YC W17 Launch: Credy, Upcall, and Kangpe | Hacker News Reader

YC W17 Launch: Credy, Upcall, and Kangpe

blog.ycombinator.com

45 pointscraigcannon26 comments

> This can be for debt refinancing, marriage, education or emergency needs. Our customers are those who want fast, hassle-free loans on a recurring basis.

Why do your customers need to borrow on a recurring basis for marriage/debt refinancing? The model sounds like payday loans, lend for something small with an extortionate markup so they're forced to borrow repeatedly to be able to pay you back. Are you different to that?

Upcall seems like a good idea.

Is it really? I'm as farthest one can imagine from sales, but I thought the hardest part is not setting up a call centre, or making calls, but rather training the sales agent to be good at selling, and find and manage good leads...

I can only imagine this being used for the rather spammy types of phone calls. The types that people on HN love to use something like Lenny for (I'm on mobile so can't find a link easily).

Please don't take this as criticism, but I'm genuinely curious how this can be used for non spammy or super scripted sales (and we might use it if it really helps us build a sales team of some sort)

It looks like an Upwork clone, but for cold callers. So, looking through the website it looks like they have a similar system.

You personally vet your sales members (after they've been vetted by Upcall) and it looks like they carry ratings similar to Upwork (rating each call, i.e project).

Now, I don't believe the focus of this will be B2C sales (that would be too unwieldly and is a shrinking tactic). This type of sales has always worked best for B2B (and so the small and unique subset of HN posters is exempt).

I see. Thanks.

But what's the competitive advantage over upwork? "Just" focus and pre vetting? The rating system in upwork should in theory counter-balance the need for vetting though... but maybe focusing on this niche is a good idea.

We recently started using an inbound call handling service, and I can imagine having a more dedicated person could be beneficial. So my first thought was VA on upwork. If upcall covers this better, then I can definitely see potential. And then it's natural progression for outbound calls if we see a need.

EDIT: and another big competitive advantage I would imagine would be having all the (virtual) wiring in place to make outbound calls. Right?

> But what's the competitive advantage over upwork?

Pricing is more friendly (for both parties). Upwork has been shooting itself in the foot, along with all of its users, by gouging fees.

> * and another big competitive advantage I would imagine would be having all the (virtual) wiring in place to make outbound calls. Right?*

I'd imagine this is case if they have call-logging and transcripts.

Yes Upcall is different than freelancing platforms, as Upcall has built-in tools, including dialing system for the Upcallers and voice recording, analytics and +300 integrations for the client to bi-directional sync their data with their app.

The main similarity with Upwork is the rating/review system from the Upcall community.

is it just me or is there website also down?

edit: looks like its back up.

I thought so too. Especially if you are not wanting to hire full timers to cold call.

To be honest, this idea is really going betting against the current sales model (which is dangerous). Upcall team -- pay attention to this: almost every sales leader I know (in SaaS) wants their SDRs/BDRs to be phoning/emailing. It's absolutely crucial to becoming a great seller. Outsourcing this stuff is a horrendous idea bcs it robs sales reps of cold selling (which is immensely important to their growth).

I could go on and on about this, you've chose a rough path.

Disclosure: I've dealt with almost 250+ SaaS sales leaders in the past 24 months.

Upcall is actually supplementing existing sales team by qualifying leads and setting up appointment (sales enablement). Hiring and training a SDR/BDR takes a lot of time and money and that's why Upcall makes it easier for smaller companies to scale. With the API, companies can easily qualify interest before using internal team to close deals.

Let me ask you a question: Do you view Upcall as a stop-gap solution?

Bcs your answer above reads that way.

Upcall qualifies leads and generate interest. An internal sales team spends weeks to call 1000 leads and qualify them, and that's our sweat spot.

We are a stop-gap solution for large team, but work with over 350 customers (including many SaaS companies) who simply don't have time to qualify their leads that they purchase.

What's different about Kangpe?

My first thought is the huge untapped market. Nigeria alone has over half the population of the US.

Wow, I thought this was not possible but indeed this is true. Nigeria has population of 182.20 million! Wow.

Yet Nigeria's GDP is smaller than Florida's according to google.

And when the GDP improves, their startup will be on the ground to take advantage of that. There's a reason why investment in African startups is on the rise.

That's true, although significant corruption might make GDP growth too slow such that the start ups will run out of money before they can benefit from it.

Since it is only available in English I can only presume it is some American Prince trying to repatriate Nigerian money.

Are you 4 Years old and unenlightened? Because you'd need such a combination to leave such a stupid comment.

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. @watter's comment was in extremely bad taste.

Frankly, i expected him/her to apologise because the comment

1) Sought to impugn kangpe's achievements,

2) maligned an entire country whose official language is English, and

3) went against HN's guidelines on civility.

You're right.

I can't delete or edit it though. Sorry.

Different from?

I believe having around you that you can visit is an in person consultation is needed gives particular advantage.

I am curious why you decided to launch on Sat late night. Is there some data backing what is a good time to launch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com