Thanks @chrismessina for hunting us.
Hi, Product Hunt! I'm the CEO of Hiro Baby, and we're ecstatic to announce the launch of our new app here.
While technology has made our lives easier and more manageable in many ways, it hasn't helped relieve the stress and strain that comes with parenting.
Using bots and AI (and human touch!), Hiro is a full-service personal assistant app that deals with every issue a new parent has to cope with in their family’s early stages. By answering their questions, providing proactive information on upcoming milestones, and personalized product recommendations, we're endeavoring to bring peace of mind and make parenting easier.
We're a product-focused team, so we look forward to your feedback - what do you like about Hiro Baby, what more would you like to see, and what can we improve? Feel free to ping me at phil@heyhiro.com
PS: Over the past 8 months, we've learned a lot about conversational interfaces. If you look at the space, none of the bots or assistant services have really taken off. The opportunity is huge, but no one has figured out the perfect recipe yet. It feels a little bit like the on-demand economy before UBER found the right vertical and UX. Happy to share some of our learnings if you shoot me an email.
$20/month is pretty steep when the advice is automated and may not always Doc approved. Maybe just be happy with the affiliate sales and not charge a premium? Seems a little risky to me.
@stewartjarod Thanks for your feedback Jarod. With Hiro Premium the advice is not automated. There is a real human who is trained to answer your request. Hiring a doula costs anywhere from $800 to $2500 dollars. Baby planners can cost $150 an hour and do much less. Hiro allows everyone to have access to help when needed.
@pbuckendorf Ah! Sorry, I just assumed this was another AI thing. I like this a lot, how does one become an expert at Hiro? Is this a way for full-time mothers to make some part-time money?
@stewartjarod Right now it is a mix of full-time and part-time team members that are all trained on various domains. During the beta we have seen lots of interests by moms to work part-time for Hiro.
Report
Looks great! What lead you to go for an app over a bit on say Facebook Messenger? And can you share any libraries/frameworks you used to build the messaging features of the app, or is it all custom built?
@mleonard Hi Michael. We obviously considered building a FB Messenger integration. But building a great experience for your users in a new space is already very hard. Ff you cannot fully control the interface it is close to impossible. We build most tech ground up. This includes obviously all the messaging part but there is a lot more going on in the background to support our agents that communicate with the users.
Report
@pbuckendorf Interesting! Looking forward to trying the app when it comes to the UK store.
Report
I had the chance to test the product in the beta phase and I'm impressed with what the team has done in only 8 months.
Do you plan to prepare an API to let 3rd party use the knowledge you have gathered within Hiro?
@sebastian_gabor Great question, Sebastian. While we do not have any plans for an API at this points it something we might consider down the road. This might be interesting to many of the partner stores we are already working with. However, at this stage we like to be as close to our users as possible.
Report
@pbuckendorf have you tried contacting private maternities to see if they want to offer Hiro to their clients as a premium service?
Report
I just tried it out. The app is simple and to the point. Design and animations are sleek. I read the comment about the "Doula". Perhaps it could be communicated in the app "We are not a doula but…"
Why do you already want to charge for the service? You could add that later.
@tamimat Really appreciate your kind words. At this stage we are giving three free tasks to every user after that the service is paid. As much as we like to make the service available for free we also need to build a sustainable company.
Report
Awesome idea! 👊
Maybe you can share more about your key learnings in the beta as well as your thoughts about conversational interfaces?
@doefler In April we launched a basic prototype that was pretty much only messaging and supporting everything a family household needs. It did not work! Once, we focused back on the initial roots of the idea ( making parenting easier) we came closer to product market fit. Secondly, messaging is far from great for many things. IMHO we all think too much of messaging when talking about conversational interfaces. A conversational experience needs to be so much more to be useful. And this again can only be achieved if you focus on a clearly defined domain (where such experience makes sense).
Hiro Baby
Conspire
Hiro Baby
Conspire
Hiro Baby
Hiro Baby
Hiro Baby
Hiro Baby
Hiro Baby
Around.co
Hiro Baby