
Launch HN: JetLenses (YC S18) – Lowest Prices on Contact Lenses - dpandya
Hi HN!<p>I&#x27;m Dhaivat and I&#x27;ve been working on JetLenses in the present YC batch. We offer the lowest prices on contact lenses online. On average, each of our customer saves $70 on each order in comparison to buying their contacts from a large online retailer.<p>It turns out that most of the cost of contacts is just advertising cost and fulfillment overhead. 
We&#x27;ve built automation software for the fulfillment and prescription verification processes allowing us to cut overhead. We also use statistical models for ad optimization which allow us to cut our customer acquisition costs dramatically and deliver savings to our customers.<p>I have a technical background (I studied computer science and statistics, interned at Meteor (YC S11) and a quant hedge fund) and my Dad trained as an ophthalmologist. This was the perfect circumstance to realize that this is a large, fairly overlooked space within ecommerce where improved operations through software&#x2F;data science can have a strong impact.<p>We&#x27;re starting with contact lenses and we&#x27;ll eventually apply our core tech to other prescription medical products with very similar cost structures. At the end of the day, we&#x27;d like to make these products cheaper and more easily accessible. Help us out by buying contacts from us or telling your contact-wearing friends about us!<p>If you wear contacts: We sell the same contacts as your doctor or other retailers, just for a lot less money. Check out our website at beta.jetlenses.com - order from us and save some dough while supporting our run-up to demo day! You can also check out our price comparison tool at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beta.jetlenses.com&#x2F;compare_prices" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beta.jetlenses.com&#x2F;compare_prices</a> - we&#x27;re the cheapest
for most lenses but not all (yet!).<p>I would love to hear HN&#x27;s thoughts about this! I&#x27;m particularly keen to learn about your experiences buying contact lenses (or even other medical products) and if what we&#x27;re doing sounds exciting. You can also reach me at dhaivat AT jetlenses.com<p>Thanks!<p>Dhaivat<p>P.S. We currently only ship to addresses in the United States.
======
dirtae
ContactLensKing.com is substantially cheaper than JetLenses for the contacts I
wear, the Bausch & Lomb Ultras. $43 for a 6 pack on JetLenses, $30 on
ContactLensKing:

[https://www.jetlenses.com/Ultra-6PK_p_76.html](https://www.jetlenses.com/Ultra-6PK_p_76.html)

[https://www.contactlensking.com/prodDetail.aspx?ItemGroupCod...](https://www.contactlensking.com/prodDetail.aspx?ItemGroupCode=ULTRA)

Why is there such a discrepancy in the pricing on these?

~~~
dpandya
Basically: scale and supply chain. On some lenses, where we're on an even
playing field, we're able to dramatically beat everyone else on price (e.g.
Biofinity Toric XR, MyDay Toric, Proclear Toric XR).

As we grow and we can add more suppliers, we'll be able to have the best
prices across the board.

~~~
privacypoller
so, you're basically saying "we're the lowest price, except when we're not
because of 'unfair' competition on scale and supply chain, but help us gain
these advantages and we'll be competitive"

Are you the lowest price on contacts or not?

------
yznovyak
I'm in Ukraine now and it seems that I can buy most of the lenses for a
fraction of US price. Here's one of the online shops I used last time:
[https://linza.com.ua/](https://linza.com.ua/) to convert UAH to USD you can
divide by 25 (actually 27, but 25 gives good enough approximation and is
easier to divide by). The same lenses I bought with VSP in the US for >= $150
cost here $14/month. And the most expensive monthly supply of daily lenses
here costs $38.

Heck. Here's a vending machine in a random gas station in Moscow selling them
contact lenses: [https://imgur.com/a/mCf9XfB](https://imgur.com/a/mCf9XfB)

Going to an eye doctor to check your eyesight can be done in pretty much any
contact lens/glasses store on a walk-in basis. Last time my eye exam was free
because I happened to buy a pack of lenses (I overpaid for the lenses,
though).

The US seriously needs to figure out why the heck are you paying so damn much
before you guys consider universal healthcare.

~~~
maaaats
Also from Europe. Weird that lenses need a prescription in the US.

~~~
rsrs
It isn't like prescription for medication, it's just the numbers that were
measured. You don't need a doctor signature to get eyeglasses or contacts
(although your insurance company might want an optometrist confirmation that
your eyesight isn't perfect).

~~~
joezydeco
Contact lenses in the USA most certainly need a prescription, they can only be
filled by a precise brand match, and it expires after a year.

Any retailer on the web will need a confirmation from a doc or optometrist
before filling.

~~~
yznovyak
Yeah ... about that.

The US seems to be the only country which treats basic optometry like some
kind of rocket science. Where did you guys get that idea that prescription
should match so very precisely? Unless you have some rare condition +/\- 0.25
dioptre doesn't make much difference. Glasses/contacts are the simplest
optical instruments, not a Hubble telescope. Why do you need a specially
trained person to dispense a box of contact lenses? If I want a 6-set of
monthly -1.25 lenses -- just fucking sell them to me. What the hell do you
need to verify with a doctor? I'm not buying a controlled substance or
anything. Why did you guys make this transaction more complex than buying a
roll of toilet paper? US seems to be the only developed country where I would
have a hard time getting a trivial (but necessary) medical thing. Land of the
free, my ass.

Also, what's the deal with vision insurance? What are you insuring against?
Sudden nearsightedness? I would guess that 99% of VSP members already have a
trivially managed chronic condition. And once you get a laser correction there
is no point in staying in VSP anymore. So VSP is not really an insurance, but
rather some kind of medical union. In theory it should help patients by
increasing their collective bargaining power. In practice they seem to be
doing the opposite.

~~~
dpandya
These are all great points.

> Where did you guys get that idea that prescription should match so very
> precisely?

It's often much less about the prescription than the characteristics of the
material used for the contact lenses and the measurements of your eye. The
base curve and diameter portions of the prescription are used to capture this.

> Why do you need a specially trained person to dispense a box of contact
> lenses?

There are two reasons. With the wrong set of contact lenses (e.g. off-
prescription color contact lenses that people wear on Halloween), you can
significantly harm your eyes due to low oxygen permeability in the lenses,
lack of fit, etc. Second, the contact lens/glasses prescription renewal
process forces people to get an eye checkup done, which can often allow the
doctor to identify other problems (e.g. infection, cataract, etc.)

It's subjective whether or not using this as a forcing function is really the
"right" thing to do, but it does prevent people from living with undiagnosed
issues.

> Also, what's the deal with vision insurance?

As people get older, the likelihood of an eye issue increases dramatically.
This depends on your specific policy and what it covers, but there are
"insurable" (i.e. low likelihood of occurrence, very high cost) events that
can occur with your eyes that your VSP policy may cover. I'm not deeply
familiar with this, so I can't comment extensively on it.

~~~
soneca
Sounds someone convinced you that you need an expert. I do not buy it.

------
javiramos
What kind of competitive advantage do you have compared to other similar
companies (e.g. Hubble [1])? Is contact lenses just a race to the bottom in
terms of pricing? Other than cost, are there any other elements that
differentiate you?

[1] [https://www.hubblecontacts.com/](https://www.hubblecontacts.com/)

~~~
dpandya
This is a really important question and @alaskamiller has got the right points
other than the selling software to others bit - we're pretty confident the
stuff we're building is impactful in our space since we're seeing the results.

In comparison to Hubble: we don't require customers to get a new prescription.
Just order from us, save money.

Long term, the process improvement software that we're building as well as the
intelligence around actually acquiring customers will be defensible because it
is hinged on customer and supplier data. Happy to talk about this more -
dhaivat@jetlenses.com.

~~~
javiramos
Do you think this approach could work in other verticals/products other than
contact lenses?

I will give your website a try next time I order contacts. Best of luck!

------
6841iam
I don't think your claim is true. You are not the lowest price.

I just purchased Biotrue ONEday 90 pack today from EZContacts today.

You say the price is
[https://imgur.com/a/66wFxvS](https://imgur.com/a/66wFxvS) $69.99 cheapest
plan (option 2)

But just today I purchased it from EZContacts for $30.79

[https://imgur.com/a/3x4ZzTD](https://imgur.com/a/3x4ZzTD)

So you'd be best served to Google for the contact lens of your choice and pay
for whats the cheapest.

Note: When I tried to re-order from EZContacts, they were charging close to
$50. So always start a new search when you are trying to order Contacts
online!

~~~
dpandya
We don't claim to be the cheapest on all products yet - there's some bizdev
work to do before we can say that.

~~~
privacypoller
the title of this post is literally "Lowest Prices on Contact Lenses"

it's reasonable for someone to interpret that as "cheapest price for the
contact lenses I wear".

~~~
BillSaysThis
Title of this post !== JetLenses marketing claims

------
derekdahmer
Same price as Costco ($50) for 12pk Acuvue Oasys - thats great. If it went
lower I'd switch.

By the way most of your images especially on the homepage seem to be scaled up
past their native resolution which makes the site look really fuzzy. Your logo
for example is 30px but scaled to 50px. An easy win on landing page design
would just be to re-export those images at the right resolution.

~~~
dpandya
We're transitioning to a new website ( which is already live on mobile devices
when you go to [https://beta.jetlenses.com/](https://beta.jetlenses.com/) ) .
It's probably order of magnitude better and the logo is rendered as an SVG :)

------
mrnobody_67
I use Daysoft.com -- way cheaper than these guys or even Hubble

~~~
pravda
I just got my first batch from
[https://www.daysoft.com/](https://www.daysoft.com/)

$18 shipped for 64 lenses. Got to USA very fast. No prescription required.

------
desireco42
As YC company, I would prefer if you could offer me to improve my vision. I
have presbyopia which is normal after certain age. Innovate and offer me
something better. I don't need another dollar shave club. At least this is how
it looks to me. :)

~~~
desireco42
It seems that others are more industrious. Still there is a lot to be done

[https://www.reviewofoptometry.com/article/ro0617-can-an-
eye-...](https://www.reviewofoptometry.com/article/ro0617-can-an-eye-drop-
eliminate-presbyopia)

------
ocdnix
I'd like to have metadata about the materials used in the lenses, specifically
info about wetting agents. My go-to lens is Acuvue Moist, which has the
"Lacreon" wetting agent, aka polyvinylpyrrolidone. When my lens store stopped
carrying Moist, I had a hard time figuring out which other brand would have an
equivalent gradual moisture release effect, given the jungle of proprietary
material names. I'm not saying I'd like to see the chemical formula for each
lens (although that would be nice too), but some physical parameters beyond
brand name and type of lens would be useful.

~~~
dpandya
That sounds interesting, but if you've been prescribed the Acuvue Moist, you
can _only_ purchase the Acuvue Moist as per law. So, although this info would
certainly be interesting (and maybe reduce some customer confusion), it
wouldn't actually be actionable.

~~~
Filligree
You're US-only, then?

Here in Europe I can buy any contact lens I'd like, but I'm still short on
information as to which ones might be better, or why.

------
benehmke
FWIW, the biggest pain is the prescription.

My doctor only does 1 year prescriptions, my prescription hasn't changed for
15 years. It's important to get your eyes checked, but every year is a bit
nuts. I guess we have some federal organization to thank for that.

I'd love to see you guys figure that problem out. Maybe you could figure out
how to ship from out of the US or something. Hell, I'd pay more if I didn't
have to go to the doctor every year.

~~~
cbg0
> It's important to get your eyes checked, but every year is a bit nuts.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me, and it's not just to update your prescription,
it's also to check how healthy your eyes are.

~~~
thinkharder
Exactly. A couple of years ago at my yearly eye checkup found a small hole in
my retina. Pretty common with near-sighted people. The eyeball is elongated
and this stretches the retina a little bit. It's also a fast track to complete
blindness in that eye. You _might_ see the hole as distortion in your vision,
depending on where in your eye it is, or you may not be able to see it at all.
If untreated the whole retina will detach and you are permanently blind in
that eye, and there's no treatment. If I hadn't gone to that yearly checkup,
there's a good chance I would have been blind in that eye before the next one.

The treatment for the hole in the retina was one of the most awesome
procedures I've ever had. The doctor puts on this big headset that completely
covers his face, with multiple microscope-type lenses and a visible green
laser shooting out the front. Looks like the borg. He holds your eye open and
using the visible laser to aim, points at the edge of the hole and activates
the IR laser, blap, blap, blap (it actually makes that sound) as it stitches
the edge of the hole down. It feels like you're getting poked in the eye hard
each time so he has to stop after a few cause your eye freaks out and moves.
Wait a few seconds till it settles down and continue. My eye felt like it had
been punched hard, but that faded by the end of the day. Repair is still
holding coming up on 3 years.

Go to to your annual medical checkups.

------
orliesaurus
Can you elaborate a little bit more on this, what do you optimize, what
statistics do you use, etc > We also use statistical models for ad
optimization

Thanks!

~~~
dpandya
Sure, I can talk a bit about it.

Essentially, the problem (like all other ad opt. problems) boils down to
estimating the expected value of a particular click. This is a particularly
challenging/weird problem in this space because unlike other segments of
ecommerce, you can't successfully optimize for correlated metrics such as
engagement. So, it's a heavily imbalanced problem (i.e. few positive examples,
lots of negative examples). In addition to that, the buying characteristics of
specific products are heavily related to one another so sales on one affect
how we advertise the other. There are a number of other subtleties discovered
over time.

Our software produces good bid estimates despite these characteristics.

------
ereyes01
I have an eye condition that requires me to wear scleral lenses to see
normally. They bill insurance over $2200 per pair of lenses. If that price can
be brought down, that would be a big deal for me. Is this sort of lens a
target for you?

~~~
dpandya
Yes! Please just email me at dhaivat @ jetlenses.com with the specific lenses
you need and we can figure out if we can get them for you.

------
ape4
How many numbers (parameters) make up a contact prescription?

~~~
dpandya
It depends on the particular contact lenses - can be anywhere from 1 - 8+.

------
alokv28
Congrats on the launch! Can you say more about how you drive your costs down?

------
smolsky
What about using VSP?

~~~
dpandya
Hi. If you have out of network benefits in your insurance plan , then we can
provide you with the necessary paperwork to make a claim. We can also process
HSA/FSA cards at checkout. We aren't an in-network provider for VSP yet,
however.

------
ablaster1
Weird to see that they're not at all cost competitive with most retailers
online other than 1800 which is very expensive.

Feels like YC is losing its edge?

~~~
anomatopoeia
Not at all cost competitive for my brand either.

Contacts are a commodity item - whenever I need to reorder contacts I do a
lazy 2 min search for the cheapest price online and order there. Customer
experience is same everywhere.

Not sure what sort of competitive edge JetLenses has, seems like the idea
would've been great in 1995. As a long time contact wearer this market has
already been disrupted pretty severely .

For me costs going down fairly steadily since the advent of 1-800-Contacts and
the subsequent federal law which put an end to the shenanigans of eye doctors
trying to block online fulfillment.

------
soared
Curious if 10 years ago yc would accept a company that just sold contact
lenses online.

~~~
ISL
An interesting question. This [1] suggests that the contact lens market is
~$10B, which is in the realm of YC aspirations. That market is likely to grow
as the purchasing-power of people globally continues to grow. Sounds like YC
to me.

[1] [https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-
analysis/contact-...](https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-
analysis/contact-lenses-market)

~~~
privacypoller
except how is this market captured? Seems to be more supply-chain and scale,
or R&D in the actual product. These guys appear to hope for the former, but
not sure how they can beat the bigger players other than some vague comments
akin to leveraging supplier and customer data. The smaller startups that have
built online presence have already focused really well on streamlining the
experience, order fulfillment and customer service at low prices; how much
margin is left to be the new player and compete on price?

