42 ms·

Magic

• cmikec 12y ago
  Hey everyone - this is insane. My friends and I created Magic a few days ago as a side project and it's completely blown up by accident since then. We're getting stormed with messages and orders. We thought we'd launch it ourselves later if it did well, and other people have been posting it on Product Hunt, Reddit, HN themselves... I'm here to answer any questions, although we've hardly slept!
  • hackaflocka 12y ago
    How are you scaling it up?
    • emocakes 12y ago
      humans.
    • cmikec 12y ago
      In our previous businesses we have scaled large customer support teams efficiently, and we also have handled a lot of online chat-based systems. As long as we can charge appropriate fees, this should be solvable. So far, so good.
    • w1ntermute 12y ago
      http://paulgraham.com/ds.html http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
      • cmikec 12y ago
        Yeah, and that. :)
    • Thiz 12y ago
      Uber-ize it.
  • ryanSrich 12y ago
    How do you generate revenue?
    • cmikec 12y ago
      By charging a premium on all services and products. For people who just want things completely handled.
  • sidcool 12y ago
    You said you created it a few days ago. Do you happen to have many helping hands to handle the deluge of messages you will be getting? Coz first impression is going to be the last impression.
  • sidcool 12y ago
    I am in India and I want to send a gift to my friend in the US. Possible?
    • ars 12y ago
      Why are you posting here? Send them a text and ask.
      • sidcool 12y ago
        Hmm...Because I can't send a text from India from my phone at least.
        • ars 12y ago
          Maybe make a google voice account? It lets you text. There must be other services that let you text internationally, or pretend to have a US number.
          • alphydan 12y ago
            there is also https://nomadsms.com https://nomadsms.com for that.
  • leereeves 12y ago
    Best of luck to you. I see a lot of hard work in your future. Here's hoping you can scale up fast enough to outpace demand and give everyone a good first impression.
  • daxelrod 12y ago
    Are you OK with people using Magic for things that don't result in a purchase? Something like "Is the 4:30 train from Greenwich to NYC late?" or "What hours are my local DMV office open?" "Anything you want" makes it sound like people can use it like they'd use Siri.
    • obituary_latte 12y ago
      Seems like maybe a get-together with Watson api docs is in order.
      • rspeer 12y ago
        With no pun intended, Watson isn't magic.
    • bgvrofg 12y ago
      That could be done by charging a standard fee for the operator's time spent searching.
      • kanamekun 12y ago
        Or a Magic Gold premium membership, if people want to ask non commerce questions beyond the first three free ones.
    • peteretep 12y ago
      There was a UK service called AQA that would answer questions for £1 back in the mid 2000s. They started off super super useful, but quality degraded enough as they scaled that it was no longer worth it. Used to be able to say "which shops in a 20 mile radius have xus in stock", or "who should I complain to about the service in xyz bar" and get great answers, but as they automated it more and more you'd just get back vague info
      • LeoPanthera 12y ago
        I was briefly an AQA employee. You were paid per question, so all you really cared about was how quickly you could send an answer and move onto the next question. The quality of the answer didn't matter, unless the customer complained and got a refund, which virtually never happened.
  • MichaelGG 12y ago
    So I used to use something like this with Amex's concierge service. Like getting a Wii on release day, or getting a gift somewhere. I stopped using them after this bad experience. I asked them to send about $100 of good chocolate as a gift, and they just sent a $10 bar, 10 times. Duh. Anyways, I felt a very good sensation looking over this. Probably because it's just such a PITA to do things like order pizza. Gotta talk to people, decline sales questions, etc. What a relief to not have to deal with that day-to-day stuff. Or just going out to the store or grabbing lunch before the place closes. A personal assistant I pay on demand for anything? Sweet.
    • vacri 12y ago
      Probably because it's just such a PITA to do things like order pizza Is this sarcasm? I can't see how wrangling an order through an intermediary is easier than just ordering from the local pizzeria's website. Not to mention that it takes a non-trivial time to confirm - in exogen's example above, it was 69 minutes plus delivery time. Small questions about relatively trivial things really drag out that confirmation time.
      • MichaelGG 12y ago
        What?? No, not sarcasm at all, I'm dead serious. Often I'm just on my phone at night, no tablet/laptop. So say I want to get some food. I've got to go find the damn website. Remember a login maybe. Or deal with some JS-laden thing that doesn't render smoothly on my 6" Android. Sort all that shit out. Wonder if I have cash for a tip, cause I feel obligated most times. Or calling. I gotta actually dial, talk to someone. Deal with all their questions if I want combos or the offer and I'll save $2 if I just say yeah, and what's my phone number and address again? I realise I should get over this. That I'd do better in life (especially if I'm gonna sell my own software) if I got more comfortable just calling people and telling them what to do. Meanwhile, I'm already imagining how awesome this is gonna be next time I'm in SF. I leave the office, start walking home. Text Magic and say "hey get me some X from Y". Get home and unpack my mind and someone comes and gives me food. If it's an hour confirmation time, that's not as magic, but it's not a show-stopper. With less coordination than making the order myself, I can just pipeline things to work out. Perhaps this reflects badly on me or is a commentary on society or laziness or I dunno. But I'm pretty fucking happy to imagine I can have someone else unlock the city for me if I'm not feeling up to it. Here's how sick I am: I would order lunch via this every day, versus trying to get myself to go at the right time. Not too early because of the lines, but not too late because then they run out of good stuff or close. But I should probably get out a bit more so I won't use it every day just because of that. Otherwise I totally would. Hell, if they are streamlined enough, I'd even do it to order a cup of frozen yogurt (I'd probably pay $15-20 twice a week for delivery alone). I do prefer to get out and walk and take breaks, but sometimes it just doesn't work out, or it's too far, or whatever lameass excuse.
  • bsgreenb 12y ago
    Hey, just here to recommend that you use or otherwise build a CRM interface around the SMS conversations. This will allow you to scale the number of messages without being overwhelmed by operator costs.
  • vishaldpatel 12y ago
    What are you guys using to manage in-bound text messages? Something like sendsonar.com or something home-grown?
    • zaroth 12y ago
      Plot twist: it's the founder's cell phone.
  • johnny22 12y ago
    good luck folks!
  • derekja 12y ago
    Way to go, Mike! Exciting that this is blowing up on you.
  • q2 12y ago
    I have a concern: How do you plan to handle security related dangerous items? For example, an user may ask you to deliver a package taken from one place to another place and you may arrange that but that package may contain dangerous/destructive/harmful materials which may be against law of the land where you operate. You can ask user to confirm contents but he/she may lie and faithfully you may try to deliver and in between you may get struck in legal issues. If the origin is well known or reputed enough, then risk may be less but otherwise, there is an element of risk. Have you considered it? and how do you plan to handle it safely? Thanks.
    • blurg 12y ago
      That was an immediate concern I considered as well. Like, a drug front that sets up a little website that looks like a restaurant or something. Only customers would ever really know about it, but Magic service providers would find it when someone asks for it. Customers place "secret code" orders with Magic. Magic unwittingly delivers drugs (or whatever contraband) throughout the city. But...then I concluded that surely it's ultimately cheaper and safer to just hire your own drug couriers. Given the slightest risk of discovery, they're less likely to reveal anything about the sender or to know the identity the recipient, unlike Magic. So yeah, some people will always slip some shady stuff through every now and then. But I don't think Magic is the best solution to any of those illicit problems. No illegal arms dealer is sitting around thinking, "If only I had someone to deliver all these gun orders, I'd be rich!"
    • jfoster 12y ago
      Same concern exists for all couriers, doesn't it?
    • dikaiosune 12y ago
      From the landing page: "We'll order what you need from the appropriate service (e.g. DoorDash, Instacart, Postmates, etc.), and deal with them" All of these services handle the delivery when you order directly through them, so I don't think Magic is accepting a hand-off from them and then adding an extra leg to a trip. It sounds like Magic is just acting as a middle-man in these cases. I don't see anything on their site which suggests that they ever actually handle your stuff.
  • voltagex_ 12y ago
    I'd love this in Australia - I'm in a wheelchair and it'd make shopping much much easier.
• bane 12y ago
  I kind of like the idea of a broker service for deliverables. Does this look for best price or just best effort at fastest fulfillment?
  • cmikec 12y ago
    Both. Whichever you like. Just specify.
• iamshariq 12y ago
  Great service for a consumer. But as a business - how do you earn revenue?
  • patio11 12y ago
    They're likely using one of the world's oldest business models: "Buy things for $1, sell them for $2."
    • scott_karana 12y ago
      The simplicity of your reply blew mine out of the water. :0
      • patio11 12y ago
        I think I stole the quote from the Wire.
        • toomuchtodo 12y ago
          Take quote from the Wire, use on HN. Still quite the arbitrage! :)
        • rlander 12y ago
          Yup, love that show. "Shit is just business, String. Buy for a dollar, sell for two. That’s all it need be." Proposition Joe
          • inyourtenement 12y ago
            I know a guy who buys cheap cars, fixes them, and resells them. All through craigslist. But whenever he buys a car, even one he plans to keep for himself, he immediately lists it with a huge markup. Just today he got an offer for $3200 on a motorcycle he bought last week for $2000.
            • 12y ago
• jonheller 12y ago
  Besides questions about revenue and such, can I just say that I absolutely love the landing page. No gimmicks, no parallax, no videos, no fake testimonials, no hero images, no marquees. Just good copy. Not sure if this is because of how quickly this blew up, but well done.
  • cmikec 12y ago
    Thanks! Yeah, honestly, after deciding to launch this we released a really minimal landing page which I saved here: http://getmagicnow.com/index-old.html http://getmagicnow.com/index-old.html - As you can see I made that in about 20 minutes, and was not expecting this. After someone posted it on Product Hunt I spent whatever time I could polishing it up. In general though, I agree, simple websites are much better. Thanks for the kind words.
    • carlosdp 12y ago
      fyi, there's a typo in the FAQ: "we'll let you know the total price so you can confim"
      • cmikec 12y ago
        Thank you. Fixed!
    • heliumcraft 12y ago
      Is this available in Canada?
      • cmikec 12y ago
        We can't do everything in Canada but we can definitely do some things. Try us.
      • deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    • sidcool 12y ago
• gk1 12y ago
  Great idea. Can we find out how much it costs, or do we just have to trust that the quoted price for the task isn't too much above actual cost? Or does it not have any service fees? The site is really vague about pricing.
  • cmikec 12y ago
    This is a great question. We are still trying to figure this out right now. Our vision is to be a service that handles everything - and that means everything from ordering food, to ordering clothes, to booking a one week's vacation in St. Thomas. The fees obvioulsy vary. Any ideas you have about doing this in a more straightforward way would be welcome. For now what we are doing is thinking about what would be reasonable on the fly. Sometimes it's more than people think, i.e. if someone wants milk delivered to their house in Wisconsin, we have to call a local courier, etc. However we've found people are willing to pay more than you would think, too.
    • gk1 12y ago
      First thought that comes to mind: Look into how Virtual Assistant services do pricing... Whatever it is, I'm sure it could be improved, but it might be a good starting point. I imagine they either charge a % of the cost (eg, milk+courier+0.15(milk+courier), or a subscription (plus cost of each transaction of course), or time-based (how long it took to complete the request). Maybe urgency-based? Or a combination of any of above.
    • maxbrown 12y ago
      Why do the fees vary? Why couldn't you have flat min fee + % of total cost? Am I missing something? I feel like pricing transparency is key to scaling quickly here.
      • cwyers 12y ago
        Presumably what their fee covers is their work arranging it. I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to charge much more for ordering a plane ticket than a pizza; it's not so much more effort that a percentage makes much sense. On the other hand, "get me a Philly cheesesteak delivered" (which someone mentioned) may entail both "find me a cheesesteak" and "find me a courier" - so you charge more because it's more effort.
• sjwright 12y ago
  Arthur C. Clarke famously said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This maxim has proven robust over decades. But now are we now so used to interacting with layers of technology and automation that sufficiently trained humans could seem in any way magical? I don't agree, but a scary indictment if it were true. Clever business name though.
  • cmikec 12y ago
    I love this quote. Thanks for reminding me of it! :) For me, the "magic" refers to the magic moment that I experienced when we prototyped this internally. Despite the power of today's on-demand services, I've always felt them to still be rather frustrating. Sometimes the drivers cancel, they get lost, you still have to manage them. We tested this by delivering the product to each other internally, handling all the annoyance of dealing with these services behind the scenes. The result feels like magic. Just text in what you want...and it appears.
    • walterbell 12y ago
      Meta "Irregular Operations" / PaxEx / entropy remediation service
    • aaronem 12y ago
      This is what used to be called "concierge service". You can still get it with, for example, high-end American Express cards, or from firms which specialize in providing it. Judging by the examples on your site, you've succeeded in bringing concierge service to (sorry) the masses, by pricing it much lower than competing offerings. Congratulations! You have a highly viable MVP. Good luck scaling it out!
      • jsmeaton 12y ago
        My Credit/Debit card offers concierge service but I've never used it. I'd have to find the number (or put it in my phone..), then speak to an operator, and then trust that they could deliver on what I expect. This service is based on SMS though, and I'd presume they hold all the pertinent info (address, credit card etc) so that I wouldn't have to keep repeating it. I'd still have to trust that I get what I want, but the crucial speaking to an operator component is reduced to a fire and forget SMS. I'd use this if I was in the States.
• leemac 12y ago
  I've seen something similar before, very cool idea! My question is from an operational standpoint, who are the "operators"? Given the side-project nature of the site, are you up all night answering/ordering these things?
  • cmikec 12y ago
    It's safe to say that this is no longer a side project.
    • preetnation 12y ago
      =)congrats. care to share what volume looks like?
• darrelld 12y ago
  Loving the simplicity of it all. I just need to text a number. No app to install and grant access to my phone, no website to go and sign up to with my facebook account. Nothing. Just text a number and get what I want. It solves my problems by giving a path of least resistance to getting what I want. A company doing a similar thing was handing out fliers over the summer and they had an app to install. I thought the idea was cool but never got around to installing it. I just added this phone number to my contact list for when I'm reading to use it.
  • cmikec 12y ago
    Thanks. Please let me know how you like using it. That's exactly what we were going for, and I hope that the experience persists throughout.
    • gk1 12y ago
      Just want to chime in that I also think having a number to text is more convenient than using an app that I'd surely forget about within days.
  • nileshtrivedi 12y ago
    You do need to give them your credit card details though, which is like signing up.
    • r00fus 12y ago
      You interact briefly before you are asked to handover the CC details. That's a great draw.
  • schoen 12y ago
    Yes, thanks for not requiring people to install software to use your service -- something that's already caused me to skip trying several services. I look forward to trying this one when it opens up to the public again!
  • dandanisaur 12y ago
• tomasien 12y ago
  Good idea, you're blowing up so get off this damn forum and go fulfill some orders. The best to you gents/ladies.
  • petercooper 12y ago
    They're doing alright it seems, I got a response within like 30 seconds! :)
• btilly 12y ago
  Sounds like General Services from the story We Also Walk Dogs. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs for the story. I'll bet they don't invent antigravity devices though! :-)
• DarrenMills 12y ago
  This is a shadow, a hint of what AI and machine learning will bring us.
  • bgvrofg 12y ago
    This could totally be automated, text recognition handles the easy cases where ordering can be done via the internet, the rest is handled by humans. The user confirmation makes sure the automation didn't screw something up, and if the user doesn't responds positively to a certain threshold then humans take over. The threshold can be dynamic depending on accuracy of text recognition.
  • gamegoblin 12y ago
    I imagine if this thing sticks around, they'll eventually be able to automate simple things like the pizza ordering and whatnot. I imagine it could call back to a human in case of issues, such as: Requester: "I want two pepperoni pizzas, one with extra cheese." AI Response: "I can have 3 pizzas, two pepperoni, and one cheese (with extra cheese), delivered from Dominos for $24.15" Requester: "No, I wanted two pepperoni pizzas, with extra cheese on one of them" Human steps in after the "no" is detected: "Sorry, I misunderstood your request, I can get two pepperoni pizzas with extra cheese on one of them for $16.50 from Dominos" Requester: "Yes, thanks." ====== It'll just be a matter of time as the automation spreads to less and less mundane topics.
    • waterlesscloud 12y ago
      The first step is just to have backend software make a first pass at the texts and make suggestions to the rep. As it get better, it increases the throughput for the human rep. Like most automation, it becomes about making a human more productive, and that's a lot easier to accomplish.
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  • petercooper 12y ago
    There seems to be a pattern lately of services that are initially human based but then use that as validation for a human-supported AI model further down the road. https://x.ai/ https://x.ai/ is one of the recent ones I remember seeing.
• mik3y 12y ago
  Looks like an even more minimal version of WunWun (https://www.wunwun.com/ https://www.wunwun.com/), which is a "write some unstructured text and we'll dispatch it" app, in NYC and SF. They hire and manage their own couriers tho.
  • cmikec 12y ago
    We also handle things that WunWun doesn't, like booking plane tickets, making reservations, paying bills, etc.
• muyuu 12y ago
  Haha. Boom! there goes every single bit of something resembling "privacy" you had. Magic.
• kijiki 12y ago
  How did you get office space at Moffett Federal Airfield?
  • walterbell 12y ago
    There seem to be quite a few companies at Moffett Field. Maybe a sublease? https://www.crunchbase.com/location/moffett-field/d32799a0b61c08c58682cccfa008a770 https://www.crunchbase.com/location/moffett-field/d32799a0b6... http://m.jobs.monster.com/l-moffett-field,-ca.aspx http://m.jobs.monster.com/l-moffett-field,-ca.aspx http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/topic/moffett-field/ http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/topic/moffett-field/
• CamperBob2 12y ago
  I can already order pizza and flowers and plane tickets myself. However, if you could handle requests like: Call Comcast for me and have them configure my Cisco DPC3939B for bridge mode Go stand in line at the post office and retrieve my package with tracking #xxxxxxxx My iPhone's screen is cracked. Take it to the mall and get somebody to fix or replace it, whichever's cheaper. Bring me some Mongolian BBQ with the following specifications. ... I can see this whole "magic" concept going places. :)
  • cmikec 12y ago
    We can do some of these things, and a lot of stuff like this. give it a shot. :)
    • jonbaer 12y ago
      Are you using something like Twilio TaskRouter behind the scenes?
  • avn2109 12y ago
    Yeah, if you can wrap shleps like this in a painless interface, it would be incredible. I would pay _a lot of money_ for that. Especially for stuff like "Dispatch someone credible-sounding to stand in line and negotiate as my agent with large shitty ossified organization X," where X might be a post office, utility company, embassy, real estate, etc, where their user experience disrepects my time. The dev who sits next to me has been trying to buy a house for a month, and he spends ~50% of his time on the phone with home inspectors, contractors, the title office and similar, basically telling them trivial facts or participating in silly naggy negotiations where they're basically gambling that he won't push back on the twentieth little crappy line item this week. This is a super-real pain point.
    • saraid216 12y ago
      So you're saying that your coworker needs a real estate agent. Is there a reason, besides money, that he isn't using one? I say "besides money", because you said you would pay "a lot of money" for it, so you can clearly afford an agent.
• beachstartup 12y ago
  this adds a voice interface to all apps/services that do the fulfillment on the back end. now you can safely order food to be delivered when driving home. or laundry pickup, or whatever. "siri, text magic, i want a large pepperoni pizza delivered to my home in 1 hour."
  • meric 12y ago
    Now we only need Siri to read out how much it will cost.
    • daxelrod 12y ago
      Siri will read notifications, including text messages if you say something like "read that text".
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  • fiatmoney 12y ago
    The other thing technology lets you do is specialize, which includes specialization in technologies of distribution, allocation, search, and fulfilment.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• webwanderings 12y ago
  > The first time you use Magic, we'll ask for your credit card info, your address, etc. Etc? Really?
• jordanbrown 12y ago
  Who do I talk to about adding Lugg to the list of services? http://lu.gg http://lu.gg
• joshmlewis 12y ago
  I'm curious how they are scaling on the financials side. I'm assuming they are paying for the things ordered off of their personal CC's and with the sudden spike in requests and the long delay of getting money back into their account, I wonder how far they will go. A blog post after all of it cools down would be a fun read. :)
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    • joshmlewis 12y ago
      They aren't paying with the products they buy online with their customers CC though. That's what I was getting at. Since they don't have access to their customers CC on the websites they're purchasing these services/items from they are having to pay with it and then get reimbursed essentially with their "convenience fee" on top.
      • waterlesscloud 12y ago
        Realized what you meant and deleted and revised my comment. In any case, I can't imagine their personal credit cards handling any actual volume, not to mention the fraud protection issues with orders for deliveries all over the country.
      • nileshtrivedi 12y ago
        The landing page mentions that they ask the credit card details the first time you request a service.
        • bhayden 12y ago
          This data goes to Stripe, where Magic bills you. Magic doesn't use your card info to order the services for you. This is why this idea won't work - it's going to get overrun with chargeback fraud and totally ruin it.
  • waterlesscloud 12y ago
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• weaksauce 12y ago
  So I ordered a pizza last night(not through your service) and I had to call them after an hour because it didn't arrive and they misplaced the order. How would you handle such a situation?
  • cmikec 12y ago
    We do exactly what you would do if you're being completely proactive...just behind the scenes so you don't have to worry about it. We call the pizza place, call the driver, deal with the annoyance. You just relax and wait for your pizza.
    • wongarsu 12y ago
      Is everything done by human operators or have you already automated large parts of the work?
    • azakai 12y ago
      The customer knows if it arrived - do they need to notify you when it does? Or do all the services notify you? Otherwise, I don't see how you can tell if it's late and likely got misordered, and you need to contact the pizza place again.
• serve_yay 12y ago
  Best app? No app.
• sidcool 12y ago
  Simplicity at its best. Quite stark and simple landing page. Simple service. Seems like no gimmicks. I would say I am looking forward to give it a try!
• sinwave 12y ago
  This reminds me of an opinion that I have which I've been looking for an opportunity to flesh out and share. Despite all of the research and engineering that's gone into the user interface (and "experience") of smartphones, text messaging as an interface has one massive advantage: the perceived cost of sending a text is miniscule in comparison to other operations. I don't have units, but it's probably an order of magnitude lower in any reasonable ones. Maybe I'm projecting onto "the general public" when I make this generalization, but performing operations on a smartphone (aside from call/text) are oft accompanied by the very real risk of squandering your time away. Especially when a browser is involved. There is something elegant about the interface of a dumb phone, especially a flip phone: You pull it out of your pocket, whip it open, type your text, send it. And then crucially, you flip it closed and stop thinking about it. This is the key. You're using it when you're using it, and you're not when you're not. Even grander generalization and possibly controversial opinion: I hope that consumer technology begins to cater more to those of us who wish to use technology in this way - as a tool that you pull out of your pocket and promptly put away upon achieving your ends.
  • walterbell 12y ago
    http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/09/speed-and-power-of-sms-the-2012-update.html http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/09/speed-a... "Chetan Sharma counted the total active SMS user base is now up to 5.9 Billion humans or 91% of all mobile phone owners, in May of 2012. So SMS is nearly 6 times larger by reach than Facebook. SMS is 3 times bigger than TV and has 2.5 times more reach than email. As less people place voice calls from their mobile phones than send SMS text messages, this is the most used telecommunication method - and most used digital media - on the planet. Yes, humble little SMS." Open Standard -> broker -> Walled Gardens?
  • tree_of_item 12y ago
    Yes! More along these lines: https://usv.com/post/an-idea-about-texting https://usv.com/post/an-idea-about-texting https://www.ouvre-boite.com/messaging/ https://www.ouvre-boite.com/messaging/ https://medium.com/@chrismessina/conversational-commerce-92e0bccfc3ff https://medium.com/@chrismessina/conversational-commerce-92e... http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109389515411/your-phone-interface-is-a-legacy-train-wreck http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109389515411/your-phone-interfa... http://dangrover.com/blog/2014/12/01/chinese-mobile-app-ui-trends.html#chatasui http://dangrover.com/blog/2014/12/01/chinese-mobile-app-ui-t... http://www.nngroup.com/articles/anti-mac-interface/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/anti-mac-interface/ A text based or "messaging" UI is often simpler and more effective than fumbling with some complicated direct manipulation UI.
• willidiots 12y ago
  This is crazy, I was just brainstorming about this last week. You're basically layering concierges on top of remote hands. Awesome! I'm curious to see what you'll do to handle exceptional cases. I live in the boonies and am asking for a philly cheesesteak right now.
  • maxbrown 12y ago
    1. Maybe it's just quoted at a ridiculous price 2. They may just be able to say it's not available and still maintain a positive experience for 99.9% of customers. 3. It doesn't seem like they're charging such a large fee that I expect them to do something crazy for me... I expect value in some proportion to my payment. Amex concierge might get the cheesesteak for a customer who spends 6-figures with them but not 4-figures, for example.
  • zdrummond 12y ago
    So did they deliver?
    • willidiots 12y ago
      They offered! They found a "good cheesesteak place" about 30 miles from here (I believe it) and offered to have someone drive it out to me, but cautioned it would be very expensive & asked if I wanted them to get a quote. I declined, not THAT hungry for a cheesesteak tonight, but I'm super happy with the knowledge & result.
• alansammarone 12y ago
  I love the absurdly simple way this works. That said, maybe there should be some form of (appropriately simple) authentication on each request, because what if my phone gets stolen/lost?
  • bgvrofg 12y ago
    You could do this: if you enable passcode confirmation, type your pass anywhere in the text message along with your text confirmation. If you forget, you get a request to do so.
    • alansammarone 12y ago
      that may not be ideal. most people keep their sms history, so the person trying to use the service in my behalf could just scroll the screen. or do you mean some sort of one timer passcode? that could complicate things a bit, not sure how it could work
      • bgvrofg 12y ago
        You could call them and enter a few numbers I guess. This isn't stored, at least on my phone since you are in a call, and can be automated. ( Or just don't store that message. )
        • alansammarone 12y ago
          ye, that seems reasonable... it kinda complicates the process though
    • MereInterest 12y ago
      Except that text history is usually saved on the phone. If someone has access to sending texts, they will have access to that as well. It is probably better to go with phone locking, instead. That said, I like the passcode idea. I know that caller ID is easily spoofed, and so I would imagine that the source ID for text messages can be spoofed as well. Requiring the passcode would prevent this sort of attack.
• zaroth 12y ago
  I love the idea, and the execution, but just one nit -- you say "no hidden fees", but I think bundling the fee into the total price is the definition of a hidden fee. If your examples itemized the fee it would be a different story. Other comments here express a similar anxiety, e.g. how much [extra] am I actually paying for this? Also, I know you're busy, but FYI CA state law requires you have a Privacy Policy. I would like to know how long you retain records and who you are sharing them with before doing business with you!
  • noblethrasher 12y ago
    The price that they quote you is the only fee. It's up to you to decide if it is worth it.
  • aaronem 12y ago
    When you're using a concierge service is not the time to pinch pennies. Corollary: When you're pinching pennies is not the time to use a concierge service. The whole point of a concierge service, such as this, is to have someone on call to whom you may say "Here is my problem. Make it go away." Such services generally come at a much higher rate than Magic appear to be charging.
    • octatoan 12y ago
      I think there's a fallacy here . . .
      • aaronem 12y ago
        Is there, though? Sure, it'd be preferable to have a full fee schedule available, for cases where it's needed. But, given that using a concierge service is perhaps the definitive case of spending money to conserve time; given also that this is a side project which has suddenly blown up in its creators' faces; and given finally that said creators appear to be working unbelievably hard to scale it up and out to meet the demand they've discovered -- given all that, I think it's pretty unreasonable to shit on the people who've made concierge service cheaper and more accessible than ever before because, in scrambling to meet unexpected demand, they have yet to get around to polish. Give them a month or two to get everything shaken out, and if they still haven't put up any fee information, then go after them. Until then, calm yourself; you are, after all, free not to use their service, if it fails to meet your requirements.
• methehack 12y ago
  Has anyone used it? What was that like? How much did they charge to use the service?
• rickbad 12y ago
  really? not magic. Who's moderating hackers news on the weekend. ?
• lbr 12y ago
  This looks identical to Jarvis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351
  • cwyers 12y ago
    Jarvis charges a large upfront fee. This charges per use.
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  • syllogism 12y ago
    PCI compliance for a start up is a solved problem. They don't handle credit cards at all --- Stripe does. They just get a token.
  • AYBABTME 12y ago
    You don't text your CC data, they text you an HTTPS link and its Stripe that keeps your info. This bit of the FAQ accounted for ~20% of all characters on the page.
  • puppymaster 12y ago
    uhm they are not. The text is just a link to a site that uses stripe to collect your CC data.
    • albertwang 12y ago
      I wonder how they are able to pay for 3rd party transactions with Stripe? Charging the customer's credit card with Stripe then paying with your own payment method incurs a transaction fee and potentially chargebacks (Disclaimer: co-founder of Perssist, a tech-enhanced virtual assistant service)
      • nicky0 12y ago
        I'm guessing they just charge enough mark-up to the customer to cover transaction fees and chargeback risk.
      • jusben1369 12y ago
        Yes I wonder too. They're storing the card in Stripe. But then they're paying the Pizza joint for the Pizza (who probably doesn't have a Stripe account) So they're charging your card against their Stripe account and then I assume using their own cards to charge for the Pizza manually. It seems like that'll have some scale challenges. (Disclaimer: I work at Spreedly where we see a lot of these cross merchant/PCI compliant services launching.
• louisbird 12y ago
  Am I supposed to tip the delivery guy? Normally I tip for pizza delivery, Instacart, etc. Do you make sure that's included for me?
  • bgodlove88 12y ago
    Normally we will charge you one overall charge and handle everything including tipping, but if you prefer to do the tipping yourself then just let us know!
• aresant 12y ago
  This is exactly what Siri should be. Apple has 800m credit cards on file (1) In one fell swoop Apple could own the local delivery market, shocking how perfect of a concept / execution this is. (1) http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-on-file-apple-vs-amazon-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-on-file-apple-vs...
  • zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
    The very fact that Apple has 800M credit cards on file is the reason why they know better than offering a service like this. Even if 10% of their users started using their service to require "magic", there is no way in hell even a company like Apple could scale an operation like this that's bottlenecked by humans.
    • TylerE 12y ago
      Why not? 80m users is probably in-line with what some of the larger banks and insurance companies deal with. They're big call centers, but we're not talking entire cities here.
      • Artemis2 12y ago
        A concierge service is a lot more intensive than responding to the clients of a bank. If Apple did this at their scale, they would probably end up very quickly having an (hopefully public) API for every business around, rather than having their agents call the same restaurant 10 times a day. That would really be a revolutionary way to consume.
        • JosephRedfern 12y ago
          Sort of like Just-Eat? http://www.just-eat.co.uk http://www.just-eat.co.uk
    • frevd 12y ago
      Funny way to generate a lot of jobs for the future, no? I mean in future times when everything is so automated that you don't longer work in a supermarket or restaurant, because people don't leave the house any more (sad future, I know). +1 for the zak game
• nileshtrivedi 12y ago
  Just want to point out that such a service wouldn't work in India. The Reserve Bank of India has stipulated that all "card-not-present" transactions (such as online purchases) require a secondary authentication (Verified by VISA password or a grid printed on the back of card). This improves the security but also pushes the liability to the consumer, given that he is not supposed to share this secondary password with anyone else.
  • evilduck 12y ago
    My impression is that they're buying stuff for you, then charging the user as a separate transaction that includes the original purchase price plus their fee.
  • ignoramous 12y ago
    Uber is doing fine with prepaid wallets. Also, cash on delivery or some variant of pay at hotel already solves the issues you point out. And plastic cash isn't as prelevant in India as it is in the western world. You wouldn't really miss out on anything because of 2FA imposed by RBI.
• nighthawk24 12y ago
  Example screenshots show iMessage, but the number provided supports SMS-text only.
  • r00fus 12y ago
    I can't tell you the number of times I knew the recipient had an iPhone and it still showed up green on Messages.
• mike_ivanov 12y ago
  Perfect. Now please come to Canada.
• shawn-butler 12y ago
  What guarantee of customer satisfaction is offered? If your fees are "bundled" how do you intend to refund in the event of poor service by the final provider?
• cmikec 12y ago
  Wow, everyone! This is truly amazing. We released Magic under 48 hours ago as an experiment and a side project, and now the traffic and requests are streaming in faster than we can handle. Don't worry - we have a plan to handle it. For now we are closing down free registrations so that we can focus on delivering the product to the awesome people who have signed up so far and who are using the service. I've replaced the phone number on the page you see here with an email opt-in waiting list where you can sign up to be notified when Magic is available to you. In the meantime, I have added a Stripe button for $20 after the email opt-in where you can gain access now if you want to get in right now. Thanks everyone!
  • pbreit 12y ago
    Is your markup a percentage/amount or do you make it up each time?
  • brador 12y ago
    How are you planning to handle returns and customer support issues?
  • frevd 12y ago
    Well, but you forgot that you posted a link to your old page version, which still shows the phone number :], or did it change? How could you create a solution like this in less than 2 days? Training operators (who where how many, paying a call center?), how are you managing customer data together with those operators etc. Sounds like a logistic nightmare to me, unless you and 10 friends are sitting day and night in your apartment..
  • cmrn 12y ago
    If you haven't already, I'd use a fake number as the "blurred number", as it's pretty easy to read the number if you open the image directly, shrink it down, and squint :)
• exogen 12y ago
  I just decided to try this out in Seattle. Here's how it went! http://brianbeck.com/images/magic.png http://brianbeck.com/images/magic.png (the minimum was from the sushi place, not Magic)
  • christianmann 12y ago
    What were the extra pieces?
    • exogen 12y ago
      Edamame, some sushi rice, and escolar sashimi which I've never tried before. (edit: some kinda soup as well)
      • js2 12y ago
        Escolar, delicious in moderation - http://www.thekitchn.com/use-caution-when-eating-escola-66602 http://www.thekitchn.com/use-caution-when-eating-escola-6660...
  • zaroth 12y ago
    Awesome demo! Can you update the shot while swiping left to show the timestamps?
    • exogen 12y ago
      Sure! http://brianbeck.com/images/magic-times.png http://brianbeck.com/images/magic-times.png The first couple responses were pretty slow, sounds like they were getting absolutely hammered with requests. I could have done it a lot faster myself for sure, seems promising though!
      • notatoad 12y ago
        That actually doesn't seem very good. If I'm craving sushi as 7pm, getting delivered at 9:15 isn't really going to do it for me.
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• eunger9 12y ago
  Is there someone available 24/7 to reply?
  • bgodlove88 12y ago
    We are always available, though we might be a bit slower during the wee hours.
• eunger9 12y ago
  Just to sign up (before I asked for anything), the credit card form is for a $20 initial payment... with no explanation if this goes towards your first purchase, or not? http://i.imgur.com/J5TKJO5.png http://i.imgur.com/J5TKJO5.png Also, they're using a Stripe account managed by this company: https://bettir.com https://bettir.com
  • kolev 12y ago
    Bettir seems to be a product of the same company (Plus Labs).
• lawnchair_larry 12y ago
  This is an example of a completely useless title.
• shivaas 12y ago
  looks like you guys blew up and had to limit orders. bummer. would love to give this a shot as I get my invite! great idea, hopefully the execution is good.
• pinklegs 12y ago
  From someone who's tried and failed: performing a large amount of high-quality labor for cheap is not a sustainable business model in the West, and riding hype can make you oblivious to that fact. That said, I do hope this team has some amazing trick under their sleeves that has eluded everyone else, because I do want this service to exist.
  • practicalpants 12y ago
    Agreed, this has obviously got some nice buzz, but never would I want to be the person having to run this business. Lots of manual work for little fees. They could hire/ outsource, but the quality will drop and prices will hike. They might be able to find a niche of people willing to pay a lot for simple things they could probably do easily themselves (like ordering food, or booking a flight), and use that extra money to outsource, but something tells me that market is pretty small. It's interesting, I'm curious to see if this can turn into a company.
    • sly010 12y ago
      I guess beause it's SMS they can you employ machine learning and simple classification, and internal tools to automate whatever is requested the most. Requests that require manual work will probably cost a little bit more. They also seem to pass requests down to backend providers, which you can probably do very cheaply.
      • practicalpants 12y ago
        I couldn't disagree with this characterization more. They will need human intelligence overseeing the majority of the cases, and those that they try to automate will be fraught with difficulty and take a long time to iron out. Even the examples I've seen posted of people using it so far would not have been able to be automated and required extended conversations. (And just in general stuff that is actually easy to automate will mean a ton of middle men already exist to make it easy, or more likely, the person could just do it themselves quickly) The founders can either outsource to someone for as cheap as they can manage and target clients who don't care about likely significant middleman fees (and who are most likely on the lazy side), or they can spend all of their attention each day doing these little tasks for people. Since it was a whimsical side project, as they described it, I imagine this will go on for a little while longer, but then they will wind it down and/or maybe try to sell it like the glitter envelope guy who didn't want to do all the work, and then have something quite nice for their resumes, plus some PR to go towards their next project.
• kyledrake 12y ago
  Awesome. Simply brilliant.
• rkangel 12y ago
  And yet another cool startup I'm going to have to wait to expand to the UK. Good work guys, and I agree with everything that everyone else said about the simplicity of your landing page, and the controversial design decision to actually communicate information.
  • Nilef 12y ago
    Don't bother waiting, we made a UK version you can find at askjarvis.co.uk or by texting "start" to 0115 824 4141
• lostmsu 12y ago
  Great service, guys, but beware of the first waves of fraud.
• Legogris 12y ago
  Cool service, but you should really make it more obvious that it's only for the USA.
  • Nilef 12y ago
    Where are you based?
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• daxelrod 12y ago
  Great site, and exciting service. One little nitpick: the blue chat bubbles on the site gave me the impression you'd be using iMessage for supported phones instead of SMS. (This matters to me just a bit because I have a limited number of SMSes per month.) I totally get why you would just stick to SMS. Still happy to use your service, but it did create just the tiniest bit of initial dissapointment.
• felipelalli 12y ago
  They just ignored me.
  • bgodlove88 12y ago
    I'm so sorry! We're getting ridiculously hammered. Please try us again, or you can wait while we catch up on everything.
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• zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
  I'm curious to know how they can cover the entire US. Obviously, I realize they can't, I just wonder how often their answer to the query is "Sorry, we can't do this". Overall, I think it's a great idea but the fact that it's bottlenecked by humans will make it very, very hard to scale (and you can already see this as the web site has a big banner saying the service is currently restricted due to high demand). Still, it's clear from the testimonials so far that these guys have their heart in the right place and they really want to achieve maximum user satisfaction. Kudos!
  • grecy 12y ago
    > I'm curious to know how they can cover the entire US. Because they're just using other services to get you what you want.. i.e. flowers, groceries, pizza, etc. - they just call a florist/supermarket/pizza joint/etc. local to the requester. What examples of requests can you think of that can't be served anywhere in the US?
    • zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
      I understand that but you still need a one to one mapping between customers and request, even if that request is not ultimately implemented by the person who picked up the phone.
      • grecy 12y ago
        So your question is how are they going to scale to meet the demands of the 300 million people in the US? Isn't that the fundamental question all business must face? When the first McDonald's opens in a town do they worry and say "How on earth will we meet the demand of the WHOLE town?" Problems like that are good to have.
      • waterlesscloud 12y ago
        They'll find a price point that matches the demand with their ability to supply. The premium involved in using this service is already substantial, so it's not going to be an everyday thing for everyone.
• pyja 12y ago
  The idea, the execution and the simplicity of the web site are all astonishing !
• akbar501 12y ago
  I mean this as a genuine compliment: this is an obvious idea...that was hiding in plain sight. Good job on seeing it.
• downandout 12y ago
  I created a service very similar to this about 2 years ago and no one cared. Given my experience, I'm stunned (but happy) to see so much praise for this. Anyway, congratulations....looks like you have that right time/right product/right place thing going on. How do you intend to monetize? If I buy a pizza, do you charge me directly (a premium) and then pay Domino's et al? How many people do you have to handle the deluge of texts? Do you intend to seek affiliate relationships with local merchants where you can't charge a known fee up front (for example, where someone says "Dude, I need a plumber ASAP!")?
• rarepostinlurkr 12y ago
  This seems a lot like fancyhands.com; or on its way to trying to become something like it...
  • dbish 12y ago
    That's the first thing I thought when I saw the user scenarios. Fancyhands charges a monthly fee for a certain number of transactions which can get pricey.
• photoGrant 12y ago
  PRODUCERS. This is huge for producers. Please keep this in mind. A producer on set who needs something special delivered ASAP will pay a PREMIUM for this kinda service.
• zhte415 12y ago
  Like a high speed freight train smashing through a wooden fence with horns blazing, and speeding on. This is a great idea and really simple execution. I love it.
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• Kafoury 12y ago
  Perhaps the site's creators will be kind enough to consider the privacy issues regarding Google Fonts: http://fontfeed.com/archives/google-webfonts-the-spy-inside/ http://fontfeed.com/archives/google-webfonts-the-spy-inside/
  • ej_campbell 12y ago
    Google addresses this here: https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#Privacy https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#Privacy
    • Kafoury 12y ago
      From your link: "We do log records of the CSS and the font file requests". I don't trust Google and that's final.
• bcjordan 12y ago
  This could be handy as a Slack chat bot
• joshmn 12y ago
  I love this idea, but I'm absolutely terrified of the possible implications from a liability standpoint. When you guys get slammed with fraud, give me a shout.
• ilyaeck 12y ago
  How does this service compare to Jarvis or Fancy Hands?
• Procrastes 12y ago
  What a great way to boil business down to the essentials. Help people in a way they value, give them an easy way to pay for it, profit.
• _ZeD_ 12y ago
  uhhm... in italy we have this kind of service for years (I remember back in the '80s when there was still one national telephonic company there was this number "12" you could call to have infos). There is now a profusion of heritage (like http://www.1240.it http://www.1240.it, http://www.892424.it http://www.892424.it, etc).
  • GFischer 12y ago
    But they got complacent and didn't scale, I guess they missed the boat.
• possibilistic 12y ago
  This is the most amazing startup I've ever seen on HN. There's no app, there's nothing to install. I need Magic in my life. I hate ordering, filling out forms, etc. Pease scale this thing hard and fast. This is Uber-level fantastic. Better than that, even.
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• zaroth 12y ago
  Holy shit, they flinched! Magic, get your act together. Seriously, do not cut off potential exponential growth like this. You need to get talented operators in place and fake it until the AI is ready. Understand your role, you are a sales channel. Make it happen and make it big.
• markbnj 12y ago
  Very cool idea. I wonder if they are crowdsourcing the operator side of it?
• dirtyaura 12y ago
  Have you thought about chargeback risks? I.e. when you hit mass-market there will be a non-trivial number of attempts in which customer cancels the payment to you after receiving the ordered product on the basis that it was not what he ordered. It seems that it can be quite a mess to figure those situations out due to suppliers being so varied.
  • weixiyen 12y ago
    it's probably way too early to worry about that, they just need to grow and deal with actual issues that are coming up today.
• Anisa_Mirza 12y ago
  Congrats to Mike and team for making something people [really] want! I am so excited for you guys. Can't wait to start using.
• rgovind 12y ago
  Just FYI, My company used to offer Les Concierge for something very similar, until recently. They stopped it because people were not really using the service. So, inspite of the coolness of the startup, I am skeptical if it makes money.
• keithpeter 12y ago
  Nice idea and like others here I really appreciate the simple plain web page. Best of luck with it all. Just a thought for when this begins to scale: vetting of the people ordering the stuff. They will have names, email, delivery address and an idea of the income level/lifestyle of the person ordering. I'm assuming credit card details are on a payment system and not available to the people handing the requests. PS: any customers complained about what they got yet?
• ulfw 12y ago
  Those prices. Holy moly. Is everyone in the Bay Area rich these days?
  • jes5199 12y ago
    yes.
• known 12y ago
  408-217-1721 in https://archive.today/2ZmPj https://archive.today/2ZmPj
  • weixiyen 12y ago
    This is nice to know but I really think it's a questionable thing to do considering they specifically want to omit the number from their current website :/
• pmx 12y ago
  Hey just a heads-up - your logo looks very similar to the one Magic FM use - http://www.magic.co.uk/ http://www.magic.co.uk/
• fit2rule 12y ago
  The front-end looks awesome. But will it scale? To me, the obvious value of your business is in being able to train Operators up to the Magic corporate standard. If you can do this while growing the service, you've got a real winner - especially if you put up a web front end to make it possible to become a Magic operator anywhere in the world. I'd be quite happy to do this kind of service work from home - as long as I had the tools to support me, and I think ultimately thats where your real value is going to be - certainly growing the customer base is valuable, too. But being able to train/service Operators who can do the job properly is going to be the key to it all ..
• welshguy 12y ago
  Color me flabbergasted. Props to these guys for launching an MVP and all that, but seriously - what a value proposition: "Why order online when you can get someone else to do that for you adding an undisclosed middleman fee?". First world problems.
• Animats 12y ago
  If you've never read it, this is the time to read the Heinlein classic, "We Also Walk Dogs."[1] This is exactly the business he describes. [1] http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/%5BHeinlein_Robert_Anson%5D_We_Also_Walk_Dogs%28BookFi.org%29.pdf http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/%5BHein...
  • Udik 12y ago
    From the short story: "Miss Cormet reflected to herself that the prosperity of General Services and her own very substantial income was based largely on the stupidity, lack of resourcefulness, and laziness of persons like this silly parasite"
• ghshephard 12y ago
  Like Jim Barksdale used to say - there are two ways of making money, you can bundle or unbundle. Magic is clearly a very clever bundling play.
• arthurcolle 12y ago
  This is neat. I like the simple execution, and I'm working on something metaphorically similar in that I'm using Stripe and other separate Bitcoin APIs in a similar "amalgamated" way to create a well-rounded application that does a simple service really well. This gives me the confidence that a "mashup"-like concept isn't necessarily the downfall of a service, so long as it provides real value to the end-user. I wish the Magic team the best!
• everyone 12y ago
  Does no one else consider the idea of this horribly decadent? They give as an example, ordering a delivery pizza for you, which is already a decadent activity and something you can accomplish with a single phone call anyway. Maybe for the rich high-flying silicon valley types, your time and brain space is so valuable that this service makes sense. But if that is the case maybe you should re-examine your lives.
  • scrollaway 12y ago
    This isn't interesting because of pizzas. This is interesting because of the potential to centralize and offload all decisions of a certain type. It's like a pay-per-use secretary. What I do find.. "decadent"... is people like you, judging masses of other people on the basis of what they find interesting or useful. Especially when you can't see past the low hanging fruit and aren't able to grasp any potential a service might have. Piece of advice: If a majority of people are interested and finding use in a service, re-examine your own evaluation skills before telling everyone else to re-examine their lives.
    • UVB-76 12y ago
      A service like this simply isn't economical for the overwhelming majority of people. If you perceive your time to be so valuable that you can't bear the five minutes it takes to order a pizza online or by phone, you probably should re-examine that valuation. Especially when five minutes ordering exactly what you want directly from your preferred supplier is replaced by a fifteen minute exchange with a stranger who has to interprets vague inputs, has misaligned incentives, doesn't know any of your preferences beyond those you expressly state, etc. all of which you then pay a premium for...
      • scrollaway 12y ago
        Well done, you missed the point as much as OP. You're still stuck on pizzas. I wonder why you're replying to me; you're specifically bringing up points which my post explains are unimportant.
      • 12y ago
• Alpi 12y ago
  cmikec, how many operators do you have by now? and how many customers?
• aymeric 12y ago
  I do not understand the internet. This type of service has existed for ages. Why does this one attract so much attention?
  • elf25 12y ago
    via text? Name one.
• comrade1 12y ago
  From some of the comments here it sounds like you're using a long code (phone number) rather than a short code for your sms messages. The FCC has been cracking down on the use of long codes in marketing. Not sure about an app like your's though... But you probably should move to a short code anyway. There are also very strong requirements for how opting in, opting out, etc works. http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/2013/01/02/sms-compliance-what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-you/ http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/2013/01/02/s...
• benbristow 12y ago
  Is this US only?
  • programmernews3 12y ago
    Yeah, the page says "Q: Where is Magic available? Anywhere in the US."
• chenster 12y ago
  Fewer peeople are using SMS today. In US, WhatsApp is preferred text message app; In Japan and Taiwan, everyone uses Line while rest of Asia uses WeChat. Any plan to support those Apps?
• atsaloli 12y ago
  I love it! Sounds like Heinlein's "General Services" -- no job too big, no job too small. "Want somebody murdered? Then DON'T call General Services. But for anything else, call.... It Pays!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs
• davemel37 12y ago
  I see almost no barrier to entry for this idea and as some commentors pointed out- this has been done before- although today does feel like the right time to succeed because these other services are maturing. Why not turn this into an excess capacity market where you enable anyone to easily offer this service themselves...especially if they have local insights. This seems like a good way for anyone to Make a few bucks in their free time.
• amelius 12y ago
  How would you deal with the following cases? - people using the service just to figure out the price of something (and then declining)? - people not being happy with what they got delivered (perhaps rightfully so), and wanting their money back?
• throwmagic 12y ago
  I noticed when they give you a URL to follow the parameter is just a counter! I opened http://getmagicnow.com/pay.php?p=1 http://getmagicnow.com/pay.php?p=1 then clicked the button, it showed this message: Here is the VIP phone number to access Magic: (408) 7x7-xxx7 Do NOT release this phone number to anyone outside the VIP level of service. Is this a vuln?
• swandive 12y ago
  Idea to scale: As a non-coder, I love reading the responses of programers here. "Automate this!" "There is no way to scale." "This needs AI." As an outsider looking in, my idea to scale is similar to Uber. Have workers that can sign on to work whenever they have the time. The workers handle the orders and receive a cut of the fee you charge. It would be great if you could have some kind of rating system where the consumer could choose who they work with, but I'm not sure how to make that happen with SMS. I'm not saying this is better or more cost efficient than automation. I just see it as a solution to their current problem. Uber is looking to automate, but check out their current valuation. They can afford to do so all by scaling with humans. I'll now wait to get hammered by HN. :)
  • kitcar 12y ago
    You're basically describing ODesk, Elance, Mechanical Turk, etc... Not saying this execution will/won't work, but there are lots of firms that seemed to have make it work to solve a similar / the same problem set.
    • k__ 12y ago
      Things like Mechanical Turk are just creating minimum wage jobs and we were better of without them, I think. Magic will create many call-center like jobs...
      • nazgob 12y ago
        Call-center jobs in US are not minimum wage?
        • stanmancan 12y ago
          Not in Canada. I work in telecommunications and technical support starts at $17/h. Sales starts at $12/h I think plus commission. Lots of sales reps in our call centres are easily clearing $50k a year. Everyone gets full extended health benefits. Minimum wage is around $10.25 I think?
• tom-lord 12y ago
  This seems like another one of this startup ideas that will blow up, sell for $X,000,000 in a few weeks/months, then die as the fad wears off. Congrats on being so successful so far, but my advice would be to sell out before the investors loose interest!
  • gk1 12y ago
    This is literally day 3 for them... a bit early for the investor talk.
• arb99 12y ago
  This will get abused by fraud really quickly.
• netcan 12y ago
  This is an example of "execution is everything." People might try this as novelty. If it gets any traction, there will be millions of imitators. This won't succeed or fail because of the idea, but because of execution. This needs to be really awesome to be good, really awesome. So awesome people get dependant.
• photorized 12y ago
  How do you handle support issues - returns, exchanges, credits? Same mechanism? Where do you draw the line on "anything"? Also, this whole thing is April Fool's joke, right?
• Killah911 12y ago
  This seems a lot like fancy hands, via text messaging. The big difference I see is that there is no monthly commitment. Since my personal assistant quit, I've been using Fancy Hands I have been quite delighted by the service. I'd love to know the model that this business uses. I dug into fancy hands a little bit and it seems like the operations are not quite so straightforward(crowdsourcing what the headache of managing employees). When I first looked through this I assumed this was coded onto fancy hands API. But given the scaling issues and the pricing structure of this app it probably isn't.
• habosa 12y ago
  This looks great! It would be really cool if, in the far future, this service could make deals to cut out some of the natural 'fee stacking' that occurs. If you order from magic and magic uses Postmates, you're going to pay a delivery fee to each service. This will add up to probably 20-30% of the price, but that's the price of convenience I guess.
• brianft 12y ago
  When is this coming to Canada eh?
• INTPenis 12y ago
  Is this really new in the states? In sweden we've had these numbers called 118 100, or 118 118 where it costs relatively much to call in but they can take care of a lot of things for you. For example since my company pays for my phone I tend to use them for things like getting a taxi wherever I am. "I want a taxi in X city". And they can do this via SMS or phone call, they can send the reply via phone or via sms if you want, included in the service charge. Essentially they can do what magic claims, with operators standing by 24/7, for a service fee that comes from your phone operator. We've had this in Sweden for many, many years now. I don't even remember how long but I know that some time 6-7 years ago they started advertising that you could call them (or text them) about any stupid question you might have and they would try to answer it. If this magic really is new to the states then I predict it will explode just like our swedish alternatives have here.
  • roel_v 12y ago
    Do they handle payment? When I lived in Belgium there were a few services like what you describe (2000-2001 ish), but they were all basically glorified Yellow Pages - they'd find and call a service provider for you, but from there on out you were on your own. Also don't bother sending them a list like '6 eggs, a gallon of milk and a pair of black socks', which it seems this service does cater for.
    • INTPenis 12y ago
      No you can't make purchases through them, and you can't store information with them. The only type of payment involved is the service fee when you call the number. Other than that they look up information for you, or answer questions for you. Like a google phone operator.
• king_magic 12y ago
  I think this particularly clever and refreshingly simple. I wish you luck!
• floydeinhorn 12y ago
  Very cool idea. I hope you guys make it big.
• amelius 12y ago
  If Magic is going to be the one selecting the services, this may cost Google and others a great deal in ad revenue. How would they respond to this? Their own meta-service?
  • sesquipedalian 12y ago
    Google buys these guys out.
• hellbanner 12y ago
  Honestly, "get magic" on the internet sounds like a trap. What is this? I don't trust the URL :)
• protopete 12y ago
  Yet another technology lifted straight out of an anime: Eden of the East [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_of_the_East http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_of_the_East] where contestants compete to win a reality game with access to a concierge by phone backed by a staggering sum of money.
• sesquipedalian 12y ago
  I know it is too early to say, but if I had to guess what the next Google would look like, it would be this.
• totony 12y ago
  A joke I always had was that startups always have the "we do it so you don't have to" headline. Applies so perfectly here! Still, looks like a very nice idea, might try it if I ever need something :)
• brianliou91 12y ago
  Has our society really come to simply throwing money on paying two separate third parties to order FOOD? I use Magic, to use Postmates, to get Chipotle?! No offense but I feel like this is the most first world solution I've ever encountered. Congrats on the success and traffic though and best of luck on executing.
• gmisra 12y ago
  Do you know what would really be magical? An on-demand service that provided a guarantee that all of the humans involved were beneficiaries of living wages, unemployment and workers comp protection, health insurance etc. I really enjoy the convenience these services provide, but ultimately that's all it is - convenience. To me, no convenience is worth watching an entire class of people get 1099-ed into poverty, at the expense of the social safety net that so many people struggled to establish. When I discuss these issues with my peers (I live in the SF Bay Area), I find that many of them share my concerns, to varying degrees. Does anybody know if such a service exists?
  • mattdeboard 12y ago
    idk man I just want to be able to order sushi
  • Anderkent 12y ago
    Any such service would immediately be outcompeted by one which doesn't provide all that - it's trivial to clone an on-demand service, and if you have lower costs you can be cheaper. If you want all that, you should move to a country where all that is required by law, or lobby towards these laws being implemented in your country. However, you must realise that all that has very real costs; and businesses that are only marginally profitable with current setups will not exist, causing the people working there to lose their (low, but positive) income. If you just want to help, it might be better to use whatever service exists, and spend a bigger amount on charity.
    • dsuth 12y ago
      > Any such service would immediately be outcompeted by one which doesn't provide all that - it's trivial to clone an on-demand service, and if you have lower costs you can be cheaper. In other words, it's the classic 'race to the bottom' problem, which is exactly what the OP is talking about. It's not helpful at a societal level to out-compete each other into the ground. I don't agree that companies should become safety nets, but there absolutely should be a liveable minimum wage, that companies are expected to adhere to.
• gosmart4u 12y ago
  I discovered this through a Facebook thread that has a ton of comments on it from non HN or techie peeps. Thought you might want to know what normal non-techies think. "I think it is a great idea that has potential but I personally wouldn't use them because I can't find anything about them on the website. Looks like a scam." "They need to re-design their website so it doesn't look like it was slapped together in 10 minutes and add an about page so we know who they are." "Not even a business at this point." "This stuff kind of annoys me actually. I get the minimal product concept to test the market but when stuff like this is pushed out there it makes consumers very wary." "These guys will take this to some bay area VC's and probably get funded because it blew up on Reddit and HN with a bunch of other techies. Meh!" "It is going to take some serious $$ to get a service like this going. The support alone for handling inbound texts and having reps look for and book deals is a very big undertaking." "Yay! Another useless service that creates more low wage service jobs that cater to the wealthy."
  • Anderkent 12y ago
    >"Yay! Another useless service that creates more low wage service jobs that cater to the wealthy." ... What. This just doesn't compute. In what mindframe does this ever make sense as a complaint? If you're creating new jobs, even if they're low wage, you're just giving people more choice - they can now work at one more place than before, no one's forced into that, it literally can't do harm. And direct transfer of wealth from the wealthy to the poor is a positive, right? I'm so confused.
    • gosmart4u 12y ago
      I see both sides. Seems like there are way more low wage jobs out there though. Plenty to choose from.
      • smoyer 12y ago
        Does it have to be low wage? What if people are paid a base wage but also got a percentage of the fee? Those that truly became experts at finding a service/product that matched the customer's request could become increasingly proficient. As for the "low wage jobs" comments, I'd pick this over being an Amazon warehouse automaton!
• jpalomaki 12y ago
  Maybe one approach is to start by doing everything by hand but then gradually try to automate things. This would not work for answering questions, but when it comes to ordering things I would assume majority of orders would fall into not-so-many categories. It could be valuable to just record all the transactions and how the agents filled them. What the customer asked, what kind of questions the agent asked, did agent Google for the service, what steps did they take on web sites to perform the order etc. If you have this kind of data for thousands of transactions that might have some value for Google, Apple or other companies working to build digital assistants. For more complex/expensive purchases one added value thing for customer could be that the agent knows how to find a good deal. There's for example a service (or maybe just a forum) where people can post their travel plans and airline ticketing experts compete to provide the best ticket options. One obvious income source that comes to my mind is affiliate fees and companies paying for you to introduce them for new customers. This is of course also difficult one since customers would like you to recommended the best provider and not the one that pays best affiliate fees.
• jimmytucson 12y ago
  > We will send you a 128-bit encrypted HTTPS link via SMS that you can click to enter your credit card number. We do not store your credit card number. All payment processing is handled by Stripe. What if one of your operators sends me a link to pay them instead and I never get what I asked for? Also, for something people are wary is a scam, saying "be careful what you wish for" in your first reply is a little bit ominous!
• devonoel 12y ago
  Its a neat idea, I'd love to try it. Unfortunately I'm Canadian, so I guess I'll have to wait for it to grow a bit first.
• mring33621 12y ago
  OK, I haven't read all the comments yet, and, sadly, when I texted the Magic number, I was wait listed, but I think this is a great idea and will definitely use it if prices are fair.
• physcab 12y ago
  Many people here are making the argument that this is more efficient than opening up an app or going to a UI. However after looking at one poster's times of actually using the service, it seems like the opposite. (http://brianbeck.com/images/magic-times.png http://brianbeck.com/images/magic-times.png) For someone who gets really overwhelmed by too many texts, this seems like a lot of back and forth compared to just googling to find the number of the restaurant and ordering.
• pthreads 12y ago
  They say that they guarantee credit card security by using an HTTPS link. How is that even security? We don't even know for sure if this is a legitimate service. What does it matter if they are getting the CC number via SSL or not?
  • rodgerd 12y ago
    The credit card paragraphs... did not inspire confidence.
• frostnovazzz 12y ago
  My first thought to this is: How is it going to scale? This requires human labor to be behind every service requests! And then I was reminded of Uber. Isn't Uber in the same sort of service model that requires a human driver for every request, but is doing super successful? (let's not talk about regulation.) The more I think about it, the more it appears a good business model. It definitely helps users save time and worry, and as demand is growing, it can simply hire more trained service men, and creates huge job opportunities. This is a platform that enables/accelerates service to people by people. I'm optimistic of its future.
  • weisser 12y ago
    Eventually Uber will fire all drivers and replace them with self-driving cars. In many ways Uber is currently doing things that don't scale with regard to relying on humans to drive customers. Eventually the cost-intensive humans won't be needed and Uber will grow massively. I could see this happening in many business models. Obviously Magic may fail entirely (it appears to be pretty much just an idea currently) but I could see AI replacing the human components. I'm not sure how I feel about all of this.
    • frostnovazzz 12y ago
      Or maybe Magic could pivot to serve a few niches that AI serves well, e.g. food ordering, tickets/flight/hotels booking, etc.
  • nugget 12y ago
    There are a few differences but basically yes, physical ops execution to scale the business profitably (or with the promise of profitability some day) is key to a business like this. Physical ops (e.g. running a call center, which is a comparable model) is a LOT harder than it sounds. Unlike Uber, this service doesn't require any physical presence in a city, just knowledge of services available in that city. So in theory they could launch in Mongolia next week. But, so could a competitor. Unlike Uber's (contracted) fleet of physical cars which provide a material barrier to competition, all you need here is knowledge and a Twilio account and you're in business. There is a risk here that whatever they (and other startups) do in this space, the gorillas just come along and clone them - e.g. Amex, Visa/MC, etc - but offer the service for free. They can run their concierge services at a loss since they are attached to a profitable card services business. This is similar to robo advisory financial services where Wealthfront etc now face margin squeezing, maybe even life threatening competition from Vanguard and Fidelity. I've used services like this for years and this exact business model (sms concierge) pops up every few months. I've worked out the per unit economics and it's a tough business. At some point due to automation of background services it will become possible. Maybe these guys will raise a huge round and take that gamble. Maybe the timing is right and they will succeed (along with many competitors rushing into a new industry), or maybe it's still too early by a decade and they will fail. But some day with AI and automation I think this model will work.
• rglover 12y ago
  Took a few more minutes than I expected, but it checks out. http://f.cl.ly/items/3l3h3j3c0N3Q1h1A2A3O/IMG_3684.PNG http://f.cl.ly/items/3l3h3j3c0N3Q1h1A2A3O/IMG_3684.PNG
• schoen 12y ago
  Can you somehow handle requests that are primarily research questions, that don't necessarily culminate in an immediate (or an intermediated) financial translation? I'm just thinking about requests that ask for a recommendation for a product or a service that won't be purchased right away (like finding a certain kind of restaurant with certain parameters, but not getting food delivered from it, or finding a certain kind of professional service without immediately contracting for it). Or for that matter factual questions like "Who won the 2014 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature?". Would this somehow look like "I found 3, and I'll tell you about them for $5, OK?"? Will people be more resistant to paying the fee if the fee is the only item they're paying, rather than bundled with the price of some other transaction?
  • physcab 12y ago
    There was a service that used to do this called ChaCha. It raised a bunch of money but never became profitable and went out of business I believe.
  • laxatives 12y ago
    I asked several questions and got decent answers for all of then, sometimes after they prompted me for some more information. I eventually asked about the pay structure and they said they would probably start charging me for asking questions if the volume were high.
• vdaubry 12y ago
  Maybe it's me but i don't feel confident giving my credit card after reading the home page. After reading the whole page i understand the business but my first impression was really somewhere between "is this a joke ? / they are stealing credit card numbers" Maybe the very cheap design discredit the whole project.
• benwikler 12y ago
  My baby daughter is five days overdue. My three-year-old son keeps asking when he'll be a big brother. And my wife and I are trying to figure out how we'll do the grocery shopping—or even focus on a computer screen long enough to shop online—once we're juggling two kids. When I told my wife about Magic, she visibly relaxed. This service has huge, huge potential.
• kingnothing 12y ago
  What differentiates this from Fetch?
• cashierking 12y ago
  I
• cashierking 12y ago
  Since this is just a middleman to other services, even like instacart, it's more expensive. I wonder why humans are so lazy nowadays just to get trivial things done.
• matdrewin 12y ago
  I love how the Hacker News crowd is consistent over the course of 200 days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351
• jjalan 12y ago
  About a week ago, my team and I also launched a similar service in India - Genie (www.getagenie.in). I am happy to answer any questions or concerns from Indian market standpoint. We have built a concierge technology platform that our crowdsourced Genies (of course we handpick only the best) uses to serve the customers. We take a bit different route in pricing/offering where we provide an actual assistant (ofcourse shared and available via text, call or email) who takes the customer to know personally and provide both reactive (customer asking for a plumber for example) and proactive (Genie coming up with ideas on customer anniversary for example) services.
• bussiere 12y ago
  It's a dream project for me this kind of adventure. If you are lokking for some jack of all trade to help you , or looking for some one in france. I'am in ... Btw good luck. Bussiere AT gmail.com