Live data from Hacker News

Kagi search reached 20k paying members

blog.kagi.com

41–50 of 269 posts

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#41

Freely distributing 20,000 t-shirts to your first 20,000 customers is a nice reward. But Kagi is missing an opportunity for a huge brand awareness campaign from this. People who are already really happy with Kagi would become brand ambassadors. Why isn’t the name ‘Kagi’ found anywhere on the t-shirt design? People who want to know where it’s from would have to go out of the way to ask the tee wearer.

FWIW I'm way more likely to wear a t-shirt that doesn't have the word "Kagi" on it.

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#42
post #4

As a Kagi customer, I hope their choice to allocate nearly a third of their investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts doesn’t lead to their demise.

I didn't realize they'd even raised any money. I thought they were immune from all the VC enshittification.

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#43
post #4

As a Kagi customer, I hope their choice to allocate nearly a third of their investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts doesn’t lead to their demise.

Especially ones that do not have their name. As someone who has heard about Kagi, but not actually visited their site or used it, I had no idea they had a dog mascot. If I saw one of those shirts in the wild, and I hadn’t just read this post and seen the pictures of the shirts, I would have had no idea it was a Kagi shirt.

Having received many t shirts from companies and conferences, I mostly don't wear them if the branding is really over the top. As described, a Kagi shirt would be something I'd actually wear

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#44

Why is their logo the letter g instead of k? Have they considered the risk of a trademark violation lawsuit from their competitor, Google? As one of the 20K paying members, I feel embarrassed that I hadn't noticed this until now. Because this article presented the idea of wearing a Kagi T-Shirt, I suddenly started to care about what the logo looked like. Also, yes, I am excited to rep Kagi search.

I’ve been using Kagi for a month or two now and I still cannot for the life of me find the right tab because of their weird yellow “g” logo. When I think “Kagi” I definitely don’t think “yellow g”. But hey, every interaction I’ve ever had with a UI/UX designer has been… counterproductive, so I guess this is par for the course.

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#46
post #4

As a Kagi customer, I hope their choice to allocate nearly a third of their investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts doesn’t lead to their demise.

For anyone else wondering, they raised $670,000 from 42 small investors in June 2023. Non-traditional fundraise. I agree that spending that money on t-shirts is weird. As a new Kagi subscriber I don't want a t-shirt. I want a thriving search engine.

https://blog.kagi.com/safe-round

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#47
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially ones that do not have their name. As someone who has heard about Kagi, but not actually visited their site or used it, I had no idea they had a dog mascot. If I saw one of those shirts in the wild, and I hadn’t just read this post and seen the pictures of the shirts, I would have had no idea it was a Kagi shirt.

Having received many t shirts from companies and conferences, I mostly don't wear them if the branding is really over the top. As described, a Kagi shirt would be something I'd actually wear

But would that make it effective advertising?

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#49
post #4

As a Kagi customer, I hope their choice to allocate nearly a third of their investor-raised funds to produce and freely distribute 20,000 t-shirts doesn’t lead to their demise.

Especially ones that do not have their name. As someone who has heard about Kagi, but not actually visited their site or used it, I had no idea they had a dog mascot. If I saw one of those shirts in the wild, and I hadn’t just read this post and seen the pictures of the shirts, I would have had no idea it was a Kagi shirt.

Yeah, no one's going to wear a shirt that says Kagi on it. They'll wear a shirt with the mascot on it though

Re: Kagi search reached 20k paying members

#50

Why is their logo the letter g instead of k? Have they considered the risk of a trademark violation lawsuit from their competitor, Google? As one of the 20K paying members, I feel embarrassed that I hadn't noticed this until now. Because this article presented the idea of wearing a Kagi T-Shirt, I suddenly started to care about what the logo looked like. Also, yes, I am excited to rep Kagi search.

I always figured it was a poke in the/kick to the nads of google who forgot who their customers (the people who bring value to the company) are. Hint it ain't ads being bought by ad buyers.
Post reply on HN