
Sam Altman will clean your house for $5 - davidhperry
http://blog.agrawals.org/2011/06/24/sam-altman-will-clean-your-house-for-5/
======
potatolicious
Besides the fact that the idea makes no sense, I find it downright _wrong_
that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses.
Establishments work _damn hard_ to establish a brand, and here is Loopt going
around shitting all over them, without consent.

This is where I'd hope trademark law kicks in. Here's hoping Loopt gets what's
rightfully coming to them.

~~~
pg
_I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of
local businesses_

It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local
businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to
their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario.

Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

~~~
rockya
Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business --
even if none of them take it.

Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand name and
causing customer service issues for them.

I've forward to this to some friends in the payments space. This might be
considered credit card fraud because they are also taking people's credit card
numbers in conjunction with a service they can't commit to delivering.

~~~
sama
If we have a lot of users sign up for deals that don't go through, that hurts
us a lot. That's the reason we pre-set the discounts at levels that make sense
for each category of business, and why we're reaching out to businesses early
in the process.

We're taking credit card numbers in the same way Priceline does for name-your-
own price deals and Groupon used to when deals might not tip. Please let me
know what your friends say, though.

~~~
rockya
I'm well aware of the Priceline model. I've booked hundreds of room nights
using Priceline -- in fact, I'm staying at a hotel I Pricelined right now.

The difference between Priceline and what you're doing is that Priceline has
already established relationships with hotels. They have the ability to fill
demand that meets certain criteria.

You don't have the ability to fill demand for the product you're advertising.
Now, if Loopt were willing to pay the difference out of its own pockets (as
some daily deal vendors do), that's another story.

Even then, you've got a trademark infringement issue.

------
ianterrell
This is slightly reminiscent of Get Satisfaction's model of creating support
forums for companies unless they opt out.

And sometimes those companies take offense:
<http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else>

~~~
repos
Can companies really opt out of Get Satisfaction, or will they always be
presented with the "Company X has not yet committed to open conversations
about its products or services."

If Loopt explicitly allows companies to opt out (and prevent the creation of
deals for that company) then perhaps the service might be beneficial
(companies that opt in to stay may get valuable feedback of what the consumer
wants/would be willing pay for).

~~~
potatolicious
I'm not quite so confident about this idea. To me, all you will get are people
voting for discounts at places they already frequent. This is not a good
measure of what customers want, nor the prices they're willing to bear for
these goods and services.

I may be willing to pay $3 for a latte from my favourite coffee shop... but
you're damn right I'm going to vote yes on $1 coffee. Why wouldn't I? This is
going to result in a lot of businesses _needlessly_ offering discounts to
_existing_ customers for little discernible benefit. On top of this, it sheds
no light on the effectiveness of pricing structures, since there's nothing in
the system that encourages the discovery of pricing equilibrium.

I've spoken to a couple of business owners who have done Groupons - they see
it as a marketing expense that seems to have greater returns than many
traditional methods (coupons books, junk mail, etc). But Groupon works in a
way that this idea does not: it gets new customers (whether or not they're
_good_ new customers is besides the point).

~~~
Roop13
I've spoken to a couple of business owners who have done Groupons - they see
it as a marketing expense that seems to have greater returns than many
traditional methods (coupons books, junk mail, etc). But Groupon works in a
way that this idea does not: it gets new customers (whether or not they're
good new customers is besides the point).

So true. Thank you whomever you are. Tell Rockya this.

Back to loopt suggested deals. We have thought of this but how does this
possibly work? When the only people that are going to really work hard for
discounts they already want are full price paying advocates already. I can't
see any benefit to this type of promotion at all. Absolute cannibalization of
their current full-price paying customers. It's not sustainable and much worse
than daily-deals.

------
sama
We're trying something new and innovative, and of course we'll have to iterate
on it. We're moving as quickly as we can to fix this and make it work for
consumers and businesses--obviously, it doesn't work for us unless it works
for both of those groups. We have a chance to really improve local commerce,
and I hope we do.

As soon as a business wants to opt out, we block them permanently in the
system and remove any pending deals. We're changing the product right now to
make the language more clear, and we're not going to use any trademarked
images until the business approves the deal. We're going to make it really
clear that a business hasn't approved a deal until they do.

We've certainly gotten negative feedback from a few businesses, but in general
people seem excited about this--word of mouth is a great referral, and
businesses understand that. The promise of u-Deals, if it works, is that your
best customers become your big advocates.

Should we have gotten this right from the beginning? Yes, and I'm sorry we
didn't. We've gotten things wrong in the past, and we're going to get things
wrong again. As always, we'll try not to get the big things wrong, we'll do
everything we can to make it up to our users, and we'll get it fixed as fast
as possible. That's the nature of trying new things, and it's how the world
gets better.

~~~
wccrawford
If you should learn anything from reading tech sites it's this: Opt-in.

Always, always, ALWAYS Opt-in.

Using the names of others to promote yourself until they tell you to stop is
unethical and possibly illegal.

This is a stain you can never cleanse from your business. Everyone will always
say 'Loopt? Wasn't that the company that used other companies without the
approval?' And that's if you're lucky.

Because it if goes any further and a company gets a bad name from this, it'll
be 'Loopt? Wasn't that the company that destroyed the reputation of Company
X?'

Saying you were 'trying to iterate on it' is not enough. Saying you're trying
to fix it is not enough. You need to outright admit how wrong it was and
publicly apologize to every company you did this to.

~~~
sama
I've sent apologies to the companies that were at all upset, and I apologize
again here (and we're working to get the companies that are excited about this
up and running as soon as possible). They've been understanding.

I think if we use the name of a business in a "Loopt users want a deal at
Place X. If enough users express interest, Loopt will talk to the business
owners to try to make it happen" that's ok. But we definitely shouldn't imply
that a business has given any sort of consent before they have, and we
shouldn't use their logo or images.

------
X-Istence
Loopt is causing conflict with a business's potential customers simply by
making such "deals" public when they don't actually exist and are meant solely
to show businesses that customers want discounts. Off course people want
discounts, but that doesn't mean the business is willing to give said
discount.

------
mtkd
When I first read about this - it seemed like a new Groupon angle that might
have some legs.

Seeing it in the flesh - it feels wrong. It's passing-off.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off>

------
netcan
There are a few things that seam clearly, though not necessarily badly, wrong
here. For, example: They use a a Groupon like appearance as many deal-a-day
sites use. This sends a strong-ish message that something Groupon-like is
going on. A lot of people will have bought these coupons recently and will
make quick assumptions. This is the kind of things brands do, usually, to send
a message to the buyer/user. It's like when generic coffee comes in a nescafe-
like jar. There's also potential for non-savy small businesses owners to feel
coerced. I'm not sure trademark is the issue though, at least not a terrible
one.

Anyway, I think judgement should maybe be postponed. This could easily be an
awkward mistake. The overall intent doesn't seem nasty. The execution,
particularly clear messaging, has just (perhaps) been done absentmindedly. It
shouldn't be too late to clean this up. Let's see if they do.

------
byrneseyeview
Group buying is actually a variant on an older practice called Tuangou
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuangou>), which Loopt is recreating here.

------
zeddez
This reverse deal idea didn't make any sense when I heard about. But I have
been surprised before, so would interesting to hear counterpoints.

The fundamental problems as I see it just starting with user persective: 1) I
put in effort as a user to create a deal - with the high chance of no payoff -
why would I ever do this the first time, let alone the second time 2) I have
to wait for other people to join - so gratification is at best delayed 3) Very
likely the deal will not be accepted by the merchant.

The ideal model for coupons would be take out the high cost of sales in this
business. And getting businesses to go to a website and submit their deals by
themselves. Of course SMB are notoriously slow to adopt new technology (many
still advertise in YP). But over time, they will get there as well and the
winner will be whoever is there when SMB begin making the move.

------
EwanG
I would have been willing to pay $50 dollars... anyone willing to reopen the
deal? :-)

------
hammock
Loopt seems like a democratized version of group purchase organizations
(GPOs), which have been around forever and are used, for example, by groups of
hospitals banding together to get bulk discounts on the things they regularly
buy.

If you got ten of your friends together and put in bids on Loopt for a few
different pizza places, it's not too different from the GPO process. You are
basically saying, "I am willing to buy 10 pieces from you at this discounted
rate." It makes me wonder if most of this talk about brand erosion etc is
mostly alarmism.

~~~
zem
nope, mtkd nailed it when he cited the "passing off" laws. they're not just
banding people together to get bulk discounts, they're implying that the
businesses in question already support their model, and are using those
businesses' brand recognition to add legitimacy to loopt.

~~~
hammock
It's more than banding together to get bulk discounts. Loopt is facilitating
group buying - that's the "democratized" part of it.

~~~
zem
yes, but they're going about it dishonestly.

------
eridius
When I heard about this the first time, one of the "benefits" of this approach
is they only sell deals to companies that actually have demand. And I never
understood that. One of the reasons Groupon is so reviled is because the
demand for these ridiculous deals causes great problems for the business in
question. If the deal didn't have any demand, then there wouldn't be any
problem whatsoever and people wouldn't be hating Groupon. If anything, the way
Loopt is doing this is far worse than Groupon, as the article demonstrates.

------
suhail
You guys really need to think about the chance that it actually works. Loopt
isn't some shady company trying to steal people's credit card information for
something malicious. Their goal, in the end, is something benevolent for all
parties.

If they fail (which is likely for any startup) then it's because the idea
wasn't a good. It stands to reason that they can make this clear to both
parties: consumers and businesses. If they didn't at this point then I am sure
they'll fix it because ultimately everyone actually will be angry. The market
will answer so you need not worry. I am sure Loopt has done a sufficient
amount of customer development before exhausting all their engineering
bandwidth, marketing resources, and product focus--meaning you should consider
giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Let businesses decide. It's not something you're capable of proving. Loopt
likely is gaining more feedback about it then you realize.

------
chailatte
First airbnb, now loopt. Something evil has infiltrated the house of
ycombinator.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I had a very visceral reaction to reading that YC had dirty money from
spammers, but to be fair there's a much longer list of startups they've funded
who are not airbnb-type scum (at least that we know of).

~~~
byrneseyeview
At least according to them, AirBNB didn't do this directly--it was done by a
firm they hired to get leads, and that they didn't continue working with.

~~~
prodigal_erik
As the sysadmins say, _Rule #1: spammers lie_. If their "policy to forbid such
actions" even existed it was a completely unenforced fig leaf of deniability,
because that is in fact how their "person-to-person sales" contractors were
allowed to spend their time until a third party did a little diligence and
caught them at it, and unsurprisingly they're going to get away with
it—there's been no mention of a lawsuit or anything to claw back what they got
paid for poisoning the well.

------
chailatte
I don't understand why Paul thinks so highly of Sam Altman, supposedly a guy
with a 40 year old soul [1], that he even made him partner at yc.

I saw plenty of writhing away from the blame (It's a bug!), instead of
admitting his mistake and apologizing publicly.

I saw a lame joke written by Sam in this thread (shortly pulled after by the
author) that was something to the effects of "I wouldn't help clean his house,
he clearly doesn't like me".

If I saw all this and I was on the board, I would've already called a quick
board meeting to replace the current CEO.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html>

~~~
rockya
I noticed that too. That comment was pulled right as I (author of original
post) entered the thread.

I repeat... I have nothing personal against Sam. Never met the guy.

