peterschroeder

Ohhhhhh, it may not be new, but I assure you - it is mind-blowingly awesome.

The problem it solves is app fatigue. I get this isn't a problem I have, but let me run you through the list of messaging apps I use.

- Slack - WhatsApp - HipChat - Facebook Messenger - Intercom - Kik - Social Media DM's - Skype (for messaging) - Google Hangouts (for messaging) - WeChat - Multiple Emails - I'm probably forgetting some because there are so many

It may not solve a problem for everyone, but if nothing else - it will be a lifesaver for me! :)

Haha great point!

Haha I am always open to offers, but we plan to build this platform to 'Hootsuite status.'

I alluded to this a little bit, but I'm happy to clarify further. As I mentioned, if the people want something - they will get it. We saw this with Snapchat. Facebook tried to squish them, buy them, then squish them again. They couldn't take them down. Same thing would have happened with Instagram if they didn't buy them.

Our workaround will be working with the networks we can. There are hundreds of messaging apps boasting over a million active users. If we can get half of the top 100, we become dangerous. Once we get that major market share, we start to make partnerships to get the integrations we couldn't before. While we do that, we will begin to unify other things like email, phone calls, and video chat.

I believe the problem is there, I just feel it is not a problem everyone has.

Sounds like you use a lot of apps! I haven't tried zoro.im, but you convinced me I need to!

Wow, I never thought about it. Of the top of my head, I know LeBron James has a pretty outstanding bead! :]

Nice! So it is the only messaging app you use?

Thanks!

Thanks! :)

I am glad you have enjoyed it.

I've never heard of zoro.im

Do you like it?

Oh yeah! Just leave everything exactly how it is now and I will keep on loving Trello! :)

I have dealt with some Israeli tech companies, and those guys know what they are doing. This is just the beginning. The tech scene there is absolutely booming.

Sorry, it got picked up by 'Hacker Noon', so I thought it would be relevant again for 'Hacker News'.

Text messaging is dead, which is why we are solving for chat. The idea has yet to be executed on, but we feel we have the formula. We are still early in development but have coasted through some major integrations. Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't make it impossible.

What I do is I look at the products I absolutely love. Then I think about if the concept can be applied to any other industry.

Think Uber for... (But seriously, don't do 'the Uber of [anything]'.

My latest side project I was thinking about a product I love and I thought about how I use Buffer for social media management. They have made my life, so much easier! From there I thought about if the concept could be applied to any other industry. I realized the messaging industry had nothing like it! Needless to say, I am not working on 'the Buffer of messaging', but that is where the idea spawned and I refined it from there.

Great question! This has been something we have really struggled with. We want to be as user-friendly as possible and to so we need to give some things up. We aren't going to store messages, blast ads, or anything intrusive like that. For this reason, we have a few options.

Option number on is we release a free version with limited capabilities and a upgradable version from $.99-$4.99. This isn't the desirable route because the more users we have on our network, the better it will work. We want to encourage anyone and everyone to join.

Option number 2 (the route we will take) will mainly consist of monetizing businesses who want to use the platform. Much like Snapchat, this will consist of sponsored content, geo options, and other business-centric features. This option will require us to scale quickly, but I am pretty sure it is the route we are going to take.

For the first few months we are going to bootstrap it and focus on user experience and not focus on monetizing users at all. As we scale and grow our user base we can start focusing on things like that.

I totally agree and am grateful for all of your feedback!

Does anyone else get about 1/2 of payments failed through Stripe?? It's driving me GD nuts!

Zoom is my go to https://zoom.us/

The odds seems to be stacked up against me...

I completely and undoubtedly agree with everything you are saying, but just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't.

We are fully aware there will be a day where we have to stand on our own tow feet, and we will be ready when that day comes.

Notification priority could be something we do relatively easy. I am not very well versed in the ML/AI space, but with all the resources on the internet, I am sure I could figure it out. That sounds like something that could be a truly unique feature for us, thanks for the input!

Right, everything is entirely up to the user.

Good point. Things like that are great for people who understand them, we just want to make it easily accessible for the average consumer.

True, it definitely won't be for all people. I completely get this won't resonate with everyone, but imagine with me for a second. First, we unify messaging and get people interested in that. Then we unify live streams. Then we unify the next thing. At which point we either choose to become something like a super app, or segment it like Zapier.

(And no, this hasn't happened yet with XMPP. XMPP has, for a variety of reasons completely failed. We need to let it die and start from scratch with something actually designed with mobile devices in mind)

I think we all agree with that.

Very true! When you think about how email is dying and everyone is messaging, there is a lot of opportunity. For example the conversation I am having here on HN are way more valuable than if all of us were in a room talking. It may be more fun, but we wouldn't be having these types of conversations.

We are trying to solve for this issue. We have gotten the feedback you stated before and now we are trying to make it so each of integrations can hold on to some unique aspect within our app. We completely understand every native app has a different feel. It is like having conversations a school to a professor (school email) to having a conversation at a bar (Snapchat). We believe we will be able to create certain environments within our app to hold on the environment of native apps.

The features you mention all should stand the tale of time in the messaging world and I safe it's safe to assume we will incorporate all of them eventually.

Incredible insights on companies fighting for market share. This is leading to all of the innovation now, and soon the dust will settle. At which point, we can sweep in and offer something unique to the common user!

In the book, 'The Lean Startup' author Eric Ries actually used this strategy for his messaging company IMVU. Essentially he wanted to do the same thing I am doing, but for MSN, Yahoo, Aim, etc. It ended up being a catastrophic fail in one of the most read books in the startup world. Can you blame anyone for not trying it?!

Though this isn't where I got the idea, I read about it the other day when I had some downtime.

I accept your challenge and will prove the future is in fact quite bright! :)

We're solving for the people who use WhatsApp and iMessage.

What's funny is, I had this exact conversation with someone today. If nothing else, at least I am developing an app which will be a livesaver for me! :)

I also appreciate you reading the few post I have put out here. I am on a bit of a tear writing lately as part of a new year resolution to write more and improve my writing. I figured I might as well couple it with my little project.

Anyways, I am fully aware this app won't apply to everyone. The way I look at it is not everyone uses so many social networks that they can't handle posting to all of them right? While this might not seem like a huge problem, Hootsuite solved for it and now they are a unicorn.

I get this is a problem me and a few other people have right now, but I believe it is going to get worse. There will be an app after Snapchat, then after that, and the apps will continue to pile up. As for notification, we have some things in the pipeline to improve over messaging experaince as well.

If I backtrack just a bit, I am actually more of a swiss army knife position who works at a startup. Mainly I do customer service and data analysis though.

Thanks for your input!