Roast my startup idea: Pictell - A translator for image-based Text.

Zhao Naomi
10 replies
Target audience: Multi-national teams and Multilingual nomads Problem: They spend a lot of time manually identifying foreign text on images in chats, shared documents, and websites; making communication less effective. Solution: Automatically translate text on images to your preferred language on the original images. Landing page: https://mmntm.me/pictellai Do you know of anything like this? What do you currently use to translate content on images in foreign languages? What do you think of the landing page and explanations? Thanks for your time and insight provided, much appreciated!

Replies

André J
Launching soon!
I think the niche is a bit small. But I could be wrong. Where do you go after you have solved this? How does this become a $100m company?
Zhao Naomi
@sentry_co I didn't expect to turn it into a huge company, you know. It started as a personal project to challenge myself and make some extra money if I was lucky.
André J
Launching soon!
@zhao_naomi Sure. But on the internet things become either nothing, or big. There are very few things in between. And to make something big, you just have to figure out how.
Zhao Naomi
@sentry_co Absolutely! I completely agree with you. The internet has a way of amplifying things to an extraordinary degree. Let's watch and learn as we go along.
Lord Brian Dean-Madanamootoo
Hey @zhao_naomi , I personally find: - that your Target Audience is not set (Audience should be for e.g. Working young Professional/Students, between 20-30 years, who worked, study in a foreign country [limited to countries with foreign alphabets]) - The problem is not clear, (It should be something like : X% of Foreign Professionals/Students can't communicate in Group Chats because of XYZ) Right now, it doesn't seem to be a problem at all. - OCR solutions exists already, what's new in your solution? How is it disruptive? or Unique? Do you know of anything like this? - Discord has auto text and Image Translator bots, you can add it for free in any of your Servers. What do you currently use to translate content on images in foreign languages?- I don't and maybe I'm not the right audience but i can't think of anyone in my network who face this "Problem" What do you think of the landing page and explanations? - I understand the global idea but not the pain point or how this is a solution. Right now its like a "Nice to Have" but not a need and i'm not sure i would pay for that. Hopes that helps :)
Zhao Naomi
@lord_svp Thank you very much for your sincere reply and for taking the time to share your thoughts. I truly appreciate it. My target users are individuals who may not have strong foreign language skills but possess excellent technical abilities. It's true that in today's society, there are more opportunities for remote work abroad, but poor language skills can lead to communication difficulties and social challenges with team members. I understand this pain point because I have also been a member of such a team. Currently, my way of translating image text is very traditional - using OCR recognition, copying the output content, and then pasting it into translation software. However, I feel that this process is time-consuming, which is why I came up with the idea for Pictell. I realize that this may not be a large market, but I hope to provide value to this small group of people and empower those to actively seek foreign job opportunities. This will allow them to showcase their skills on a better platform and improve their income levels.
Lord Brian Dean-Madanamootoo
@zhao_naomi These details make things completely different, I think you should add that to your product and website. Your solution is more of an Add-on the an existing Communication or professional management tool (time, team, etc) In that direction i think that your market will be much bigger and you can keep adding plugins for your users.
Peyt Spencer Dewar
Interesting idea. Could be helpful for travelers looking at signs. By the way, why aren’t you using the domain pictell.ai? It currently doesn’t exist.
Zhao Naomi
@psd Before I buy the domain I wanna have the landing page to validate my idea first. So I used third-party software, Momentum, to build it, making the validation process as fast and easy as possible.