I've enjoyed my experience with lob.com. I have sent one post card, done a Zapier integration, and introduced them to folks at my company that send a lot of postcards. Also had a conversation with the founders after signing up--that's always nice. (It is interesting that the API isn't really RESTful, but rather form/param based.)
Frankly, I've been wracking my brain (and those of friends at coffee meetings) trying to think of a business to build on top of this API.
Reminders and marketing are the two broad markets that jump to my mind, but I'm struggling a bit to find niches where the attributes of postcards (or letters) win vs other solutions:
* cost (94 cents vs free for email or far cheaper for text messages)
* timeliness (5-7 days vs immediate)
* point of delivery (physical address vs device or computer)
This means it has to be a fairly high value marketing or reminder opportunity.
Regardless, I'm impressed with lob.com and when the right mail business opportunity comes along, I know who my API partner will be.
Though it seems a better fit for marketing automation systems: i.e. if you supply software to a car dealer, then you can use them to send reminders to people for their annual checkup or services.
Frankly, I've been wracking my brain (and those of friends at coffee meetings) trying to think of a business to build on top of this API.
Reminders and marketing are the two broad markets that jump to my mind, but I'm struggling a bit to find niches where the attributes of postcards (or letters) win vs other solutions:
This means it has to be a fairly high value marketing or reminder opportunity.Regardless, I'm impressed with lob.com and when the right mail business opportunity comes along, I know who my API partner will be.