Show HN: Whimsical – Get anything done, via SMS | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Whimsical – Get anything done, via SMS

whimsical.io

23 pointsjameshk53 comments

I am sorry for being so blunt, but makers of things like this are the very dregs of startup society.

Cloning an idea concept-for-concept screenshot-for-screenshot that was posted just a month ago and went viral just hoping to capitalize on a previous company's success is pathetic. It might be successful (i.e. given that this includes zero original effort, any amount of income could be termed "success"), but it is despicable and should not be encouraged or even condoned.

Taking an existing service and cloning it for a different userbase (e.g. making Twitter for China or Facebook for Jordan) are pretty lame and rank near-zero on the scales of creativity and respect. But something like this, that makes absolutely zero effort to differentiate itself in any way, shape, or form, hoping to only take leftovers from an existing (and original) service, and maybe someday overtake them via sheer brute force or persistence, are shameless and insulting.

But I think most of all, what irks me is that the OP has the gall to post this as "Show HN" which has traditionally been the "let me show you something COOL or INSPIRING that I did" - do you really think no one here will catch that this is an exact clone of Magic and there's absolutely zero substance to it? It's insulting.

Competition is competition.

I don't encourage it (edit: directly cloning ideas, competition is awesome) but I also wouldn't call it despicable.

Executing on an idea better than a competitor is one of the fundamental concepts of a capitalistic system.

This was mostly just a weekend side project, and I did not build it to capitalize on Magic's success, I did it because it was something I wanted, in Canada.

Ideas are cheap, and execution is king.

With a service as conceptually-simple as this, "added value" lies entirely in the difference in quality/price of the service.

But I do agree that this doesn't belong among other "Show HN" posts, principally because this landing page eschews implementation details.

How many search engines were there before google? Social networks before Facebook?

All startups are a copy in 1 form or another. Afaik Magic had major problems that essentially made it a non-service. If this one actually works, and people want it, whats the problem?

> All startups are a copy in 1 form or another. Afaik Magic had major problems that essentially made it a non-service. If this one actually works, and people want it, whats the problem?

That's all the more reason to be skeptical, since the service does not provide any information as to how it would avoid Magic's pitfalls.

So what you're saying is that you prefer monopolies? Most businesses are clones of others and it's lucky for consumers that people do start clone businesses whenever they can or otherwise we'd end up with Comcast-like entities running everything. I think we should absolutely encourage competition. Creativity, respect, and original effort aren't things that make business successful. They're things that make art successful and hardly ever translate to profit. We are still talking about businesses here after all.

It's your opinion and I have no problem with it.

I don't understand all this hate. Unlike US-only offerings, Whimsical is a service that's trying to open up to readers of Hacker News from other countries.

As some have already pointed out, it is not easy to go International.

On top of that, I'm sure by now you've realized that HackerNews has many international readers and they'd be very happy to see services that were previously only in the US with no plans of going international have some International competition.

I'm sorry that some of you are not entertained, but for the rest of us, HackerNews is a great place to Show and talk about what we're working on and get advice on how we could do it better!

Thank you for your constructive criticism. I never intended for this to offend or anger anyone. I just wanted to build a service, that people who lived in Canada could use.

I'm sorry if this has angered anyone.

Sorry to say this but I hate to see services that just pop up to clone something existing (and that barely even started) without adding any value.

"Oh that's a good idea, lemme just change the name real quick, whip out the same website with a stock nyc image and post a link on HN"

That's the market for you.

If we are lucky, things will get less expensive and quality will go up for both products.

The problem is that there'a an explicit floor to the price: it can't be less than what the service pays to subcontract the request, or the service will lose money on the transaction.

The little margins present will be eaten away. (Unless subsidized by venture capital like all the other startups with similar models)

If there are multiple players in the market such that you can't make a profit then you leave the market as will others until either a) the market stabilizes (or a clear brand winner emerges) b) disappears because it's fundamentally unprofitable.

I'm pretty sure b) is already the case (Magic said they break even on transactions, which means they are losing money due to cost of human capital)

I don't think that means it's fundamentally unprofitable. It's a pretty standard strategy to grow the market by subsidizing early adopters. They can try to raise prices over time or benefit from economics of scale. Perhaps, for example, when they get to a certain size, they'll have enough clout to get discounts on the various services they utilize.

Is this a Magic clone?

Similar, but this is worldwide, and has other features.

Canada, UK and US to be precise. That is not worldwide.

I'll fix that!

Yes, except it has zero information on how payment actually works.

I'll fix that right now. Check the FAQ. (https://whimsical.io/faq/)

That's something you need to include in the app screenshots, as it's obvious that's not the organic flow.

Will do.

You should make it possible to go back to the homepage from the FAQ.

Fixing..

Was Magic a Jarvis clone?

Is Jarvis a magical clone?

No; the value proposition of Magic is that it's accountless and can be done on an ad hoc basis. Jarvis bills monthly: https://jarv.co/plans

Yeah, I thought Magic was pretty cool too.

How is this any different than Magic?

Apparently, because it's Canada/US/UK instead of US only.

...which I'm not sure is actually an advantage, because it would make customer support 100x as difficult if something goes wrong in another country.

> Apparently, because it's Canada/US/UK instead of US only.

...which I'm extremely happy about. I've emailed magic several times asking if they will ever support Canada, or if I could use it in Canada with my US credit card - I've received 0 responses.

It's an advantage to Canadian and UK customers!

At first,I was like "oh, the magic team did some rebranding."

And then I realized this was actually a complete clone, right to the screenshot.

It's easier to read the phone number and dial if you format it like (###)-###-#### instead of ##########.

Yeah, I pull the number in via a JS api, and just changed it last minute. It used to be like that, I'll get on it. Thanks!

Fixing now. Thanks!

It's like an API aggregator for the real world. Wow. Like Magic. I think Quintessentially has something similar, tho Whimsical (and Magic) seem to have democratised concierge (possibly with rational pricing.) Cool.

So now I guess I need to build a service that compares prices for what you request between these two, and the next hundred knockoffs. I'll call it Witchcraft.

You pay via an SSL link to a page with a Stripe payment form, for those want to know.

It's great to see that this is going to support Canada! =)

What is the advantage of your service vs Magic?

I'll update the screenshots, ASAP. Thanks!

Whats the UK number?

Give me a minute.

any news?

Really sorry, we're having some issues!

Well done!

Thanks, if that was not sarcasm.

It wasn't, though it seems to have been downvoted like it was.

Ah, thank you for the kind words.

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