Show HN: Send a Custom Postcard to Anywhere, from Your Phone, for $2.99 | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Send a Custom Postcard to Anywhere, from Your Phone, for $2.99

postcardbot.co

77 pointstraviswingo54 comments

I worked on a few postcard apps about 5 years ago, for my experiments the economics were very difficult unless a) you charged a lot b) of recurring revenue c) for a niche. I gave up even when I found a viable model because I didn't want to spent the next 5 years working on this, thought I could make a lifestyle business but I think to be successful here you have to move a lot of postcards and that takes marketing muscle and ensuring a high CLTV. Margins are good but absolute profit is tiny. Also support costs will be high, people will be emailing you about lost postcards (inevitable given the many ways they can be lost, and they will be pissed) when you stand to make 30 cents. Giving one away for free seemed to help "validate" that delivery has an existence proof for a given address, but is very expensive.

Anyway free info: the thing that seemed to have legs was an app that lets parents send monthly postcards of babies. (Recurring, high margin.) Grandparents and other relatives still have the ones my friends sent on their fridge. I think if you took this idea and executed well you could be successful, but you would need marketing capital or capital to get a partnership with a big brand.

Good luck!

Thanks for the input. I don't intend on putting in full time work on this (maybe just a couple hours a week). It's a side project and will remain as such indefinitely.

I actually built it solely for myself to use when I travel, and I thought it would be fun to build.

This is a full rework of my original project, Postacard.io. The entire project has been completely rewritten. The new version includes a Messenger bot for international use without the SMS fees, as well as statistical NLP in address parsing for faster creation (from start to finish) and better accuracy internationally.

FYI, for those of you using "UK" as your country code. The postcard service this uses recognizes "GB" as the country code for United Kingdom. I'll be putting in an alias for this.

Amazing work!

Thanks!

Very impressive. Probably the first postcard 'app' I'll actually use.

If I type in an address and forget the zip code, it prompts me to enter the zip code. Except, now I have to re-enter the complete address, instead of just the missing part. Ideally, if I'm missing the zip code, I would just enter that and your bot would remember the rest of the address.

Otherwise, great work.

There's somehow a contradiction between the service you're offering and the name of the service. Postcard BOT feels impersonal, cold and automated, while you associate a postcard with something warm, handwritten, personal. There's a risk that your target market (postcard lovers) might get turned off by the name (bot).

Thanks for the tip :). I honestly didn't take that into consideration when naming the project. I'll see what I can do and if it's worth the extra effort :).

I tend to kindly disagree - while what you say is true for the people who love to write and receive postcards - this service is perfect for lazy people like me. The real postcard lovers will still want to buy the real thing and hand-write the message on there and probably wouldn't consider this kind of service either way.

Postcards without handwriting are just email.

I'm not even a postcard lover, I send maybe one a year, but the one I will send is going to be personal. All the personality and expressiveness that you give to a written postcard is lost once you use a font. Even a really really nice one.

"The real postcard lovers will still want to buy the real thing"

Sounds like you are in that group.

This isn't a new Show HN since you've posted this before[1] with the domain postacard.io. What's changed since then?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12427505

Well, there is a penny difference in the title. A holiday discount?

Yeah, I'm playing with the pricing model. As a side project, I'd like it to at least break even. The NLP required for parsing addresses uses quite a bit of memory, so this increases the monthly costs to keep it online. Also, sending a postcard outside of the US costs substantially more than within the US. I wanted to find a good pricing structure that's flat, regardless of where the postcard is going.

There's room to reduce these costs as more people use the service. As long as I'm breaking even on servers I'll be happy :).

Sorry if you answered this somewhere else. But does it use LOB's API to send the postcard?

I wonder if there is data/logic on what would be the optimal locations (countries/cities/towns) where it is cheapest and fastest to send a postcard to that country or neighboring countries.

Do you seriously need a discount on something that costs $2.99?

It's actually been completely rewritten from the original project. This time it includes NLP for address parsing (this was a huge issue with the first version and didnt work properly internationally). It also includes a Messenger bot integration to avoid the international fees with SMS.

Actually, 4th time- here are two more submission from same user.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13272490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13275228

Guilty as charged, with the stories.

Nice, but you could make it alot more accessible with naming it something friendlier, postcardbuddy, or something and have some "cute" logo. Its quite tech geek bare metal now

Good tip! That could be because I'm a bare metal tech geek :p

AI and bots are all the rage right now. The word "buddy" is associated with all sorts of malware [0]. I'd say postcardbot is a great name, particularly as the Facebook Messenger implementation actually is a bot.

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=buddy+malware&t=h_&ia=web

I've read and analyzed a large number of stories on IndieHackers and not a single one mentioned the name being an issue, or something they wished they had changed.

There probably are a few stories out there of companies rebranding successfully and meaningfully, but it doesn't seem to matter that much in the general case.

I can think of many startups with horrible names. A decent chunk of the failed.

> Depending on the platform, we will provide you either a secure link or method to pay once you've contructed your postcard.

This is not very informative. You should provide some examples there.

Thanks, will do. Still a work in progress.

I love the idea. I travel internationally quite a bit and would love to be able to easily send a picture to my wife or parents in the mail. True, a text message is easier, but there is something fun and more personal about getting a physical thing in the mail.

Exactly. I think we're a bit too impersonal and anti-social with Snaps, Grams, etc. Taking something digital into the analog world makes it more meaningful :).

I've been using The Simple Postcard [1] for a few months now and really like it. How does this service compare?

[1] https://www.thesimplepostcard.com/

This project was actually pointed out to be when I originally built postacard.io. The difference between the two is I support international postcards, and include a Messenger bot (also an international perk). Other than that, they're essentially the same service, and I think The Simple Postcard is incredibly well built!

Pretty awesome! Just used it and it worked easy-peasy! Now if I could only upload a boat load of addresses...

At some point I'll create a web interface and allow CSV address components. Whenever I find the time though :p.

This is similar to Bill Atkinson's postcard app. [1]

[1] http://www.billatkinson.com/Pages/aboutPhotoCard.html

Except it isn't an app :), which is the reason for the original inspiration behind the project. Postcards aren't a very popular thing anymore (hopefully that changes!), and I don't quite believe a dedicated app is justified when you can do it straight from SMS or Messenger.

Postcards aren't popular, you are right. I don't think they will be anymore. Kids my age are sending snaps, and even archaic image texts. I think we are are more interested in showing our friends "I'm here, look at what's behind me", then in sending some generic, impersonal postcard which doesn't prove anything.

If you could nock the price down you could market this to HAMs for QSL cards.

I really like this idea!

I've been wanting something similar, but instead for the postcards to be sent from the country that you are traveling from. Such a service would be hard to implement though.

If you're already there, then why not send them yourself? I liked the adventure of finding postcards (when you're not in a touristy area) and then finding a post office. You get to see aspects of the country that hasn't been changed for tourists.

Sending a physical postcard from a mobile phone is a standardised activity: https://www.nowsms.com/oma-mms-postcard-conformance

The end user (my mother, sister etc.) definately wouldn't know that.

I remember when Youtube came out, and all the nerds said "I could write that easily, not that big a deal".

This is why knowing who your customer is (and what problem you're trying to solve) is essential.

There was a load of publicity ~a decade ago about this, with lots of mobile operators pushing the service. They did do the marketing, but MMS was the success we know it was(!), cameras in phones weren't top notch, and the service was used once only by lots of people who have now forgotten all about it...

I'd like to use this! But I have questions. Tell me more about the automatic rotation, and in general about how images are fit to cards when the aspect ratio differs. I'm also curious about print resolution.

Well essentially the platform simply looks at the difference between the width and height, and rotates to fit a 4x6 aspect ratio, gravitated towards the center of the photo. It works best with photos taken directly from a smart phone, uncropped. It also scales the resolution if its not high enough, but this typically isn't an issue if the photo was taken with a modern smartphone today.

You can read a bit about this in FAQ

https://postcardbot.co/faq

Any plans to send gifs as well? (gifpop.io is good inspiration)

At first I actually wasn't sure if you were joking or serious, but gifpop.io looks awesome. I'll start looking into how/if I can integrate.

However, If I sent my grandma a postcard that moved, she'd probably collapse :p

Haha, totally serious about the gifs.

I'm surprised that none of the postcard bots (yours included) have targeted the Christmas/holiday card or wedding gift thank you market. None of them seem to offer bulk discounts or options for uploading a csv or better yet integration with iOS or Gmail contacts.

Average number of wedding guests in America is 150, iirc.

Neat implementation, but loses the human being portion that makes postcards special.

Any plans to integrate with Apple Pay in the messenger bot? I'd love that.

Does anywhere include countries that the USA has embargos (Cuba) with?

Include real, photographed physical examples on the landing page.

Here's an example. Found in FAQ.

https://postcardbot.co/examples/psc_58b3f6b96b4b9b44.pdf

That doesn't give me an idea of what the finished product looks like in hand. Card stock, etc.

Just connects a service like Twilio with Lob API, right?

what a bargain

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