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Show HN: I built a thing

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Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#21

Post by cpayne »

zacharydanger wrote: post #17
dglassan wrote: post #12

You shouldn't be marketing this towards consumers. If you and your friend had this problem with the apartment gate then I'm sure more people at your apartment have to deal with it also. Why don't you talk to your apartment complex and see if they'd be interested to use it as a service for their tenants? You should be marketing this towards apartment complex properties, not consumers living in apartment complexes.

I thought about that as a next step, but I really don't know where to start. Talk to the manager of my leasing office? Try to find an in to the company who owns this property (and probably several others)?

Welcome to the land of Sales! That's how it works - just start calling people. If they say they aren't the person to talk to, ask who is?

- What's your price point? - How quick can you install it? - Can this be demo'd elsewhere?

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#22

Post by hansy »

Market this to the management of every apartment complex with a gate. Have them spread your app to their individual resident base.

Your marketing copy has to change a little because you are now targeting management to be your distribution channel. You could say something like our app reduces the line in front of the gate because it makes it easier for trusted outsiders to enter the community.

Or if you think it's easier to go after your end-users, then you could:

- try and cross-market with other startups targeting apartment residents

- try to get access to different apartment community/common rooms and drop some flyers or quickly talk to some folks (this is kind of creepy and risky, but you might be able to hack the process by asking for a tour of the apartment from management)

- try dropping your message on apartment forums or review sites

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#23

Post by firefoxman1 »

sell this to apartment owners directly, starting with your own. Tell them it's a selling point they can put in their listings "Includes QuestionsThree easy-access system" or something along those lines.

Billing landlords is a better way to price it, after-all you said you hated getting a $20 bill every month just to access your apartment by phone, so residents wouldn't be much happier if they were billed by this system.

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#24

Post by zacharycohn »

I've seen (and built) similar things on top of Twilio before. Even set it up to have multiple passcodes for different friends, then it will text me "John just let himself in."

Some people don't get the pain point, but it's definitely nice!

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#25

Post by bstar77 »

I love the fact that you solved a specific pain point and can potentially help others, but I'm not sure this is something that would be worth $10/month for most people. This is also a pretty trivial app to build with the twilio/tropo APIs, so it's not an earth shattering product.

Can you set it up to use the same number, but validate accounts with access numbers? That way you only pay for 1 number and could possibly ask for donations on the site for hosting costs (sounds like you could still get away with the free heroku account for your building).

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#26

Post by varikin »

krzyk wrote: post #20

That's strange, of all the places in the world I wouldn't suspect that US have a higher price for calling non-local cells/phones (and even has such thing as a long-distance call). Here were I live the long/short distance have the same price for about 15 years now). I know that Poland is small in comparison to the US, but I don't see a point in charging more for longer distance (one could just average the price).

I don't know if it is a price thing (except phone companies long ago charged for long distance, and hate giving up that fee).

I think the real problem is that these gate systems at apartment complexes setup to only handle 7 digits. It was install in the 70s or 80s when our state when our part of the state had only 1 area code (leading 3 digits). Now, we have several. When we dropped our land line, we found that the door buzzer system could only call the 763 area code, but our cell phones use 651.

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#27

Post by Zak »

krzyk wrote: post #20

That's strange, of all the places in the world I wouldn't suspect that US have a higher price for calling non-local cells/phones (and even has such thing as a long-distance call). Here were I live the long/short distance have the same price for about 15 years now). I know that Poland is small in comparison to the US, but I don't see a point in charging more for longer distance (one could just average the price).

Most landlines, of which a significant number are VOIP do not charge per call or per minute to any number in the US. There is a flat monthly fee for unlimited calling. Mobile phones charge the same per minute regardless of the number dialed.

Yes, this is oversimplified and there are billing options which do strange things, but it's unlikely that the reason for the local number policy is the cost of the call.

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#29

Post by philliescurt »

firefoxman1 wrote: post #23

sell this to apartment owners directly, starting with your own. Tell them it's a selling point they can put in their listings "Includes QuestionsThree easy-access system" or something along those lines. Billing landlords is a better way to price it, after-all you said you hated getting a $20 bill every month just to access your apartment by phone, so residents wouldn't be much happier if they were billed by this syst…

I agree this is the best way to market this, if apartment complexes offer it as an included benefit to tenants. Have you considered the larger possibility of selling this to the alarm/gate companies to give them the capability of not requiring a local number?

Re: Show HN: I built a thing

#30

Post by calpaterson »

bstar77 wrote: post #25

I love the fact that you solved a specific pain point and can potentially help others, but I'm not sure this is something that would be worth $10/month for most people. This is also a pretty trivial app to build with the twilio/tropo APIs, so it's not an earth shattering product. Can you set it up to use the same number, but validate accounts with access numbers? That way you only pay for 1 number and could possibly…

Most apps are pretty trivial to build, though. The trouble comes in making something that people value, not something that is hard to make.
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