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Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

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Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#21

Post by pm »

kazinator wrote: post #14
pm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paki, an ethnic slur? I would've thought it was short for Pakistani.

Maybe this will help you: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Paki Starting with the very first sentence under "Usage notes". In summary, a strict prefix of some place name or nationality is not automatically a harmless contraction. For instance, "Jap" is not a word which has exactly the same nuance as "person of Japanese descent".

Fair enough, but it's not a US-centric thing (which is the bulk of YC companies), so I highly doubt that "fired a synapse" for the founders when they came up with the name.

When the Pakistan cricket team tours down here in Australia, they're colloquially referred to as "the Pakis", but that's because we colloquialise EVERYTHING, and has nothing to do with slurring anybody.

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#22

Post by bnzelener »

This is awesome. I was planning on doing custom boxes for us someday, but I put it off because of the headache of dealing with existing companies in the industry. Excited to use Pakible, and to be able to test out different designs without sending a freaking fax (or 20 emails).

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#24

Post by aaronbrethorst »

pakhzar wrote: post #20
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. I need to be able to ship 20x20" matted prints (so, big but relatively flat), and finding a safe and easy means to ship these prints sucks. Incidentally, I'd love to be able to ship a bunch of product off to Level and have them frame and drop-ship my prints (hint, hint!)

Additionally, we did product packaging for Level, custom. For now, if you need 1,000+ units we can do custom!

Unfortunately, I'm not quite at the point of shipping off 1,000+ hand printed and toned silver gelatin prints, but someday, I hope :)

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#25

Post by kenrikm »

kazinator wrote: post #16
Skrypt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it hasn't been a problem. thanks for your concern though. in case you're curious: The name we selected was "Packable" = packaging + enable/capable/etc. But the domain was already taken. We searched for alterations of that until we landed on pakible.com being available.

I'm skeptical; I mean, when you start a venture, you hope that it takes off. Will it still not be a problem if you gain 10, 30, 50 times the attention that you have now? Good luck, though! Whatever bumps you hit, you will sort out along the way. One good thing is that the name's phonology doesn't have the issue; just the spelling. Phonetically, it's just "packable".

I was not even aware "Paki" was a slur that refers to Pakistani individuals and never would have made the connection and I'm doubtful the average person would either. It's clearly a packaging company and so the mind makes that connection when reading the name.

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#26

Post by pm »

pm wrote: post #13
kazinator wrote: post #12

When this business name was chosen, did that process actually involve the firing of a synapse in someone's cerebral cortex? People are going to be put off by a by what looks like a portmanteau of "Paki" and some word ending in "ble". Large numbers of people, I suspect. Gee, let's make up a venture name by adding a common suffix to an ethnic slur!

Paki, an ethnic slur? I would've thought it was short for Pakistani.

If you're going to downvote this, at least respond. I was asking a genuine question.

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#27

Post by qasar »

kazinator wrote: post #12

When this business name was chosen, did that process actually involve the firing of a synapse in someone's cerebral cortex? People are going to be put off by a by what looks like a portmanteau of "Paki" and some word ending in "ble". Large numbers of people, I suspect. Gee, let's make up a venture name by adding a common suffix to an ethnic slur!

I'm Pakistani and one of two partners at YC who works closest with Pakible. This thought has literally never crossed my mind in 5 months since we funded them.

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#28

Post by alpinist »

Hey guys and gals,

Glad you are tackling this problem. I run a company that rebrands and does some ODM designs in China. Getting packaging quotes in the US has been a frustrating and confusing process.

Here's a few reasons I still get all my packaging done in china:

1. Instruction Manuals. Ever tried to have them printed to go with your box designs? Box designers are typically not "full service" in that respect. Here are two examples of instruction manuals that I need:

a) High gloss, multi-page booklet. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0123/9252/files/Ambassador... b) Single folded piece of paper: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0123/9252/files/instruction...

2. Foam inserts. Offer me paper inserts to hold my product or cut EVA foam.

As a small business owner you need full service to make your offer attractive. Foam cutting may be more difficult but please let customers print small instruction manuals on paper or folded booklets at reasonable prices.

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#29

Post by veb »

> We assumed there would be a Teespring for packaging. But there wasn’t, so we decided to go ahead and do it.

Have you folks seen the bags that Teespring ships with? All cool branded logos and such on them. Do you imagine that you'll be offering something like this? To me, it seems by selling branded courier bags like that would mean people purchase in bulk from you and can be used for more rather than just focusing on boxes. (I imagine there'd be a whole lot less overhead and such. But I'm no expert!)

They also ship air fresher stuff in their bags. I imagine that would be a pretty neat thing to have with your service!

Best of luck. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

EDIT: Have you guys seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLDA2miW7gg I've got a few friends that sell their music on vinyl, and they would literally go crazy and throw money at you if they could get something like in that video, but branded etc. (sorry if these suggestions have been put into the idea bin already!)

Re: Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging

#30

Post by moneypenny »

qasar wrote: post #27
kazinator wrote: post #12

When this business name was chosen, did that process actually involve the firing of a synapse in someone's cerebral cortex? People are going to be put off by a by what looks like a portmanteau of "Paki" and some word ending in "ble". Large numbers of people, I suspect. Gee, let's make up a venture name by adding a common suffix to an ethnic slur!

I'm Pakistani and one of two partners at YC who works closest with Pakible. This thought has literally never crossed my mind in 5 months since we funded them.

I guess you're not in the UK. I'm of Indian origin, lived through the 70s and 80s and this word makes me cringe physically.
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