I really like the landing page, but I feel I have to point out one obvious thing:
Your sign-up page[0] not only resembles the one of Basecamp[1], but you chose to actually copy (not like copy from it, but _copy_) the graphics from it? And the graphics features a dude wearing a Basecamp sweater?
I can see why you want to find design inspiration in Basecamp, but for me that stuff is just too close to the original ;)
As I said. Just a friendly pointer. You might want to change that. Other than that I wish you the best of luck, and this looks like a great start and an interesting idea!
Beautiful execution but I find the purpose misguided. I am a parent too so maybe that's a cultural difference (EU vs US?) but if my kid choked on a toy I would pay closer attention to toys going forward rather than look for toy vendors to do my parenting for me.
You make a good point, but surely you'd admit that you're not versed on every possible danger that a toy could present. For example, what if we discover a year from now that a particular paint or varnish that we thought was completely safe is actually toxic?
I would imagine that both our governments pay experts to research such things, and making their conclusions more accessible seems like a useful enterprise.
Part of the expense of products is to ensure a good, safe design. I could use common sense and research toxicity of materials, off-gasing, tensile strength, resistance to hot/cold/UV, shapes that are vulnerable to choking, strangulation, puncture wounds, etc. If every parent had to go through this for each purchase it would be a massive, unnecessary duplication of effort. This would take considerable time just for childrens toys, not to mention food, cars, and office buildings. I'm glad that cars have recalls driven by real engineers that drivers are proactively contacted about rather than relying on the average person's "common sense" about vehicle safety.
If you're letting people enter in their credit card information at any point for any reason you MUST get an SSL certificate and force people to use a TLS secured connection.
It doesn't include any real verification, so it doesn't give any assurance that you are who you purport to be, but it at least prevents people's credit card numbers from being sent across the web in plain text.
Seems to me that you could monetise this by selling to businesses. For example, you say in the comments that amazon still sells some toys that have been recalled. This is illegal and could land them in some trouble. So you can approach them with a price for recall updates matched to their product listings, so they can suspend sales. If you word the licensing right you can then give the service to concerned parents as cheaply as you like, while charging companies for saving them a legal hassle.
Yeah, I think the real value here is not in B2C, but B2B where you specialize in providing regulatory information to retailers in actionable form, like correlating SKUs with product URLs and so forth.
Really cool idea but how do you plan for this to pay for itself? I imagine the time commitment is pretty high to have to go through all toy recalls and/or safety hazards. It's one thing to only need to pay for servers but a humans time? Maybe you could use Mechanical Turk and then just feed donation into a bank account linked to it.
I love these little one-off sites but I worry that in a few years time they will all be graveyards.
Just throwing out ideas here.. you could reward user contribution of recalls by sharing a portion of the subscription revenue. You would require the user submitted recall to include a link to an official source. Pretty easy to verify.
He is, it was a minor scare. But a scare nonetheless, and it was on a toy that had been recalled months ago. Its amazing, but there are a lot of toys and kids' furniture that have been recalled and yet are still available for purchase on amazon!
This model seems to come up every few years but never quite makes it. Here's a version from 2000 with uglier graphics and more shouty copy, but the same idea: https://web.archive.org/web/20001018093126/http://www.safety... . I remember another version where you scanned your household goods to get recall updates.
Of course, previous failure doesn't mean the model is doomed (see grocery delivery in 2014 vs 2000) but there may be a piece missing --- is this a service that Amazon or Toys-R-Us could provide as a value add? Otherwise I'm not sure how you get CAC below LTV at a scale to cover overhead.
I'm using those sources, but I'm also monitoring a few dozen parents and educators forums where safety concerns are sometimes raised, even if they don't convert into actual recalls, and treat those reports as minor alerts.
Your site says in 2013 one toy was recalled every three days, and you mention 37,000 toys being monitored but have sent alerts about only 1% of them. To me this says by default the recalls are so rare I may never buy an affected product just by chance, I think you need something more if you want $$ every month.
Maybe this would be a better service for kindergartens, schools, daycares etc rather than parents.
Thanks for the feedback. The 37,000 is the number of toys being monitored by parents (i.e. added to the database by one of our users). The copy "Toys Being Monitored" definitely needs to be adjusted!
Thanks for pointing that out!
Also, regarding pricing: RecallBee is a pay-what-you-want service ;)
This looks really good, but like so many sites I find on here, it makes no mention of country. So I assume you're just monitoring toys recalled in America?
i.e. It's probably not worth me in New Zealand signing up?
Thanks for sharing. I think you have a lot of bases covered very well. Landing Page | How It Works | Pricing is a great start. Free trial offer, and choose your own price to boot, is an interesting approach.
I understand your product. I'm not sure I'm up for the requisite effort to keep you informed of my kids toys, nor am I personally all that concerned with recalls, so for me it wasn't worth signing up. Car seat, stroller, bigger items, those I would want to know about recalls, but those aren't "toys". If you're going to do kid-safety, I think you have to cast a wider net.
I went to 'How it Works' and clicked continue. Entered a fake name and clicked continue. Left email blank and clicked continue... I just wanted to see the actual product, you know?
So then I see 'Example's Toys... All toys safe' so I click 'What toys am I tracking' and the screen flickers and now says 'Attention required... some safety concerns.' So something is wrong there, I wasn't able to actually demo your product.
Maybe instead of 'Sign Up' and making me jump through hoops, flip the model around. Start as an anonymous user, fill in some toys, see if there are issues, then to get the alerts and save your toy list, then you can click to sign-up. If someone puts real toys into the list, they are almost certain to want to save it instead of throw the list away.
Also, you might not even need to make the user create an account with a password. The alternative, more old-school Craigslist model, is just collect the email. If you ever send an alert, include a link which lets the user login. In the welcome email, include a link to edit your toy list. Once in a while, ping to ask for new toys to be added, and include an auto-login link. Just something to consider.
Also, this is probably asking too much, but can you please share the scatter plot of what people are choosing to pay for pricing? That would be incredibly interesting.
What happens when you (somehow) fail to set the status of a toy you track to "recalled" during some part of the recall period, and then one of your subscriber's kid harms themselves with said toy? Have you anticipated how to protect yourself from your subscriber in such a case?
It's hilarious that this kind of "protection" is needed in the U.S., in 2015, etc.
But I don't see any Terms of Use on the website at all, so it might be worth your time to cover your legal bases before there are too many subscriptions.
Once you have a database of toys that parents have, there are other ways you might usefully use the data, like allowing parents to join toy swap or library groups, provide purchase recommendations based on similar toy choices (you could perhaps even monetise via affiliate sales of toys), etc.
Please reconsider describing your newsletter as "high value", which is corporate jargon and doesn't seem suited to your audience. Instead explain what someone signing up will get from it.
I can't see me listing all the stuff I bought (not much!) for the kids on your site/app or whatever - this is increasingly an issue.
Perhaps you can sell a service to Walmart/Amazon/etc. whereby you maintain a list of recalled toys and then monitor their products (and eg Amazon marketplace) to make sure the toys're not being sold there?
Also supermarkets and other retailers have histories of goods purchased seems that there should be some way to use that to gather the ownership data rather than have users enter it themselves.
Congrats on building this. One thing that struck me (and possibly others) as odd is this sentence: "Did you know that in 2013 alone one toy was recalled every three days?".
It doesn't seem to make sense, either you say "Did you know that in 2013 alone 121 toys were recalled?" or "Did you know that in 2013 one toy was recalled every three days?".
The world "alone" to me only makes sense when talking about totals, not avg. per day/month/etc.
I think there is a good idea in this, but as presented I wouldn't use it.
I am a parent. There are lots of toys around the house. Some are mainstream so I will probably find them on your site, but some are boutique. Some I don't have the box for so I can't list them if I don't remember the name.
So it is quite a hassle to list them all, and I can't be bothered.
Because most danger to children isn't toys IMHO but things like drowning, choking on small objects (not necessarily from a toy, could be a coin), falling, curtain cords and roads. I would rather concentrate on minimizing those risks.
A way you could present this so at least I would use it is just an email address. No need to list your toys, and get weekly or monthly product recall updates for mainstream toys.
It could have the recalls for that month, plus anything super-dangerous in the last 6 months as a reminder. Then there is no need to enter toys and therefore it becomes a no brainer to enter your email address and get the alerts.
In addition there could be information or links to articles about other generic dangers such as those small button batteries that can cause serious harm or death to a child. Or similarly curtain cords. Road safety etc. etc.
I contracted for a company with the same idea (I built the matching engine from incoming alerts to products in the db). It went under, that was 3 years ago. They were not focused on toys, though. There is some traces of their android app here: http://www.amazon.com/Cyberellum-LLC-Recall-Alarm/dp/B007MCK...
That's a great idea and really focuses on the do one thing and do it well approach. Are you going to have some app where they could scan the barcode of the toy and get the info or is it all manually input?
[+] [-] orkj|11 years ago|reply
Your sign-up page[0] not only resembles the one of Basecamp[1], but you chose to actually copy (not like copy from it, but _copy_) the graphics from it? And the graphics features a dude wearing a Basecamp sweater?
I can see why you want to find design inspiration in Basecamp, but for me that stuff is just too close to the original ;)
As I said. Just a friendly pointer. You might want to change that. Other than that I wish you the best of luck, and this looks like a great start and an interesting idea!
[0]http://www.recallbee.com/account/start
[1]https://basecamp.com/start
[+] [-] heelhook|11 years ago|reply
Again. Thanks so much for that!
[+] [-] fishnchips|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Harimwakairi|11 years ago|reply
I would imagine that both our governments pay experts to research such things, and making their conclusions more accessible seems like a useful enterprise.
[+] [-] raisedbyninjas|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taco_emoji|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twrobel|11 years ago|reply
Infosec 101
[+] [-] twrobel|11 years ago|reply
It doesn't include any real verification, so it doesn't give any assurance that you are who you purport to be, but it at least prevents people's credit card numbers from being sent across the web in plain text.
[+] [-] thebeardisred|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Blahah|11 years ago|reply
Seems to me that you could monetise this by selling to businesses. For example, you say in the comments that amazon still sells some toys that have been recalled. This is illegal and could land them in some trouble. So you can approach them with a price for recall updates matched to their product listings, so they can suspend sales. If you word the licensing right you can then give the service to concerned parents as cheaply as you like, while charging companies for saving them a legal hassle.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshstrange|11 years ago|reply
I love these little one-off sites but I worry that in a few years time they will all be graveyards.
[+] [-] darkstar999|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heelhook|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slapshot|11 years ago|reply
Of course, previous failure doesn't mean the model is doomed (see grocery delivery in 2014 vs 2000) but there may be a piece missing --- is this a service that Amazon or Toys-R-Us could provide as a value add? Otherwise I'm not sure how you get CAC below LTV at a scale to cover overhead.
[+] [-] jared314|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.recalls.gov/
[2] http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/
[3] http://www.saferproducts.gov/
[+] [-] heelhook|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benologist|11 years ago|reply
Maybe this would be a better service for kindergartens, schools, daycares etc rather than parents.
[+] [-] heelhook|11 years ago|reply
Thanks for pointing that out!
Also, regarding pricing: RecallBee is a pay-what-you-want service ;)
[+] [-] muppetman|11 years ago|reply
i.e. It's probably not worth me in New Zealand signing up?
[+] [-] chrisBob|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaroth|11 years ago|reply
I understand your product. I'm not sure I'm up for the requisite effort to keep you informed of my kids toys, nor am I personally all that concerned with recalls, so for me it wasn't worth signing up. Car seat, stroller, bigger items, those I would want to know about recalls, but those aren't "toys". If you're going to do kid-safety, I think you have to cast a wider net.
I went to 'How it Works' and clicked continue. Entered a fake name and clicked continue. Left email blank and clicked continue... I just wanted to see the actual product, you know?
So then I see 'Example's Toys... All toys safe' so I click 'What toys am I tracking' and the screen flickers and now says 'Attention required... some safety concerns.' So something is wrong there, I wasn't able to actually demo your product.
Maybe instead of 'Sign Up' and making me jump through hoops, flip the model around. Start as an anonymous user, fill in some toys, see if there are issues, then to get the alerts and save your toy list, then you can click to sign-up. If someone puts real toys into the list, they are almost certain to want to save it instead of throw the list away.
Also, you might not even need to make the user create an account with a password. The alternative, more old-school Craigslist model, is just collect the email. If you ever send an alert, include a link which lets the user login. In the welcome email, include a link to edit your toy list. Once in a while, ping to ask for new toys to be added, and include an auto-login link. Just something to consider.
Also, this is probably asking too much, but can you please share the scatter plot of what people are choosing to pay for pricing? That would be incredibly interesting.
[+] [-] austenallred|11 years ago|reply
Also, the right side of the site doesn't seem to be constrained; I can scroll way over - http://take.ms/P4CZQ
[+] [-] porter|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cornstalks|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkarr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vortico|11 years ago|reply
But I don't see any Terms of Use on the website at all, so it might be worth your time to cover your legal bases before there are too many subscriptions.
[+] [-] kybernetikos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcusgarvey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|11 years ago|reply
Perhaps you can sell a service to Walmart/Amazon/etc. whereby you maintain a list of recalled toys and then monitor their products (and eg Amazon marketplace) to make sure the toys're not being sold there?
Also supermarkets and other retailers have histories of goods purchased seems that there should be some way to use that to gather the ownership data rather than have users enter it themselves.
[+] [-] breakingcups|11 years ago|reply
It doesn't seem to make sense, either you say "Did you know that in 2013 alone 121 toys were recalled?" or "Did you know that in 2013 one toy was recalled every three days?".
The world "alone" to me only makes sense when talking about totals, not avg. per day/month/etc.
[+] [-] bbcbasic|11 years ago|reply
I am a parent. There are lots of toys around the house. Some are mainstream so I will probably find them on your site, but some are boutique. Some I don't have the box for so I can't list them if I don't remember the name.
So it is quite a hassle to list them all, and I can't be bothered.
Because most danger to children isn't toys IMHO but things like drowning, choking on small objects (not necessarily from a toy, could be a coin), falling, curtain cords and roads. I would rather concentrate on minimizing those risks.
A way you could present this so at least I would use it is just an email address. No need to list your toys, and get weekly or monthly product recall updates for mainstream toys.
It could have the recalls for that month, plus anything super-dangerous in the last 6 months as a reminder. Then there is no need to enter toys and therefore it becomes a no brainer to enter your email address and get the alerts.
In addition there could be information or links to articles about other generic dangers such as those small button batteries that can cause serious harm or death to a child. Or similarly curtain cords. Road safety etc. etc.
[+] [-] jmlucjav|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nowarninglabel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heelhook|11 years ago|reply