I'm Dhaivat and I've been working on JetLenses in the present YC batch. We offer the lowest prices on contact lenses online. On average, each of our customer saves $70 on each order in comparison to buying their contacts from a large online retailer.
It turns out that most of the cost of contacts is just advertising cost and fulfillment overhead. We've built automation software for the fulfillment and prescription verification processes allowing us to cut overhead. We also use statistical models for ad optimization which allow us to cut our customer acquisition costs dramatically and deliver savings to our customers.
I have a technical background (I studied computer science and statistics, interned at Meteor (YC S11) and a quant hedge fund) and my Dad trained as an ophthalmologist. This was the perfect circumstance to realize that this is a large, fairly overlooked space within ecommerce where improved operations through software/data science can have a strong impact.
We're starting with contact lenses and we'll eventually apply our core tech to other prescription medical products with very similar cost structures. At the end of the day, we'd like to make these products cheaper and more easily accessible. Help us out by buying contacts from us or telling your contact-wearing friends about us!
If you wear contacts: We sell the same contacts as your doctor or other retailers, just for a lot less money. Check out our website at beta.jetlenses.com - order from us and save some dough while supporting our run-up to demo day! You can also check out our price comparison tool at https://beta.jetlenses.com/compare_prices - we're the cheapest for most lenses but not all (yet!).
I would love to hear HN's thoughts about this! I'm particularly keen to learn about your experiences buying contact lenses (or even other medical products) and if what we're doing sounds exciting. You can also reach me at dhaivat AT jetlenses.com
Thanks!
Dhaivat
P.S. We currently only ship to addresses in the United States.
by Andrey
Azimov