Is your startup something other than a web app? | Hacker News Reader

Is your startup something other than a web app?

26 pointsrokhayakebe58 comments

This post is inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=207590 where one member ask advices about a possible venture that is not web related. It is always refreshing to find startups that are working anything other than a web app. Even desktop application would do. Thank you.

View on HN

I'm trying to make micro-organisms that make fuel and drugs.

I am very curious. A synthetic biologist on Hacker News :)

Think you'll beat Craig Venter? Am curious if you are NIH funded, independently wealthy, etc.

You don't necessarily need to "beat" Venter -- startups are not a zero-sum game, especially in a field as early as synthetic biology.

I just see him as an extraordinary tough target with his portfolio of relevant patents and endless financial resources. There are rooms for others of course, and it's great that people are trying... I would if I had the resources. That or algae farms.

JCV is not the only big gun in the synbio field. Jay Keasling has started more than one company (e.g. Amyris).

You're right, The competition is definitely stiff - aside from craig, there's ls9, amyris, sapphire and a dozen other solid companies. On the upside, the market is very big, and the problem is certainly worth solving.

If you solve it, do you think you'll get and accept an offer you can't refuse from the oil companies? Craig Venter seems to have already taken an offer that he couldn't refuse from said companies.

Do you think anyone in the field is brave enough to go around the oil companies or is their distribution infrastructure too much to ignore?

I think the goal is to create a new source of renewable energy. I think the right oil company could be part of the process...all that said, 'if you solve it' is a pretty big if :)

Hey, I my research is heading in that direction. Maybe we can help each other out. (Although, I suspect I may not have much to offer yet.) Send me an email if you have time (purdue.edu walshmj). Thanks.

How is what you're doing different from how insulin is manufactured (using yeast which has been genetically engineered to produce the relevant peptide)?

It's not "my" startup, but I work at Bug Labs (buglabs.net), we are trying to make an open source mobile hardware platform.

Our startup, www.Arkalumen.com, aims to bring the benefits of full-spectrum solid-state lighting to everyone. My technical co-founder has developed proprietary technology as good as the best on the market (microcontroller programming, integrated circuit layout, heatsink, and a unique wireless user-interface) which we are now in the process of commercializing.

Our technology is most certainly not a web app! (note: My background is very web2.0 - Director of Product Management for a venture-backed niche social-network and community site, among other things)

Honestly, I find it somewhat refreshing to be working wth real customers to develop tangible products again.

We are in the process of taking our prototype from the spare bedroom to the spotlight and are currently working on our frst web site. Expect to hear more from us soon.

I create and license software-based artwork to events, museums, corporations with fancy offices, etc.

It's not "my" startup, but I work for a startup that makes a database system for stream processing -- i.e. it lets you run SQL over live streams of data, to understand data as it changes rather than waiting for it to hit disk.

I quit my full time job last week to work on a desktop application. It's a Mac GTD app.

As much as I like web programming, I didn't think SaaS would work well for consumer products.

"As much as I like web programming, I didn't think SaaS would work well for consumer products."

I'm curious why you think that. Is there something inherent about SaaS, or is the technology lacking, or something else?

We do a compiler in C++. Probably as far from Web 2.0 as you can get (in this industry).

cool. but how will you make money from it? not saying one shouldnt write C++ compilers just wondering how you will make a business out of it.

you make it oodles better than any other c++ compiler out there????

Let me guess (or pray) - they've fixed the STL compiler error message headache - if true I know many ppl who would line up to pay for such a product. Even with the intel compiler and STLport the error messages are the biggest PITA.

biggest PITA = startup opportunity

(Often true, but not necessarily)

People will pay alot of money for a good compiler.

cool didnt know. but i guess especially companies dont mind paying for good programmingenvironments.

Why would they pay when there are perfectly good compilers already available for free, such as GCC?

There are a million reasons but let me give you a simple one: if it can produce faster code.

Giving 10% performance improvement in some fields (games?) is worth a metric buttload of money.

3% in games would be worth a metric buttload of money, where the difference in 'playable on N Ghz CPU' and 'playable on N - 0.2 Ghz CPU' could double your potential buyers.

It is not a C++ compiler, it is a compiler written in C++. It compiles XML Schema to C++ but other target languages are in the works.

As for who would pay for this, manually parsing any substantial XML vocabulary using DOM or SAX is a major PITA so there are always people willing to pay for automating this task.

nice, how big is such a project in terms of time and people?

It's been a little over three years now however I had some relevant background in the problem area from my previous job. Right now 2 people (founders) are working on it though we are planning to hire some more soon (if you are a C++ hacker in Cape Town and looking for interesting work, drop me a line).

Yes: Tarsnap (http://www.tarsnap.com/) is a combination of client software (which generates and encrypts backups) and online service (which stores the backups).

Ok, there's a very small web component -- users will be able to sign up and view their bills online. But that makes tarsnap about as "web related" as my bank account, my credit card, or an airline company.

I don't think I'd call mine a startup yet (more like a weekend project that will hopefully evolve into a startup after I graduate ...).

But, anyways, it's a centralized physical security application (think automated video monitoring on steroids).

I'm still playing with getting a proof-of-concept off the ground at this point - the math involved is pretty challenging for me.

Are you using computer vision techniques to do this automated video monitoring?

This industry is loaded with cash, they're transitioning from traditional analog video to IP-centric solutions and have no expertise. They all are looking for good software companies to buy. Drop me a line if you have a demo or something, I may pass it along.

Thanks, I'm still in the very early just-playing-around phase right now. It will, at best, be 6 months till I get something worth showing off - and probably closer to a year.

But don't be surprised if you get a strange email in a few months from 'that guy' you won't remember from YC ;-)

>This industry is loaded with cash, they're transitioning from traditional analog video to IP-centric solutions and have no expertise.

I can confirm on this one. It's amazing how much money I've seen shelled out for utter crap surveillance / software combined systems, where the individual components are relatively inexpensive commodity stuff; the majority of the price is for simply having a passable bit of software that ties it together in a way that is useful from a surveillance standpoint.

> they're transitioning from traditional analog video to IP-centric solutions and have no expertise.

Its astounding how little expertise they have in Internet Protocol, encryption, non-repudiation, codecs and RAID.

Smartful Studios. Working on games for the iPhone.

But really that is just the first beachhead since all of my experience is as a programmer in the video game industry. The blue-sky plan is a media brand. Non-profit, fashion, beverages, events, Formula 1 team, etc. Think Virgin, Red Bull, etc.

We're designing/building/marketing wellness tech products to consumers.. opening a retail shop this fall, web store, then expand nationally. Designing & mfg'ing some of our own and OEM'ing the rest. We've hit (nearly) every product roadblock you can think of, too. Now battling with electrical certification (much more stringent north of the border) and steeply rising shipping costs from asia. I personally spent almost a year in China starting a product dev engineering office & chasing dead-end manufacturer leads (now we're mfg'ing in Canada) culminating in a massive burnout (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69097) but after some R&R and soul-searching, have been able to re-join the fray. :)

Where I currently work I guess you could call us a retail startup? Small retail store that has one team (me) focused on building an online presence while the rest focus on the out-the-door. I don't know if retail can be considered a startup though?

yes, I make things out of carbon fiber and epoxy.

I'm currently looking into making molds by using an industrial robot to carve it out of foam from a 3D file.

Maybe we should talk? My mail is in my profile.

Hmm, that is already done extensively in the marine and aerospace industry? Maybe since you are talking about the mold itself rather than the plug it is new, but take a look. This is hardly an authoritative link, just something I saw about an hour ago, but that is basically the way all boats are made today. http://www.49er.org/images/stories/pdf/49erforward.pdf

Thanks for the link. I'm not necessarily looking for cutting-edge technology, simply something I can use and experiment with for a weekend project. I live on a boat and have been perplexed by how badly designed the interior of most boats and yachts are, so just for fun I drew one up in 3ds max, and I'm thinking about building it. So I'm basically just looking for the best and cheapest way of doing it. If it works out well it might end up being a business but for now it's just a weekend project.

Some (early stage) renderings here: http://www.maximise.dk/yacht/

I spent the last 20 years spending 3 months a year living on a boat, I feel you - some of them are poorly done. I have seen many ship yards from the inside, from Sea Ray to Frers, and the higher end stuff is all done this way - but by high end we are talking $200,000+ for a dinghy and millions to make the mold for a full size boat. Bring that price down and cool things will happen. If you want to talk about it more email me at kevinsch@udel.edu, I'm very interested

That makes 3 of us that have lived on boats a lot.

That would be a fun project. I have yet to do much with cnc machines, but am looking forward to doing new products that way. my email is kzo@kzo.net

Mine is an MVNO that sells mobile phones to kids. There are web application components, but there's a lot more to it than that.

Educational software--desktop apps so far.

I have some ideas about doing a food business (not a restaurant!). I'm not sure I'd really call it a startup, though.

Hecl is more mobile than web: http://www.hecl.org

Part of our service is our search engine (a web app), but we also develop desktop-integrated tools, command-line utilities, and language libraries to help capture and share error message workarounds.

What I'm working on is fine-art photography, and the web site that I am designing is primarily intended as aa marketing tool, though I do plan to sell from it.

ours is a startup thats a webapp that integrates with the real world very closely. Almost all our revenue actions happen off line. The business is very people dependent with the web providing us platform to showcase our capabilities and reaching out users.

how about this we are doing an e-commerce retail apparel startup. While its 100% web - we sell physical goods (i.e hoodies)

we started off a while back on a small business marketing web app but have hit about every roadblock imaginable, so we regrouped and went in a entirely different direction.

fixed-mobile-convergence

My non-web app startup: http://www.insidedesi.com/

Ours is a web app that helps you explore interesting and famous websites across a huge collection of categories. It's a nice way to discover the websites that you are not aware of. It is member recommended and the websites are genuine. It even allows you to bookmark your favorite websites for quick access in the future. You should check it out at http://www.hitlinkz.com

Reply on news.ycombinator.com