

Ask HN: Help me validate my idea - ijovanovic

I am avid reader and I enjoy reading quotes. I miss an app (iOS&#x2F;Android) where I can read quotes from particular tv-series&#x2F;movies. I haven&#x27;t read too many novels so I am not much interested in quotes from there.<p>Could you give some feedback on this? Should I pursue this idea or not? 
If yes, what features would you like such an app to have? Any ideas on the app name?<p>Thanks.
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PeterWhittaker
I see a lot of "don't do this unless..." or "why would you...".

Ignore those. Start by researching books (good, old, paper-based pbooks) that
offer exactly this: There are plenty of them out there, usually one or two
quotes per page, usually taken from public sources. Some of them are work
related, some have a spiritual bent, etc.

Do this research just to satisfy yourself that yes, there are people who buy
this sort of thing.

Next, validate the idea: Not with the HN crowd, I can almost guarantee they
are not your audience. We tend to be self-starters, independent thinkers, etc.
Some of us even mock the whole "motivational quote/poster/speaker" model.

Hell, how many of us would have told the guy who created "bingo card creator"
to stick to his day job? Most of us. We are not good judges of the broader
market because we all of us live on the fringes.

(Sure, there are one or two or a few people in here who can see into that
broader but they are few. If you are lucky, some of the better ones will
comment on this.)

Bring up those inspirational quote books with your friends, your family
members, and acquaintances from non-tech fields. Do this in small groups and
at times when people are more reflective, more willing to consider. Ask what
they think of these books. Do they read them? Openly? As guilty pleasures? If
they do, say something along the lines of "too bad there is no app for this".
Judge their reactions.

As to how to do this, crowdsource the quotes. Create a system where people can
submit (and correct) quotes with attributions, where they can upvote them.
Whether or not a login is required is up to you, but if you go with a login,
make it facebook and/or twitter, maybe pinterest, not google+ or roll your
own, etc: My guess is that the people who would use this app will be very
comfortable logging in with facebook and/or twitter, sharing their favourite
quotes on those platforms, etc.

Make it possible for people to tag quotes, e.g., #spirituality, #productivity,
#friendship, #peace, etc.

Have quotes of the day, featured quotes, etc.

There are opportunities for translation into many, many languages. See if you
can crowdsource that, too.

Do NOT expect to make money doing this. Not because you won't (hell, I have no
idea), but because that will allow you to gauge how much time to spend on it.
Unless and until you have a successful kickstarter campaign or VC funding or
hit a magical pricing structure that "just works", you will be doing this
because you enjoy it, but it will not put food in your mouth or a roof over
your bed.

Budget your time accordingly.

~~~
zedadex
I always appreciate people who forego the "why" and advise "how." Everyone has
something they want to do - and for some it's something that wouldn't
necessarily provide value for anyone else - but that doesn't mean it isn't
worth doing.

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callmeed
This is interesting. By "quotes", do you mean quotes that are short (often
funny)? Or do you mean longer, monologue-type quotes?

IMDB has a quotes page for many movies[0] and there is a quotes.list file in
their text file dumps[1].

I love movie quotes and I've had the idea of a Twitter account that tweets
quotes 2x a day and the first person to reply with the correct movie title
would win a prize (monetization strategy undetermined).

[0]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109686/quotes](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109686/quotes)
[1] ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/misc/movies/database/

------
lukasm
I'd use such thing if this won't be just simple list of quotes. Google is good
enough for it.

How do I find a quote that I cannot google? (don't remember exact wording) How
do I find quote related to X?

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tejasm
Wouldn't such a question on imdb or tv.com forums give you more feedback?

Personally, I'd love such app. I love quotes from Mad Men, GoT and White
Collar.

~~~
ijovanovic
Thanks. I don’t use imdb/tv.com forums, so that idea didn’t strike me earlier.
Thanks for pointing that out. I will also post it there.

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xauronx
Not very helpful, but just in case you pitch this to people in the future..

"I am avid reader" and "I haven't read too many novels so I am not much
interested in quotes from there." conflict in my mind. Like, you love
reading... just not novels? I equate being an avid reader to reading
books/novels. Otherwise, you're just literate.

Not trying to be a douche, just giving you a take on those first two lines.

I think an app like that would be pretty cool though. A lot of times when I'm
out with friends someone will say a quote and there will be a debate on what
it's from. Or, someone will quote a book and they'll get called out on it for
misquoting it. Regardless, arguments ensue, and I could definitely see someone
pulling up your app to settle the debate.

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strick
I'd recommend running this as a simple twitter account to test the concept.
Reach out to people who follow the shows you are interested in. Tweet at a
scheduled interval. If they don't follow it is unlikely the app would get
traction. If the followers didn't grow organically once you had a core group
of followers I would see that as a bad sign.

One more thought: if there was demonstrated growth and interest, you could use
the twitter account to promote the app once it was released.

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cail
I doubt I would use it personally. It's not something I would use often enough
to justify adding another icon on my phone. Especially when I can just look on
google for movie quotes. If it added functionality to find quotes by actors or
attempt to find quotes from an incomplete quote (I forgot the actual quote but
know the gist) and the ability to drill down by quote subject I might use it
but I'd likely still prefer it to be a website.

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3rd3
> _I enjoy reading quotes._

As someone who is not into reading and quotes I’d like to ask what you find
fascinating about it. Can you maybe give an example what kind of quotes you
find interesting? Dialogs, aphorisms? Is more about entertainment or worldly
wisdom? Or is it more an intellectual fascination, for example thinking
through how the author came up with it and considering different interaction
possibilities of the actors?

~~~
sejje
I enjoy reading quotes.

I like that I get insight into a (sometimes) brilliant mind and I can do so in
a few seconds by reading a few lines.

Some are inspiring, some make me smarter, some are worthless.

Unlike OP, I think that tv series' quotes are likely to be much less
worthwhile, for me, than those I'm used to.

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cliveowen
The fact that there isn't any app that does the same thing doesn't necessarily
means that there's an opportunity, on the opposite, it likely means that there
is no market for it. Yours it's a niche interest and the app would thus have a
niche market, which means you won't make money out of it. If you're okay with
it and money isn't what you're looking for, then by any means create your own
app.

~~~
weavie
The fact that it is a niche market doesn't necessarily mean you won't make
money out of it. On the contrary if you can work out a good way to monetize
it, niche markets can be the most lucrative.

~~~
giarc
If Amazon allows affiliate links to TV shows/movies, the OP could provide a
link to the episode/movie where the quote originates.

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napolux
Not really helpful on validating, but here's a source for quotes...

[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page)
has an API as all the wikimedia projects.

[http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page](http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page)

~~~
ijovanovic
Thanks. Indeed a great source to extract info from!

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freefolk
Your one and only problem in making this will be populating it. How will you
fill it with data and/or get others to do so? It's not valuable until there's
content.

You should pursue this idea if and only if you have a solid understanding of
how you'll accomplish this, and why it will work. Just making this and dumping
this on the app store will not work.

~~~
ijovanovic
Yes, that seems to be the biggest challenge for this right now! I have been
reading quotes since a long time, so I have a good collection to start with.

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bennesvig
I'd download it. It would be cool if you were able to upvote the quotes like
with quotes from books on GoodReads.

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jmathai
I look up quotes from movies on occasion. I wouldn't say I'm avid about it
though and tend to look it up on Google when I need. That works good enough
for me.

Did you envision a community that frequents the site/app or would it be a
collection of quotes that rank well on Google searches?

~~~
ijovanovic
Only a collection/series of quotes for searched Tv series/movie for now! I
agree that a community where people can talk about the quotes or like them
sounds interesting.

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petersouth
Sometimes I enjoy reading quotes from the quote section of IMDB. Is there a
way for all of those to automatically go to an app? Maybe with something like
kimonify?

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ideationguru
Great idea. Perhaps turn this into an xml feed. If it resonates with you, it's
worth pursuing just for the learning experience, which is priceless.

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ThomPete
There is only one way to find out and that is to try it out.

It's not a complex app so shouldn't take you more than a few weekends.

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rweir
little reason for it to be an app, and lots of websites along these lines
already exist.

~~~
ijovanovic
Yes, there are websites doing similar things(I frequently read quotes on imdb
and Quora), but I miss an app when I am alone and travelling. I also usually
want to filter quotes (e.g. quotes from FRIENDS when I want to read something
funny etc.)

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subes
fortune has a large db of quotes, using it to render quotes on my wallpaper
every minute

[http://fortune4all.sourceforge.net/](http://fortune4all.sourceforge.net/)

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vishalzone2002
shazam for quotes..

