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

How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

arshadchowdhury.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#11

Post by radan »

paulhauggis wrote: post #8

So you built your business entirely relying on third-party services. Not only is this dangerous (if they change their rates one day, you will need to scramble), but, your business has virtually no barrier to entry. Now that you wrote an article on it, there will be other people that will build a similar business in a weekend and compete with you.

I don't think they did it wrong. Imagine if he decided to roll it's own functionality when there is a 3rd party service offering the exact same functionality. Then he would be in real trouble because somebody could catch up by using the readily available 3rd party service.

He should build his advantage on being the first and having a better product. Techical services he's using are not part of his core product.

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#12

Post by robfig »

Is texting really easier for people than hand writing on a sheet of dead tree? Kids these days..

Personally I would much prefer writing over texting a random number (with a follow-up text for my email), but I guess an advantage is that it avoids queues at the sign-in sheet.

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#13

Post by jsavimbi »

paulhauggis wrote: post #8

So you built your business entirely relying on third-party services. Not only is this dangerous (if they change their rates one day, you will need to scramble), but, your business has virtually no barrier to entry. Now that you wrote an article on it, there will be other people that will build a similar business in a weekend and compete with you.

> So you built your business entirely relying on third-party services.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Neither Twilio nor Stripe are in the same business line as RollCallMe and thus are offering services, and thus not competing, therefore they have an incentive to keep prices down in order to attract more customers. I cannot speak for Stripe, but Twilio has lowered their rates in the past and does a wonderful job in regards to both technology and customer service.

Yes, there are no technical barriers to entry into this one-service industry, aside from knowing a Rails person who can wire up the app, but time-to-market, initial pricing and the potential for add-ons that can engage more users and augment the revenue streams give them the advantage. Choosing Twilio gives them that advantage.

Not a rock-solid app by any means, but one that's needed and doesn't compete directly against more mature and properly funded platforms.

Great idea. I wish them good luck.

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#14

Post by debacle »

robfig wrote: post #12

Is texting really easier for people than hand writing on a sheet of dead tree? Kids these days.. Personally I would much prefer writing over texting a random number (with a follow-up text for my email), but I guess an advantage is that it avoids queues at the sign-in sheet.

Maybe the problem was with the example? One application I could see for this is maybe being at a conference and entering into a drawing. Instead of filling out a paper form or standing at a kiosk or having to go to a web page and type in some auth code, you just have to send a single text message and you're done.

I can see some applications, and knowing the cost of the administrative portion of promotions, making it easier to be an expert at it definitely has monetary value.

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#15

Post by damoncali »

paulhauggis wrote: post #8

So you built your business entirely relying on third-party services. Not only is this dangerous (if they change their rates one day, you will need to scramble), but, your business has virtually no barrier to entry. Now that you wrote an article on it, there will be other people that will build a similar business in a weekend and compete with you.

Now that you wrote an article on it, there will be other people that will build a similar business in a weekend and compete with you.

There already were competitors: http://presentnow.me

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#16

Post by lazerwalker »

debacle wrote: post #14
robfig wrote: post #12

Is texting really easier for people than hand writing on a sheet of dead tree? Kids these days.. Personally I would much prefer writing over texting a random number (with a follow-up text for my email), but I guess an advantage is that it avoids queues at the sign-in sheet.

Maybe the problem was with the example? One application I could see for this is maybe being at a conference and entering into a drawing. Instead of filling out a paper form or standing at a kiosk or having to go to a web page and type in some auth code, you just have to send a single text message and you're done. I can see some applications, and knowing the cost of the administrative portion of promotions, making it…

I've been to many (tech-focused, admittedly) conferences that handle this through RFID tags or simple barcodes embedded in the conference badges, the advantage to that system being that attendees don't have to do anything more complicated than hold up their badge to a badge-scanning attendant.

I feel like there's a fantastic use case for the parent's project; I'm not quite sure what it is yet.

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#17

Post by bambax »

> Once at the meeting, you tell everyone attending to text the word “PTA” to 917-746-0007. You’ll immediately get their numbers and emails added to your list at RollCallMe.com

How do you do that? How do you get someone's email from a text she sent?

Re: How I built a business in a weekend (Or, the benefits of shared workspaces)

#19

Post by dpritchett »

bambax wrote: post #17

> Once at the meeting, you tell everyone attending to text the word “PTA” to 917-746-0007. You’ll immediately get their numbers and emails added to your list at RollCallMe.com How do you do that? How do you get someone's email from a text she sent?

After texting the codeword to the number, RollCallMe sends a polite text asking for an email as well.

When I tested it the text was "Thanks! You can reach me at ##########. Could you please reply with your email so we can add it to our list?"

http://arshadchowdhury.com/740-how-i-built-a-business-in-a-w...

Post reply on HN