| Hi - I'm building a networked spreadsheet product and had heard of this auto-correct problem in genomics research through word of mouth a couple of times, so have asked this question myself. (I was astonished to learn just how much of genomics work involves sending Excel files back and forth!) Here's the conclusion that I have come to: - It's definitely possible to build a custom spreadsheet product with a small team, even one targeted at such a "niche" user group. So it's an idea worth testing. - Product can be "backwards compatible" - you can export to xlxs and import from xlxs - so you don't have to change behaviour of the entire industry on day one to get this to work, only a single genomics researcher or lab. - Pricing, unit economics, etc are unknown to me (I have no background in genomics or scientific research). But presumably you could leverage standard SaaS models and build a viable model up from there using a few case studies. There's definitely schleppy behaviour going on here that can be solved. - Even a "lifestyle business" has significant upside beyond the financial: improving genomics research improves genomic research! - The product advantage over time presumably involve building more custom tooling into the genomics / data ecosystem. "Not creating typos" is just the beachhead. I've never actually interviewed genomics people about their need here, but if anyone knows people with this problem I would love to talk to them: @mceoin on twitter. (DMs open) |