
Ask HN: What service would you pay me 10$ a month for? - freeslave
I'm looking for ideas to build an MVP and I thought I would hit up the HN community.  As developers, entrepreneurs and techies, what service that doesn't exist now would you gladly pay a monthly fee to use if it existed? Or, if it exists, what service would you use if it was cheaper?<p>edit: spelling
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peterwwillis
Summary/review of local arts and community events, mainly underground stuff. I
don't have enough time in my day any more to look up who's playing a local
show, what they sound like, when they're playing or where. Also don't have
time to look up art shows or indie movies, or community-planned events and
classes. There's a buttload of these things in big metropolitan areas, someone
just needs to get paid to take the time to sort through it all and summarize
it each week.

None of this is covered by local magazines or blogs. I can go out to record
stores and coffee shops and collect flyers, search through myspace and
facebook profiles for event listings and index twitter posts, but it takes all
freakin day. If it was collected, summarized and publicized properly I think a
lot more people would get out there and see what up and coming people are
creating.

Even if it were all covered by blogs (a lot of it is on twitter), I don't want
to search through blogs or twitter or whatever, I just want an e-mail telling
me what's coming up and describes it. That'd be worth $10 for me.

~~~
dclowd9901
Might as well throw my hat in the ring: My site Showhopping.com was basically
invented for people like you. Only thing is it only applies to music at the
moment.

Give your location, 5 or 6 bands you like, and voila, you get a listing of
shows in your area that you can sort by how much you'll like them.

No email. No username. No usership requirements whatsoever. Just use and go.
Oh, and I save your selected bands in a cookie so they're there for you when
you come back.

~~~
SatvikBeri
I added 6 bands, got a very small number of matches (in NYC!), and most of the
matches are in the <20% range.

Is there any way to feed my Pandora or Spotify data into this? Seems like that
would help produce better recommendations.

Edit: I do have to say, the design is very well done-easy to add bands,
search, and the integration with Google Maps is very nice. The fact that I
didn't even think about it is a great sign.

~~~
dclowd9901
Thanks for the words. This is more an MVP at this point. My short term
roadmap:

Last.fm, Pandora and Spotify logins

Users/Managers/Promoters can add shows themselves; add listings for tickets

I'm a guy who likes very obscure bands and lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and with
9 or 10 selections (one for each sound I'm into), I tend to get back at least
4 or 5 shows for a month long search. It still has a ways to go, but it's more
of a folly than a hardcore startup.

On an aside, a product exists for mobile called BandMate. It actually scans
your phone for acts (if you keep your music in your phone) and recommends
artists to you in a similar manner. Very cool app, and invaluable for me when
I'm traveling.

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jseims
Not sure if this is helpful, but I feel this is the wrong crowd to ask.
Developer needs are pretty efficiently met. I'd suggest asking other groups,
such as doctors, lawyers, moms.

~~~
smashing
This is the best comment. OP should buy and read "Desperate Buyers Only".

------
DanBC
A movie information portal thing:

I like different cinema. I want lists of -

1) New releases on DVD; with links to places to buy those DVDs (or Blurays
etc); also with links to different review sites; also with links to trailers

2) New releases in cinema; with links to trailers; with links to official
sites

3) Awards; with links to trailers and buys

A bit like Little White Lies magazine, but online and interactive and better.

(<http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/>)

~~~
nreece
I suppose IMDB (<http://www.imdb.com>) already provides most of that.

~~~
DanBC
But IMDB is hideous, and also crowd sourced.

I'd prefer something more carefully curated, and more tailored towards
different cinema. (Indie movies; Foreign cinema; art house nonsense; etc.)

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thejteam
I would gladly pay 10 dollars a month for a service that mailed me a crisp new
20 dollar bill each month. In fact, my whole family would!

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uxabhishek
A service that suggests, schedules and plans things to do for the entire week
for a couple to do after work.\

Things to do can be events happening in the city or restaurants they should
try and eat at. It can apply the $10 fee towards any event ticket/restaurant
purchased by the couple.

~~~
djrconcepts
A friend and I currently building daretogoout.com You are not going to find
any events in your city yet. The only city we are currently experimenting with
populating is west orange, nj. Give the site some time, and we will eventually
reach your city.

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stevenj
Not sure if this fits, but: the ability to have food delivered from any
restaurant I want (say within 5 miles of me), when I want.

~~~
citricsquid
I just (3 days ago) moved into a new city (Brighton, England) and this exists
here[1]. It's amazing, seriously. I assume there's all manner of licensing
crap associated with doing it as a big company (which is why the people that
do it here are very low-key and haven't expanded beyond this city) but
something like this globally would be so great, although there's little room
for making money unless you do the aforementioned licensing.

I've used them twice so far, there's an extra time associated with delivery
because they first have to go to the restaurant and order, then wait and
deliver to you, but it's worth it, although I've only used them for McDonalds
and Burgerking so far, both were delivered in ~90 minutes. They support about
100 different places, fast food and real restaurant.

[1] <http://www.dinner2go.co.uk/>

~~~
peacemaker
It's not just dinner2go but you've also got JustEat and TakeAwayMenu who do
the same thing in Brighton.

~~~
citricsquid
No they're different. Just-eat is a directory of restaurants that places an
order with a restaurant and then that restaurant delivers, whereas dinner2go
themselves handle the delivery. When I place an order for McDonalds the
dinner2go driver goes to the restaurant, orders for me and then delivers it to
me. I guess a good explanation is that they are a proxy.

------
basseq
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people
don't know what they want until you show it to them." \-- Steve Jobs,
BusinessWeek, May 25 1998

~~~
angersock
That's cute and all, but there's a difference between starting a business to
solve problems and make the world better, and starting a business to convince
people to buy shit they don't need to feel better about their lives.

~~~
smashing
No, the idea is to make money. Everything else is just a Press Release.

~~~
basseq
It's worth noting that I disagree with this statement, too. Corporations do
have a social responsibility. But more tactically, simply because you can't
separate actions from revenue. Intangibles like customer service, community
impact, design, etc. may seem "wishy-washy", but have a measurable effect on a
bottom line. You can't create value for the shareholders without creating
value for employees, customers, and economies.

------
ldieker
A music service with the easy social and cross-platform functionality of
Spotify, the adaptive radio of Pandora, all set up with the scrobbling power
of Last.fm.

~~~
markchristian
Rdio is pretty close to this.

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mjoxley
I hate wasting time on sites like ebay, but inevitably get sucked into them
every now and then. I'd gladly pay you ten bucks a month to surface stuff I
might want, even if I had to do some initial setup work.

For example if you see an X61 with the SXGA+ screen on a buy now price, I want
to know (rare as rocking horse poo). Or Lego with at least 30% off is always
good for my boy or birthday presents.

You'd need to err on the side of caution, because I'd rather miss stuff than
be spammed, but thankfully that makes your job easier!

~~~
jat1
Currently working on a concept similar to this, but around classifieds and
private sellers rather than companies.

The basic premise is along the lines of "Tell us what your looking for or
interested in and we will tell you when a good deal turns up somewhere"

The point being it may not be available now, but when it is we will let you
know.

Still in early prototype at the moment and focused on a specific niche but we
aim to expand rapidly.

~~~
mjoxley
Cool. Give me a shout when its ready for beta users and I'd love to give it a
try.

~~~
jat1
Will do!

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ot86
I would be interested in a service similar to pantybypost.com, but instead of
panties, I would receive cool gadgets, toys, candies each month.

~~~
DanBC
Citrus Lane do this for baby things.

(<http://www.citruslane.com/>)

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djrconcepts
I would gladly pay 10 dollars for a service that can find me tasks to work on
each day. Maybe a website with head hunters.

Example: I sign up with the website and input my skills and availability. 'I
am currently available' A headhunter than finds me a task to work on based on
my skillset. In return I pay a share of my profits to the site for each job /
task completed.

~~~
freddy
what kind of tasks/jobs are you talking about? construction type jobs or
software ...?

~~~
djrconcepts
Tasks is a pretty general term. I am not referring to a construction type job.
I am referring to any task that can be accomplished over the internet. A task
such as fixing a website, doing research for someone, photo touch ups,
tutoring with a shared monitor, answering technical questions, etc..

~~~
freddy
Are you referring to something like Amazon's Mechanical Turk:
<https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome> ?

~~~
djrconcepts
Amazon's mechanical turk barely pays any money. You can spend hours completing
mechanical turk tasks and not even make a dollar. Probably something closer to
Fiverr, but the other way around. Like on Fiverr people post things they are
willing to do for 5 dollars. What about a site where people post things they
want you to do and are willing to pay you X number of dollars to complete the
task.

~~~
freddy
True true, maybe something like Zaarly or Task Rabbit would be true here?

~~~
djrconcepts
Wow, thanks a lot freddy. I had never heard of Zaarly or Task Rabbit before
you mentioned them. These are great.

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Tichy
I think the only online subscriptions I ever signed up for were for games.
Specifically I paid for WoW and WeeWar for a while (in fact both not longer
than 3 months).

Perhaps a really good magazine could convince me, too, but it would have to be
very special interest (machine learning or games).

Edit: I forgot, I also pay 15€/month for a server. Also Ultima Online, back in
the day...

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__init__py
Something along the lines of Gary Bernhardt's Destroy All Software
(<https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts>), but focused on iOS. Feels
like there's a lack of advanced iOS knowledge sharing on the web.

As for web utilities, there's really nothing I'd pay $10 a month for.

~~~
ashconnor
Also, a Django version of Railscasts?

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vjohnson
I would pay $10/month (or more) for a individual designer or store to send me
interior designs pieces / artwork that I can try out in my home that month.
Items I really like I'll buy, items I'm not crazy about I ship back. I'd pay
an additional fee for insurance to cover accidental damage.

------
tocomment
An alternative to QuickBooks Point of Sale. In fact I might be 30 or 40 /month
for that.

~~~
tbgvi
I've been working on exactly this for the last couple years. You can find us
at cashierlive.com - my email is in my profile if you have any questions.

~~~
tocomment
Awesome! Email sent!

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igul222
An easy way to hire copywriters for small (< 1 hour) jobs.

~~~
sleepjunk
Are you familiar with Text Broker? There are some high quality writers there.
If you're looking into it, be sure to use the author search to submit a direct
order. Don't submit an open order (quality is not guaranteed and I haven't had
luck with it). <http://www.textbroker.com/>

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jerryji
Think about asking the same question from a different perspective: What
service would you _as a business owner_ pay me 10$ a month for _to help your
business_?

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eduardordm
I would pay even more for a iOS app website/landing page.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3800662>

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garjitech
I would pay for a large file transferring service.

~~~
freeslave
I wonder if there's way to do it while avoiding the issues faced by megaupload
and others?

~~~
TylerE
Sure there's a way to do it - actually police activity and don't flagrantly
flaunt the law. Megaupload is basically the online equivalent of selling weed
out of a pizza parlor.

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mc32
This looks like a recurring fiverr.com type service (whereas Fiverr is more
one-time). Am I mistaken?

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Shengster
People don't know what they want until they see it.

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monkeyhelper
Riaa / mpaa lawsuit indemnification service.

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ulisesrmzroche
Deliver restaurant food from 11-pm to 7-am.

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AznHisoka
Link building service. Article writing.

------
imtu80
A file backup service or site/server monitoring service.

~~~
baconomatic
What did you want from a site/server monitoring service?

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marshallp
* A kickstarter like website that has an api available internationally. It should include functions for adding many campaigns (maybe a limit of 1000) and also detailed historical data (so I can see other people's campaign histories and see what works and doesn't). If you can make it an investment site in accordance with the recent jobs act crowdfunding even better.

* Rentacoder like website with all functions exposed as api.

~~~
marshallp
Also

* prediction market/betting site (with ability to bet on anything) with api and detailed historical data.

* Also, a stock exchange where I can invest in houses, small local businesses, commercial property. Should have api and historical data.

* A patent stock exchange (api+data)

Not $10 a month service, but something I'd pay for (maybe up to $10 per hour)
Internet access to a factory robot.

$10 service - rentacoder like site except for factory automation services
(bids/fulfillmnt on design of turn-key automation systems) along with api.

~~~
Qworg
What would you use this factory robot for?

Also, the setup time of any factory automation task is huge - would you be
willing to pay for this as well?

~~~
marshallp
Factory robots for prototyping machine vision guided tasks. Factory automation
website because it should be easier for engineers to bid on jobs that need to
be done (like rentaacder does for design/coding) and for
manufacturers/entrepreneurs to get quotes for new projects (I'm looking more
from the outsourcing perspective, I want to get the lowest quote from around
the world for machines and then have them built and shipped to where I specify
easily. Engineering services are way overpriced).

