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Magic+

getmagicnow.com

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Re: Magic+

#411

Post by benplumley »

BillFixers wrote: post #206
jacobevelyn wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is it US only? I'm in the UK and I'm interested.

Re: Magic+

#412

Post by Terretta »

de_Selby wrote: post #407
puranjay wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another commenter pointed out, HN has a lot of young people making $150k+ and this is just a way for them to "optimize" their time and be more "productive". In reality, this is just a way for them to pretend that they have the same luxuries as the actual rich who came from money. Services like this will last only as long as the bubble in the valley.

It sounds like it's targeted at people earning hell of a lot more than 150k.

$100/hr is $200K/yr or $350K to get you $200K after taxes.

Plus inefficiency or loss of fidelity to intent from the delegation, which adds a cost.

I'd think $450K - $600K income before this makes sense.

// Also note the contact and meeting management class of tasks require always on engagement. At that point, you're better off with your own company-supplied EA who is in the flow and can carry your personal prioritization prefs so you don't think about any part of that process.

Re: Magic+

#413

Post by TeMPOraL »

pricechild wrote: post #400
Splines wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, Amazon's UI has a long way to go and doesn't look like it's going to get better anytime soon. If you know what you're looking for, it's fine, but as soon as you try to comparison shop it falls apart fairly quickly. I've gotten into the habit of looking for experts on other sites that do hands-on comparisons for the thing I want to buy (some recent examples: rain jackets and fitness meters). Amazon is hone…

> Personally, Amazon's UI has a long way to go and doesn't look like it's going to get better anytime soon. Haven't people been dismissing them over their UI since the beginning of time? And yet it works and is successful?

The sad thing is - UIs generally don't matter if there's anything else making your product special. You can make your users as miserable as you want, and they will still use your service. Companies know it and prioritize effort accordingly.

Re: Magic+

#414

Post by 72deluxe »

nl wrote: post #354
cdata wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a very similar outcome with Magic after trying really hard to rely on it. One of their suggested usages is to order flowers for someone, so I tried that on two different occasions. The first time around, I asked for flowers, and got a picture of some flowers that they could send to my recipient. I didn't like the flowers in the picture, and so they picked another set of flowers per some feedback from me. The fl…

If it's any consolation, I once had a flower company deliver an empty box to someone's office. That was pretty embarrassing!

Perhaps there is scope for a sitcom involving rubbish companies and startups?

That sounds pretty funny: "For you, with love!" (empty box)

Re: Magic+

#415

Post by TeMPOraL »

davecraige wrote: post #294
cmikec wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mike, 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…

I'd be interested in seeing the founders respond to this.

We have stories like this every now and then with various companies, and here's something that makes me wonder: assuming that both parties are neither evil nor stupid (which I think is fair assumption in most cases), how exactly such situations happen? There's a lesson for every founder and manager hiding here.

Re: Magic+

#416

Post by corin_ »

Terretta wrote: post #412
de_Selby wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like it's targeted at people earning hell of a lot more than 150k.

$100/hr is $200K/yr or $350K to get you $200K after taxes. Plus inefficiency or loss of fidelity to intent from the delegation, which adds a cost. I'd think $450K - $600K income before this makes sense. // Also note the contact and meeting management class of tasks require always on engagement. At that point, you're better off with your own company-supplied EA who is in the flow and can carry your personal prioritiza…

You don't have to use them all the time, though... there's plenty of things I couldn't afford to do all the time but sometimes it's worth paying extra for, a service like this could be one of them. If something urgent comes up that Magic+ could fix in 15minutes and that I don't have 15 minutes to use and it can't wait, a $25 fee could easily be justifiable, even if my salary was only $50k. The same way as most people wouldn't have a chauffer, but that doesn't mean taxis aren't sometimes worth paying for.

Re: Magic+

#417

Post by pjc50 »

hackuser wrote: post #83

I would love to see more comments that provided value to other readers. There is so much expertise and intelligence in this forum, but so many discussions contain only what is easiest: obvious cyncism. It's kind of fun banter once in a while, but gets old and isn't worth spending the time reading.

This is Hacker News; it's a better, more informed, hand-crafted artisinal cynicism that we come here for.

Re: Magic+

#418

Post by TeMPOraL »

nl wrote: post #354
cdata wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a very similar outcome with Magic after trying really hard to rely on it. One of their suggested usages is to order flowers for someone, so I tried that on two different occasions. The first time around, I asked for flowers, and got a picture of some flowers that they could send to my recipient. I didn't like the flowers in the picture, and so they picked another set of flowers per some feedback from me. The fl…

If it's any consolation, I once had a flower company deliver an empty box to someone's office. That was pretty embarrassing!

That's the problem with depending on companies like that. There's zero accountability, you can do absolutely NIL to hurt them, but if they fuck up, it can do big damage to your affairs.

I had a flower shop almost fail on the delivery - we agreed on the flowers, date and place, and then... they forgot. They simply forgot about the delivery. Luckily I called them in time and they managed to get their shit together and deliver the bouquet literally minutes before I was about to suffer a big embarrassment if the flowers were not there.

Re: Magic+

#419

Post by avar »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #205
chemmail wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

But that's not the actual problem. Let's say the hold time is a random 10 to 20 minutes. What's your personal assistant supposed to do in the meantime?

They can't reasonably do anything that requires making calls or other real-time interaction in case the first phone call is picked up.

Even if they could make them do some non-time-sensitive secondary task while they're on hold on some primary task they'd still suffer some time wasted due to overhead & distractions.

Re: Magic+

#420

Post by firepoet »

davecraige wrote: post #294
cmikec wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mike, 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…

I would definitely like to hear the response to this before I signed up for their service!
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