kevingibbon

Co-founder Shyp here.

We waive the pickup fee if you ship more than one item. I used to be an eBay power seller and I would have loved a service like this. Also how I came up with the idea.

Co-founder of Shyp here. We don't only just provide a pickup on-demand service, we also package and provide an amazing experience the entire way through. Take a picture with your phone and tell us where its going. That's it.

We do all this for the same price as USPS retail.

We do charge a $5 pickup fee if you only have one item. The reason for this is because the largest cost for us is the pickup so if we are able to incentivise you to hold until you get 2+ items everyone wins.

Oh, did I mention we don't charge anything for packing materials either (tape, box, air pockets etc.)

original tweet https://twitter.com/Erin_Boudreau/status/379294594866741249

only works for london. plus there is no way thats accurate, only shows 10 for london.

Which Yahoo! properties could potentially be bringing this amount of traffic?

This is a popular opinion which still makes hiring an art. The best people I have ever worked with are the people who are fast to learn, have amazing problem solving skills and are socially intelligent. That's it. No knowledge of btree required.

ya of course. Do you have more details? I'm interested myself.

Love the idea for the professional.

Is there any way to measure less precisely using the iPhone's camera? Something about using the gyroscope to get a depth measurement?

The real problem is that most people are not convincing during the "fake it" portion.

iPad mini portrait is great for typing

+1 for loom. I've been using it for a while now. It's pretty awesome!

I agree. I can't imagine where $0.15 makes sense for anyone. Margins in this business are very tight. I'd love to see a monthly plan.

My bet is they will offer it for free very soon. Beta testing for UPS / Fedex international http://blog.easypost.com/post/50350200681/ups-international-...

These are definitely outliers.

Agreed, I did overstate it a bit. It has been possible before. It has just recently became a lot easier.

My co-founder and I have $2500 into our business http://shyp.com. This includes the domain name and all server usage to date. We use zipcars to do pickups and are already profitable on a per transaction basis.

We have a large house in SF and rent our extra rooms on Airbnb. This covers rent + food. We have yet to take any external funding.

It will be interesting to see if VCs take Pauls advice. Recently a lot of VCs have been offering value add services like design expertise and recruiting. I hope they also include quick decisions and less dilution.

Why does it take some VCs so long to make a decision? Ron Conway makes a decision to fund a founder within 10min of meeting them.

"it's becoming cheaper to start a startup, and startups are becoming a more normal thing to do"

You can now start a company with a few hundred dollars. All that's left is food and rent. This is the first time in history when this has been possible.

"it's becoming cheaper to start a startup, and startups are becoming a more normal thing to do"

The number of good startups will grow with the number of overall startups.

They got the interviewee to write this browser extension as part of the interview. Smart.

This same argument can be made for courier services and they seem to manage just fine.

This is not a bad idea. It's all about the execution.

Your first point is spot on. It is going to be hard and fuck to figure out the logistics issues with this idea. But not impossible. Does it look like the The People’s Parcel will be the people to do it? Probably not.

This idea already exists to a certain extent. Check out keychainlogistics.com.

"This is an awesome service…for transporting drugs" - There can be safeguards put in and doesn't seem like this service would even benefit drug dealers. I'm mr. drug dealer and for some reason I want to trust a chain of 3rd party delivery people with my illegal substances. Not gonna happen.

I didn't realize no car in Palo Alto+ was doable.

I do the above in SF.

haha. Sorry Garry, my comment was completely fictitious. Not obvious?

my theory on this "secret" price savings.

Instacart asks if an item is out of stock if it ok to replace with similar items (might even default to this). Instacart has negotiated deals with product manufacturers directly. Instacart replaces "out-of-stock" products with the discounted products. The manufacturer issues coupons that can be used at the till. Instacart takes most of the savings themselves but also shares a little with the consumer. Win-win-win.

2nd Theory. Apoorva has developed the largest coupon clipping operation to date. Puts "extreme couponing" TV show to shame.

"While Instacart founder Apoorva Mehta would not explain exactly where these groceries come from, he guaranteed they are cheaper."

Is Instacart getting into the shoplifting business?

We have a solution! We are launching with both a web and iPhone app. Our initial users demanded a way to access from the web. Usually from their office or when they are putting together their ecommerce orders.

It's been 90/10 shipping out of city.

We inspect every item at our warehouse. If it was damaged during transport to us, we cover 100%. If it is damaged from us to the destination, it will be up to the shipping company. We offer insurance through USPS.

We are looking to cover round trip but still seeing if that is economical for us.