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Apply HN: Eat My Dust - Home testing for dangerous materials

by hagope on 4/8/16, 3:06 PM with 69 comments

• by gleb on 4/8/16, 7:32 PM

  * If I had this idea here's how I'd approach to validating it.

    Solve the problem for yourself
  

  Google and you'll find that there is [mold inspection], [lead inspection], water tests, and both professional and direct-to-consumer versions of the above.

  I would get a professional mold inspector, and compare the results to direct-to-consumer lab tests like http://www.amazon.com/MyMoldDetective-MMD100-Mold-Test-Kit/d...

  Same for other tests.

  I'd expect this to take maybe 20 hours of billable time doing research and logistics, $2-3k for inspections and tests, and 1 month of calendar time.

    Research the market
  

  Look at keyword search volumes. For example, using free version of https://www.semrush.com/ we get

    Keyword Volume
    mold inspection       4,400
    mold test kit	        8,100
    lead inspection         260
    lead paint test kit	1,900
  

  Figure 4 billable hours doing that

  * If I were considering investing into such company the questions I'd ask myself would be:

    * would this area be a passion for the founders
    * is this a good market
    * can the founders execute on this idea
  

  Based on the info presented and my priors my answers would be:

    * No
    * Yes
    * No
  

  So what I would say would be:

  "This is a good idea and the market. I think it's a little to early for you to raise money. Consider solving the problem for yourself and better understanding existing solutions. I'd love to chat again once you are further ahead."

• by pnathan on 4/8/16, 6:10 PM

  What do you offer over this?

  http://www.amazon.com/WaterSafe-Water-Test-Kit-Lead/dp/B000Q...

  What kind of guarantees can you deliver that you're not yet another company without accountability- this is important stuff, and accountability for correctness is kind of a big deal.

  The array of brands offering home test kits on amazon is incredible. I don't know any of them, and I don't know their reliability; nor do I know enough about this space to select the correct one. How do you differentiate yourself?

• by davidw on 4/8/16, 6:15 PM

  I'd look into/think about: what happens when the kit does not detect something that then causes harm to someone.

  Is that likely? Could it happen? What might happen legally?

  I'd likely consider buying something like that, though, if it were cheap.

  Something that would be positive: testing for 'unknown unknowns' - people are becoming more conscious of things like radon, but if this test were likely to pick up a wide range of random stuff, it'd be more useful.

• by abakker on 4/8/16, 7:11 PM

  I would use this service regularly. I would recommend it to everyone, and I would be deeply interested in the results. I am a woodworker and do a fair amount of work with found materials. If simple toxin tests were available I would love to be able to regularly run test on material dust that I work with (MDF, hardwoods, other sheet good material).

  I also live in SF, in an older home. I would love to know what kind of stuff comes out of our aging carpets - how much of the dust that I vacuum up is the carpet. what is the average makeup of the dust over time, i.e. is the dust changing to include more mold? Less? are my cleaning routines helping?

  I have a mold allergy, detecting mold spores would be really good. Existing tests are not great, and not user friendly.

  Companies like Zillow might also be good recommendation engines, since most people buying a house probably want to know the answer to these questions.

• by dman on 4/8/16, 6:39 PM

  This sounds like a great idea, here are some thoughts about it that you could use to fine tune the pitch

  1. For people who use some kind of a cleaning service, the cleaners usually bring their own vacuum cleaner. In this case the owner might be unable to send you the dust. Would be interesting to look into what fraction of your target audience falls under this category.

  2. Would be nice if the service took the vacuum model number and sent out a box with a vacuum bag every n months, where the user could take their used vacuum bag put it in the box and mail it back, and use the new bag in the vacuum.

  3. Could this be refactored into some kind of device that one could fit into the vacuum? This way there would be no headache of mailing bags out.

  4. Whats the legality of sending out bags containing potential amounts of asbestos / toxins etc?

• by euroclydon on 4/8/16, 7:40 PM

  The problem with home environment testing is the expense of implementing the mitigations. That doesn't mean this business idea isn't great, but a nice twist to the website would be to acknowledge this hard reality up front.

  You could have a graphic of a home, all kinds of UI inputs:

  * SQ FT

  * Geographic location

  * Flooring type

  * etc...

  Then a list of potential problems. The user starts to enable the problems they may have, and a Turbo Tax money ticker starts rolling. Then they adjust sliders for mitigation options. More money counter ticking.

  If the cost if too high, sure I might not even order the test. But the sale would be consultative from the beginning, rather than the typical alarming approach.

• by buss on 4/8/16, 5:29 PM

  What experience do you have building out a lab? Can you make this work by sending the samples to an outside lab until you have traction?

  How much do you know about this industry? Are there regulations you need to meet? Who are the established big players, why aren't they doing this?

  How are you going to do this better than anyone else?

  How will you find customers?

• by GFK_of_xmaspast on 4/8/16, 5:43 PM

  How would you compete with things like http://www.amazon.com/Asbestos-Test-Includes-Postage-Fees/dp... and http://www.homedepot.com/p/LABTECH-H2O-OK-Plus-Complete-Wate...

• by dmlorenzetti on 4/8/16, 7:01 PM

  You might consider leveraging the data science component to help target the testing. For example, based on location, house age, construction type (basement/slab/etc.), run the numbers and balance the risk of exposure against the cost of a test. Then recommend "For your house, lead in the ground soil and asbestos in the shingles are the highest risk."

  See, for example, this (unfortunately now defunct) radon risk website: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/00/01/radon.html

  Data science might also help you recommend where to sample.

  Trouble with all this, of course, is collecting enough data to start making useful recommendations.

• by logicallee on 4/8/16, 6:12 PM

  Excellent idea. You sold me by the second or third sentence.

  Ignore anything you read from anyone else here: put it up and start making sales. Today.

  Go go go go go.

• by lbredeso on 4/8/16, 8:05 PM

  I love this idea and really want you to find a way to succeed, but certain aspects of this idea have risks you need to weigh.

  I can only comment on lead, because I've had home lead testing done by a professional. The worry I have with lead is that encouraging vacuuming for sample collection could conceivably cause lead contamination to spread. We were told by our tester that if we attempted to clean problem areas ourselves, to only use water and disposable rags to avoid spreading lead dust.

  Our lead tester used an XRF analyzer (these devices are expensive), which uses X-rays and requires no dust sampling. He could simply point it anywhere and see precisely where all the lead was.

  I wonder if it would be feasible to include a packet of special wipes instead of a single dust vial. Then users could individually wipe and label by room, and ship each wipe in a separate, sealed, labeled, plastic envelope. This could solve any dust contamination issues, but I suppose it's possibly harder to test for contaminants from a wipe than a vial.

• by nradov on 4/8/16, 6:19 PM

  Will a single vial of vacuum dust be representative of a whole dwelling? Will you be able to detect mold spores and other airborne contaminants which cause respiratory problems? It might be tough to get a good sample vacuum dust into a small vial in homes where the majority of vacuum canister contents consists of pet hair.

• by vblord on 4/8/16, 6:28 PM

  I would buy this right now if you had it. Hurry up please :-)

• by dzink on 4/9/16, 4:07 AM

  When we moved into a new house we noticed the air ducts were spewing out strange particles. I called around to see if there is an agency that could test if it's dangerous and the short answer was "we'd only test if we know what we're looking for". If you price this reasonably ($100 or less) and are able to test for a range of substances, I would buy your product in a heartbeat. Don't listen to the nay-sayers, launch a test kit with a list of things you're checking for and see how the market responds. You can try the home buyers / home owners / parents markets, as well as restaurants, hospitals, you name it.

• by jjallen on 4/8/16, 7:00 PM

  Also shouldn't home inspections when purchasing warn about asbestos and others similar risks? I suppose many people rent and the landlords may know or not care.

  This seems like a service business and not necessarily a startup. But on second thought, maybe there's a hardware device that could test everything wherever you went: air and water. Perhaps even you could scrape a chip of paint into it. Now that's something I would strongly consider buying. You could take it when traveling to ensure there are pollutants in your water. As a (hopefully) future parent, I worry about my kids being exposed to even minute amounts of lead.

• by KerryJones on 4/8/16, 6:58 PM

  I love this idea! What would be the turn-around time? I.e., I sign up, you send me a vial, I send it back, you test it, I get results -- from start to finish, how long do you think it will take?

  Also, do you have a potential cost in mind?

• by kumarski on 4/12/16, 7:09 AM

  Is this one of those incidentaloma things or are a lot of people actually living very toxic lives?

  When you did tests on 100 people's houses, were they surprised by the results enough to pay you for more data?

  There's enough fear around this kind of thing, but is there actually anything to fear once you look at the lay of the land of people's homes? (Similar to vitamin analogy... very few first worlders have vitamin deficiency, but there's entire vitamin aisles at the store)

• by bargl on 4/8/16, 5:51 PM

  I live in a area where Lead based paint is an assumption, and radon is a massive issue. The cost of getting work done is tremendous so I'd rather do it myself.

  How can this help me know what work I can DIY and what work is safer to hire out to someone who is an expert. Sure I can pay someone 2x as much to work on my kitchen but what is the relative risk to my health due to lead paint. It'd be nice if I could start a project and have sampling on a daily basis similar to what rad techs or a metric of information on how much lead is in the air as I'm working.

• by pmtarantino on 4/8/16, 3:17 PM

  What if it gives positive? Do you help me in finding a solution?

• by betadreamer on 4/8/16, 7:04 PM

  This is a great idea. I would definitely try it out.

  I'm pretty sure all parents have this concern especially when the doctor asks whether our place have lead and have no idea how to answer them. This is especially the case in the Bay Area where houses are old and is within the time frame of lead paint.

  Several concerns here though. How hard is it to test for these things and how much would you charge the customer? Usually lab work are expensive and might not be within the price range.

• by tedmiston on 4/12/16, 3:36 AM

  A friend that went through the R/GA Techstars '15 batch with my startup is solving a related problem of home air quality monitoring.

  You may find their approach interesting or if nothing else it's similar validation.

  Awair (previously Bitfinder) - https://getawair.com/

• by oneplusone on 4/8/16, 6:48 PM

  I have actually been looking for something like this, but I am more concerned about mould. Would that show up in a test like this? Our washroom has mould growing which we keep fighting back with bleach, but I would love to know what kind it is and if it is dangerous. Could this work for such a use case?

  The tests that I did find were bloody expensive (300$+) and had to be done one per room. Too much for us.

• by jjallen on 4/8/16, 6:57 PM

  For buildings that are younger, say sixty years old or less, I'm way more concerned with water quality and air quality coming in from outside that is guaranteed to have pollutants.

  When I lived in SF in an 1930s building I ordered a lead testing kit for the water and thankfully found none.

• by jacalata on 4/9/16, 1:48 AM

  >haven’t been able to validate that our home is safe to live in.

  Why should anyone believe that you'll just figure all this out later after you're given money? You haven't even been motivated enough to solve this problem manually for yourself yet.

• by jqm on 4/8/16, 6:19 PM

  I think it's a great idea. Not just for homes but other sites as well.

• by jamespitts on 4/8/16, 9:14 PM

  It would be valuable to establish a track record for a home that might be sold in the future, or perhaps during the sales process a home could be sampled by a certified home inspector.

• by unclebucknasty on 4/8/16, 7:09 PM

  I would use a service to test food, supplements and prescription drugs (especially generics). I'd be interested in quantity of active ingredients, as well as any contaminants.

• by pjlegato on 4/8/16, 9:09 PM

  The technical and product side sound like a good idea, in general.

  How will you acquire customers for this, in a marketing sense?

• by maxerickson on 4/8/16, 6:47 PM

  What will you do differently than existing test labs that accept samples from the public?

• by inspectordan on 4/9/16, 4:57 AM

  How would the dust testing results help in the formulation of an action plan?

• by vram22 on 4/8/16, 5:48 PM

  > fill a vile

  Did you mean: fill a vial?

• by kelvin0 on 4/8/16, 6:26 PM

  Almost looks like Theranos is branching out (pivot?:-).