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Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

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Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#21

Post by nvrspyx »

Let me get this straight. $10 a month of a calendar widget that's only available for a single platform? Plus, these quotes don't really help.

> “No more looking for the Google calendar tab in Chrome.”

Maybe use the native calendar app then? Or make an app shortcut for Google Calendar in Chrome?

> “I just joined a meeting 3 minutes late instead of 5 because of Superpowered, which is a resounding success in my book.”

Ummm. Probably not a good one to include.

I just don't get the $120/yr value in this. On Windows, I have all my calendars synced with the stock calendar app, links to the meetings are automatically pulled into the notes section, and reminders are automatically set for 15 minutes. Whenever I get a notification for my next meeting, I click it, then click the link and I'm in my meeting. For macOS, same thing.

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#22

Post by ttul »

This sounds like a classic "in front of the steamroller" startup. Apple is likely building a similar capability into MacOS; it's just not yet released. One day, a new MacOS will roll out and the menu bar calendar will be one of 8,000 new features. Your market is gone overnight.

If you are lucky, they will see your genius and acquihire you. If not, this company has a high likelihood of failing or becoming a lifestyle company with a small but valuable user base who cannot live without the few special things your menu bar app does that Apple's built-in feature does not.

All this being said, you can also discover all kinds of things on the journey that take you away from the original idea into areas where a lot of growth can happen. Build things your customers love and you will find success. It's a great idea fundamentally.

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#23

Post by jordandearsley »

asadlionpk wrote: post #18

Wow, how is this is a YC company? Isn't this more of a weekend project?

Great question. Right now that's how it looks. We started with Google Calendar as base since the calendar acts as a source of truth throughout the day for remote workers.

Now that we've got the base down (which takes time), we're quickly branching out to include more platforms, to make us less of a widget and more of a platform ourselves.

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#24

Post by lesiki »

This looks really good! I'm a Meeter user so it's a real use case I have already spent time looking for solutions to.

I agree with other commenters though - I'd pay a one-time $10, but $10 per month seems unreasonably high. For perspective Meeter is free, and Spotify is $4 for a family of 4 (in my country).

Maybe it could be part of the bundle at https://setapp.com/ or similar? Or you could have a set-your-own-price monthly sub?

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#25

Post by jordandearsley »

aquir wrote: post #7

It's a shame that is only for Mac :( Any plans for Windows(/Linux)?

As mentioned in the post, we built this using Electron + React! Which means it can be ported over to those platforms if needed.

At the moment, we're more focused on building a product that our current users (on Mac) love before prematurely expanding to other platforms.

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#26

Post by mushufasa »

This does not seem helpful to me. Part of the value of opening the calendar is seeing the day plus the week, to recalibrate priorities based on upcoming meetings as well as immediate meetings. I have desktop notifications for immediate upcoming meetings. If I wanted, I could set my calendar to one-day view and only see today's meetings. But I don't do that because I don't want that.

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#27

Post by bberenberg »

lesiki wrote: post #24

This looks really good! I'm a Meeter user so it's a real use case I have already spent time looking for solutions to. I agree with other commenters though - I'd pay a one-time $10, but $10 per month seems unreasonably high. For perspective Meeter is free, and Spotify is $4 for a family of 4 (in my country). Maybe it could be part of the bundle at https://setapp.com/ or similar? Or you could have a set-your-own-price…

There is also MeetingBar [1] which is free and open source [2]. I would say there is one feature that none of the competitors in this space have done is auto join next meeting. This sounds easy, but it is actually hard [3]

[1] https://apps.apple.com/app/id1532419400 [2] https://github.com/leits/MeetingBar [3] https://github.com/leits/MeetingBar/issues/30

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#28

Post by jordandearsley »

ttul wrote: post #22

This sounds like a classic "in front of the steamroller" startup. Apple is likely building a similar capability into MacOS; it's just not yet released. One day, a new MacOS will roll out and the menu bar calendar will be one of 8,000 new features. Your market is gone overnight. If you are lucky, they will see your genius and acquihire you. If not, this company has a high likelihood of failing or becoming a lifestyle…

Thanks for the feedback! Totally agree. That's why we're trying to branch out of the calendar space as fast as possible. First as a unified notification inbox for SaaS platforms.

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#29

Post by foobarbecue »

jordandearsley wrote: post #15
petargyurov wrote: post #12

I'm sorry for being negative, but paying $10 per month for what is essentially a calendar widget is blowing my mind. The fact that this is even in YC and not just a side project is taking what's left of my brain and blowing it into the stratosphere. > We’ve only solved a small part of a bigger problem. The SaaS platforms we use for work don't work well together. It shouldn’t take cycling through ten different apps an…

No problem at all. Definitely does, it's a broad problem and we're still figuring it out too. As a dev, I almost always miss my GitHub notifications unless I'm constantly checking the platform in my browser. We want to bring all the platforms we use for work into one native place. Does that make more sense now?

> As a dev, I almost always miss my GitHub notifications

Maybe I'm being dense here, but can't you use email?

Re: Launch HN: Superpowered (YC W21) – Calendar in your menu bar

#30

Post by jordandearsley »

ahstilde wrote: post #10

Why was "video lecture platform for professors" a "horrible idea?" Segment started as a tool for professors, too [1]. https://segment.com/academy/intro/measuring-product-market-f...

Our idea was poorly timed and we lost passion for it. We were focused on making lectures better for the remote school environment. Unfortunately colleges have a hard time justifying a tuition's worth of value for online videos, so it was a tough sell, especially with the end of the pandemic around the corner.
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