Launch HN: Boxouse (YC W17) – Shipping-container homes

A couple of points, Photos:<p>Hire a decent photographer, large sensor, low f number. You&#x27;d be surprised what a good camera with a competent person running it will do. Go wide angle.<p>Your unique selling point should be the thought you put into the layout. Anyone can insulate and sling in some furniture, the real hard part is making the space lovable&#x2F;liveable. Choose a theme or period, industrial is a good start. You have bamboo flooring, why not use it for the fittings?<p>o Put beading&#x2F;moulding around the windows. Its simple and cheap.<p>o Match the doors and frames to the plywood&#x2F;cladding<p>o Change the electrical outlets to metal, anything other than the stock white<p>o Use industrial light cases, it&#x27;ll match the industrial look better<p>o Make sure the stuff you install is straight, and neat, the bed slats are wonky!<p>o The bamboo flooring looks great make use of it more!<p>o when taking the photos, think about where the light is coming from, make sure its streaming through the windows making the place look bright<p>Also, don&#x27;t give up...

Guys; I like the idea but your prices are too high. You&#x27;re in the decent trailer price range.<p>The big advantage of a shipping container is the ability to cheaply ship it. Once you cut into it you can&#x27;t ship it anymore. It&#x27;s not a great use of recycled material as it uses way too much steel for a dwelling.<p>I&#x27;m actually in the market for a shippable shipping container house. Similar to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=sPgjndFqqwY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=sPgjndFqqwY</a> . He gives the quote of $50K including high quality fittings and market price labor. I will probably build one myself then ship it to where I need it. I&#x27;m an expat and I historically move countries every year or so. If you were to build a clone of this I would buy it.<p>Another benefit of shippable shipping container homes is you can service customers anywhere around the globe! Not just SF.

If you want a metal building, Butler Buildings has all the parts to make one.[1] Rural America has hundreds of thousands of their prefab structures. They sell prebuilt wall sections with insulation, and wall sections with windows and doors. Putting one together is far easier than slicing through a shipping container, and you can vary the dimensions. The industrial look has been unpopular, and they&#x27;re seldom used as houses.<p>There&#x27;s General Steel Buildings, which makes steel house kits.[2] They&#x27;re not popular, but they are available. For a little extra, you can get fake brick to hide the steel exterior.<p>You can get some nice prefab houses for well under the $29K these people want for a modified 150 square foot shipping container. In mobile homes, $29K gets you a 16 foot wide unit with 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 14 foot square living room, kitchen, A&#x2F;C, and appliances, installed.[3]<p>Siting is the problem, not manufacturing cost.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;butlermfg.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;butlermfg.com</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gensteel.com&#x2F;steel-building-kits&#x2F;houses" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gensteel.com&#x2F;steel-building-kits&#x2F;houses</a> [3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.montysheavybuilthomes.com&#x2F;index.php?pageID=14676_2" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.montysheavybuilthomes.com&#x2F;index.php?pageID=14676_...</a>

I love the idea, but as-is, I think your product could more attractive if you hired an interior designer to help with the sample pictures&#x2F;overall product &quot;image&quot;.<p>Attractive product, unattractive design. There&#x27;s nothing there to make me want your product over another company doing the same thing with more emphasis on design.

These prices seem too high. Low-end mobile homes are around the same price, are larger, offer nicer interiors, and face fewer legal complexities. I also know tiny home builders who can custom build homes with similar square footage as these for around the same price. I live in Missouri so housing is cheap, but isn&#x27;t the advantage of pre-fab homes the ability to ship them for a much lower cost than building on-site?<p>I don&#x27;t see how this could scale past cities where rent is insane and have housing regulations that allow this kind of home.<p>What is the advantage of this versus other pre-fabricated homes? What justifies the price?

How to you ameliorate the toxins inherent in shipping containers? Typically, those paints and pressure treated woods are not used indoors, and I would be worried about some of the chemicals? Second, in the climate here, how do you avoid mold? Metal is a prime target for condensation, and in the bay we are always around the dew point. If you insulate the walls, how do you avoid mold growth (maybe put insulation on the outside)? How about power&#x2F;gas supply, HVAC, waste plumbing etc? How about moving it? Leveling it? it seems that they&#x27;ll be substantially heavier than most mobile homes, so trailering with consumer vehicles will be hard, which makes them hard to deliver.<p>I&#x27;ve been in shipping container buildings before (e.g. Frietag store in Zurich) - they are not really a great size. Many Mobile homes that are comfortable feature pop-out sides. Any plans for expanding them?<p>Some real positives - fireproof envelope, Envelope can be welded to, several formats available - including ones with side doors can be &quot;racked&quot; can be made airtight (allows you to specify air exchanges, rather than estimate them) portability with the right equipment.

I want to give you brutally honest feedback, please do not take it personally.<p>I looked for something similar in Spain, a house in a rail wagon, something like this:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;2.bp.blogspot.com&#x2F;_nEZddcafnkk&#x2F;SAoPN_PCK_I&#x2F;AAAAAAAAAkE&#x2F;2illx3HQJ0s&#x2F;s400&#x2F;casa-vagon-tigre.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;2.bp.blogspot.com&#x2F;_nEZddcafnkk&#x2F;SAoPN_PCK_I&#x2F;AAAAAAAAAk...</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vilssa.com&#x2F;aprovecha-un-vagon-de-tren-para-hacer-tu-casa" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vilssa.com&#x2F;aprovecha-un-vagon-de-tren-para-hacer-tu-c...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;decoracion.trendencias.com&#x2F;casas&#x2F;casas-poco-convencionales-vivir-en-un-vagon-de-tren" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;decoracion.trendencias.com&#x2F;casas&#x2F;casas-poco-convenci...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=YXbBXpruaW0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=YXbBXpruaW0</a><p>Some of them were extremely cheap and simple but they had lots of charm and taste.<p>Your houses look totally ugly to me, cold. Humans not allowed kind of feeling.<p>You probably need to learn some design. Even when people will tell you the only thing they care is price, it is extremely depressing expending long hours in an ugly place.

My dad owns a few trailer parks. Great investment but not for the faint of heart. From our experience, you&#x27;re not going to want to live in any neighborhood that allows this kind of housing and as a result, it wont be available for long in any neighborhood you&#x27;re trying to address. Many trailer parks are trashy (literally trash everywhere) with a highly uneducated and unstable demographic. Its the suburban equivalent of an urban ghetto. Alcoholism, assault, vandalism are daily occurrences. Some questions to ask yourself: am I comfortable evicting people on a weekly basis? How many problematic tenants can my system tolerate before all the software engineers who have the option to pay high rents for crappy apartments decide safety and piece of mind are valuable?<p>Oh and by the way, this type of housing is cheap but not necessarily inexpensive. A trailer in upstate GA an hour and half away from Atlanta in the middle of nowhere makes $500 a month. In Oakland, market rates (and all roads lead to a market rate) will likely get this to $750-800. People are going to start piling into these things to make the economics work, which will make them more dangerous, more unstable.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxouse.com&#x2F;collections&#x2F;buy&#x2F;products&#x2F;boxouse-standard" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxouse.com&#x2F;collections&#x2F;buy&#x2F;products&#x2F;boxouse-standar...</a><p>Those photos don&#x27;t really fit the &quot;sleek finish out&quot; and &quot;premium materials&quot; description. The tub looks dirty, the bed slats are all wonky, and it looks overall extremely cheap.<p>It&#x27;s certainly not $20k worth of add-ons to the barebones bit (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxouse.com&#x2F;collections&#x2F;buy&#x2F;products&#x2F;boxouse-barebones" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxouse.com&#x2F;collections&#x2F;buy&#x2F;products&#x2F;boxouse-barebon...</a>).

Not trying to be a hater. I understand what is pictured may be prototypes.. if they are you shouldn&#x27;t be showing them unless you have that caveat in the picture. Both the design is poor, and the craftsmanship is low. If this is past the prototype stage, and this is what you will actually be selling. Then you really don&#x27;t understand the pre-fab space nor the price points of the pre-fab space.

I know you&#x27;re trying to keep costs down, but unfinished trim work and&#x2F;or exposed plywood (especially on the $9k model) makes everything look incredibly cheap. Take a look at how similarly-priced RVs handle their interiors for comparison.<p>For $29k you can get something that you can drive and is generally furnished better (in a lot of municipalities these tiny houses need to be on wheels to skirt code violations anyway).

There was a shipping container home on Grand Designs (what a show!) that looked absolutely breathtaking: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.dailymail.co.uk&#x2F;i&#x2F;pix&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;24&#x2F;1411571780563_wps_39_UNP_CH4_32376_Grand_Desig.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.dailymail.co.uk&#x2F;i&#x2F;pix&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;24&#x2F;1411571780563_wps_...</a><p>I think a bit of sprucing up (with wood and a sound paint-job) would go a long way to remove that whiff of trailer park that I get from your landing page.

Imagine spending $49,000 on this boxhouse, and then seeing this 72 airstream go for $35k: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfbay.craigslist.org&#x2F;nby&#x2F;tro&#x2F;6036307617.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfbay.craigslist.org&#x2F;nby&#x2F;tro&#x2F;6036307617.html</a>

How are you going to deal with zoning? Generally the big problem with tiny houses is that while they&#x27;re relatively cheap to make they&#x27;re not allowed by existing zoning.

Out-of-touch SV types discover the single-wide trailer, decide to make crappy ones from containers and overcharge for them.<p>You know, Warren Buffet already has that business model and moats don&#x27;t get a lot wider than Berkshire Hathaway. He also has his own predatory bank, insurance companies, real estate brokerage franchise, railroad, and container manufacturing.<p>Good luck.

1. &quot;Visit Boxouse $40&quot; sounds like you are charging money for tours, which almost made me leave the site immediately: tweak the copy to say &quot;Stay in a Boxouse $40&quot; or &quot;Try a Boxouse $40&quot;<p>2. Your presentation needs work.<p>- Barebones: needs a photo that&#x27;s less dark, also more than one photo (including inside and outside) - Standard: decent photos, looks bright &amp; clean - Boxouse Deluxe: despite having some nice details this looks like a junky piece of crap. The photo quality is the worst of the three, and the house in the photo is messy and unappealing. The side with the mattress looks sloppy (is that a deflated air mattress? A sleeping bag over a sagging mattress? Whatever it is I don&#x27;t want to even sit on it, much less sleep on it) and the Ikea-esque drawers with the awkward space between looks unfinished or dysfunctional. The other side by the metal tub has a trashcan and two gadgets plugged in... don&#x27;t know what they are but that whole side just looks like random junk in the corner of a garage.<p>The boxouse in the &quot;Visit Boxouse&quot; page is bright, has some design and is appealing: this is what a deluxe one should look like, not the sloppy thing you have there now.<p>3. If your business model is to deploy them to people&#x27;s houses for free and split rent revenue, why is your website geared around individual sales?

Before you make any of these you need to make sure you&#x27;re complying with various fire-related regulations and testing against ASTM standards. We ran into this issue at a startup doing something similar about a year back, and it&#x27;s one of the things that led to its downfall. From the looks of it, you&#x27;ve built a tinder box. Wood paneling, backed by insulating foam, which is likely quite flammable. All wrapped up in a metal container.

The boxouse.com website is quite frustrating. I scrolled down the page to view the pictures of the houses, but when each picture scrolls into view, it is obscured by a white overlay?! Readers must click each picture to view it on a new page.

While on the topic, does anyone else know of other cool things like this? Cool space. e.g. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.blokable.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.blokable.com&#x2F;</a>

How does the legal side of this work? Do these houses meet the requirements of major construction codes, or are they somehow exempt? Also, aren&#x27;t there typically restrictions on where units like this can be deployed? There have been all sorts of fights about granny-flats over the years.

Man, it&#x27;s been 23 hours since this was posted, and lots of negative feedback. With that intro, you might expect me to be different, but sadly, I&#x27;m not.<p>If you haven&#x27;t read the graphic novel about Honest Tea, I recommend it. One thing made an impression on me: you can&#x27;t sell sustainable organic tea if it tastes bad.<p>This was born, as you say, out of &quot;frustration with paying high rent for crappy apartments.&quot; It seems your 1st attempt at solving this frustration is to charge a high price for crappy containers.<p>People have become strongly accustomed to excellent design, and so what used to be passable is now off-putting.<p>The core problem is that there is nothing about what you&#x27;re doing that provides credible justification that your approach is a real advance. The trial program ain&#x27;t it, neither is the rent-sharing. You need something more surpising. What would be compelling enough to tempt a claustrophobic person like me to buy a Boxouse? Nothing I&#x27;ve seen yet.<p>What about building a little hotel out of stacked Boxouses? I&#x27;d be more apt to try it if it came with all the amenities of a normal hotel, and gave the perception that lots of people stay there. (Yeah, I know, I&#x27;m a follower, whatever.)<p>You obviously have something going for you if YC took you, but whatever appealed to YC does not come through on the website. I hope things turn up for you guys (sincerely).

Getting people excited about living smaller is a big task! (sorry, couldn&#x27;t help myself) My friend started a tiny home company[0] and I&#x27;ve spoken with him a lot about this space. I think there are a couple of major obstacles to mass tiny home adoption and it seems like your home doesn&#x27;t solve many of them currently. To start:<p>1. Legality - Most tiny homes aren&#x27;t legal to put on a slab or connect to utilities in jurisdictions around the US. This is getting better over time with people lobbying to allow smaller homes as &quot;accessory dwelling units&quot;.<p>2. People don&#x27;t want to feel like they&#x27;re downgrading - looking at your pictures, Boxouse looks pretty low quality, similar to a hostel or dorm room. While that may appeal to some, most consumers wouldn&#x27;t choose to live or stay in a home like that. Instead, I think tiny home builders need to concentrate on making more beautiful and functional spaces.<p>I&#x27;d love to chat more with Boxouse (or anyone) about tiny homes and&#x2F;or connect you with my friend&#x27;s company. You can find my email in my profile.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxedhaus.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxedhaus.com</a>

Well.. all of this reminds me temporary houses used by builders in Ukraine\Russia and other CIS countries (most probably other countries use this as well). For example, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?hl=en&amp;site=imghp&amp;tbm=isch&amp;source=hp&amp;biw=1093&amp;bih=469&amp;q=%D0%B1%D1%8B%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0&amp;oq=%D0%B1%D1%8B%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0&amp;gs_l=img.3..0j0i30k1l9.4428.6190.0.6713.7.6.0.1.1.0.212.739.2j3j1.6.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..0.7.743.hSxvD4XHNCM#hl=en&amp;tbm=isch&amp;q=%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F+%D0%B1%D1%8B%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0&amp;*" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?hl=en&amp;site=imghp&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sour...</a> as you can see sometimes such &quot;buildings&quot; even have two or more floors. Not sure how they comfortable to live though.

I love the vision and audacity to tackle this rent problem.<p>That said, help me understand who your GTM target is.<p>1 - Is it basically SV, young tech guys who want a cheaper and a unique place to live? This is what I&#x27;m taking away reading your post. 2 - Is it migratory&#x2F;seasonal workers who work on a farms during harvest season? 3 - Is it people who want to live off-grid, and plan on buying a lot and just want to drop a house there for cheap?<p>Some of my initial thoughts:<p>A - As someone commented, the images don&#x27;t really connect to any of the segments above. I can see the photographer is going for a certain magazine look. But it doesn&#x27;t do a real good job of telling a story about these units and your target market.<p>B - Again as others have commented on regulatory issues both for fire safety and also city regulations. That last part might cause issues with your original vision of lower rent alternatives.<p>C - Financial model. It seems to me if you are going the rent-share service route and you&#x27;ll need to put down $40-50K for each unit, you will need a lot of capital as you scale. I&#x27;m guessing it will take 3-5 years to recover the cost of each unit (rent-dependent). Which creates a lot of challenges, unless you setup some kind of a partnership scheme. Either individual partners, who will put the money down to help renters finance this as part of revenue share scheme. Or large banking institution who will help underwrite each units.<p>D - Pricing. As others have pointed out, the pricing once you get to $50k is close to a decent used RV house. And the interiors don&#x27;t look that great. I&#x27;m curious what the cost will be once you put some type of economics of scales into this. Given all the dimensions are set. Can&#x27;t you just have a shop in China produce all these parts? Is there an opportunity to partner with Lowes or some large retailer who buys in bulk?<p>Good luck! I&#x27;m very impressed you guys have taken it this far and hope it&#x27;ll succeed.

Some feedback: if you have to append (ish) to call them beautiful, they&#x27;re probably not beautiful. The photos make them look very shoddy, something put together as a weekend project by amateurs. I don&#x27;t know much about this &quot;space&quot; (hipsters who want to live in shipping containers I&#x27;m guessing...) but I&#x27;d be surprised if these are competitive. I could be totally wrong though! I once visited a hipster enclave that was basically a bunch of containers slapped together into a 6 unit Airbnb operation so there is defintely some demand.<p>On a more general note, this is not really a positive solution to the housing crisis which would be repealing nimby laws and the fed stopping pumping up asset prices. But best of luck.

How would I hook up toilet, sink, electrical, cable (for internet)?<p>What kind of foundation do you recommend?<p>Does &quot;deploy containers to yards for free&quot; mean shipping is free? To any state? What rent revenue are you talking about? I can&#x27;t just put one of these in my backyard and rent it out because of zoning and neighbourhood bylaws.<p>Why is square footage not mentioned anywhere? Usually a primary concern for any housing consideration.<p>If there&#x27;s insulation included in the bare bones kit why is it not shown in the photo? Any why is it so dark? Are you trying to scare people away from that option?<p>You should have a photo of one of these set up in a nicely landscaped yard with a great entrance path and a beautiful exterior.

I really don&#x27;t understand the appeal of this. Are people really so desperate to live in an expensive city that they&#x27;d be willing to live in a box?<p>Also, how do you plan to get away from the image of metal box houses being tied to shanty-towns and favelas?

Please take a look at <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tinyhousetalk.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tinyhousetalk.com</a> A collection of tiny houses. Some of these tiny houses are very pleasing to the eyes. :)

I was under the impression zoning regulation, not construction costs, was the main challenge for development in urban areas.<p>Can you seriously just drop these off in people&#x27;s backyards and legally rent them out?

&gt; We&#x27;re particularly interested in using containers as a tool to increase density and affordability; among other things, we&#x27;re going to deploy containers to people&#x27;s yards for free, sharing the rent revenue with them.<p>Seems to me that the barrier to people turning their yards into what amounts to trailer parks or micro-apartment compelexes has always been zoning regulations, hability regulations, and building codes, not getting the housing units built or delivered.

I wonder if you could have a successful partnership with DIRTT to parametrically design your interiors and automate the construction process. Check them out: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dirtt.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dirtt.net&#x2F;</a><p>Also there has got to be a B2B market for these. I know in the Alberta Oil Sands there are lots of camps for employees. Maybe you can provide a better product.

Isn&#x27;t it noisy when it rains? (It rains a lot here).

Great idea, just wondering on cost breakdown.<p>If you can get a new container for just $2550, why is a bare bones $9K?<p>Seems one could rack out their own very easily. Just wondering.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ebay.com&#x2F;itm&#x2F;STORAGE-CONTAINERS-NEW-20-CARGO-SHIPPING-CONTAINER-&#x2F;300363323729?hash=item45ef0c9951:m:m4iYR9xnbTz3KZ1Bh4DT9Iw" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ebay.com&#x2F;itm&#x2F;STORAGE-CONTAINERS-NEW-20-CARGO-SHIP...</a>

I have a friend who tried this and found that he had to take a crane operating class just so he could move&#x2F;transport the shipping container.<p>It&#x27;s kind of cool to think that you could live anywhere in the world that has an open port, but how the heck do you get it off a boat in Chile or Ireland the same that&#x27;s cheap and freeing?

I would avoid the thing you&#x27;re doing with the pictures, where you fade them out to show the overlaid text. People have a tendency to mouse over things they&#x27;re looking at ... and then the picture disappears. It&#x27;s the opposite of what they want. You have room to put the text alongside or below.

Did you also consider 3D printing small homes? Seems like it has potential in the long run. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;qz.com&#x2F;924909&#x2F;apis-cor-can-3d-print-and-entire-house-in-just-one-day&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;qz.com&#x2F;924909&#x2F;apis-cor-can-3d-print-and-entire-house...</a>

This is a company that went on Canada&#x27;s version of Shark Tank (Dargon&#x27;s Den) that pitched container living spaces.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.3twenty.ca&#x2F;about&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.3twenty.ca&#x2F;about&#x2F;</a>

Is it legal to live in one of these in Oakland? What are the other practical costs?

What do you think happens to pricing at scale?

Where exactly in the Bay Area could these legally be placed? Do the founders live in the prototypes?

Does Boxhouse handle acquiring potable water and sanitary sewer on behalf of the owner?

Any plans to be able to use these modularly and combine several shipping containers?

Luke and Heather, I love it. Here are some requests:<p>- USB Wall outlets<p>- A panel system around the house to keep cords organized<p>- More pics<p>- Info on how much weight can the bed &#x2F; tables hold<p>As for questions, how much does would that Solar power (1kw) on the Boxhouse Deluxe power? Could it handle a Macbook Pro playing video games, a 4k tv screen, a heater running 16 hours a day?

Hi Luke! What is your initial market, and what are your scaling plans?

There&#x27;s a two-story shipping container house in Tucson.

Are you hiring any software engineer? :-p

how come it took so long to &quot;launch&quot;? I recall seeing you working on this in 2015?

Is there a tiny housing bubble?

Shantytown.com

Can we please stop making the fifth element into a reality?<p>Humans need space.

For other people looking for a link like I was: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxouse.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boxouse.com&#x2F;</a>

Are you hiring any SWE ? :-p