11–20 of 61 posts
Perhaps you should allow people to upload a company logo? If your dad is mailing customers for his business, how much better would it be if you did the letterhead for him?
The letter input screen you see on the site today is pretty new and intended for new users that just want to send a one-off letter or something.
I'd add a way to upload pdf's or docs so people could send things like invoices/contracts etc. But well done.
Additionally, I'm thinking about creating the ability for people to just email something like "letters [at] snailpad.com" with the recipient's address in the subject line and either (1) the letter's content in the email body or (2) a PDF attachment of the letter content.
If they're a recognized user and have available credits in their balance, I'd shoot off a confirmation and queue it for physical mailing on the next day. Otherwise, I'd reply with an email containing a PDF preview of the letter and some text encouraging them to signup or reload their account.
I actually think it looks really good! I'm assuming that you're not new to web-development, just to RoR, because if this was a first (or even second, or third) app I would decry it as impossible :-p Good work!
Change: Just address your envelope, write your letter, verify its appearance, then pay using your Paypal account. Add the words "electronically", or "via this website" or something like that. You have a bunch of '2' showing up all over the place. Mention that you don't retain the contents of the letter once printed (if you don't, and I hope you don't). Include a photo of a sample letter so people can see if the paper…
As for the sheets of paper, for now I'm betting that the average letter won't be more than 4 pages (since that's when the postage costs rise).
People in the country of destination would print out the items and mail them for the cost of a local stamp and get some compensation for their efforts.
That way you can offer international 'real' snailmail for a tiny bit over the price of a local stamp.
Change: Just address your envelope, write your letter, verify its appearance, then pay using your Paypal account. Add the words "electronically", or "via this website" or something like that. You have a bunch of '2' showing up all over the place. Mention that you don't retain the contents of the letter once printed (if you don't, and I hope you don't). Include a photo of a sample letter so people can see if the paper…
2. You could charge a lot of money for handwritten notes. In fact, I would pay $20 for someone to hand write a letter to my grandma, once a year, or so.
3. CC from email. It would be great if I could simply cc xxxx@snailpad.com which you would print and physically mail out.
4. It would also be useful if you could print and snail mail some documents I email you (receipts, hotel reservations, maps, etc).
Edit ... oops I see you have a lot of these features already. Maybe you can work on #2. Cheers!
Would I pay £1 ($1.60) to send a letter - probably - beats needing to buy a printer (ok, I can use the printer in work) find a stamp, take it to the post box etc.
What about recorded delivery letters? I would need to queue up in the post office for those - maybe there is some why that could be handled in batches.
Also, I think companies who send lots of letters get a discount on the standard stamp price.
You could also have 'printing centers' in various countries around the world for cheaper and faster 'air mail'.
I think this idea has a lot of potential, but it would probably require TV commercials to get it to the masses!
You also ripped off github's desgin ;-)