Fin — A new kind of assistant that runs in the cloud

Ever since YC-backed Magic launched 3 years ago, there's been a wave of personal assistant services hitting the market. From my experience, most were either too expensive or unreliable. I used Fin during the beta ~1 year ago but it never worked into my habits and after several price changes, I was uncertain how much I would be charged for each request. Side note: to properly evaluate the cost you need to consider how much your time is worth. Services like this are ultimately selling time, removing trivial tasks (e.g. make reservations at a restaurant for at 6pm on Friday) to free up one's calendar. What's been your biggest learning over the last few years building Fin, @lessin and @kortina?

I've tried it three times, haven't been able to get value out of it. Last time I got a $160 bill for finding and booking an in-home dinner chef for a trip my fiance was taking with friends, for 8 emails and 20 mins on the phone - way too expensive for normal use.

I got as far as entering my billing details and backed out because I have no idea on how much I would use/try the service and what kind of bill I would get. Why not give some typical task examples and costs involved? At the very least you should offer a free task or two for the user to understand its limitations before they incur any unnecessary costs. Get them hooked, then bill them. Using technology should bring efficiency and cost savings. Fin is suggesting that you would pay the same for an "average assistant", I don't want just an average assistant, and if Fin is saving on the human element it should pass those savings on to the consumer.

Congrats on the launch! I've tried Magic before. I saw my engagement with Magic decrease with time. I recognized that it took a lot longer for them to do something than it would take for me, which meant I only used Magic for really taxing and time consuming endeavors. Eventually, I churned out of Magic because of the infrequency with which I interacted with Magic. If it's only really large tasks, it's never top of mind and eventually I forget about it. I'm wondering how this service is different than what Magic was offering previously or other scheduling services like clara or x?

If you are launching on Product Hunt. You have to offer a discount to the dopest community on the planet... It's an unwritten rule😉 Dope 🚬🚬

I think I've tried every personal assistant app in Fin is by far the best - it's the real deal, incredibly useful.

Should assistive technology cost as much as $5K/month? For that, within 20hrs work, one could be 'handsomely' paying a real human to help you with their stuff.. part time. Perhaps two? The launching videos are cool primarily because they play on the psychology of the problem with assistive AI solutions this far: people do not enjoy being seen in public talking to Siri, Alexa, Google or Cortana. Fin sounds like your real person type of help. We're all free to charge whatever we want for basically anything, for that return is nothing but perceived value in any trade. However, for the tech we all know goes in it, their pricing is just ludicrous. Unless they managed to trap a mutant alien slave inside of silicon - pretty unethical if you guys did that! :) - there is no thing whatsoever stopping other well-established solutions from releasing a more functional AI service for a fraction of such costs; perhaps even for free. It's a big Yeah, Nah for me. PS: The tagline for me would be "Everybody can use an assistant". Not everybody NEEDS one.

For something supposedly so revolutionary, they should let people try the service for free pr at least a couple of weeks

Pros:

It seems like an interesting concept

Cons:

they charge right away, no free trial

Price needs to drop to no more than $40/hr to compete with existing VA services. Presumably, using AI would allow for lower cost instead of 50% higher.

Seems like a well thought out approach to the whole assistant on demand problem. The effective minutes make sure you're not paying more for inexperienced Fin assistants who need more time for a task than veteran assistants would. It's not in my ballpark price wise but I can definitely see something like this taking off if the first few experiences for people are positive.

How do you guys deal with security? I assume all request are being handled by real people, not some futuristic AI algorithm. How do you buy tickets on user's credit card, how do you keep all of my personal info (names of my family, my address, passport information, etc)?

Good luck selling OpEx to individuals and < Series B companies... imho, most startups in the field miss the point... Simple positioning question: what demographics use assistants in the first place? > People like Gianluca Vacchi or Aimée Song. Yet you keep selling your technocratic shit to "everybody" because "everybody needs an assistant"? No, just no.

I find that the offer they give us hunters is the best way to use Fin. I used it when It had a monthly rate and loved it and love it now, but I save a lot of money because I don't request often but when I do it really helps. Don't know why so many detractors.

Pros:

Can basically get anything done for you

Cons:

Can be expensive depending on how you use it

Congrats on the PH launch! I love this idea. I don't see a lot around security & privacy as it relates to giving email access. That's the one thing that is holding me back from signing up as I have a massive amount of data in my google inbox. Any feedback on that?

They seem to be failing at only using as much user data as absolutely necessary for their product to function. According to their privacy policy, your data is shared with others, whether you want it or not, and you can’t ask for your data to be deleted. A nice surprise in an email that’s sent to you after signing up (presuming that you, like 99% of all other users, don’t take time to fully read their privacy policy)!

From their User Data Policy (Privacy Policy?):

**Does Fin share the Information it collects with other People?**

Yes. As a general rule, Fin shares the Information it collects and learns from you with other People, including People who do not use Fin. This includes Information Fin collects and learns from your Communications and Conversations (including the things you ask Fin to do), as well as any Information Fin collects and learns from your address book, calendar, and email account (including Contact Information). Fin may also share the fact that you use Fin with other people.

If Fin shares something it collects from you, Fin will not identify you by name as the source of that Information unless you give Fin permission to do so (either through this Data Policy or otherwise). You give Fin permission to identify you as the source of any Information shared with your starred or trusted connections. You also give Fin permission to identify you as the source of any Information you share publicly using Fin.

If you want to share Information with Fin, but do not want Fin to share that Information with anyone else, you should place it in the Fin Vault.

Fin does not sell your personally identifiable information to advertisers. Fin will also not share the transcript of any emails it collects from accessing your email account.

**Does Fin delete any Information it collects?**

No. Because Fin is a collective knowledge system, Fin retains all of the Information it collects and learns, including Information it collects and learns from you.

If you want to share Information with Fin, but want to be able to delete it later, you should place it in the Fin Vault.

Pros:

(Haven’t used)

Cons:

Privacy policy is very concerning.

I want to believe in Fin. I was turned off by the price, but was wowed by the demo video and took it for a spin. I was so excited by the potential that I even found a spot for it on my home screen.

My first request was to send flowers to someone for under $50. The ETA given was 95 minutes. Three hours later I had gotten no feedback. Concerned that I going to end up spending more on the service than the flowers, I asked for a status. I got feedback that the task would take longer but I was only being charged for the active minute. My ETA increased to 10 hours. As I watched the cost balloon up to $38, I cancelled the task.

My second request was to add a brewery I had just heard about to my "Restaurants to try" list. In my mind, this should basically be an AI task that would be used when I asked Fin to make future bookings. I assumed it would take next to zero time. Instead, it took 18 effective minutes.

$56 later, I had a single restaurant added to a list.

I believe in the utility Fin is selling. But after limited use, the vision and the execution feel very far apart. And as much as I want to be an optimist, the founder responses to user comments here on Product Hunt read as tone deaf and are in the process of converting me to a pessimist.

Pros:

Aspirational; Incredible demo.

Cons:

Expensive on a per task and overall basis; Poor definition of an "effective minute".

Well done @lessin. It looks beautiful and well thought of. It reminded me our conversation in Tel Aviv a few years ago about the space of virtual PA's. There's much to do - good luck!

Just want to clarify here since there seems to be some confusion... the special for product hunt is no-minimum or subscription and pay as you go... our pricing page is just illustrative of what some people use- but if you sign up through product hunt you can use as little or as much as you want and just pay for the effective time at $1/min!

They seem to be failing at only using as much user data as absolutely necessary for their product to function. According to their privacy policy, your data is shared with others, whether you want it or not, and you can’t ask for your data to be deleted. A nice surprise in an email that’s sent to you after signing up (presuming that you, like 99% of all other users, don’t take time to fully read their privacy policy)! Please explain @kortina @lessin. From their User Data Policy (Privacy Policy?): **Does Fin share the Information it collects with other People?** Yes. As a general rule, Fin shares the Information it collects and learns from you with other People, including People who do not use Fin. This includes Information Fin collects and learns from your Communications and Conversations (including the things you ask Fin to do), as well as any Information Fin collects and learns from your address book, calendar, and email account (including Contact Information). Fin may also share the fact that you use Fin with other people. If Fin shares something it collects from you, Fin will not identify you by name as the source of that Information unless you give Fin permission to do so (either through this Data Policy or otherwise). You give Fin permission to identify you as the source of any Information shared with your starred or trusted connections. You also give Fin permission to identify you as the source of any Information you share publicly using Fin. If you want to share Information with Fin, but do not want Fin to share that Information with anyone else, you should place it in the Fin Vault. Fin does not sell your personally identifiable information to advertisers. Fin will also not share the transcript of any emails it collects from accessing your email account. **Does Fin delete any Information it collects?** No. Because Fin is a collective knowledge system, Fin retains all of the Information it collects and learns, including Information it collects and learns from you. If you want to share Information with Fin, but want to be able to delete it later, you should place it in the Fin Vault.

Too pricey. This needs to be outsourced to an Indian call center made $19.99 a month.for all basic requests. With certain requests being per use. Well now we need someone to come out with this type of service and make it right ala Apple. Perfect what others created.