Launch HN: InstaKin (YC S21) - Help immigrants to manage tasks in home countries

As a pakistani immigrant, I've felt this pain for years.

This is such a cool idea, congrats on the launch! As a Bangladeshi immigrant with much of my extended family overseas, I think we (mostly my parents) could find value in a service like this. Good luck!

Did you not read the OP? This is not about charity. This is about helping migrants carry out certain tasks back in their home countries.

This is basically "Chotu* as a service", a business model which has basically exploded in India (Urban Clap, Dunzo, various food delivery apps are variations on this theme) in last few years, but targeted at a wealthy yet untapped demographic. Genius idea, imo.

* Chotu (n.) - a dimunitive name given to a person whose job is to run errands for the family/office.

>with exceptions like if they have diminished mental faculties

The most common concern for migrants is to care for their aging parents. In this case, their own health is a definitely a big concern and they are often not able to run their errands themselves.

Another advantage of the "Chotu as a service" model is that you may not need to employ a Chotu full time, which would save costs. (This is exactly the same as SaaS or IaaS - take a resource that is commonly under-utilized but needed on demand and commodifying it).

Also, you might think that keeping a full time Chotu is a piece of cake, but it is not. Managing Chotus also requires time and effort (it is actually, or at least used to be, often the full time job of the housewives in these families). Trust is a big issue, which is usually solved by hiring a Chotu from your own village, so you know their entire family. But these families often have lost those ties with their village, so that also makes hiring a trusted full-time Chotu difficult.

> just feels really paternalistic

I assure you that do not understand the needs and mindsets of the people this business is meant for.

Congrats on the launch! Would be very useful!

Some feedback: 1) While it is awesome that you will be doing all the communication with the contractors/vendors, it would give additional confidence to know who is actually doing the tasks 2) There should be community feedback on the vendor/task. Having it available in public would increase our confidence, for example, i might be willing to use your service for visa related tasks but not necessarily for building maintenance 3) Rather than country service, it should be city-specific. 4) Allow users to recommend vendors -who they have personally vetted 5) If I am ordering food today via zomato, etc in India for my parents, it asks for OTP pin etc prior to placing the order, can you explain how this workflow would be achieved? This is currently my most common task.

This is a neat angle on the problem. While I was reading the beginning, I was thinking "So, when are they going to talk about fixing remittance payments?" That's always been the big pain (and cost) for my in-laws. But you acknowledged there are other companies attempting to solve this. Do you plan to work with them? The actual sending of the money is a critical link in the chain, and can be pretty painful, especially if, for example, the recipient is unbanked.