5 ms·

This pattern works all over the place. Get to know any kind of small business owner and you'll see they need good software that doesn't exist. Partly that's be

by ef4 12y ago

This pattern works all over the place. Get to know any kind of small business owner and you'll see they need good software that doesn't exist. Partly that's because they can be cheap and hard to market to at scale, which discourages deeper-pocketed software companies from going after them. But if you're solo and just interested in a lifestyle business with recurring revenue, it's a very reliable path.

leesalminen 12y ago
I've seen it before in other markets and was dissuaded because of the lack of quantity in prospective customers. After looking into the non-veterinary pet services market I was really impressed by the consistent growth, number of businesses, and lack of offerings in the market. And I was only researching the US at the time. UK, Australia, and New Zealand also have booming pet services market.
MichaelCrawford 12y ago
A close friend of mine earns a lot of coin by pointing out to medical marijuana dispensaries that they have terrible websites. They are happy to pay him for redesigns. I've been thinking of doing something like that, but my aim would be to find websites that I regard as sucking particularly hard.
- leesalminen 12y ago
  That's interesting. Every single one of my customers has a terrible website. Every. Single. One. We're looking to expand into a subscription service that provides a CMS w/ dog-centric themes to our customers. Shoot me an email, we should talk. Email address on my profile.
  - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
    Start with a dedicated dog-centric CMS. Now make a dedicated cat-centric one. Surely they will have some common elements between them. Find a way to make a pet-centric CMS. Eventually you will have a flexibly configurable CMS that you could sell to many local businesses. But you are better off writing a couple of hardwired, dedicated CMSs, then to try writing that flexible one from the very start. My very first shot at Warp Life for iOS, a Conway's Game of life implementation, had a frame rate of about two per second. Now it's about 8,000 per second. Now that I've gotten it up to 8,000 per second, I'm getting some real insight as to how to optimize it. There are other reasons one would want a Life App than because it's fast. MY Life App is for those who care about the speed; not everyone does.
MichaelCrawford 12y ago
It would be quite helpful to me were you to enable me to purchase things from brick-and-mortar shops with paypal. I can order domino's pizza with paypal but it is a PITA. PayPal is completely convinced that I am laundering money in support of terrorism, however they are cool with my ordering pepperoni with olives.
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  Why did you downvote this? It really is the case that I can't get cash out of PayPal, but PayPal does permit me to use it for online payments. A few days ago I bought a pizza with a eGift card that I bought from Newegg. What I'd really like to do is to buy coffee and food at cafes. Starbucks once did a promotion where one could buy a prepaid card with PayPal, that they don't do that anymore. I've never heard of anyone else doing that. If I could use my PayPal to buy coffee, or find some other ways to spend it at brick-and-mortars, there are all kinds of ways I could earn money online, then get paid via PayPal. I use PayPal to pay for my phone. That and the pizza are all that I've been able to find that I either want or need, that I can use PayPal for. Using it to buy coffee would enable me to work more productively. I do a lot better working at a cafe, out among the public, than at home by myself. It's not coffee that makes me productive; I buy the coffee to pay for my cable, power socket and wifi.
  - ingen0s 12y ago
    The cafe I goto, 'Mahtay Cafe' in St. Catharines accepts PayPal built into their pos and PayPal app Surely, all brick and mortar have this choice. It's just a matter of showing them the benefits or even building POS into their website as a complete front end and backend restaurant platform. This in my opinion should be the selling point of all payment systems and integrations with inventory tracking and customer management....why have a separate system for everything...the website should be central to everything.
    - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
      There is a widespread problem I see - not particular to PayPal or Starbucks - that many companies feel they make enough money, so they don't need to do better. I expect PayPal could promote itself to brick-and-mortars, but PayPal's marketing people don't feel that they need to, because PayPal makes plenty of money. Most brick-and-mortars make enough money for their staff to be happy, so they don't look into how they could increase their sales by accepting other payment methods. This might seem OK but "making enough money" is one of the factors than enables the lean and hungry to come from out of nowhere with a disruptive technology.
rab_oof 12y ago
Thiel would agree. A niche that other people ignore or say "can't be done." Can always widen it later.

by ef4 12y ago

leesalminen 12y ago

I've seen it before in other markets and was dissuaded because of the lack of quantity in prospective customers. After looking into the non-veterinary pet services market I was really impressed by the consistent growth, number of businesses, and lack of offerings in the market. And I was only researching the US at the time. UK, Australia, and New Zealand also have booming pet services market.

MichaelCrawford 12y ago

A close friend of mine earns a lot of coin by pointing out to medical marijuana dispensaries that they have terrible websites. They are happy to pay him for redesigns. I've been thinking of doing something like that, but my aim would be to find websites that I regard as sucking particularly hard.

leesalminen 12y ago
That's interesting. Every single one of my customers has a terrible website. Every. Single. One. We're looking to expand into a subscription service that provides a CMS w/ dog-centric themes to our customers. Shoot me an email, we should talk. Email address on my profile.
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  Start with a dedicated dog-centric CMS. Now make a dedicated cat-centric one. Surely they will have some common elements between them. Find a way to make a pet-centric CMS. Eventually you will have a flexibly configurable CMS that you could sell to many local businesses. But you are better off writing a couple of hardwired, dedicated CMSs, then to try writing that flexible one from the very start. My very first shot at Warp Life for iOS, a Conway's Game of life implementation, had a frame rate of about two per second. Now it's about 8,000 per second. Now that I've gotten it up to 8,000 per second, I'm getting some real insight as to how to optimize it. There are other reasons one would want a Life App than because it's fast. MY Life App is for those who care about the speed; not everyone does.

MichaelCrawford 12y ago

It would be quite helpful to me were you to enable me to purchase things from brick-and-mortar shops with paypal. I can order domino's pizza with paypal but it is a PITA. PayPal is completely convinced that I am laundering money in support of terrorism, however they are cool with my ordering pepperoni with olives.

MichaelCrawford 12y ago
Why did you downvote this? It really is the case that I can't get cash out of PayPal, but PayPal does permit me to use it for online payments. A few days ago I bought a pizza with a eGift card that I bought from Newegg. What I'd really like to do is to buy coffee and food at cafes. Starbucks once did a promotion where one could buy a prepaid card with PayPal, that they don't do that anymore. I've never heard of anyone else doing that. If I could use my PayPal to buy coffee, or find some other ways to spend it at brick-and-mortars, there are all kinds of ways I could earn money online, then get paid via PayPal. I use PayPal to pay for my phone. That and the pizza are all that I've been able to find that I either want or need, that I can use PayPal for. Using it to buy coffee would enable me to work more productively. I do a lot better working at a cafe, out among the public, than at home by myself. It's not coffee that makes me productive; I buy the coffee to pay for my cable, power socket and wifi.
- ingen0s 12y ago
  The cafe I goto, 'Mahtay Cafe' in St. Catharines accepts PayPal built into their pos and PayPal app Surely, all brick and mortar have this choice. It's just a matter of showing them the benefits or even building POS into their website as a complete front end and backend restaurant platform. This in my opinion should be the selling point of all payment systems and integrations with inventory tracking and customer management....why have a separate system for everything...the website should be central to everything.
  - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
    There is a widespread problem I see - not particular to PayPal or Starbucks - that many companies feel they make enough money, so they don't need to do better. I expect PayPal could promote itself to brick-and-mortars, but PayPal's marketing people don't feel that they need to, because PayPal makes plenty of money. Most brick-and-mortars make enough money for their staff to be happy, so they don't look into how they could increase their sales by accepting other payment methods. This might seem OK but "making enough money" is one of the factors than enables the lean and hungry to come from out of nowhere with a disruptive technology.

rab_oof 12y ago

Thiel would agree. A niche that other people ignore or say "can't be done." Can always widen it later.