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So, Justin Kan has done well for himself financially, and used Magic for a bit of fun. But don't write Magic off as just a concierge for the rich. Things in th

So, Justin Kan has done well for himself financially, and used Magic for a bit of fun. But don't write Magic off as just a concierge for the rich. Things in the past month I've used Magic for: * Was in a city without Uber; Magic called a taxi to my location (and took care of payment) * Got my car re-keyed with a locksmith * Called a few restaurants/bars to try to find my lost wallet * Called my doctor's office to figure out what the best insurance for me to get was. * Delivered custom-drilled 2x4s at 9pm within an hour * Removed a bunch of garbage (since we moved and had lots of boxes) * Delivered an Apple Express within an hour * I said "find me a nice restaurant within half a mile for 3 people available in the next hour", and they found and made me a reservation. * Checked what time my parking garage closed (the hours weren't listed online) * Called my upcoming hotel and arranged for a package to be delivered to my room. There's a bunch more I've had them do. It's been amazing for things that aren't hard, but that I don't have time for. I'm still trying to figure out what to use Magic for, but every time I do, it really is magical.

birken 11y ago
How much are you paying though? The service is undoubtably being heavily subsidized by VC money. This is the classic silicon valley model, a model I love, but there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. As noted in the OP, this also reminds me a lot of Exec, and Exec didn't work. In the post-mortem, JK makes a very interesting point: > if a job request came in and there were no Execs available to run them ... we sent someone from the office to run the jobs ourselves. Unfortunately, this gave us a false sense that the quality of service for our customers was better than it was, as the average competence of our employees was higher than our average recruitable errand runners. [1] This is a critical problem that any service business like Magic will run into. Training and quality becomes much harder at scale, and the more you have to pay for "Magicians", the more you have to charge. And if it costs too much money, it isn't "Magical" anymore. Yes, they have advantages over Exec because they can arbitrage less expensive labor overseas, but quality at an efficient price is still going to be a huge issue. 1: http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem
- gkoberger 11y ago
  Everything on my list was either free, or would have cost me significantly more than the markup to Uber there and back (and that's not even including the cost of my time).
  - baudehlo 11y ago
    Given the question is here on HN, I think the question is more oriented towards: can this business survive? If you didn't pay anything for these requests, I don't see how it can.

birken 11y ago

How much are you paying though? The service is undoubtably being heavily subsidized by VC money. This is the classic silicon valley model, a model I love, but there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. As noted in the OP, this also reminds me a lot of Exec, and Exec didn't work. In the post-mortem, JK makes a very interesting point: > if a job request came in and there were no Execs available to run them ... we sent someone from the office to run the jobs ourselves. Unfortunately, this gave us a false sense that the quality of service for our customers was better than it was, as the average competence of our employees was higher than our average recruitable errand runners. [1] This is a critical problem that any service business like Magic will run into. Training and quality becomes much harder at scale, and the more you have to pay for "Magicians", the more you have to charge. And if it costs too much money, it isn't "Magical" anymore. Yes, they have advantages over Exec because they can arbitrage less expensive labor overseas, but quality at an efficient price is still going to be a huge issue. 1: http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem

gkoberger 11y ago
Everything on my list was either free, or would have cost me significantly more than the markup to Uber there and back (and that's not even including the cost of my time).
- baudehlo 11y ago
  Given the question is here on HN, I think the question is more oriented towards: can this business survive? If you didn't pay anything for these requests, I don't see how it can.