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Ask HN: How to find first users for niche ideas?

2 points by Nesco ↗ HN
I am currently thinking about starting a very niche passion project about genomics. A kind of biological version of assembly, or more precisely a human-readable version of the genome. The aim would be to give SWE the ability to edit “genomic code”. However I am in great pain to find who to talk to. I an beginning to ask myself if it’s because I am doing something the wrong way, or if it’s because there are no needs for such a tool…

2 comments

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realprimoh
Lots of cold emails and cold reachouts on LinkedIn/Twitter/Threads probably. Checking out research lab websites in universities like UC Berkeley is probably a good place to start.
sargstuff
University of Pennsylvania has some projects that include public providing help with genomic/epigenetic research related to given topic descripition[0]. (using l-systems & bnf[5][8][9] format as way to encode/handle dna sequences [1][2][3][4][6][7])

Example/demo of topic : [10]

[0] : https://genetics.med.upenn.edu/

[1] : automated dna motif discovery : https://arxiv.org/abs/1002.0065

[2] : Improving CUDA DNA Analysis Software with Genetic Programming : https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2739480.2754652

[3] : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-48304-7_21

[4] : https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~weimerw/p/weimer-tse2017.pdf

[5] : https://github.com/shnewto/bnf

[6] : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194197/

[7] : https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/088930v1.full

[8] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASTA_format

[9] : https://www.mdpi.com/2624-6120/3/4/42

[10] : a) https://discoveringthegenome.org/

  b) grape : https://www.mdpi.com/2624-6120/3/3/39

  c) needs 3d printer extension for real world replication : https://bnfc.digitalgrammars.com/