Validate your problems, startup ideas to create products which people want

Shopify alternative #eCommerce #website

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 15:51:00 +0000

The story is same as with Patreon ( /problems/390 ) and Gumroad ( /problems/399 ) with Shopify, The small businesses are at mercy of obscure policies and lackluster support often leading to payment delays and account blocking.

Famous TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz had recently shared his ordeal with Shopify where it froze his bookstore account while continuing to take payments from his customers.

There are numerous other stories from those who have faced similar issues with Shopify. It's clear that there's large need-gap in the space of eCommerce websites in-spite of numerous alternatives.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

A simple event management platform #events #web

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 18:02:00 +0000

I was speaking to my 19-year-old sister recently, and she was telling me about how she and her friends create a WhatsApp group for any social event they plan together. I thought this is a little crazy, since those groups just become stale soon after the event is over, and WhatsApp gets filled with unnecessary items.

Then I realized, that this is the younger generation, many of whom have never been on Facebook. I'm fairly confident that many in this group are not even aware that something like Facebook Events even exists. I'm 26, and my friends would always use Facebook Events for planning such events.

I know that there are also many others, who want to leave Facebook, but benefit from using Facebook Events to plan events.

I have a good feeling that it would be great to have a simple platform that helps create and manage small events, like birthday parties.

3 points posted by perry

Analytics data without cookies or fingerprinting #analytics #web

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 16:43:00 +0000

All industry-standard methods to collect data for web analytics are relying on the identification of recurring visitors and transmitting personal data to third-party companies. The problem here is the data privacy aspect.

Within the European Union this constellation leads to incomplete data in web analytics. Consent banners are implemented on websites to block any trackers and only allow tracking once visitors click something like 'yes please track me'. Obviously, a high number of visitors does not accept that.

For some use-cases, there is no alternative to visitor consent and profiling-based tracking. Just think of aggregating customer data within your CRM or tracking conversions and reporting them to ad networks. But there are other analytics tasks that would not require personal data or the identification of visitors.

Plain statistics about the number of website sessions, acquisition channels, or the performance of your content could be generated from technical website activity data without any connection to a visitor. We would not even require the IP addresses for this.

3 points posted by matthias

Existing deployment services aren't portable #web #jamstack

Sun, 27 Mar 2022 20:07:00 +0000

Currently, existing deployment platform such as Vercel or Netlify, enforce users to use their own CDN. This turns out to be an expensive solution when traffic is high or team is large. It'd be nice to benefit from their nice developer experience while still owning our deployment artifacts and deciding where to upload / host these files. 3 points posted by svedova

Web page categorization #web #category

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 13:33:00 +0000

Website categorization is the process of classifying websites into different categories using its content. Categorization of websites is useful for aggregation, security, moderation, archiving etc.

There are are several website categorization tools which work fine for well-known websites, But fail for newer websites or web pages with lesser text content. This limits the use cases for which those tools could be used.

I'm exploring whether there's a need-gap for more robust website categorization tool which can identify the category of modern websites, web pages with lesser text content.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Social media handles of companies #socialmedia #webscrapping

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 12:40:00 +0000

I would like to tag the companies I tweet or post about, But have to search for the company's Twitter (or) Facebook handle manually each time and If don't find them on the platform, I have to visit their website to find them.

It would be easier if I am able to get the social media handles of the companies I'm tweeting about automatically.

1 points posted by Jonas

Link rot, Invalid web URLs #web #archive

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 13:27:00 +0000

Link rotting is when a particular URL is not valid anymore, Usually because the content has been removed. Link rot is an issue we face with needgap as the majority of links here are of side-projects and when the project unfortunately ceases to exist the links become invalid.

If the links are automatically archived then it can help the community can understand what it offered and perhaps even help understanding why it didn't succeed.

Of course link rot is not specific to needgap, Whole wide web is affected by the link rot.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Boilerplate for building SaaS products #SaaS #web

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 20:46:00 +0000

Every user-facing SaaS product requires a basic set of features that are common to every SaaS. This includes features like:

user registration / authentication
email / password reset (general app settings and user preferences)
sending emails
file storage on cloud services
error tracking
deployment configuration files
payments!

Implementing these features is a major distraction for founders, because this takes up time they cannot spend building their own business logic. And when done correctly, this can easily take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

3 points posted by siddhantgoel

Small business's dependency on eCommerce giants #eCommerce #SelfReliance

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 05:10:00 +0000

Small businesses sell their product on large eCommerce websites for their discovery and ease of use but are subject to their monopolistic behavior and loose out when the algorithms of the giants decide that their product is not good enough for their profit margin.

The solution for this has been for the businesses to have their eCommerce platform and there have been plenty of hosted or self-hosted tools to enable that.

Yet vast majority of small business are yet to venture into having their own eCommerce platform for various reasons such as,

Awareness: Many just don't know that they can have their own eCommerce platform where they have better control over their sales.
Discovery: They feel their product wouldn't be discovered on their own platform and they could be right. So discovery for products from small business needs to be addressed.
Setup & Maintenance: Although the barriers to setup eCommerce platforms have come down drastically, It's still not accessible to someone who's not technically inclined. So they are forced to spend money on companies which would do it for them and often lock them to sub-par proprietary software and expensive life-long maintenance fees.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Colors look different according to the browser #webdevelopment #color

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 16:11:00 +0000

Colors are displayed differently in each browser. The reasons are explained in detail by Matthew Szatmary, In summary - browsers and standards are a mess.

During development and video production I have to test in different browsers for adjusting to this and it consumes lot of effort.

I feel there is a need-gap in solutions for testing color accuracy across browsers.

3 points posted by Roman

Selling hardware products as a solopreneur #sales #ecommerce

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 14:16:00 +0000

I want to sell hardware products internationally, But as a solopreneur meeting compliance for hardware locally and internationally is a nightmare and hence I settle for building SaaS products like most other indie hackers.

There are hardware product marketplaces like Tindie which help solopreneurs get their customers, But the seller has to still maintain the inventory and ship directly to the buyer. Today hosting a eCommerce website as an individual is not the limiting factor even for those who don't know to code, So the real need gap exists in removing the compliance and shipping hurdles.

With tough competition in SaaS industry, Building hardware products is a great way to differentiate our product line-up. With the rising number of solopreneurs I think it's high time this need gap gets addressed.

I have couple of ideas to address this which I'll share in the comments and would like to hear more from you.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Make entry level webcam better #webcam #video

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 17:27:00 +0000

Now that many are working from home, webcams are of demand and often unavailable. Even when available, they are the same ones from a decade ago.

e.g. Logitech C270 debuted 10 years back, I even had one which I gave it to someone about 6 years ago as I didn't use it much at that time. Guess what, I had to buy the same webcam again now for 40 USD!

Which other tech from a decade ago are we still buying as it is? I can't believe entry level webcams hasn't gotten better when the phone cameras on even entry level smartphone gets better every 6 months.

What is happening with the webcams?

3 points posted by Zimochrome

Notification for selective portions of web/pdf #notification #webscrapping

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 07:02:00 +0000

There are still websites which provide daily updated data but don't have an app or even if they do; they don't provide notifications for the selective data I'm interested in. In such cases, I'm left with the only option to check those websites or apps regularly.

e.g. Commodity seller's price list, Banking sites which provide forex data.

Often, what I require from these pdf or other web content are just small pieces of information which can be sent over through notifications instead of having to spend the time in visiting these websites/apps or having to remember to do so.

Essentially I'm looking for a tool, which allows me to select a particular piece of information on the web or pdf to be sent as notifications at the intervals set by me, if the information is updated.

Has anyone else faced this problem? Or have a solution to this? do let me know.

3 points posted by Bakshara

Hiding spoilers of shows and movies in the web #web #spoilers

Sat, 14 Sep 2019 15:52:00 +0000

When I haven't watched the latest episode of a very famous show or haven't watched a famous movie, I am forced to go off the grid (off Internet) until I have watched the show or movie because of the spoilers.

Currently I am using blocker plugins on browsers such as Ublock Origin to block comment section of certain websites, unsubscribe from subreddits related to that show or movie to prevent spoilers. These methods are not efficient, in turn loose the benefits of comments and non-spoiler content from my favourite subreddits as well.

I think there is a need gap for spoiler blocking considering how much media coverage famous shows and movies are getting nowadays. 3 points posted by Book Lover

Identifying letter O from 0 and vice versa #typography #web

Sun, 01 Sep 2019 12:24:00 +0000

Often I come across a situation on the web where I have to spend time deciphering whether the character is English alphabet O or the number 0 but almost always get it wrong. Due to seemingly unlimited number of fonts on the web, websites especially one involving some random alphanumeric codes often suffer from this issue.

I think, this is purposeful for captcha to deliberately put automated tools into misery; but this happens way too often with general text i.e those which are not in captcha as well.

I would like to have some kind of tool, which helps me differentiate 0 from O and vice versa on demand.

3 points posted by Jack Ward

Top visited, shared content in a website #analytics #web

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 16:50:00 +0000

When I read a good article from a random blog or website, I would like to read other top rated content from the same website. By top rated, I mean the most visited and shared content from the same website.

Most websites don't have any widget to rank their best articles. I would like to know if there is any tool which one can use to get the top ranked content from any website and if not is there a need gap for this?

2 points posted by Yogesh Basu