10 ms·

A lot of skepticism here, which is understandable given the somewhat unbelievable scope of what they are promising. I'm a very active user of Magic+, so I'll g

by paul 11y ago

A lot of skepticism here, which is understandable given the somewhat unbelievable scope of what they are promising. I'm a very active user of Magic+, so I'll give my perspective. (and of course I've been working with them from the beginning at YC, so you're also free to discard my opinion as biased) For me, Magic+ is basically the impossibly good personal assistant, kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man, or Emily in The Devil Wears Prada. Unlike a conventional assistant, it's available 24/7, always happy to take on more work, and capable of accomplishing just about anything. Obviously the $100/hr price point puts it out of reach for most people, but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves, they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service (I call this the Tesla strategy). For me however, $100/hr is totally worth it since it effectively increases my leverage and enables me to get more done in less time. I've used it to plan events for YC founders, answer questions that are hard to Google (they will find the right experts and ask them), and provide unique and memorable gifts to friends, family, and business partners. I'm used to paying a high price for quality professional services such as accountants or lawyers, so $100/hr for the best possible assistant feels completely reasonable and rational.

mathgeek 11y ago
Sounds like this is the epitome of "you get what you pay for."
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rtpg 11y ago
>but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service Call me skeptical, but where exactly is the tech involved? Currently this is just text messages going to people + people doing the things. One possibility would be through AI (a bit of a weasel word most of the time, honestly), but Google and Apple are both miles ahead on NLP, so by the time you can parse "get me a peperonni pizza", Google will have been doing it for free for the past year , and include a 10% off coupon for the pizza! Considering your value is based almost entirely on getting things done through an assistant that understands English, it looks like costs are basically how much you pay the assistant themselves... Maybe you can get away with paying them $20/hour (and equipping them with good tools to do the common stuff fast). The Tesla strategy works (well, in theory) because so much of the cost of the good is based in things that are continuously getting cheaper (batteries). But here... What's driving down the cost of the assistants? Seems like the solutions are much more about HR-style "innovations" , business partnerships, and the like than anything coming out of MIT. I sincerely hope the strategy isn't "find the cheapest human labor possible"
- meowface 11y ago
  It's an interesting idea, but I agree, I don't see how it's a tech company in any way.
  - themartorana 11y ago
    This is weird to me. It may not be pushing the bar forward on AI or NLP, but it uses one of the most commonly used interpersonal communications technologies today to put a human experience in front of a seemingly boundless personal assistant. Look, it may not be Tesla, but there are a couple of unicorns that seem tech savvy now, that weren't so much for the first little while. AirBnB comes to mind - their analytics now are probably amazing, but they started as a website with a database. Doesn't make them any less of a technology company. Leveraging technology to break down barriers (immediate, constant, on-demand availability and scalability of a personal assistant) is a technology solution to a problem.
    - meowface 11y ago
      It's still not really a tech company, though. Maybe you could call it a "remote company" or "virtual company" due to how they operate, but in my opinion, you can't really call yourself a technology company if you haven't programmed or engineered some sort of software or hardware.
- iLoch 11y ago
  AI is the obvious future for this yeah. I think the tech right now probably just centralizes around building really good customer profiles and excellent tools for assistants so that any assistant can pick up work for any customer.
- seanlinehan 11y ago
  You don't have to automate the parsing of queries to produce leverage here. Every time they answer a query successfully, I would imagine they add that to an internal repository of information. So the technology play would be less on the "figure out what they want" front and more on the "deliver exactly what they want" front. Need an on demand helicopter in NYC? Great, Magic knows just who to call for that because they already did it for Justin Kan. Need to rent the Exploratorium? Great, they can do that too. For more common requests that fit neatly into other on-demand services offering, they could ostensibly partner directly with those folks and integrate with them. That way, Magic could have their own master dashboard to purchase services with minimal effort.
beachstartup 11y ago
> Obviously the $100/hr price point puts it out of reach for most people $100/hr for competent assistants 24/7/anywhere is a steal for any kind of organization like investment banks, enterprise sales, consulting firms, that send their people into the field to do high pressure, deadline-driven work.
- branchless 11y ago
  Anything work related will be subject to confidentiality and is therefore utterly useless for all the examples you give.
  - theintern 11y ago
    Another potential revenue generator for Magic, partner with large organisations so they can offer the service to their employees. If the global corporation where I work can trust files of thousands of employees to a third party cloud sync service, I'm sure this can be done.
    - branchless 11y ago
      I really think this is entering into the land of pure fantasy.
      - beachstartup 11y ago
        that's exactly what most business ventures are.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    last minute accommodations, car rentals, plane tickets, restaurant reservations, location scouting, ballroom rentals, all these things can be outsourced. companies are already paying amex, travel agencies, and junior associates for this kind of thing. not to mention actual assistants that make 75k+
onethumb 11y ago
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]
- cmikec 11y ago
  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 viral so quickly. In fact, today, we still have such high demand for the service that there is a long waitlist for the regular service, and our $100/hr service is getting a lot of signups very quickly as well. This is part of the reason that we created Magic+. We wanted to make sure that people who had a very high bar for service quality would be able to use the service right away and be guaranteed to have the absolute highest level of service, no matter what. I completely understand that given your past experience with Magic, you might not want to try Magic+. However, I can confidently say that if you try it, you will find that it feels very different from the Magic that you tried. Your keg will be there.
  - davecraige 11y ago
    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 my numerous charity donations. How can I encourage others to use your service if I was shown such an unprofessional and disrespectful experience?
    - 11y ago
awakeasleep 11y ago
I don't think they would want to bring down the price. Right now Magic is targeting price insensitive users, which provides an ENORMOUS advantage because they can always pick the most expensive options when executing a request. They basically remove one of the variables regular people have to optimize for, and it makes it much easier to make users happy. If they're dropping the price to where price-sensitive users get involved, they're going to have to make far more complicated decisions about what flowers at what price point make someone happy, or what seat on what airline makes sense.
- dingo_bat 11y ago
  I agree. Consider an example on their website: >User: Can you get me an Ipad pro tonight? >M+: Sure. I'm assuming you want the best model - 128GB with LTE in Space gray? >U: Yeah This process of comparing available options against prices, data plans, and features would have taken at least half an hour for me. Right now, they can just disregard the price completely and offer whatever is the easiest to do/get/access.
  - puranjay 11y ago
    Not just that, the guy wants to buy TWO! This is a purchase normal people would spend hours agonizing over. Should I get the 64GB model or the 128GB? Should I get the latest one, or one generation older? Should I get the slightly more expensive gray/white one, or stick with black? But that's okay. It's not meant for everyone, and that's perfectly fine with me
    - BookmarkSaver 11y ago
      Ok, so why is this so unbelievably interesting to everyone here? I mean, seriously, its been ten hours and this thing is still at the top of the page, and that is very long time for a HN story. For something that doesn't seem particularly innovative nor useful for a typical person, it has a huge amount of support here. Which is especially confusing because this indicates that somehow there is a massive number of price insensitive people people on this site that somehow do consider this useful, a fact that doesn't seem born out at all by the usual activity. It seems like this is a massive attempt to make an enormously overpriced service seem reasonable to people that can afford it but normally wouldn't even consider it.
enraged_camel 11y ago
>>Obviously the $100/hr price point puts it out of reach for most people, but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves, they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service (I call this the Tesla strategy) What tech? Tesla's strategy is working because they are using the high prices of their luxury cars to pay for serious technological innovation and build infrastructure for economies of scale on the expensive components (batteries). Without knowing what type of technology (beyond SMS) powers Magic/Magic+, and why it can't be easily replicated by competitors, it's difficult to buy into your optimism.
rootedbox 11y ago
Wouldn't it be more price effective for you to hire a personal assistant; through one of your companies?
- paul 11y ago
  I actually have a personal assistant, but for many tasks, Magic+ is simply better (and completely responsive 24/7, which I would never demand of an employee).
  - tempestn 11y ago
    Can you give some specific examples of things that Magic+ does better than a local personal assistant, besides being available around the clock?
    - ivanca 11y ago
      Well, for one, it is ubiquitous, you can ask for task in NYC or SF without paying fly tickets or waiting for it to land.
    - paul 11y ago
      They are exceptionally good at getting things done. A regular person could spend hours or days researching the best way to get something done, Magic already knows. There are real scale effects here.
- petke 11y ago
  I never heard of this before but it sounds it scales better to big and small jobs, and is more efficient use of available manpower. Say you have a huge job, or many small jobs, that one personal assistant couldn't do at once alone. Or if you don't have enough jobs at all times of the day to keep your personal assistant busy. etc.. Its kindof analogous to renting time on a server farm vs owning a pc.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Or analogous to renting time from from a fleet of at-will drivers vs owning a car. ;)
no_gravity 11y ago
Can you give some examples where Magic+ was useful?
- akerro 11y ago
  Do you have an idea for facebook competitor, but better? Text it them.
shin_lao 11y ago
How would you compare it to concierge services of Platinum+ cards? Especially when it comes to dining and travel accomodation? Do they have also access to reserved slots in concerts or restaurants?
antaviana 11y ago
I think that knowing them personally makes a big difference on your decision to use their service, regardless of if you are an investor or not. People tend to give their business to people they trust (or to people recommended by people they trust). Just like I think I'd be wary to contract a faceless lawyer to handle my next divorce, I think I'd be wary to contract a faceless personal assistant to handle any important aspects of my personal or business life unless I'm really desperate. So if my rationale were applicable to many others, Magic+ main challenge would be solving how they can overcome the trust roadblock.
aagha 11y ago
> For me however, $100/hr is totally worth it since it effectively increases my leverage and enables me to get more done in less time. Also, because you can afford it. If you only need assistance a few hours a month, I can understand the need for such a service, but why not just hire a virtual assistant that speaks perfect English, and works 40 hours a week for around $2000 a month (or less!). Multiple companies, including Zylun.com offer access to such talent.

by paul 11y ago

mathgeek 11y ago

Sounds like this is the epitome of "you get what you pay for."

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

rtpg 11y ago

>but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service Call me skeptical, but where exactly is the tech involved? Currently this is just text messages going to people + people doing the things. One possibility would be through AI (a bit of a weasel word most of the time, honestly), but Google and Apple are both miles ahead on NLP, so by the time you can parse "get me a peperonni pizza", Google will have been doing it for free for the past year , and include a 10% off coupon for the pizza! Considering your value is based almost entirely on getting things done through an assistant that understands English, it looks like costs are basically how much you pay the assistant themselves... Maybe you can get away with paying them $20/hour (and equipping them with good tools to do the common stuff fast). The Tesla strategy works (well, in theory) because so much of the cost of the good is based in things that are continuously getting cheaper (batteries). But here... What's driving down the cost of the assistants? Seems like the solutions are much more about HR-style "innovations" , business partnerships, and the like than anything coming out of MIT. I sincerely hope the strategy isn't "find the cheapest human labor possible"

meowface 11y ago
It's an interesting idea, but I agree, I don't see how it's a tech company in any way.
- themartorana 11y ago
  This is weird to me. It may not be pushing the bar forward on AI or NLP, but it uses one of the most commonly used interpersonal communications technologies today to put a human experience in front of a seemingly boundless personal assistant. Look, it may not be Tesla, but there are a couple of unicorns that seem tech savvy now, that weren't so much for the first little while. AirBnB comes to mind - their analytics now are probably amazing, but they started as a website with a database. Doesn't make them any less of a technology company. Leveraging technology to break down barriers (immediate, constant, on-demand availability and scalability of a personal assistant) is a technology solution to a problem.
  - meowface 11y ago
    It's still not really a tech company, though. Maybe you could call it a "remote company" or "virtual company" due to how they operate, but in my opinion, you can't really call yourself a technology company if you haven't programmed or engineered some sort of software or hardware.
iLoch 11y ago
AI is the obvious future for this yeah. I think the tech right now probably just centralizes around building really good customer profiles and excellent tools for assistants so that any assistant can pick up work for any customer.
seanlinehan 11y ago
You don't have to automate the parsing of queries to produce leverage here. Every time they answer a query successfully, I would imagine they add that to an internal repository of information. So the technology play would be less on the "figure out what they want" front and more on the "deliver exactly what they want" front. Need an on demand helicopter in NYC? Great, Magic knows just who to call for that because they already did it for Justin Kan. Need to rent the Exploratorium? Great, they can do that too. For more common requests that fit neatly into other on-demand services offering, they could ostensibly partner directly with those folks and integrate with them. That way, Magic could have their own master dashboard to purchase services with minimal effort.

beachstartup 11y ago

> Obviously the $100/hr price point puts it out of reach for most people $100/hr for competent assistants 24/7/anywhere is a steal for any kind of organization like investment banks, enterprise sales, consulting firms, that send their people into the field to do high pressure, deadline-driven work.

branchless 11y ago
Anything work related will be subject to confidentiality and is therefore utterly useless for all the examples you give.
- theintern 11y ago
  Another potential revenue generator for Magic, partner with large organisations so they can offer the service to their employees. If the global corporation where I work can trust files of thousands of employees to a third party cloud sync service, I'm sure this can be done.
  - branchless 11y ago
    I really think this is entering into the land of pure fantasy.
    - beachstartup 11y ago
      that's exactly what most business ventures are.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  last minute accommodations, car rentals, plane tickets, restaurant reservations, location scouting, ballroom rentals, all these things can be outsourced. companies are already paying amex, travel agencies, and junior associates for this kind of thing. not to mention actual assistants that make 75k+

onethumb 11y ago

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]

cmikec 11y ago
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 viral so quickly. In fact, today, we still have such high demand for the service that there is a long waitlist for the regular service, and our $100/hr service is getting a lot of signups very quickly as well. This is part of the reason that we created Magic+. We wanted to make sure that people who had a very high bar for service quality would be able to use the service right away and be guaranteed to have the absolute highest level of service, no matter what. I completely understand that given your past experience with Magic, you might not want to try Magic+. However, I can confidently say that if you try it, you will find that it feels very different from the Magic that you tried. Your keg will be there.
- davecraige 11y ago
  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 my numerous charity donations. How can I encourage others to use your service if I was shown such an unprofessional and disrespectful experience?
  - 11y ago

awakeasleep 11y ago

I don't think they would want to bring down the price. Right now Magic is targeting price insensitive users, which provides an ENORMOUS advantage because they can always pick the most expensive options when executing a request. They basically remove one of the variables regular people have to optimize for, and it makes it much easier to make users happy. If they're dropping the price to where price-sensitive users get involved, they're going to have to make far more complicated decisions about what flowers at what price point make someone happy, or what seat on what airline makes sense.

dingo_bat 11y ago
I agree. Consider an example on their website: >User: Can you get me an Ipad pro tonight? >M+: Sure. I'm assuming you want the best model - 128GB with LTE in Space gray? >U: Yeah This process of comparing available options against prices, data plans, and features would have taken at least half an hour for me. Right now, they can just disregard the price completely and offer whatever is the easiest to do/get/access.
- puranjay 11y ago
  Not just that, the guy wants to buy TWO! This is a purchase normal people would spend hours agonizing over. Should I get the 64GB model or the 128GB? Should I get the latest one, or one generation older? Should I get the slightly more expensive gray/white one, or stick with black? But that's okay. It's not meant for everyone, and that's perfectly fine with me
  - BookmarkSaver 11y ago
    Ok, so why is this so unbelievably interesting to everyone here? I mean, seriously, its been ten hours and this thing is still at the top of the page, and that is very long time for a HN story. For something that doesn't seem particularly innovative nor useful for a typical person, it has a huge amount of support here. Which is especially confusing because this indicates that somehow there is a massive number of price insensitive people people on this site that somehow do consider this useful, a fact that doesn't seem born out at all by the usual activity. It seems like this is a massive attempt to make an enormously overpriced service seem reasonable to people that can afford it but normally wouldn't even consider it.

enraged_camel 11y ago

>>Obviously the $100/hr price point puts it out of reach for most people, but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves, they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service (I call this the Tesla strategy) What tech? Tesla's strategy is working because they are using the high prices of their luxury cars to pay for serious technological innovation and build infrastructure for economies of scale on the expensive components (batteries). Without knowing what type of technology (beyond SMS) powers Magic/Magic+, and why it can't be easily replicated by competitors, it's difficult to buy into your optimism.

rootedbox 11y ago

Wouldn't it be more price effective for you to hire a personal assistant; through one of your companies?

paul 11y ago
I actually have a personal assistant, but for many tasks, Magic+ is simply better (and completely responsive 24/7, which I would never demand of an employee).
- tempestn 11y ago
  Can you give some specific examples of things that Magic+ does better than a local personal assistant, besides being available around the clock?
  - ivanca 11y ago
    Well, for one, it is ubiquitous, you can ask for task in NYC or SF without paying fly tickets or waiting for it to land.
  - paul 11y ago
    They are exceptionally good at getting things done. A regular person could spend hours or days researching the best way to get something done, Magic already knows. There are real scale effects here.
petke 11y ago
I never heard of this before but it sounds it scales better to big and small jobs, and is more efficient use of available manpower. Say you have a huge job, or many small jobs, that one personal assistant couldn't do at once alone. Or if you don't have enough jobs at all times of the day to keep your personal assistant busy. etc.. Its kindof analogous to renting time on a server farm vs owning a pc.
- ethbro 11y ago
  Or analogous to renting time from from a fleet of at-will drivers vs owning a car. ;)

no_gravity 11y ago

Can you give some examples where Magic+ was useful?

akerro 11y ago
Do you have an idea for facebook competitor, but better? Text it them.

shin_lao 11y ago

How would you compare it to concierge services of Platinum+ cards? Especially when it comes to dining and travel accomodation? Do they have also access to reserved slots in concerts or restaurants?

antaviana 11y ago

I think that knowing them personally makes a big difference on your decision to use their service, regardless of if you are an investor or not. People tend to give their business to people they trust (or to people recommended by people they trust). Just like I think I'd be wary to contract a faceless lawyer to handle my next divorce, I think I'd be wary to contract a faceless personal assistant to handle any important aspects of my personal or business life unless I'm really desperate. So if my rationale were applicable to many others, Magic+ main challenge would be solving how they can overcome the trust roadblock.

aagha 11y ago

> For me however, $100/hr is totally worth it since it effectively increases my leverage and enables me to get more done in less time. Also, because you can afford it. If you only need assistance a few hours a month, I can understand the need for such a service, but why not just hire a virtual assistant that speaks perfect English, and works 40 hours a week for around $2000 a month (or less!). Multiple companies, including Zylun.com offer access to such talent.