
Show HN: I built a thing - zacharydanger
http://www.boxcarsurgery.com/2012/11/03/i-built-a-thing.html
======
trb
Is there anything that prevents this from being a phone app and sell it in one
of the app stores?

You could abstract away all the web and phone (press '9') stuff and just have
a button "Open the door? Yes/No" if someone activates the buzzer.

Maybe add some easy management for pins that:

\- always open (roommates/family/friends)

\- open only one time (deliveries, not-so-close-friends)

\- open only under certain conditions (time of day, day of month, etc)

Make it possible to easily share those pin numbers via SMS, Facebook, email,
etc.

I think you have a product that's great for access management. You should
highlight the additional benefits in your marketing, e.g.:

\- easy to invite friends over for dinner

\- easy to share apartment without the need for new keys

\- easy to revoke access

\- easy to let cleaning staff in during certain times of day

Another thought: Market it as a helpful add-on for AirBnB customers. You don't
have to give someone a key to your apartment, just a PIN that only works for
the time they rent the apartment (this is also useful for sub-leases). You can
revoke access at any time, no matter where you are (big problem with keys).

Short version: I think you'd have a better chance packaging your product as a
mobile app, abstracting away all the web/phone stuff and sell it as "entry
management" instead of "automated buzzer".

~~~
civilian
+1 for Airbnb! The great thing about a pin is that the owner can change it
whenever they want, so they can change it for each airbnb customer.

------
lancewiggs
You've done the easy bit. The hard bit is how to make money. Selling to the
apartment owning/building/management industry will be very difficult. The
product needs to be a lot more refined. The marketing materials just so. The
team selling experienced in the industry. And so on.

Some fights are worth having. If you can find a sidekick who relishes the
sales battle then sobeit.

Else consider open sourcing what you've done and move to the next problem.

~~~
d4nt
Is it necessary to sell to landlords? Although B2B is often said to be easier,
in this case you're solving a problem that only the residents have, so I would
have said B2C is the way to go.

~~~
joelhaasnoot
You can also do B2C but have a B2B product. If everyone uses it,
landlords/management will see the benefit and be interested.

------
d4nt
I would take it area by area, walk around to find the buildings that have
gates, then mail everyone in those buildings with a voucher code. A/B test
your letters, refine as you go. Consider partnering with local pizza delivery
stores, maybe 50c off if you have this service?

Work out how many people you need signed up in order to live off the income,
after a few weeks of marketing extrapolate out how many weeks it'll take to
get enough people signed up to live off this business. Consider whether it's
worth continuing or re-evaluate at that point.

------
amccloud
I also build something similar when I was living in an apartment.

I've open sourced the it here: <https://github.com/amccloud/django-tropo-
webapi/>

and the bulk of it [https://github.com/amccloud/django-tropo-
webapi/blob/master/...](https://github.com/amccloud/django-tropo-
webapi/blob/master/example/opengate/views.py)

It was great because it allowed my roommate and I to buzz people in from our
own cell phones. It also allowed me to set an entry code to give out to
friends and for deliveries. It would sms me and my roommate when someone came
through the gate. To further extend on that idea you could create specific
codes for specific people that only work at specific times.

------
dglassan
You shouldn't be marketing this towards consumers. If you and your friend had
this problem with the apartment gate then I'm sure more people at your
apartment have to deal with it also. Why don't you talk to your apartment
complex and see if they'd be interested to use it as a service for their
tenants?

You should be marketing this towards apartment complex properties, not
consumers living in apartment complexes.

~~~
ssebro
It's usually easier to sell to someone who's experiencing a pain than it is to
an upstream provider. In other words, if it was a big enough issue that you
built something to fix it, and your apartment complex hasn't fixed it
themselves, you probably aren't going to suddenly convince them to buy in
(since they don't see the pain, or don't care).

Sell pain killers to people in pain.

~~~
lftl
It's more work, but you can convince the upstream provider that their
customer's pain is actually causing them pain.

I would try to find a larger complex to use as a case study. Set everything up
for free for them, and check their retention rate before and after the
install. 1 month less of an empty apartment probably pays for your product,
and if you're anything over that it's a no-brainer from the complex owner's
perspective.

------
pud
Tell landlords they can offer the service to tenants for $10/mo. Split
proceeds 50/50.

Call every landlord in town.

Landlords love upselling tenants (parking spaces, storage space, etc.)

~~~
weaksauce
This is great advice but it also brings up a point; why do these systems
require a local number in order to operate? It seems that a firmware upgrade
could possibly decimate the op's business.

Edit: I want to point out that I am in no way, shape, or form saying that the
op could not make a decent amount of money on this(though, 10/month is a touch
steep for someone living in an apartment) but I was just curious why the
manufacturers of such devices limit them in such a way.

~~~
mmetzger
Guessing they want a local number because the apartment complex doesn't want
to pay for long distance calling.

~~~
anigbrowl
I haven't paid for long distance calling since the 1990s. I think it's just
people being lazy and choosing poor defaults.

~~~
mcpherrinm
How many of these buzzers have remained unchanged since the 1990s?

Also, long distance appears to be at least $20/month extra on a standard small
business landline here (Bell Canada). That's not much, but I can see it
happening for something the landlord would think of as a non-feature: Because
why wouldn't you have a phone number in the area you live?

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm not sure a small business line is the best comparison for an apartment
building, and I think most landlords are familiar with the existence of
cellphones by now. But it's true that many buzzers like that have been in
place for a long time - but I do think that that's the landlord's problem,
like any other non-working fixture.

------
guynamedloren
Using technology to solve a personal pain point. Not a _huge_ problem, but a
problem nonetheless, and now your life is a little bit better. I like it. It's
stuff like this that really makes me appreciate the power of coding.

------
eagsalazar2
Why wouldn't you just (1) get a local google voice number, (2) forward it to
your cell, (3) _ask_ who it is (yay security!), (4) press 9 (or not). I'm
honestly not getting the value here.

I'm also totally not getting how the security aspect of this is being glossed
over. To the suggestion that apartment owners/managers would be interested,
why would they put up a security gate then install a system that allows it to
be bypassed by anyone with your phone number?? I actually bet if you told your
apartment manager he would demand you immediately disable it, not pay you to
give it to your neighbors.

~~~
philip1209
My problem: I have a google voice number I am attached to. I moved into an
apartment where I need to provide a local phone number for the door system.
However, I cannot have multiple google voice accounts attached to my cell
phone - therefore I can't forward those incoming calls from the new number to
my cell.

~~~
datamart
If you set your phone type as "Home" in your Google Voice settings instead of
"Mobile", you can attach it to another Google Voice number. I currently do
this with my front door callbox, and it works like a charm. I think the limit
may be two Google Voice numbers to "Home" real-world phone number, though.

One caveat: Text messages will only be sent to phones listed as "Mobile". But
I just get my text messages via the Google Voice app anyway, so this is
actually a benefit to me (no duplicated texts).

------
imglorp
I think you need a better domain name. QuestionsThree is a fun name, but it
conveys no information. How about something like this:

    
    
      * openmydooor.com
      * buzzmein.com
      * apartmentbuzzer.com
    

etc

~~~
Auguste
The name looks like it's from the 'Bridge of Death' scene of Monty Python and
the Holy Grail[1] ("Answer me these questions three, then the other side ye
see"). I think it's a great name, but most people probably won't get the joke.

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS8Mg-JWSg>

~~~
zacharydanger
I'm happy _someone_ got it. :D

------
mkmk
Very cool, congrats. You may want to read this post-mortem of a company that
did the same thing, but then shut down after 50 paying customers. (I used to
be a customer, and we re-built it ourselves once the service went offline)

<http://buzzer-o-matic.tumblr.com/>

~~~
dusing
Is this wants wrong with the startup culture? They create a great product,
have 50 paying monthly customers, and because it is not a million dollar idea
they shut it down.

Why not keep it running and collect the cash as a side project, I can't
imagine this needed much maintenance, its just printing money, maybe not
millions, but still real money, and I bet it would grow organically slowly
over the years.

------
lambtron
Very cool thing. I would include a summary on the use case on the
questionsthree website or a short paragraph describing what exactly it is. The
only reason I had some idea of what it was, is due to the blog post that
directed me there.

Just some information (also, pricing) to provide before asking for people to
give away their emails.

Cool thing, though!

~~~
zacharydanger
Whoops. I'll definitely add the pricing to the home page. It's 10$/month or
100$/year.

For the longest time, the homepage was Rails' index.html. It was so hard for
me to bang out those few paragraphs.

~~~
AlexeyMK
If the best alternative to using your app is a free Google Voice number in
your area code (and not $20/month to Time Warner), I don't think $10/month is
something I would pay. I'd either find a way to make the pricing work, or (as
suggested above) find a way to sell to apartment complexes at large.

~~~
Terretta
Exactly. SkypeIn with local area code is (if you get it on sale) only $30 a
year. That's what I use.

Nice thing about that is I've let the UPS guy in while I was in Rome, and
didn't have to pay long distance.

------
zacharycohn
I've seen (and built) similar things on top of Twilio before. Even set it up
to have multiple passcodes for different friends, then it will text me "John
just let himself in."

Some people don't get the pain point, but it's definitely nice!

------
ssebro
Check out how Lockitron is marketing their product - yours can deliver similar
value, except to residents of apartment complexes.
<https://lockitron.com/preorder>

I would first figure out the size of the market, then pick a price point
(informed by the size of the market + the pain solved by your solution), then
a marketing strategy (target either building management or individuals).

While most people on HN are telling you to market to the apartment complexes,
I think you might want to market towards individuals, since they are the ones
who feel the pain that you alleviate. You can target apartment complexes if
you alleviate some pain that they have (maybe having your system is something
they can include in marketing materials, which will get them more
occupants/better occupancy).

The best thing about targeting individuals is that you may be able to get them
to market for you (see dropbox), and that they will cross pollinate your
solution to new apartment complexes when they move.

------
joshmlewis
So this isn't a problem where I live, they actually let you use any number,
(my cell, landline, etc) and it does the dial and press 9 thing.

However, I am renting out my apartment to people and they would sometimes
forget the gate key or whatever, and I'd get a call literally once or twice a
day all to just press 9. I could see this being useful.

------
hansy
Market this to the management of every apartment complex with a gate. Have
them spread your app to their individual resident base.

Your marketing copy has to change a little because you are now targeting
management to be your distribution channel. You could say something like our
app reduces the line in front of the gate because it makes it easier for
trusted outsiders to enter the community.

Or if you think it's easier to go after your end-users, then you could:

\- try and cross-market with other startups targeting apartment residents

\- try to get access to different apartment community/common rooms and drop
some flyers or quickly talk to some folks (this is kind of creepy and risky,
but you might be able to hack the process by asking for a tour of the
apartment from management)

\- try dropping your message on apartment forums or review sites

~~~
Evbn
Shared buildings explicitly forbid this sort of remote-unlock functionality,
for obvious reasons.

------
josscrowcroft
I'd suggest manually taking on the first few dozen customers by word of mouth,
as many as possible, then using that as evidence of a quantifiable need -
after that point, contacting letting agents who may be able to use it as a
neat selling point?

------
romain_dardour
You found a bad user experience for you (a problem) You built an e-doorman (a
product)

Now think about the problem an solution in terms of Product and market

Is the market who you think it is ? (I.E. who will buy this ? people, buzzer
system makers or building owners ?)

Then think about what would be the product that would allow your market to
solve the problem. Might not be the one you built exactly.

A product is only successful if it solves a problem for a market. Both problem
and market are mandatory.

------
tmchow
This is great! I have the exact same problem with my apartment building
needing not just a local number but one with the same area code as the
building (so an area code in a neighboring city 10 mins away wouldn't work).

I ended up getting a google voice number to solve the issue which then
simultaneously rings both me and my wife. However, I love your PIN idea and
the "automatically let anyone in during a set time period" approach.

------
nilved
> I’ve built a thing.

> And unfortunately, I haven’t found a succinct way to market it or even just
> describe it.

My first tip is to stop using such vague and obnoxious phrasing.

~~~
amouat
That's just the author's style and there's nothing wrong with it, except that
you don't like it.

------
davemel37
This is a no brainer product to sell to the pizza joint. The sales pitch, You
should start with your pizza delivery place and tell them, you will give them
delivery access to the building exclusively for X dollars... "We Are The Only
Pizza Place That You Don't Have to Open The Gate For." would be a very
compelling USP, much like what built the massive brand dominoes pizza, "Fresh
Hot Pizza in Thirty Minutes or Less."

You would be surprised how a simple small compelling USP can nearly monopolize
a small market... Than I would branch out to other delivery services to your
building... Once you have 3-5 places using this marketing pitch you can go to
property owners and say, "Here is a way to squeeze extra revenue out of your
property, while providing a great service to your tenants... You can take it a
step further and offer the first part of the app (with a PIN) to tenants for
free, sponsored by the local pizza delivery joint...

The best part is that you already have a relationship with the local pizza
place, so start there... prove the model and slowly scale throughout your
neighborhood, etc...

------
narcissus
That's a really cool idea, but just out of curiosity, is it normal for the
gate to have to be programmed with a phone number? In the apartment complexes
that I lived in, the gate would just buzz through to a small intercom type
system beside the door in the apartment.

Is the phone calling thing a new process, or is this just an Australia vs. USA
thing?

------
sidcool
It feel so good to read "I built a thing"

------
sushantsharma
How much is the price after 30 day trial is over? You may want to put up that
price somewhere on the site.

------
rachet
I did the same thing using twilio here
([http://www.ryanfaerman.com/notebook/2012/07/10/gate-
insecuri...](http://www.ryanfaerman.com/notebook/2012/07/10/gate-
insecurity.html)). The plus-side is it only costs me 3 cents per gate call.

------
bstar77
I love the fact that you solved a specific pain point and can potentially help
others, but I'm not sure this is something that would be worth $10/month for
most people. This is also a pretty trivial app to build with the twilio/tropo
APIs, so it's not an earth shattering product.

Can you set it up to use the same number, but validate accounts with access
numbers? That way you only pay for 1 number and could possibly ask for
donations on the site for hosting costs (sounds like you could still get away
with the free heroku account for your building).

~~~
calpaterson
Most apps are pretty trivial to build, though. The trouble comes in making
something that people value, not something that is hard to make.

~~~
johnsocs
It may not be hard to make, but a lot of people can't make it, lacking the
skills, knowledge, or experience.

~~~
runako
Or, crucially, _desire_.

------
dmritard96
did something similar in school a couple years ago. Basically was a web server
and an arduino connected to the apartments buzzer and door unlock system. When
you were at the front door you would be connected to our wifi network and
could then go to a url that would open the door. Never thought to sell the
service to others in the building - would have been a good idea. although when
the maintenance guy came in and saw an arduino hanging down from the
intercom/buzzer box he was a little pissed. lol

------
thebranman
I had a similar issue at an apartment building. I just setup a new Google
phone number (with a local area code) and had the number forward to my cell
phone, and then to my wife's cell phone if I didn't pick up. So while I didn't
have the cool PIN thing, I could let someone in if I was out since it
forwarded to my cell phone. I only bring it up because I wouldn't pay for this
solution when the free one (which is nearly if not as good) exists.

------
krzyk
That's strange, of all the places in the world I wouldn't suspect that US have
a higher price for calling non-local cells/phones (and even has such thing as
a long-distance call). Here were I live the long/short distance have the same
price for about 15 years now). I know that Poland is small in comparison to
the US, but I don't see a point in charging more for longer distance (one
could just average the price).

~~~
Zak
Most landlines, of which a significant number are VOIP do not charge per call
or per minute to any number in the US. There is a flat monthly fee for
unlimited calling. Mobile phones charge the same per minute regardless of the
number dialed.

Yes, this is oversimplified and there are billing options which do strange
things, but it's unlikely that the reason for the local number policy is the
cost of the call.

~~~
mikeash
It seems fairly likely to me. The phone lines that charge extra for long
distance are exactly those cheap, low-functionality lines that a system like
this is probably hooked up to.

------
firefoxman1
sell this to apartment owners directly, starting with your own. Tell them it's
a selling point they can put in their listings "Includes QuestionsThree easy-
access system" or something along those lines.

Billing landlords is a better way to price it, after-all you said you hated
getting a $20 bill every month just to access your apartment by phone, so
residents wouldn't be much happier if they were billed by this system.

~~~
philliescurt
I agree this is the best way to market this, if apartment complexes offer it
as an included benefit to tenants. Have you considered the larger possibility
of selling this to the alarm/gate companies to give them the capability of not
requiring a local number?

------
ams6110
Cool idea, but you can get a local phone number from Magic Jack or its ilk for
$10/year, I have a hard time seeing how you charge much more than that.

~~~
nilbus
Yeah, I could never justify a service like this for $100/yr. It's cool, but
it's also free to get a local google voice number that forwards to the cell
and just press 9.

~~~
natep
"Local" google voice numbers aren't local enough for these systems. At least
not for my last apartment's.

------
chmike
I would suggest to enter in contact with companies that build and sell these
gate locks. These are your clients. Check HN posts on how to cold call sell
something the most efficient way to succeed. Don't expect to get rich from it.
But this will be of high value for people reading your cv and might take your
virginity off in making business. ;)

Note: rule n° 1 of marketing: identify your market (clients)

------
bjeanes
Hahah nice. I built that same thing about a year ago with the Twilio API. It
took about an hour. I still use it 2 apartments later. Awesome.

------
hugi
Very cool. Still I wonder, why don't these gates accept non-local area codes,
seems like a design flaw.

~~~
zacharydanger
Cheap property managers holding onto the concept of "long-distance" phone
calls I'd assume.

------
gallaghersean
This is a wonderful idea. I've thought of doing the same with Twilio. You
could also make it a little more secure with Twilio by only opening the gate
(dialing "9") for specific phone numbers that call in - for example your
friend's number of the pizza place's number.

------
villagefool
A similar 'thing' done using SMS (by Hilary Mason in 2010), code included
[http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/sms-to-e-mail-gateway-the-
sm...](http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/sms-to-e-mail-gateway-the-sms-
doorbell/)

------
iamweisser
This is a problem that many people have in Boston because most are transplants
without local numbers and it seems like you've built a nice solution.

My current fix: I created a Google number with the local 617 area code.

I could see this being very useful however.

------
frankus
Have you considered a one-time-use (or limited-time) PIN for deliveries? You
could also replace your PIN-free pizza-guy mode with a fixed pizza guy PIN
(say, 74992) that's similarly only valid for an hour.

------
javert
Lots of people are saying that your pricing is too high, but I presume that
people who live in apartments with fancy gates for protection can probably
stand to throw away $100/year without even thinking.

------
giberson
Phonestub - when you need a local phone number you dont _need_.

------
estromlund
Very cool, I've been using Google Voice for this exact reason over the last 2
years. Was thinking of making something like this using Twilio but you beat me
to it...well done!

------
immy
Draw a stick figure comic for your pizza||ups delivery story! Much other
consumer packaging to do, but that solves your messaging question

------
ipince
I need this, thank you! How do you get the local phone number? won't I have to
pay for it anyway?

~~~
joshmlewis
I believe there a few services that allow you a free phone number, for
example, Google Voice.

------
barefoot
Ha, I had an idea to build a product around this (and related services) the
other day.

------
cglace
I build something like this a year ago but never did anything with it. . .

~~~
bjeanes
ditto. I should just open source my github repo now anyway...

------
nu2ycombinator
I had similar problem and I gave google voice number, which is local

------
bashzor
What thing did you build? I'm not gonna click on titles like these.

