

Show HN: My kid choked on a toy, so I built this - heelhook
http://www.recallbee.com

======
orkj
I really like the landing page, but I feel I have to point out one obvious
thing:

Your sign-up page[0] not only resembles the one of Basecamp[1], but you chose
to actually copy (not like copy from it, but _copy_) the graphics from it? And
the graphics features a dude wearing a Basecamp sweater?

I can see why you want to find design inspiration in Basecamp, but for me that
stuff is just too close to the original ;)

As I said. Just a friendly pointer. You might want to change that. Other than
that I wish you the best of luck, and this looks like a great start and an
interesting idea!

[0][http://www.recallbee.com/account/start](http://www.recallbee.com/account/start)

[1][https://basecamp.com/start](https://basecamp.com/start)

~~~
heelhook
Thanks, I actually copied the image to see what it'd look like in place and
forgot to take it out. I'll address that first thing!

Again. Thanks so much for that!

~~~
grey-area
Did you pay for the other illustrations on your home page? They look a bit
disparate, and some turn up elsewhere in an image search:

[https://dribbble.com/shots/1553377-Changing-
Homes?list=users...](https://dribbble.com/shots/1553377-Changing-
Homes?list=users&offset=7)

[http://dabbled.org/this-robot-has-expired/](http://dabbled.org/this-robot-
has-expired/)

[http://www.creativebloq.com/illustration/illustrations-
strip...](http://www.creativebloq.com/illustration/illustrations-strips-
bicycles-back-basics-10135085)

If not perhaps consider paying one of the illustrators (Daniel González stuff
looks excellent) to make you a set of illustrations which are all in the same
style - your pages would look a lot more coherent if they didn't have a grab-
bag of styles going on, and also you could have a lot of liability if you
don't have permission for every image on your site.

It's not really on to just copy images from the web without attribution or
payment - you could be sued for a lot of money for that basecamp image for
example which is still up.

Otherwise, it's a nice site and great idea though.

~~~
hughstephens
I suspect he's just grabbed this template:

[https://wrapbootstrap.com/theme/triangle-multi-purpose-
templ...](https://wrapbootstrap.com/theme/triangle-multi-purpose-template-
WB0D53BSK)

but yes, you make an excellent point. Equally I agree with his approach of
using a $9 template before validating w customers and working out the business
model...not sure what the theme site says about the images licence wise but
it's not necessarily a bad abstraction to assume that images included with a
template are licenced with it if they aren't watermarked etc.

~~~
winter_blue
In light of the fact that the template you've linked looks exactly like
recallbee.com, the author's comment _" Thanks, I actually copied the image to
see what it'd look like in place and forgot to take it out"_ seems
disingenuous.

~~~
iamvfl
Not really. He just bought the template and customized it, and I imagine he
wrote his own back-end as well. After all, it's just a bootstrap theme.

~~~
grey-area
Seems like an honest mistake in using this theme, though taking an image from
bootcamp is a little weird, probably just forgot but it should never have been
in there even in a mockup.

The theme authors themeum should be ashamed of themselves though, and it looks
like their theme has been swiftly deleted as it is now 404.

[http://www.themeum.com/](http://www.themeum.com/)

Looks like they just shamelessly rip off people's copyright work to put into
their themes, first image from one of their premium themes came up on tineye
as all rights reserved:

[http://demo.themeum.com/#organic_life](http://demo.themeum.com/#organic_life)

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/36161769@N05/5896987315](https://www.flickr.com/photos/36161769@N05/5896987315)

------
fishnchips
Beautiful execution but I find the purpose misguided. I am a parent too so
maybe that's a cultural difference (EU vs US?) but if my kid choked on a toy I
would pay closer attention to toys going forward rather than look for toy
vendors to do my parenting for me.

~~~
taco_emoji
How about both?

~~~
fishnchips
Sure, as a parent you should be able to decide what the appropriate response
is. But at least to me this particular class of problems does not need an app
but simple common sense.

~~~
simcop2387
Not a parent yet, but I'd probably use something like this less as something
to find out if there's a choking hazard, but in case there's something I don't
think of that might be a problem. Fire hazard because it shipped with a faulty
power regulator the overheats? Exploding batteries? Those are things that I
wouldn't be able to tell at first glance that they'd necessarily be a problem.

~~~
fishnchips
How far does this rabbit hole go, though? Your kid may just as well be the
first victim of a yet unknown fault. You can't protect them from everything
and trying to do so will only cause you anxiety. Wouldn't you rather spend
your mental energy on something more positive?

~~~
hn_user2
Agree. But I think that's the idea behind the concept. Don't want to spend
time worrying about it, but if there is a known defect discovered later about
something I bought, I would like to know about it.

Assuming it's as easy as lifting my phone and scanning a barcode after the
occasional toy purchase. Then I can forget about it.

Agree you can't give up common sense, and you shouldn't obsess about it, but
it's silly to not remove a toy if there is a known defect that causes deaths.

~~~
pilsetnieks
It also could give you a false sense of security in case it's something that's
not published on this particular service.

Also, in most reasonable countries products that are known to cause deaths are
removed from the market instead of continuing to be sold with the "buyer
beware" assumption.

------
twrobel
If you're letting people enter in their credit card information at any point
for any reason you _MUST_ get an SSL certificate and force people to use a TLS
secured connection.

Infosec 101

~~~
thebeardisred
Admittedly that's all happening with javascript passthrough to stripe's API
using https.

~~~
scott_karana
Ugh. I guess that's technically true, but it doesn't prevent me from feeling
heeby-jeebies.

What's to stop a malicious MITM (using an iframe, say) from fucking with
Stripe's javascript during runtime if you're not using HTTPS yourself?

EDIT: turns out that Stripe themselves recommend SSL[1] for the same reasons
we both guessed:

    
    
      Do I need to use SSL/TLS on my payment pages?
    
      Yes, for a couple of reasons:
    
        * It's more secure. In particular, it significantly reduces your risk of being exposed to a man-in-the-middle attack.
        * Users correctly feel more comfortable sharing their payment information on pages visibly served over SSL. Your conversion rate is likely to be higher if your pages are served over SSL/TLS, too.
    

1 [https://stripe.com/help/ssl](https://stripe.com/help/ssl)

------
Blahah
Beautiful idea and execution.

Seems to me that you could monetise this by selling to businesses. For
example, you say in the comments that amazon still sells some toys that have
been recalled. This is illegal and could land them in some trouble. So you can
approach them with a price for recall updates matched to their product
listings, so they can suspend sales. If you word the licensing right you can
then give the service to concerned parents as cheaply as you like, while
charging companies for saving them a legal hassle.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yeah, I think the real value here is not in B2C, but B2B where you specialize
in providing regulatory information to retailers in actionable form, like
correlating SKUs with product URLs and so forth.

------
joshstrange
Really cool idea but how do you plan for this to pay for itself? I imagine the
time commitment is pretty high to have to go through all toy recalls and/or
safety hazards. It's one thing to only need to pay for servers but a humans
time? Maybe you could use Mechanical Turk and then just feed donation into a
bank account linked to it.

I love these little one-off sites but I worry that in a few years time they
will all be graveyards.

~~~
darkstar999
Just throwing out ideas here.. you could reward user contribution of recalls
by sharing a portion of the subscription revenue. You would require the user
submitted recall to include a link to an official source. Pretty easy to
verify.

------
kazinator
I don't see the back story anywhere on the site, but I hope your child is
okay!

~~~
heelhook
He is, it was a minor scare. But a scare nonetheless, and it was on a toy that
had been recalled months ago. Its amazing, but there are a lot of toys and
kids' furniture that have been recalled and yet are still available for
purchase on amazon!

~~~
rhubarbcustard
You should add the story of your son's scare to the site - gives it a more
human and personal vibe and give potential customers something to relate to.

------
slapshot
This model seems to come up every few years but never quite makes it. Here's a
version from 2000 with uglier graphics and more shouty copy, but the same
idea:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20001018093126/http://www.safety...](https://web.archive.org/web/20001018093126/http://www.safetyagent.com/)
. I remember another version where you scanned your household goods to get
recall updates.

Of course, previous failure doesn't mean the model is doomed (see grocery
delivery in 2014 vs 2000) but there may be a piece missing --- is this a
service that Amazon or Toys-R-Us could provide as a value add? Otherwise I'm
not sure how you get CAC below LTV at a scale to cover overhead.

------
jared314
Is this a front end on top of the current government provided resources [1]
[2] [3], or does this include other sources?

[1] [http://www.recalls.gov/](http://www.recalls.gov/)

[2] [http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/](http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/)

[3] [http://www.saferproducts.gov/](http://www.saferproducts.gov/)

~~~
heelhook
I'm using those sources, but I'm also monitoring a few dozen parents and
educators forums where safety concerns are sometimes raised, even if they
don't convert into actual recalls, and treat those reports as minor alerts.

~~~
gburt
Manually?

------
benologist
Your site says in 2013 one toy was recalled every three days, and you mention
37,000 toys being monitored but have sent alerts about only 1% of them. To me
this says by default the recalls are so rare I may never buy an affected
product just by chance, I think you need something more if you want $$ every
month.

Maybe this would be a better service for kindergartens, schools, daycares etc
rather than parents.

~~~
heelhook
Thanks for the feedback. The 37,000 is the number of toys being monitored by
parents (i.e. added to the database by one of our users). The copy "Toys Being
Monitored" definitely needs to be adjusted!

Thanks for pointing that out!

Also, regarding pricing: RecallBee is a pay-what-you-want service ;)

~~~
benologist
Do you have any statistics that show why every parent should use this service?
What is the risk of buying a recalled toy, or one that will be, on Amazon or
at Walmart? What % of families have at least one recalled toy their kids might
be using?

------
muppetman
This looks really good, but like so many sites I find on here, it makes no
mention of country. So I assume you're just monitoring toys recalled in
America?

i.e. It's probably not worth me in New Zealand signing up?

~~~
chrisBob
This seems like a case where the country shouldn't matter. A recall in the US
could help your kid no matter where you live.

~~~
muppetman
Well yes, there's a good chance some of the toys, especially the bigger brand
names one will also be affected. But there's also a lot of Australian make and
New Zealand made toys here.

I know I could sign up for better coverage of recalls than I currently have,
but I'm not going to enter all the toys we have if only ~10% of them have any
chance of being monitored.

------
zaroth
Thanks for sharing. I think you have a lot of bases covered very well. Landing
Page | How It Works | Pricing is a great start. Free trial offer, and choose
your own price to boot, is an interesting approach.

I understand your product. I'm not sure I'm up for the requisite effort to
keep you informed of my kids toys, nor am I personally all that concerned with
recalls, so for me it wasn't worth signing up. Car seat, stroller, bigger
items, _those_ I would want to know about recalls, but those aren't "toys". If
you're going to do kid-safety, I think you have to cast a wider net.

I went to 'How it Works' and clicked continue. Entered a fake name and clicked
continue. Left email blank and clicked continue... I just wanted to see the
actual product, you know?

So then I see 'Example's Toys... All toys safe' so I click 'What toys am I
tracking' and the screen flickers and now says 'Attention required... some
safety concerns.' So something is wrong there, I wasn't able to actually demo
your product.

Maybe instead of 'Sign Up' and making me jump through hoops, flip the model
around. Start as an anonymous user, fill in some toys, see if there are
issues, then to get the alerts and save your toy list, then you can click to
sign-up. If someone puts real toys into the list, they are almost certain to
want to save it instead of throw the list away.

Also, you might not even need to make the user create an account with a
password. The alternative, more old-school Craigslist model, is just collect
the email. If you ever send an alert, include a link which lets the user
login. In the welcome email, include a link to edit your toy list. Once in a
while, ping to ask for new toys to be added, and include an auto-login link.
Just something to consider.

Also, this is probably asking too much, but can you please share the scatter
plot of what people are choosing to pay for pricing? That would be incredibly
interesting.

------
austenallred
My main concern would be that I have to input all of the toys my kids are
using. I'm just not sure that I would ever do that. But looks cool.

Also, the right side of the site doesn't seem to be constrained; I can scroll
way over - [http://take.ms/P4CZQ](http://take.ms/P4CZQ)

~~~
porter
I'd rather just get a digest email of all recalls that day or week. Anything
critical text me.

------
mkarr
What happens when you (somehow) fail to set the status of a toy you track to
"recalled" during some part of the recall period, and then one of your
subscriber's kid harms themselves with said toy? Have you anticipated how to
protect yourself from your subscriber in such a case?

~~~
vortico
It's hilarious that this kind of "protection" is needed in the U.S., in 2015,
etc.

But I don't see any Terms of Use on the website at all, so it might be worth
your time to cover your legal bases before there are too many subscriptions.

------
kybernetikos
Once you have a database of toys that parents have, there are other ways you
might usefully use the data, like allowing parents to join toy swap or library
groups, provide purchase recommendations based on similar toy choices (you
could perhaps even monetise via affiliate sales of toys), etc.

------
marcusgarvey
Please reconsider describing your newsletter as "high value", which is
corporate jargon and doesn't seem suited to your audience. Instead explain
what someone signing up will get from it.

------
pbhjpbhj
I can't see me listing all the stuff I bought (not much!) for the kids on your
site/app or whatever - this is increasingly an issue.

Perhaps you can sell a service to Walmart/Amazon/etc. whereby you maintain a
list of recalled toys and then monitor their products (and eg Amazon
marketplace) to make sure the toys're not being sold there?

Also supermarkets and other retailers have histories of goods purchased seems
that there should be some way to use that to gather the ownership data rather
than have users enter it themselves.

------
breakingcups
Congrats on building this. One thing that struck me (and possibly others) as
odd is this sentence: "Did you know that in 2013 alone one toy was recalled
every three days?".

It doesn't seem to make sense, either you say "Did you know that in 2013 alone
121 toys were recalled?" or "Did you know that in 2013 one toy was recalled
every three days?".

The world "alone" to me only makes sense when talking about totals, not avg.
per day/month/etc.

------
bbcbasic
I think there is a good idea in this, but as presented I wouldn't use it.

I am a parent. There are lots of toys around the house. Some are mainstream so
I will probably find them on your site, but some are boutique. Some I don't
have the box for so I can't list them if I don't remember the name.

So it is quite a hassle to list them all, and I can't be bothered.

Because most danger to children isn't toys IMHO but things like drowning,
choking on small objects (not necessarily from a toy, could be a coin),
falling, curtain cords and roads. I would rather concentrate on minimizing
those risks.

A way you could present this so at least I would use it is just an email
address. No need to list your toys, and get weekly or monthly product recall
updates for mainstream toys.

It could have the recalls for that month, plus anything super-dangerous in the
last 6 months as a reminder. Then there is no need to enter toys and therefore
it becomes a no brainer to enter your email address and get the alerts.

In addition there could be information or links to articles about other
generic dangers such as those small button batteries that can cause serious
harm or death to a child. Or similarly curtain cords. Road safety etc. etc.

------
jmlucjav
I contracted for a company with the same idea (I built the matching engine
from incoming alerts to products in the db). It went under, that was 3 years
ago. They were not focused on toys, though. There is some traces of their
android app here: [http://www.amazon.com/Cyberellum-LLC-Recall-
Alarm/dp/B007MCK...](http://www.amazon.com/Cyberellum-LLC-Recall-
Alarm/dp/B007MCKO9G)

------
nowarninglabel
That's a great idea and really focuses on the do one thing and do it well
approach. Are you going to have some app where they could scan the barcode of
the toy and get the info or is it all manually input?

~~~
heelhook
Thanks! Yes, I'd like to get there at some point, but right now I'm just using
an API to do product search based on name, UPC or others.

------
pccampbell
I think this is awesome in terms of a product. Could be interesting to expand
to other types of recalls (just go through the Ralph Nader list). Most of this
information is publicly available, but in such shitty databases that it's not
even worth pursuing. If I was a parent, I'd definitely sign up and probably
pay a low amount.

Also, if you want some free help tracking your subscription metrics for
Stripe, feel free to check out profitwell.com (completely free). Would love
your feedback on that as well, if you don't mind. :)

------
alexcabrera
Great idea, caught a couple grammar problems:

> When a safety issue is raised on one of your kid toys we send you immediate
> alerts to make sure you are in the known.

should be...

> When a safety issue is raised on one of your kid's toys we send you
> immediate alerts to make sure you are in the know.

The `kid's` part can also be `kids'`, I think. Maybe. I'm terrible at plural
possession.

~~~
Retr0spectrum
Just to confirm, `kids'` is correct for plural posession.

If you want to be really pedantic and overanalyse it, there are three possible
situations. `kids'` if you assume the parents have multiple kids, and `kid's`
if they have one. However, if you assume that "your" refers to all the parents
on the internet collectively, then `kids'` is correct again. Since `kids'` is
correct in 2 out of 3 scenarios, that's what I would go for.

------
scottmcdot
A good starting point would be our Nanny State's Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission list of banned toys:

[https://www.productsafety.gov.au/content/index.phtml/tag/ban...](https://www.productsafety.gov.au/content/index.phtml/tag/bans#toc3)

------
easyd
Seems like you already posted this 6 months ago [1] without getting any
upvotes or comments. Wondering if it's just the new title or a new landing
page. Any idea?

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8273325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8273325)

------
stephengillie
Do you have any concerns that the system could be abused? Maybe a someone
would start paying some Amazon Turkers to make complaints about a competing
product?

What do you think about expanding this to 3d-printed stuff? Analyze blueprints
for child safety before printing?

------
Backlash85
That's how true startups are born. Building a solution to an ever ongoing
problem. This company will sustain itself as usually passion comes with
success, how much more passionate can you be after your kid has choked on a
toy? Kudos to the op

------
h_o
Hey, DEV here just a quick question about stripe integration.

Your website is http, so does for instance supplying my credit card details
over http not have some security risk?

edit: oh I just saw you have https. So why is this not enforced?

------
stickhandle
I can only think of the value of your list of active customers. That's a
targeted bunch ... and you already what they have and, perhaps more
importantly, what they don't have. Press on!

~~~
codingdave
That feels like a betrayal of trust. If you sign up for a service that is
intended to protect your children, that is not a business relationship, it is
personal. It needs to be treated as a personal relationship. Breaking that
trust would be not only bad business, but just all around badness.

~~~
stickhandle
Really? I think it would all be down to the execution.

------
gamerDude
I had the idea to do the same thing for drugs and medicine you are taking.

Obviously this is a big task, perhaps v2, but have you thought about
monitoring every toy, so that I could look up a toy before I buy it?

~~~
williamjackson
I hope you don't buy a toy that is already recalled. It is against the law in
the US to sell a product that has been publicly recalled.
[http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-
prelim-...](http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-
title15-section2068&num=0&edition=prelim)

~~~
heelhook
This was recalled last week.

[http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Me-Layla-Bassinet-
Cradle/dp/B004...](http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Me-Layla-Bassinet-
Cradle/dp/B004XUUWJC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425984040&sr=8-1)

~~~
claar
I can't find any evidence of this recall; how did you find out about it? I
guess that's the value of your site?

~~~
bgc
This was hard to find because the word "Layla" in the title of AMZN's product
page is not used: [http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2015/Dream-on-Me-
Recalls-2-in...](http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2015/Dream-on-Me-
Recalls-2-in-1-Bassinet-to-Cradle/)

~~~
claar
That recall doesn't cover this item; this item's model number is 440-B, but
the recalled ones are "439-A, 439-B, 439-G, 439-P and 439-W".

------
kiluagank
Would love to see a demo, if you have video how your service works, that would
be awesome. i would not subscribe to something that I have no idea bout it.
Video would be great

------
Noelkd
There are two newsletter sign up options at the end of the page.

------
kendallpark
How did you decide upon the pay-what-you-want pricing model?

------
LordHumungous
Is your kid ok?

------
hspak
FYI, there doesn't appear to be any input validation for the "How It Works"
interaction.

------
maswewe
[http://www.dreamfemale.com](http://www.dreamfemale.com)

------
bonzoT
Hmm. When I read the headline, I thought this had some angle with a lawsuit
type service. If "my kid choked on a toy" and was injured, I would use a
lawyer. So perhaps, you could build some sort of class action feature for
peoples kids who were injured to file together and split the compensation. And
maybe the site takes a fee as a percentage.

~~~
robkix
And that's the thought process that got a bunch of toys banned or restricted
(such as magnets[1]) even though they can be responsibly used by many
children. I don't think the problem is the product and certainly making it
easier to start class action lawsuits will only further decrease the available
toys until all we can purchase are pictures of toys. Just don't get a paper
cut.

[1] [http://gizmodo.com/5929064/buckyballs-have-been-banned-by-
th...](http://gizmodo.com/5929064/buckyballs-have-been-banned-by-the-feds)

------
lordbusiness
Bravo! This is a brilliant idea, and quite well executed. I wish you every
success.

Thank you.

------
m3rv
just shut the computer and watch your kid. Eh, fcuking nerds

------
nickodell
You've got a typo on the main page.

know -> known

------
hpritch5
Bootstrap favicon? :)

~~~
heelhook
Woops. Thanks! :D

------
accountmaker
login: test@test.com password: asdf

is usable to check it out

~~~
vortico
Your HN account could come in handy if you register more example accounts and
people don't abuse them.

------
foxylad
Clicked link hoping to see a muzzle for babies. Was disappointed.

