[bluedays]

> Here's a thought experiment: would you be willing to share one of your great ideas with us?

Sure why not. Here’s an idea that I had that I lost interest in because of required capital investment in a physical product.

I hate giving my phone to people but lately I have to do that frequently either because they need to scan it for whatever reason or they can’t read it or whatever. I wanted to make a credit card sized e-ink card that would mirror whatever barcode or QR code or whatever was required. You give them the card instead of handing over your device. I was thinking about $25 would be a great price point.

[conductr]

Good luck finding enough people looking for solutions to this problem and reaching them, that's the ??? part. And it's the part you need to convince me is realistic if you were just looking for the investment capital part.

There are plenty of software only solutions you could devise. Just send them the QR code, send them a link of screen share, etc. If the only real problem is they insist on holding and scanning a physical device, the real problem is their process and you should try to disrupt that. Airports have solved this in theory, they have QR code on boarding passes then have a DIY scanner when needed (when boarding and going through TSA). However, in practice I still see people handing over their devices to a human regularly for various reasons. My guess is you'll find the real issue is people just don't care enough to put up resistance. Ie. if you said "I'll hold it" or something, could they just scan it while it was in your hand? They probably could and would in a large number of cases.

[tacker2000]

Thanks for sharing!

Sounds kind of useful, but imho I think most people dont want more devices to carry around, to charge, run updates, and whatnot, i also dont think many people would pay 25 bucks for that kind of device. So the market for this kind of device is probably very small. Maybe sell it as luxury item? Who knows…

Also, maybe a smart watch could be used to fullfil this feature already?

[bluedays]

Considering the cost of a $600-1000 device that could easily be dropped and damaged, there’s also the issue of privacy.

As driver’s licenses become digitized, not everyone would be comfortable handing their phone over to authorities, especially those from vulnerable groups.

I think it’s a product that has a lot of potential

[rpxio]

I like to think through example use cases from the perspective of the assumed customer segment.

From your example: I am from a vulnerable group and I am uncomfortable handing over my phone to authorities. If I am uncomfortable with handing over my phone, why would I digitize my license where I would then be forced to do so? If I was looking for an alternative solution to this problem, it would need to be more convenient than just carrying my existing ID, since the whole advantage of digitizing my ID is so that I don't have to risk losing it. If I have to carry a separate device, that advantage is lost.

Also I would actually talk to the people in the vulnerable groups to validate these assumptions before getting too invested in the narratives. They may not be as concerned as you think or may not have considered the risks.

[bluedays]

You make good points but judging but by the march of progress I doubt it’ll be optional in the future to digitize your id.

[nicgrev103]

Cool idea, but ultimately it doesn't matter what I or anyone else thinks of your idea, it's about your customer. I'd say don't build a product but instead build a landing page with the 'product' for sale (get some design mock ups done) then try and sell it and see what happens. This is similar to what the article says about talking to users but instead bypasses any mistakes you might make and getting false positives. If people buy that's a great indication there is demand and you can then evaluate if you should build it or not.

[lelanthran]

AKA the vapourware approach.

The problem with that is that you're burning goodwill before you even launch.

People land on the page, click BUY, get told that it doesn't exist yet, and spread the word that you're selling vapourware. The next time you have an actual good idea, you'll have no takers.

[nicgrev103]

But you aren't actually taking peoples money, if you were, I agree you burn bridges and get a bad reputation, however it's very easy to rebrand and I'm not suggesting to do that for thousands of customers just enough to decide if it's worth building or not.

[lelanthran]

I'm not trying to be mean, but I wouldn't call that a great idea.[1]

I've never had to hand my phone to anyone for scanning, because I can simply hold it under the scanner myself.

Anyway, if you follow the steps in the linked article, you'll soon discover if this is a great idea or a poor idea.

[1] Of course, techies have long since missed out on profitable ideas because they saw how technically inferior the idea is and not how user-friendly it is - "Less space than a Nomad. No Wifi. Lame"

[Nezteb]

To anyone on iOS, this situation can be made easier with guided access: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202612

Temporarily lock your screen to a specific app/view and selectively disable functionality like switching apps or typing.