3 ms·

You can always buy the Heritage Chemistry set bits separately. It's quite easy to obtain most chemicals and glassware worldwide.

by csmuk 13y ago

VLM 13y ago
One startup idea which is either commercially nonviable (sounds likely) or is new, would be a startup which is basically a consumer level online internationalized purchasing department. So if you define a project called "teach my kid titration" it would understand how to get phenolphthalein and other indicators in Belgium, how to get a beaker in Texas (good luck), etc, and for a modest 10% fee of which they keep half and the designer keeps half, they make one CC charge and magically anywhere in the world boxes start arriving. This would be tremendously helpful with electronic projects, where I get a custom PCB from somebody, some obscure transistor from somewhere else, and COTS support parts from the "big 3" suppliers. Something tells me the agony of being a purchasing agent can't be abstracted away for a mere 5% commission. And how to intermediate, if at all, shipping, customs, and return disputes. Still, whatever it costs, it would be an interesting and probably worth it to some people.
- aroch 13y ago
  There is a ton of regulation involved with both intra- and inter-country chemical shipping and purchasing. There are some chemicals that are perfectly legal for normal people to own but not to purchase if you aren't an institution. There are chemicals that require specific handling and packaging, which when shipped internationally become "potential chemical weapons" and thus can carry life prison sentences if not done properly. We ship both live and dead cell cultures (both extremely pathogenic and relatively benign) that can pose severe risk even when dead. The few times I've had to do international shipments have been a pain in the ass with all the paperwork, special packaging, customs bullshit and then there's the agony of waiting for the shipment to clear US customs, then destination customs, then destination culture screening -- and we have lawyers of who deal with the paperwork for us!
  - VLM 13y ago
    Yes your employer, and maybe competitor like carolina, would be a good supplier in the US but to keep shipping agony to a minimum maybe some place in europe would ship to europeans. On the other hand amazon can probably ship blank unused new microscope slides anywhere in the world, so maybe they get to ship to .UK This kind of coordination of which supplier can ship what, where, would be what the proposed startup would do.
    - aroch 13y ago
      What you're thinking of already exists to a great extent -- look at Fischer/Thermo and VWR. They're the Amazon's of science-stuffs (Amazon has AmazonSupply but it is greatly inferior)
      - VLM 13y ago
        Well... sorta but I want to meta it into a generic online purchasing department for any activity. So as a kit designer, my lab experiment which anyone in the world can buy from the startup for $100 or whatever (of which I get 5% and the startup keeps 5%), needs an arduino, a A/D and D/A shield from some specialty electronics supplier (adafruit?) and a spool of copper wire, clipleads and connectors and stuff from generic supplier (jameco?) and some sticks of different metals like aluminum, copper, steel (onlinemetals.com?) and some rather generic glassware (carolina? VWR? Fischer? or downscale to a ceramic mug or flower pot?) and something like lemon juice in a can or maybe a wide variety of mostly harmless electrolytes like diet coke soda (amazon food department?) Whoops forgot to add a decent printed lab manual (lulu.com?) Ta da instant lets do introductory electrochemistry at home kit. Send the startup $100 in a single credit card charge, they keep $5, send $5 to me as designer/curator, and $90 goes to about 5 suppliers and boxes start arriving at the end users house. Now the magical startup wouldn't only do this project or only those suppliers, but it would middleman ... hundreds of kits maybe thousands? This is basically the drop ship retail model, but for small consumers and small orders instead of the more traditional use of drop shipping a 5 HP air compressor. Also I'd internationalize it, why not. So if you live in some weird country where shipping canned lemon juice is illegal, well, I guess its not available for purchase in that country. I don't personally want to do this. It sounds like a huge PITA and probably will fail and it'll be hard. Someone else can go right ahead, and I'll probably end up a project curator for a couple projects and most likely a buyer. Unless they try to grab something ridiculous like 50% as middleman, in which case I'd drop them like a hot potato.

You can always buy the Heritage Chemistry set bits separately. It's quite easy to obtain most chemicals and glassware worldwide.

by csmuk 13y ago

You can always buy the Heritage Chemistry set bits separately. It's quite easy to obtain most chemicals and glassware worldwide.

VLM 13y ago

One startup idea which is either commercially nonviable (sounds likely) or is new, would be a startup which is basically a consumer level online internationalized purchasing department. So if you define a project called "teach my kid titration" it would understand how to get phenolphthalein and other indicators in Belgium, how to get a beaker in Texas (good luck), etc, and for a modest 10% fee of which they keep half and the designer keeps half, they make one CC charge and magically anywhere in the world boxes start arriving. This would be tremendously helpful with electronic projects, where I get a custom PCB from somebody, some obscure transistor from somewhere else, and COTS support parts from the "big 3" suppliers. Something tells me the agony of being a purchasing agent can't be abstracted away for a mere 5% commission. And how to intermediate, if at all, shipping, customs, and return disputes. Still, whatever it costs, it would be an interesting and probably worth it to some people.

aroch 13y ago
There is a ton of regulation involved with both intra- and inter-country chemical shipping and purchasing. There are some chemicals that are perfectly legal for normal people to own but not to purchase if you aren't an institution. There are chemicals that require specific handling and packaging, which when shipped internationally become "potential chemical weapons" and thus can carry life prison sentences if not done properly. We ship both live and dead cell cultures (both extremely pathogenic and relatively benign) that can pose severe risk even when dead. The few times I've had to do international shipments have been a pain in the ass with all the paperwork, special packaging, customs bullshit and then there's the agony of waiting for the shipment to clear US customs, then destination customs, then destination culture screening -- and we have lawyers of who deal with the paperwork for us!
- VLM 13y ago
  Yes your employer, and maybe competitor like carolina, would be a good supplier in the US but to keep shipping agony to a minimum maybe some place in europe would ship to europeans. On the other hand amazon can probably ship blank unused new microscope slides anywhere in the world, so maybe they get to ship to .UK This kind of coordination of which supplier can ship what, where, would be what the proposed startup would do.
  - aroch 13y ago
    What you're thinking of already exists to a great extent -- look at Fischer/Thermo and VWR. They're the Amazon's of science-stuffs (Amazon has AmazonSupply but it is greatly inferior)
    - VLM 13y ago
      Well... sorta but I want to meta it into a generic online purchasing department for any activity. So as a kit designer, my lab experiment which anyone in the world can buy from the startup for $100 or whatever (of which I get 5% and the startup keeps 5%), needs an arduino, a A/D and D/A shield from some specialty electronics supplier (adafruit?) and a spool of copper wire, clipleads and connectors and stuff from generic supplier (jameco?) and some sticks of different metals like aluminum, copper, steel (onlinemetals.com?) and some rather generic glassware (carolina? VWR? Fischer? or downscale to a ceramic mug or flower pot?) and something like lemon juice in a can or maybe a wide variety of mostly harmless electrolytes like diet coke soda (amazon food department?) Whoops forgot to add a decent printed lab manual (lulu.com?) Ta da instant lets do introductory electrochemistry at home kit. Send the startup $100 in a single credit card charge, they keep $5, send $5 to me as designer/curator, and $90 goes to about 5 suppliers and boxes start arriving at the end users house. Now the magical startup wouldn't only do this project or only those suppliers, but it would middleman ... hundreds of kits maybe thousands? This is basically the drop ship retail model, but for small consumers and small orders instead of the more traditional use of drop shipping a 5 HP air compressor. Also I'd internationalize it, why not. So if you live in some weird country where shipping canned lemon juice is illegal, well, I guess its not available for purchase in that country. I don't personally want to do this. It sounds like a huge PITA and probably will fail and it'll be hard. Someone else can go right ahead, and I'll probably end up a project curator for a couple projects and most likely a buyer. Unless they try to grab something ridiculous like 50% as middleman, in which case I'd drop them like a hot potato.