Roast my startup: Forget about another restaurant call for a reservation

[invernest]

The product: https://www.my-own-assistant.com

Whats the product about?​

It's an AI bot that makes restaurant reservations for you with just a few questions, like how many people for the reservation, your name, and the restaurant for the reservation. The system makes a phone call in your name to make the reservation for the dates you have given and the number of people for you.

Market?​

I really dunno, as I haven't seen any similar product on the market yet. Competition as there isn't any real similar product will be low at the start but as it's the AI world, it will be huge for sure at the very beginnin if the product gets some traction.

What stage are you in? Do you need money? Are you raising?​

Just the first steps of being tested and acquiring the first users and some beta testers who want to try the product.

Strategy? Conversion?​

At the moment, not much conversion, just looking for channels that work and fit better for the product, trying on Reddit and blog sites, also trying Product Hunt-like pages, so everything I see basically.

Why me?​

I'll be like a hammer, blow after blow, so I think it's the way that I have to proceed, just perseverance. It took me like 5-6 months of development. Now I have some real decent product that is already working, just tested with some real restaurants and working. Very positive thing is that I haven't seen any friction as it's a conversation between an AI and a restaurant to make the reservation.

And now its time to move on and try to get real users.

 

[hypervibe]

@invernest I don't know how useful this is or how you can make money off of this. Took a glance at your site, I basically would need to text an AI chatbot all the information I would need to make the call myself. I think people would rather call a restaurant rather than pay however much to use your service, plus it removes the need to trust and hope your service is working correctly.

 

[invernest]

@hypervibe First, thank you for taking a deep look into the product!

The idea is not to replace people from calling restaurants, but rather to provide an asynchronous way of doing so. For example, if you're having a busy day but need to make a reservation for tomorrow, it's like having your own personal assistant for that specific task. There will certainly be more features that the bot will offer in the future.

Overall, it's very helpful inside!

 

[jaz6773]

@invernest I am the guy who doesn't like to call for reservations, I will always prefer to order online via restaurant website or Open Table.

Though unfortunately your product doesn't solve my pain, I don't like to call - because it takes time, but chatting with a bot and providing him all the info also takes time. Another concern for me will be "Will the bot make a reservation or restaurant just hang up".

 

[jimoski]

@invernest Looks good but check this out: Google Duplex

It's discontinued but you could use it to give a better direction for your product

 

[mcarans]

@invernest As this is roast my start-up, I'll ask the obvious questions..

• How many people have you talked to about this before building it?
• How many said that this was a service they would use, even if it was free?
• How many said that it was something they would be willing to pay for?
• What did you do to test the product in a low-fi way before spending all this time building it?
• Have you read the lean start-up?

I would venture that the answer to all of these is: none, none, none, nothing, no

OP, business is about solving problems and what you have built doesn't solve any problems

It's also the exact thing that Google unveiled 6 years ago and everyone agreed they didn't want

 

[invernest]

@mcarans Thanks for the useful input!

The product stemmed from a conversation with a colleague who often complained about having to make reservations for her group of friends and being tired of it. She expressed a wish for something that could make automatic calls. So, the product arose from a necessity. I then asked more colleagues and friends for their thoughts on the product and whether they would use it, as well as how much they would be willing to pay for it. There were differing opinions, with some people liking the idea and others not understanding why someone couldn't make a call themselves.

As for the obvious question of why my colleagues and friends aren't using it yet, the problem I encountered during development is that the transcription of phone calls doesn't work very well in my country's language (Spanish). This issue prevents the program from working as it should consistently, so for now, it only supports English, which is why I can't offer it to people I know at the moment.

In terms of spending time on development, I enjoy creating and exploring new technologies, so it's not a waste of time for me even if the product doesn't work perfectly.

I haven't read "The Lean Startup" yet, but I definitely plan to, especially since I've been seeking books about marketing and startups due to my engineering background and lack of knowledge in marketing.

Regarding what Google developed six years ago, I don't really care much because I've never seen it work as they presented it. However, it would be great if they opened a market for this type of product.

Once again, thanks for the inputs as they are very helpful!