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Comment by deutronium | Hacker News Reader

I saw their product on Dragons' Den yesterday.

I found it rather surprising as I've bought similar bluetooth key fobs, from Aliexpress for around $1.40 each and they mentioned they where planning on selling them for around £20.

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Apparently he did his own due diligence and discovered that these fobs already exist. However I'm not entirely convinced, because there is no marketing for Aliexpress goods and a fancy British startup could just sell and distribute these fobs with a nice markup. It's still a viable business I think.

>>>Apparently he did his own due diligence and discovered that these fobs already exist.

My conclusion too. It would have been useful if the story actually provided any information but it seems the 'journalist' was either asked to, or decided to see if he could stretch a tweet out to a full page article.

Probably decided he would do it himself.

The dragons really are some of the worst people.

Lots of companies offer this functionality.

One that is very successful (4.5 million sold) is https://thetrackr.com. I have no affiliation--I just hear their ads over and over on lots of podcasts. They sell them for about $30 each, so they are similarly more expensive than AliExpress type ones.

I'm not trying to defend such a high price point, but there is plenty of scope for adding value on top of the raw product from Aliexpress. Writing good documentation for it, branding it be more appealing to a specific market, writing apps to work with it, releasing library code to build other apps on top of it, etc. The fact something can be bought very cheaply isn't automatically a reason why someone else shouldn't sell the same product at a higher price.

Perhaps that was the issue that arose during due diligence - sorry, looks like these already exist, the idea isn't worth pursuing after all.

Sanity check... Let's say I'm particularly careless and so locating my keys costs me 2 hours per year more than it would without this device. (Assuming I can find my phone, which seems unlikely at this point). Also assume this product has a lifetime of 2 years. So it might save me 5-ish hours over the product lifetime. If I value my spare time at, say, $100 per hour, I should be willing to pay several hundred dollars for this product. There must be other factors I've ignored, but it seems plausibly worth $20 or more if it is actually good at what it claims to do.

My wife is especially terrible with keys. This would save her way, way more than 2 hours per year.

I wouldn't need one myself but trust me, there are folks out there who would really benefit from it.

It's frustrating to lose your keys. Enough of an annoyance that you might pay for a fix. Then there are those who chronically have this problem, that's another market. People with memory problems, etc.

Well, your spare time is by definition worth $0. Nobody would otherwise be working during the time they're looking for keys. I think it's important to do this type of calculation for things at work or for side projects but you know how you can not lose your keys and not pay several hundred dollars for a fob? Put them in the same place every time.

Also the fact that you can buy something nearly identical for $1.40 pretty quickly rules out paying several hundred dollars for it.

If spare time is worth nothing why do people purchase additional holiday?

Also, the time spent looking for keys is often spent just before going to work, which makes you later for work than you would have otherwise been.

Well there's already tile who seem to be doing OK selling tags for £25 each. They have a remarkable burn rate for selling something so simple! $34M in 2 Rounds

Probably why they pulled out. The show is a bit misleading. You can only go by what the people are saying. For instance, I'm sure at some point the dragon asked "are there any products like this cheaper on the market that do the same thing", at which point you can only believe their answer there and then.

I'm not surprised that he pulled out. Just wish my dad did the same.

One of the dragons (Duncan, I think) pointed out how old this fob technology was. This triggered what appeared to be the turning point in the pitch where Deborah(?) realized they weren't buying into the physical hardware but the software behind the company.

Sarah Willingham pointed out quite early on how useless it was "the instructions say 'make sure the phone is not muted'? What use is this if I've lost it?". Google's existing solution beats this, being able to bypass audio restrictions. I assume Apple has similar capabilities?

Yes there's still the other half... using your phone to find your keys... but pfft.

Aside... Sarah's contribution reminded me of how technology savvy the dragons are. There was a great moment in a previous series where Hilary Devey teased out of an applicant that they didn't own the source code for their own website. I've often slipped into thinking of them as "business people" but she very clearly understood software and licensing.

> There was a great moment in a previous series where Hilary Devey teased out of an applicant that they didn't own the source code for their own website.

(I applied to present on Dragons Den for a robotics project I worked on as an extracurricular at uni - I pulled out when my research supervisor advised that we'd have no chance of having a demo in time)

I understand the Dragons are briefed on the pitches beforehand, and I wouldn't be surprised if they sent their own legal team on the projects - who would dutifully tell them what questions they should ask to the 'contestants' on the show.

...not to say they couldn't possibly have thought of a question like that on-the-spot, on the contrary; but given how fake reality TV is in general (and the BBC is no exception) I'm not betting that what we see on screen is exactly, and only, what happens.

Good points, it is entertainment afterall.

I want to believe in Hilary though!

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