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Is my startup idea solving a real need out there?

7 points by OscarPedroso ↗ HN
howdy,

I recently launched a website this past spring (www.gradfly.co) to narrow the gap between hardware and software developers. It's a pivot from another concept we were working on. I'm trying to see whether there's truly a need for this before I invest more time and money into it.

In a nutshell, it's a repository and QA forum for hardware projects like Github and Stack Overflow are for code. It would be a site where professional and enthusiast developers (both hardware and software) come together to collaborate and become part of a "crowd-instructing" community. You'd find resources, talent, and example projects to help with products or concepts you're trying to design.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be awesome.

Thanks!

17 comments

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mc_hammer
definitely but you should have a good plan to monetize - at this point an amazon affilliate or a blog of cat pictures can make u 10k/mo so maybe thats a better site. but if you love the idea and the business you should do it for sure :D
steeples
My two cents: Some screenshots of the Dashboard and webapp interface would be nice. I want to sign up - but not knowing what's behind a walled garden login screen is annoying.
OscarPedroso
I agree, I'm planning on changing that real soon! Thanks!
ASquare
Serious question - have you asked this question of people who might really have this problem?

This is customer development 101.

This is a great resource on the topic: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/26-customer-development-resourc...

OscarPedroso
Thanks for sharing! I'm familiar with a few of the customer development stuff but I'll be going through the list tonight to learn a bit more. I'm trying to get to a point where I'm asking the right questions to the right crowd. I figured I might have some luck posting on here, too.
ASquare
Cheers!

Just one thing with respect to the books mentioned at the end of the post.

I've read all of them and don't think that you need any of them.

If you are going to pick one up - get "Running Lean" by Ash Maurya - it's literally a step by step manual on how to do whatever it is you need to.

OscarPedroso
Thanks ASquare, I'm actually in the midst of reading that one right now. It really breaks things down nicely!
HeyLaughingBoy
First, let me say that ideas like this are near and dear to my heart. As a software dev with a hardware background who's worked in Embedded Systems his entire career, I love this stuff and I enjoy helping people on online forums.

That said, I simply won't join a site that doesn't tell me much about what it does before I have to sign up. I need to browse. I need to see what the average level of discourse is. I know what level I want to engage people at and I've been at this long enough to grow tired of the "how do I blink an LED with my Arduino?" questions. Nothing wrong with that -- everyone starts somewhere -- but it's not for me.

You're competing with, among others, http://electronics.stackexchange.com/ and http://robotics.stackexchange.com/ Show me how you're different/better before I decide to sign up.

OscarPedroso
Thanks for your input and links to these sites. I hadn't thought about stack exchange but definitely some good traffic on there. I think what I really want to do is spend some time understanding pain points in this space - I'm not convinced I've found that one thing yet that really needs to be solved.

So far, I've interviewed a few of our users and they seem to be looking for an elance-for-hardware type of site where technical people submit ideas and a budget and hardware/software developers come together, create teams, and build that concept into a product. Quirky and Maker's Row do something like this but I'd still have to do a bit more customer discovery.

A bit far from what I'm aiming to build but I'm wondering whether I should listen a bit closer.

aepearson
Just a quick heads up - check your DNS settings (or however you choose to do it)... http://gradfly.co/ does not resolve. (requires 'www')
shinamee
Sounds good and I would use it, I am online a bit concern with the design pattern as it seems like a company site rather than a community platform.

All in all, its a good thing :)

OscarPedroso
thanks a ton! yeah, I agree with you. The site will change to become more of a community. Right now, I'm just testing landing pages and playing with different messages. I also growing the community and that definitely takes time.

On a side note, I'm trying to validate a concept along the lines of elance-for-hardware. Thoughts?

brudgers
The intended market is a Venn diagram of an intersection. of disconnected interests The intended product is a union of solutions to three hard problems.

That's not a particularly promising scope.

OscarPedroso
Thanks for the comment. Are you in any one of these circles within the Venn diagram? Any particular pain points that come to mind? Just exploring.
brudgers
The comment is general. The intersection is a tiny slice from each of two larger communities. There's no obviously good way to reach it with a marketing push and engage it enough to create a critical mass. StackOverflow works because it is so general and solves immediate workaday problens, but many many StackExchange sites have failed. Building community is a hard problem.

Have you listened to the StackOverflow and StackExchange podcasts?

OscarPedroso
This is true. I haven't checked out the podcasts - will definitely do that!

The only other idea I've been tinkering with is an 'Elance for hardware' type of gig where hardware and software developers join forces to work on someone else's project. (Say John Smith posts a project to have two arduinos communicate using WiFi Direct and he is seeking help and willing to pay $350 to have someone work with him in parallel and speed up the project.

So we'd help teams find resources, talent, and example projects to help with products or concepts that they're trying to create. Still playing around with ideas. Thanks again for the podcasts!