

Show HN: IsThisLost helps you recover lost items like keys and phones - isthislost
http://www.isthislost.com

======
grimtrigger
As someone who is constantly losing things, I love seeing a business in this
space. A couple things holding I don't like:

1) Your stickers don't seem very visible. Faded green and white? Put some neon
orange on there or something.

2) I don't know what happens when someone puts in a code? I tried with some of
the codes I saw in your slider but I got an invalid tag error. Maybe I put the
wrong code in.

Here's what I would love: I give you $10-20, you send me a bunch of
stickers/key tags/cards etc with my picture, email, and phone number on it. I
don't think a middle man is that much of a value add. Especially since I don't
know who you are, and have no reason to believe you will still be in business
in 2 months.

This might interest you too: [http://www.asylum.com/2009/07/13/baby-pictures-
are-key-to-ha...](http://www.asylum.com/2009/07/13/baby-pictures-are-key-to-
having-a-lost-wallet-returned/)

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
Umm, nice. As you can tell, I am from the IsThisLost.com team. The stickers
come in blue and green now. We'll introduce other colors and laser engraving
service in a couple of months.

We talk to many of our customers, and people get it. They realize that a
company going out of business is a smaller risk than losing stuff without any
identification on it.

~~~
Falling3
But this is not a unique idea. I've already seen several companies doing the
_exact_ same thing. What does IsThisLost bring to the table? And what reason
do we have to assume you're going to fare better than any of those other
companies?

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
Yes, I agree that there are many companies out there. The key to success, in
our minds, is to do it better than anyone else. To that end, we 1) have better
name, 2) anonymizing service, 3) anonymous post back, 4) managed recovery,
i.e. a service agent steps in, if needed and arranges for the return postage.

~~~
alex_young
What about economics? How many months of service would it cost me to replace
my most valued possession? For that matter, we're talking some percentage of
that amount since you can't guarantee I'll get anything back at all.

For the money, I think I would rather just insure anything of value I can't
afford to replace and be careful about misplacing other things.

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
Alex, I am from the IsThisLost team. We hear you. The way we figured the
economics is that according to a recent survey (see
<http://mozy.com/reports/lost-and-found/data-loss-cost/>), a person is likely
to irretrievably lose about $95 worth of stuff a year. With our observed 75%
retrieval rate, you are getting about $70 value for $20 cost.

Would insurance cover the intangible value, e.g. pictures and docs that were
not backed up, or an item of sentimental value. Also, have you factored the
deductible?

I hear your argument well and will think about addressing those concerns. At
the very least, I'll urge you to print your own tags and apply them to your
belongings. Doesn't hurt, does it?

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rane
> Can you recover your lost keys or phone without sharing your personal info
> with a stranger?

I was thinking about this the other day when I temporarily lost my key, and
figured that you could attach a non-personal email address in the keychain. Or
maybe a phone number if there's a service that routes calls through an
unidentifiable number.

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
That's IsThisLost.

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johnchristopher
Reminds of a serie of experiments in psychology and their conclusions:

\- Putting a photo of a child or a baby in one's wallet raises the return rate
;

\- putting a brief of paper with the words 'if you find this, bring it back to
XXX, money award is in the other pocket' while actually not adding the money
award works too.

That's all I remember for now.

~~~
jes5199
Off topic: if French is your native language, you'll try to use the word
"serie" in English because it looks like "série" - but we don't actually have
that word in modern English, we say "a series". I don't know why.

~~~
johnchristopher
Ah, thanks for the correction! It makes sense in some way.

(And I confirm my first language is French.)

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
I tested this with child art on the key tags and the tags were recognized well
before the present tags are. I guess the next step is to get people to upload
their own art and design their own tag. Like it.

------
MyKeysAreLost
These comments are a treasure trove of great feedback for us (I am from
IsThisLost team). Thank you so much, everyone.

Please write to us at let-me-try-it@isthislost.com, and we'll be happy to send
anyone a free basic subscription to IsThisLost.

------
holgersindbaek
I don't understand how this is better than just writing your email address on
the item and have them contact you directly?!

~~~
johnchristopher
From the FAQ: Do I get something in return? We offer all our finders a free
1-year subscription and a starter kit of tags to protect their property. No
payment is needed. On top of this, five grand prizes are awarded each December
to five finders. Prizes include $250 gift cards to iTunes, Amazon, and Macy's
and a lifetime subscription to IsThisLost.

I find this fun and good-spirited :)

I am not sure about the monthly fee though, I'd rather get a set of nice
sticker and keycard. I understand the middle-man/passive income thingy but
it's a little bit hard to sell. On the other hand, 2$ isn't a lot and nothing
bad should happen if the venture disappears.

~~~
bjterry
If I looked this up after finding someone's keys, I have to admit that I would
be somewhat annoyed at them trying to acquire me as a customer and pretend
like they are giving me a gift. I think it would be much better to offer a
flat $25 reward to anyone who is willing to return the lost keys. Since people
lose their keys only extremely rarely, I find it hard to believe this would
"break the bank."

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
Totally agree. We'll look into changing that policy. Is there a potential for
abuse here?

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tallanvor
Interesting, but there are a couple of things that this doesn't really cover:

1) Your about page is empty. I can find a mailing address on your contact
page, but that's it.

2) What happens if you lose something overseas? How do you coordinate returns
in that case? This would be a key sticking point for me.

~~~
MyPhoneIsLost
1\. Thank you for the feedback. We will check on the About page shortly.

2\. If you are on location and do receive email, you'd be notified and you can
arrange with the finder to get your keys back.

If you have left the location, our customer service agent would take over and
arrange to have the keys (or phone) shipped back your registered address, at
no charge to you.

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bentcorner
Neat idea. Keep in mind that many local grocery stores do this for free, in
exchange for you signing up for a loyalty card (that comes with a small
version that can clip on a keychain).

(I have two on my keychain, I sort of wonder who would "win" if I actually
lost my keys)

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
Have you tried to recover (or return stuff) through a grocery chain card? It
is worth the shredding of the sense of security you get. It is NOT their
business.

~~~
bentcorner
Fair enough, but I've never lost anything (knock on wood) and so don't know
about the difficulties here (I don't know what I don't know).

If you have data about grocery store return rates, sharing that information
would help turn people to your cause.

------
aneth4
I do hope the next iteration of QR codes involves steganography in beautiful
images instead of these monstrously ugly and impersonal eye sores.

Who's up for the challenge?

~~~
vyrotek
Microsoft Tag - <http://tag.microsoft.com/what-is-tag/custom-tags.aspx>

~~~
aneth4
Excellent. Unfortunately it may not be adopted because Microsoft is
undoubtedly trying to make it "part of the Windows ecosystem."

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
I am no Microsoft fan, but their tag generation is now free
(<http://tag.microsoft.com/what-is-tag/benefits.aspx>). However, the adoption
is almost nothing ... almost comparable to the slim adoption of their Azure
cloud.

And their scanner does work on Android. Didn't find one for iOS though.

~~~
aneth4
"In the future, we may charge for certain enhanced features, such as more
robust reporting or new types of Tags, but the basic features will remain
free"

Not that I'm opposed to charging, but who wants to deal with such uncertainty
with a technology like this?

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donniefitz2
Seems like a good idea, but it doesn't feel like a subscription service. Seems
more like a model where you pay per incident would be more appropriate.

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
I am with IsThisLost service. We struggled with this concept and found that
charging for recovery is very similar to purchasing auto insurance after the
accident has occurred. If our cost per user is $6 and 1 in 50 users lose
something, we'd have to charge the "recovering user" greater than $300 for
recovery !!

~~~
smokeyj
Consider an annual license. 6 months for $10, or a year for $15.

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Connaissance
A monthly subscription? Are you kidding me?

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drewsears
Or, you know, I could do that myself without paying you to intermediate.

~~~
alpb
The point is maybe not everybody can do that on their own and are you going to
like woken up for a key in the middle of the night?

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ceejayoz
Losing keys should be fairly rare, to the point where one call in the middle
of the night ever five or ten years should be OK... especially when the
alternative is a monthly fee.

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
You can put this on your glasses, books, dvd's (if you have them and lend them
out ;-), walking canes (now that's an image), all for a single subs.

~~~
pacaro
Hmm, makes me think of making an _ex libris_ [1] stamp with a QR code on it...

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookplate>

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hacker789
I can't imagine a better domain name for your service. What other options were
you considering?

~~~
MyKeysAreLost
Our vision is to build a global lost and found database, that is non-
commercial. The question is how to get there?

