L. Condoms (YC S15) Provides Safe Sex, On-Demand

http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/09/y-combinators-l-condoms-provides-safe-sex-on-demand/#.0qeivn:nQU3

by pw • 11 years ago

32 50 11 years ago

A bit of (hopefully constructive) criticism:

L. condoms are made with non-toxic, vegan-friendly natural latex

This sentence right here puts me off the whole thing (if I lived in an area where they are sold, of course), and it might be useful to share why.

The thing is: as a guy, I'm terrified of condoms already (of course, I still use them). They may break, they may slip off, they have to be applied following a certain, almost clinical procedure. And now you have "vegan-friendly" as a selling point. I have no idea why should a condom be vegan, and as a non-vegan myself all the contact I have with vegan things is through the vegan menu at my cafeteria.

But the vegan menu sucks. So does replacing regular milk with coconut milk to make cookies vegan (I've tried). If a "vegan-friendly condom" is to condoms what the vegan menu is to the regular menu, I am now certain that the chance of breaking will be higher, or that it will feel weird, and that the only reason the thing is around is because "that's the only vegan alternative we have" (pretty much like the vegan menu).

Maybe things are different enough in San Francisco to make a difference, and people protest loudly to have a vegan condom. Or maybe one of the founders is vegan. The rational part of my brain says that they are perfectly safe and probably indistinguishable from a regular condom. Unfortunately, I shop mostly with my irrational side.

ThrustVectoring• 11 years ago

The cynical part of me says that it's pure marketing fluff - like labelling a Turkey as "gluten free" or a bottle of fruit juice as "fat free".

TeMPOraL2• 11 years ago

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/641/. I wonder if someone literally did that.

micheljansen• 11 years ago

The same way PU (imitation) leather is now marketed as "vegan leather" [1].

[1] http://inhabitat.com/natalie-portman-vegan-shoes/

matt_morgan2• 11 years ago

So it looks like TC made a bigger deal about that than L. does in its own materials. It's not on the home page for example, which is mainly about "feel the difference" and testimonials and the donation aspect.

DanBC3• 11 years ago

The other distracting part of "non-toxic [...] natural latex" is that it ignores the people who are allergic to latex.

frobozz2• 11 years ago

By default, condoms are vegan-friendly, being made from trees. Non-vegan condoms are the special-needs version (i.e. for latex allergy sufferers), that are not as good.

DanBC3• 11 years ago

Are you including the lubricants?

cshenoy• 11 years ago

Some condoms contain casein, a by-product of milk which by definition makes it non-vegan friendly.

tveita• 11 years ago

The traditional, non-vegan alternative would be lamb's intestines.

birdsbolt• 11 years ago

Yep, as you acknowledge, your reasoning is irrational. Replacing regular milk with coconut milk is more environmentally friendly, medium-chain fatty acids are better for the liver and heart.

Still, veganism is much more than just a diet and this meaning is what was meant by the vegan-friendly natural latex.

I do assume that people who have never googled "veganism" might have negative opinion of these condoms, but I guess they also won't be aware of the struggles of third world countries and won't care about the goal of this company.

Not that I don't find the fact that veganism had to be mention entertaining.

StavrosK2• 11 years ago

Replacing regular milk with coconut milk is more environmentally friendly, medium-chain fatty acids are better for the liver and heart.

Except it doesn't taste as good, which is 90% of the whole point.

kolev• 11 years ago

Except that milk is not just empty fat. The CLA in grass-fed milk, the vitamin D, and many other vitamins in milk are not present in coconut milk. Best is to put coconut oil in your warm milk!

stinos• 11 years ago

But the vegan menu sucks. ... If a "vegan-friendly condom" is to condoms what the vegan menu is to the regular menu, ...

If indeed. I think I can understand why you are reasoning this way, but in the end it is just nothing more than a pretty wild (and incorrect) overgeneralization? I don't like most vegan food, tastewise, but that doesn't influence me in choosing vegan/animal-friendly alternatives over other products which are not food related.

hellbanner• 11 years ago

Brainstorm from a while back: Vegans exercising bikes to power bitcoin mining.. vegan bitcoins.. sell for more $

shanev• 11 years ago

Vegan-friendly simply means it is plant-based and doesn't use animal products. I would have preferred plant-based but does it really matter? This company is saving lives! It's diverting money from consumers of the on-demand economy and using it to save lives in Africa. That's pretty great.

probably_wrong2• 11 years ago

I would have preferred plant-based but does it really matter?

I struggled about my comment because I don't like being negative for the sake of it, but here's why I think this issue might actually matter.

Let's say you really care about selling this condoms as a mean of helping, and you have two alternatives: BoringCondom©, which is pretty much just a condom, and the AlternativeCondom©. If AlternativeCondom is provable better than BoringCondom and people buy more of those, then by all means sell it and everyone will be happier. But what if AlternativeCondom is actually putting people off your product? Wouldn't your help more people by doing it the boring way?

Based on votes number here, my complaint seems to have resonated slightly. If we take those numbers to be The Absolute Truth, then "vegan condom" may actually be hurting their statement, which is why I pointed it out.

erroneousfunk• 11 years ago

Because there are many condoms made with animal intestines ("sheepskin") on the market, and they wanted to reinforce that they're not those. Of course, they could have just said "latex" and left it at that.

However, there are certainly non-vegan condoms.

madaxe_again• 11 years ago

I'm not entirely sure who the market for this product is. People who are desperate to have sex but aren't desperate enough to either walk to a convenience store or forgo protection?

I'm willing to bet that they diversify into other stuff pretty swiftly when their core product fails to get market... penetration.

prawn• 11 years ago

I think the 1-for-1 charitable side to this covers for the business equation because, I agree, it seems like a small market when you look only at the delivery aspect.

"It feels like you're stalling for time. Who's that at the door?" "Oh, err, someone looking for a different address, don't worry about it."

Unless maybe you ordered discretely via app/text and it was delivered to your letterbox by the time you got home from a date or night out.

7952• 11 years ago

Where I live all the local takeaways use the same website to sell online. You could easily see consolidation of delivery to a single company that then offers extras to the order. It could make takeaway more like room service in a hotel.

felipeerias• 11 years ago

I am trying to picture in my head how a romantic evening with this product might develop, and I don't see a way of it not being the most awkward experience for everybody involved.

— Sorry, I was not prepared for this date, we'll have to wait for one hour until the bike messenger arrives with our vegan condoms.

— A guy on a bike will bring condoms here???

— Yes, it is this brilliant new service where they send a condom to Africa every time we have sex.

atmosx• 11 years ago

Exactly my thoughts :-)

joshuapants• 11 years ago

If only Y Condomnator would fund a startup trying to get custom-sized ones approved in the US.

LoneWolf• 11 years ago

I will be honest on this, but the vegan friendly part kind of annoys me, since as far as I know latex comes from trees so smells like marketing BS, also what is the advantage, honestly 1h seems way too long to wait I would rather go to the nearest store and buy them. Other issue I have and this is not with the product itself its the picture on the article looks way too obvious that they are posing, are they the founders or just models for the photo?

PretzelPirate• 11 years ago

Some condoms contain casein, which isn't vegan.

rowanseymour• 11 years ago

The "buy 1 give 1" model of charity is problematic and other businesses like TOMS shoes have taken a lot of flack for it. It's often more about making the consumer feel good rather than actually doing good, e.g. http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679628/the-broken-buy-one-give-o...

slackstation• 11 years ago

This is such a non-product. Look at those publicity shots, everything about this company screams, look at me, we're a startup! The donations to Africa, in hour delivery, the model-level attractive female founder. This is a bad idea. It doesn't seem like it was tested at all.

Even if I'm wrong and they take off, condom delivery as a service isn't much of a service in itself. Anyone of the multiple alcohol delivery services would just add this as an item. How do people like this make it into Y-Combinator? Are the VCs trying to get laid? Or is this one of those uncomfortable risks that they keep talking about? Either way, I expect this to run out of runway soon or pivot to something completely different. The founder is a photo-journalist so I don't expect much.

afarrell3• 11 years ago

Hey, I've known highly attractive women who were also really smart and fantastic at execution, so I wouldn't include that part in your list. It is a possibility that she is being used as a showpiece, but that would make for a pretty dysfunctional team and isn't the sort of thing you'd presume.

Your other critique about them not having a moat to defend against alcohol delivery services is true though, at least if they don't have some actual materials science behind their product.

nokya• 11 years ago

I don't understand why would anyone choose to have STD's testing performed while having sex... If they really invented an affordable STD testing kit, why not simply sell it as-is? I don't get it.

upofadown• 11 years ago

So you have to wait for a buff bike messenger to arrive so as to remind your date that there are way hotter people out there.

mrbig4545• 11 years ago

And they say we're not in a tech bubble.

In what world is this a viable company? It's not, you can get condoms everywhere, and it'll be fsater than this, and cheaper.

But because it has an app, millions of dollars will be thrown at it to keep it afloat, but in the end it will sink and the money will be wasted.

What's next, an app for getting 2 slices in under an hour for when you want a sandwich?

sokoloff• 11 years ago

Well, we already have grilled cheese delivery services: http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2015/01/06/postmates-grilled-c...

mdpopescu• 11 years ago

Going just by the title, is this an escort service?

noobie• 11 years ago

I am very very very interested to know what the guys in YC saw in this!

We hear Paul and Sam saying that the hardest part of their job is saying No to great ideas that just weren't that great and then we come across this? Seriously?

matt_morgan2• 11 years ago

I sincerely hope they've done their Dr. Whoopee research, e.g.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61RSODG4DbL._SY344_BO1...

https://www.worldcat.org/title/calling-dr-whoopee-a-doonesbu...

Know your elders!

afarrell3• 11 years ago

vegan-friendly natural latex, potentially reducing allergies associated with condom use for those with a latex allergy

Wait how does the former imply the latter? If a person is allergic to some compound in latex and the condoms are made of latex that has not been processed to remove that compound, how would that prevent the allergy?

Are latex allergies actually allergies to a chemical commonly used to process latex sap?

ucaetano• 11 years ago

Great, now we have an "Uber for condoms".

SG-• 11 years ago

Here I thought I was going to read about a genius new type of condom or something different. There's local delivery service here that will bring you beer or cigarettes from the corner store already. They could just bring me some condoms if I was that lazy or unprepared and I can't imagine having to tell person your with to just wait an hour if that's the case.

Might as well apply for a startup to provide the morning after pill.

filoeleven• 11 years ago

Here I thought I was going to read about a genius new type of condom or something different.

Same. For anyone else who's feeling slighted, if you haven't heard of the Origami condom you could read about that instead. It promises a better experience for all participants. Last I checked it should be entering clinical trials this year.

cpncrunch• 11 years ago

comfortable, paraben and glycerin free prophylactics

Are any latex condoms actually "comfortable"?

Turing_Machine• 11 years ago

No. Pretty much. In my experience.

DiabloD3• 11 years ago

There is only one thing I care about: will they be producing condoms bigger than the FDA currently allows? Some guys have this problem. ahem

L. Condoms (YC S15) Provides Safe Sex, On-Demand

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