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Show HN: OnAir – create link, receive calls

(onair.io)
263 points bigmicro | 5 comments | 15 Nov 24 09:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.812s | 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.

1. blakeburch ◴[15 Nov 24 20:06 UTC] No.42150382[source]▶
I really like this idea, but not for the listed business use case. I don't imagine many people under 40 are likely to "hop on a quick call" to ask a question about a product that wouldn't already be handled by a standard customer support line.

As a privacy nut, I love the idea of giving people a way to contact me without having to explicitly reveal my contact info. With a service like this, you could embed the call URL on your website, business card, socials, etc. so that you could track which source generated the calls and rotate them as necessary.

Even better if I could control who can contact me at what times. I'm assuming those types of rules could be baked in with IP blocking.

See my Ask HN thread on a related subject - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41035513

replies(2): >>42150906 #>>42150973 #
2. nickpsecurity ◴[15 Nov 24 20:54 UTC] No.42150906[source]▶
Your idea seems to build on what people often do with virtual, credit card numbers. They use different numbers for different businesses. If they get ripped off, they can narrow down which business was used for that.

On top of that, different points of contact might also have different, response policies. Like your existing customers vs targeted leads vs random people. You’d really want to know which were calling you.

replies(1): >>42151399 #
3. bigmicro ◴[15 Nov 24 21:00 UTC] No.42150973[source]▶
This was our original focus and remains core. Currently, you can create and share unique links across channels for different purposes. In the medium term, we'll introduce disposable 'aliases', which are designed to be throw-aways, like Fastmail’s "masked email".
4. blakeburch ◴[15 Nov 24 21:35 UTC] No.42151399[source]▶
Precisely. I'd love that same level of virtualization but for calls.
replies(1): >>42156987 #
5. Connect-EZ ◴[16 Nov 24 15:54 UTC] No.42156987{3}[source]▶
Just saw your other thread (but can't respond on it). We offer a similar service, no need to share your number. Add a call now button to the website, user clicks on it and you can take the call on your laptop/cell phone/PBX/browser. If not, call goes to VM (and you are sent an email with the message).