Supply, Demand and Disappointment

Every so often I am in class and I get bored and want to know what's going on in the world around me. The tech world, that is. So I unlock my iPhone and open up my Mashable app. I usually scroll through it and only open articles that seem interesting to me. Today, while scrolling through my feed on Mashable, I found an article that blew me away. It blew me away because it was about a guy making money off of an idea that I have thought of in the past. Don't you hate when you think of something and then someone with the money, brains, and opportunity at the right time and place thinks of the same idea as you and then makes a jack load of money off of it? Me too. 

Well, this guy, Mike Chen, was working on an app called Bettir, an app to help people track and improve their blood pressure. It was a cool service and all and had backing from Y Combinator, so it was definitely legit. But then, three days ago, Mike decided to take a break from work and start a little side project with a partner. This "little" side project was one that offered a rudimentary on-demand service that let you request whatever you needed -literally, whatever- via text message. What? Yes. Anything you could think of: a bicycle, a large pizza, a new pet, basically anything that was legally attainable. All you had to do was pay a small fee along with the cost of your request, which Mike and his team would charge using Stripe, a mobile payment service. 

Mike always wanted to create this. AND SO DID I. But he had the resources and time and determination to just try it out. So he designed, in like 2 seconds, an all-white landing page that looked like this: 

He sent it out to about 5 to 10 people and the site actually went viral. The first person that texted the number asked for a wrench. A God damn wrench. For his bike. The Magic team worked their magic and were able to set up a local delivery service to send the guy his wrench. After that guy got his wrench, the number of text messages that Magic was receiving topped 10,000 incoming messages on Sunday and had about 18,000 on Monday morning. Magic, within 3 days, expanded their team and abandoned the Bettir app they were working on before. 

This is supply and demand at its finest. The amount of messages that Magic received goes to prove that convenience is highly desired. And that when you think of an idea, you should go for it. Not like I, who thought of this before but never actually put a launch on it. Magic may or may not be the next big thing and it is only 72 hours old. This Mike guy could have been me.