
Magic - wittyphrasehere
http://www.getmagicnow.com
======
jonheller
Besides questions about revenue and such, can I just say that I absolutely
love the landing page. No gimmicks, no parallax, no videos, no fake
testimonials, no hero images, no marquees. Just good copy.

Not sure if this is because of how quickly this blew up, but well done.

~~~
cmikec
Thanks! Yeah, honestly, after deciding to launch this we released a really
minimal landing page which I saved here: [http://getmagicnow.com/index-
old.html](http://getmagicnow.com/index-old.html) \- As you can see I made that
in about 20 minutes, and was not expecting this. After someone posted it on
Product Hunt I spent whatever time I could polishing it up. In general though,
I agree, simple websites are much better. Thanks for the kind words.

~~~
bhaumik
Hm, well here's a startling difference between the HN and Product Hunt
community.

The PH comments:

    
    
      This website looks extremely untrustworthy, purely from a design standpoint. I feel a lot of potential users would be put off by this!
    
      Interesting idea. Terrible site design. Unclear if they're charging for this added convenience.
    

[http://www.producthunt.com/posts/magic](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/magic)

~~~
slaction
ProductHunt is just a useless hype machine for starts that don't hold any real
value at all.

~~~
matznerd
Not true, Product Hunt delivers quality traffic, with high-level people who
are hungry for products and convert very well.

~~~
lurcio
I was under the impression a lot of people use it for idea
generation/competitive intel & that (in marketing terms) PH is a (small)
traffic/link hack...

In other words I'd be interested to find anything on the quality of its
traffic.

~~~
slapresta
Hi!

We launched one of those landing-only email-catching product pitches on
Product Hunt and Designer News. It went amazing. We never even topped #1, yet
we got lots of useful feedback and more than five hundred emails of potential
customers, some of them high-profile (think @google.com or @abc.com)

------
zaroth
I love the idea, and the execution, but just one nit -- you say "no hidden
fees", but I think bundling the fee into the total price is the definition of
_a hidden fee_. If your examples itemized the fee it would be a different
story. Other comments here express a similar anxiety, e.g. how much [extra] am
I actually paying for this?

Also, I know you're busy, but FYI CA state law requires you have a Privacy
Policy. I would like to know how long you retain records and who you are
sharing them with before doing business with you!

~~~
freehunter
Well it's not hidden because they tell you up front, before the order is
placed, how much it will cost. If they told you $20 and asked for $25 when
they got there, that would be a hidden fee. Like AT&T saying you can get cable
for $20/mo, but your cable bill always ends up being $32.88.

~~~
avn2109
Getting someone to push back on ATT bill errors would be an amazing feature if
Magic could make it work.

~~~
bgodlove88
We're happy to call ATT on your behalf :) Try us out!

~~~
nezumi
The last time I had a problem with ATT I had to make multiple calls and spent
over an hour in total on hold. How would you charge for that?

I'd have gladly paid for someone to take that pain away. There's probably a
viable business model in there somewhere if someone can independently put a
competent customer service layer in front of companies like ATT.

~~~
dkfmn
There's a service that will negotiate with them to reduce your bill. I
remember reading about them last year, it's some Berkeley MBA who likes to
practice negotiation, he might handle this too:

[https://www.cabletipster.com/](https://www.cabletipster.com/)

~~~
tommoose
This looked quite interesting and useful right up until it asked me if I
/really/ wanted to close the page.

That's very poor negotiation in my books.

------
cmikec
Hey everyone - this is insane. My friends and I created Magic a few days ago
as a side project and it's completely blown up by accident since then. We're
getting stormed with messages and orders.

We thought we'd launch it ourselves later if it did well, and other people
have been posting it on Product Hunt, Reddit, HN themselves...

I'm here to answer any questions, although we've hardly slept!

~~~
daxelrod
Are you OK with people using Magic for things that don't result in a purchase?
Something like "Is the 4:30 train from Greenwich to NYC late?" or "What hours
are my local DMV office open?"

"Anything you want" makes it sound like people can use it like they'd use
Siri.

~~~
peteretep
There was a UK service called AQA that would answer questions for £1 back in
the mid 2000s. They started off super super useful, but quality degraded
enough as they scaled that it was no longer worth it. Used to be able to say
"which shops in a 20 mile radius have xus in stock", or "who should I complain
to about the service in xyz bar" and get great answers, but as they automated
it more and more you'd just get back vague info

~~~
LeoPanthera
I was briefly an AQA employee. You were paid per question, so all you really
cared about was how quickly you could send an answer and move onto the next
question. The quality of the answer didn't matter, unless the customer
complained and got a refund, which virtually never happened.

~~~
dsuth
Poor metrics win again!

------
gosmart4u
I discovered this through a Facebook thread that has a ton of comments on it
from non HN or techie peeps. Thought you might want to know what normal non-
techies think.

"I think it is a great idea that has potential but I personally wouldn't use
them because I can't find anything about them on the website. Looks like a
scam."

"They need to re-design their website so it doesn't look like it was slapped
together in 10 minutes and add an about page so we know who they are."

"Not even a business at this point."

"This stuff kind of annoys me actually. I get the minimal product concept to
test the market but when stuff like this is pushed out there it makes
consumers very wary."

"These guys will take this to some bay area VC's and probably get funded
because it blew up on Reddit and HN with a bunch of other techies. Meh!"

"It is going to take some serious $$ to get a service like this going. The
support alone for handling inbound texts and having reps look for and book
deals is a very big undertaking."

"Yay! Another useless service that creates more low wage service jobs that
cater to the wealthy."

~~~
Anderkent
>"Yay! Another useless service that creates more low wage service jobs that
cater to the wealthy."

... What.

This just doesn't compute. In what mindframe does this ever make sense as a
complaint? If you're creating new jobs, even if they're low wage, you're just
giving people more choice - they can now work at one more place than before,
no one's forced into that, it literally can't do harm. And direct transfer of
wealth from the wealthy to the poor is a positive, right?

I'm so confused.

~~~
acjohnson55
I think that's a bit naive. In the micro, one new task economy startup might
be a net gain, all other things being equal, but if it's part of a macro trend
where skilled jobs are disappearing and being replaced with commodity task
work, we might be sliding down a dangerous slope. Your final question sound
kind of like the slightly more extreme argument that yacht factories enrich
otherwise unemployed people. To me, that argument always rang hollow because
how much wealth is really being transferred when demand for such things is
fundamentally limited. I think ideally you want a broad base of jobs that can
actually provide people with a middle class livelihood.

~~~
jdmichal
In addition to all this, let's be clear. The only wealth being "transferred"
here is that of the minimum wage to workers. Everything else is making someone
else rich, likely already rich investors.

------
exogen
I just decided to try this out in Seattle. Here's how it went!
[http://brianbeck.com/images/magic.png](http://brianbeck.com/images/magic.png)

(the minimum was from the sushi place, not Magic)

~~~
CPLX
This is horrible compared to my daily experience using Seamless. Why would a
person craving sushi want to exchange 8 text messages and then click on a web
link and get sushi 2+ hours later?

~~~
fastball
They had to click a web link because it was their first time using the service
so they had to add their credit card. How else are they supposed to charge
you?

~~~
CPLX
Well right. But my description of the experience still stands. It doesn't seem
like an improvement.

------
sinwave
This reminds me of an opinion that I have which I've been looking for an
opportunity to flesh out and share. Despite all of the research and
engineering that's gone into the user interface (and "experience") of
smartphones, text messaging as an interface has one massive advantage: the
perceived cost of sending a text is _miniscule_ in comparison to other
operations. I don't have units, but it's probably an order of magnitude lower
in any reasonable ones.

Maybe I'm projecting onto "the general public" when I make this
generalization, but performing operations on a smartphone (aside from
call/text) are oft accompanied by the very real risk of squandering your time
away. Especially when a browser is involved.

There is something elegant about the interface of a dumb phone, especially a
flip phone: You pull it out of your pocket, whip it open, type your text, send
it. And then crucially, you _flip it closed and stop thinking about it_. This
is the key. You're using it when you're using it, and you're not when you're
not.

Even grander generalization and possibly controversial opinion: I hope that
consumer technology begins to cater more to those of us who wish to use
technology in this way - as a tool that you pull out of your pocket and
promptly put away upon achieving your ends.

~~~
tree_of_item
Yes! More along these lines:

[https://usv.com/post/an-idea-about-texting](https://usv.com/post/an-idea-
about-texting) [https://www.ouvre-boite.com/messaging/](https://www.ouvre-
boite.com/messaging/) [https://medium.com/@chrismessina/conversational-
commerce-92e...](https://medium.com/@chrismessina/conversational-
commerce-92e0bccfc3ff) [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109389515411/your-phone-
interfa...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109389515411/your-phone-interface-is-
a-legacy-train-wreck) [http://dangrover.com/blog/2014/12/01/chinese-mobile-
app-ui-t...](http://dangrover.com/blog/2014/12/01/chinese-mobile-app-ui-
trends.html#chatasui) [http://www.nngroup.com/articles/anti-mac-
interface/](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/anti-mac-interface/)

A text based or "messaging" UI is often simpler _and_ more effective than
fumbling with some complicated direct manipulation UI.

------
gmisra
Do you know what would really be magical? An on-demand service that provided a
guarantee that all of the humans involved were beneficiaries of living wages,
unemployment and workers comp protection, health insurance etc. I really enjoy
the convenience these services provide, but ultimately that's all it is -
convenience. To me, no convenience is worth watching an entire class of people
get 1099-ed into poverty, at the expense of the social safety net that so many
people struggled to establish.

When I discuss these issues with my peers (I live in the SF Bay Area), I find
that many of them share my concerns, to varying degrees. Does anybody know if
such a service exists?

~~~
tghw
I think this sentiment comes from the notion that employers should be the
basis of the social safety net, which I find odd. Employers will never fully
serve this role. It's relying on organizations (corporations usually) to make
the trade off between profit and employee well being, two things that are
almost always at odds.

It seems to me that it shouldn't matter where your income comes from, the
social safety net should be there regardless. The ACA was a step in that
direction by requiring people self insure if the did not get that benefit from
their employer. I think we need to go even further and separate safety net
benefits from employers. Then people would be able to choose whether they want
the job security of a W-2 position or if they prefer the flexibility of a 1099
position without having to sacrifice the safety net.

(Side note: I'm a 1099 contractor who self insures. I have a lot of difficulty
imagining going back to a W-2 job.)

~~~
bbayles
Right on. If we as a society want to help those whose skills don't command a
high monetary value in the market, we should pay for that help as a society
(through taxes)!

------
cmikec
Wow, everyone! This is truly amazing. We released Magic under 48 hours ago as
an experiment and a side project, and now the traffic and requests are
streaming in faster than we can handle.

Don't worry - we have a plan to handle it. For now we are closing down free
registrations so that we can focus on delivering the product to the awesome
people who have signed up so far and who are using the service.

I've replaced the phone number on the page you see here with an email opt-in
waiting list where you can sign up to be notified when Magic is available to
you.

In the meantime, I have added a Stripe button for $20 after the email opt-in
where you can gain access now if you want to get in right now.

Thanks everyone!

~~~
frevd
Well, but you forgot that you posted a link to your old page version, which
still shows the phone number :], or did it change?

How could you create a solution like this in less than 2 days? Training
operators (who where how many, paying a call center?), how are you managing
customer data together with those operators etc. Sounds like a logistic
nightmare to me, unless you and 10 friends are sitting day and night in your
apartment..

------
aresant
This is exactly what Siri should be.

Apple has 800m credit cards on file (1)

In one fell swoop Apple could own the local delivery market, shocking how
perfect of a concept / execution this is.

(1) [http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-on-file-apple-
vs...](http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-on-file-apple-vs-
amazon-2014-4)

~~~
zak_mc_kracken
The very fact that Apple has 800M credit cards on file is the reason why they
know better than offering a service like this.

Even if 10% of their users started using their service to require "magic",
there is no way in hell even a company like Apple could scale an operation
like this that's bottlenecked by humans.

~~~
TylerE
Why not? 80m users is probably in-line with what some of the larger banks and
insurance companies deal with. They're big call centers, but we're not talking
entire cities here.

~~~
Artemis2
A concierge service is a lot more intensive than responding to the clients of
a bank.

If Apple did this at their scale, they would probably end up very quickly
having an (hopefully public) API for every business around, rather than having
their agents call the same restaurant 10 times a day. That would really be a
revolutionary way to consume.

~~~
JosephRedfern
Sort of like Just-Eat? [http://www.just-eat.co.uk](http://www.just-eat.co.uk)

------
darrelld
Loving the simplicity of it all. I just need to text a number. No app to
install and grant access to my phone, no website to go and sign up to with my
facebook account. Nothing.

Just text a number and get what I want. It solves my problems by giving a path
of least resistance to getting what I want. A company doing a similar thing
was handing out fliers over the summer and they had an app to install. I
thought the idea was cool but never got around to installing it.

I just added this phone number to my contact list for when I'm reading to use
it.

~~~
cmikec
Thanks. Please let me know how you like using it. That's exactly what we were
going for, and I hope that the experience persists throughout.

~~~
gk1
Just want to chime in that I also think having a number to text is more
convenient than using an app that I'd surely forget about within days.

------
swandive
Idea to scale:

As a non-coder, I love reading the responses of programers here. "Automate
this!" "There is no way to scale." "This needs AI."

As an outsider looking in, my idea to scale is similar to Uber. Have workers
that can sign on to work whenever they have the time. The workers handle the
orders and receive a cut of the fee you charge. It would be great if you could
have some kind of rating system where the consumer could choose who they work
with, but I'm not sure how to make that happen with SMS.

I'm not saying this is better or more cost efficient than automation. I just
see it as a solution to their current problem.

Uber is looking to automate, but check out their current valuation. They can
afford to do so all by scaling with humans.

I'll now wait to get hammered by HN. :)

~~~
kitcar
You're basically describing ODesk, Elance, Mechanical Turk, etc... Not saying
this execution will/won't work, but there are lots of firms that seemed to
have make it work to solve a similar / the same problem set.

~~~
k__
Things like Mechanical Turk are just creating minimum wage jobs and we were
better of without them, I think.

Magic will create many call-center like jobs...

~~~
nazgob
Call-center jobs in US are not minimum wage?

~~~
stanmancan
Not in Canada. I work in telecommunications and technical support starts at
$17/h. Sales starts at $12/h I think plus commission. Lots of sales reps in
our call centres are easily clearing $50k a year. Everyone gets full extended
health benefits. Minimum wage is around $10.25 I think?

~~~
nazgob
Good to know, thanks!

------
everyone
Does no one else consider the idea of this horribly decadent? They give as an
example, ordering a delivery pizza for you, which is already a decadent
activity and something you can accomplish with a single phone call anyway.
Maybe for the rich high-flying silicon valley types, your time and brain space
is so valuable that this service makes sense. But if that is the case maybe
you should re-examine your lives.

~~~
scrollaway
This isn't interesting because of pizzas. This is interesting because of the
potential to centralize and offload all decisions of a certain type. It's like
a pay-per-use secretary.

What I do find.. "decadent"... is people like you, judging masses of other
people on the basis of what they find interesting or useful. Especially when
you can't see past the low hanging fruit and aren't able to grasp any
potential a service might have.

Piece of advice: If a majority of people are interested and finding use in a
service, re-examine your own evaluation skills before telling everyone else to
re-examine their lives.

~~~
UVB-76
A service like this simply isn't economical for the overwhelming majority of
people.

If you perceive your time to be so valuable that you can't bear the five
minutes it takes to order a pizza online or by phone, you probably should re-
examine that valuation.

Especially when five minutes ordering exactly what you want directly from your
preferred supplier is replaced by a fifteen minute exchange with a stranger
who has to interprets vague inputs, has misaligned incentives, doesn't know
any of your preferences beyond those you expressly state, etc. all of which
you then pay a premium for...

~~~
nzp
My first thought was that if your time and effort really is so valuable that
it economically makes sense to use a service like this one, then you probably
can afford and should have a real concierge/personal assistant. It seems to me
this hinges on an emotional (i.e. economically irrational) need of (upper?)
middle class people to _feel_ rich and too “important”. Which is actually not
a bad business model at all, tapping into people's feelings. It's actually one
of the best things to base a business on.

But I could be wrong. Maybe there's a sweet spot in the price-utility ratio
where this makes sense for people who are not technically rich and busy
maintaining the wealth. It's interesting.

------
pinklegs
From someone who's tried and failed: performing a large amount of high-quality
labor for cheap is not a sustainable business model in the West, and riding
hype can make you oblivious to that fact.

That said, I do hope this team has some amazing trick under their sleeves that
has eluded everyone else, because I do want this service to exist.

~~~
practicalpants
Agreed, this has obviously got some nice buzz, but never would I want to be
the person having to run this business.

Lots of manual work for little fees. They could hire/ outsource, but the
quality will drop and prices will hike.

They might be able to find a niche of people willing to pay a lot for simple
things they could probably do easily themselves (like ordering food, or
booking a flight), and use that extra money to outsource, but something tells
me that market is pretty small.

It's interesting, I'm curious to see if this can turn into a company.

~~~
sly010
I guess beause it's SMS they can you employ machine learning and simple
classification, and internal tools to automate whatever is requested the most.
Requests that require manual work will probably cost a little bit more. They
also seem to pass requests down to backend providers, which you can probably
do very cheaply.

~~~
practicalpants
I couldn't disagree with this characterization more. They will need human
intelligence overseeing the majority of the cases, and those that they try to
automate will be fraught with difficulty and take a long time to iron out.
Even the examples I've seen posted of people using it so far would not have
been able to be automated and required extended conversations.

(And just in general stuff that is actually easy to automate will mean a ton
of middle men already exist to make it easy, or more likely, the person could
just do it themselves quickly)

The founders can either outsource to someone for as cheap as they can manage
and target clients who don't care about likely significant middleman fees (and
who are most likely on the lazy side), or they can spend all of their
attention each day doing these little tasks for people.

Since it was a whimsical side project, as they described it, I imagine this
will go on for a little while longer, but then they will wind it down and/or
maybe try to sell it like the glitter envelope guy who didn't want to do all
the work, and then have something quite nice for their resumes, plus some PR
to go towards their next project.

------
sjwright
Arthur C. Clarke famously said _any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic._ This maxim has proven robust over decades. But
now are we now so used to interacting with layers of technology and automation
that sufficiently trained _humans_ could seem in any way magical?

I don't agree, but a scary indictment if it were true.

Clever business name though.

~~~
cmikec
I love this quote. Thanks for reminding me of it! :) For me, the "magic"
refers to the magic moment that I experienced when we prototyped this
internally. Despite the power of today's on-demand services, I've always felt
them to still be rather frustrating. Sometimes the drivers cancel, they get
lost, you still have to manage them. We tested this by delivering the product
to each other internally, handling all the annoyance of dealing with these
services behind the scenes. The result feels like magic. Just text in what you
want...and it appears.

~~~
aaronem
This is what used to be called "concierge service". You can still get it with,
for example, high-end American Express cards, or from firms which specialize
in providing it.

Judging by the examples on your site, you've succeeded in bringing concierge
service to (sorry) the masses, by pricing it much lower than competing
offerings.

Congratulations! You have a highly viable MVP. Good luck scaling it out!

~~~
jsmeaton
My Credit/Debit card offers concierge service but I've never used it. I'd have
to find the number (or put it in my phone..), then speak to an operator, and
then trust that they could deliver on what I expect.

This service is based on SMS though, and I'd presume they hold all the
pertinent info (address, credit card etc) so that I wouldn't have to keep
repeating it. I'd still have to trust that I get what I want, but the crucial
_speaking to an operator_ component is reduced to a fire and forget SMS. I'd
use this if I was in the States.

~~~
jmilloy
I don't follow you

> My Credit/Debit card offers concierge service but I've never used it. I'd
> have to find the number (or put it in my phone..), then <text> an operator,
> and then trust that they could deliver on what I expect.

> This service is based on <calls> though, and I'd presume they hold all the
> pertinent info (address, credit card etc) so that I wouldn't have to keep
> repeating it. I'd still have to trust that I get what I want, but the
> crucial <texting> an operator component is reduced to a fire and forget
> <call>. I'd use this if I was in the States.

~~~
jsmeaton
My Credit Card company doesn't do text based concierge service. I would have
to call them. The _making a phone call_ is the bit I don't like. I haven't
used the service so I have no idea what to expect with regards to storing
details etc.

The landing page for Magic shows me exactly what I could expect, and it's
based on SMS.

What's not to follow?

~~~
jmilloy
You mentioned

\- having to find the number (or put in in your phone), and

\- trust that they could deliver on what I expect

\- I'd presume they hold all the pertinent info

Yet those three things are identical whether you use magic or your CC
concierge service!

So you might as well have just written

> My Credit/Debit card offers concierge service but I've never used it. I
> don't like talking on the phone, but I don't mind SMS.

------
INTPenis
Is this really new in the states? In sweden we've had these numbers called 118
100, or 118 118 where it costs relatively much to call in but they can take
care of a lot of things for you.

For example since my company pays for my phone I tend to use them for things
like getting a taxi wherever I am. "I want a taxi in X city". And they can do
this via SMS or phone call, they can send the reply via phone or via sms if
you want, included in the service charge.

Essentially they can do what magic claims, with operators standing by 24/7,
for a service fee that comes from your phone operator.

We've had this in Sweden for many, many years now. I don't even remember how
long but I know that some time 6-7 years ago they started advertising that you
could call them (or text them) about any stupid question you might have and
they would try to answer it.

If this magic really is new to the states then I predict it will explode just
like our swedish alternatives have here.

~~~
roel_v
Do they handle payment? When I lived in Belgium there were a few services like
what you describe (2000-2001 ish), but they were all basically glorified
Yellow Pages - they'd find and call a service provider for you, but from there
on out you were on your own. Also don't bother sending them a list like '6
eggs, a gallon of milk and a pair of black socks', which it seems this service
does cater for.

~~~
INTPenis
No you can't make purchases through them, and you can't store information with
them.

The only type of payment involved is the service fee when you call the number.
Other than that they look up information for you, or answer questions for you.
Like a google phone operator.

------
btilly
Sounds like _General Services_ from the story _We Also Walk Dogs_. See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs)
for the story.

I'll bet they don't invent antigravity devices though! :-)

------
downandout
I created a service very similar to this about 2 years ago and no one cared.
Given my experience, I'm stunned (but happy) to see so much praise for this.
Anyway, congratulations....looks like you have that right time/right
product/right place thing going on. How do you intend to monetize? If I buy a
pizza, do you charge me directly (a premium) and then pay Domino's et al? How
many people do you have to handle the deluge of texts? Do you intend to seek
affiliate relationships with local merchants where you can't charge a known
fee up front (for example, where someone says "Dude, I need a plumber ASAP!")?

------
possibilistic
This is the most amazing startup I've ever seen on HN. There's no app, there's
nothing to install.

I need Magic in my life. I hate ordering, filling out forms, etc. Pease scale
this thing hard and fast. This is Uber-level fantastic. Better than that,
even.

------
dirtyaura
Have you thought about chargeback risks? I.e. when you hit mass-market there
will be a non-trivial number of attempts in which customer cancels the payment
to you after receiving the ordered product on the basis that it was not what
he ordered. It seems that it can be quite a mess to figure those situations
out due to suppliers being so varied.

~~~
weixiyen
it's probably way too early to worry about that, they just need to grow and
deal with actual issues that are coming up today.

------
frostnovazzz
My first thought to this is: How is it going to scale? This requires human
labor to be behind every service requests!

And then I was reminded of Uber. Isn't Uber in the same sort of service model
that requires a human driver for every request, but is doing super successful?
(let's not talk about regulation.)

The more I think about it, the more it appears a good business model. It
definitely helps users save time and worry, and as demand is growing, it can
simply hire more trained service men, and creates huge job opportunities.

This is a platform that enables/accelerates service to people by people. I'm
optimistic of its future.

~~~
weisser
Eventually Uber will fire all drivers and replace them with self-driving cars.
In many ways Uber is currently doing things that don't scale with regard to
relying on humans to drive customers. Eventually the cost-intensive humans
won't be needed and Uber will grow massively.

I could see this happening in many business models. Obviously Magic may fail
entirely (it appears to be pretty much just an idea currently) but I could see
AI replacing the human components.

I'm not sure how I feel about all of this.

~~~
frostnovazzz
Or maybe Magic could pivot to serve a few niches that AI serves well, e.g.
food ordering, tickets/flight/hotels booking, etc.

------
mik3y
Looks like an even more minimal version of WunWun
([https://www.wunwun.com/](https://www.wunwun.com/)), which is a "write some
unstructured text and we'll dispatch it" app, in NYC and SF. They hire and
manage their own couriers tho.

~~~
cmikec
We also handle things that WunWun doesn't, like booking plane tickets, making
reservations, paying bills, etc.

------
DarrenMills
This is a shadow, a hint of what AI and machine learning will bring us.

~~~
gamegoblin
I imagine if this thing sticks around, they'll eventually be able to automate
simple things like the pizza ordering and whatnot. I imagine it could call
back to a human in case of issues, such as:

Requester: "I want two pepperoni pizzas, one with extra cheese."

AI Response: "I can have 3 pizzas, two pepperoni, and one cheese (with extra
cheese), delivered from Dominos for $24.15"

Requester: "No, I wanted two pepperoni pizzas, with extra cheese on one of
them"

Human steps in after the "no" is detected: "Sorry, I misunderstood your
request, I can get two pepperoni pizzas with extra cheese on one of them for
$16.50 from Dominos"

Requester: "Yes, thanks."

======

It'll just be a matter of time as the automation spreads to less and less
mundane topics.

~~~
waterlesscloud
The first step is just to have backend software make a first pass at the texts
and make suggestions to the rep. As it get better, it increases the throughput
for the human rep. Like most automation, it becomes about making a human more
productive, and that's a lot easier to accomplish.

------
pthreads
They say that they guarantee credit card security by using an HTTPS link. How
is that even security? We don't even know for sure if this is a legitimate
service. What does it matter if they are getting the CC number via SSL or not?

~~~
rodgerd
The credit card paragraphs... did not inspire confidence.

------
gk1
Great idea.

Can we find out how much it costs, or do we just have to trust that the quoted
price for the task isn't too much above actual cost? Or does it not have any
service fees? The site is really vague about pricing.

~~~
cmikec
This is a great question. We are still trying to figure this out right now.
Our vision is to be a service that handles everything - and that means
everything from ordering food, to ordering clothes, to booking a one week's
vacation in St. Thomas. The fees obvioulsy vary. Any ideas you have about
doing this in a more straightforward way would be welcome. For now what we are
doing is thinking about what would be reasonable on the fly. Sometimes it's
more than people think, i.e. if someone wants milk delivered to their house in
Wisconsin, we have to call a local courier, etc. However we've found people
are willing to pay more than you would think, too.

~~~
nzp
My bold suggestion would be to _not_ do what other posters are suggesting
about making pricing clear and itemized. As I've said in another comment, I
think this service mainly fulfills an emotional need, not a rational one (and
that's not bad for a business at all), so make your customers feel luxurious.
Bean counting isn't luxurious. Do exactly what you do now, just handle the
request and state the price. Getting people to think about pricing by having
pricing listed and itemized will just ruin the experience. Besides, people
prone to bean counting will quickly figure out this isn't worth it. Don't be
Amazon, don't race to the bottom. Just find a way to scale your fee estimation
process to stay reasonable enough without bothering your customers with it.

~~~
dandanisaur
Completely Agree with this. Your service is extremely easy to use and your
customers will choose if the price is too much or not.

------
schoen
Can you somehow handle requests that are primarily research questions, that
don't necessarily culminate in an immediate (or an intermediated) financial
translation?

I'm just thinking about requests that ask for a recommendation for a product
or a service that won't be purchased right away (like finding a certain kind
of restaurant with certain parameters, but not getting food delivered from it,
or finding a certain kind of professional service without immediately
contracting for it).

Or for that matter factual questions like "Who won the 2014 Oscar for Best
Documentary Feature?".

Would this somehow look like "I found 3, and I'll tell you about them for $5,
OK?"? Will people be more resistant to paying the fee if the fee is the only
item they're paying, rather than bundled with the price of some other
transaction?

~~~
laxatives
I asked several questions and got decent answers for all of then, sometimes
after they prompted me for some more information. I eventually asked about the
pay structure and they said they would probably start charging me for asking
questions if the volume were high.

------
netcan
This is an example of "execution is everything." People might try this as
novelty. If it gets any traction, there will be millions of imitators. This
won't succeed or fail because of the idea, but because of execution.

This needs to be really awesome to be good, really awesome. So awesome people
get dependant.

------
leemac
I've seen something similar before, very cool idea! My question is from an
operational standpoint, who are the "operators"? Given the side-project nature
of the site, are you up all night answering/ordering these things?

~~~
cmikec
It's safe to say that this is no longer a side project.

~~~
preetnation
=)congrats. care to share what volume looks like?

------
Killah911
This seems a lot like fancy hands, via text messaging. The big difference I
see is that there is no monthly commitment. Since my personal assistant quit,
I've been using Fancy Hands I have been quite delighted by the service. I'd
love to know the model that this business uses. I dug into fancy hands a
little bit and it seems like the operations are not quite so
straightforward(crowdsourcing what the headache of managing employees). When I
first looked through this I assumed this was coded onto fancy hands API. But
given the scaling issues and the pricing structure of this app it probably
isn't.

------
CamperBob2
I can already order pizza and flowers and plane tickets myself. However, if
you could handle requests like:

    
    
       Call Comcast for me and have them configure my Cisco 
       DPC3939B for bridge mode
    
       Go stand in line at the post office and retrieve 
       my package with tracking #xxxxxxxx
    
       My iPhone's screen is cracked.  Take it to the mall 
       and get somebody to fix or replace it, whichever's 
       cheaper.
    
       Bring me some Mongolian BBQ with the following 
       specifications.
    

... I can see this whole "magic" concept going places. :)

~~~
avn2109
Yeah, if you can wrap shleps like this in a painless interface, it would be
_incredible._

I would pay _a lot of money_ for that.

Especially for stuff like "Dispatch someone credible-sounding to stand in line
and negotiate as my agent with large shitty ossified organization X," where X
might be a post office, utility company, embassy, real estate, etc, where
their user experience disrepects my time.

The dev who sits next to me has been trying to buy a house for a month, and he
spends ~50% of his time on the phone with home inspectors, contractors, the
title office and similar, basically telling them trivial facts or
participating in silly naggy negotiations where they're basically gambling
that he won't push back on the twentieth little crappy line item this week.

This is a super-real pain point.

~~~
saraid216
So you're saying that your coworker needs a real estate agent.

Is there a reason, besides money, that he isn't using one? I say "besides
money", because you said you would pay "a lot of money" for it, so you can
clearly afford an agent.

~~~
avn2109
No clue why he's doing it the way he is, and I know nothing about how to buy a
house, but it sure sounds like a pain.

~~~
saraid216
His reason is almost certainly money. An agent's commission isn't
insignificant. It's the opportunity cost of, well... what he's doing.

If he's talking with contractors, he's probably also trying to figure out how
to fix it up or modify it. I didn't need to talk with any contractors at all,
so I don't know whether or not an agent would have helped.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
When we bought our house, the seller paid for our agent as well as theirs.

~~~
avn2109
If the seller is paying for "your" agent, is she really _yours_ in the
incentivized sense?

eg. Zuckerberg's college buddy who fronted the money for early FB servers was
sure that "his" attorneys had his back, right up until they stabbed him,
because they were paid by Zuckerberg.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Being little people, the laws apply to us.

------
louisbird
Am I supposed to tip the delivery guy?

Normally I tip for pizza delivery, Instacart, etc. Do you make sure that's
included for me?

~~~
bgodlove88
Normally we will charge you one overall charge and handle everything including
tipping, but if you prefer to do the tipping yourself then just let us know!

------
iamshariq
Great service for a consumer. But as a business - how do you earn revenue?

~~~
patio11
They're likely using one of the world's oldest business models: "Buy things
for $1, sell them for $2."

~~~
scott_karana
The simplicity of your reply blew mine out of the water. :0

~~~
patio11
I think I stole the quote from the Wire.

~~~
rlander
Yup, love that show.

"Shit is just business, String. Buy for a dollar, sell for two. That’s all it
need be."

Proposition Joe

~~~
inyourtenement
I know a guy who buys cheap cars, fixes them, and resells them. All through
craigslist. But whenever he buys a car, even one he plans to keep for himself,
he immediately lists it with a huge markup. Just today he got an offer for
$3200 on a motorcycle he bought last week for $2000.

~~~
mod
I often think that would be a great gig.

I like fixing things.

But I don't know how to work on cars. So there's that...

~~~
scott_karana
You'd be surprised how much you can learn from a classic Haynes manual. Start
small (changing oil, tires) and you might surprise yourself!

~~~
mod
Yeah, it's partially that I've (so far) had exceptional luck with my vehicles!
In my 15 years of driving I've only had maybe 10 parts changed. I did the
easiest myself--an alternator, a couple of serpentine belts, etc. I sometimes
change my own oil.

Sometimes I don't know enough to diagnose a problem, though, and I take it to
my buddy. He usually does the fix and I watch and help a little, but I don't
know enough about the whole engine and how it all works together, at this
point.

I want to buy a car to take apart and reassemble, but I don't currently have a
space I can do that in. Though it just occurred to me I could get a storage
unit, probably.

------
alansammarone
I love the absurdly simple way this works. That said, maybe there should be
some form of (appropriately simple) authentication on each request, because
what if my phone gets stolen/lost?

~~~
bgvrofg
You could do this: if you enable passcode confirmation, type your pass
anywhere in the text message along with your text confirmation. If you forget,
you get a request to do so.

~~~
MereInterest
Except that text history is usually saved on the phone. If someone has access
to sending texts, they will have access to that as well. It is probably better
to go with phone locking, instead.

That said, I like the passcode idea. I know that caller ID is easily spoofed,
and so I would imagine that the source ID for text messages can be spoofed as
well. Requiring the passcode would prevent this sort of attack.

~~~
wongarsu
The source of text messages is indeed easily spoofed. Most paid services
enabling you to send SMS over the web allow you to set arbitrary sender IDs,
so the cost of entry for spoofing is about $5.

It's not hard to imagine this leading to trouble as soon as you get into the
crosshairs of some internet troll who managed to get your mobile number.

~~~
bgvrofg
Prediction, they will switch to a simple app soon.

------
arthurcolle
This is neat. I like the simple execution, and I'm working on something
metaphorically similar in that I'm using Stripe and other separate Bitcoin
APIs in a similar "amalgamated" way to create a well-rounded application that
does a simple service really well. This gives me the confidence that a
"mashup"-like concept isn't necessarily the downfall of a service, so long as
it provides real value to the end-user.

I wish the Magic team the best!

------
jpalomaki
Maybe one approach is to start by doing everything by hand but then gradually
try to automate things. This would not work for answering questions, but when
it comes to ordering things I would assume majority of orders would fall into
not-so-many categories.

It could be valuable to just record all the transactions and how the agents
filled them. What the customer asked, what kind of questions the agent asked,
did agent Google for the service, what steps did they take on web sites to
perform the order etc. If you have this kind of data for thousands of
transactions that might have some value for Google, Apple or other companies
working to build digital assistants.

For more complex/expensive purchases one added value thing for customer could
be that the agent knows how to find a good deal. There's for example a service
(or maybe just a forum) where people can post their travel plans and airline
ticketing experts compete to provide the best ticket options.

One obvious income source that comes to my mind is affiliate fees and
companies paying for you to introduce them for new customers. This is of
course also difficult one since customers would like you to recommended the
best provider and not the one that pays best affiliate fees.

------
lbr
This looks identical to Jarvis:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351)

~~~
cwyers
Jarvis charges a large upfront fee. This charges per use.

------
jimmytucson

        > We will send you a 128-bit encrypted HTTPS link via SMS that you can click to enter your credit card number. We do not store your credit card number. All payment processing is handled by Stripe.
    

What if one of your operators sends me a link to pay them instead and I never
get what I asked for?

Also, for something people are wary is a scam, saying "be careful what you
wish for" in your first reply is a little bit ominous!

------
davemel37
I see almost no barrier to entry for this idea and as some commentors pointed
out- this has been done before- although today does feel like the right time
to succeed because these other services are maturing.

Why not turn this into an excess capacity market where you enable anyone to
easily offer this service themselves...especially if they have local insights.

This seems like a good way for anyone to Make a few bucks in their free time.

------
Animats
If you've never read it, this is the time to read the Heinlein classic, "We
Also Walk Dogs."[1] This is exactly the business he describes.

[1]
[http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/%5BHein...](http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/%5BHeinlein_Robert_Anson%5D_We_Also_Walk_Dogs%28BookFi.org%29.pdf)

~~~
Udik
From the short story:

"Miss Cormet reflected to herself that the prosperity of General Services and
her own very substantial income was based largely on the stupidity, lack of
resourcefulness, and laziness of persons like this silly parasite"

------
_ZeD_
uhhm... in italy we have this kind of service for years (I remember back in
the '80s when there was still one national telephonic company there was this
number "12" you could call to have infos).

There is now a profusion of heritage (like
[http://www.1240.it](http://www.1240.it),
[http://www.892424.it](http://www.892424.it), etc).

~~~
GFischer
But they got complacent and didn't scale, I guess they missed the boat.

------
atsaloli
I love it! Sounds like Heinlein's "General Services" \-- no job too big, no
job too small.

"Want somebody murdered? Then DON'T call General Services. But for anything
else, call.... It Pays!"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94We_Also_Walk_Dogs)

------
serve_yay
Best app? No app.

------
willidiots
This is crazy, I was just brainstorming about this last week. You're basically
layering concierges on top of remote hands. Awesome!

I'm curious to see what you'll do to handle exceptional cases. I live in the
boonies and am asking for a philly cheesesteak right now.

~~~
zdrummond
So did they deliver?

~~~
willidiots
They offered! They found a "good cheesesteak place" about 30 miles from here
(I believe it) and offered to have someone drive it out to me, but cautioned
it would be very expensive & asked if I wanted them to get a quote. I
declined, not THAT hungry for a cheesesteak tonight, but I'm super happy with
the knowledge & result.

------
jjalan
About a week ago, my team and I also launched a similar service in India -
Genie (www.getagenie.in). I am happy to answer any questions or concerns from
Indian market standpoint. We have built a concierge technology platform that
our crowdsourced Genies (of course we handpick only the best) uses to serve
the customers. We take a bit different route in pricing/offering where we
provide an actual assistant (ofcourse shared and available via text, call or
email) who takes the customer to know personally and provide both reactive
(customer asking for a plumber for example) and proactive (Genie coming up
with ideas on customer anniversary for example) services.

------
fit2rule
The front-end looks awesome.

But will it scale?

To me, the obvious value of your business is in being able to train Operators
up to the Magic corporate standard. If you can do this while growing the
service, you've got a real winner - especially if you put up a web front end
to make it possible to become a Magic operator anywhere in the world. I'd be
quite happy to do this kind of service work from home - as long as I had the
tools to support me, and I think ultimately thats where your real value is
going to be - certainly growing the customer base is valuable, too. But being
able to train/service Operators who can do the job properly is going to be the
key to it all ..

------
nighthawk24
Example screenshots show iMessage, but the number provided supports SMS-text
only.

~~~
r00fus
I can't tell you the number of times I _knew_ the recipient had an iPhone and
it still showed up green on Messages.

------
zak_mc_kracken
I'm curious to know how they can cover the entire US.

Obviously, I realize they can't, I just wonder how often their answer to the
query is "Sorry, we can't do this".

Overall, I think it's a great idea but the fact that it's bottlenecked by
humans will make it very, very hard to scale (and you can already see this as
the web site has a big banner saying the service is currently restricted due
to high demand).

Still, it's clear from the testimonials so far that these guys have their
heart in the right place and they really want to achieve maximum user
satisfaction. Kudos!

~~~
grecy
> _I 'm curious to know how they can cover the entire US._

Because they're just using other services to get you what you want.. i.e.
flowers, groceries, pizza, etc. - they just call a florist/supermarket/pizza
joint/etc. local to the requester.

What examples of requests can you think of that can't be served anywhere in
the US?

~~~
zak_mc_kracken
I understand that but you still need a one to one mapping between customers
and request, even if that request is not ultimately implemented by the person
who picked up the phone.

~~~
waterlesscloud
They'll find a price point that matches the demand with their ability to
supply. The premium involved in using this service is already substantial, so
it's not going to be an everyday thing for everyone.

~~~
zak_mc_kracken
You're missing my point: their service is limited by humans. Every new
customer needs exactly one human to address their needs.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Every new customer needs a few minutes of one human's time. They can hire as
many people as they need as long as customers are willing to pay the cost of
that time. As long as the cost of the humans is something some number of
customers are willing to pay, everything is great.

This is an ancient business model for customer service, so I guess I'm
confused where you're going with this...

------
physcab
Many people here are making the argument that this is more efficient than
opening up an app or going to a UI. However after looking at one poster's
times of actually using the service, it seems like the opposite.
([http://brianbeck.com/images/magic-
times.png](http://brianbeck.com/images/magic-times.png))

For someone who gets really overwhelmed by too many texts, this seems like a
lot of back and forth compared to just googling to find the number of the
restaurant and ordering.

------
keithpeter
Nice idea and like others here I really appreciate the simple plain web page.
Best of luck with it all.

Just a thought for when this begins to scale: vetting of the people ordering
the stuff. They will have names, email, delivery address and an idea of the
income level/lifestyle of the person ordering. I'm assuming credit card
details are on a payment system and not available to the people handing the
requests.

PS: any customers complained about what they got yet?

------
eunger9
Just to sign up (before I asked for anything), the credit card form is for a
$20 initial payment... with no explanation if this goes towards your first
purchase, or not?
[http://i.imgur.com/J5TKJO5.png](http://i.imgur.com/J5TKJO5.png)

Also, they're using a Stripe account managed by this company:
[https://bettir.com](https://bettir.com)

~~~
kolev
Bettir seems to be a product of the same company (Plus Labs).

------
ghshephard
Like Jim Barksdale used to say - there are two ways of making money, you can
bundle or unbundle. Magic is clearly a very clever bundling play.

------
habosa
This looks great! It would be really cool if, in the far future, this service
could make deals to cut out some of the natural 'fee stacking' that occurs. If
you order from magic and magic uses Postmates, you're going to pay a delivery
fee to each service. This will add up to probably 20-30% of the price, but
that's the price of convenience I guess.

------
daxelrod
Great site, and exciting service.

One little nitpick: the blue chat bubbles on the site gave me the impression
you'd be using iMessage for supported phones instead of SMS. (This matters to
me just a bit because I have a limited number of SMSes per month.) I totally
get why you would just stick to SMS.

Still happy to use your service, but it did create just the tiniest bit of
initial dissapointment.

------
bane
I kind of like the idea of a broker service for deliverables. Does this look
for best price or just best effort at fastest fulfillment?

~~~
cmikec
Both. Whichever you like. Just specify.

------
Anisa_Mirza
Congrats to Mike and team for making something people [really] want! I am so
excited for you guys. Can't wait to start using.

------
jordanbrown
Who do I talk to about adding Lugg to the list of services?
[http://lu.gg](http://lu.gg)

------
tomasien
Good idea, you're blowing up so get off this damn forum and go fulfill some
orders. The best to you gents/ladies.

~~~
petercooper
They're doing alright it seems, I got a response within like 30 seconds! :)

------
joshmlewis
I'm curious how they are scaling on the financials side. I'm assuming they are
paying for the things ordered off of their personal CC's and with the sudden
spike in requests and the long delay of getting money back into their account,
I wonder how far they will go.

A blog post after all of it cools down would be a fun read. :)

~~~
waterlesscloud
The users put a card on file with Stripe. Is there a way to use that info
through Stripe to make a payment to the vendor? (and a separate charge to
Magic for the service fee, maybe?)

I assume bitcoin is going through Stripe as well, though if not, that money
could come to Magic more quickly. The problem then is that the vendors likely
don't accept bitcoin...

------
vdaubry
Maybe it's me but i don't feel confident giving my credit card after reading
the home page. After reading the whole page i understand the business but my
first impression was really somewhere between "is this a joke ? / they are
stealing credit card numbers"

Maybe the very cheap design discredit the whole project.

------
zaroth
Holy shit, they flinched! Magic, get your act together. Seriously, do not cut
off potential exponential growth like this. You need to get talented operators
in place and fake it until the AI is ready. Understand your role, you are a
_sales channel_. Make it happen and make it big.

------
aymeric
I do not understand the internet. This type of service has existed for ages.

Why does this one attract so much attention?

------
rkangel
And yet another cool startup I'm going to have to wait to expand to the UK.

Good work guys, and I agree with everything that everyone else said about the
simplicity of your landing page, and the controversial design decision to
actually communicate information.

~~~
Nilef
Don't bother waiting, we made a UK version you can find at askjarvis.co.uk or
by texting "start" to 0115 824 4141

------
rarepostinlurkr
This seems a lot like fancyhands.com; or on its way to trying to become
something like it...

~~~
dbish
That's the first thing I thought when I saw the user scenarios. Fancyhands
charges a monthly fee for a certain number of transactions which can get
pricey.

------
tom-lord
This seems like another one of this startup ideas that will blow up, sell for
$X,000,000 in a few weeks/months, then die as the fad wears off.

Congrats on being so successful so far, but my advice would be to sell out
before the investors loose interest!

~~~
gk1
This is literally day 3 for them... a bit early for the investor talk.

------
rgovind
Just FYI, My company used to offer Les Concierge for something very similar,
until recently. They stopped it because people were not really using the
service. So, inspite of the coolness of the startup, I am skeptical if it
makes money.

------
matdrewin
I love how the Hacker News crowd is consistent over the course of 200 days:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094351)

------
amelius
How would you deal with the following cases?

\- people using the service just to figure out the price of something (and
then declining)?

\- people not being happy with what they got delivered (perhaps rightfully
so), and wanting their money back?

------
rglover
Took a few more minutes than I expected, but it checks out.

[http://f.cl.ly/items/3l3h3j3c0N3Q1h1A2A3O/IMG_3684.PNG](http://f.cl.ly/items/3l3h3j3c0N3Q1h1A2A3O/IMG_3684.PNG)

------
totony
A joke I always had was that startups always have the "we do it so you don't
have to" headline. Applies so perfectly here!

Still, looks like a very nice idea, might try it if I ever need something :)

------
weaksauce
So I ordered a pizza last night(not through your service) and I had to call
them after an hour because it didn't arrive and they misplaced the order. How
would you handle such a situation?

~~~
cmikec
We do exactly what you would do if you're being completely proactive...just
behind the scenes so you don't have to worry about it. We call the pizza
place, call the driver, deal with the annoyance. You just relax and wait for
your pizza.

~~~
azakai
The customer knows if it arrived - do they need to notify you when it does? Or
do all the services notify you? Otherwise, I don't see how you can tell if
it's late and likely got misordered, and you need to contact the pizza place
again.

------
mring33621
OK, I haven't read all the comments yet, and, sadly, when I texted the Magic
number, I was wait listed, but I think this is a great idea and will
definitely use it if prices are fair.

------
ulfw
Those prices. Holy moly. Is everyone in the Bay Area rich these days?

~~~
jes5199
yes.

------
cashierking
Since this is just a middleman to other services, even like instacart, it's
more expensive. I wonder why humans are so lazy nowadays just to get trivial
things done.

------
shawn-butler
What guarantee of customer satisfaction is offered? If your fees are "bundled"
how do you intend to refund in the event of poor service by the final
provider?

------
pmx
Hey just a heads-up - your logo looks very similar to the one Magic FM use -
[http://www.magic.co.uk/](http://www.magic.co.uk/)

------
photoGrant
PRODUCERS. This is huge for producers. Please keep this in mind. A producer on
set who needs something special delivered ASAP will pay a PREMIUM for this
kinda service.

------
zhte415
Like a high speed freight train smashing through a wooden fence with horns
blazing, and speeding on. This is a great idea and really simple execution. I
love it.

------
lostmsu
Great service, guys, but beware of the first waves of fraud.

------
sidcool
Simplicity at its best. Quite stark and simple landing page. Simple service.
Seems like no gimmicks. I would say I am looking forward to give it a try!

------
amelius
If Magic is going to be the one selecting the services, this may cost Google
and others a great deal in ad revenue.

How would they respond to this? Their own meta-service?

~~~
sesquipedalian
Google buys these guys out.

------
photorized
How do you handle support issues - returns, exchanges, credits? Same
mechanism?

Where do you draw the line on "anything"?

Also, this whole thing is April Fool's joke, right?

------
devonoel
Its a neat idea, I'd love to try it. Unfortunately I'm Canadian, so I guess
I'll have to wait for it to grow a bit first.

------
Procrastes
What a great way to boil business down to the essentials. Help people in a way
they value, give them an easy way to pay for it, profit.

------
bussiere
It's a dream project for me this kind of adventure.

If you are lokking for some jack of all trade to help you , or looking for
some one in france.

I'am in ...

Btw good luck.

Bussiere AT gmail.com

------
nileshtrivedi
Just want to point out that such a service wouldn't work in India. The Reserve
Bank of India has stipulated that all "card-not-present" transactions (such as
online purchases) require a secondary authentication (Verified by VISA
password or a grid printed on the back of card). This improves the security
but also pushes the liability to the consumer, given that he is not supposed
to share this secondary password with anyone else.

~~~
evilduck
My impression is that they're buying stuff for you, then charging the user as
a separate transaction that includes the original purchase price plus their
fee.

------
hellbanner
Honestly, "get magic" on the internet sounds like a trap. What is this? I
don't trust the URL :)

------
sesquipedalian
I know it is too early to say, but if I had to guess what the next Google
would look like, it would be this.

------
bcjordan
This could be handy as a Slack chat bot

------
akbar501
I mean this as a genuine compliment: this is an obvious idea...that was hiding
in plain sight.

Good job on seeing it.

------
mike_ivanov
Perfect. Now please come to Canada.

------
protopete
Yet another technology lifted straight out of an anime: Eden of the East
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_of_the_East](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_of_the_East)]
where contestants compete to win a reality game with access to a concierge by
phone backed by a staggering sum of money.

------
Legogris
Cool service, but you should really make it more obvious that it's only for
the USA.

~~~
Nilef
Where are you based?

------
methehack
Has anyone used it? What was that like? How much did they charge to use the
service?

------
pyja
The idea, the execution and the simplicity of the web site are all astonishing
!

------
markbnj
Very cool idea. I wonder if they are crowdsourcing the operator side of it?

------
king_magic
I think this particularly clever and refreshingly simple. I wish you luck!

------
shivaas
looks like you guys blew up and had to limit orders. bummer. would love to
give this a shot as I get my invite! great idea, hopefully the execution is
good.

------
kijiki
How did you get office space at Moffett Federal Airfield?

~~~
walterbell
There seem to be quite a few companies at Moffett Field. Maybe a sublease?

[https://www.crunchbase.com/location/moffett-
field/d32799a0b6...](https://www.crunchbase.com/location/moffett-
field/d32799a0b61c08c58682cccfa008a770)

[http://m.jobs.monster.com/l-moffett-
field,-ca.aspx](http://m.jobs.monster.com/l-moffett-field,-ca.aspx)

[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/topic/moffett-
field/](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/topic/moffett-field/)

------
ilyaeck
How does this service compare to Jarvis or Fancy Hands?

------
chenster
Fewer peeople are using SMS today. In US, WhatsApp is preferred text message
app; In Japan and Taiwan, everyone uses Line while rest of Asia uses WeChat.
Any plan to support those Apps?

------
eunger9
Is there someone available 24/7 to reply?

~~~
bgodlove88
We are always available, though we might be a bit slower during the wee hours.

------
floydeinhorn
Very cool idea. I hope you guys make it big.

------
kingnothing
What differentiates this from Fetch?

------
Alpi
cmikec, how many operators do you have by now? and how many customers?

------
kyledrake
Awesome. Simply brilliant.

------
felipelalli
They just ignored me.

~~~
bgodlove88
I'm so sorry! We're getting ridiculously hammered. Please try us again, or you
can wait while we catch up on everything.

------
benbristow
Is this US only?

~~~
programmernews3
Yeah, the page says

"Q: Where is Magic available?

Anywhere in the US."

------
arb99
This will get abused by fraud really quickly.

------
cashierking
I

------
welshguy
Color me flabbergasted. Props to these guys for launching an MVP and all that,
but seriously - what a value proposition: "Why order online when you can get
someone else to do that for you adding an undisclosed middleman fee?". First
world problems.

------
brianft
When is this coming to Canada eh?

------
brianliou91
Has our society really come to simply throwing money on paying two separate
third parties to order FOOD? I use Magic, to use Postmates, to get Chipotle?!
No offense but I feel like this is the most first world solution I've ever
encountered. Congrats on the success and traffic though and best of luck on
executing.

------
beachstartup
this adds a voice interface to all apps/services that do the fulfillment on
the back end.

now you can safely order food to be delivered when driving home. or laundry
pickup, or whatever.

"siri, text magic, i want a large pepperoni pizza delivered to my home in 1
hour."

~~~
meric
Now we only need Siri to read out how much it will cost.

~~~
daxelrod
Siri will read notifications, including text messages if you say something
like "read that text".

------
comrade1
From some of the comments here it sounds like you're using a long code (phone
number) rather than a short code for your sms messages.

The FCC has been cracking down on the use of long codes in marketing. Not sure
about an app like your's though... But you probably should move to a short
code anyway.

There are also very strong requirements for how opting in, opting out, etc
works.

[http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-
forward/2013/01/02/s...](http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-
forward/2013/01/02/sms-compliance-what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-you/)

------
rickbad
really? not magic. Who's moderating hackers news on the weekend. ?

------
known
408-217-1721 in [https://archive.today/2ZmPj](https://archive.today/2ZmPj)

~~~
weixiyen
This is nice to know but I really think it's a questionable thing to do
considering they specifically want to omit the number from their current
website :/

------
joshmn
I love this idea, but I'm absolutely terrified of the possible implications
from a liability standpoint.

When you guys get slammed with fraud, give me a shout.

------
lawnchair_larry
This is an example of a completely useless title.

------
Kafoury
Perhaps the site's creators will be kind enough to consider the privacy issues
regarding Google Fonts: [http://fontfeed.com/archives/google-webfonts-the-spy-
inside/](http://fontfeed.com/archives/google-webfonts-the-spy-inside/)

~~~
ej_campbell
Google addresses this here:
[https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#Privacy](https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#Privacy)

~~~
Kafoury
From your link: "We do log records of the CSS and the font file requests". _I_
don't trust Google and that's final.

------
muyuu
Haha.

Boom! there goes every single bit of something resembling "privacy" you had.
Magic.

------
webwanderings
> The first time you use Magic, we'll ask for your credit card info, your
> address, etc.

Etc? Really?

------
benwikler
My baby daughter is five days overdue. My three-year-old son keeps asking when
he'll be a big brother. And my wife and I are trying to figure out how we'll
do the grocery shopping—or even focus on a computer screen long enough to shop
online—once we're juggling two kids. When I told my wife about Magic, she
visibly relaxed. This service has huge, huge potential.

