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chdaniel

1,778 karma · joined February 10, 2019

See all I do here: https://chdaniel.com

Join us on https://www.reddit.com/r/saas !

@chddaniel on Twitter

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chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
Thanks a bunch ACME Corps! I see you everywhere lol

Nope, we don't check for that. Others might do but that's outside our area of expertise.

We pretty much authenticate what we ourselves have 'earned' the right to authenticate, by covering the item in a free, public guide first: https://legitcheck.app/explore-the-library/

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
No offense taken! Especially since you're right

We are a scrappy company and we're looking to mature, given the figures we've done the last year. I'd love to know if you'd still have the same opinion after going through our customer workflow

(since yes, what we've discussed is our internal workflow)

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
We do as well, but it's not only us. So the answer is a team. We get help from others as well on authentications!
chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
> It may be easy to differentiate with counterfeit shoes, but what happens with art pieces, books, collectors' items in general?

We don't do art or books, but we do some collectors' items

> What happens when a buyer disputes a counterfeit item with their "message" and the seller doesn't agree?

We ourselves can help if the customer paid via paypal/credit card — we've got the service mentioned in the article, which gets people's money back with 99.9% success rate, which we also guarantee it (so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us)

But yes — if you've been scammed by a malevolent seller, they might even believe the 'message' (they themselves know the item is fake anyway) and not care to do anyhting

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
@"I imagine most people buying Yeazys don’t have an authentic pair to compare with." — that's right! It's the position I was in, which is what I come close to mentioning in the article: it's why I made the app in the first place.

So even better than that would be a public guide where both the fake and the real are. That, plus somebody who's put in the hours to do a thorough job to explain the differences they've found.

@MTG - Somebody was just telling me the other day about these perfect (or 99% perfect) clones of Warhammer figurines. I didn't even know they can reach $1,000+ figures, but hey, with today's asset products, that doesn't surprise me.

Magic The Gathering, Pokemon games (not cards — we've covered a free guide on that), Warhammer — it seems like sky is the limit really. Whatever can be replicated and is worth $200+ will be replicated IMO

> I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming?

A bit more! They trust our Certificate with less pushback these days, more than 2 years ago, when we discovered our Certificate can get people's money back. We guarantee the Certificate nonetheless, so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us.

I know you said payment processors, but it's the banks (exception: AMEX) that are responsible for that segment of the transaction, AFAIK — with chargebacks and what have you

But if there would be an easily integrable solution for banks/payment processors, I can see them moving vertically into that

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
Then it's my mistake — probably I spent too much time in the 'build in public' bubble which is all about the numbers, and I forgot to get myself out of that bubble

I'd change the title to "I authenticate items for strangers for a living" — but if that doesn't fit either, the current title is ok

Thanks Dan!

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
Hmm, defo didn't meant to come across that way

In all honesty, the post got inspired by this HackerNews hall-of-famer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728132

It sounded like an interesting story

As we leave our scrappiness behind soon, I thought some hackers would like to hear our (scrappy) story

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
We do. B2B Partnerships, some big companies trust us, and ultimately, I thought of the academic world so as to prove the expertise (I'm the complete opposite of an academic)

* We write public guides (see: https://legitcheck.app/explore-the-library/) - we have about 1m words written on the subject * People are free to contest it. If we're wrong, we'll correct * The more other people link to our guides, the more we get... credentials, I guess?

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
Yep, correct!

We do more than writing order notes in the sense that we now have:

* A Price Comparison tool

* A SaaS for resellers (that sucks. we need to fix it)

* A lot of words written on public guides

* We just started a video library

But ultimately, the bread and butter is our service. And the workflow is:

* People place an order

* We handle it by replying to them via order notes

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
Because I don't think the business model is something worth guarding. Or that if somebody else replicates it (they have), we have a lot to lose.

I do believe in moats, and I'm trying my best to see what moats I can build on top of what we have to 'protect' the business

chdaniel··on My service to check whether an item is counterfeit or not
"that’s what we do — we tell people whether their item is fake or authentic. Not authentication as in login authentication"

Should've made it clearer - a mistake on my part.

So you know how there are fakes of Rolex, Nike, Louis Vuitton etc — some are scarily close. We make guides on how to tell the fake from the real item, with the best fakes.

We teach people (for free)

But we also have a service, if they want us to check it for them

chdaniel··on On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness
I didn't really understand that part. Mind re-wording it in an easier manner for me?
chdaniel··on [dead]
Hey folks, Ch Daniel here

Launching today: the v1.0 of a Cheatsheet, that might one day become a Handbook

The problem - why

It's very simple: I'm running my main business, which has got tens of thousands of paying customers and ~6,000,000+ all-time viewers.

I heard about building in public a few years ago It wasn't for my main business' audience Recently, however, I started building a side-product for my main business: it's meant to help SaaS founders find&set the perfect pricing The main business felt natural, to be BiP now, as the side-product can benefit from it Because of that, I wanted to build in public this new tool called PriceUnlock

And I am! But I was clueless and afraid that I won't know what to post.

The solution

The Cheatsheet initially represented my notes, but as I shared it with others, it got some positive feedback: it was not only wanted, but also needed.

I made a few extra steps (which I wouldn't have done if it was just a private note) and here we are.

I also plan to expand on it, as the responsibility is on my shoulders. I hope those 'internal' notes would help *you* get started, or help you become a better builder in public.

The how

Don't forget to duplicate the Cheatsheet, delete what's not relevant and make it your own.

Once inside, you'll be able to find:

A list of different types of posts, as well as practical examples (tweets, screenshots etc) A public list of those who build in public You can join the list as well, there's a form inside A board to plan your BiP journey Principles of BiP A list of tools for BiP Many more

I'd love to know how you'd make this better, what else you would need or any kind of feedback

— Ch Daniel

chdaniel··on After being rejected by YC, we bootstrapped Veed.io to $4M ARR in
hmm, that’s weird. swear it was in there. I’ve just edited my comment to add the url (https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/n1vzrl/after_being_re...)
chdaniel··on After being rejected by YC, we bootstrapped Veed.io to $4M ARR in
EDIT: Link here - https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/n1vzrl/after_being_re...

Hey folks, just dropping this here as Tim and Sabba were kind enough to accept my invitation for an AmA on our very own /r/SaaS subreddit.

They're such nice guys and their adventure, so far at least, has been VERY interesting.

Just wanted to share this here in case you've got something to ask them...

chdaniel··on Squarespace S1
Profitable since 2016, ~$621m in revenue 2020, $30.5m profit in 2020

Curious to see how the reception'll be for this, given they're not on the 'if we're not on a loss, we're not spending enough money to grow' path

chdaniel··on Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
A couple of things need to be balanced, I think, as I'm doing just that with PriceUnlock (https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/)

PriceUnlock will help SaaS owners finds the perfect pricing for their product, with more upside and less downside when trying new prices. Besides, it helps you stop leaving money on the table.

* THE THINGS*

1. You can "scratch and claw", as Jason Cohen (founder of WPEngine) puts it. He talks more about this in the YT link below and he also puts out this idea of 150 customers, not "1000 true fans". I highly highly recommend watching the video, regardless of going VC/bootstrapped. He also talks about 2 other ways besides scratching and clawing

https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw?t=420

2. Building in public is an upward trend these days. Basically you share as many milestones/ups/downs about your journey of building it. This can be a trap as well: it only works if your audience is A) interested in you sharing that, B) probably hackers/builders etc.

I asked PG about this and he pretty much summed it up: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1375038728519974912

3. As I'm building PriceUnlock, you'll also notice that I'm collecting emails (the ol' way) to get people's interest. I don't want to make a mailing list, I want to build my product, so I'll aim to be better doing the second rather than the first. But it doesn't hurt to, as Rob Walling did with Drip, launch with some MRR hopefully... or at least with some interest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLay7kksLtc

4. The usual set of things hackers do when they launch their thing: ProductHunt, Betalist, etc. Don't forget to join my subreddit on https://www.reddit.com/r/saas if that's what you're building (SaaS is v popular these days, so anyone reading this is invited!)

5. This pretty much ties to point 1, but the scratching and clawing is just another way to put the age-old adage: help (the relevant set of) people so you get their attention, use that attention as 'free advertising' for your product. It doesn't get any better than this as it's not intrusive and at least it's a win-zero-sum-game, at best a win-win. That's how I built my main company into 5M+ users and that's what I can preach

that said....

6. Deep down inside I thought what Jason Fried of Basecamp put best here. I'll let him say it: https://world.hey.com/jason/validation-is-a-mirage-273c0969

chdaniel··on How to price your SaaS product
As a side-thing, I'm building PriceUnlock, something that would help people price their SaaS products (aimed specifically at SaaS products)

Essentially, you'd add a few lines of code and then use our dashboard to:

* Set up pricing campaigns (with rules: e.g. show $29/mo for month 1, show $99/mo for month 2 etc) * Set up localised pricing, so you'd stop leaving money on the table by charging US-prices in lower-income countries

I've announced it here: https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/ — Would be curious to hear other people's opinions as it relates to Lenny's article

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
Sorry didn't get that fully! What do you mean 'backed out'?

I'm announcing Price Unlock but collecting emails at the end for those that want to be updated.

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
Nice! Glad to hear that! Why don't you get yourself in here? https://university.webflow.com/integrations

Will read the link you've added. Feedback for feedback? https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
Oh wow I love it! Love the simplicity of installation — it's definitely a trend that's going up lately, but I'm surprised to see that, since Stripe made it mainstream back in the previous decade, it's... not very very common to have products that are installable with a code embed

1) Can you talk a bit more (to a non-technical person) about how the code embed works

2) As a suggestion, I think you'd do well in no/low-code communities or products. Webflow is a tool I use so I believe it'd be a success there, since the average Webflow user doesn't know how to code advanced stuff, but they know Webflow has a 'code embed' where they can slap a few lines (i.e. Fastcomments' snippet) and stuff works

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
Wow thanks that helps a lot!

Not really automatic price-setting, at least not by default! I would personally like to have control over the knobs in my product.

It would give you a dashboard where

A) You would be able to set the prices manually (with suggestions, of course, and with taking into account things like extra Stripe fees, rounded estimations so you don't wound up with £28.837 in the UK).

You'd set them manually based on country, so you won't leave money on the table by not charging less in India, for instance.

I'm always mentioning India because Apple is the widest example that comes to mind: Apple one is £15 and £25 in the UK, whilst $1.5 and $3 in India

B) Run tests that you set manually on prices. $19 vs $29 — see, with metrics, which one brings your company more revenue. Or perhaps same revenue, but more users, so more word of mouth — who knows what the test will show?

You'd be able to either schedule (e.g. $19 for week 1, $29 for week 2) or run tests at the same time (show 50% of ppl $19 , show 50% of ppl $29 // OR show ppl in the Uk $19, show ppl in the US $29)

RE: your last comment — the best part would be that it'd be a flat fee per month, no percentages! So every extra cash that you receive from ppl on top of the flat fee is yours to keep for... well for as long as your "LT" in LTV!

How does that sound, you think?

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
I'm currently on Sketch, but been looking at Figma as I like the browser-dependency, as opposed to OS-dependency.

Question (and bear in mind I haven't used figma more than 5 min): what do I have to do besides the mockup in order to be able to use Pygma?

Looks v cool!

P.S: Feedback for feedback, if you're down? https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
This pic: https://assets.website-files.com/5e93b09565892b4fad16784a/5f...

Drives the point home! Would love to try it, as I've recorded a podcast with 13 episodes before: https://chdaniel.com/podcast

What made you turn this from side -> main -> side project? What are you working on now, specifically, on Welder?

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
Just subscribed, Tapha! Curious to see how it'll work, as I do UI/UX design as well

P.S: Feedback for feedback, if you're down? https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
Ohh, kinda like Seth Godin's blog! If you share any of his blog posts, there's a rotation of pics that come up in Twitter's preview. Did I get it right?

P.S: Feedback for feedback, if you're down? https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
The screenshots here look interesting: https://github.com/denysvitali/dev-portal-designs

Any live demo?

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
This CloudFromScratch, right? https://github.com/technomada/cloud-from-scratch

I have a document for myself where I note down what I believe to be future industries — trying to time the market. In the same way you might've timed the market in the early part of the previous decade by betting on remote working becoming a pretty viable option (hindsight is 20/20 tho!)

Self-hosted for privacy reasons, to me, is like a bomb waiting to explode. Just like covid accelerated our habits around healthcare (Perhaps future generations will look down on those who don't wear a mask when one catches a cold, the same way we look down on those who don't wash their hands after using the toilet... but in the 17th century that wasn't a thing), I believe mass privacy-awareness will come with a major leak/event.

Looking forward to Apr 1st (if the beta is launched there and it won't be just April Fools' lol!

P.S: Feedback for feedback, if you're down? https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/

chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
Would love to comment with feedback but I'm not techincal enough to use it! Sounds like a time-saver though. Do you have any plan with Dotfilehub? Sell it as a product, keep it free, accept donations if it becomes widely used...?
chdaniel··on Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?
I'm announcing PriceUnlock here: https://bychgroup.com/price-unlock/

But the gist of it is: * We're aiming to make it easier and less risky to try charging more/less * Aiming to help you stop leaving money on the table (or take too much money from the table?) by enabling you to easily charge different prices in higher/lower-income countries — like Apple, Netflix, etc. do * Aiming to make A/B testing of prices headache-free

I'm still building PriceUnlock and revealing more bit by bit! Curious to hear your story about your SaaS pricing and how you got there — and whether you ever got to 100% confidence that the prices you set were "right"?

That aside, would love to hear what others are working on now to see if my feedback can be helpful!

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