
Non-web startups, anyone is doing these? - apr
Is seems that most of the people talking about startups imply a web app. Which makes me wonder if anyone is considering an embedded or more traditional desktop/server software product?
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quizbiz
Or what about something more brick and mortar, a physical product or a service
that must be carried out in person? I am becoming increasingly critical of the
immense value we put on things that exist strictly on the web.

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mediaman
I agree.

I started a company that has nothing to do with the web at all. After a few
years, it has done quite well.

It seems that many believe here that the only form of entrepreneurship worth
pursuing is web-based apps, or, failing that, a technology-oriented company.

But many startups do quite well by innovating with business processes,
targeting inefficient industries, or offering more traditional but innovative
products to underserved consumers or businesses.

For example, furniture seller Design Within Reach beat the pants off their VC
funded online competitors in the late 90s, using the massive innovation of a
paper catalogue. This worked because the furniture industry had extremely poor
customer service, and they figured out how to fix that by being an excellent
reseller; they knew that "being online" was not a magic pill.

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jpwagner
citation needed...four steps to the epiphany page 17

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mediaman
Good catch, I'd forgotten where I'd read that story.

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dirtyaura
We are focusing purely on mobile. For us, iPhone is an excellent spearhead
platform, which has solved distribution and payment problems well enough so
that you can test out ideas, but we are following e.g. Nokia closely.
App/service development technology in mobile will quite likely go towards
HTML5 too, but it ain't there yet, so that's why we are still putting effort
to native implementation.

In my opinion, the key insight from the business perspective is that the most
mid-range to high-end mobile handset models will have user-friendly, App Store
like payment procedures in three years time. And, at least in Europe, people
are more used to paying for content in mobile compared to standard web.

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zipstudio
I have a non web start up www.wickwerks.com

bicycle parts manufacturing. Manufacturing has quite a different set of
headaches.

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mediaman
I think it would be interesting to hear more discussion on HN regarding these
different types of problems. Just as we can all learn about optimal web
promotion strategies, or the right development framework to use, so too should
we learn from others about how to identify the right manufacturing partners,
how to arrange distribution deals, channel strategies, etc.

I am getting involved in a plastics manufacturing business and reading like
crazy to prepare myself for it.

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zipstudio
the biggest problem I have is very similar to a technology problem. The
engineers love to do design and vetting (ie/ riding the prototype parts) but
are not keen on the follow through aspect of finalizing design and going to
production to enable sales. Much the same as a technologist who loves to
tinker and refactor, but isn't interested in shipping product or doing
support.

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cperciva
Tarsnap (my online backup service startup) has a web site for signups and
accounting; but it definitely falls into the "client/server app" category
rather than the "web app" category.

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nodus
I have a very young non web-app startup that I am working on with my mom.

And its delicious!

<http://twofoolsfudge.com> is the only web component.

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magnew
Cool, did you have to go to the fda for any business reason?

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nodus
It needs to be prepared in a fed licensed kitchen. Luckily, there are co-ops
and rental places all over. Here is a list:
<http://www.commercialkitchenforrent.com/>

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magnew
Thanks! If I were to sell jerky and fruit leathers can I use my own dehydrator
in the facility or how would that work?

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cwg
Our product idea tackles the analysis of massive amounts of data. Thus, we
require relatively high computing power, data storage and bandwidth, and a
rich, interactive UI. Consequently, we are going for a more traditional
desktop app approach.

IMO, there's nothing wrong with either web, desktop, mobile, or whatever,
which is why I don't understand the web vs. desktop wars that sometimes rage
around here. Just use the right tool for the job.

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ABrandt
I agree, but I really look at it in terms of what best suits your customer's
needs.

Thats why I can't wait to get my hands on Atlas and give Cappuccino a whirl.
Complete flexibility between desktop and the web could create a one-size-fits-
all solution.

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wglb
Not a web app nor a desktop product, but back office b2b ecommerce
application. And yes, it is written in Lisp.

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andrewtj
My startup's a Wide-Area Bonjour service (DNS with client updates, long lived
queries and a convention for service discovery) which squares it in the
client/server camp although it does have a web interface. The next thing I
want to do isn't a (strict) web offering either.

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sstrudeau
My former roommate and good friend Joe is trying to start a brew pub near
Madison, WI. His blog chronicling the process and related topics:

<http://republicbrewpub.blogspot.com/>

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TrevorJ
These guys are in my town and do an excellent job of marketing themselves. I
get the impression that the business is run very well. They have a really good
internet presence - might be worth contacting them and picking the owners
brain a bit seeing as your market is similar (upper midwest) but distanced
enough to not be a huge direct competitor.

<http://www.newhollandbrew.com/>

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grellas
As someone who represents many startups from the legal angle, I have a good
number of clients (especially serial entrepreneurs) who are attacking "high-
value problems" faced by enterprise customers, and these often involve the
more traditional desktop/server types of products - these may not be the most
numerous but they are by far the most substantial in terms of resources
invested and likelihood of high-value ($100M+) outcome.

That said, a large number of my startup clients (probably 60%+) are doing web-
related apps as well.

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z8000
I am working on a service for game developers that lets them add multiuser
activities to end-user apps (say, an iPhone game). The difference from other
services is that we host referees server side to watch over or officiate
activities. The referees are created by the developers themselves, and since
they run server side, deployment, cheat prevention, and client app creation
are greatly simplified. Client apps become semi-dumb terminals. None of this
is web based.

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markbao
Working on a mobile device and mobile wireless network...
[http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqtqypaxuy1qz...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqtqypaxuy1qzawjoo1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1255210293&Signature=ibiZdYwRSw2gNEMO2ZpnZTRVLX8%3D)

<http://avecora.com>

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rarrrrrr
SpiderOak.com code includes plenty of client-side software. It's a zero-
knowledge online storage/share/sync system, founded in '06.

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flybrand
I run the US operations for a capital equipment company. We make equipment
that makes nanofibers. This sounds high tech, but it isn't; our customers are
textile, nonwovens, paper and filter companies. All of the modern
pharmaceutical miracles are made possible by advanced filtration.
www.elmarco.com

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ryszard99
My GF is starting up a business in head hunting in the energy sector:
<http://www.boolos.com/>

predictably times are slow right now so to lift the profile of our startup she
has created a blog at blog.boolos.com which is well received by her peers.

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nearestneighbor
These seem to be mostly discussed here:

<http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz>

I'm curious what the mathematical expectation of rewards per unit of effort
put into various types of startups is. No one has probably tried to collect
this sort of data.

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DanielBMarkham
I am.

I think there are some things you can do on the desktop that you can't do on
the web. Or another way of looking at this -- the OS is simply a vastly
complex web browser.

I thought about iPhone and Palm WebOS, but iPhone is saturated and Palm has
crippled WebOS from doing anything truly fun.

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mbrubeck
Mobile software (e.g. iPhone apps) is another big category for recent
startups. Personally I'm working at a startup developing mobile software that
may be distributed along with hardware (through an OEM or other partnership
with a manufacturer).

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jpwagner
It's great to broaden one's thought processes to relate to all kinds of
startups.

I'd be curious to know who's working on non-software startups. Tim Ferriss got
started with an energy/vitamin supplement.

~~~
2_ghosts
Agreed. I'd love to hear more along these lines.

My fiancee and I have formed a company around her custom jewelry and fashion
designs. We're getting all the pieces in place and are very close to
launching.

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andr
Me and a friend are starting a healthy-eating salad bar, the first in the
city. It's very different from programming, which is what excited me the most
about the project.

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noodle
i'm attempting to build one based on hacker-ish, somewhat collaborative
principles. its slow going, though, because it at least partly involves steel
manufacture, as well as electronics design.

its an interesting prospect, since the niche isn't huge, but it has potential,
and because the margins on some of the things i'm looking to produce will
likely be thin, at least to start. definitely different from how something
like a web app works.

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pkc
Our product has both desktop as well as web parts to it. Some of the code
needs to be executed on the client machine which in no way we can shift to
server.

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nobody_nowhere
Large-scale, low-latency decision server. Will have some web console tools,
but they're ancillary to the core product.

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elblanco
My company started as a native app company, but we are slowly migrating a
legacy technology to the web.

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andrewljohnson
I used to have a web start-up, but we didn't make any money. Now we make
iPhone app and have money.

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zentux
I've just started to work on a "Face Recognition" startup ...

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yrashk
we're working on some primarily SIP-based service where web app plays
relatively small (although still important) role — a kind of an admin UI

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rajeshamara
I am trying to do that

