

FOBO (YC S11) Launches in SF to Become The Fastest Way to Sell Your Electronics - ed
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/10/fobo/

======
zackmorris
It hurts sometimes to read the news, because I thought of this around 2008 or
2009 (the idea of a commodity price on items, so for example any used football
might be worth about $1 and the site would know that it could buy for say 80
cents and sell for $1.20 and have practically unlimited buyers and sellers, so
it would work like "sell it now" from seller to the site middleman who would
resell at a later date).

I have an idea list of anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred projects,
depending on what your cutoff is for viability. To preserve my sanity, I've
had to divide it in half between things I would like to invent and work on,
and things that I just want to exist in the world so I can use them. Once FOBO
scales I suppose it will be in the second and I will just use it.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, here was my original checklist to make a
tool like this:

1\. Find a domain (anything related to yardsale is all taken). EASY

2\. Write a mobile app that lets the user take hundreds of pictures and use
image recognition or crowd sourcing to recognize the picture, find it in the
database and show the bid/ask price for the item. EASY

3\. Tally the total with a button to print QR stickers for all the items with
names and prices. EASY

4\. Have a button so the user can order the shipping boxes from the site with
packing materials and shipping labels. HARD (shipping/labor)

5\. Box arrives, user packs everything up, stuff gets scanned at the city's
warehouse and user gets the total deposited in their paypal or bitcoin. HARD
(shipping/labor/financials)

6\. When buyers purchase an item, it comes in the box from the warehouse,
possibly allowing a small fee for courier service, otherwise by the next day.
HARD (shipping/labor)

7\. In the event of fraud, seller would receive a hold against their account
for the price of the item they lied about, and couldn't sell again until they
paid it. Same thing if buyer disputes a good item and it turns out they were
lying. In any event, if you are selling 100 items for $1 and a few don't work
out, it wouldn't tend to matter all that much and most people would write off
the losses as a cost of doing business and cancel their sale or order a
replacement. HARD (labor)

Could I have gotten into ycombinator with a plan like this? The hard part is
handling shipping, warehouse/dispute labor and financials. I could have
written all of the software myself or with a small team, the only thing
holding me back (as always) was capital. I think fraud could be handled by
trends in a user's sales/purchases. I would get rid of the notion of
positive/negative ratings the way Craigslist did, since it's a commodities
market. My original plan was to start local and just write the app and have
the business be employee-owned and just hire more people as it began scaling.
Looking at it now, I can see that's the real execution of the business and
that the app's just the idea. It may have been an if-you-build-it-they-will-
come idea that could have gone viral though, which makes me sad because now
it's in someone else's hands.

Anymore, when I think of something, I generally have between about 2 weeks and
2 years before it gets invented. I've been struggling with this because it's a
bit like the sci fi concept of faster starships coming along, so no matter
which ship you send to a star, it will be passed by a better ship, so there's
no point in sending one in the first place. I've even come to the conclusion
that rewarding invention eventually will make no sense, because things will be
being invented so quickly that only rewarding the first to market will hang
the vast majority of inventors out to dry. All that will matter is capital and
the ability to gain access to it, as we're seeing with incubators and
kickstarter.

How many other people reading this feel the duality of their everyday life and
what their life could be? Spending their days struggling to make enough money
to survive and knowing that every day pushes the prospect of bringing their
ideas to fruition further and further from possibility? Doing what other
people want instead of the things in their nature that could potentially
change the world? To me, this is the problem of our time, at least for makers.
One of my favorite quotes is "failure is not the only punishment for laziness;
there is also the success of others" by Jules Renard. I suppose I shouldn't
post this but what the hell, it doesn't matter anymore for this idea. One
down, one hundred to go..

~~~
tlarkworthy
just because they exist doesn't mean it will be a huge success. I used to get
envy when I saw an idea implemented I thought of, until I got a bit older and
started seeing the same companies failing.

I personally think this idea will be over-run by broken/stolen products.

~~~
ryanmickle
I used to think press/hype was equal to success... now I know better. We know
we have great lengths still to go; this is just the start. And by that, I mean
this is our second product (our first is Yardsale, which was funded by YC in
the S11 batch), after years of working insatiably to solve a problem we all
have. Anyway, thanks for the perspective guys.

On broken stuff, one of the benefits of a local marketplace like FOBO is that
you get to see the items before the seller is paid. On eBay, the quality
varies widely, and sellers seem to take advantage of that often. Hopefully
FOBO is a big step forward.

------
eli
I predict they will have to deal with a lot of fraud especially while they are
guaranteeing prices sight-unseen.

What happens if the the item isn't what I say it is? Can the buyer get their
money back? What if the item is perfect but the buyer _claims_ there's
something wrong with it and issues a chargeback?

The reason I don't sell electronics on eBay is because there are a crazy
number of scam artists who know how to exploit the safeguards. In my last eBay
sale (for all time), a guy bought my old cell phone, claimed it was broken,
and then mailed me back a _different_ broken phone of the same model. That is
a difficult threat to guard against. Based on their site, I'm not convinced
they've spent nearly enough time thinking about this... they are not just
connecting buyers and sellers; they are going to be on the hook for any
chargebacks.

~~~
byoung2
_a guy bought my old cell phone, claimed it was broken, and then mailed me
back a different broken phone of the same model. That is a difficult threat to
guard against._

Maybe for electronics there should be a way to record the serial number and
require the buyer and seller to confirm that the serial number matches the one
on record for the transaction at the time of delivery. That would at least
reduce the chance that someone would try to return a different item.

~~~
philip1209
I'd probably include a photo of the serial number in the sale images

~~~
eli
I had a photo of the serial number -- the scammer swapped the sticker!

~~~
rdl
I use usps when I ship amazon orders, and would have contacted the postal
inspectors about felony mail fraud.

------
ed
Incidentally this happens to be built on Parse and Stripe; two amazing
companies which cut out a HUGE chunk of work for us. Happy to talk about
either, in particular we've done a lot of work on Parse and have built a bunch
of neat extensions to the platform.

~~~
rahilsondhi
Is Parse a "write once, export for all platforms" type thing? If so, how come
you only have an iPhone app and not Android?

~~~
ed
It's not. Parse just replaces your backend, you'll still need to write
dedicated clients for Android, iOS, etc.

------
pc
I used FOBO to sell a bunch of stuff I'd had lying around for ages. It worked
great. Highly recommended.

------
jmduke
Their about page is certainly interesting:

[http://www.fobo.net/about/](http://www.fobo.net/about/)

~~~
bowlofpetunias
So their about page tells us they are douchebags that like to mess with
epileptics.

~~~
jonsterling
We've slowed this down a bit, thanks for catching this. Each frame now lasts
.33 seconds, which appears to be the safety threshold for photosensitive
epilepsy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy#Web_de...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy#Web_design)

Thanks again!

------
plusbryan
I've been on the service for a few months and find it really helpful. I've
sold a ton of unused gadgets through fobo that I was always too lazy to post
on craigslist.

------
jacobheller
The about page is hilarious:
[http://www.fobo.net/about/](http://www.fobo.net/about/)

Not sure, however, it will help build trust in the brand :)

~~~
arkitaip
They seem to be hosted on Github too.

------
changdizzle
I was on their beta for awhile, and it was really cool until they started the
later versions that were mainly focused on selling electronics - seemed like
there was never anything available - anytime I opened it it was just a list of
sold items. Hopefully this public launch changes that, but I will say their
emails to me were always interesting enough that I never unsubscribed!

------
codegeek
I am all up for a fast way to buy/sell electronics off ebay and craigslist. So
in that sense, this is a good alternative to try. Some of the issues that I
see upfront:

\- Ebay prices. Is it just me or ebay average price is really not a good
indicator ? Yes ebay has cheap auctions but at the same time, there are a lot
of "buy it now stuff" that is sometimes overpriced. How does it compensate for
that ?

\- "No shipping". That is a little misleading because even though there is no
shipping, a physical meeting is necessary at the seller's preferred time/place
according to them. So how does that make it any better than no shipping in
terms of convenience ? Unless I am missing the point.

\- One personal thing. It is 2014 and yes apps are the thing but there is no
web version at all ? What if I want to browse through the listings and sitting
on my computer? I guess i understand the point that the mobile part makes it
fast/easy but personally, I would prefer a web version as well (unless it is
in works)

~~~
michaelt
Presumably the idea is the buyer places the money in escrow with FOBO, and
when the buyer and seller meet the buyer uses the app to confirm the item is
as described, and the seller to see the payment has been released from escrow,
then the seller receives the money a day or so later.

This would deal with certain problem cases like 'buyer tries to haggle', 'item
not as described', 'buyer paid online but seller doesn't show up', 'buyer robs
seller of item', 'seller robs buyer of money' and so on.

If you need a smartphone to be able to use the service, it would be logical to
make the app first. I agree a website for browsing would be nice.

~~~
cshimmin
I suppose with FOBO we can add: 'buyer robs seller of smartphone' and 'seller
robs buyer of smartphone' to the list ;)

------
jsumrall
Glad I read the whole article, because at first I thought it was not very
interesting given that craigslist works ok. But the in app payment handling is
an awesome feature.

------
szypetike
Its interesting how this problem of payments is basically non-existent in
Hungary. People are used to using escrow and getting paid after delivery. Not
to say that this app wouldn't work in Hungary but the cultural differences
would certainly slow its virality. I love the bitcoin points made before me,
and I too believe that accepting them would be a great move given the media
hype and its functional overlap. In addition, I don't feel its crucial to
solve payments for an app like this. Rather partnering with other solutions
makes more sense in my head. I'd love to hear what inspired the FOBO team to
develop a solution of their own. Also shouldn't there be a more generic
solution to the second hand market? Fobo team, I would love a comment on why
electronics (I'm sure you guys did testing but did you compare focused to non
focused or you just compared across focus categories)? Also, why wait so long
and release such a full app versus doing something simpler as a start?
Altogether great job and congrats!

~~~
ed
For your last question Joseph Walla wrote a great story on our development
process:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7038287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7038287)

As for electronics, the simple answer is most consumer devices have a well-
established price on other markets, making it easy to guarantee prices without
significant risk.

------
jotm
The best marketplace for local deals is surprisingly... Facebook. Safer than
Craigslist, you deal with people you know (if only through friends or their
profile) and you don't need to risk your money as a buyer or your items as a
seller.

Fobo's initial price is also iffy if you're selling a customized item...

~~~
vegashacker
Is there a particular Facebook app you use, or is it more a status update kind
of thing: "Hey, any takers for my old iPhone 4" ? I guess that would work for
a one off thing. But selling stuff to my friends I feel that I have to give
them an exceptional deal. And I wouldn't want to pollute everyone's feed with
a bunch of items.

~~~
jotm
Nope, just local groups, there's plenty of them everywhere. Not as convenient
as a dedicated app/website, but it's good enough for occasional deals...

------
rdl
I like the idea and might sell stuff, but am reluctant to buy used electronics
except from known entities, particularly for items like cellphones.

Carrier and Apple blocks for stolen items can make your purchase worthless. I
wish Apple could implement a "safe transfer" process for items, using your
Apple ID, to verify the seller is legitimate and transfer title irrevocably to
the buyer.

I met one of the Apple security guys at 30c3 and this kind of thing seems to
fit with how they view customers , too.

Third party sale sites should be allowed to participate, especially as
innovation like fobo wouldn't come freon a big company, but the transfer of
"title" really needs to be solved by phone manufacturers and/or carriers.

------
roycehaynes
I really like this idea. I do think creating a marketplace is a hard thing to
do, especially in this space. Cragislist is the 'default' in this space, and
doesn't really deserve to be. Hopefully someone can change that soon.

~~~
stass
Why doesn't it?

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glass_of_water
One obvious trick is that people could list items in poor condition to get the
"fair condition" price from FOBO when it doesn't sell.

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steven2012
If this company is acting as an escrow service, don't they have to register
themselves as an escrow agent in order to do that?

------
mcintyre1994
"By now you probably know that Craigslist sucks as a way to sell stuff...But
somehow, no one has figured out a way to make it better or provide a real
alternative."

Sorry, what am I missing that is stopping Ebay being an alternative for
selling stuff? Fobo sounds great and everything, but no alternative to
Craiglist for selling stuff?

------
ToastyMallows
Only in SanFran and only on Apple. Couldn't even test it if I wanted to :(

~~~
hnriot
everything has to start somewhere, so why not SF, makes sense to me. And
iPhone is a sort of screening process i suspect. Android being the cheap
option offers less screening. Besides in SF the iPhone is the dominant mobile
platform. It all makes sense.

However, I'm sticking with CL because I mostly buy/sell long tail items
(vintage cameras) and CL works just fine for me.

------
anigbrowl
Hmm, no web? Not ideal, though it makes some sense to start on IOS. But
limiting it to mainstream items and relying on eBay for price metrics doesn't
seem like a sustainable business model to me.

------
ryanobjc
I was going to give this a shot, but 20% off a hot commodity such as Macbook
Air was too much for me, so abandoned it.

~~~
ryanmickle
Hey Ryan, Ryan from FOBO here. Totally agree with the hot commodity that is a
MB Air (they are followed by 700 users already in SF). This said, you may be
surprised by the results. We had a MacBook Pro Retina sell for 170% of what we
guaranteed for it the other day, just while in beta.

------
mmayberry
is this the same team behind yardsale?

~~~
roycehaynes
Yup - a whois on the domain indicates Ryan Mickle of Yardsale Inc is part of
this.

