Just Landed Is Shutting Down • Hacker News Board

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#81

Post by ForHackernews » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

grandsham wrote: post #55

Laaw wrote: post #36

Question about flight data and the middlemen: Do these middlemen have to strike deals with the various airlines, or are they simply accessing public APIs that generally stink? What order of magnitude, cost wise, do these airlines charge in the deals? Could I, $random_guy, make a deal with $random_airline, for an amount that is sustainable without any special kind of funding?

In what is probably the biggest case, FlightAware, a lot of the data comes from a fleet of users running ADS-B[1] receivers feeding data into their system. ADS-B data is what Air Traffic Control uses to track planes, and it's receivable using using a cheap TV tuner and a raspberry pi[2]. It ends up being probably the best way to track planes very precisely, as long as you can get enough coverage, which flightaware ma…

It sounds like FlightAware is a much smarter, and more technologically innovative company than some iOS app maker. How come we aren't reading an article about them?

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#82

Post by jgrall » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:57 PM UTC

wehadfun wrote: post #31

You may want to try to sell this thing man.

I have been approached by a number of companies over the years about selling Just Landed, including some household names. The trouble is, almost none of them wanted the app – they just wanted me as an employee. These weren't companies I could get super excited about working for - especially since I love being an entrepreneur and working for myself. Of the few who did want the app or the tech, their quality bar/taste wasn't a good fit, and I worried how they would treat my users. It was never about the money. Time is my most valuable resource.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#83

Post by malloreon » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:57 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #75

cryptoz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking recently about crowdsourcing our own dataset of airplane data. When you get on a plane, tap a button that says 'we're delayed 5 mins'. When you land, tap a button that says you've landed. In fact, you probably don't even need users to tap those buttons. The better way would be to use the accelerometer and barometer to automatically detect takeoff and landing. Airplane data sources are ALWAYS wrong…

[deleted]

Waze realtime traffic data was entirely crowdsourced, and probably still is largely so.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#84

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #56

Eridrus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No kidding, this was the weirdest shutdown statement I've read in a while, "we found users who derive commercial benefit from using us... so we're shutting down"

I think he did touch on that though. Essentially he's selling bread, and he's got to buy scarce flower at high prices in a convoluted system from a small number of farmers, and be forever at the mercy of the flower selling farmers. Only it's data instead of flower. Further, the data sometimes is bad and causes inaccuracy issues for customers without him knowing, this causes lots of complaints that he has no control o…

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Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#85

Post by jgrall » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

jimkri wrote: post #76

I wish I would have known about this before it shut down, but this is a great idea for Trains as well. Just Arrived.

I actually considered generalizing the app along these lines, for just about any in-person appointment that you have to keep.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#86

Post by duderific » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #67

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he did touch on that though. Essentially he's selling bread, and he's got to buy scarce flower at high prices in a convoluted system from a small number of farmers, and be forever at the mercy of the flower selling farmers. Only it's data instead of flower. Further, the data sometimes is bad and causes inaccuracy issues for customers without him knowing, this causes lots of complaints that he has no control o…

I think that what the other posters are touching on is: why sell bread at all? Why not sell beer? Or ethanol, to gasoline companies? You have a source of flour, and you also have access to customers who are deriving their livelihoods from your product. If the bread market is tapped out and too competitive to make a profit, why not turn around and seek other markets? In my experience, consumer mobile is pretty much ta…

But he doesn't have the source of flour -- he gets the flour (data) from unreliable/expensive sources and turns it into bread. The people with the data are the ones who are in the leverage position.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#87

Post by brianwawok » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 10:23 PM UTC

mst wrote: post #63

pbreit wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why "500 times"?

Because that was how much more data they were using than the early users.

Exactly from the article he said they used 500x more data (which I am sure is a total broad guess, but I could easily imagine 100x or more for someone hitting an airport up every day)

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#88

Post by intrasight » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

lentil wrote: post #72

manarth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple supports in-app purchase of subscriptions, so you can still use the standard App-store tools to handle recurring billing.

I think they're restricted to certain types of apps, though? The app review guidelines[0] say: > "Apps may only use auto-renewing subscriptions for periodicals (newspapers, magazines), business Apps (enterprise, productivity, professional creative, cloud storage), and media Apps (video, audio, voice), or the App will be rejected" I assumed that's why so many iOS apps use non-recurring billing instead. You can still s…

This app did sound to me like an enterprise business app. So I agree with other commenters here that the author didn't pivot soon enough to business users.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#89

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

jgrall wrote: post #61

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he did touch on that though. Essentially he's selling bread, and he's got to buy scarce flower at high prices in a convoluted system from a small number of farmers, and be forever at the mercy of the flower selling farmers. Only it's data instead of flower. Further, the data sometimes is bad and causes inaccuracy issues for customers without him knowing, this causes lots of complaints that he has no control o…

Creator of Just Landed here. Actually, I have been approached by a number of companies over the years about selling Just Landed, including some household names. The trouble is, almost none of them wanted the app – they just wanted me as an employee. These weren't companies I could get super excited about working for - especially since I love being an entrepreneur and working for myself. Of the few who did want the ap…

[deleted]

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#90

Post by vinceguidry » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 10:30 PM UTC

tomphoolery wrote: post #41

The #1 reason why this app failed is because people like me, and especially my mother, who would have been a power user...did not know it existed until this Medium post. Your problem has less to do with the app itself and more to do with how it was promoted and marketed.

In case you didn't know this, mass marketing is expensive.

You don't use the marketing channels you wish you have, you use the ones you can make a profit off of. If you have to ask, they probably won't reach you.