291–300 of 498 posts
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Neither of them are free, magic+ is hourly with minimum commitments and magic is pay per request, with free consultation before you get a quote.
The screenshot says "free to chat," which Magic is.
It's the same as getting a quote from any other professional service (lawyers, doctors, etc.) which is generally free.
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Why did you think it was satire? They're just trying to offer a personal assistant service over the air, nothing that beyond imagination. Likely costs less than actually employing someone.
I too thought it was satire. Two of their examples are "I need to buy $2500 worth of electronics tonight like it's nothing" and "get me a private helicopter tonight for $3500", all the while paying $100/hour for the privilege. I understand some people spend money like that, but it seemed more likely that someone was making a joke about absurd wealth and the startup scene than a real business. If the Onion wrote an ar…
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I think most middle class people would think $300+ for a meal is wildly extravagant. And would think a $300 gift for "a friend" is on high end of gifts.
As a middle class person struggling to get day by day -- yes, yes it is.
It's a shame the downward pressures that have made "struggling to get by" the middle class norm. The whole point of the thriving middle class (in the US at least) was that, with a willingness to work, you could live comfortably, with a house and two cars and 2 kids.
This isn't meant to be insulting or directed at you - it's just a new definition of middle class, that the struggle builds character or your struggling is an indicator of your value or lack of hard work, that I find almost infuriating.
End rant, I suppose.
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Hey Paul, this value proposition resonates with me (especially the comparison with lawyers and accountants) and I'm the target customer... But I enthusiastically tried Magic when they first launched and it was full of fail (big promise from Magic, no delivery on a keg of beer from the East Bay). I certainly would have paid a lot for it. Skeptical that it'd be any different this time around? [Edit: typo]
Hi, this is Mike, one of the founders of Magic. Really sorry to hear about your experience here. Did you get a refund? If not, please text in to 83489 and mention this post, and we'll be sure to get it to you. I can absolutely admit that when Magic first launched, we were over capacity and a certain percentage of orders went awry. I hate that this happened, but we really did not predict that the website would go vira…
As you know I had a very bad experience with Magic as well.
I worked for you for free for a week and on boarded 63 new customers for you. You guys arbitrarily deleted my account, and abruptly shut off my autopay donations to numerous charities we had set up together.
Then you went silent and wouldn't return any of the ten messages I sent to you asking for access to my personal records and information regarding my numerous charity donations.
How can I encourage others to use your service if I was shown such an unprofessional and disrespectful experience?
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> 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…
You wouldn't need an extravagant income to do something like that. I just did a quick check and it costs less than $150 to overnight an 8lb package from NY to SF with 8am delivery. So the markup over just buying the meal at the restaurant is going to be less than $300 once you add refrigerated packaging and pay somebody to order it, pick it up, package it, and ship it. That's pricey if you're doing it every week, but…
I don't know many lower-middle class people who'd buy what will likely end up being just shy of a thousand dollar present for their friends.
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> 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…
I do somewhat extravagant things like this for my wife every anniversary divisible by 5 years; I've not used magic to do it, but most nice restaurants can make something like this happen if you call and ask. It ends up being something a few times more expensive as a night out at the restaurant, so it's not cheap, and you don't get the ambiance, but my wife is very attached to memories, so the touch of "somewhere we v…
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> 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 $…
UPS rate calculator for overnight cross country shipping of a 7lb package is $285, not "about $100".
All this rounding down is the difference between "a few hundred" and likely "just shy of a thousand dollars". A few hundred in shipping, a couple of hundred for a meal that's not "cornershop Chinese", the time for the service. Etc.
Looks like the reception isn't doing too well. I remember when Magic launched here on HN and it BLEW up. I was one of the people who tried it out. I live in NYC and actually had a poor experience. The first two times, I said "hey I want a sandwich with [x]" and I got it but it took a lot longer than if I just clicked the necessary buttons on Seamless. Then I kept getting random calls from time to time from pizza deli…
For free.
So I challenge the amount of money Magic needs to pay the very best assistants, not the price to the customers. And while the automation will increase the amount of time spent on the job by each assistant delivering outcomes, it's a very exhausting day for them to deliver this sort of level of service non stop.
Over time the automation will increase the margins, but for now the best assistants will be setting themselves up to be poached by the best clients.