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Compost bin that requires a subscription. You send the compost via mail to a processing facility https://www.fastcompany.com/90834481/nests-co-founder-designed-

• klntsky 4y ago
  We should normalize having chickens in the office.
  • red-iron-pine 4y ago
    No. Have you ever raised chickens, or cleaned out a coop?
    • klntsky 4y ago
      FAANG companies probably have enough money for additional space and employees to look after the chickens
    • aj_icracked 4y ago
      Ha! I actually run a company that does Coop cleaning, babysitting, coop set up, day old chick delivery, etc. We're launching the world's best Coop in 45 days, stay tuned :)
      • adrianmonk 4y ago
        Although it sounds funny, this is actually kind of a serious question: are you concerned about an egg bubble?
        • luisapic 4y ago
          [dead]
        • aj_icracked 4y ago
          Not at all, I assume egg prices will normalize in a few months / quarters to previous consumer costs - call it $1.50-$2 a dozen. It's super odd though that we're launching a company that allows anyone with a backyard to raise chickens / get eggs. For a lot of people, eggs are a bonus byproduct of raising them. A lot of people get joy from it, reduce nearly all their food waste, fertilize their yard, teach kids on taking care of them, they'll take care of you, etc. :)
      • tlavoie 4y ago
        Curious about the "world's best coop" part. What does this mean? (Asking as someone with chickens, and some old coops now.)
        • aj_icracked 4y ago
          We're building a product at the intersection of smart home tech (think cameras with computer vision for predators, alerts, etc), light robotics (automatic doors), and services (think press a button and a person shows up to clean the coop, etc). We did this small news article a few months ago that shows what we're doing if interested https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/chicken-coop-sitting-business-flocks-to-austin/ https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/chicken-coop-sitting-...
          • tlavoie 4y ago
            Ah, cool thanks! I think I mostly need to rebuild with better structural design, better access for me and so on. A lot of the AI applications are taken care of here by 25Kg of motivated canine intelligence.
  • adrianmonk 4y ago
    I don't think this is very practical. It would cause too many communication issues in the agile process.
    • klntsky 4y ago
      The chickens are agile enough to lay eggs on their own
  • ok_dad 4y ago
    I have chickens roaming wild outside my office window, and I assure you that meetings are not much fun with "BOK BOK BOK..." resonating constantly through the mic. They are so f-ing loud.
• O__________O 4y ago
  It would be interesting to see an environmental impact analysis of use of mail vs a compost cycle that’s does not use mail. Find it hard to believe they’re reusing the labels, boxes, plastic wrapping, etc too.
  • Majestic121 4y ago
    I think the impact analysis should be between a compost cycle that uses mail vs no compost cycle, because I would imagine that the alternative to this is just throwing food in the trash for most people
    • O__________O 4y ago
      Possibly, though there are plenty of high-density urban areas that require separating compost materials and pick it up with trash, recycling, yard waste, etc. — so to me that would seem like a better comparison; or just compare all options.
    • barbazoo 4y ago
      Blows my mind that that's a thing. If it's urban, how is there no compost bin system. If it's rural, just have a compost bin outside. It's like people don't know how to live anymore with every part of their lives being handled by some shitty subscription service. Food, waste, what's next, a box you can ship your poop in that's 39 bucks a year?!
      • klondike_klive 4y ago
        Turd.ly
      • Majestic121 4y ago
        I'm not really defending the service, and I think it will fail because it looks like a logistical nightmare and I don't understand why people would pay 30 bucks for this, but if it was free it could be somewhat convenient. Especially in an urban setting if you don't have a compost bin in your building : it's not as ubiquitous as you seem to think.
• dtx1 4y ago
  Here in Germany we have to split our garbage and one "bucket" so to speak is compostable and gets taken by the regular garbage trucks and I assume is composted in large facilities. That seems like a more reasonable approach because it scales to a whole city doing it
  • throw_pm23 4y ago
    And then the yellow bags for plastic, which they take to SE Asia on the otherwise empty container-ships, so that it gets dumped on a beach or into a river, while Germany fills its quota for recycling. Sorry for the cynicism, this was the case a few years ago, maybe not anymore?
    • super256 4y ago
      > this was the case a few years ago, maybe not anymore? I'm not sure what happens with the plastic in SE Asia, but we still send most of our plastic there. https://de.statista.com/infografik/25368/wichtigste-abnehmerlaender-fuer-exporte-von-kunststoffabfaellen-aus-deutschland/ https://de.statista.com/infografik/25368/wichtigste-abnehmer...
      • hannob 4y ago
        Bullshit. This statistic is listing the share of exported plastics that are exported to certain countries. But that's not "most of our plastic", because overall exports are around ~10%. So "most of our plastic" is either recycled or burned within Germany. (Not saying any of this is ideal, but it's not helping to spread false information.)
        • super256 4y ago
          I apologize. I chose poor wording to the point where my sentence it is becoming untrue. I meant something like: “The majority of plastic we export to other countries is still being exported to SE Asia”.
    • blueflow 4y ago
• smallerfish 4y ago
  Wow - they raised $100 million. They're expecting people to pay $33/mo for the service, which includes the grinder/dehydrator bin, plus the cost of mailing the dense milled organics back to their processing facility. Figure that actual physical expenses cost $18/mo, leaving $15/mo profit per household; on top of that, they'll have extensive marketing costs - let's say marketing & employee costs take another $10/mo, leaving $5/mo profit per household. That means they'd need 1.6 million households to subscribe for a year just to get their investors their money back, or about 1% of the potential market. How did they possibly win over investors? If I could short this I would.
  • arcturus17 4y ago
    > How did they possibly win over investors? Low interest rates have shifted massive amounts of capital to vc. We’re talking trillions possibly, including sovereign funds and ultrabillionaire family offices. Are those wealth and investment managers nuts? Maybe, but I’ve concluded the most likely explanation is that they know exactly how to play the vc game: place a number of wild bets and hope that one in a hundred pays off. They sometimes seem to barely do due diligence, perhaps for efficiency and speed in allocation, and because the vc portion of their otherwise well-diversified portfolio is tiny. You and I get to partake in the schadenfreude if these stupid ventures collapse but they’re wiping their tears with the returns they make on other asset classes - stocks back then, fixed income now, etc. If interest rates go back to the “old normal” for a sustained period of time then maybe this ends, but maybe the new normal is here to stay. We’ve been told there’d be a big cleanse of stupid or otherwise unprofitable ideas (can we really cram more SaaS solutions into every single niche under the sun?) but I’m seeing very little of the sort, other than layoffs and downsizings which are not thus far commensurate with the fireworks we were promised.
    • smallerfish 4y ago
      It's true, but the raise _just happened_, which means there's still loose VC money out there. The narrative has been that there's been a transition to more conservative funding...apparently not in this case, at least.
• spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Things like this make me realize how poor the rest of the world is, and how wealthy America is.
• lm28469 4y ago
  Sometimes (often these days) i can't tell if these things are parodies or real products. It reminds me of Juicero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicero In Europe many countries have specific trash bins for food waste, they're collected by the city and reused for compost and biogas. No subscriptions, no investors, no soon to be e-waste wifi and bluetooth connected trash can, no shipping dirt in box
  • HideousKojima 4y ago
    In the US too, plenty of cities (even small ones) offer compost collection as part of standard trash and recycling collection.
  • jcims 4y ago
    AVE did a great teardown of one a couple years ago, impressive machine with a stupid purpose.
  • barbazoo 4y ago
    Some of their assumptions seem to be very much US based where "green bins" for garden and food waste might not be a thing? I don't know but where I live in Canada, contents of the green bin definitely don't end up in the landfill like they say. So it's not even a problem that needs solving in many other places.
    • rubylark 4y ago
      In the US, it depends on the waste services provider, city, and county. I've had garbage companies that offer compost and yard waste services and some not. Sometimes it's provided through the city or county for free or for a fee, though not everywhere
• huslage 4y ago
  We should not be mailing compost around...that sort of defeats one of the purposes. There are local composting companies/orgs in most major metropolitan areas. Mine is Compost Now.
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  Have I got this right? I pay $0/m, I chuck my food scraps in the garbage. OR I pay $33/m, I fart around with some device in my kitchen, then send them by post to some company and get nothing in return. And from an environment point of view, it is a device that needs high energy to produce. I actually compost. It cost say $33 one off for the bin, which sits on soil, and can take probably couple years worth of waste. I am not in an appartment, but surely the solution there is a compost on common outdoor or rooftop area, where the cost is lower because it can be shared.
  • jaclaz 4y ago
    >I pay $33/m, I fart around with some device in my kitchen, then send them by post to some company and get nothing in return. I think you also pay for the electricity the device uses, and for replacement filters. No idea what happens in case of issues (need of repair/replacement parts/etc.), i.e. if it is included in the subscription or if it malfunctions it is on you.
• TheAlchemist 4y ago
  This seem beyond dumb ! That being said, having a real compost in the garden is quite mind blowing. Every time I go there to throw the peels of vegetables and fruits I think - damn, almost full. Then, somehow, the worms keep eating it and the next time it's still at the same level. Nature is pretty smart after all.