Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Magic

getmagicnow.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 558 posts

Re: Magic

#61

Post by joshmlewis »

[deleted] wrote: post #54
joshmlewis wrote: post #51

I'm curious how they are scaling on the financials side. I'm assuming they are paying for the things ordered off of their personal CC's and with the sudden spike in requests and the long delay of getting money back into their account, I wonder how far they will go. A blog post after all of it cools down would be a fun read. :)

[deleted]

They aren't paying with the products they buy online with their customers CC though. That's what I was getting at. Since they don't have access to their customers CC on the websites they're purchasing these services/items from they are having to pay with it and then get reimbursed essentially with their "convenience fee" on top.

Re: Magic

#62

Post by cmikec »

mik3y wrote: post #37

Looks like an even more minimal version of WunWun ( https://www.wunwun.com/ ), which is a "write some unstructured text and we'll dispatch it" app, in NYC and SF. They hire and manage their own couriers tho.

We also handle things that WunWun doesn't, like booking plane tickets, making reservations, paying bills, etc.

Re: Magic

#63

Post by sidcool »

Simplicity at its best. Quite stark and simple landing page. Simple service. Seems like no gimmicks. I would say I am looking forward to give it a try!

Re: Magic

#64

Post by gamegoblin »

DarrenMills wrote: post #32

This is a shadow, a hint of what AI and machine learning will bring us.

I imagine if this thing sticks around, they'll eventually be able to automate simple things like the pizza ordering and whatnot. I imagine it could call back to a human in case of issues, such as:

Requester: "I want two pepperoni pizzas, one with extra cheese."

AI Response: "I can have 3 pizzas, two pepperoni, and one cheese (with extra cheese), delivered from Dominos for $24.15"

Requester: "No, I wanted two pepperoni pizzas, with extra cheese on one of them"

Human steps in after the "no" is detected: "Sorry, I misunderstood your request, I can get two pepperoni pizzas with extra cheese on one of them for $16.50 from Dominos"

Requester: "Yes, thanks."

======

It'll just be a matter of time as the automation spreads to less and less mundane topics.

Re: Magic

#65

Post by waterlesscloud »

joshmlewis wrote: post #51

I'm curious how they are scaling on the financials side. I'm assuming they are paying for the things ordered off of their personal CC's and with the sudden spike in requests and the long delay of getting money back into their account, I wonder how far they will go. A blog post after all of it cools down would be a fun read. :)

The users put a card on file with Stripe. Is there a way to use that info through Stripe to make a payment to the vendor? (and a separate charge to Magic for the service fee, maybe?)

I assume bitcoin is going through Stripe as well, though if not, that money could come to Magic more quickly. The problem then is that the vendors likely don't accept bitcoin...

Re: Magic

#66

Post by sidcool »

cmikec wrote: post #8
jonheller wrote: post #5

Besides questions about revenue and such, can I just say that I absolutely love the landing page. No gimmicks, no parallax, no videos, no fake testimonials, no hero images, no marquees. Just good copy. Not sure if this is because of how quickly this blew up, but well done.

Thanks! Yeah, honestly, after deciding to launch this we released a really minimal landing page which I saved here: http://getmagicnow.com/index-old.html - As you can see I made that in about 20 minutes, and was not expecting this. After someone posted it on Product Hunt I spent whatever time I could polishing it up. In general though, I agree, simple websites are much better. Thanks for the kind words.

The font on the new page much better.

Re: Magic

#67

Post by waterlesscloud »

joshmlewis wrote: post #61
[deleted] wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

They aren't paying with the products they buy online with their customers CC though. That's what I was getting at. Since they don't have access to their customers CC on the websites they're purchasing these services/items from they are having to pay with it and then get reimbursed essentially with their "convenience fee" on top.

Realized what you meant and deleted and revised my comment. In any case, I can't imagine their personal credit cards handling any actual volume, not to mention the fraud protection issues with orders for deliveries all over the country.

Re: Magic

#68

Post by sinwave »

This reminds me of an opinion that I have which I've been looking for an opportunity to flesh out and share. Despite all of the research and engineering that's gone into the user interface (and "experience") of smartphones, text messaging as an interface has one massive advantage: the perceived cost of sending a text is miniscule in comparison to other operations. I don't have units, but it's probably an order of magnitude lower in any reasonable ones.

Maybe I'm projecting onto "the general public" when I make this generalization, but performing operations on a smartphone (aside from call/text) are oft accompanied by the very real risk of squandering your time away. Especially when a browser is involved.

There is something elegant about the interface of a dumb phone, especially a flip phone: You pull it out of your pocket, whip it open, type your text, send it. And then crucially, you flip it closed and stop thinking about it. This is the key. You're using it when you're using it, and you're not when you're not.

Even grander generalization and possibly controversial opinion: I hope that consumer technology begins to cater more to those of us who wish to use technology in this way - as a tool that you pull out of your pocket and promptly put away upon achieving your ends.

Re: Magic

#69

Post by sidcool »

cmikec wrote: post #2

Hey everyone - this is insane. My friends and I created Magic a few days ago as a side project and it's completely blown up by accident since then. We're getting stormed with messages and orders. We thought we'd launch it ourselves later if it did well, and other people have been posting it on Product Hunt, Reddit, HN themselves... I'm here to answer any questions, although we've hardly slept!

You said you created it a few days ago. Do you happen to have many helping hands to handle the deluge of messages you will be getting? Coz first impression is going to be the last impression.

Re: Magic

#70

Post by [deleted] »

heliumcraft wrote: post #34
cmikec wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Yeah, honestly, after deciding to launch this we released a really minimal landing page which I saved here: http://getmagicnow.com/index-old.html - As you can see I made that in about 20 minutes, and was not expecting this. After someone posted it on Product Hunt I spent whatever time I could polishing it up. In general though, I agree, simple websites are much better. Thanks for the kind words.

Is this available in Canada?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN