

Ask HN: Review my startup: Send Handwritten Thank You Notes to Your Customers - kstealth25

I'd really appreciate your feedback on my project, ThankThank Notes. http://www.thankthanknotes.com/<p>What, Why and How<p>ThankThank Notes help businesses send handwritten thank you notes to their customers efficiently. Customized, handwritten notes are truly remarkable in this age of IMs and emails. But who has time to sit down and write them? ThankThank Notes physically handwrites your notes and mails them out. Using a web app, you dictate a message and who you want to send notes to. An army of staffers then handwrites, hand-addresses, stamps and mails out your handwritten notes.<p>Where We Think We're Going<p>An API or plug-in that will automate the sending of handwritten thank you notes within your current workflow
More information is here: http://www.thankthanknotes.com/recurring-notes<p>In trying to stay lean, we're looking for 10 lighthouse customers that will say "Yes, I want an API/plug-in from ThankThank Notes; I’ll spend 30 minutes telling you what I want; and I’m willing to pay $3 a note to send notes to my customers for 3 months" before we actually build the technology above and beyond the minimum viable product that we have out there today.<p>Specific Questions<p>1. Would you use an API/plug-in to automate the sending of handwritten thank you notes to your customers? A "no" won't hurt my feelings.<p>2. If yes, what features would be absolutely critical to you (i.e. I'd have to be able to indicate the gender of the handwriting or I wouldn't use the service.)?
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thetylerhayes
1\. An API/plug-in: no. A service where you do most of the work: yes. I.e., I
upload a spreadsheet and you make the magic happen. I don't want to have to do
any extra work than I have to, especially since I'm paying you money. Still,
this would be very valuable (akin to Shoeboxed entering all my receipts
digitally for me).

2\. There's only one feature that is important to me: there must be no doubt
whatsoever that this letter was sent by anyone but me. I'd expand on this but
I think you already have a pretty good idea of what this means and how to
solve for it.

Great use of the Woothemes template by the way. There are definitely some UX
improvements that could be made (see:
[http://www.slideshare.net/shereefb/recommendations-for-
bette...](http://www.slideshare.net/shereefb/recommendations-for-bettermeans)
for tips. Original conversation:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1836538>). But overall you seem to be on
the right track.

As a small business owner, this definitely solves a noticeable pain point. TTN
is a service I would use, at the right price point.

~~~
kstealth25
Thanks so much for your feedback!

1\. Interesting. Uploading a spreadsheet is the minimum viable product that we
have up and working today. 2\. Makes sense 3\. Will definitely get to work on
UX/general website improvements. Really appreciate the link. Sounds like $3 a
note isn't the right price point for you?

~~~
thetylerhayes
As for the $3, two things come to mind:

First, I'm uneducated as to what I would spend if I were to do this myself.
Maybe educate people like me on your website? Something along the lines of
"Nice envelopes, stationery, and postage alone will cost you $2.50." Or
something like that -- this is just a starting point.

Second, if I understand that $3 is a fair price (or you educate/convince me
that it is), it's important that you decide whether $3 is fair for a la carte
or fair for bulk pricing, as it can't be fair for both. I say this because you
are bound to get customers who will want to send 1 note/month, and some who
want to send 1,000/week. And if I were a customer who sent 1,000/week, I would
want to know I'm getting a better price than those sending 1/month.

(BTW, I'd be glad to offer a bit of UX advice if you have some specific
thoughts or questions. Email in profile.)

------
SabrinaDent
1/ Yes. But I'd prefer you make it easy to integrate with my existing systems.
As a stop gap, a web form would be fine; I can probably post to it from my
system for volume transactions, or just fill it out for occasional
correspondence. I am willing to pay in advance for credits or whatever to do
this.

2/ Unless I am misunderstanding something, there's no way I filling out that
three-stage form for every note. Is there not an account feature? (To me, that
is MVP.)

3/ I would totally use this but very likely not at the volume you're looking
for. If I'm going to do this, I would like the option to ship you at my
expense a supply of my own branded notecards to use. If you're using my stock
instead of yours, I do not want you to charge me more to use it - you're
saving on your own paper costs.

4/ International postage?

5/ Your definition of neat writing is different than mine, just as an FYI.

------
uberalex
This is a creative idea, but I have a few suggestions. 1) Penmanship is a key
thing with this, I suppose if it looks too professional that could be a
problem, but the note in the sample seems like the lines are bunched and
skewed. 2) One question that occurred to me is that if I am a company in
location A, if you drop my notes in a postbox they will have the postmark for
your location. Might be worth mentioning that you can send them to me in the
faq as well as the video.

In terms of using the service, I am unsure about the price point, I wonder is
it a little high?

I would be more likely to use it if there were a range of calligraphic as well
as normal handwritten note.

A final thing: what about headed paper / templates? Could be useful for a
company as they often use compliments cards.

Best of luck!

~~~
kstealth25
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! 1\. Good point. I need to upload a few more
samples, especially those that show better penmanship. 2\. Awesome. I'll add
this information to the FAQ page. 3\. What price point would make sense to
you? Interesting. I'm not familiar with compliment cards. I'll have to check
those out.

------
thetylerhayes
Clickable: <http://www.thankthanknotes.com/>

------
tomfakes
Am I the only one here who doesn't like the basic premise of this service?

Why is a handwritten note better than an email? I would argue that it is
because the handwritten note is more authentic and genuine. If you then pay
someone else to write them, then the value is destroyed. You lose the essence
of the 'handwrittenness'

This service also has the ability to backfire on the note sender: If I was to
get one of these, and later find out that it came from some external service
with an API and a pricing plan, I'd be _much more_ annoyed than not getting
anything at all.

------
mr_b
A good target audience would be the students (esp seniors) - sending a thank
you note after an interview.

~~~
ahoyhere
Students are not known for spending on things like this.

~~~
teach
But their mothers are.

Edit: Sorry, I misread the GP comment. I'm a high school teacher, so I
automatically thought of graduating (HS) seniors sending out thank you notes
to those who'd sent a gift.

------
smarterchild
Amazingly, I've met another company working on this - Gracious Eloise. You
might find it worth looking into as you're doing your homework for this.

