Wufoo (YC W06) integrates Notifo (YC W10) for form notifications | Hacker News Reader

Wufoo (YC W06) integrates Notifo (YC W10) for form notifications

wufoo.com

56 pointsjazzychad12 comments

Open articleView on HN

Wufoo also made great partner and integration pages for us:

- http://wufoo.com/partners/notifo/

- http://wufoo.com/docs/integrations/notifo/

For lack of a better word, this YC "synergy" is a HUGE competitive advantage for YC startups. Rock on.

And a disadvantage to non yc start-ups

Startups aren't a zero-sum game. If you're in direct competition with a YC startup, the synergy might hurt you (though everyone says not to worry about competitors anyway). But if you're not going after the exact same segments of the same market as a YC startup, their success isn't hurting you one bit.

By definition, if start-up x has an advantage over y, y is disadvantaged relative to x. With all due respect, I don't mean to argue over minor things or 'knock' yc. But surely this is a statement of fact. If not, please prove otherwise.

> By definition, if start-up x has an advantage over y, y is disadvantaged relative to x

Yes, it is a tautology. Why state it? To what end?

My guess is that GP is a reaction to the implication that you are begrudging YC companies their success...

I'm skeptical about efficiency of Notifo: 1) news.ycombinator.com is integrated with Notifo 2) Audience of news.ycombinator.com is very computer savvy. 3) It looks like only few HN users are getting notifications about replies to them on HN. 4) Wufoo users are less computer savvy. That means that very few Wufoo users would use Notifo.

I think until Notifo makes it possible to flawlessly setup notifications straight from thrid-party site (such as Wufoo), the adoption of Notifo would be quite low.

Efficiency is an odd word choice, but I do agree with your usability criticisms.

What I love about Notifo is that it exposes a web service that lets me push arbitrary messages to my iPhone (e.g., I have an autorun batch file that lets me know when my son is on his computer, just to make sure he isn't getting up at 6AM just to play games). Getting that working wasn't difficult, but definitely non-trivial. Stepping back a bit, looking at notifo.com and the different services that work with it (pushly, HN, etc.), getting all the pieces to talk to each other is definitely a bit head-scratchy if you're non-technical.

I think this is a place where large companies have the benefit of scale such that a small service like Notifo can become a part of a broader online portfolio like Windows Live or Google. Otherwise, the mental burden in installing Notifo, registering a Notifo username, and figuring out where to enter that in on another service seems too high for casual users.

I suppose that Notifo's long term plan is to be acquired, but the downside is that I doubt agreements like what they have with Wufoo and HN would survive the transition.

Why would their agreements with current web apps not survive the transition?

Just a speculation. Look at drop.io as a recent example. Large enterprises tend not to allow their service to be used as "loose" tools. Instead, they would rather keep the tool as something that plays well with their own services.

I could be wrong, but I have a hard time seeing something like Notifo survive in the state it's in under the banner of a company like Microsoft or Google.

1) When usability is not there -- efficiency is also not there.

2) Why would Google want to use Notifo? Without good usability Notifo cannot serve mass user. Without mass user Google would not be interested.

This is going to be very useful to me...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com