[HN Gopher] Show HN: OnAir - create link, receive calls
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Show HN: OnAir - create link, receive calls
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.
Author : bigmicro
Score : 177 points
Date : 2024-11-15 09:58 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (onair.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (onair.io)
| ahmads wrote:
| Very cool! This seems like a much better solution than Calendly.
| Instead of capturing leads only to experience a drop-off in
| conversion to calls, this completely eliminates that issue.
| bberenberg wrote:
| Similar to https://rep.ai/ though they have gone down the AI
| route. Maybe you can investigate how they did their positioning
| and GTM.
| jamesbfb wrote:
| > Instantly speak to a sales rep
|
| Soo, if you're like me, booking a call is a necessity. Most days,
| half of my day is booked. How do you work around this?
|
| That said, I do like the idea of a uniformed platform with a low
| barrier of entry when it comes to contacting me.
| ashJam wrote:
| I just tested this, and they've Google Calendar integration. So
| you can integrate your calendar and set the link status to
| Auto, then the link will be online according to your
| availability.
| redrove wrote:
| Someone please explain to me why a phone call is different to
| this, I'm truly blanking.
| moritonal wrote:
| Hide's real phone-number and allows you to control when, how
| you receive calls. Pretty smart honestly.
| infecto wrote:
| I am not sure any of those are really the true value. The
| driver imo is swapping a chat bubble with an audio call. It
| reduces friction a customer may have picking up their phone
| and dialing a number and also since the customer can see you
| are online and ready to chat, they know they will be able to
| instantly get in touch with someone. Thats the smart and
| valuable piece.
| sunir wrote:
| I dig this. This is what I am thinking.
|
| Much easier to click than dial.
|
| Social cost of a web link versus a phone number may be lower as
| well (that may be cultural but it may be true)
|
| Adds other modes like calendar or chat or AI directly in flow.
|
| No need to reveal a phone number.
|
| Video
|
| Internationally accessible (no long distance)
|
| And for HN tradition's sake for these types of comments, no one
| likes rsync.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > Much easier to click than dial.
|
| In what way is this easier than click to dial? They're both
| one click, but in this scenario I need a headset/microphone,
| a stable Internet connection, and if I do this from my smart
| phone it doesn't know I'm in a call so when I hold the phone
| up to my face I will likely hit buttons.
| Connect-EZ wrote:
| This looks good! We do something similar. No links, just a
| call now button on your wordpress site. https://www.connect-
| ez.com/click-to-call-service/
| bigmicro wrote:
| A few:
|
| - assign calls to different members (round-robin, escalation)
|
| - capture lead info (name, email, etc)
|
| - don't reveal actual phone number
|
| - recording, transcription
|
| - soon, conversational AI agent (as optional backup)
|
| With a WhatsApp/phone, you can't really switch it from one
| employee to another easily. Managing load is harder, seeing
| call logs is harder. And a full call center solution is too
| much for a small business.
| Fraaaank wrote:
| Very original, I like it! Do you also have the option to schedule
| a call when either person is not available? Or should you offer
| your customers to either call you via OnAir, or schedule via
| (e.g.) Calendly?
| bigmicro wrote:
| Thanks! so, you can add an "offline message" that is displayed
| when your link is offline. In that case, adding a Calendly link
| to that message might make sense. Or simply "I'm typically
| online 12pm-4pm for walk-ins" etc.
| pqdbr wrote:
| Congrats on launching!
|
| Curious how the dynamic image works in the e-mail signature:
| AFAIK, Gmail and others heavily cache any images inside e-mail,
| so even if the image changes, Gmail will be displaying the
| online/offline cached image, not the most up-to-date one.
| bigmicro wrote:
| You can overcome this using headers, which instructs Gmail not
| to cache. Snippet:
|
| response.headers["Cache-Control"] = "no-cache, no-store, max-
| age=0, must-revalidate"
|
| response.headers["Pragma"] = "no-cache"
|
| response.headers["Expires"] = "Fri, 01 Jan 1990 00:00:00 GMT"
| floobertoober wrote:
| You might want to investigate this further - IIRC a lot of
| email services retrieve images in advance server side to
| avoid leaking whether the client has interacted with the
| email. I might be mistaken here.
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| Would it be cool that the customer can get notified when there is
| someone available
| gervwyk wrote:
| Could have a click to dail link just with a phone number. What
| are the advantages? Really like it! Taking to conversation to
| whatsapp would also be cool for small businesses. Emailing both
| parties an transcript of the conversation could be a nice +1
| ripe wrote:
| This might be a silly question: I understand that to talk, the
| caller uses their web browser with device audio. What does the
| link creator use?
| bigmicro wrote:
| If the creator has the app (onair.io/ios , onair.io/android),
| they would receive notifications there and can take the call.
| Also, if a browser is open when someone calls them, they would
| also receive notifications there as well.
| the_arun wrote:
| Is there a way the creator can mark their availability on the
| app? May be on a calendar?
| bigmicro wrote:
| Yes. You can set yourself `always online`, or `always
| offline`, or `scheduled`. In the last one, you specify
| hours in the day (e.g. 9am-5pm), and sync with external
| calendar (currently Google Calendar) which marks you as
| offline when you're busy.
| cultofthecow wrote:
| I did exactly the same product like 4 years ago.
|
| Twilio, voice app etc. But I was so lazy to do a proper marketing
| and sales.
|
| However I had some ideas that I can share with you if you want:)
| For free ofc!
|
| Wish you all the luck! Contrast with nice product! Super good!
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| The pricing page is incredibly misleading if not outright
| illegal.
|
| At the top of the pricing page you show that it's $9 a month to
| have 10 links and enable round-robin call handling, but looking
| at the FAQs at the bottom, it's actually $9 a month PER USER:
|
| > OnAir costs as low as $9/user/month. This price is per user,
| per month. Other pricing plans are displayed on this page. Higher
| enterprise plans are available starting at $250/month for up to
| 50 users.
|
| This means that for $9, you actually do NOT get round-robin,
| since you'd need to pay at least $18 (2 users) to benefit from
| it.
|
| Similarly the 10 links make it seem like you can have links to
| reach 10 people, but once again this would in fact cost $90 a
| month.
| bigmicro wrote:
| Hey. A single user can indeed use round-robin; they can connect
| multiple devices (up to 3 on a single license Basic Plan). In
| that sense, a single user can have round-robin among three
| mobile phones. Having said that, will think more on how to make
| this more clear.
| bradbeattie wrote:
| To make it more clear, perhaps replace "$9/month" with
| "$9/month/user"? Seems like an easy fix.
| bigmicro wrote:
| Good idea! done
| thedangler wrote:
| What's is this build on top of? WebRTC connected to something
| like twilio to make the calls ?
| bigmicro wrote:
| Livekit. Amazing product and community, and has a self-host
| option. Highly recommended whether you're doing WebRTC or voice
| agents. First version (pre-launch) was on Agora, their API was
| a nightmare, highly unrecommended.
| Connect-EZ wrote:
| Would love for you to try our WebRTC service!
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Great example of something complex made very simple to the end
| user. A lot of thought clearly went into the UX. Congrats
| bigmicro wrote:
| Thank you! you're so kind.
| karmaagnostic wrote:
| Yep. This is a beautiful launch
| ale42 wrote:
| A small thing that might be useful: allow users to get a regular
| phone number to call. Most users probably won't need it, some
| will, and when they need it and there's no number, it's extremely
| frustrating for the (potential or current) customer.
|
| Example: in most cases, I don't have a microphone or headset on
| my office desktop PC (don't need it, we don't do zooms), have
| very slow internet access on my smartphone (forget OnAir calling
| with it, and anyway it would be too much friction to reopen the
| same web page on it just to call), but have a very well working
| landline phone nearby.
|
| One possibility you might think about is to get a VoIP number
| terminated at your server (and possibly a free 1-800-xxxx but
| those don't necessarily work from abroad), where people can call,
| enter a code displayed by the OnAir client in the web page (like
| an extension ID, but it might be random if there's a value in
| obliging people to come to the web page before calling, e.g. to
| limit spam calling), and once done they'd be connected as if they
| were calling through the web page. The limitation with this
| solution here is that you'd need a number for each country you
| want to support, as international calls easily get expensive,
| especially from mobile.
| paxys wrote:
| Why does that need to be part of the app? You can just put a
| phone number on your website next to the call button.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| actually I'm curious about how to get a business-related
| phone number like this? Does Google Voice do this, but also
| support round-robin, transcriptions, and webhooks?
| paxys wrote:
| You don't need a fancy service for this. Every phone
| operator supports it out of the box.
| nutanc wrote:
| We actually do that. We have just released a web widget which
| maps to your current phone number IVR or voice bot flow. Have
| put a quick link on our web site at the bottom left corner,
| not clean ,but works :)
|
| https://ozonetel.com/ind/
| rexpop wrote:
| I believe in this example, OP is requesting a phone number
| dedicated to the onair coupling. So the "dedicated" number
| would serve as a prophylactic managed through onair.
| faramarz wrote:
| Dang! I was about to share this service with my CS and Sales
| colleagues, but stopped myself when I realized they won't touch
| it unless it can be integrated with services like Gong and
| Salesforce, for call tracking, transcriptions, trainings and
| archives. I know you have some of these native, but getting a
| group of people to move to a new app yet again is harder to do
| than bringing your service to their existing environment.
|
| If theres a way around that, and at min. Leveraging gong for the
| recording and transcription, do let us know. Nice service! I'll
| personally use it in places like email and linked in to try it
| out.
| bigmicro wrote:
| Absolutely, we'd 100% love to learn more about that and co-
| design. Could you possibly send us a note on hello@onair.io?
| cvalka wrote:
| Can I use this for my intercom?
| happyopossum wrote:
| I really don't get this. If I'm a customer looking to call
| someone, I would rather call, leave a message, and get a call
| back then have to keep checking over and over to look for a green
| link that says that a rep is available.
|
| I also don't want to make a call from my web browser, I'm off on
| a device without a microphone and headset connected, and if I'm
| on my smart phone the actual phone capabilities are a lot better
| in a phone call (I can mute, switch to speakerphone/bt, and hold
| the phone up to my ear without pressing any buttons on screen).
| paxys wrote:
| Looks promising, though it needs a workflow for when potential
| customers click the link and you show as busy. What then? They
| aren't going to sit and refresh every 5 minutes waiting for you
| to get free.
| bigmicro wrote:
| Agreed. For now, you can customize the offline message, such as
| saying "I'm typically online 12pm-4pm on Mon/Tue", or
| alternatively, drop a Calendly link or your email.
| gleapsite2 wrote:
| > E-Commerce store owners... are not responding as expected...
| Ideas are welcome.
|
| What about audience engagement for streamers? my first thought
| when I saw this was oldschool public access "phone in" shows.
|
| of course, a different usecase demands a different featureset
| (like, delay, moderation, OBS integration...
| Y_Y wrote:
| Jitsi Meet ( https://meet.jit.si ) has been doing this job for me
| for a few years and I'm pretty happy with it. Easy to self-host
| too.
| nutanc wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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.
| ahmadtbk wrote:
| 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.
| the_sleaze_ wrote:
| 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...
| collingreen wrote:
| 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.
| leobg wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| For me, my reluctance to use the phone is that 90% of the
| phone calls I get are spams/scams or to put it most
| kindly, unsolicited. I have just developed a visceral
| dislike for answering phone calls. My phone is set only
| to ring if you're in my contacts list. Everone else goes
| to voicemail (I guess -- I never set it up and I never
| check it).
|
| When I was young we had a landline at home and yes there
| were some telemarketing calls but they were not the
| majority. Most calls were from friends or family or
| legitimate other purposes. That's not how it is today, at
| least in my experience.
|
| Part of it is that anything other than a local call used
| to cost money. So there was a financial disincentive to
| robo-call thousands of people hoping that you'd find one
| rube.
| Twistyfiasco wrote:
| How do you handle calls from unknowns like Doctors,
| hospitals or clinics?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Synchronous communication is sometimes effective, but when
| its the default it is plodding, wasteful, and an absolute
| minefield of anxieties and banalities for some people,
| myself included.
|
| Strangely, it seems like the world is becoming more like me
| over time. I tend to think of my preferred communication
| style as strange and awkward because that's what a lifetime
| of experience has taught me but the new generation seems to
| also prefer it.
| emptiestplace wrote:
| I recognize your position is appropriately nuanced, so this
| isn't directed at you, but I hear this sort of thing almost
| daily and I think it's usually an incredibly lazy take.
|
| Often we end up convinced we are on the same page when we
| aren't just because our communication is constrained (and
| accelerated) by social protocol. At least when it is
| written out you can go back and re-read or directly quote
| someone. In meetings I find myself constantly pointing out
| when someone has been fundamentally misunderstood in a way
| that aligns with the listener's existing
| beliefs/preferences, "oh, I think what Frank is saying
| might actually be the opposite of [your interpretation]?".
|
| There are pros and cons to different forms of
| communication. Sometimes a call can help cut through layers
| of misunderstanding, but for more complex topics, often
| it's difficult to get a group of people to all be present
| enough to share genuine understanding. School is a great
| example of how ineffective this can be.
| carlgreene wrote:
| I am in my mid-30s and am definitely a "let's just hop on a
| call" guy.
|
| So much quicker, easier, and less chance for miscommunication
| IME.
| moralestapia wrote:
| If you're a business, nothing beats "let's just hop on a
| call".
|
| For me at least, the first one that picks up my call is the
| one who gets my money. "Send us an email, here's our
| WhatsApp, ..." kind of thing, I don't even try.
| sealthedeal wrote:
| You're right, we struggle with this at our company, getting
| CS to just pick up the phone and call the customer. Sales, no
| problem, but any other function of the business they dont
| prefer phone.
| tomwphillips wrote:
| Hmm, I'm not sure about this. I'm in my 30s. Use lots of
| Slack huddles at work, with colleagues of all ages, and I
| caught up with a couple of friends this week on regular phone
| calls.
| AndrewVos wrote:
| Looks good, I want to give it a try next week.
|
| Appear.in (now called https://whereby.com/) used to have the same
| functionality and I would just share my link everywhere so that
| team members could call me whenever they wanted.
|
| Although, Facetime is kind of the exact same thing isn't it?
| LorenDB wrote:
| This may come as a surprise to you, but there are plenty of us
| who don't have Apple devices to use FaceTime with.
|
| OK, I do have a Mac Mini for development purposes, but I don't
| want to have to drag it out of storage just to make a call.
| Twistyfiasco wrote:
| Apple users can send a facetime link that is usable on non-
| apple devices.
| ocengb wrote:
| Haha, I've just talked with the author. :) There is a market for
| crowded cities, I think. When you park your vehicle in front of a
| crowded place etc you can print/write a link to reach you if
| needed. There are some anonymity number services, but for
| internet users, this can be a solution to keep their numbers
| private. Good luck!
| toppy wrote:
| Such a link could be created automatically when you register
| for a car plate.
| xp84 wrote:
| Apparently in parts of Asia (I can't recall which between CJK)
| it's customary to have a cute little widget mounted inside your
| driver-side window that you put your phone number on, and it
| can be opened and closed as needed, and people know to check
| for that anytime they need to contact you to move your car.
| Seems quite civilized. Although I wonder if that means that
| people double park all the time...
| cess11 wrote:
| Is it built with Ruby? Looks like the landing and login page are.
|
| Should probably consider moving to Elixir, if that's not what
| you're using on the server already.
| mfkp wrote:
| What's wrong with ruby in this case? Ruby in 2024 can easily
| handle an app like this.
| russ wrote:
| This is super cool. One neat idea: when I'm in offline mode, I
| can clone my voice, provide some context data/sources, and have
| my AI clone answer calls for me. It can give me a summary of
| conversations it had each day and allow me to follow up.
| bigmicro wrote:
| We're definitely heading in that direction and currently
| experimenting with LiveKit's Agent framework. I'm guessing
| you're Russ from LiveKit? If so, I'm a huge fan of what you're
| doing! Would love to connect and explore ideas further
| ahmad@onair.io
| russ wrote:
| Haha yup, I'm that Russ. Really appreciate your kind words.
| <3
|
| I'll shoot you an email and let's chat!
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| What a clean and simple (to the user) product. Love it.
| blakeburch wrote:
| 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
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| 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.
| blakeburch wrote:
| Precisely. I'd love that same level of virtualization but for
| calls.
| bigmicro wrote:
| 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".
| RileyJames wrote:
| Very cool. I've sent to our CTO.
|
| I'd like to test this out for sales, via the website. As a more
| frictionless way of capturing inbound interest and fielding
| questions.
|
| I'd also like to see how we can capture product feedback / issues
| via our product.
|
| Questions:
|
| - can the link be cnamed so I can use our own domain, rather than
| 'OnAir.io'
|
| - are there any docs / demo of how the widget can be customised?
|
| I see your demo. It looks like it also captures the name / email
| of the customer.
|
| 1. That's a value prop on the sales side, and except for the
| demo, that wasn't clear to me.
|
| 2. Can we prefill those? (Again wasn't clear) This would be
| valuable in the support / feedback use case, as we know who the
| user is.
| bigmicro wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| - We do not support cname domains (not part of the short term
| roadmap)
|
| - We're not happy with the standard widget, we're certainly
| open to customization, any are open to feedback and introducing
| configs/customizations. Alternatively, you can simply create a
| widget with your link
|
| - Pre-filling form is easy and we can certainly support that
| via query strings if you require it
|
| Feel free to reach out hello@onair
| cjmcqueen wrote:
| I would thing came would be a fantastic feature for the
| business/enterprise tiers
| cjmcqueen wrote:
| People are weird and sometimes things don't make sense from their
| existing framing. What if the URL was OnAir.com/555-555-5555 <~
| basically make it look like a phone number and make it something
| where people can see they can text, call, or message. If you're
| live, it shows that. If you're not live, it gives you a way to
| leave a message. The interaction is almost exactly the same, but
| might create less friction of "what is this" by making it feel
| like how phones and contact points have worked for years.
| cjmcqueen wrote:
| Also, maybe you need a free tier until you can capture some part
| of the market from WhatsApp
| qntmfred wrote:
| i've been playing around with a similar concept over the last
| year as well
|
| when i'm at my PC, I keep a google meet on all day. instead of
| slacking me, coworkers can go to my google meet link (which never
| changes cus it's a recurring event on my calendar) and talk to me
| immediately. far better than huddles because there's no "are you
| available for a huddle" friction. if i'm online, then i'm online
| and the permission to just come talk to me is implicit.
|
| I also use it for family and friends. my wife, kids, sister and
| parents can always just go to my meet link if they want to pop in
| to chat. i've shared it with friends and former coworkers too.
|
| additionally, every day I start a private youtube livestream (and
| sometimes public) and embed the stream on my website at
| kenwarner.com/online which is linked with a :large_green_cirle:
| in the header menu so people can quickly see that i'm online.
| when people find my website (usually from twitter interactions)
| sometimes people will join the meet to talk too. much more chill
| than most (text-based) interactions on twitter. even if the
| conversation started (on twitter) with some kind of disagreement,
| people act like human beings again (for the most part) when it's
| a video chat. it's fun.
|
| i've often thought that it'd be neat if there were a service
| similar to calendly.com/username like you've done to let people
| talk/videochat any time. if enough people had such a thing, you
| could build a social media platform on top of it too. the digital
| public square today is still mostly text
| (twitter/threads/bluesky/etc) and the image/video platforms
| (ig/tiktok/youtube) are all still oriented around a one to many
| broadcast model. i'm a creator and you're an audience member.
| with monetization of the audience in mind. omegle was a sort of
| person to person videochat platform, but it was all random
| connections. this would be more directed in terms of who you
| decide to talk to.
|
| hadn't thought of this idea as just targeted at business use
| cases, but it makes sense. hope y'all get some traction!
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