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?
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 ;)
Do you have any statistics that show why every parent should use this service? What is the risk of buying a recalled toy, or one that will be, on Amazon or at Walmart? What % of families have at least one recalled toy their kids might be using?
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.
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.
I think this is awesome in terms of a product. Could be interesting to expand to other types of recalls (just go through the Ralph Nader list). Most of this information is publicly available, but in such shitty databases that it's not even worth pursuing. If I was a parent, I'd definitely sign up and probably pay a low amount.
Also, if you want some free help tracking your subscription metrics for Stripe, feel free to check out profitwell.com (completely free). Would love your feedback on that as well, if you don't mind. :)
Yeah. I definitely want to do this and have it on my very-near-term todo list; I just wanted to get this version out the door and start getting feedback from a broader audience (up till now I've just handed out invites to my network of parents and friends).
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?
that assumes the user is going to take the time to figure out which of their toys originated in the US OR waste time entering toys with the mistaken belief that the service is watching for them.
Well yes, there's a good chance some of the toys, especially the bigger brand names one will also be affected. But there's also a lot of Australian make and New Zealand made toys here.
I know I could sign up for better coverage of recalls than I currently have, but I'm not going to enter all the toys we have if only ~10% of them have any chance of being monitored.
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!
> have been recalled and yet are still available for purchase on amazon!
Recalls are not mandatory I believe, and majority of products on Amazon are sold by 3rd party sellers (everything from part-time-single-person operations to big distribution companies).
You should add the story of your son's scare to the site - gives it a more human and personal vibe and give potential customers something to relate to.
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...
Hmm. When I read the headline, I thought this had some angle with a lawsuit type service. If "my kid choked on a toy" and was injured, I would use a lawyer. So perhaps, you could build some sort of class action feature for peoples kids who were injured to file together and split the compensation. And maybe the site takes a fee as a percentage.
And that's the thought process that got a bunch of toys banned or restricted (such as magnets[1]) even though they can be responsibly used by many children. I don't think the problem is the product and certainly making it easier to start class action lawsuits will only further decrease the available toys until all we can purchase are pictures of toys. Just don't get a paper cut.
Do you have any concerns that the system could be abused? Maybe a someone would start paying some Amazon Turkers to make complaints about a competing product?
What do you think about expanding this to 3d-printed stuff? Analyze blueprints for child safety before printing?
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!
If not perhaps consider paying one of the illustrators (Daniel González stuff looks excellent) to make you a set of illustrations which are all in the same style - your pages would look a lot more coherent if they didn't have a grab-bag of styles going on, and also you could have a lot of liability if you don't have permission for every image on your site.
It's not really on to just copy images from the web without attribution or payment - you could be sued for a lot of money for that basecamp image for example which is still up.
Otherwise, it's a nice site and great idea though.
but yes, you make an excellent point. Equally I agree with his approach of using a $9 template before validating w customers and working out the business model...not sure what the theme site says about the images licence wise but it's not necessarily a bad abstraction to assume that images included with a template are licenced with it if they aren't watermarked etc.
Seems really unlikely that template has licensed all those images either given it's from a template farm that looks like they churn these things out and the many sources.
In light of the fact that the template you've linked looks exactly like recallbee.com, the author's comment "Thanks, I actually copied the image to see what it'd look like in place and forgot to take it out" seems disingenuous.
Seems like an honest mistake in using this theme, though taking an image from bootcamp is a little weird, probably just forgot but it should never have been in there even in a mockup.
The theme authors themeum should be ashamed of themselves though, and it looks like their theme has been swiftly deleted as it is now 404.
Looks like they just shamelessly rip off people's copyright work to put into their themes, first image from one of their premium themes came up on tineye as all rights reserved:
What a really passive aggressive way of doing what I don't know exactly. What is your point in calling the OP out like this instead of in private, Asshole?
You know, if you have a problem with someone and want to say something,fine, but don't be a coward and hide behind a throwaway account. Apparently you only speak your mind when you're sure that everyone around will agree with you, which is pathetic.
Just to confirm, `kids'` is correct for plural posession.
If you want to be really pedantic and overanalyse it, there are three possible situations. `kids'` if you assume the parents have multiple kids, and `kid's` if they have one. However, if you assume that "your" refers to all the parents on the internet collectively, then `kids'` is correct again. Since `kids'` is correct in 2 out of 3 scenarios, that's what I would go for.
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.
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.
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.
Sure, as a parent you should be able to decide what the appropriate response is. But at least to me this particular class of problems does not need an app but simple common sense.
Not a parent yet, but I'd probably use something like this less as something to find out if there's a choking hazard, but in case there's something I don't think of that might be a problem. Fire hazard because it shipped with a faulty power regulator the overheats? Exploding batteries? Those are things that I wouldn't be able to tell at first glance that they'd necessarily be a problem.
How far does this rabbit hole go, though? Your kid may just as well be the first victim of a yet unknown fault. You can't protect them from everything and trying to do so will only cause you anxiety. Wouldn't you rather spend your mental energy on something more positive?
Agree. But I think that's the idea behind the concept. Don't want to spend time worrying about it, but if there is a known defect discovered later about something I bought, I would like to know about it.
Assuming it's as easy as lifting my phone and scanning a barcode after the occasional toy purchase. Then I can forget about it.
Agree you can't give up common sense, and you shouldn't obsess about it, but it's silly to not remove a toy if there is a known defect that causes deaths.
It also could give you a false sense of security in case it's something that's not published on this particular service.
Also, in most reasonable countries products that are known to cause deaths are removed from the market instead of continuing to be sold with the "buyer beware" assumption.
We don't need to do that and can't because the technology is incredibly complex and even if you understand that stuff your curtains could be the real fire hazard in your room.
All of this is covered by consumer protection laws very successfully - recalls.gov has just a handful a day across everything, Amazon alone sell over 200 million different products.
You are very correct. The huge problem with this is that it focuses on toys. Now let me tell you, a two-year old does not give a crap if something is a toy or a water bottle or a folding ruler from daddys tool set. They will play with anything they find. You as a parent have to be vigilent and responsible. There's no app for that.
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.
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.
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.
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[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadMaybe this would be a better service for kindergartens, schools, daycares etc rather than parents.
Thanks for pointing that out!
Also, regarding pricing: RecallBee is a pay-what-you-want service ;)
I love these little one-off sites but I worry that in a few years time they will all be graveyards.
[1] http://www.recalls.gov/
[2] http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/
[3] http://www.saferproducts.gov/
Also, if you want some free help tracking your subscription metrics for Stripe, feel free to check out profitwell.com (completely free). Would love your feedback on that as well, if you don't mind. :)
Obviously this is a big task, perhaps v2, but have you thought about monitoring every toy, so that I could look up a toy before I buy it?
http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Me-Layla-Bassinet-Cradle/dp/B004...
Thanks for the feedback!
i.e. It's probably not worth me in New Zealand signing up?
I know I could sign up for better coverage of recalls than I currently have, but I'm not going to enter all the toys we have if only ~10% of them have any chance of being monitored.
Recalls are not mandatory I believe, and majority of products on Amazon are sold by 3rd party sellers (everything from part-time-single-person operations to big distribution companies).
[1] http://gizmodo.com/5929064/buckyballs-have-been-banned-by-th...
What do you think about expanding this to 3d-printed stuff? Analyze blueprints for child safety before printing?
Also, the right side of the site doesn't seem to be constrained; I can scroll way over - http://take.ms/P4CZQ
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
Again. Thanks so much for that!
https://dribbble.com/shots/1553377-Changing-Homes?list=users...
http://dabbled.org/this-robot-has-expired/
http://www.creativebloq.com/illustration/illustrations-strip...
If not perhaps consider paying one of the illustrators (Daniel González stuff looks excellent) to make you a set of illustrations which are all in the same style - your pages would look a lot more coherent if they didn't have a grab-bag of styles going on, and also you could have a lot of liability if you don't have permission for every image on your site.
It's not really on to just copy images from the web without attribution or payment - you could be sued for a lot of money for that basecamp image for example which is still up.
Otherwise, it's a nice site and great idea though.
https://wrapbootstrap.com/theme/triangle-multi-purpose-templ...
but yes, you make an excellent point. Equally I agree with his approach of using a $9 template before validating w customers and working out the business model...not sure what the theme site says about the images licence wise but it's not necessarily a bad abstraction to assume that images included with a template are licenced with it if they aren't watermarked etc.
I don't really know if I believe that, but there we are.
Besides, I don't see any attributions to the artists for these images (which is required for all the various Creative Commons licenses).
I highly doubt this theme is legitimate. OP, be wary of using this theme.
The theme authors themeum should be ashamed of themselves though, and it looks like their theme has been swiftly deleted as it is now 404.
http://www.themeum.com/
Looks like they just shamelessly rip off people's copyright work to put into their themes, first image from one of their premium themes came up on tineye as all rights reserved:
http://demo.themeum.com/#organic_life
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36161769@N05/5896987315
Especially on a $9 template, the odds of them being properly licensed at that price point, I'd be surprised.
In this case, the author mentions it's an editorial piece for a magazine. ( https://dribbble.com/shots/1553377-Changing-Homes )
> When a safety issue is raised on one of your kid toys we send you immediate alerts to make sure you are in the known.
should be...
> When a safety issue is raised on one of your kid's toys we send you immediate alerts to make sure you are in the know.
The `kid's` part can also be `kids'`, I think. Maybe. I'm terrible at plural possession.
If you want to be really pedantic and overanalyse it, there are three possible situations. `kids'` if you assume the parents have multiple kids, and `kid's` if they have one. However, if you assume that "your" refers to all the parents on the internet collectively, then `kids'` is correct again. Since `kids'` is correct in 2 out of 3 scenarios, that's what I would go for.
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.
is usable to check it out
Assuming it's as easy as lifting my phone and scanning a barcode after the occasional toy purchase. Then I can forget about it.
Agree you can't give up common sense, and you shouldn't obsess about it, but it's silly to not remove a toy if there is a known defect that causes deaths.
Also, in most reasonable countries products that are known to cause deaths are removed from the market instead of continuing to be sold with the "buyer beware" assumption.
All of this is covered by consumer protection laws very successfully - recalls.gov has just a handful a day across everything, Amazon alone sell over 200 million different products.
I would imagine that both our governments pay experts to research such things, and making their conclusions more accessible seems like a useful enterprise.
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.
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.