Show HN: Hellobox.org – Company gear for remote teams | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Hellobox.org – Company gear for remote teams

hellobox.org

9 pointshellobox8 comments

Here's some feedback:

1. I don't get the Amazon gift card angle. Is that some allowance that you're giving the employee? Those gift cards can be sent electronically and they're more convenient to use that way since it's a website.

2. You can drastically simplify the pricing. I would remove the two tiers and just make it one price. Increase the price a bit more and have shipping included. Reduce the complexity, reduce the friction.

3. Why stop at new hires only? Market this as a way to keep remote employees happy whether it be at the time of onboarding, just for fun, or whatever milestone/event.

4. Why compare what it costs you vs what it would cost them? The value is more than the cost savings. It's the convenience and the fact that you're made for it. Give the client an option to include a personal note or something to make it go from commodity to premium.

Thanks for the feedback. You make some great points. I'll respond to each.

1. I originally wanted to include the book REMOTE, but figured it'd be better to give customers a choice of books. Then I just opted for the gift card instead for simplicity.

2. I like that idea. I didn't include shipping originally because I have no idea what it will actually cost, and was hoping to offset that risk initially. Totally agree going forward.

3. Just picked a specific niche that I knew it would appeal to in the beginning.

4. Good idea.

OP here. I remember the first time I visited the Mothership as a remote employee. I was grabbing t-shirts and stickers by the handful. I’ve been wanting to build something for remote teams for quite a while, and this seemed like simple place to start. It’s definitely rough around the edges, but I wanted to get it out there. It took two weeks to build in my spare time. Happy to answer any questions.

Can you customize what's in the box? I know Hired sends out amazing swag to their companies/clients in boxes like these, it would be great to be able to use this to run something similar.

I originally had that on the pricing page. $5 per box - ship us whatever you want and we'll box it up and send it out. So yes, it's totally doable.

I think this($5/box) model is preferable to the one currently offered. It strikes me that you are selling a $30 company t-shirt and that sounds expensive. Any printing company is able to duplicate your model very easily, undercut your pricing, and probably do it more efficiently with existing resources (admittedly, I don't know your resources, you may have great production and shipping capabilities already built out).

I have worked remote for a few different companies, and the more compelling offer is a service with a high-degree of customization, which can include a t-shirt and some stickers, too. Plus, you could charge more for curating and purchasing. Suppliers may also pay you to be part of your curated offering.

Are you sure you need a 2.9MB hero image download which took about 20sec to load on a 12Mb broadband connection?

Nope. Definitely not. It's actually even larger than that. Just got overlooked in shipping as quickly as possible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com