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Show HN: OnAir – create link, receive calls

(onair.io)
263 points bigmicro | 3 comments | 15 Nov 24 09:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.438s | source

Hello HN community,

This is bootstrapped/indie hacker-ish. Would appreciate feedback.

What it is: You create a link (e.g. onair/yourname), and anyone can call you from it. Caller uses a web browser to make the call (not dedicated app). You can create as many links as you want, and can direct calls to colleagues in a round-robin or escalation manner.

In a way, it's like the "opposite of Calendly"; whereas Calendly is about meetings in the future, OnAir is about immediate meetings.

Motivation behind it: One of our SaaS products was struggling to grow. We believed that if we provide more "hand holding" to visitors on the landing page, it will increase conversion. It's like speaking to the guy behind the counter before making a purchase. That idea/experiment, over time, became OnAir.

Feedback: Identifying the perfect use case / customer has not been easy. E-Commerce store owners, which I thought would be ideal customer profile, are not responding as expected (e.g. "why use this instead of a WhatsApp button?"). The value of branded links, round-robin, recording/transcription, lead capture, etc does not seem to matter much to them. Ideas are welcome.

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nutanc ◴[15 Nov 24 16:28 UTC] No.42148384[source]▶
Had launched something like this in 2016. We had called it as ering.me, so you could have an url like ering.me/handle. Used it in email signatures, web calling etc. It didn't pick up at that time or we didn't market enough :)

Hope the market is mature now and products like this succeed. All the best.

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SoftTalker ◴[15 Nov 24 17:12 UTC] No.42148772[source]▶
I'm not really surprised. The people who grew up with phone calls and who like to "hop on a call" to work out issues are all aging out. They are in their fifties at the youngest, if not already retired. It's my experience that far fewer younger people reach for the phone as a first means of contact. It's not preferred, and they try to avoid it.

And by "call" I mean direct, synchronous, real-time conversation. Whether literally a phone call, or an online voice or video call.

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ahmadtbk ◴[15 Nov 24 17:23 UTC] No.42148880[source]▶
The nice thing about real time calls is they help avoid confusion, convey more emotion and information than most messages can.

There is less ambiguity usually during a real conversation.

Conversations tend to resolve very quickly because in the span of five minutes we can go back and forth on multiple questions, get clarity and finalize how we want continue. Some things require this but not everything. There is a balance as with everything.

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the_sleaze_ ◴[15 Nov 24 17:56 UTC] No.42149237[source]▶
Of course all points are correct - and yet

> nearly half [of gen z] admit that speaking on the phone makes them feel anxious (49 per cent)

> an awkward phone call is one of the top three things they would most want to avoid (42 per cent)

That being said I'm quite confident there is enough of a market that doesn't dread talking on the phone that this company could do very well for itself and its founders financial goals.

---

https://www.commbank.com.au/articles/newsroom/2023/06/CBA-Mo...

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1. collingreen ◴[15 Nov 24 19:17 UTC] No.42149934[source]▶
I wonder how this will change as it becomes more and more normal for companies to shunt you to horrible chatbots. Maybe we'll shift back to needing a real human.
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2. leobg ◴[15 Nov 24 19:34 UTC] No.42150088[source]▶
This! I had to get a court order against my bank because there was an issue and all responses I got from them were not generated. Only after getting the court order did I get the attention of a human, which was their lawyer. We had a pleasant conversation, and the issue was solved.
3. toast0 ◴[16 Nov 24 07:35 UTC] No.42155083[source]▶
I mean, if you need a human, you need a human. But the companies where you seem to need humans to help make it hard to reach them, by phone or in writing.

I prefer in writing, because I always hope that when it eventually gets to a human, they can read the whole conversation and save a lot of time. Using voice, almost always, I have to repeat the information to each person as we go, and it's tiresome.