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> "They charge you for every line of code, we bill you for what’s unique."* What this means to their clients is that if the client hires Engineer.ai to build s

> "They charge you for every line of code, we bill you for what’s unique."* What this means to their clients is that if the client hires Engineer.ai to build something, their next client can get the same product for free. Good luck with that, Engineer.ai. * https://www.engineer.ai/how-it-works https://www.engineer.ai/how-it-works

inetsee 8y ago
I would be astonished if the next client gets it for free. The next client might get it for less than it cost the first client, but Engineer.ai has to pay back those investors.
- ppeetteerr 8y ago
  It was meant as a joke. I'm just pointing out how silly this all sounds. E.ai looks like just another agency with really fancy marketing and an inflated valuation.
- keithwhor 8y ago
  False - venture capital is not debt. They can do whatever they feel like doing.
  - hackerman12345 8y ago
    You're confusing investment with constraint-free donation.
    - keithwhor 8y ago
      I assure you that I have never confused the two. :) Venture investment at this level of sophistication typically involves the purchase of equity in a company with the general expectation that the value of the investment will increase over time, as valued by other actors in the market. However, at this stage there are little to no financial or legal negative repercussions for a company failing to meet this expectation as long as they've acted ethically. (I mean, outside of the value of equity going to zero and having to shut down the company.) There are forms of investment, or vehicles of financing - venture debt and specific types of convertible notes - that have the expectation of repayment given a timeframe, but they're not typically what we're talking about when we talk about modern venture investment and straightforward equity transactions (like a Series A here). In fact, YC explicitly invented the SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) as a way to prevent "bad actor" investors from asking for returns from convertible notes ("repayment") and sinking companies early. The unwritten rule in venture investing in SV was literally, "don't ask for your money back," some Angels were screwing companies over by doing exactly that, so the SAFE codified protection against it into a low-friction investment vehicle. tl;dr: Investment is not constraint-free, but there is certainly not an expectation of "repayment." It might seem a little semantic (versus, say, "generating returns") but it's important people understand the difference between equity transactions and debt - the constraints exist but they differ and, as such, incentivize behavior, growth and spend differently as well.
rohan404 8y ago
To be clear, the next client doesn't actually get it for free. The way it works is that we use pre-fabricated components in conjunction with an ESB in order to create what is essentially a base for developers to then fill in with customization and business logic. Think of it as a set of well structured libraries that can be automatically stitched together (with dependency management and merge conflict handling). We don't reuse a customer's business logic - that's what makes their app unique. So for every customer we build for, there will always be that human element of customization. - Disclaimer, I'm a VP E at Engineer.ai
- ppeetteerr 8y ago
  Thanks for weighing in, Rohan. I see what you're trying to do here: you are building an app/website builder and you're leveraging some of the bespoke work you've done in the past to make future work less expensive for future clients. That's what most agencies do (even IBM, CGI, etc) but you're doing it through an online interface. If I'm not mistaken, you are leveraging economies of scale to make your offerings cheaper than those of smaller agencies, effectively trying to squeeze them out. My comment was specific to the marketing. You make it seem like I can get a copy of someone else's app if I just want the exact same thing that someone else got, for next to nothing.

inetsee 8y ago

I would be astonished if the next client gets it for free. The next client might get it for less than it cost the first client, but Engineer.ai has to pay back those investors.

ppeetteerr 8y ago
It was meant as a joke. I'm just pointing out how silly this all sounds. E.ai looks like just another agency with really fancy marketing and an inflated valuation.
keithwhor 8y ago
False - venture capital is not debt. They can do whatever they feel like doing.
- hackerman12345 8y ago
  You're confusing investment with constraint-free donation.
  - keithwhor 8y ago
    I assure you that I have never confused the two. :) Venture investment at this level of sophistication typically involves the purchase of equity in a company with the general expectation that the value of the investment will increase over time, as valued by other actors in the market. However, at this stage there are little to no financial or legal negative repercussions for a company failing to meet this expectation as long as they've acted ethically. (I mean, outside of the value of equity going to zero and having to shut down the company.) There are forms of investment, or vehicles of financing - venture debt and specific types of convertible notes - that have the expectation of repayment given a timeframe, but they're not typically what we're talking about when we talk about modern venture investment and straightforward equity transactions (like a Series A here). In fact, YC explicitly invented the SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) as a way to prevent "bad actor" investors from asking for returns from convertible notes ("repayment") and sinking companies early. The unwritten rule in venture investing in SV was literally, "don't ask for your money back," some Angels were screwing companies over by doing exactly that, so the SAFE codified protection against it into a low-friction investment vehicle. tl;dr: Investment is not constraint-free, but there is certainly not an expectation of "repayment." It might seem a little semantic (versus, say, "generating returns") but it's important people understand the difference between equity transactions and debt - the constraints exist but they differ and, as such, incentivize behavior, growth and spend differently as well.

rohan404 8y ago

To be clear, the next client doesn't actually get it for free. The way it works is that we use pre-fabricated components in conjunction with an ESB in order to create what is essentially a base for developers to then fill in with customization and business logic. Think of it as a set of well structured libraries that can be automatically stitched together (with dependency management and merge conflict handling). We don't reuse a customer's business logic - that's what makes their app unique. So for every customer we build for, there will always be that human element of customization. - Disclaimer, I'm a VP E at Engineer.ai

ppeetteerr 8y ago
Thanks for weighing in, Rohan. I see what you're trying to do here: you are building an app/website builder and you're leveraging some of the bespoke work you've done in the past to make future work less expensive for future clients. That's what most agencies do (even IBM, CGI, etc) but you're doing it through an online interface. If I'm not mistaken, you are leveraging economies of scale to make your offerings cheaper than those of smaller agencies, effectively trying to squeeze them out. My comment was specific to the marketing. You make it seem like I can get a copy of someone else's app if I just want the exact same thing that someone else got, for next to nothing.