Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 118 posts

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#81

Post by alexdanilowicz »

perardi wrote: post #80

Hey kids, grizzled UI designer and developer at a startup here. You’ve got 2 keys correct right at the start. 1. Permissions/auth for prototypes. Stakeholders go for that. MBA folks don’t want to be sent crazy random obfuscated URLs, they want a nice login page that makes them feel secure. (Because MBA types will get weird about corporate secrets, even just high-level wireframes.) 2. Figma/Miro-esque infinite canvas…

Two features that are the direct result of customer feedback and consistent product iteration!

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#82

Post by dimitry12 »

alexdanilowicz wrote: post #14
sutterbomb wrote: post #9

Appreciate the HN guest login. That's a good idea :)

hey thanks! spun that up over the weekend. I noticed another Launch HN did that and thought it was brilliant. we are here for feedback, so wanted to make trying it as easy as possible!

I can't find the "Coming from Hackernews?" button. Where should I look for it?

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#83

Post by _blk »

There were some comments on pricing that I'd like to comment on: As a one man startup that's fully self-funded I deeply appreciate the prices that aren't straight out of Sillicon Valley. I believe in free market and really don't mind companies doing profit first, but those are often services that simply are out of reach for the more budget conscious of us while adopting new technologies. Let me thus petition for keeping a small enterprise plan in the price range you're now at, maybe limited by nr of employees, company age, and/or even easier, the number of subscription months/years. That'll give us a chance to adopt your service while increasing the value we get from the service.. When the value's there I won't hesitate to pay a higher price for it either.

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#84

Post by alexdanilowicz »

_blk wrote: post #83

There were some comments on pricing that I'd like to comment on: As a one man startup that's fully self-funded I deeply appreciate the prices that aren't straight out of Sillicon Valley. I believe in free market and really don't mind companies doing profit first, but those are often services that simply are out of reach for the more budget conscious of us while adopting new technologies. Let me thus petition for keep…

> or even easier, the number of subscription months/years.

We do offer 20% off on annual plans! ;)

We're very proud to be largely self-serve and have pricing that is completely transparent right now. Of course, we're open to feedback on pricing, especially enterprise pricing, which is why I was intrigued by the other comment.

And I agree, I think most people forget that a push back on price is really a push back on value, and so the value needs to be there first.

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#85

Post by alexdanilowicz »

dimitry12 wrote: post #82
alexdanilowicz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey thanks! spun that up over the weekend. I noticed another Launch HN did that and thought it was brilliant. we are here for feedback, so wanted to make trying it as easy as possible!

I can't find the "Coming from Hackernews?" button. Where should I look for it?

On https://www.magicpatterns.com/ you should see an input box. Type anything you want, hit enter, and then you'll get hit with our regular login panel. But at the bottom, for today online, you'll see a "Coming from Hackernews, no login required" button.

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#86

Post by bertylicious »

This service is pretty much what I, a software developer, am scared off. I expect that it will be used in order to quickly cobble something together and then hand it over to a dev for "polishing". And this sounds like a total nightmare to me.

If used like that, this service will effectively turn my job into that of an assistant to a machine.

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#87

Post by macok »

How did you manage to advertise or generate initial traffic for something like that?

Even if the tool is excellent, it seems like the space is flooded with “Prototype your app with AI” tools, many backed by big players with huge ad budgets. The target audience must be getting bombarded with a dozen similar pitches every day. How did you manage to cut through the noise?

I find myself asking this question often, so there’s probably something fundamental I don’t quite grasp about startups in general.

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#88

Post by alexdanilowicz »

macok wrote: post #87

How did you manage to advertise or generate initial traffic for something like that? Even if the tool is excellent, it seems like the space is flooded with “Prototype your app with AI” tools, many backed by big players with huge ad budgets. The target audience must be getting bombarded with a dozen similar pitches every day. How did you manage to cut through the noise? I find myself asking this question often, so the…

> How did you manage to cut through the noise?

In startup land, I think it's really important you love your customer. Because you cut through the noise by having your existing customers tell their friends about you. 30% of new users hear about us from their friends.

I'll also note: we launched for the first time in October 2023. At the time the space was not flooded. We first got 10 users who loved us — where I define "love" as using us weekly — and since then it's a game of continuous iteration!

Re: Launch HN: Magic Patterns (YC W23) – AI Design and Prototyping for Product Teams

#89

Post by alexdanilowicz »

bertylicious wrote: post #86

This service is pretty much what I, a software developer, am scared off. I expect that it will be used in order to quickly cobble something together and then hand it over to a dev for "polishing". And this sounds like a total nightmare to me. If used like that, this service will effectively turn my job into that of an assistant to a machine.

I wouldn't be scared because in practice we don't see this! Instead we see 1. devs appreciating getting an interactive mockup and 2. the PM having a better sense of what it's like to build technically. (It's pretty cool seeing how AI tools like Magic Patterns help non-technical software professionals naturally learn more about web dev concepts because the best prompts reference code.)

At big companies, Magic Patterns designs are used created & used at the beginning of the product lifecycle for brainstorming and iteration. And there's still a human in the loop in the process: the PM prompting Magic Patterns. The value we create is not the actual raw code, and so we are not seeing teams telling their devs to simply "polish" it. The handoff still is very similar to most dev/design handoffs today, except it's a Magic Patterns design versus a Figma design.

Post reply on HN