u/Agitated_Shelter8165

Just crossed 100k iOS app installs

Shack crossed 100‘000 iOS app installs:

> 33‘760 users verified through Apple verification
> sellers posted an avg. 3.5 auctions each (11‘940 posters | 41‘252 auctions)
> bidders placed an avg. of 3.6 bids each (1’117 bidders | 3‘965 bids)
> weekly active users over monthly active users hit 38.5%
> 986 ratings (4.4)

install -> verify -> list -> bid -> return

still tinyyy compared to what‘s possible at global scale and feature complete.

Beyond grateful what the crew & community have achieved over the past year ❤️‍🔥 Numbers are cool, but focusing too much on them can be a path away from user value.

Goodhart‘s law: „when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure“

Or another quote I like in business and life:

„Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.“

over the last week Shack users told us:

„best support ever“
„love the deals starting at CHF 1 on Shack“
„telling all my friends to use Shack, as it‘s super easy“
„design is beautiful“

but they also told us what needs to be better

„discovered swiping by accident“
„some parts are in English and not German“
„need a better overview to manage my auctions“
„compliance AI is too strict in some edge case“

Lots left to build 👷‍♂️✊

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 2 days ago
▲ 43 r/GME

Peter Thiel frequently argues that in business and branding, the most popular, buzzword-heavy titles often mean the exact opposite of what they claim, usually signaling a lack of true substance.

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 11 days ago
▲ 48 r/GME

Be honest eBay Mgmt

Just the tip of the iceberg, why many sellers left eBay or stopped using it.

> increased complexity
> reduced customer care
> outdated UI/UX
> flooding the platform with drop-shippers and retail new Amazon supply

Unlimited opportunity for RC and GME

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 11 days ago

hit top90 most downloaded iOS shopping apps on Sunday in Germany by spending $1k in paid social ads beating well known German recommerce brands like catawiki, rebuy, momox, Shpock

we‘re a small international team of four and have been working on the app for over two years. Tested to increase our ads budget on Sunday, as it‘s most important for C2C. On other days we‘re spending $200 and are in the top200.

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 12 days ago

Just hit top 0.3% of downloaded iOS Shopping apps in Germany

We‘ve been live with eBay x Silk Road (for legal goods) for more than a year and are now scratching the top 100 in Germany

We‘re a small international team of four devs/C2C marketplaces lovers. 

> total downloads 100k 
> live 🇩🇪🇦🇹🇨🇭🇺🇸
> 950+ ratings (4.4)

Goal is to build a global 1-tap selling solution for non-pros/recreational sellers.

What’s different compared to e.g. eBay

> no take-rate or ads
> only auctions (no buy now)
> no pro sellers/drop shippers allowed
> required self taking images
> fastest listing form globally (One-Photo / 1-tap)
> Fiat & crypto support
> meme branding through Shack hammerhead
> exclusively available for fully verified iOS users 🇦🇹🇨🇭🇺🇸🇩🇪
> in-app currency Shack Coin to unlock optional features like visibility 

happy to answer any questions ✊

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 13 days ago

masterclass in fund raising by legendary VC Andreas Klinger (i will not promote)

> pitch where you‘re different, not better
> use a valuation AND dilution range
> send a forwardable email/message instead of a blurb for intros
> use inflection points in your business for momentum

> your only goal in a pitch meeting is that they walk out with a hook for your case (they can‘t resist to share in their network)

so much more gold in the 50min clip worth watching on X @andreasklinger

Quoting his post:

„Fundraising sucks for founders, especially if you are a first-time founder. I've raised for my own companies, invested in over 100 startups and helped 1000+ founders raising money. We had a bit of time so we decided to do a 40-minutes fundraising crash course.

It’s a mix of strategic stuff, mental models, understanding investor game dynamics and tactical advice. Hopefully useful to anyone raising money right now.

A few takeaways – but I explain it all in the video better:

  1. You can evaluate every deal on three vectors: “credentials, innovation, execution”. You want to be strong on two of them. And being able to understand where you stand here allows you to be pro-active in driving your raise.

  2. "We're not fundraising yet, but..." is the most underrated hack. Use it to test the waters. If an investor is genuinely bullish, they'll make you an offer anyway.

  3. If it's not a hell yes, it's a no. VCs that want in will do anything to get in. The rest keep you in weird limbo with fake homework.

  4. "Come back with more traction" is a lie. It means: we don't believe in you yet, but if the market proves us wrong, sure. But there is an easy way around this. Get the right people involved.

  5. Don't pitch. Send the deck before. Have a real conversation. Your only goal: can this investor repeat what you do in a way that's exciting at drinks afterwards?

  6. Don't raise for long. Three months on the market and everyone knows? You're discounted sushi.

  7. Velocity beats optimisation. Almost always. The best fundraising strategy is getting investor commitments so fast that other investors have to chase you.

  8. The real elevator pitch isn’t between founder and investor but between two investors. Eg. an associate trying to show off to a partner or angels trying to get new opinions on the deal.“

reddit.com
u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 14 days ago
▲ 0 r/ios

TikTok hooks create higher conversion on content.

Does the same apply to button click conversion?

a) Meme naming for buttons

  1. Shackerberg -> Zuckerberg -> Ads
  2. Shack Draper -> Mad Men -> Visibility
  3. Shack Hoist -> Hoist to top of Search results
  4. Shack Ross -> Bob Ross -> Draw Image

b) just name them by value add

  1. "Run Ads"
  2. "Higher Visibility"
  3. "Top of Search"
  4. "Draw Attention"

Worth considering, maybe only few users appreciate the memes/joke, but they might be more likely to share the app or tell friends about it, increasing organic network effects and some find them dumb decreasing network effects/love for the app.

Thoughts?

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 15 days ago
▲ 247 r/GME

50k visitors and 1.7k posts per week by frustrated eBay users proving the opportunity for GameStop and RC to buy eBay.

high time to build them a new home and fix all the product issue.

What other data points show the opportunity?

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 16 days ago

I asked two long time iOS developers. One told me this will likely get flagged and the other no biggie.

Don't want to be stuck in submission/appreview ping pong hell.

Users can buy these boxes and unlock traits for their profile character to customize it. Basically like buying coins and features in mobile games. (the other screenshots show the logic)

per 3.1 Apple guidelines:

• ⁠Apps offering “loot boxes” or other mechanisms that provide randomized virtual items for purchase must disclose the odds of receiving each type of item to customers prior to purchase.

we only need to disclose the odds and should be good to go? anything else that I should make sure of?

In any case much appreciated!

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 16 days ago
▲ 91 r/GME

Live auctions booming on my iOS eBay app: zero „next up“ and zero „past events“ tHumBs uP

Opportunity to give eBay a sneak peek of RC live gme 50/50 commerce

kinetic sledge hammer to close each auction?

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 17 days ago

mouse/shortcuts and later the iPhone were solving a key friction in instructing machines to do things for us.

they removed the need to type

users prefer clicking, tapping, gestures once and get an outcome over using typed out words to instruct machines to do things for them.

the holy grail is 1-tap or no-tap to get the desired outcome.

i don't want to chat or voice control to e.g. change a color of a headline

i want to tap the headline and select a different color.

I don‘t want to tell my AI agent to buy, I want to tap the buy button.

also why writing with AI is so annoying and made me go full circle to just using a simple text editor, where I can select any part and delete or change it.

the startups that build valuable/frictionless 1-tap or no-tap interfaces will run their AI chat/voice interface competition over.

tapping > typing

reddit.com
u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 18 days ago
▲ 56 r/GME

Details of GameStop buying eBay

a) $2b annualized eBay cost reduction (aka layoffs) to boost GAAP EPS

b) national network for authentication, intake, fulfillment, and live commerce via GameStop 1‘600 stores

To reiterate: Remember when movies moved online through Netflix?

GME wants to make that happen for P2P trade of collectibles and build a (global) P2P trade network for digital/tokenized assets.

Their recently launched powerpacks (tokenized Pokémon cards) is just the beginning

I still believe they‘re overpaying by at least 10x and rebuilding an AI/mobile/onchain version of eBay and poaching eBay‘s userbase via paid ads is the faster and cheaper solution.

eBay‘s tech stack is legacy hell

(150m users at $55bn val imply $350+ CAC)

As reference: we‘re currently paying less than $2 CAC with our next-gen eBay startup

https://x.com/ryancohen/status/2051097144673665401?s=46

u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 19 days ago
▲ 0 r/Ebay

Not sharing the name unless some asks to avoid post being flagged as self promotion.

It‘s no SaaS or hidden fees.

Highest iOS ranking #200+ 🇺🇸 #1 🇨🇭 #17 🇦🇹 #43 🇩🇪

We make money if someone lists the item on our marketplace and books OPTIONAL external ads via socials.

reddit.com
u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 20 days ago

We built an iOS app 🇺🇸🇨🇭🇦🇹🇩🇪 and happy to share if people are interested.

Don‘t want to share the name before someone asks to avoid post being flagged.

It‘s no SaaS or hidden fees.

We make money if someone lists the item on our marketplace and books external advertising (but this is not a requirement)

reddit.com
u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 20 days ago

How much of this is caused by:

a) momentum venturing

„they‘re investing, so we need as well“

b) downside hedging

„if it doesn’t scale, we can maybe sell it to labs“

c) career risk aversion

„if I invest in the weird thing and it doesn’t work, my reputation is on the line“

d) diversification

„I rather place small bets with a bunch of others than concentrated bets by myself“

e) avoiding DD

„We follow so we don‘t have to worry about DD“

f) geography

„only invest in the US“

g) bias for young age, Ivy League, CV

outlier returns have a higher probability from domain experts that are 40y+

h) meta investing

Currently: labs, vertical B2B SaaS, Deep Tech, Fintech, while consumer companies with network effects have created iconic venture companies (Spotify, Uber, AirBnB, TikTok, Meta, etc.)

Source g: Forbes: Older Entrepreneurs Outperform Younger Founders. Shattering Ageism

reddit.com
u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 20 days ago

Built THE solution for businesses around the globe to sell online.

When he wanted to create his snowboard online shop (Snowdevil) the solution set was so underwhelming that he built his own shop system.

No, he didn‘t attend any Ivy League university.

Actually no university at all.

solve your own problem > inventing one.

reddit.com
u/Agitated_Shelter8165 — 20 days ago