9 ms·

Making and Selling a Stair-Climbing Dolly

174 points by patwalls 8y ago

amelius 8y ago
What makes this better than just a larger wheel in the right position?
- spydum 8y ago
  i suspect the leverage of pivoting the tri-spoke axle helps transfer more of the horizontal force you are applying, into a vertical force as it pivots. A larger wheel doesn't do this the same way
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  Larger wheel requires the axle to move up a larger vertical distance while being pulled up a step as compared to the compound wheel design
- cydonian_monk 8y ago
  The multiple smaller wheels give an extra leverage point, whereas a single, larger wheel can require quite a bit of force. If climbing multiple stairs that can wear both you and the dolly out. I'm not sure I would have preferred this back when I was still moving furniture for a living, as a furniture dolly with belts along the back/spine will slide up a flight of stairs without much trouble.
  - DBYCZ 8y ago
    I used to move furniture and I much preferred the type of straps that would wrap around your wrists, under the appliance, to the other lifter's wrists over the furniture dollies.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      Sounds like a good way to lacerate your wrist, or maybe lose your hand.
    - cydonian_monk 8y ago
      We tended to always be labor-short for deliveries, so if we could send a job out with one person we would. A single person can safely deliver most household appliances with just a furniture dolly (up to a side-by-side fridge, which almost always needed two people due to its mass and a set of tools to remove the doors).
  - amelius 8y ago
    If you're talking about wear then my gut feeling says that a larger wheel would be far more robust than three smaller wheels (with additional axis for the combination). Especially when you're using this on streets with uneven pavement I think a larger wheel would be better.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      The larger wheel will be made of slightly too thin plastic and held on with a split-pin - how else will you resell it in 2 years - so robustness probably isn't a positive factor from the sellers perspective.
- roland35 8y ago
  The axle needs to be higher than the ledge of the step. So basically that means the radius of the wheel needs to be larger than a normal step height, which would mean a giant wheel which may not fit on the step at all!
- rasz 8y ago
  moves the leverage point across the step edge
SQL2219 8y ago
You guys taking notes? There is no software in this thing!
- exabrial 8y ago
  I dunno, I think it needs a touchscreen and bluetooth sync with an electron app.
  - hmate9 8y ago
    The cart should be talking to my fridge so my fridge knows what’s in the cart so it can automate update my shopping list.
openloop 8y ago
Very cool.
funkaster 8y ago
> Many people write/advise that you must be “All-In” to make a business successful… that’s easy to say if you don’t have a wife, two kids, car payments and a mortgage. I wasn’t in a position to just quit my day job and commit 100% to the business, and I wouldn’t be until December 2016 (3.5 years later). This is just refreshing to read. I don't like the product, but this was a good read and detailed explanation of the issues/problems you can find of making a physical product startup. I also enjoyed the honesty and down to earth writing of the author.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Agreed. And the fact is, most successful founders have families and mortgages. It's just that for some reason, we only like to talk about the 20 something founders that are sleeping at the office because they are so dedicated and they aren't even taking a salary because they believe in their product so much (and because mommy and daddy keep supporting them).
- dwiel 8y ago
  He also talks about putting 100 hour weeks. I cant imagine giving time to a wife, kids and self while working 100 hours a week ... this didnt really sell this as realistic to me.
lexicality 8y ago
I'm confused as to what he invented. Here's an advert from a year before he even formed the company advertising the exact same product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpNLD3TrdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpNLD3TrdE
- Jyaif 8y ago
  I remember when I was a kid being quite proud of myself when I figured why there where 6 wheels on some shopping trolleys, so they've existed for at least 20 years. At best they re-invented the thing, but they certainly did not invented it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - fransan 8y ago
    I remember those too when I was a kid back in Spain. :) Ah! you can still buy them; here's one you can fold: https://www.google.com/search?q=carro+dela+compra+con+tres+ruedas&client=firefox-b-1-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgiqO2_b3fAhWKTt8KHYGODy8Q_AUIDygC&biw=1920&bih=954#imgrc=AvNQgpll-ZgzjM https://www.google.com/search?q=carro+dela+compra+con+tres+r...:
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    Not sure why this is getting downvoted; you're entirely correct. Wikipedia's "stairclimber" page was created in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairclimber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairclimber
- xixixao 8y ago
  The information is two clicks away from you (one on UpCart in the article, and one on Learn More on their website): > The UpCart Deluxe combines an all-terrain three-wheel chassis with a folding hand cart, with unique engineering that makes it easy to bring home the groceries or haul a cabinet up to your fifth floor apartment. UpCart improves stability, is capable of “walking” over irregular terrain and always folds flat for compact storage. There are pictures too.
voxadam 8y ago
Am I the only one reminded of the "Landmaster"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster
- sbuttgereit 8y ago
  I had forgotten all about that. I use to drive by the shop that built it and where it was also parked outside of every day during my commute and always wondered what that was for (figured it was for a movie, but didn't wonder enough to remember to look up which one...) Thanks for the link!
- alexpotato 8y ago
  Interesting that they tried to use commercially available truck parts wherever possible. Good example of "good coders write code, great coders re-use code". IIRC, the F-117 stealth fighter was built in a similar way. Many of the parts were from other existing planes e.g. the avionics were from a F-16. This mean that the stealth components were cutting edge whereas almost everything else was battle tested and well understood.
raywu 8y ago
The Amazon cautionary tale is insightful. It's the second I read/heard working with Vendor Central is terrible.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  It's a double-edged sword. My own experience has been that your sales volume will absolutely increase because customers love seeing Prime shipping and "sold by Amazon" on products, but once you add in all the handling, storage, processing, etc. fees and also factor in that you are completely at Amazon's mercy, it's often not worth it unless you're just an FBA reseller pumping through generic stuff from China. As an example, I shipped 50 units of product to Amazon and got it to their fulfillment center on 12/5. Their published deadline to get things to a fulfillment center in time for Christmas shipping is 12/9. As of today, exactly 0 of those units have been processed and made available for sale, thus completely missing the holiday shopping season and leaving me with a long-term storage bill since it will now take 2-3 months to sell through them. Good luck getting any help with something like that. On the flip side, I did an A/B test last year vs. this year using vendor central vs seller central for a different product and saw about 2x sales volume for the former. So it's really something you just need to test and make a decision on yourself.
wazoox 8y ago
Old ladies had similar contraptions to go to the market more than 30 years ago. Did I miss something? http://www.golf-charade.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/caddie-trio-6-roues-herdegen.png http://www.golf-charade.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/caddie...
i_am_nomad 8y ago
Interesting that he cited Peter Thiel as an influence, specifically citing Thiel’s advice that “competition is a looser [sic], monopolies are the path to success.” First of all, his business was never going to be a monopoly, patents or no. More importantly, I’d feel very uneasy owning a monopolistic business, considering how much I hate monopolies. But maybe that’s why I’m not rich and other people are.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"We are dedicated to revolutionizing mobility with innovative products that give people the freedom to do what they love by enhancing their mobility. " It's one thing when founders claim to be revolutionizing this or that when in fact some major changes are afoot. For example, Zuck can make some lofty claims in terms of 'connecting people'. But when people make some random thing that's been around for a while, in some niche category and then hustle us with this 'revolutionizing mobility' rubbish ... it instantly hurts credibility so much I wonder why it is that it even works, how are most people not turned off by this kind of stuff immediately? From that sentence forward, I assume this is about the credibility of a Ronco late-night infomercial something or other. Edit: I should note the rest of the article seems highly authentic. Maybe dropping the 'we're changing the world' narrative would tighten up the messaging, that said, maybe that kind of stuff works on regular folks.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  I don't think it is people being disingenuous as much as just saying what they think they are supposed to say. It's been drilled in to people that unless you are changing the world with your business, it's not worth doing. I think something like, "Discovering innovative products to make difficult tasks easier." is an honorable and worthwhile pursuit as a business. But everyone wants to be the next gates or jobs.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    I tend to agree that it's probably some boilerplate vision/summary statement they came up with a few years ago because you have to have one. Maybe it's better than low balling or boring people.
    - gdpgreg 8y ago
      I wish people would stop calling every company a startup and themselves a founder when what that have is a medium sized manufacturing business.
      - 8y ago
leojg 8y ago
Sorry, what's the revolutionizing about this? Not do disappoint you but my mother already has a cart with those 3 tiny wheels and she uses it to buy groceries every day. In fact she bought it at least 3 years ago.
- analog31 8y ago
  Harpists have used carts with the same kinds of wheels for a long time.
anilakar 8y ago
Surely this cannot be a new thing. I've been using six-wheel cam carts a decade ago. Did you put it in the Blockchain? Does it leak your personal information to foreign companies and three-letter agencies? What's the novelty here?
rajacombinator 8y ago
This is really a failure story that got lucky. They spent 2+ years and who knows how much $ before validating demand!
Aardwolf 8y ago
"We are dedicated to revolutionizing mobility with innovative products that give people the freedom to do what they love by enhancing their mobility" Who exactly gets convinced by such fluffy wording?
dominotw 8y ago
> If your product is listed anywhere on the internet for less, their automated bots will find it and automatically lower the price on Amazon. Anyone know if there is a sas website that offers this.

174 points by patwalls 8y ago

amelius 8y ago

What makes this better than just a larger wheel in the right position?

spydum 8y ago
i suspect the leverage of pivoting the tri-spoke axle helps transfer more of the horizontal force you are applying, into a vertical force as it pivots. A larger wheel doesn't do this the same way
oftenwrong 8y ago
Larger wheel requires the axle to move up a larger vertical distance while being pulled up a step as compared to the compound wheel design
cydonian_monk 8y ago
The multiple smaller wheels give an extra leverage point, whereas a single, larger wheel can require quite a bit of force. If climbing multiple stairs that can wear both you and the dolly out. I'm not sure I would have preferred this back when I was still moving furniture for a living, as a furniture dolly with belts along the back/spine will slide up a flight of stairs without much trouble.
- DBYCZ 8y ago
  I used to move furniture and I much preferred the type of straps that would wrap around your wrists, under the appliance, to the other lifter's wrists over the furniture dollies.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Sounds like a good way to lacerate your wrist, or maybe lose your hand.
  - cydonian_monk 8y ago
    We tended to always be labor-short for deliveries, so if we could send a job out with one person we would. A single person can safely deliver most household appliances with just a furniture dolly (up to a side-by-side fridge, which almost always needed two people due to its mass and a set of tools to remove the doors).
- amelius 8y ago
  If you're talking about wear then my gut feeling says that a larger wheel would be far more robust than three smaller wheels (with additional axis for the combination). Especially when you're using this on streets with uneven pavement I think a larger wheel would be better.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    The larger wheel will be made of slightly too thin plastic and held on with a split-pin - how else will you resell it in 2 years - so robustness probably isn't a positive factor from the sellers perspective.
roland35 8y ago
The axle needs to be higher than the ledge of the step. So basically that means the radius of the wheel needs to be larger than a normal step height, which would mean a giant wheel which may not fit on the step at all!
rasz 8y ago
moves the leverage point across the step edge

SQL2219 8y ago

You guys taking notes? There is no software in this thing!

exabrial 8y ago
I dunno, I think it needs a touchscreen and bluetooth sync with an electron app.
- hmate9 8y ago
  The cart should be talking to my fridge so my fridge knows what’s in the cart so it can automate update my shopping list.

openloop 8y ago

Very cool.

funkaster 8y ago

> Many people write/advise that you must be “All-In” to make a business successful… that’s easy to say if you don’t have a wife, two kids, car payments and a mortgage. I wasn’t in a position to just quit my day job and commit 100% to the business, and I wouldn’t be until December 2016 (3.5 years later). This is just refreshing to read. I don't like the product, but this was a good read and detailed explanation of the issues/problems you can find of making a physical product startup. I also enjoyed the honesty and down to earth writing of the author.

jjeaff 8y ago
Agreed. And the fact is, most successful founders have families and mortgages. It's just that for some reason, we only like to talk about the 20 something founders that are sleeping at the office because they are so dedicated and they aren't even taking a salary because they believe in their product so much (and because mommy and daddy keep supporting them).
dwiel 8y ago
He also talks about putting 100 hour weeks. I cant imagine giving time to a wife, kids and self while working 100 hours a week ... this didnt really sell this as realistic to me.

lexicality 8y ago

I'm confused as to what he invented. Here's an advert from a year before he even formed the company advertising the exact same product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpNLD3TrdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpNLD3TrdE

Jyaif 8y ago
I remember when I was a kid being quite proud of myself when I figured why there where 6 wheels on some shopping trolleys, so they've existed for at least 20 years. At best they re-invented the thing, but they certainly did not invented it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- fransan 8y ago
  I remember those too when I was a kid back in Spain. :) Ah! you can still buy them; here's one you can fold: https://www.google.com/search?q=carro+dela+compra+con+tres+ruedas&client=firefox-b-1-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgiqO2_b3fAhWKTt8KHYGODy8Q_AUIDygC&biw=1920&bih=954#imgrc=AvNQgpll-ZgzjM https://www.google.com/search?q=carro+dela+compra+con+tres+r...:
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Not sure why this is getting downvoted; you're entirely correct. Wikipedia's "stairclimber" page was created in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairclimber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairclimber
xixixao 8y ago
The information is two clicks away from you (one on UpCart in the article, and one on Learn More on their website): > The UpCart Deluxe combines an all-terrain three-wheel chassis with a folding hand cart, with unique engineering that makes it easy to bring home the groceries or haul a cabinet up to your fifth floor apartment. UpCart improves stability, is capable of “walking” over irregular terrain and always folds flat for compact storage. There are pictures too.

voxadam 8y ago

Am I the only one reminded of the "Landmaster"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster

sbuttgereit 8y ago
I had forgotten all about that. I use to drive by the shop that built it and where it was also parked outside of every day during my commute and always wondered what that was for (figured it was for a movie, but didn't wonder enough to remember to look up which one...) Thanks for the link!
alexpotato 8y ago
Interesting that they tried to use commercially available truck parts wherever possible. Good example of "good coders write code, great coders re-use code". IIRC, the F-117 stealth fighter was built in a similar way. Many of the parts were from other existing planes e.g. the avionics were from a F-16. This mean that the stealth components were cutting edge whereas almost everything else was battle tested and well understood.

raywu 8y ago

The Amazon cautionary tale is insightful. It's the second I read/heard working with Vendor Central is terrible.

mdorazio 8y ago
It's a double-edged sword. My own experience has been that your sales volume will absolutely increase because customers love seeing Prime shipping and "sold by Amazon" on products, but once you add in all the handling, storage, processing, etc. fees and also factor in that you are completely at Amazon's mercy, it's often not worth it unless you're just an FBA reseller pumping through generic stuff from China. As an example, I shipped 50 units of product to Amazon and got it to their fulfillment center on 12/5. Their published deadline to get things to a fulfillment center in time for Christmas shipping is 12/9. As of today, exactly 0 of those units have been processed and made available for sale, thus completely missing the holiday shopping season and leaving me with a long-term storage bill since it will now take 2-3 months to sell through them. Good luck getting any help with something like that. On the flip side, I did an A/B test last year vs. this year using vendor central vs seller central for a different product and saw about 2x sales volume for the former. So it's really something you just need to test and make a decision on yourself.

wazoox 8y ago

Old ladies had similar contraptions to go to the market more than 30 years ago. Did I miss something? http://www.golf-charade.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/caddie-trio-6-roues-herdegen.png http://www.golf-charade.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/caddie...

i_am_nomad 8y ago

Interesting that he cited Peter Thiel as an influence, specifically citing Thiel’s advice that “competition is a looser [sic], monopolies are the path to success.” First of all, his business was never going to be a monopoly, patents or no. More importantly, I’d feel very uneasy owning a monopolistic business, considering how much I hate monopolies. But maybe that’s why I’m not rich and other people are.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"We are dedicated to revolutionizing mobility with innovative products that give people the freedom to do what they love by enhancing their mobility. " It's one thing when founders claim to be revolutionizing this or that when in fact some major changes are afoot. For example, Zuck can make some lofty claims in terms of 'connecting people'. But when people make some random thing that's been around for a while, in some niche category and then hustle us with this 'revolutionizing mobility' rubbish ... it instantly hurts credibility so much I wonder why it is that it even works, how are most people not turned off by this kind of stuff immediately? From that sentence forward, I assume this is about the credibility of a Ronco late-night infomercial something or other. Edit: I should note the rest of the article seems highly authentic. Maybe dropping the 'we're changing the world' narrative would tighten up the messaging, that said, maybe that kind of stuff works on regular folks.

jjeaff 8y ago
I don't think it is people being disingenuous as much as just saying what they think they are supposed to say. It's been drilled in to people that unless you are changing the world with your business, it's not worth doing. I think something like, "Discovering innovative products to make difficult tasks easier." is an honorable and worthwhile pursuit as a business. But everyone wants to be the next gates or jobs.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  I tend to agree that it's probably some boilerplate vision/summary statement they came up with a few years ago because you have to have one. Maybe it's better than low balling or boring people.
  - gdpgreg 8y ago
    I wish people would stop calling every company a startup and themselves a founder when what that have is a medium sized manufacturing business.
    - 8y ago

leojg 8y ago

Sorry, what's the revolutionizing about this? Not do disappoint you but my mother already has a cart with those 3 tiny wheels and she uses it to buy groceries every day. In fact she bought it at least 3 years ago.

analog31 8y ago
Harpists have used carts with the same kinds of wheels for a long time.

anilakar 8y ago

Surely this cannot be a new thing. I've been using six-wheel cam carts a decade ago. Did you put it in the Blockchain? Does it leak your personal information to foreign companies and three-letter agencies? What's the novelty here?

rajacombinator 8y ago

This is really a failure story that got lucky. They spent 2+ years and who knows how much $ before validating demand!

Aardwolf 8y ago

"We are dedicated to revolutionizing mobility with innovative products that give people the freedom to do what they love by enhancing their mobility" Who exactly gets convinced by such fluffy wording?

dominotw 8y ago

> If your product is listed anywhere on the internet for less, their automated bots will find it and automatically lower the price on Amazon. Anyone know if there is a sas website that offers this.