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Comment by garygao | Hacker News Reader

Apple wouldn't ban us since we're not doing anything that would qualify as spam or abuse. Even if that hypothetical event does happen, we have SMS/RCS fallback systems in place so no conversations get stopped or lost

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As someone who has been in the messaging industry for more than a decade, it sounds naive to think that the litmus test for whether Apple will ban you is whether your traffic qualifies as spam. There is a long history of people trying to get around A2P spam filters / fees / traffic limits / onboarding / KYB requirements by running business messaging on P2P pipes, like you are doing. Some of it has been successful (see Twilio in the early days) but the industry has gotten a lot more sophisticated around this stuff and is not going to be receptive to your approach, which to me resembles the SIM farms that are a scourge when it comes to consumer fraud and abuse.

++ this is going to get banned the moment anyone from Apple sees it

Especially when Apple has provided an approved path with iMessage for Business. If this isn't trying to send spam/abuse, which alone wouldn't prevent Apple from shutting it down anyway, it is trying to avoid the registration/vetting process implemented by iMessage for Business.

At least with Beeper the pitch wasn't to enable A2P but to allow real people to use iMessage alongside other platforms.

Much of what you mention in your post seemed spammy; messaging regarding cart abandonment, etc. I aggressively label messages like that as spam, and I suspect others do too. I also suspect after blasting out messages like that, your accounts will get burned.

We work with our customers to make those messages consent-based and feel non-spam.

Could you elaborate? What does that mean in practice?

So far what I’ve seen from your service seems to be yet another attempt at blurring the distinction between bots and human interactions, which is generally used for spammy content

We're working to bridge the interaction between humans and bots so that automated conversations feel more natural and comfortable for the end user. In circumstances where the user can't reach an actual human (e.g. off hours support), they're often faced with bots over SMS/RCS that feel non-conversational and therefore can't support them in the right way due to interface. We're working on building agents that can more comfortably interact with users during those situations.

What about RCS/SMS is the "wrong" way of helping the customer?

It's not the "wrong" way, it's just different. iMessage works well for businesses that want to create a conversational experience in their customer service that conveys care and attention

I am sorry. Can one not a conversational experience using RCS? What, in specific, does iMessage do that RCS does not which prevents RCS from having a conversational experience?

I suspect you are actually implying something different than conversational experience or using it as a substitute for a completely different concept.

This impersonates a person on a platform which has generally prevented that... so people will be more likely to have a conversation, as they don't expect it to be a bot. The fact that they'll have to rotate out iMessage accounts so the message history will kill any possible gain from the deception.

What I don't understand is why a business would want to bifurcate their messaging stack... this is a solution that only works for half of their customers... for a business that doesn't have an app.

So… You’re trying to hide spam by making it seem like human interaction.

That doesn’t address the actual issue with these messages… which is that they’re still spam, regardless how you try and dress them up.

To be clear, no matter how it is phrased I’m going to report any kind of “you left this message in your cart” message as spam.

Even if your core offering disappears you can do the same thing that every other SMS-sending thing can do?

I also notice you answered the question, but not in the way anyone who needs to depend on this service would want to hear. So yeah you're doing the Mac Mini thing.

I'm with landl0rd. This service should not exist, you should feel bad for creating it, and every time I get a spam iMessage I will think about you and curse your name. Hope the money's worth it.

> anyone who needs to depend on this service would want to hear

Are you implying you'd be cool with it if it was Apple sanctioned? That's pretty silly.

Not even the worst reading of their reply would lend to that implication.

It’s pretty obvious that they meant that anyone who depended on their service would/should probably run away kicking and screaming if they were looking for a dependable service that will do what they claim to in the long term.

If they were Apple sanctioned, then at least you’d have some reassurance that the service won’t die randomly one day when Apple has had enough, à la Beeper.

First, that's pretty obviously not what I said. Two things can be true. This is bad, and also if I were evaluating it for use in my business, it is obviously not something I can rely on.

But then just ...Um yes? I trust Apple to keep a handle on their iMessage network. Citation: having used iMessage for ~15 years. This would mean things like ensuring that I didn't get spam. Ensuring actual company identity (does anyone remember Messages for Business?) &c. This is pretty obvious and I am trying to understand your comment?

Did the YC interviewers ask you about this risk?

Did they ask you about a bigger market you can move into?

There's no way this foothold will last. You're going to get massacred.

Apple WILL ban you. You're not in some capricious walled garden. You're breaking and entering, and they'll destroy you.

There is nothing of value to build here. You should take the rest of the day off, then tomorrow, pivot entirely.

The folks here are trying to save you n years of hard work and wasted effort. Please listen. You're lucky to have a YC check. Apply it somewhere else, to some other problem. Preferably not in someone else's garden, and especially not in one where they shoot to kill.

Why would yc fund them given how obvious the risk is ? Esp since a Mac mini farm is capital intense.

This is a "Launch HN" / "YC P26" thread, so YC funded them.

If YC didn't fund this particular idea, they funded the team to pursue some earlier idea that the team then pivoted from to try this one.

In any case, the team needs to pivot. This idea is lighting cash (and time) on fire.

YC is not some end all be all arbiter of what will succeed. Plenty of YC startups have failed.

https://ycgraveyard.iamwillwang.com/

https://startups.rip/

Seeing that YC will even fund something as risky as this, I'm going to go ahead and late apply. I have a feeling I shouldn't write that as the reason though ;)

Seriously though, this is wild. How is this different from those click farms with a wall of phones viewing livestreams or tapping on adds or whatever?

There might not be space left? I know of a few companies that have already been admitted, and they're filling slots fast.

I don't know how much they budget for overflow.

Don't let me discourage you. I'm just following my own suspicions. My company is at a $2M run rate and I'm thinking I shouldn't bother applying since I missed the window.

(Dang, care to comment?)

I still want OP to make the best of their time in YC and their runway. There are plenty of other great ideas out there rather than being a freight train hop-on.

I agree, even if they decide to persist with this, they need to grow into a more robust business (ex. focusing on the abandoned cart followup niche) than just being an API that can get shut down overnight.

And yeah it's definitely late, but I'll just take what you said as a push to actually bang it out today and try to fight my tendency to write and say way too much on those kind of things, haha. It's only half tech related anyway, similar problem space as Firstbase.

Little bit extreme

> Apple wouldn't ban us...

To me this screams you haven't talked to Apple. Given how macabre they were towards Beeper Mini, I almost expect the same treatment for Chert.

Nonetheless, best of luck if you can pull it off.

I think what we're doing is fundamentally different from Beeper in terms of positioning. Beeper is trying to offer an additional interface to iMessage when it already exists for humans. What we're doing is giving agents the ability to interact with iMessage users, which is something that fundamentally can't be done on the current interface.

The fact that Apple hasn't banned agents like Poke is a good indicator that they're not necessarily against agents on iMessage.

> giving agents the ability to interact with iMessage users

As an iMessage user I want the opposite. I’m happy for agents to contact me through the cesspool of telegram or WhatsApp - on those apps I expect it and am suitably on guard. I highly value Apple’s policing of their ecosystem so I know that when someone iMessages me I can trust they are who they say you are.

I’m curious and fascinated in the pitch for this startup and how you convinced investors that you could overcome the obvious hurdles. You must have some Travis kalanick level of “we will break the rules and it will just work out”. Hoping you pivot your talents to something I can root for.

Poke looks like a startup with a 2 month head start that's also unvetted in the market, not a case study of permitted behavior and success at subverting iMessage with agents. Does anyone know if Apple even knows Poke exists yet?

Likewise, Poke also looks doomed. They're creating... OpenClaw but worse. OpenClaw hype and interest has recently fallen off a cliff, I don't think the angels will be getting their money back on that one.

> Apple wouldn't ban us since we're not doing anything that would qualify as spam or abuse

Hmm, I wouldn't be so certain about that. Apple can ban you for whatever they like.

…so you have a Mac mini farm

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