ArchiLabs is building an ai copilot for architects, with the eventual goal of building a full AI architect that can work alongside architecture teams. We are a team of CMU engineers with deep construction experience looking to make the lives of architects easier. We have good initial traction and want an engineer who is excited to make a massive impact on a legacy industry.
I built out a few helpful SQL tools (some AI, some not) that I wanted to share with the community. The goal is for these tools to help in the process of learning SQL, organizing SQL, optimizing SQL, and picking up an existing SQL project.
SQL Tutorial – a fun, interactive tutorial for 30+ SQL statements[0]
SQL AI Optimizer – optimize your SQL statement[1]
SQL AI Explainer – explain your complex SQL in plain language[2]
SQL Formatter – format your SQL nicely[3]
Let me know what you think, would love feedback on how we could build these tools to be more helpful
Currently no per user limits today (other than 60 min per audio file which is built into the API). I may need to add per user limits in the future to be fair to everyone, depending on usage. I initially loaded about 3,000 hours of audio credit into the service to see how that goes; I’m more than happy to increase that if it gets good, organic traffic.
No big plans for the free transcriber at the moment other than to share it with the community and improve SEO.
My goal is to grow the API service and the best way I could think of is to unobtrusively build add on tools and well-researched blog posts to create community value that hopefully drives some API sign ups.
I did my best to add some helpful but not overly sales-y copy to the free speech to text tool page (I targeted about 500 words, most after the tool itself in case people didn’t want to scroll). Any suggestions for copy improvement?
These kit homes definitely exist -- the big problem is that the site work is often 50%+ of the actual costs of installing the unit. We definitely intend on bringing down site costs as we make our units lower impact on the property on which we build.
We don't see bankruptcy as quite inevitable as you do :) In all seriousness, as written somewhere else on this thread:
"We will need to eventually give custodial ownership to a larger entity (think big bank) in the medium term to mitigate the risk of our company going under for the homeowner, such that, if the worst-case scenario happened to our company, the homeowner continues to make rental income as usual."
Startups take a lot of risks, its in their nature, so bankruptcy is always a possibility. Maybe you have the best intentions, but you're not a big bank yet, and even those have gone bankrupt.
Sorry, I'm unclear what this means. Will the bank be taking over the relationship in place of Rent the Backyard? Will they buy the stake in return for 50% of rental income?
The idea is that there's a third party who formally holds the contract so there's minimal disruption for the homeowner if something happens to our company.
I think it is a great idea and I see a lot of potential. If any of you have tried any addition/remodeling in the bay area, you know the difficulties involved. It is hard to find reliable people at reasonable cost. This company is bringing scale advantage and that is the only way to make sense of any construction project in the bay area. A friend of mine checked with a few design-build firm for second floor addition. 400$ per square feet is the minimum price. Even to explore the project there is a huge cost upfront without any assurance of success. I think it is a great way for homeowners to get cashflow with minimal risk.
Question to the founder:
Do you see profitability in building or rental or both?
It would be leaving money on the table for the home owner to continue on the contract for 30years. Initially with 0 equity, the owner gets 50% of rent. at year 20, with 50% equity, the owner gets 50% of rent and at year 25 with say 70% equity, the owner still gets 50% rent. From home owners point of view, it is better to buy out sooner rather than later. It is also not hard to get home equity loans.
Thanks and all the best
Hi there -- this is Brian from Rent the Backyard. What we are doing here is finding a synergy between homeowners and renters, allowing for people to profit off their unused backyards while increasing the housing stock. Airbnb started the trend of being able to monetize your home in the form of rental income and we see ourselves as an extension of that phenomenon. In our case, homeowners give up zero privacy to make meaningful extra income. We help existing homeowners stay in their homes amidst rising costs in the Bay Area.
Oh I don't mean to say it doesn't make sense, both in terms of personal finance and with regards to the housing market. Then again, so does letting people sell their own kidneys and livers for transplant.
>Rent the Backyard will give the homeowner an increasing share of equity in the apartment, until they own it completely after 30 years
What's the life expectancy of these backyard studio apartments? Somewhere around, oh, thirty years?
>Homeowners also can buy out the startup’s equity and take full ownership at any time (which they’ll need to do if they sell their home and move out).
I'm assuming there's some legal way to transfer the entire contract to another person, so you could sell your house and property along with your stake in the a-yard-ment and the new owner takes over where you left off. Having a renter will lessen the likelihood of having to sell for financial reasons but a good chunk of home sales are prompted by owner becoming unable to keep up the house or live alone in general, due to age or illness.
How's the agreement work with other stuff like use of the yard itself and other stuff that might be concerning like loud music, changes to the fencing setup, planting of flowers the renter is allergic to, etc? Not just for the homeowner, but for the renter. I can imagine many of the owners, having had to put very little work into this, really not giving a crap about their renter or her/his needs.
>What we are doing here is finding a synergy
C'mon man. Your picture doesn't feature nearly enough 80s power tie for you to talk like that.
We build units that are just as nice as your existing home. With proper upkeep, they'll last just as long too.
This was something the article didn't quite get right. You're able to pass this agreement on to a next of kin or new buyer. We'll even lower the priority of our lien to allow a mortgage to be issued.
You're right that one of our hopes is to enable people to stay in their homes amidst the rising cost of living. The income from this unit can be used to hire a caretaker or even enable the homeowner to downsize in place -- moving into the ADU and renting out the main home. In this scenario, the homeowner would just need to pay us half the market rent.
Finding a balance between renter and homeowner is a big concern of ours. The scale of the difficulty depends a lot of times on how much space there is on the lot. Most of the time we'll build as far from the main home as possible to help preserve privacy and independence but there's still a balance to find. We have an expectation for homeowners and renters alike to be reasonable and we don't want to need to enforce that with a contract but setting clear expectations and methods of recourse are important.
Hi there! You can always choose to buy us out of the contract whenever you want -- we just ask for people to pay for the equity they have yet to earn in the unit. We will need to eventually give custodial ownership to a larger entity (think big bank) in the medium term to mitigate the risk of our company going under for the homeowner, such that, if the worst-case scenario happened to our company, the homeowner continues to make rental income as usual.
Absolutely nothing. There are two things that we provide that going directly to a builder can't get you:
1) No upfront costs. We pay for the entire unit without asking our homeowners to put any money down.
2) Turnkey solution. We do all of the building and rental management for the homeowner, allowing them to sit back and see rental income coming in.
ArchiLabs is building an ai copilot for architects, with the eventual goal of building a full AI architect that can work alongside architecture teams. We are a team of CMU engineers with deep construction experience looking to make the lives of architects easier. We have good initial traction and want an engineer who is excited to make a massive impact on a legacy industry.
Learn more and apply here: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/archilabs/jobs/c6V9Qul...
Also feel free to email me directly brian [at] archilabs [dot] ai
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