Magic: How to launch a product so no one will ever use it again • Hacker News Board

Re: Magic: How to launch a product so no one will ever use it again

#51

Post by throwawaymsft » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #19

Indeed. If free-text SMS was an ideal way to interact with online delivery and concierge services you'd think someone would have done that already on an existing service. So then, why can't I just order from Seamless or Instacart via SMS? Oh right, because that experience sucks mightily. I have this lovely full color screen that can display menus, location and delivery times, let me search by cuisine, choose various…

Because seamless/instacart/hipmunk/service X aren't individually incentivized to use a generic interface. It's the same reason you have a gazillion logins, each one wants to be the One True Source. (After years of struggle, FB/Google/Twitter managed to hammer that down to "just" 3 choices.) In addition to the 20 apps a user needs, there's new ones they don't know about ("Where do I get flowers again? Car parts?").

The value proposition: People can fire-and-forget an order for anything. Someone else handles the details. People with more money than time -- a great market to serve -- prefer to trade the former for the latter. Cheapo McCouponClipper will sift through the apps individually.

Do you go to the grocery store and tut-tut people in line? Don't they know they can get batteries cheaper at BatteryWorld? Vegetables cheaper at the farmer's market? Windex cheaper at Bob's Industrial Cleaning supplies? Why are they at a general-purpose store with a larger markup?

But it doesn't matter. The incredulity of objectors who ask "Why don't you just install 20 apps and save some money?" will be superceded by people who just want to use the service.

Re: Magic: How to launch a product so no one will ever use it again

#52

Post by boyaka » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:02 AM UTC

tghw wrote: post #13

carsongross wrote: post #12

I had to wait, in my apartment, for 40 MINUTES. "Everything is amazing right now, and nobody's happy." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E

I love that bit. But in this case, waiting an hour and a half for a middle man to do what it would have taken me 2 minutes to do wasn't worth the extra $9 they were asking for.

I bet a major cause of the traffic surge are just curious people like you that aren't even interested in this service, or jealous people that are intentionally pushing the limits and trying to make them fail. In fact, the fact that you're slandering them with an HN post might suggest you are more the latter. I am not in the market at all for this so I obviously haven't used it, but hopefully for them they can identify and keep their legitimate customers (not you) happy.

Re: Magic: How to launch a product so no one will ever use it again

#53

Post by PeterWhittaker » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 12:26 PM UTC

t_7u_ol8 wrote: post #41

PeterWhittaker wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, not sure it's an MVP - it lacks V.

If it creates buzz and makes money, it's viable. A few unsatisfied customers should be irrelevant in the greater scheme.

So are we suggesting that we know the missing step?

  1. Build something
  2. ???
  3. Profit!

We're suggesting that it's

  1. Build something
  2. Reduce convenience, increase price, piss people off, but get press
  3. Profit!

???