Show HN: OppsList – A small, but growing list of software opportunities | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: OppsList – A small, but growing list of software opportunities

oppslist.com

46 pointscdiamand15 comments

Really like both the idea and the implementation: the tie in to the email list is quite nice.

One possible enhancement I could see would be a followup to the person making a suggestion. Not sure if there's an easily deduced standard form but basically over a couple of days ask them a few more detailed questions (as a suggestion, maybe 3 questions 2 days later, and 4 questions 5 days later?) to try and dig into the problem and figure out how deeply they've thought about this and if there is really any substance behind it. Things like what they use/how they currently solve this problem and how much time a day does this take: if they can come up with more insight/detail then that might help spur someone to think more about the dev. Otherwise it risks becoming an Internet version of the "Oh, you make apps? I have a GREAT idea you should drop everything you're working on and build" scenario.

Another potential enhancement would be a bounty-style implementation: along with the suggestion they could actually escrow some money towards the idea, and later emails could say "5 people have paid $X towards this idea: submit your solution" as an incentive to developers to actually take the idea seriously. One could almost see this as a reversed-Patreon: instead of posting your work and waiting for people to pay, you post a workable/working solution and if enough people use it/approve you collect the pot. Significantly more thorny to ensure people don't get robbed of their money or time but would be a unique way to crowdsource specific solutions.

I really like both of these ideas!

Some of these problems could use a bit of fleshing out. And, a bounty program is a good idea too.

It's really hard to find people who are willing to share their problems. I wonder if there is a place where these folks gather on the web that I'm just not aware of?

I did some research on that and turned into this. It should give you an idea of how and why.

https://medium.com/black-n-white/the-problem-with-problems-4...

I like your escrow idea as well. Sort of a decentralized crowdfunder for software projects.

Hell that idea could be scaled up to include anything, really

I had a look -- I'm curious as to how you received so many submissions already. Did you canvas or advertise? Did people just find you?

Off the top of my head, I think you'll maintain the most traffic if your service is gratis, like Craigslist but maybe collect some analytics and sell some ad space? Offer the option to pay for a "promoted" slot like Reddit and Google? Others might have more creative solutions than I do here... As far as aggregate data you collect from the site I'm in the dark.

I really like the idea of collecting some more direct software needs. It seems like a good space to crawl for project ideas if nothing else.

What library are you using for the UI? Is that Bootstrap material design? There are some more polished versions of the same sort of thing which might tie everything together a little more (particularly that app bar). But I'm just nitpicking now. It's a very clean layout.

I would add a "Home" or "List" option in your menu as well. I know the title goes back but it's typically good practice. That or add a "back to list" button of some kind on the posting template.

Again I like they idea! It is a bit different from freelance work websites where its a basically big feeding frenzy sometimes. Maybe that's only because it's quiet right now, I don't know. Anyway, it all works and its fast. Nice job.

Hi there!

Thanks so much for the feedback! Adding a few of these to my trello right now :)

Yep using bootstrap material design.

I seeded the site using submissions from my other project http://oppsdaily.com, its just an archive of the daily e-mails at the moment, but if it becomes something akin to the craigslist of business problems, I'd be very happy!

Hi guys,

I'm Cory. Thanks for checking out my project :)

I'm definitely looking for feedback on the site. And I'm also open to ideas about how to make a profitable business out of aggregating market needs.

Hello Cory, this is an excellent idea. It will take some time and percolating to get it from coarse concepts to point-of-sale events, but you're on the right track. I think if you keep aggregating things like this you'll eventually have an awesome index of pressing software needs. As time goes on, you'll be able to offer more catered service and you may be able to make a nice profit just connecting developers with people who need them. Keep doing what you're doing, as there's definitely a need for something like this. Lots of directions you could take it, like how kickstarter raises funds from many people to fund a project. This is great because the projects are suggested by people who would use the product, so if you flipped kickstarter on its head, what would it look like?

Hey Sova!

Thanks for your thoughts! I hadn't thought about it in terms of kickstarter, but that's actually a really thought provoking way to look at it.

I'll keep chipping away and see what happens. I hope it becomes the go to place to find software problems to work on.

Hmm. Looks like you might be having some SSL certificate problems -- www.oppslist.com is on the Subject Alternative Name list, but plain oppslist.com is not. Of course, the latter is the URL being pointed to by HN.

See https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.oppslist.... for more information.

I have the same problem (with Firefox, latest, on Win10 and Android). In Chrome it loads without error.

PS: great project, bookmarked!

Thanks for letting me know! Looking into this...

Looks great, I'd love to have an RSS feed though, having that in addition to the daily emails would be a great way to keep track of upcoming, popular and new opps entries.

Love it already.

I recognised the dog kennel one! Anyone had success with that it sounded like a gooden.

Everyone wanted to work on that one!

I remember at least one individual built software for this and was determined to own the market. I'll call that a win :)

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