I always thought it was absurd that they actually had people picking up your mail from your mailbox. I wanted a "Google Voice" for mail. Just let me give out some proxy mailing address that goes straight to their scanners.
Outbox Is Shutting Down
31–40 of 97 posts
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#32Very sorry to hear this outcome, and I wish the best for the team. Perhaps you can sell standalone products? There is still value in never having to touch paper, and I would have been a happy customer had I known the wait list was done. It was such a promising product!
Most interesting quote to me, and thank you so much for the candor.
> After several months of testing and refining, we reasonably concluded that we were executing well and collecting good data—it told us that there wasn’t enough demand to support the cost model. Our monthly operating deficits were too high, and even though we continued to get better at acquisition, each small success actually saw our cash curve decline further because our density remained flat. For longer than we would be willing to tolerate, we would lose money for each additional customer we gained. Despite the massive interest in our company, we learned that the product we built did not find fit in the market we targeted.
P.S. I am doubly sorry to hear that the USPS shut down the partnership due to threatening unwanted!! ad revenue... this is making me feel even more sad.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#33" senior leadership of USPS made it clear that they would never participate in any project that would limit junk mail and that they were immediately shutting down our partnership." This part is really interesting. Why would USPS do that ? Can someone from outbox elaborate on this ? I would love to get rid of the junk mail that I receive on a daily basis in my mailbox. It is crazy and I have to waste time in taking it…
Employee unions at the USPS worried about further job losses due to technology. Can't do anything that would decrease revenue, even if it means technological progress.
Of course, that's purely rational. Get a bunch of $100K/year programmers in a room and ask them to build software that improves the workflow of working with offshored $7/hour developers, and see the response you get.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#34" senior leadership of USPS made it clear that they would never participate in any project that would limit junk mail and that they were immediately shutting down our partnership." This part is really interesting. Why would USPS do that ? Can someone from outbox elaborate on this ? I would love to get rid of the junk mail that I receive on a daily basis in my mailbox. It is crazy and I have to waste time in taking it…
Sadly, USPS sees bulk mailers as their customer; American citizens (and our kitchen tables) are their product. It's like the old line: if you aren't paying for the service, you are the product. If curious, listen to a full story of it here: http://kut.org/post/austin-startup-says-you-ll-never-touch-s...
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Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#35Better title: "Libertarians Find Out Delivering Mail Is Hard and Expensive"
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#36WHAT.
This is really disappointing - first time in a while I've seen an "we're shutting down" announcement and been really, truly, genuinely disappointed by it.
Physical mail is but one of many small parts of daily life that's increasingly feeling like an anachronism.
The fact that we have to regularly physically go to our mailboxes, open them, receive physical paper communication, and then shred/dispose/keep it all is annoying. I was really looking forward to Outbox growing and spreading to other cities.
(BTW: It's worth noting that my rejection of paper mail doesn't mean I reject the notion of the nice parts - hand-written letters, greeting cards, wedding invitations. Those are great. But I'd be totally happy seeing a high quality digitized version of those appear in the email inbox.)
I do hope someone figures out a good solution here, because I'm certain there's demand for this service in some form or another.
(edit: As a friend pointed out - $5/month is probably far too cheap. Earth Class Mail starts at $20. I'd gladly pay that for Outbox - probably more.)
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Junkmail effectively subsidizes the USPS.
The much more expensive first class mail could be thought of as the subsidy--it allows the USPS to funnel buckets of cheap junk mail into our boxes. Except for package delivery it's all unprofitable though, especially in rural areas.
Are you sure about that? Pre-sorted, pre-coded "junk mail" with a flexible delivery schedule is much cheaper to move through the system.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#38This is sad to see. As the co-founder of http://www.paperkarma.com who's had to deal with some of the same issues (USPS regulations) I was keeping an eye out & pulling for them to succeed. We need further legislation to enable citizens better control over unsolicited mail. You guys built a great service & should be very proud!
[edit: spelling]
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#39Why would they not pivot to being an Earth Class Mail competitor? At that point, they are not competing with or undermining, but rather contributing to the USPS.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#40I may be wrong, but my impression of Outbox has always been that they were designing an impressive solution to the wrong problem.
Sorting my important mail from my junk mail is just not something I need help with. And the extraordinary wastefulness in my mind of paying a company to follow postmen around and take back the mail just delivered to my box seems so ecologically wrong that I couldn't support it on that ground alone.