AMA: I'm Daniel, non-technical cofounder of YCombinator-backed startup Sleek

[mcsquiggles]

Yes the activation energy required is different, so the extra cashback is the catalyst for making me put in the activation energy required.

For me personally the extra 2% is enough to make me at least look into Sleek, especially around Black Friday timeframe. Then if I install and input my data, every time I don’t have to do that again will be points for using & recommending Sleek to others.

I do think there are still a lot of people who would write this off though. If you mostly shop in store & on mobile, it sounds like Sleek would require that you change your shopping behavior in order to use it, and that level of activation energy might require more than 2% on a few small purchases.

 

[skitta]

@mcsquiggles Great point. Really appreciate the feedback.

So we provide a similar functionality to ShopPay once you've signed up for Sleek, but I think the issue you're articulating is that we require you to sign up and onboard to get the experience i.e. take activation energy. As compared to ShopPay, which just utilized the info from your natural behaviour and started making the experience better.

So for you, even though you love ShopPay, a better checkout experience still wouldn't be the driver, cash back would be? If we hooked you to try Sleek for cash back, and then captured your info like ShopPay does, would that be enough to retain you?

 

[russg]

@skitta I actually like the last one. Brands are paying you to solve the problem of checkout, and that's what I'd want to be know for. Cashback is omnipresent, but you're one of the few doing the hard thing. Plant your flag!

 

[skitta]

@russg Thanks! Ya, we don't want to be known as yet another cash back extension. But faster / easier checkout doesn't necessarily resonate. So it's about finding the right messaging to intrigue consumers to give the value prop a chance

 

[russg]

@skitta In that case I would double down on extra rewards. Could you call the extension ‘Extra!’?

 

[caliqt]

@skitta Broadly speaking I think you’ve got 2 types of customers:
1. Those who used auto fill and understand the function
2. Those who haven’t

Your messaging should be adapted for each as they would use your extension for different reasons and arguably you want to try and convert group 1 first since there should be less education needed I.e. they easily get what your product does.

So for example:

1. Next gen auto fill, better than auto fill, everywhere auto fill etc. E.g. focus on either pain points auto fill doesn’t address (like ‘everywhere’) or simply say you’re better and let people discover how (more generic value prop)
2. 1-click checkout, 1-click cc, 2% cash back checkout solution, rewarding shopping etc. E.g. focus on pain points of online checkouts in general or the rewards angle - be careful with the rewards angle as you might attract the wrong audience that are there just to game your system and will leave your platform when you stop giving cash back - for example do you give cash back at checkout or will you have some form of vendor confirmation because if it is the former I might order a large number of products to get your cash back and then return them all

Sorry for the long post but hope it helps

 

[skitta]

@caliqt Really helpful, thanks for the input! I agree that (1) is probably the early adopter audience we want, and that (2) could be a slippery slope where users just churn to get rewards.

 

[613jono]

@skitta Good extension. I always try to find my cc. Google already solved the problem for me by saving cards. I think you need to add that feature just by sleek signin.

But Im still a bit worried to hop on to the platform because of security concerns. All the best..

You can also read about CRED from India. It helps people pay prior to duedates.

 

[skitta]

@613jono Thanks for the feedback. Out security is top-of-the-line, designed by former Microsoft and Nate engineers. But appreciate the interest and please add any more feedback!

 

[kiddoleknocker]

@skitta I recall Amazon had a patent on the one click check out process. Did something change recently?

 

[alinta]

@kiddoleknocker I'm pretty sure that patent expired around 2017

 

[skitta]

@alinta Ya that's right, Amazon's patent expired in 2017. It was one of their critical differentiators

 

[chantelle1989g]

@skitta what’s the transition from corporate lawyer to startup founder been like? that’s quite a jump!

 

[skitta]

@chantelle1989g Lol ya it's been different but awesome. Lot less financial security, lot more freedom, and a lot less measured with each and every minute of my time (I used to bill in 6-min increments and track every minute... literally).

 

[nickbokay]

@skitta Aside from the cash back, how is it different to say Apply Pay or Gpay?

 

[skitta]

@nickbokay Those payment providers are limited by their distribution i.e. Store A may only work with Apple Pay, while Store B might only work with Gpay. As a consumer, you're now forced to have both payment tools to shop seamlessly, or avoid the tools altogether.

With way more stores and way more payment providers, this because a serious hinderance to user experience.

Sleek avoids this distribution battle because we're an extension. We can work everywhere.

BNPL is an example of the proliferation of identical tools stuck in a battle of distribution, at the cost of the end user. Because there are so many BNPLs but no single one provider everywhere, the consumer gets a broken experience: either you A) sign up for 1 offering and get some stores, B) sign up for every offering to get every store, or C) sign up for none of them and get no stores. Most people pick none.

 

[nickbokay]

@skitta Thanks for the reply.

However, as an end user and ecommerce bootstrapper since 2014 my experience, at least in the UK/EU differs. Stripe is pretty robust with its payment options, as is PayPal. Not to mention that Shopify itself has a large chunk of standalone ecom and offers a somewhat seamless checkout experience on even the smallest vendors. Visa trialled some sort of express checkout afaik but seems to be deceased.

But of course, I do see that there is room for improvement, good luck.

P.S My unsolicited advice/feedback would be to consider a Klarna-like financing option especially seeing as the waters are getting choppy in the economy.

Edit; I just googled what BNPL stands for. Good shit. Makes sense. I hope it works out.

 

[skitta]

@nickbokay Hahah thanks, really appreciate the feedback. While there are a lot of incumbents in the space, we think differently about how checkout needs to be implemented: for the consumer, not for the brand, and not through embedding. A truly universal solution needs to work at the browser level, not at the level of each store's code

 

[jrecufan]

@skitta What does YC look for in prospective startups?

 

[skitta]

@jrecufan IMO cohesive teams, strong engineers, drive, creativity. And a million other things I'm sure