[kreutz]

At Lugg (https://lugg.com) we did a few things that would not scale.

- My co-founder and I did all the Luggs ourselves in trucks we rented through GetAround for the first 4 months

- My co-founder and I's names, pictures, and phone numbers were hard coded into the app as the crew to fulfill the Lugg before we had crews or proper dispatching

- We launched without payments and would charge customers with a Square reader at the door

- Most mornings we would camp out in the IKEA parking lot in Emeryville, CA and approach their customers that were struggling to get their purchases in their cars and pitched them that we would deliver their items if they downloaded the app and made a request

- In the early days we didn't have operating ours and anyone could request a Lugg at anytime and my co-founder and I would hop in our rented truck and do it

A few months in we did a Lugg for someone that knew Sam Altman and made an intro to him for us. We met him for coffee, shortly after had a YC interview, and was later accepted in the S15 batch

[nlh]

BTW - I think my next door neighbor was a customer in those first 4 months. I remember helping him pack for a small move one night and we decided to see if There Was An App For That - and there was! I remember our both being surprised that we made the request at like 10pm and one of the co-founders showed up.

So, um, thank you and sorry! (We didn't order at 10pm to be inconsiderate - we just saw the option and took it). Glad things have worked out since then - I still remember the experience and use it as a reference when I'm telling people about this exact sort of hustle.

[kunley]

nice story..

[kunley]

I got downvoted for this very short reaction, so, at the risk of having another downvote(s), I want to make a statement:

With my very laconic reply I wanted in fact to convey my congratulations the Lugg creator for their perservance during the hard beginnings of their startup; plus, I strongly believe that the human level of the aspiring enterpreteneur's life is much more HNish in spirit, than endless discsussions circling around running LLM in the basement (or basement-as-a-service) without apparent customers, and somehow strangely the latter seems to be dominating HN comment space. Thanks for listening.

[dspillett]

> I got downvoted for this very short reaction

In part, I expect, due to the double full-stop which looks like it might be a miss-type ellipsis. It makes what could already potentially be seen as a sarcastic “cool story bro” response look even more so.

That, and the fact that HN generally disfavours short reaction comments (including, but not limited to, “Me too!”) which add nothing themselves other than perhaps (in the case of “me too”) an extra anecdata point.

Your follow-up post may well be downvoted too, because complaining about downvotes also being frowned upon (it is seen as adding unnecessary noise to a thread).

[steezeburger]

Probably because it ends in two dots which makes it look like you're being dismissive and rude.

[kunley]

Mmm, oh really, in my naive world two dots just mean some reflection.. (did it again).

But I get your point, thank you. Although it is kind of scary people read that much between the lines.

[firedaemon]

There’s a guy at my work that sprinkles .. in every reply. It makes him come off as an asshole. (I’m not the only person in my company that thinks so btw).

Recommend you stop, unless you like coming off as an asshole..

[wholinator2]

It's definitely not intentional. It's just pattern recognition trying to recreate a humans voice and facial expressions from an extremely limited set of information. The less information, the more extrapolation has to take place, and if you provide basically no information but with a specific emotional signifier on it then that signifier becomes the main information converted in the text. Had you typed a sentence or two of your other comment with the 2 dots on the end people probably would have read it more charitably. But as it stands, the 2 dots are the only information available and so it reads like sarcasm and dismissal are the singular goal of your comment. This interpretation can be prevented by providing more guiding information in the comment.

[ghusbands]

No matter how you meant it, a reply saying "nice story.." contributes nothing at all to the discussion. And if you were intending to convey anything to the Lugg creator, you were replying in the wrong place.

Try to imagine thousands of people who don't know either you or the person you're replying to reading your reply. If it's meaningless to them, it's probably not worth posting.

[josh2600]

Just want to say that Lugg has consistently been one of the best experiences I have moving things from place to place on short notice. Great customer service and the work is always done on point and on time.

It’s more reliable than any other short notice moving service I’ve used, but a little higher cost. I guess you get what you pay for.

[JCharante]

Wow, that's a cool app idea and your website design looks so friendly. The closest company I can think of is Lalamove which operates throughout Asia (founded in 2013). Sorry if it's not the right place, but I couldn't find on your website how the fully insured part of your service works. Do you need to take pictures of everything before hand?

[haspok]

I am a bit surprised because IKEA has its own delivery service. Are you cheaper or more convenient?

[leetcrew]

I recently ordered a medium sized table from ikea and the delivery options were a) $20 to receive in 3-5 days, b) $50 to receive on a specific day within a 12 hour window, and c) $80 to get a narrower time window and have the delivery person put the package in a room of your choice.

I'd guess you need a lot of scale to beat a) on cost, but there's probably room to undercut b) or c) on short distance trips.

[james-revisoai]

I liked your story and technique in finding a need-now kind of audience with this method! And your bit about Square is underrated. Setting up auth/stripe/connecting everything can take so long you lose motivation. I like the idea of using Square.

I face a similar kind of situation in a similar market, would love to hear your advice on something, feel it may complement what you are doing as well - can be reached at [e-mail] for this if you'd be up to chat.

[dtran]

This luggs the cake! Did y'all ever debate buying a truck vs. renting on GetAround?

[kreutz]

We thought about it but ultimately decided that owning a truck would detract from what we really needed to be doing which was getting truck owners to do the luggs

[cushychicken]

That’s very cool. Love the IKEA parking lot move. Bet you helped a lot of folks that way.

[holler]

That's an awesome/inspiring story, congrats & thanks for sharing. Was it all organic growth in the beginning? What took it from that early phase to the next step?

[devoutsalsa]

Is the insurance you offer legit or crap? Shipping companies have a notorious reputation for not paying out on insurance claims.

[cableshaft]

We almost used your service to get a lounge chair home the other weekend. We had to drive 45 minutes away to take a look at it and maybe buy it, and didn't really want to go there, rent a U-Haul, head home, head back, pick up our car, head home again.

We got lucky though that it managed to fit into our car so we didn't need to. But nice to know it's an option!

[CoachRufus87]

I've always wondered why Ikea didn't offer convenient in-house delivery options. Good job.

[simonebrunozzi]

"Move anything with the push of a button"

Fantastic tagline, and very clear value proposition.

[Vaslo]

Amazing work ethic - did IKEA ever give you a hard time?

[keep_reading]

why should they? helps people get out of the parking lot faster, helps the store move more inventory...

[nylonstrung]

Lugg is awesome! My go-to for moving

[williamcotton]

Love the hustle, dude! This is the way!