Cloud Printing and Shipping Service Lob (YC S13) Raises $2.4M Seed Round | Hacker News Reader

Cloud Printing and Shipping Service Lob (YC S13) Raises $2.4M Seed Round

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45 pointsharryzhang18 comments

For those who use this service, which part of it appeals the most? Is it removing the hassle of finding a printer? Is it the API part? Is it the shipping/logistics aspect?

I ask because Lob is a generalized version of what we (http://www.littleheroes.com) do every day.

I never considered our platform to be a service unto itself so I'm curious which aspects in particular resonate with people.

What I like most is that they position themselves as a utility for one's app. I don't have to worry about them trying to impose their branding on my customers and it's one less thing to worry about, which is especially nice as it's a service that most companies did not automate before I imagine.

We don't currently use Lob, but we use a service like it and for us it's the printing and mailing functionality that makes it appealing. Giving our customers the ability to send things like invoices directly to their customers from the application is a feature that gets lots of utilization.

What service do you use? Does it also have an API?

https://www.trypaper.com/

I love the concept of Lob, especially the CDN for mail.

I do wish the processing time was much lower. 2-3 days is quite a lot of time to wait on-top of the already slow USPS delivery.

"All printing is processed typically within 2-3 business days then mailed right after." https://www.lob.com/docs

Is there a reason the processing time is so long? I understand Lob relies on other parties to print and send the mail.

Ideally there would be same-day printing - I submit a job at 9am and it is printed and in USPS's system by 5pm. Combined with the CDN printing & mailing close to the destination, the mail should then arrive within 2 days of the job submission.

EDIT: And congrats to the Lob team! You guys are solving a real pain-point, and it won't be long until you've moved from $1 million in checks to $1 billion.

From my experience they have processed same-day or next day, although YMMV.

Which is great, but I can't build an app on that.

What I'd really like is a delivery estimate API, so I could stagger job submission to ensure an entire batch ended up in my user's hands on the same day.

Agreed, if your use case requires precise delivery times then it won't work. I also would love a delivery estimate API, I wonder if they could make that happen.

They should be able to. All major shipping companies' API provides an estimate for delivery. So it's a matter of adding up the estimate days with the printing lead time and returning that (along with a disclaimer!)

So I just googled "print photo api", and found a while bunch of similar things, like http://www.pwinty.com/

Is Lob different?

Huge fan of this company. Great job guys!

Congrats guys! We've loved using Lob, and really exciting to see everything taking off!

I'm hopeful this means they can start offering their services in the UK! We'd love to integrate this in our app.

Congrats Leore and team! So far my experience with Lob has been fantastic. Can't wait to see what's next.

Congrats! Cloud printing is a huge market. We're doing something very similar with 3D printing.

Nice work Harry & Leore

Congrats guys!

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