
Google acquires BufferBox (YC S12) - mmccauley
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/11/30/google-snaps-up-waterloo-startup-bufferbox/
======
revelation
This is a german Packstation:
[http://images.computerwoche.de/images/computerwoche/bdb/1841...](http://images.computerwoche.de/images/computerwoche/bdb/1841866/890.jpg)

Welcome to the future, America. I'd be happy to see what a startup under
Google can do, but the competition isn't exactly asleep.

~~~
frb
With Germany being notorious for its copycats, it's funny to see this in
reverse.

Who would have thought that an idea that exists in Germany for almost 10 years
would still be great for a startup in the US/Canada.

~~~
trin_
Funny that you would say that. There are a lot of us start ups (even yc ones!)
that copy companyies/ideas that are proven and established here in Germany.
The package stuff s just one example. All the ride sharing start ups that were
hyped some time ago basically copy "mitfahrgelegenheit.de" ( now the company s
known as carpooling) wh have been dong this for nearly ten years now. Public
bike sharing is another example.

It's easy to just blame rocket Internet and pretend like that's all of German
innovation/startp scene. Packaging and bike sharing weren't even pioneered by
startups but by huge formerly state owned companies who are Slow and boring n
the Public eye

~~~
frb
I agree that Germany is not all about copycats. Thanks to the Samwers and
others this perception was created. If you visit places like Silicon Valley
and say you're from Germany you can be sure to find someone who will "make a
joke" about Germany and startup copycats.

What irritates me is that nobody seems to point out these reverse cases, where
others copy German innovation/ideas.

Also I'm wondering why these positive German examples didn't really scale
internationally? Why didn't DHL roll out Packstation in the US? (Big company
policies and lack of innovation?) Why has Mitfahrgelegenheit/Carpooling needed
almost 8 years to launch in Europe? Why hasn't it launched in the US?

Just really wondering about the different perception and mindsets of US and
German startups...

~~~
RockyMcNuts
Germans are pretty conservative. There was a successful German startup that I
looked at, that bragged about how cash flow positive they were. I said FFS,
why? In the US in a high growth startup land grab type business, you would put
all the cash back into the business to grow it as fast as possible, including
internationally, instead of hoarding it and bragging about how solid and
conservative you are.

~~~
rapind
Different values? Maybe they're happy with what they've got and don't need to
risk it all for a very small improvement in their already fantastic lifestyle?
I'm not criticizing founders who decide to go for it all, but I definitely
wouldn't look down on a small but successful business like their clueless.

I personally find the profitable and sustainable business model way more
attractive than the grow for the sake of growth model.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
Sometimes the only defensible market position is #1. it's a natural winner-
take-all market with strong network effects.

You could end up #1 in Germany against a #2 who is #1 in the rest of the EU -
when by moving faster you could have been #1 in the entire EU.

~~~
rapind
Sure, this makes sense some times. Other times it may turn a profitable
business into a spectacular and over-hyped failure.

------
htf
Self-driving cars + robot arm + bufferbox = extremely cheap, fully automated
delivery service. Add a robotic distribution center
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0> and you have an automated Amazon
competitor. If, on top of that, Google turns your Google account into a bank
account, you'll be able to buy literally with one click. Google's dominance in
mobile with Android will ensure that everyone has a Google bank account
through which you can make most of your purchases. If you're a manufacturer,
Google will take care of all your advertising for free, just so long as you
give them a tiny cut of each sale. Google will be a trillion dollars company.

~~~
jhartmann
As tongue in check as this post seems to me I actually think this is one
possible way that things could go. I see massive disruption in the next 10
years in regards to the amounts of jobs that could easily become irrelevant
once this sort of tech matures. It will be a very interesting space to watch.
A Google + Uber partnership could be very kewl as well. We could get our
goods, our transportation, internet and knowledge all from the an advertising
company. Frightening and exciting at the same time. I think we live in very
interesting times.

~~~
alexsb92
But at that point, would Google continue to be an advertising company? It
would be like one of those megacorps that you see in movies, but hopefully not
evil.

~~~
consciousness
> .. Google .. but hopefully not evil.

Too late, the hive mind which is $GOOG has already shown that it will do as it
pleases; "hopefully" good [when convenient], otherwise whatever is profitable
even if it is evil.

Can't say I blame the $GOOG; this is an inherent problem with huge
organizations -- the meta consciousness which emerges vastly undermines any
altruistic desires of individuals.

See also: $MS, $AAPL, $USGOV, et al.

------
ChuckMcM
I don't know about you but I want to see a buffer box setup where one of the
lockers just says "I'm feeling Lucky" :-)

Edit: and given a game of chance, and games in general. I wonder if anyone at
Google has considered combining BufferBox with Ingress such that as you're
playing the game if you 'win' a power up it is in the form of Google schwag in
a locker, where the open code and which locker appears on your augmented
reality glasses to claim your 'prize'.

~~~
cdibona
That's actually a fairly awesome idea.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Heh, can you edit someone's google resume after they've left? :-)

~~~
cdibona
Imagine the trouble we could cause if we could. It would be glorious.

------
tptacek
One of the best possible outcomes: very cool new business idea, continues
operating, backed by Google, with founders compensated for the risk they took
launching it. Awesome news. Congratulations!

~~~
niels
It's not a new idea. We've had them running in my country (Denmark) for the
last five years at least. They are everywhere.

~~~
tptacek
Oh! Sorry, I stand corrected. BOOO, BUFFERBOX. BURN IN HELL!!

~~~
OoTheNigerian
I do not think your response is appropriate. He just pointed out what seems to
be a fact that the idea is not new.

Maybe you expected him/her to be excited about the exit but that not being the
case does not mean you should have repled with 'rude sarcasm'.

You could have used the opportunity you used to respond to learn about
competitors in the space however you chose this route.

I have noticed several senior (by karma) HN members that take an unecessary
offensive approach towards comments that do not "tow the line".

~~~
tptacek
I am definitely part of a plot to homogenize HN.

------
rm999
I'm guessing this is related to what I just read in the new Economist:
[http://www.economist.com/news/21567361-google-apple-
facebook...](http://www.economist.com/news/21567361-google-apple-facebook-and-
amazon-are-each-others-throats-all-sorts-ways-another-game)

>Google is experimenting with a service that would let folk find goods online,
order them and have them delivered within a day for a modest fee. This seems
similar to Amazon’s hugely successful “Prime” service, which costs $79 a year
to join in America. Rather than try to replicate the e-commerce giant’s
extensive network of warehouses, Google is looking for partnerships with
shipping companies and retailers instead.

I'm excited to see what Google can do. Amazon dominates e-commerce so well
I'll often buy from them even if there are cheaper options elsewhere (because
it's easier). Competition, as usual, will be good in this space.

~~~
prostoalex
Amazon delivers to 7-11.

And FedEx Store (what used to be Kinko's) is pitching their network to
retailers as well, I picked up a bunch of Walmart.com there.

Not sure it's going to be that big of a game changer.

------
relix
Slightly offtopic tangent:

So by now we're all aware that these are already ubiquitous in Europe.

The question I have is why it took so long to reach the US? Why didn't the
main shipping companies there like FedEx and UPS step up and use their
existing infrastructure to build something like this, much more easily than a
startup could do.

~~~
RandallBrown
Amazon has been doing this for a few years in the US.

Bufferbox is actually only in Canada.

It's not a service I need, and definitely not one I'd pay extra for. I live in
an apartment. The apartment office signs for and stores my packages.

If I lived in a house, in an area where people would steal the package left on
my doorstep, then I might use something like this. It would have to be really
convenient though.

~~~
aneth4
Most apartments do not have someone to sign for packages and missed deliveries
are a pain. It's definitely worth paying $3 to avoid them m

~~~
jarek
Or just get things delivered by a sane service that stores your packages at a
neighbourhood postal office rather than a warehouse in a distant suburb :)

~~~
aneth4
That limits you to the United States Postal Service, since USPS does not
accept packages from other carriers.

~~~
jarek
Is USPS not a sane service? Sorry to hear.

------
sakopov
Another enthusiastic "Oh wow, Google bought us! We're going to be doing so
many new things now!" followed by "Sorry we're shutting down" in a few weeks.
Happens every time. Isn't that what Google does? They buy a company. Half of
the team leaves because they can't go through Google interview and the other
half is disbanded to work on other Google projects.

~~~
namank
This is not a tech company.

And so chances of shutting down are fairly slim unless it was the team Google
was after.

------
alexsb92
Incredibly happy for Mike, Jay, Aditya and the rest of the BufferBox Team! It
seems like it is getting better and better for Canadian, and in particular
Kitchener-Waterloo areas. One of the other cool things is that I've had my
desk at the Velocity Garage right next to theirs for the past month, and I
only heard of the news this morning.

------
xhedley
The UK equivalent is CollectPlus
<http://www.collectplus.co.uk/faqs#local_shop_section> . Instead of picking up
goods from a locker in a public area, you pick up your parcel from a
convenience store. The convenience store use their Paypoint terminal to
identify you and your item and get the item from their stockroom back of
house. The advantage for the convenience store over lockers is they don't
waste front of house space on items which can be held back of house. Paypoint
provides a terminal network across 24000 UK stores to take cash for utility
bills, BBC TV licences, cellphone topups and so on. Collect+ is offered by
5000 of these stores, it piggybacks on the existing network which is obviously
way more efficient than building a brand new network with extra hardware. I
suspect this convenience store network approach rather than lockers would
apply even better to countries which do e-commerce as "cash on delivery", for
example Russia.

~~~
sskelton90
There is also Amazon Locker in some places in the UK which is Amazon's
equivalent.
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_rel_topic?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200966210)

~~~
stevekemp
My local corner-shop just replaced a two-meter stretch of
birthday/christmas/congratulations cards with some of these Amazon lockers.

First time I'd seen them, and apparently they get a lot of usage.

------
IanDrake
>Eventually the company plans to charge $3 or $4 per package.

Wow, not sure that was ever going to be feasible. Won't be an issue now that
Google bought them. Good for them!

~~~
Simucal
I would pay that in a heartbeat. Living in an apartment is a nightmare for
receiving packages. I hate getting the missed package slip and then having to
call and arrange for me to pick up the package at their facility 20 minutes
away. I've had to wait 2 hours at the sorting facility for them to find my
package before.

So to me, $3 seems like a steal when faced with all that.

~~~
dannyr
When I was working in SF, people take off half a day to receive a package.
Let's say an engineer's hourly value is $100, even a $10 fee is nothing.

------
littledot5566
In Taiwan, every convenience store acts like a post office where you can pick
up packages, even if they are on the same street. Because there are so many
7-11's, Family Mart's, etc., the system works extremely well.

In Canada now, I think the only instance that is as wide-spread is gas
stations. I could see Buffer Box stations at selected pumps in the near
future.

------
uptown
Here's my guess - Google will offer a service where you can have some or all
of your mail forwarded to a BufferBox. That mail will be scanned by Google -
applying the technology they honed from scanning books, and possibly also the
technology they purchased with re-captcha. So now you've got mail in digital
form, which they'll make available to you online for review - with the option
to have things you want handled in-person to either your actual mailbox, or to
your buffer-box.

The problem is - people have no experiencing with Google related to mail - so
they may be reluctant to trust them to be part of this equation. So they start
with packages - offering a service to help out with package delivery, and
acclimating people to Google being part of the mail-delivery equation. When
people are ready, they offer the scanning service.

~~~
huggah
Besides the legal and regulatory hurdles Google would have to overcome to make
this work, I don't think Google wants to be in the business of making an
industry more efficient when that industry doesn't need to exist in the future
at all. That is to say, why scan mail when you can just convince people to use
email?

Packages, on the other hand, will still need to be delivered for the
foreseeable future.

~~~
uptown
Mail will certainly decrease, but I don't think its ever going away. And
there's already companies that provide a similar service. Anyway, maybe I'm
wrong - but it'll be interesting to see what they do with their acquisition.

------
2arrs2ells
Congratulations, BufferBox! Can't wait to see what you guys are able to do
with Google's resources behind you.

------
mmaunder
I'd love some data on what the demand is for this. Don't most people have a
fixed address that can receive packages? Can anyone share a typical need that
a large demographic has? I'm sure I'm missing something, so enlighten me....

~~~
omnisci
NYC, 8 million people. Many of them don't have doormen and no where to have
their packages delivered. I pay for a mailbox which is somewhat close to my
house and I'm lucky that they receive/hold packages for me (during a limited
time). THis service is useful for those in large urban environments.

Furthermore, anyone who doesn't want their packages stolen, damaged etc
because they aren't home to receive delivery is also a large market.

Yes, UPS does have an area where you can go pick up your package if it isn't
delivered, but that is super annoying. I've had to do this many times and not
only does their customer service suck, lines are fairly long, and the hours
are very limited. It completely negated the point of ordering something online
to avoid bad service, lines and store hours.

------
TootsMagoon
Congrats for sure. Now let's speculate on what Google will do with them? Are
they going to get into online retail and compete with Amazon? Will Google be
able collect data on what is stored in the compartments? Any other ideas?

------
polskibus
even the backward Poland had such boxes for at least several years now:
<http://inpost.pl>. I'm really surprised Google picked them.

------
pajju
How does this acquisition strategically fit in for Google?

~~~
fudged71
Shopping mostly, using their recent interests in Phones, Hardware, and being
anti-Amazon. I think it's a broad new option for them. Plus, better to build
out the general solution to this shipping problem than the specific Amazon-
only solution; potential to be more useful in the long run. Better to buy this
company than let it be bought by someone else.

------
tomkit
Who is liable for the security of the package at these stations? In a normal
exchange, it is the merchant up until delivery to a residence/office (or
signature). In this case, is the station operator liable for stolen/lost
goods? For the German one it looks like it's operated by the delivery company
(DHL), but in the case of third party operators, e.g. Buffer Box, I'm assuming
Buffer Box is liable?

------
cmaxwe
I shipped something with Bufferbox a few days ago and am waiting for my pickup
notification. Hope Google doesn't steal my package... :-)

------
Tyrant505
Google is getting more "physical." Congrats guys.

------
dudurocha
This reminded me of Jessica Livingston's presentation. One of the monster were
the big companies who would 'aquihire' you early on.

~~~
martythemaniak
This doesn't sound like an aquihire where the product usually dies and the
team disperses. Sounds like a regular acquisition - ie Google wants the team
to continue working on their product but have it integrated with the rest of
Google.

Congrats on the team, to me it sounds like Google wants BB to become a major
point of contact between Google and it's customers.

------
lifeisstillgood
The one thing I take from this is Google is very comfortable with software,
and electronic hardware, but less so elsewhere.

Buying in bufferbox will just be early stages of a "buffer region" of
satellite companies all bridging the virtual pure world of the google core and
daily life.

Anything that currently has a key, is inefficiently owned and not shared, is
fair game

------
alexakarpov
Yay Waterloo! (swings his pink tie around)!

this definitely suggests an attempt to threaten Amazon on their home turf.

------
salimmadjd
Where were these services during the Cold War era? I could imagine endless
movie scripts of sending secret packages of stolen material prototypes etc.
via these services. I guess drug lords and assassins might still be able to
use them :)

~~~
hencq
In a lot of cold war spy novels they have stuff delivered to hotels all the
time. I always wondered if that would work for non-spy parcels as well.

~~~
salimmadjd
But the implication is that you might be under further surveillance in your
hotel room. However you can slip out at night and get your package. Instead of
going to a "trusted house" or some old bookseller you go to one of these
services.

------
yason
Here's the Finnish equivalent:

<http://www.posti.fi/smartpost/english/receiving/>

We've had these for about a year or two. The company behind this is the
privatised Finnish postal service.

------
brandnewlow
Terrific news! Congratulations to the team. When I heard you present at YC
alumni day, the concept and quality of execution was clearly among the best.
Not surprised by this at all!

------
DigitalSea
Not a new idea as pointed out, but very cool nonetheless. Google is stepping
up its rivalry with Amazon a few notches here, it'll be interesting to see
what comes of Bufferbox now.

------
zio99
Kudos to aditya, jay, mike and all who helped out at UWaterloo. Fun fact: They
went through Velocity here first - never underestimate the power of tractions
guys. Congrats!

------
fatbat
Thought it was a great idea along with Amazon Lockers. Just did not know they
would be acquired that quick! Any hints as to the financial terms of the
acquisition?

------
okstr
Congratulations to the whole bufferbox team. Waterloo ftw.

------
Mistone
It's great to hear the company moves forward intact at google. That kind of
google acquisition seems fairly unique. Well done BufferBox!!

------
rdl
Wow, congratulations. I'd love to get one of these (although bigger than the
one in front of YC) once I have an office.

------
rocky1138
Congrats! We have a few of them here in the Communitech Hub in
Kitchener/Waterloo. Our CEO swears by them :)

------
woggg
Who at Google is doing due diligence? I just searched for "Atlanta" in the
locations page and got a 500.

------
marcamillion
Wow....never saw this one coming.

This could be awesome. Congrats guys. Look forward to seeing what the future
holds.

------
cllns
So many Europeans surprised they do something better than America.

------
khangtoh
Yet another acqui-hire.

~~~
viraj_shah
I think it was probably a little bit of both. Smart guys but the announcement
says that they'll continue to keep working on BufferBox. So I believe it's
Google's attempt to compete with Amazon Lockers as well.

------
matthuggins
This article didn't even tell me what BufferBox is.

~~~
anuaitt
well you can always google :-)

~~~
matthuggins
Yes, and I did. But typically a well-written article will actually explain
what they're talking about without assuming the reader knows all the
background details.

------
rishi
Congrats! BufferBox has an awesome intro video.

------
void-star
congrats to bufferbox, and kudos on an excellent slogan: "let us handle your
package" <immature snicker>

------
viraj_shah
Well... that was quick. Great job!

~~~
viraj_shah
I take this back. Quick relative to YC class but they've been working hard at
this for 2.5 years. Great job guys. Super well done.

------
jonathannorris
Congrats to the BufferBox team!

------
maked00
a) Huge risk that USPS grabs this idea and run with it b) Perfect MO for
terrorists

------
bhouser
Congrats Mike, Jay, Aditya!

------
Evbn
Typical Google, investing in ways to provide customer service that has no
human contact ever.

------
fakeer
Is it real acquisition this time by Google? Because there wasn't any press
release link and very recently there was a rumour of a company being acquired
by Google.

