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Comment by ArslanAtajanov | Hacker News Reader

What’s Labit?

- Laboratory pages for research groups.

Why Labit?

- We want to bring research groups closer to each other, give them opportunity to establish connections and simplify collaboration.

How Labit works?

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJClMIWOh-M

As it is with many ventures, Labit started out of frustration. We are a team of 4 people (2 researchers and 2 software engineers). We were frustrated that laboratories and research groups around the world were working in a relative isolation. Their webpages are outdated, unorganized, scattered on the Internet, and in many cases broken. This realization sparked a discussion that led to creation of Labit.

Any questions and feedback are welcome. Thanks!

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Is there an API to obtain data from your site? I'm assuming two of the biggest features researchers will want is a "faculty acquired" and a "grant won" brag-post system. It will be interesting to see what data comes out of those two features. Who gets money, what do they do/buy with the money, who do they subcontract with that money, how long does it take to get money, who stays at their institution with their money, what PIs constantly win grants, etc.

This will be a lot of fun.

There is no API yet.

Exactly! This is exactly what we are planning to do with all the data after we reach a meaningful number of users.

It is an interesting idea.

Creating and maintaining an informative page represents a substantial investment of time by laboratory personnel and the return on that investment is largely dependent on the durability of that information online.

Because laboratories tend to have longer life cycles than web projects, I am curious about Labit's model for achieving sustainability over a period of ten or more years.

Very cool. It's like a CMS adapted for a research groups (a.k.a. labs --- note potential source of confusion since lab can also mean actual lab with test tubes etc).

One thing that I found confusing is the lack of pricing info. Is this going to be free and if so how will you pay the hosting bill when you get 1000+ freeloaders?

Or do you see it as a run-it-yourself free software?

Some additional features that will be added will be priced. But basis is free. Everything that is in there now is free.

Hi there. Good questions. We will be introducing pricing for some advanced features (that we are working on right now) and analytics later, but the core functionality will stay free. We are covering the hosting bill with the help of some local startup programs and some bootstrapping for small things. And currently we are actively seeking funding from investors/accelerators. Some are interested, but waiting to see if this gains traction. So right now, we have to onboard as many users as we can, get feedback from users and then we will have a considerably higher chance to find some funding.

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