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HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

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Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#161

Post by sfoung »

mwseibel wrote: post #135
eckho28 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We started out wanting to do a similar model as Eaze/Meadow - but we found we weren't adding enough value to existing dispensaries/delivery services to warrant a decent fee/percentage (since they already had customer bases and we were starting from 0 with no outside funding like the other companies). Then after running everything in-house for a while, I realized that it was actually a much better model to handle ever…

Interesting - I would still apply - you dont have to worry about the fact that we have funded Meadow. The major barrier is the questionable legal picture currently. Have you been able to get a bank account etc? Where are you currently operating?

Yes, we do currently have a bank account, though it is purely for the technology side - currently we are cash-only as far as orders/deliveries go. (We launched using Stripe, but they shut us down after about $30k or so flowed through our Stripe account - however, they were very sympathetic and wanted to work with us, but their hands were tied by their banking partners).

Currently we are in Sacramento only. We tried to launch briefly in San Francisco last year with a delivery service partner, but that fell through and we withdrew to focus on building/learning more in Sacramento before trying to scale out again - however, we were able to make over $16,000 in San Francisco in our first and only month with very little marketing.

The legal landscape is definitely still not where we'd like it to be, but in starting this company, I'm essentially placing a bet that the legal landscape will change in our favor in the very near future and that I'm getting in at exactly the right time (not so early where the business is unfeasible, but not too late where risk drops so low that too many big players get in the space...I was actually surprised that Eaze and Meadow popped up at the exact same time as I did). I think that the momentum that we see across the country is definitely promising.

The most interesting thing is that, delivery in Sacramento itself is technically illegal - however, it isn't enforced. I appeared on the top-3 news outlets last year stating exactly what I was going to do here, so if the City wanted to stop me, I definitely wasn't hiding from them. Since then, I've spoken with the city council, and am working with the vice-mayor of the city to work in a new law for delivery here in Sacramento.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#162

Post by mwseibel »

fananta wrote: post #159
mwseibel wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would custom domains turn users away?

Ex. A user wants to try it out but paying for a custom domain scares them. They stick to a free subdomain, but never really promote it since it conflicts with their own branding. Admittedly you're making a good point here that users _would_ get more value this way through increased branding.

I think giving your customers what they want is the central theme behind most of our advice

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#163

Post by fananta »

mwseibel wrote: post #162
fananta wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ex. A user wants to try it out but paying for a custom domain scares them. They stick to a free subdomain, but never really promote it since it conflicts with their own branding. Admittedly you're making a good point here that users _would_ get more value this way through increased branding.

I think giving your customers what they want is the central theme behind most of our advice

Absolutely, but would charging them for a (technically) trivial feature be self-limiting to our growth?

Another question: Would be worthwhile to apply to YC with a product of this nature?

This was super helpful. Thank you for taking the time Michael.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#164

Post by tlawal87 »

mwseibel wrote: post #108
tlawal87 wrote: post #82

Hi Aaron & Michael, There is a 20-year-backlog of life-saving therapies that are left sitting in university laboratories untested and 30 million Americans suffering from untreatable rare diseases who have no idea these potential cures exist. My best friend and I are developing a medical research discovery platform. We allow people passionate about a condition to discover, promote, and eventually fund cutting-edge res…

Why do you need to work with university administrators at all?

The majority of research conducted in the US is at academic centers. Scientists employed by these institutions have been given strict rules by administrators on how/whether they can solicit input or disclose IP generated at their workplaces.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#165

Post by rajacombinator »

zbruhnke wrote: post #3

We're building a new kind of bank - Yes, an actual real bank. We're starting with a small acquisition and re-building the underlying tech from the ground up. The ultimate goal is creating a bank consumers would actually love to use. Think of paying your bills via "push" vs "pull" so instead of simply paying someone on autopay and authorizing them to debit your account at their will we'd actually say something like "h…

Not very thoughtful 2c: success or failure of a bank is driven more by where you choose to invest your capital than trying to improve the consumer experience and secure deposits. Due to the way the system is set up, the consumer is almost irrelevant in the equation. So while their might be some margin to squeeze in improving the consumer experience, it's probably insignificant vs. say, picking the right bundle of mortgages to buy.

What about building a frontend as a service and selling it to other banks? That sounds like a better way to focus on a tech/product edge.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#166

Post by zodiac »

zbruhnke wrote: post #140
sgoraya wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you creating a 'traditional' bank or considering a Credit Union model? (Should have read further down :), looks like 'traditional' bank - please correct me if I'm wrong.)

we are buying an actual bank, its not a credit union we're just buying a small one in good health and with a charter already in place. The idea is that we can expand from there, but this is not something we are trying to form and have a new charter issued, this is continuing on an existing bank that we hope to be able to use as a testing ground for our ideas with actual customers

I'm really curious because I've heard this idea of starting a startup by buying an existing bank a few times on HN - has anyone done this before?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#167

Post by [deleted] »

zbruhnke wrote: post #140
sgoraya wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you creating a 'traditional' bank or considering a Credit Union model? (Should have read further down :), looks like 'traditional' bank - please correct me if I'm wrong.)

we are buying an actual bank, its not a credit union we're just buying a small one in good health and with a charter already in place. The idea is that we can expand from there, but this is not something we are trying to form and have a new charter issued, this is continuing on an existing bank that we hope to be able to use as a testing ground for our ideas with actual customers

[deleted]

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#168

Post by zbruhnke »

zodiac wrote: post #166
zbruhnke wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are buying an actual bank, its not a credit union we're just buying a small one in good health and with a charter already in place. The idea is that we can expand from there, but this is not something we are trying to form and have a new charter issued, this is continuing on an existing bank that we hope to be able to use as a testing ground for our ideas with actual customers

I'm really curious because I've heard this idea of starting a startup by buying an existing bank a few times on HN - has anyone done this before?

yep - http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/small-bank-in-kansas-...

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#169

Post by bbrennan »

We built DataFire (DataFire.io), a cloud-based framework for working with APIs. Similar to zapier but geared toward developers (and as a consequence 10x more powerful).

We've gotten a lot of engagement and positive feedback from existing users, but after the initial launch haven't seen as much growth as we'd like. What can we do to attract new users?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#170

Post by sharemywin »

wjg wrote: post #61
akharris wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Bill - How many people are using supertask right now?

Just one: me. I've been in stealth mode and I basically "finished" building the website within the last week and have done no advertising (in fact this is the first time I've talked about it online). That leads to the obvious question of how to acquire more customers for a Saas product (which ties to my accelerator question). I'm hoping to gain some insight on the product's broad viability from this post and maybe a…

for early users you might want to see if people are searching for something your service offers. post an ad and get some users. probably expensive but I would count that as something might not scale just to get initial users.
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