Launch HN: Mystro (YC S17) – Automation for On-Demand Drivers

It's very telling that you don't have an iOS app, likely because the security model prevents this kind of integration hack without jail breaking, or if you're lucky, some creative use of URL schemes.

I know you say you're "helping user churn" for uber/lyft, but those companies are certainly not obliged to agree with you and can send you a C&D at any time (I would bet on it). I can't see how you can build a viable long term business on a hack like this, where you are effectively an unauthorized third party app subject to the whims and possibly lawsuits of uber/lyft.

If you get a C&D from either Uber or Lyft, your product and business model no longer work, unless you're willing to go to court or blatantly ignore the C&D and the law by circumventing any technical measures introduced to stop third party apps.

No offense, but I'm honestly surprised YC funded a company with such a fragile basis of operation. Unless the plan is to go to court and fight any C&D, in which case I'm certainly rooting for you to set a nice precedent for third party apps.

Overall though, it's a great business idea and solid MVP. Good luck and boola boola.

Wow that's nuts! Over what span of time was the 10K rides?

At 20 minutes per ride and 8 hours of non-stop driving per day, 7 days a week, that's almost a year and half. Add in any breaks between rides, weekends, or dead time between rides and its even longer.

> We automate switching multiple on-demand apps on and off. This ensures that drivers are available on all services to get the maximum number of rides but never get penalized for not accepting a ride because they are already on a trip

Had to read this a few times to parse it. So do you guys repeatedly cycle through the apps so the driver is on/off repeatedly? Or is it permanently off and you turn it on when you detect that there's a ride to accept? (Which I don't understand how you'd do if it's off)

Quick thought re: your "Sorry we're not on iOS" page. You give some android phone options (great job at removing a barrier to use) but you leave the viewer with a bunch of uncertainty around timelines.

I driver needs to balance the idea of buying a new phone (and associated work arounds) with guessing how long it will be do develop an iOS app. There's friction there that will push most people to default answer "nah, I'll wait"

Providing some guidance on timelines, or otherwise overcoming the uncertainty around them would be super useful to the calculation / evaluation drivers will have to make.

Two cents.

Best of luck in your continued growth!

What makes you think nobody will sit down and rebuild your app in a week?