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Locent (YC S15) Lets Businesses Sell Products via Text Message
- goddamnyouryan 11y agoHey guys, Ryan here, CTO and Co-Founder of Locent. We're trying to make it super easy to sell (and buy) stuff over text. Let me know if you have any questions.
- stephengillie 11y agoWhat kind of selling are you starting with? Single-item small-volume individual sales (like snapchat for ebay)? Large-volume sales (like Amazon)? Time-sensitive sales? Do you plan to work on distribution, or only on connecting buyers and sellers? I can almost see, for example, having a local clothing store list each of their shirts with your service. Then someone sees a shirt they want, text, and get it delivered. Best of luck!
- goddamnyouryan 11y agoAll sorts of things! A bowl of ramen, an entry into a raffle, a pair of fake teeth. One feature we plan on building shortly is the ability to add an inventory or make the keyword expire after a set date. Really anything that can be sold online or over the phone we can sell.
- jcr 11y agoHi Ryan, I know it's possible to use a QR Code to generate a SMS message [1], so I was wondering if you generated QR Codes for your customers? My thought is to avoid having (trusting) a (error prone) human being to correctly input a phone number and a keyword in a SMS when you can automate it. [1] just one example I found via a quick search http://goqr.me/qr-codes/type-qr-sms.html http://goqr.me/qr-codes/type-qr-sms.html
- goddamnyouryan 11y agoThat's a great idea! We will look into that!
- pjc50 11y agoThere's something very 90s about this idea. Also, I'd have thought it would include paying via SMS billing as well? How is this different from visiting an ecommerce site on the phone?
- goddamnyouryan 11y agoApart from the fact that there was no texting in the 90s, I'd agree. More like a 2009's idea if you ask me. But we like to think it's a bit smoother of a process than visiting ecommerce. Plus it's easy for existing business to push customers into a text channel than it is to set up their own ecommerce site.
- pjc50 11y ago> no texting in the 90s SMS was invented in 1992, and definitely popular by 2000.
- callmeed 11y agoThis reminds me of Stefan's Head, which I think is really cool. http://stefanshead.com/ http://stefanshead.com/
- goddamnyouryan 11y agoI have never seen this before. Pretty awesome!
- bradlind 11y agoWe did this two years ago, then pivoted. Look at www.shopreply.com. It's a tough one.