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Who would give their 8-12 year old an iPhone 3GS / iPhone 4? Or rather, is that market big enough? Maybe eventually, but this seems almost premature.
by palish 16y ago
Who would give their 8-12 year old an iPhone 3GS / iPhone 4?
Or rather, is that market big enough? Maybe eventually, but this seems almost premature.
- catch23 16y agoon the bright side, there's now a great reason for 12yr olds to beg their parents for an iPhone 4.
- jamesg 16y agoI think kids are already begging their parents for an iPhone 4 :) If this does push parents across the line and they decide to get their kids an iPhone, we want to provide them with an awesome service that they'll see some value from too.
- MartinCron 16y agoMy 8-12 year old will get an iPhone4 the moment I get my hands on an iPhone5.
- pg 16y agoWho would buy a microcomputer in 1975? In a startup you want to lead the target.
- paraschopra 16y agoBut I guess many, many microcomputer startups failed because they were way ahead of the adoption curve. As a startup, don't you want to maximize your chances of survival + potential growth? (As opposed to just potential growth).
- pg 16y agoWhat you want to do is make something that people want so much that they'll use it even early. So e.g. writing a Basic interpreter was the right thing in 1975, because microcomputer users were programmers, and the alternative was programming in machine language. Whereoscope is roughly the equivalent thing for this market. Parents really want to know where their kids are, so even though there may only be a few families that have the right hardware already, there will be enough users to keep Whereoscope afloat till more do.
- fragmede 16y agoLet's not forget the footnote in Apple's success, HP. Woz was working for HP, and HP had to pass on the rights for their cute toy of a computer. If they hadn't, I wouldn't be typing this on an Apple Mac. Arguably, their success was HP's failure to pivot. Whereoscope already has strong competition from the phone companies themselves, who realize this is a big deal. Verizon charges 9.99/month for, AT&T's is also 9.99/month, with the first month free. Sprint throws in 100 text messages with their 9.99/month charge. That said, there is room to be had, especially if they have patentable IP, similar to co-existence of Tivo and Comcast.
- jamesg 16y agoWe think the market is big enough. It's important to note that we have no intention of stopping with supporting just iPhone. Android, blackberry, etc are all on the way. It was pretty interesting to check out an AT&T store recently: a lot of the lower-end phones that you'd buy kids if you were worried about them breaking it are running Android these days, and I think the leap from a feature phone to a low-end Android handset is much smaller than the leap from a feature phone to an iPhone. But we've actually found quite a few families where parents have bought their kids an iPhone as a reward, etc. We find that if the kid has an iPhone, typically the parent does too.
- palish 16y agoRight on. It looks like you've done your homework (which is expected with the YC pedigree) so all that remains is: good luck to you! Supporting Android does seem very significant.
- axod 16y agoEven then, who would want to abuse trust and privacy and track their kids location. I hate the idea. Absolutely hate it, and (No offense to those involved) hope and expect it to fail.
- mickdj 16y agoHi axod, We, like you, hate the idea of abusing trust and privacy. However, children who want their parents to know when they're getting home from soccer practise, or see how far away their mother is when she's coming to pick them up, is quite a different scenario. There are services that are as one-sided as you imply - the child doesn't have to 'opt-in'. Whereoscope is built quite differently. cheers Mick