machilin

Thanks for the comment! We started with subscribing to some brands manually with our own number to see if the idea was viable for about a month before trying to do it at scale by looking for which brands offered SMS and using something like a Twilio virtual phone number to get the message they send to us via API to put in the database. We currently spend a few hours every month to do that and to add more features.

Used it some years ago and thought that it was a really good front-end to the Steam store since the search interface is a bit lacking. Am surprised to see that this has millions of visitors but has such low running cost. Must be really highly optimized SQL queries and code there!

Recently decided to launch MessageDuck: https://www.messageduck.com after working on a few side projects but never actually launching for many years. It is similar to Mailcharts and ReallyGoodEmail, but for SMS which Mailcharts has as well but the price is out of our range.

Basically it is a library of thousands of SMS messages to help marketers get the latest SMS data and launch their campaign in minutes instead of days. Currently earning $0 and incurring some cost of about less than $100 a month but overall it meets our own need. It was an internal tool we used but we decided to launch it to the open web and see if there was any demand for it. Currently it has all the features of a MVP and already works great for us but we are adding some new features every month as well.

We have been reading these $500/month posts year after year and recently we have been holding back on launching our own as well. Recently we finally decide to just went in after months of working on it. It is called MessageDuck (https://www.messageduck.com) which was built while we were looking for a good solution for SMS data marketing.

We built this after we noticed that there was not much good solution except one which is quite pricey called MailCharts SMS. We are still working on it and we also have a code YC that you can use for 10% off our Pro Plan.

Hopefully, we can reach $500 by 2023 and we can Show and Tell as well.

That would be an interesting thought. He would or rather it would be infinitely more rational than any politician in the world.

That's my exact thought. Instead of building "dumb" if-else web app, maybe we could build the next-gen of web apps enhanced with AI that might prove to disrupt incumbents. I just wanted to see some examples of some of them at work to get a rough feel of the state of this prospect.

Yes, I agree. But I'm interested in areas like machine learning, weak AI areas in which your computer can make smarter personal or business decisions for you, which might actually be helpful the largest possible group of people.

Thanks for the answer. Their AI tech is quite amazing and with their 10M funding, they might be the next big thing since Siri.

Fantastic, just what I was looking for. Thank you.

Just a question: how did you get those vendors to partner with you. Did you approach them?

It can be both interesting and scary that algorithms are controlling every aspects of our lives. What are your thoughts on this?

Great read. Bitcoin can be a new gold standard. Probable. But that means someone has got to regulate it. To keep the prices stable so that it can be a standard for other currency. But bitcoin is unregulated and that's the main advantage of it. So either it can be a gold standard by being regulated, which defeats its whole purpose or remain as it is. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Edit: I highly doubt it can be stable. With so many people holding significant shares of bitcoins, any actions take by them can affect the prices significantly, since the market cap is so small. Plus someone has to step in to make sure prices don't go out of hand. If all it takes is for mtgox to have a few DOOS to drop prices by more than half, I don't see how bitcoin can be a gold standard without regulation.

Agreed on how it helps lowers transaction fees. Can be a real life-saver. Good to know that it's always good to diversify. But I really wish people could focus more on it be an actual currency for transactions rather than as an 'assest'. Thank you.

Not that I'm saying bitcoin in general is bad, but speculators are making it look bad by diving in hoping to make a quick buck. And the limelight of these so-called bitcoin millionaires give everyone the impression of making a quick return on bitcoins. You are definitely right in saying no one is guaranteeing a return, but almost everyone is expecting to make some quick returns on it. That itself can't be good.

Sure you may buy stuffs with your coins but with the current outlook, it looks like a bomb that may explode in your face. the value of bitcoin is almost predictable as you rolling a dice. You won't want to be holding any.

1% Imagine what would happen to the bitcoin market if they start selling off their bitcoins? Maybe Zuckerberg should start playing the market eh?

Agreed. But the way, I see it there are a lot of coins you might not have heard of, novacoin, terracoin... Nobody ever buys anything with them, but their prices are on the rise. As long as you make it, people will want it.

I'm thinking of investing in litecoin too. Are you?

Growth has been insane, with the price rising nearly 2 times in he last 10 days. Better hop onto the bitcoin bandwagon before it's too late?

It's difficult to say how much can this rise indefinitely. The higher the rise, if the bitcoin bubble does collapse, expect a even bigger fall when speculators start dumping their bitcoins on the market.

It's clean and fast. How do you fetch the data and what's the revenue model? Cheers.

I can't be too sure if the price is too high, and am skeptical on how much the price can rise. If it's truly are bubble drive by just pure speculation, it's really a shame that we now see the currency as just another penny stock rather than a true universal virtual currency. Cheers.

Thanks for the quick reply. But one quick question just popped up. How can the prices be rising so fast? You don't see the USD having such magnitude of changes even in 10 years. So big issue is who's going to regulate the prices? Market forces? Are they up to the job with so many speculators just there to make a quick buck? Another big concern.

And it's a 'currency', meaning you are supposed to spend it to buy stuffs. But now everyone are getting all they can like skyrim hoarders, hoping to make a quick buck. I can't forsee any sane merchants using it as a form of currency. Who's to say that the price won't go up by $10 the next day or come crashing down? Your bitcoin can be worthless or a boost in revenue just because 'market forces' say so. Horrible form of currency but great form of investment. Cheers.