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Should I build this app?

8 points by indieept ↗ HN
I am considering developing an app that allows people to schedule recurring video calls with contacts (friends, family, etc.). I often find myself disconnecting from friends and family when I am not in the same country, and I believe this app could help me combat that tendency!

What are your thoughts?

10 comments

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eternityforest
I know precisely nothing about entrepreneurship or starting new projects, so I'm probably not the best one to ask having never done anything real on my own.

But... do you have some kind of functionality not covered by Zoom recurring meetings? https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_arti...

indieept
Zoom/Meet/Teams feels like work and people usually do the calls on a computer. I want this to feel more informal and on the phone just like when someone calls you on whatsapp. The idea is that everyone on the call that you set up would receive a request to join at the same time.
jll29
Could you build it as a friendly wrapper around Zoom/Teams/Whereby.com/BigBlueButton/Teams/Skype etc. to save yourself work?

As a value add, it would be nice to have interoperability between all video calling apps (that's clearly a separate, much harder to build, app), because agreeing on an app is tedious and wastes time.

codingdave
> Zoom/Meet/Teams feels like work...

I don't feel that way at all. Those are all just apps. Remote meetings use them, but that doesn't mean that corporations own the usage of those apps. Frankly, your idea of everyone getting the invite at the same time feels more like a work-related need than a personal need. At work, we want efficiency - everyone shows up, talks, then signs off. For a personal call, being able to come early and stay late sounds far more friendly.

At the end of the day, this is all up to you. If you think there is a need, there are probably others who agree with you. But before you build, ask around to find out how many there are, and if they agree enough to pay money for the things you would build. If not, this will be a weekend project, not a business. (Which is also fine, BTW.)

muzani
It's a popular hackathon topic. Scheduling calls shouldn't be difficult either.

I don't think there's a market or anything for it, but it's something you should be able to do in a weekend, and put on your resume, so why not?

atomicnature
I'd be interested in something that can automatically schedule (and re-schedule) calls, texts, etc to help me keep in touch with people. I don't want to spend too much time on scheduling except giving it an approximate frequency on which I wish to followup with somebody.

Maybe like a personal CRM. I do think such things exist, but I felt the friction to get started was a bit too much.

casho
That would be cool.
HenryBemis
An app that has access to the Calendar and the Contacts.

Ask first for contact name: as the person types Joh.. the Johns appear, you pick the one you want

Then go to Calendar mode: when do you want the first call reminder? Pick a date, then pick a time. Finally th frequency (weekly, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, monthly, etc.)

Then have a checkbox "Do you want to notify "John" 5 or 10mins before your call? (a simple SMS so you don't get entangled in the various texting apps)

I hope any of these help..

EDIT: I don't use the Siris of this world. Those who do, please give some input into how difficult/unusual is for someone to tell Siri/Google to "set a recurring reminder for every 3rd Friday at 19:15 to call John Doe from my contacts"

EDIT2: rethinking your whole question, I think that anyone who wants to do this won't but a $5 app to do so, they are very likely to use Siri/Google/Sam. Or if they are anything like me (cable-sync Android with Outlook), I create my stuff on Outlook and sync when needed.

lgkk
One way to find out. Build it! It sounds like a cool project.