exploratisserie

list of problems to be solved

This was going to be a rant of sorts, but I thought… why not be constructive? Because being constructive is positive and positive thinking is good, and I am a positive person (oh gosh, that’s such a lie).

Living in the Silicon Valley and having friends in the startup scene because we are all oh-so-geeky together, I come across my fair share of entrepreneurs.  It frustrates me to no end when I hear people go through some iteration of the following thought process: “my research interest is this, so what kind of startup can I make?” or “I made this thing that I think is totally cool; now I’m trying to find a market for it.” Don’t even get me started on the boatload of “social media” startups that do essentially the same thing. Oh yeah, I’m totally going to find a more effective way for you to analyze all this useless information. Ok, sorry. Constructive.

We live in a bubble where there is so much noise and empty encouragement.  If you really want to make something work, I think you should go through some sort of thinking process like: “Wow, this is a pain in the ass.  How can I make it better?” Problems that real people have - not problems that you have because you want to find a better way to update your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plancast, Thread, Foursquare, Gowalla, DailyBooth, LinkedIn, Wine Lovers’ Guild (does this even exist? Probably.), a million other more niche social networks at the same time… and get a huge centralized feed of everything your “friends” are doing… and become the master of Internet stalking. Chances are you’re probably friends with the same people on all these social networks anyway.

List of problems that haven’t adequately been solved by a product (or please enlighten me)

1. Splitting checks at restaurants - people eat together all the time, and splitting the bill should not be such a pain.
2. Payment processing fees online, especially for small amounts
3. Getting up in the morning and commuting to work without wanting to pull your hair out
4. Not having time to do everything you want
5. Not being able to clean things efficiently - and then you get them dirty and then you have to clean them again
6. Not being on time or dealing with other people who are not on time
7. Not knowing what you want to do with your life - wow, maybe I am getting way too existential here.  Back up.
8. Seeing text message grammar - There needs to be a filter that auto-converts text message grammar to normal speak so I never have to see it.  Pretty please, someone make it.
9. Buying too much food at the grocery store and having to throw it out because it went bad
10. Not being able to find food anywhere after 11 PM in suburbia.  Babies are dying.
11. Being stuck with the same cell phone carrier for 2 years and not being to use the phone I want on the network I want
12. Returning things you bought online - some companies do a good job with this but most don’t.  You don’t get fully refunded, have to find packaging, have to pay for shipping, etc.
13. Consolidating accounting data and uploading it to a system efficiently - ok, maybe this is a work problem specific to me, but it’s so annoying. Whenever people make manual journal entries (ok, why do people need to make manual journal entries in the first place?), I have to copy and paste from their spreadsheet into this master spreadsheet of doom, link them to a summary tab in the crazy spreadsheet to make sure everything balances out, and manually type each account in. Seriously?  This is maybe 2% of my total work responsibilities but it’s the day out of the quarter that I hate the most. I work for a huge company that has billions of dollars in revenue each month.  Why can’t there be a better accounting system?
14. Tracking inventory through a manufacturing process - We have a system for doing this, but it’s seriously retarded and not flexible at all.  Granted, it’s over ten years old, but still.  You’d think that companies would have some sort of standard solution.  I probably can’t talk about this in depth without getting into some serious confidentiality trouble, but yeah.  Take it offline.
15. Stupid people are reproducing a lot and are going to take over the world. No, I’m not some crazy “survival of the fittest and everyone who can’t survive on their own should not pass on their genetic material” person.  But the human species is surely devolving as we speak.  I’m going to stop before I get into trouble, but seriously robots… and genetic engineering.  Oh my gosh, let’s not go into these all-encompassing world-hunger-AIDS-babies-dying-Snookie-is-famous-but-I’m-not types of problems. At least not in this post. Later.

Why do my lists always become crazier and crazier?  I’m not an expert, nor do I claim to be.  Oh my gosh, the trolls.  This was totally ranty and totally not constructive (I’m not typing in all caps, so I’m totally not ranting), and now everyone knows all my problems are. I’m going to seriously hide under a rock right now and drink wine… maybe join the Wine Lovers’ Guild.  Taking a break.  I guess I will add things onto this list as time goes on.

What are your problems, you know… in life?

location-based marketing for things that move around

Last night I had a craving for Girl Scout cookies: thin mint types, specifically. But I didn’t know where any of the Girl Scouts in Menlo Park were. I know what you’re thinking: if this is my biggest problem at 2AM (while I’m sick and have to get up at 7AM the next day), there’s probably something seriously wrong with me.

But in the greater context of things in life (because we must always extrapolate generalities from mundane details in life - I know, right? Wisdom!), it’s freaking hard to find things that move around: Girl Scouts, food carts, hippies that sell the pretty pretty earrings in Berkeley, hookers, drug dealers, etc. There are no permanent addresses you can search on Google Maps, and Craigslist is not very map/real-time friendly. There’s Twitter, but it’s hard for smaller merchants to acquire a lot of followers, and it’s kind of annoying to be following all these food carts all the time (too much noise, spam, not hungry all the freaking time - or rather, getting fat all the freaking time = not good, sort by location sucks).

I just want to search “Girl Scout cookies” and see a map where all the Girl Scouts are selling cookies rightfuckingnow. Or maybe also in an hour or so, marked in a different color, because I can probably wait an hour. Maybe. Perhaps they can even have profiles with ratings in case they are dirty, dirty liars. We can also be nice to them and share data around where people are looking for Girl Scout cookies… so the “providers” can come to you; that would make me even happier! All your cookies are belong to me. Screw no arbitrage – I’m going to ping the server a ton, hoard them all, and then sell them at a premium during off-season.

Casey thinks I’m seriously creepy for wanting a “Girl Scout Trackr” application on the iPhone (because everyone knows that all good things on the Internet are misspelled). In his words, “what would all the Asian mothers say when their daughters become ‘providers’” and exist to give people their ‘fix’?  Objectify little girls less, right?  Perhaps it can be called “The Source” and provide all the things that people crave / want that move around. I really don’t know why Foursquare, Loopt, etc. aren’t integrating this into their services.

Someone make it, please. I’ll proselytize. No seriously, I’ll find all the Girl Scouts and all the soccer moms that enable them (because they are the ones with the fancy iPhones - unless you’re in Menlo Park, I guess).

Or bring me some cookies :)