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Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

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Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#81

Post by jamiequint »

gotostatement wrote: post #10
karinaderbez wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers or users can pay the withdrawal fee, that's up to the company. We encourage companies to offer it as financial benefit. Regardless, users love our product and see a lot of value in getting the flexibility to decide when to get paid. In contrast to other options in the market there are no interest payments or hidden costs.

I can see how in the short term it's a positive service - they can now keep their lights on, their water running, etc. But as a long-term proposition, a permanent adjustment to the status quo, it just feeds into an exploitative system in the same way that loan sharks do. You're filling a gap that should be filled with higher wages, and reducing wages from the most-vulnerable to do so.

You're arguing for reducing options for people who don't have money to ... make yourself feel better? Surely them having an option to choose for themselves is better than no option, unless you think you know better than them (which would be pretty arrogant and small-minded of you IMO).

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#82

Post by InvaderFizz »

Sriverop wrote: post #2

Hi, we are Salvador and Max from Levo ( https://www.levo.mx ) a high yield savings account for Mexico. We aggregate the savings accounts of our users and negotiate significantly better interest rates from other banks on their behalf. 65% of Mexican savers keep their savings in their checking or savings accounts, yet 97% of all bank accounts are non-interest bearing. This is partly due to a highly concentrated banking…

You mentioned an example of a $50k USD inheritance getting 6.5% APR, is that a peso denominated account, or a dollar denominated account?

As an expat living in Mexico as a permanent resident, a dollar denominated Mexican bank account that pays above inflation rates is very appealing.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#83

Post by anadalakra »

bithavoc wrote: post #72
anadalakra wrote: post #3

We’re Anada and Ilya, the co-founders of BoldVoice ( https://www.boldvoice.com/ ). BoldVoice is an accent coaching app that helps non-native speakers learn and practice the standard American accent. As immigrants to the US, we’ve personally experienced that having a foreign accent can affect your confidence and job opportunities (by as much as 20%, according to studies). So we built this app to help non-native Englis…

Hi, congrats on your launch. This app would have been ideal for me; I'm now looking to improve my pronunciation after working on my grammar for a while. But I lost trust in the first 15 minutes; if you check lesson 1/4 of "Unvoiced and Voiced consonants," the app expects me to repeat the following phrase with an American accent: > This house is a part of a low-income housing project. But the coach audio clip does not…

Hey there, thanks for checking us out!

The error that you pointed out has been fixed, and now the sentence matches the coach's sample -- feel free to double check this on the app. Both "part of" and "a part of" are grammatically correct. That said, we definitely agree that the coach sample should match the written sentence.

By the way, potential issues such as these is exactly why we added the flag feature on the practice cards, through which you can report any errors in spelling or other types of issues. We strive for 100% accuracy, but there are still real people behind this making all the content, so we appreciate user input to make things always better.

If you would like to delete your account, we can help. Just email us at support@boldvoice.com with your account details.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#84

Post by pawelwentpawel »

eldaisfish wrote: post #33
anadalakra wrote: post #3

We’re Anada and Ilya, the co-founders of BoldVoice ( https://www.boldvoice.com/ ). BoldVoice is an accent coaching app that helps non-native speakers learn and practice the standard American accent. As immigrants to the US, we’ve personally experienced that having a foreign accent can affect your confidence and job opportunities (by as much as 20%, according to studies). So we built this app to help non-native Englis…

I disagree fundamentally with the premise here. An accent is simply someone applying the rules of pronunciation from one language to another. No accent is right or wrong but your product seems to imply that North American accents are desirable or correct while accents rooted in non-english languages are less desirable. Instead of trying to "acquire an accent" why not focus on clarity of speech and pronunciation? If s…

> The goal should be clear communication, not a north american accent.

I agree with this 100% - mutual understanding is the basis of communication. Nevertheless, I don't think this the problem that BoldVoice is trying to solve here. While I'd love all my audiobooks to be read with a Glaswegian accent, North American one is what most people are internationally most familiar with. As a non-native speaker, being able to speak fluently with an accent that is highly desirable (at least within this century) carries not only practical utility but also social status if you consider the fact that this is someone's second (or nth) language.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#85

Post by ilyausorov »

Zababa wrote: post #66
anadalakra wrote: post #3

We’re Anada and Ilya, the co-founders of BoldVoice ( https://www.boldvoice.com/ ). BoldVoice is an accent coaching app that helps non-native speakers learn and practice the standard American accent. As immigrants to the US, we’ve personally experienced that having a foreign accent can affect your confidence and job opportunities (by as much as 20%, according to studies). So we built this app to help non-native Englis…

That sounds like a very nice idea! I'm French and not confident at all in my oral English because of my pronunciation. I did a bit of job hunting recently, and I was afraid that the topic of English would come up precisely because of that.

Hey, that's exactly why we're here. Happy to have you check it out and let us know if this is the type of program you would want to keep doing & practicing. If you have any feedback, questions or issues, please reach out to us at founders@boldvoice.com!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#86

Post by LevoMX »

InvaderFizz wrote: post #82
Sriverop wrote: post #2

Hi, we are Salvador and Max from Levo ( https://www.levo.mx ) a high yield savings account for Mexico. We aggregate the savings accounts of our users and negotiate significantly better interest rates from other banks on their behalf. 65% of Mexican savers keep their savings in their checking or savings accounts, yet 97% of all bank accounts are non-interest bearing. This is partly due to a highly concentrated banking…

You mentioned an example of a $50k USD inheritance getting 6.5% APR, is that a peso denominated account, or a dollar denominated account? As an expat living in Mexico as a permanent resident, a dollar denominated Mexican bank account that pays above inflation rates is very appealing.

The account is peso denominated. If your are interested we are happy to make you part of the private Beta.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#87

Post by LevoMX »

erehweb wrote: post #27
Sriverop wrote: post #2

Hi, we are Salvador and Max from Levo ( https://www.levo.mx ) a high yield savings account for Mexico. We aggregate the savings accounts of our users and negotiate significantly better interest rates from other banks on their behalf. 65% of Mexican savers keep their savings in their checking or savings accounts, yet 97% of all bank accounts are non-interest bearing. This is partly due to a highly concentrated banking…

Very interesting. Does Mexico have anything akin to US Federal Deposit Insurance? Does Levo?

Yes! Its called IPAB and its part of the federal government.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#88

Post by IceDane »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #64
IceDane wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're neglecting the fact that they will also have expenses the month after, and the month after that. Tapping into their income faster just means that this month's bill gets covered by their salary, but next month's bill goes on credit. If anything, this product is bad like credit cards and overdrafts, in that it will enable people to make financially unsound decisions while feeling like they can actually afford it…

For ease of numbers, let's say you make $100/week and have to spend $90/week on personal expenses. If you get paid once every 2 weeks, you have: Week 1: -$90 Week 2: +$20 Week 3: -$70 Week 4: +$40 Week 5: -$50 Week 6: +$60 Week 7: -$30 Week 8: +$80 Week 9: -$10 Week 10: +$100 So it takes you 9 weeks before you never go negative and to be able to afford to take the job, you need $90. If you get paid everyday, it's: We…

Yes, you're absolutely right. If we set up a perfect example to support your arguments, and we ignore any possible negative aspects, then we can conclude that this is a purely beneficial arrangement.

Look, I'm not arguing that it can't be useful to have the ability to get paid daily sometimes, but I don't buy into this schtick about this company doing this in some attempt to help the poor, because literally the opposite is happening.

A more realistic picture goes something like this:

In the middle of the month with only $200 in your account, you get hit with a $400 car repair bill. Instead of having overdrafts or text message money lenders, you can now borrow from your future salary via this company. You do this, cover your bill.

Now it's $next_month and you just got paid $400 less. If you were $200 in plus in the middle of last month, it doesn't seem far-fetched that you'll be in a similar situation this month, which means you're already at -$200, but you just don't know it until the middle of the month.

So what do you do now? Do you borrow from your salary again and repeat this process? Maybe, but then go back to step 1.

An interesting related tidbit is the fact that poor people are actually more likely to make bad financial decisions(and health and etc) and there are numerous studies showing this.

The only thing this product is doing is handing the poor yet another instrument to create financial trouble for themselves, under the guise of helping them. I can also frame it like this: How is this any different than if this company instead just offered "no nonsense loans" at only a 2% interest? Hint: There is zero difference, except in terms of risk for the company. The genius of this arrangement is that they never have to worry about people not paying off their loans.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#89

Post by brunovcosta »

dlojudice wrote: post #76
brunovcosta wrote: post #6

I'm Bruno, founder of Abstra ( https://abstra.app/ ). Abstra is a no-code tool that allows designers to build web apps. Imagine Figma, but we export a functional web application. Here's a timelapsed demo showing it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fObVcHcd_w . As opposed to most famous no-code tools, we don't do any nested-based editing (e.g. tree structure like Webflow - which is an amazing tool, but is b…

amazing product! i'm looking forward to test it

Great, thank you! If you have any questions or thoughts about our tool, you can contact me (bruno [at] abstra.app). I would love to get your feedback on it.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#90

Post by brunovcosta »

franciscomello wrote: post #56
brunovcosta wrote: post #6

I'm Bruno, founder of Abstra ( https://abstra.app/ ). Abstra is a no-code tool that allows designers to build web apps. Imagine Figma, but we export a functional web application. Here's a timelapsed demo showing it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fObVcHcd_w . As opposed to most famous no-code tools, we don't do any nested-based editing (e.g. tree structure like Webflow - which is an amazing tool, but is b…

This looks really cool.

Thank you!!
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