

Show HN: Robin – OpenTable for your office - zachdunn
https://robinpowered.com/

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cwilson
Others in this thread are saying the pricing is too steep or that this seems
silly.

After working for the past 6 months in an office with 4 shared conference
rooms and around 20 people, I can say with 100% confidence this pricing would
have been approved pretty much instantly.

The conference room shuffle was a headache every single day and caused
constant distraction and productivity loss. I know plenty of other people at
other companies who have reported the same issues with their conference rooms.
Hell, even in the Facebook HQ when I've gone in for meetings has had this
problem (though their system is already pretty decent from what I can tell).

If you've felt this pain (regardless of how first world it may seem), I think
you'd agree.

Personally I'd rather just never have meetings, but that's not always an
option =)

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prawn
Product is not for me (private Google calendar covers 7 people and one room
well enough), but just wanted to say that your site and app design is really
nice. Well done. One of the cleanest-looking I've seen on here in a long time.

~~~
Rican7
Thanks! Our design and product development teams put a lot of time and effort
into it. Its important to us.

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artursapek
I always have trouble with pricing models like this... how is it 2.5X as
expensive to have 3x as many "bookable rooms"? Once you write the software,
it's trivial to add more "bookable rooms". Why do you charge so much more for
the difference, which really just amounts to a little extra disk space/CPU
(not that this is an intensive application to run in either regard anyway).

I guess the reason our industry has gone this way is simply because we know we
can get more money from larger companies. That's why you always see these
arbitrary limits that correspond in no way whatsoever to the actual cost or
value of the product being sold.

~~~
zachdunn
As much as I love capitalism, there's a few differences as you go up in tiers
beyond just room limits. Today the most notable is the ability to manage more
than one office location. In time it will will expand since certain things
(i.e. SAML, high resolution analytics, audit logs) aren't needed by the
typical 5 conference room company. The more stuff you're managing, the more
complex the relationships become -- not just an N + 1 operation.

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adamvalve
This looks like something that would have been on Silicon Valley (TV Show)...

~~~
NeutronBoy
It's not a new concept, there are modern offices that use similar systems
already. They're great, and just confirms the market for this product.

~~~
simonw
I've seen [https://eventboard.io/](https://eventboard.io/) in the past, which
is basically the same exact kind of product. Similar pricing too.

~~~
Rican7
Full disclosure: I work for Robin. :)

Eventboard is one of a bunch that do tablet and analytics. They take a
different approach on a few things, we build heavily for mobile and employee-
facing apps and not just facilities managers.

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rootedbox
Seems expensive. Can do the same thing with a shared resource in google
calendar.

[https://robinpowered.com/blog/how-to-set-up-room-resource-
ca...](https://robinpowered.com/blog/how-to-set-up-room-resource-calendars-in-
google-apps/)

~~~
timcederman
I saw your comment and wondered "how expensive could it really be?" \- the
pricing is just too much. I ran it by our IT team (we're a prime candidate for
using a product like this) and they shot it down immediately on price. 15
rooms for $3k/year?

~~~
zachdunn
Couple perspectives you might find interesting (I say this having to learn the
lay of the land over the past year myself):

Most offices are designed with 1 conference room per 10-20 employees. If you
have 15 conference rooms you probably have well over 100 employees and many
millions in payroll. Those people presumably have many meetings, and the cost
of not being able to get their job done is measurable.

Conference rooms can be between 200-300 sq feet, so if you have a 15 of them
you're looking at several thousand sq ft on your lease. Depending on where you
are in the world, that's probably around $10K/month or so in real estate.

The effective rate is about $17/month/room, which in most cases is tiny
compared to the cost of mismanaging office space and productive time above.

~~~
timcederman
1 conference room per 20 employees? Really? That ratio is much higher than
I've seen at any of the companies I've worked at. 10 seems nearer to the mark.

We have 300 employees in this particular location. We bought an alternative
solution for $12k with a licence for up to 75 rooms, for a one-time fee.

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xGrill
Pricing seems really steep. The analytics seems cool, but nothing really
actionable can be done about popular conference rooms once your office is
already built out.

Can someone recommend a good tablet setup for this to maybe bring the price of
your total conference room "system" down?

~~~
groby_b
I'd hope that the analytics help pinpoint all those cases of people booking a
room "just in case" and then not using it.

(In a perfect world, resulting in reduced priority for their requests)

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Cub3
Wouldn't it be better to use some sort of proprietary e-ink display for the
meeting rooms? Would cut down on the constant tablet charging problem

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brazzledazzle
This looks amazing. Hopefully my boss bites because it looks like it will
solve a lot of headaches.

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MetaMonk
I spoke with one of the devs at a holiday party (Trevor?) and he mentioned
there were a bunch of other things that weren't fleshed out yet that might
justify the price here later. But yeah, seems expensive.

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pbreit
Looks gorgeous but I wonder how big a deal power is? I suspect many rooms
won't have power nearby and recharging every 1-3 days sounds dreary.

~~~
zachdunn
It's generally not a dealbreaker for most offices. With external battery packs
you can get extra days, or you could just get a free standing mount that moves
closer to a nearby outlet. Most commercial buildings require power every 8
feet or so on walls, so you're rarely in a power desert.

~~~
toomuchtodo
If you can mount near a switch for a light, you can usually get access to
unswitched mains right there (1 hot, 1 neutral wire).

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jay_kyburz
I think this is a great idea. Congrats guys!

~~~
jay_kyburz
Just thinking about it more more, there are so many places you could bolt a
tablet onto a wall to improve an interface to something.

\- think doctor / dentist \- think directory to an office building \- a
doorbell with video conferencing \- why not just put a menu on every table in
every restaurant.

~~~
zachdunn
If you've been to LaGuardia, it's basically a sea of iPads:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ipad-is-a-big-part-of-
lag...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ipad-is-a-big-part-of-laguardia-
airport-2013-2)

