What would your dream search tool look like?

January 04, 2020

by a professional from University of Chicago in Boston, MA, USA

Having experience as a software engineer and as an investment associate in the past, I’m eager to apply my technology skills to make searchers’ lives easier.

If you are currently searching or have searched in the past for a business to acquire, I am interested in conducting a user interview with you to discuss what your bottlenecks and challenges are with your current set of tools. My objective is to build a tool that searchers could use to them optimize their search process.

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Reply by a searcher
from University of Dallas in Houston, TX, USA

What doesn't exist on the market (at least we haven't found a good one). Is an open source API to help with the pre-validation of email addresses against the server before contacting that server formally via email. That is a complex piece of technology, but something that could be accomplished by a one man band. We've done some R&D on the subject but shelved it for other projects. There are paid APIs available through providers they are so-so. The market could really easily support something that is open-source that allows for that pre-check stage and uses a small amount of linear algebra. The math would determine if similarly structured strings of named addresses are likely to be real or valid. Other than that and a few other specialized tools - I would say that the vast majority of tools available on the market such as our (www.tryoncourse.com) Sales Automation and CRM platform that consolidates every tool a searcher would really need are sufficient for search. There are massive teams building the tools mentioned in this forum so you will need to focus on something niche. Wed build this if someone would pay us to do it but its a back burner item for now.

Reply by a searcher
from Northwestern University in Minneapolis, MN, USA

Sarthak, I’m also very interested in this topic. One idea I picked up from the IndieHackers podcast for finding a customer need: look for patterns of tasks that your potential customers are doing in spreadsheets. Especially if you can find a common task that involves a lot of manual data entry where the data is coming from an external site with an API. You could connect the data via that API and save people a lot of time. I’m relatively new to learning about search funds and the processes involved, but I’d be happy to chat about searcher software ideas and a framework for discovering opportunities. Drop me a note if you want to connect.

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