prices charged by plumbers, auto mechanics, etc.) It's easy to find out the going rate on a 1 TB external hard drive. Not so much regarding replacing brake pads in a given zip code radius. Not a weekend startup, of course.
- tomsucks 18y ago
  You know, talk about replacing brake pads! I just had mine replaced, and I had this coupon that made it $99 for resurfacing and other labor (of course the replacement was another $105) instead of $159, so that worked out well. If you're actually interested in that sort of thing, I highly recommend actually opening that ValPak junk mail, there's usually some really good coupons in there.
- jlees 18y ago
  As a sweeping generalisation, I find people of our generation (assuming we're all young twentysomething hackers, mostly) far less informed on what you should be paying for these sorts of services than our parents. Of course, it doesn't help that a lot of us are happy to throw money at the problem as long as the prices aren't too unreasonable.
  - lucumo 18y ago
    That probably has a lot to do with having more experience and mostly age (read: time to get experience with it). Not so much with generations...
    - jlees 18y ago
      perhaps I should have qualified with 'than our parents would have been at our age', then. Of course, I've probably been listening to too many stories of the good old days from mine, lately..!
Alex3917 18y ago
I'd like responses to my news.yc comments to show up in growl.
- pclark 18y ago
  if news.yc used Disqus, this would [potentially] be much easier.
thinkcomp 18y ago
Does anybody know what time the Sunday demos actually start?
- tylerhwillis 18y ago
  7pm
Tichy 18y ago
What software are they using for this voting thing?
- pclark 18y ago
  UserVoice
lforrest 18y ago
Here’s more of a "challenge" than a problem I’d appreciate feedback on. Our team-of-two is creating an iPhone App for Kiva (no, there’s not one already). It’s obviously down to the wire on what functionality will make it in for the launch tonight. Knowing you guys are probably familiar with www.Kiva.com, any feedback on the functionality you’d most want is appreciated. More specifically, what's the one thing you'd want your Kiva App for iPhone to do? Now back to work.
- justinsb 18y ago
  The really big difference of the iPhone is that it's mobile, and is therefore around in social settings. Because of that I think the killer use case for a Kiva iPhone app is evangelizing Kiva to others: showing them the investments I've made, the repayments, the status updates from the entrepreneurs, and letting people look around for other people on the site that appeal to them. Help me show my friends - over dinner - that they should put money into Kiva. Actually signing up or doing lending on the iPhone, I think will always be simpler on my full computer. When you were pitching the idea Dave McClure mentioned that the biggest problem Kiva has is inventory of borrowers, not of lenders. I think that didn't come properly over the mic. I think what you're doing is great - I'm stopping by Startup Weekend later on today and will say hello. Have they fixed the wifi problems yet?
  - lforrest 18y ago
    Thanks for the insightful input Justin. Come say hello when you get here. As for interwebs, @tylerwillis said the capacity is now doubled so it shouldn't be a problem, but I'll be there in 20 to test.

36 points by transburgh 18y ago

This is in response to Dave McClure visiting Startup Weekend SF this weekend. Your pitch is selling a problem, what are problems that you have? What products that you would like to see solved... generally on a smaller app basis (us being at Startup Weekend and all). We used UserVoice for this, btw.

drumdance 18y ago

an Ajax toolkit for building flowchart style UIs. So many web apps could benefit from more visual, floating, drag & drop UI

tomsucks 18y ago

Apparently my login for Uservoice is only half correct, because it doesn't throw an error but sends me to your site still logged out. I'm very annoyed with the whole thing so I can't even vote on your projects. Have fun with uservoice.

andrewhyde 18y ago
Is it an error because we are using a subdomain? i.e. you are logged into uservoice.com but not problems.startupweekend.com? Just a guess.
- tomsucks 18y ago
  Uservoice is just very finicky about my passwords and such. I logged in with Gmail afterward and that worked, then I tried to link it to my account using a l/p that I know is good, and so it apparently accepted it and forwarded me to problems.startupweekend.com where it suggested I log in. I had a lot of fun doing that dance, and hope to never do it again.
  - rrwhite 18y ago
    Known bug related to domain aliasing (session cookie set on one domain and not the other). Sorry about that, we're working to get that fixed.

mynameishere 18y ago

An idea I've thought about but abandoned personally: Getting market prices/reviews for services (contrasted with goods. That is, the prices charged by plumbers, auto mechanics, etc.) It's easy to find out the going rate on a 1 TB external hard drive. Not so much regarding replacing brake pads in a given zip code radius. Not a weekend startup, of course.

tomsucks 18y ago
You know, talk about replacing brake pads! I just had mine replaced, and I had this coupon that made it $99 for resurfacing and other labor (of course the replacement was another $105) instead of $159, so that worked out well. If you're actually interested in that sort of thing, I highly recommend actually opening that ValPak junk mail, there's usually some really good coupons in there.
jlees 18y ago
As a sweeping generalisation, I find people of our generation (assuming we're all young twentysomething hackers, mostly) far less informed on what you should be paying for these sorts of services than our parents. Of course, it doesn't help that a lot of us are happy to throw money at the problem as long as the prices aren't too unreasonable.
- lucumo 18y ago
  That probably has a lot to do with having more experience and mostly age (read: time to get experience with it). Not so much with generations...
  - jlees 18y ago
    perhaps I should have qualified with 'than our parents would have been at our age', then. Of course, I've probably been listening to too many stories of the good old days from mine, lately..!

Alex3917 18y ago

I'd like responses to my news.yc comments to show up in growl.

pclark 18y ago
if news.yc used Disqus, this would [potentially] be much easier.

thinkcomp 18y ago

Does anybody know what time the Sunday demos actually start?

tylerhwillis 18y ago
7pm

Tichy 18y ago

What software are they using for this voting thing?

pclark 18y ago
UserVoice

lforrest 18y ago

Here’s more of a "challenge" than a problem I’d appreciate feedback on. Our team-of-two is creating an iPhone App for Kiva (no, there’s not one already). It’s obviously down to the wire on what functionality will make it in for the launch tonight. Knowing you guys are probably familiar with www.Kiva.com, any feedback on the functionality you’d most want is appreciated. More specifically, what's the one thing you'd want your Kiva App for iPhone to do? Now back to work.

justinsb 18y ago
The really big difference of the iPhone is that it's mobile, and is therefore around in social settings. Because of that I think the killer use case for a Kiva iPhone app is evangelizing Kiva to others: showing them the investments I've made, the repayments, the status updates from the entrepreneurs, and letting people look around for other people on the site that appeal to them. Help me show my friends - over dinner - that they should put money into Kiva. Actually signing up or doing lending on the iPhone, I think will always be simpler on my full computer. When you were pitching the idea Dave McClure mentioned that the biggest problem Kiva has is inventory of borrowers, not of lenders. I think that didn't come properly over the mic. I think what you're doing is great - I'm stopping by Startup Weekend later on today and will say hello. Have they fixed the wifi problems yet?
- lforrest 18y ago
  Thanks for the insightful input Justin. Come say hello when you get here. As for interwebs, @tylerwillis said the capacity is now doubled so it shouldn't be a problem, but I'll be there in 20 to test.