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Magic+

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Re: Magic+

#201

Post by simoncion »

jfoutz wrote: post #191
rtpg wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service Call me skeptical, but where exactly is the tech involved? Currently this is just text messages going to people + people doing the things. One possibility would be through AI (a bit of a weasel word most of the time, honestly), but Google and Apple…

People are fairly predictable. Presumably they'll build software to handle common requests quickly. Google pizza is a good example, but i doubt google will do pizza, dry cleaning, and travel booking all in one shot. (but they might). It seems like these folks can find a local vendor for service X, have a button on some internal software to send it out, then just leverage that for all customers in that city. presumabl…

> Presumably they'll build software to handle common requests quickly.

I'm not the OP, but...

I guess, but again, where's the software? You can entirely reasonably solve that problem with a well-indexed medium-sized binder and a Rolodex.

Re: Magic+

#202

Post by JoshTriplett »

Archio wrote: post #162
jcrites wrote: post #71

I use Magic and they provide incredible service. They've been able to accomplish pretty much everything I've asked, including some requests that I thought were borderline outlandish, such as having food from a restaurant across the country sent to me via chilled overnight air mail for a friend's birthday as a big flashy surprise (friend's favorite restaurant). If you value your time more than your money, then they're…

> such as having food from a restaurant across the country sent to me via chilled overnight air mail for a friend's birthday as a big flashy surprise Maybe I'm missing something here, but this is making me seriously think about what Magic's target market is. What kind of income would a person need to fathom affording something like that? I know people who I would consider "wealthy" on a first-world scale but this see…

> What kind of income would a person need to fathom affording something like that?

Depends heavily on how often they did it. A quick estimate suggests that a request like that would cost a few hundred dollars at most: the cost of the food itself, packing it in an insulated box with cold packs (some restaurants can do that themselves, and if not, a shipping service could most likely do that quite cheaply), and about $100 to ship a package weighing a few pounds overnight. Absolutely in the "luxury" category, but a few hundred dollars doesn't seem wildly outlandish for someone making an average tech salary to choose to spend on a meaningful birthday gift for a close friend.

(I say "meaningful" because I'd tend to assume that the reason for the restaurant across the country would involve some kind of shared memory with the place, rather than just a wild whim.)

Re: Magic+

#203

Post by mbrameld »

Archio wrote: post #196
patio11 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of income would a person need to fathom affording something like that? What kind of income do you need to spend $200 on a Valentine's dinner? Probably not $1k a month. It's a stretch at $2k but not impossible. It does not feel "absurdly not socially normative" at $3k -- I did it when I was a young twenty-something. To the extent that there is a real class-based difference here, it may be "degree of comfort…

Yeah, but wouldn't it be a lot more than $200? We're talking Magic's $100, however much the meal cost, plus the cost chilled overnight mail would be insane.

They don't chill the whole logistics chain, they just put the food in an insulated box with some dry ice and send it with the rest of the overnight packages.

Re: Magic+

#204

Post by patio11 »

mbrameld wrote: post #203
Archio wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but wouldn't it be a lot more than $200? We're talking Magic's $100, however much the meal cost, plus the cost chilled overnight mail would be insane.

They don't chill the whole logistics chain, they just put the food in an insulated box with some dry ice and send it with the rest of the overnight packages.

Yep -- see http://orderboxesnow.com/ for FedEx's first-party options, which are the upper bound on expense (for the chilling, not the overnight delivery).

Re: Magic+

#205

Post by JoshTriplett »

chemmail wrote: post #128
tghw wrote: post #80

I just signed up to see if they could renegotiate my Comcast price for me. It turns out you have to buy either 10 hours at $100/hour or 40 hours at $75/hour to get started. That's way too steep to try something out.

It will probably take those 10 hours being on old for comcast to pickup. You think i'm joking.

Considering that many kinds of common requests would likely involve waiting on hold, I'd be surprised if they didn't contract out to some cheap automated service to handle "wait until this goes off hold and then connect me to them".

Re: Magic+

#206

Post by BillFixers »

jacobevelyn wrote: post #132
cscharenberg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just reading about a company started by 2 brothers that does exactly this. If I can remember the name, I'll post back. Maybe I saw it in Bloomberg? Anyone?

It might be BillFixers? ( https://www.billfixers.com ) The Bloomberg article you may have read: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-10/billfixers...

That's us! I don't want to do a sales pitch or any thing, but if I can answer any questions about the service (or Comcast or whoever), feel free to ask away!

(also our hosting isn't handling the traffic super well, so if you have any trouble visiting the site, but want to sign up or have questions, feel free to shoot me an email personally at ben@billfixers.com

Re: Magic+

#207

Post by bonobo3000 »

simoncion wrote: post #201
jfoutz wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are fairly predictable. Presumably they'll build software to handle common requests quickly. Google pizza is a good example, but i doubt google will do pizza, dry cleaning, and travel booking all in one shot. (but they might). It seems like these folks can find a local vendor for service X, have a button on some internal software to send it out, then just leverage that for all customers in that city. presumabl…

> Presumably they'll build software to handle common requests quickly. I'm not the OP, but... I guess, but again, where's the software? You can entirely reasonably solve that problem with a well-indexed medium-sized binder and a Rolodex.

It might not be necessary but it does help scale cheaply. You could have people pick up the phone and order food for you when requested, but if they can route that through an API 99% of the time it costs a whole lot less time & money.

Re: Magic+

#208

Post by biot »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #123
captaindiego wrote: post #76

It says it works from anywhere, but then only gives a number that works from within the US. How are you supposed to use this service while in another country and not having access to a US sim card?

If you are in the target group that is willing to pay $100/hour for a virtual assistant at the beck and call of an SMS, then the $0.20 or so for the SMS roaming charges seems like small change...

Assuming they have a +1 ... internationally available SMS number. 5 digit shortcodes aren't guaranteed to work globally.

Re: Magic+

#209

Post by awakeasleep »

paul wrote: post #106

A lot of skepticism here, which is understandable given the somewhat unbelievable scope of what they are promising. I'm a very active user of Magic+, so I'll give my perspective. (and of course I've been working with them from the beginning at YC, so you're also free to discard my opinion as biased) For me, Magic+ is basically the impossibly good personal assistant, kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man, or Emily in The De…

I don't think they would want to bring down the price.

Right now Magic is targeting price insensitive users, which provides an ENORMOUS advantage because they can always pick the most expensive options when executing a request. They basically remove one of the variables regular people have to optimize for, and it makes it much easier to make users happy.

If they're dropping the price to where price-sensitive users get involved, they're going to have to make far more complicated decisions about what flowers at what price point make someone happy, or what seat on what airline makes sense.

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