

Ask HN: What tech problems would you glady pay $25 a month for a SAAS solution? - seanpackham


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seanpackham
I asked this question wanting to know what day to day issues people struggle
with, what tasks they repeat a dozen times a day, what 20 process step can be
reduced to 3 or even better completely automated.

Thank you for the answers so far!

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ig1
From validation. It's a pain to write validation code and to do it cleanly,
give me an ajax service that I can hand the validation off to. I just want to
be able to say field x is a number, field y is an address, etc.

~~~
seanpackham
Hmm I think trying to convert such a task into a service will always introduce
some language to describe your field and it's constraints and then you might
as well write it yourself.

Also with such a critical part of your system, getting information from your
user, if the service is slow or down you will run into troubles.

What specific programming languages and/or frameworks do you require a
solution for? Please let me know if I missed the point completely. Thanks for
your answer!

~~~
ig1
Well I was imagining some kind of ajax thing that validated fields on the fly
as the user filled them in.

Validation is non-trivial for many fields. For example almost no-one
implements email validation correctly as per the RFC because it's hard to get
right, and most people just use a hacky regex that ends up accepting invalid
emails and rejecting valid ones.

Or with credit card validation, many places don't validate credit card numbers
(i.e doing the validation checksum, checking if the card is a mastercard that
it's got the mastercard prefix) before sending them to the card processor
site. If the card processing services rejects the card and the user has to re-
enter the card details, chance are they won't bother and you've lost yourself
a sale. If you validated for obvious mistakes on-the-fly (i.e user sees error
immediately) you wouldn't lose as many of those customers.

You could also do things like supplementing the user supplied data, say the
user supplies an address you could automatically geocode it and put it in a
hidden field for the website.

~~~
codegeek
So you mean client side validation correct? I mean to validate form submission
that needs server side information, you would still need to build something on
your own.

~~~
ig1
Yes. Normally a user filling in a form is the last step before conversion
(signup, purchase, etc) so any users you lose at that step are horrendously
expensive, good client side validation can make a significant difference.

Validation for the purpose of having clean data in your database is obviously
important too, but less so. But obviously if you had a service for providing
the first it wouldn't be hard to offer it as a server side services as well.

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RileyJames
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're after, but it is tech business
related.

Currently frustrated that highrise does not timestamp tags, or allow tags to
be sorted by a timestamp.

If you could add that feature as a plugin or via their api I would gladly pay
$25 per month.

Haven't looked extensively for a solution, but it's certainly a pain point at
the moment.

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AznHisoka
I'd want a SaaS that when given a URL of an article or piece of content I just
wrote... gives me a bunch of related Twitter followers, potential LinkedIn
Groups, bloggers, etc where I can pitch my content to. Content marketing tool,
so to speak. Hard problem, but hey, that's why I'd pay a lot for it.

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bhousel
$25/month is kind of an ambitious price point for small teams or individuals.
That's like implying that your service would be more valuable than Basecamp or
Github.

~~~
seanpackham
Surely it depends on the problem being solved though? If I was making a new
project management or source code hosting service I would have to think twice
about charging the same or more than my competitors alternatively I need to
compete on something other than price. Also if a you need a solution to
problem X how can the price point be compared to an established company
solving problem Y?

I'm curious, are you a developer?

~~~
bhousel
> _if a you need a solution to problem X how can the price point be compared
> to an established company solving problem Y?_

If problem X and problem Y both cost $25/month to solve, they should be
roughly equal pain-wise. By starting at price point of $25/month, and working
your way backwards to find problems, you should expect to be tackling Github-
or Basecamp-sized problems.

> _I'm curious, are you a developer?_

Yes, I'm a developer/consultant.

~~~
ohashi
I think that's non-sense. Just because X and Y cost the same to solve doesn't
mean they are equal pain-wise. It doesn't take into account any of relevant
factors like market size. I've seen a lot of services that are trivial in
comparison charge a lot more because it's a much smaller market and/or the
value of a very specific tool is worth far more for people in that niche.

~~~
bhousel
If X and Y cost the same but do not solve the same amount of pain, one of them
is underpriced.

~~~
ohashi
X and Y can cost the same amount and solve different amounts of pain and both
be priced accurately.

How?

Amount of Pain X Solves < Amount of Pain Y Solves

X solves a problem for a small market where the consumers are still find it
worth $25 to solve the problem and have less options.

Y solves a massive problem that a lot of people have (big market). Prices have
been driven to $25 by many competitors.

Different amounts of pain, different amounts of complexity, same price. Y's
price has been driven down to 25 by competitive factors. X's price is higher
because a lack of competitors. All this requires is that one is under-priced
relative to value delivered but not to the market's competitive forces.
Therefore neither is under priced given the reality of both sides of the
market.

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sharemywin
social network api where user can login via different networks and import
contacts/friends/following. Must be able to have different types of users. and
add extra fields like hobbies etc. on sign up form. Must have a javascript
widgets I can drop on a screen and cusomtze look and feel or api I can call
with backend. Tracking of user. User can share/post message to friends
followers etc. mobile sdk also.

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TimJRobinson
Good automatic accounting that can handle multiple accounts and multiple
currencies. In fact I would pay $100 a month for this.

~~~
seanpackham
By automatic do you mean it should hook into your accounts and automatically
categorize various items as expenses and provide an income statement and
balance sheet every month?

~~~
TimJRobinson
Yep, as automatic as possible. It could try and auto categorize items and
allow the user to fine tune the categorization. But basically doing what an
accountant normally does automatically.

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pdenya
Document to Document conversion API. eg: docx => pdf

should be secure, auto detect formats, etc.

~~~
bdunbar
There are a lot of guys out there that do this - are they lacking in some way
that could be improved?

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stewie2
full featured photoshop alternative. full featured 3d max alternative.

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alpine
Smart monitoring tool that would automatically check:

\- Front end web site availability

\- APIs available

\- Back end processes are running

\- Database up

\- Disk space available

\- Error logs for important issues

The database checks would include referencal integrity and sanity checks on
volumes to warn of potential issues eg a failed module or abuse by a user.

Daily and weekly reports by Email, RSS, Twitter, web tool. SMS for emergencies
requiring immediate action.

Option to have support from a Sys Admin/DBA automatically trigger to fix minor
issues.

~~~
tgriesser
I recently came across <http://amon.cx/> which does a few of the things you
mentioned, and it's a one time purchase (with a free basic version) rather
than a SaaS. Might be worth taking a look at.

~~~
dholowiski
Wow thanks, I need that. Can't believe it's only $25.

