
Idea to App in 2 weeks - nemrow
http://nemrow.tumblr.com/post/61214991178/idea-to-app-in-2-weeks
======
gruseom
I'd like to offer an observation about the copy at
[http://www.pigeonpic.com](http://www.pigeonpic.com). The larger slogan,
"Never lose touch with friends and family", is vague. The smaller one, "Send
photographs through the mail with just a text message", is specific. It makes
clear what you offer and also that there is a concrete service here instead of
just another smarmy social site. If I were you, I'd drop the first one and put
the second in its place. Then the clear copy and the sentimental photo would
complement each other nicely.

I'd also make the one-two-three diagram much larger, i.e. make it the width of
the banner. It does a good job of explaining what the original line means. To
judge by all the sites out there that can't seem to state simply what they do,
that is nothing to sneeze at. If you can get users to read that far until it
clicks, you'll be way ahead of most.

Of course you can test all of this.

p.s. One thing remains unclear: how do you get the address to mail the printed
photos to?

~~~
lylemckeany
>The larger slogan, "Never lose touch with friends and family", is vague. The
smaller one, "Send photographs through the mail with just a text message", is
specific. It makes clear what you offer and also that there is a concrete
service here instead of just another smarmy social site.

This is an excellent point. However, I don't agree with your second bit of
advice to drop the first line and just use the "clear" copy. Instead, I
suggest coming up with a better tag line that maybe even ties in nicely with
the name Pigeon (love that name, btw). Maybe something like, "Send photographs
to anyone on the wings of a text." OK, that's probably lame, but I think you
get my point.

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gfodor
Congrats on launching. I built a similar idea and found it to not be
profitable:

[http://babygra.ms](http://babygra.ms)

If you figure out how to make this profitable, when you consider printing
costs and marketing costs, please share! Long story short, I found you have to
give people one for free, and this kills your margins. Send me an e-mail if
you want an Excel spreadsheet that proves this :)

I posted some details here:

[https://t.co/w2r59Ah6LN](https://t.co/w2r59Ah6LN)

------
vosper
OP, if you chose the current title for your HN submission you should be aware
that in some countries "Fuck Ya" will be read as "Fuck You". I think you mean
"Fuck Yeah"?

~~~
omni
I'm a native English speaker, and I read it as "Fuck you."

------
sologoub
Congrats on shipping quickly!

Small nitpick - Twilio does offer MMS, but you have to have a shortcode in US:
[https://www.twilio.com/mms](https://www.twilio.com/mms)

It's a hefty monetary commitment, so for the purposes of this story Twilio
does not offer something compelling, but if you have the $$$ it's a solid
service.

~~~
bdcravens
The blog date was 9/14, and the groundwork was done presumably at least 2
weeks before (seeing the title of the post). Twilio announced MMS on 9/18 at
TwilioCon.

According to their website, you can get MMS via regular phone #s.

 _Send and receive pictures over both phone numbers and short codes with
Twilio Picture Messaging._

However, this service was recently launched

------
fargolime
> So after I launched this product I had more orders in the first 24 hours
> than I did in total with my startup that took over a year to develop.

Can you please elaborate on what you did to get orders? I would think it would
be many times harder to get a first order from someone you don't know, than
writing the app.

~~~
ams6110
since specific numbers aren't provided, he could have had 2 orders in his
pigeon app and 1 from his prior effort and his claim would be true.

The "boomer age" people I know who want to print pictures and send them to
someone go to a kiosk at the drugstore or a copy shop, where they also pick up
a greeting card in which they typically like to handwrite a note to the
recipient, that was the sort of thing people used to consider courteous.

------
AznHisoka
Nice app. However, slow development time is not necessarily a bad thing. If
you can develop an app in 2 weeks, it most likely means someone else can
easily clone the same app. Whereas if you need 1+ years to develop it, it's
likely not as likely to be duplicated (ie. there are actual technical
barriers)

~~~
acoleman616
If others are interested though, that validates the idea, which is immensely
more useful than the alternative.

------
oakaz
6 weeks: [http://multiplayerchess.com](http://multiplayerchess.com)

built it 3 years ago after I had quit my job and came to SF

~~~
clark-kent
Cool stuff

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avalaunch
This is a pretty cool idea and I applaud the rapid execution.

That being said, you could have tested this idea out without building any tech
at all by using your own phone number for texts and manually printing and
shipping photos.

Then if the idea took off and you could no longer manually keep up with the
orders you'd know you have a winner.

~~~
adi2412
That would have actually been his MVP. But seeing as he could develop the tech
so fast, he did have the option to develop the technology first itself. And he
did get a lot of text messages in the first 24 hours itself!

But, for someone who wouldn't be able to get the tech out so quickly, an
MVP(here, text messages to your phone and manual printing) is the ideal thing.
Even he could have benefitted because the product would be out in like a day
itself and he could see if it was popular enough to work on it further.

------
twanlass
This sounds awesome. Can I ask how you go about getting shipping details, etc
from the sender if they simply give you a name? Is there more to it?

~~~
dpolaske
In the sign up process you enter the shipping info for who you want to send
prints to

------
heywire
I like it! It seems similar to an idea pitched on Shark Tank recently.

I wanted to mention a hiccup in the sign up experience. After signing up, I
received an SMS which said to reply "Y" to receive messages from Pigeon. Upon
replying "Y", in addition to the 2-part welcome message, I received a 2-part
message saying that Pigeon couldn't recognize the receiver for a picture.

------
hardwaresofton
So I got to the page, and read the overall blog title, and thought the article
was going to go a different way.

Was pleased that it turned out so well, sounds like a great idea -- I know
there are companies (for example the one that recently was on the shark tank
tv show) that are looking in this space, and I think the process that you've
just pointed out is way easier than what they offer

------
DigitalSea
I think this is how it should be done. Get something super rough and
functional to market as soon as possible. I've been taking the same approach
to micro-portal sites I've been building and launching the last month. In my
first month from 2 sites I made $125 from Google Ad revenue. Essentially I
build aggregation sites that rewrite the content based on multiple sources,
sometimes even improving the original source by using multiple angels for the
same content. The result is 2 highly ranking Wordpress sites that get first
page priority for some big keywords.

It might not be the most logical for an app you have to build, but I think
getting something out super unpolished that works is a great way to get to
market early. People think you need massive teams, business plans and a
strategy, but all you need to do is release something. I made the same mistake
on a project I've been building for 7 years and counting, I'm not sure I'll
even ever release it.

~~~
AznHisoka
I think there's a huge difference between creating a content farm and a real
product.

~~~
DigitalSea
Maybe so, but the result is the same. What I launched went beyond a standard
content farm though. I didn't use free or purchased themes, I used a self-
created Wordpress theme framework I created a little while ago as the base of
the sites but each design was built from scratch in Photoshop. The content
aggregation and rewriting plugin that I wrote isn't something you can find
anywhere, especially not to the point articles are rewritten from multiple
sources in a way that works.

I was merely trying to make a point of developers needing to get stuff out as
quick as possible. Maybe what I did was different to an app (and rightly so)
but the fact I executed on an idea from start to finish and didn't get caught
up on the little things or having a perfect end result is something I think
every developer can take from and apply to anything they do.

------
zenocon
Semi-related, but if you want to print a lot of pics, it's probably just worth
it to buy a printer. I just bought this one: [http://www.amazon.com/Canon-
PRO-100-Professional-Inkjet-Prin...](http://www.amazon.com/Canon-
PRO-100-Professional-Inkjet-Printer/dp/B0095F5BCS) and I'm pretty happy with
it. It supports Apple's AirPrint so you can print from iPhone/iPad on your
local LAN/WiFi. Good quality prints and a bunch of rebates on this one if you
dig around.

~~~
ams6110
You're suggesting he buy a printer and print the photos, then address and
stuff envelopes himself instead of using the service he found (lob.com)? I
can't see that being cost- or time-effective.

Unless I have a high-volume business need for a printer I will never own one
again. They are space hogs and money pits. Ink/toner is outrageous, buying
paper in small quantities is expensive, and the consumer grade printers are
slow and flimsy. The few times a year I actually need to print something I
just go to kinkos or break the rules and print it at work. Maybe I'll look at
using lob.com or a service like it though.

~~~
zenocon
How about you just press a button on your phone and 30 seconds later hand a
photo to somebody? There's immediate value in that for me, and I personally
would rather do that than use a service (which I did do for years with the
online vendors, and I had a crappy experience with all of them).

Plus I can tweak the print in Photoshop before and print direct from there.
Each has it's place.

------
pedalpete
You may be able to spread more virally if people don't enter the recipients
details into your app, and it may make it easier on everybody.

This is definitely a "maybe", you'll have to do the research.

If you just have the recipients phone number and the photo, you can send a
photo MMS to the recipient saying "x bought a printed version of this photo
with PigeonPic. We need your address to send this photo".

Just an idea, you'll need to work on it, but I know, I don't have people's
mailing addresses.

------
magic5227
The image on the homepage makes me think this family is running for their
lives from a horde of zombies, but seem fairly happy about it. Gotta love
stock photography.

~~~
magic5227
[http://www.pigeonpic.com/](http://www.pigeonpic.com/)

------
Xcelerate
Wow, this is a pretty sweet idea. Nice execution! I could certainly see using
this.

I keep hoping I'll have an idea like yours that just pops into my head and I
run with it.

------
jonahx
This is something I could see using from time to time with friends as a sort
of fun lark or joke.

So you may not want to rule out younger users from your market. Imagine it,
for example, being marketed to heavy instagram users. The branding is all
different, but given that you already have the core product, it would be
trivial to buy a second domain and create a new skin of the site for this
audience.

------
durga
Deja Vu for me. I built and shipped a really similar app in 2 weeks last Dec
(aim was 1 week but took 2 weeks eventually).
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wish-gift-never-forget-
speci...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wish-gift-never-forget-
special/id586470540?mt=8)

------
shawnreilly
Good Job! Execution is everything, and shipping a Product in 2 Weeks is
AWESOME! It sounds like you are on the right path, executing fast and getting
traction. Keep it up! Make sure to check back in with the customers and use
their feedback (I think you know that already after reading your Blog)

------
stickhandle
Immediately thought of @stammy and
[https://www.picplum.com/](https://www.picplum.com/). Kind of like an app
version. Good luck!

------
dleskov
Small idea == (small risks, small returns)

Big idea == (big risks, big returns)

most of the time.

------
mscottmcbee
Wow, that actually sounds like a fantastic idea. I can see this being very
useful, especially if you add the ability to pre-purchase prints in discounted
packages.

------
nakovet
How you make money if the print service costs $1.46 per photo and you still
have the PayPal fee!? Do you have a better deal with Lob?

~~~
cocoflunchy
I see $1.21 on Lob's website, but it still makes for a thin margin.

------
Kluny
I don't get it - how is just the name of the recipient enough to mail them a
picture? Where are you getting the addresses from?

~~~
jorts
You create contacts in the app. Each contact has an address associated with
it.

------
pmarsh
Just piling on the congrats although I'm sure passionately working on
something for 2 weeks straight is reward in of itself.

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jlebrech
Working for a startup is the best experience you can get in order to find out
how to execute your own ideas.

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tmandarano
It's interesting... the design of the site is very 2004ish, but it is
surprisingly refreshing. Anyone?

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stfnfontana
A lean startup. I am not sure how profitable it could get but you still put
together a nice product.

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dopamean
Congrats. I like this a lot.

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gregalbritton
Love the simplicity of the instructions and minimal amount of links on page.

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beachstartup
that logo is excellent. (pigeon carrying a polaroid)

~~~
dpolaske
Thanks

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snampall
Cool idea. Is mobile app in the works?

