Aren’t coffee shops just seeing this as yet another PoS or interface to manage? How are you making this easy to integrate into mom and pop shop processes?
Struggle to see how you can scale without nailing that!
Really good point, scaling around existing tech has been a focus for us since day one. Of the 300+ shops that have committed to using Cloosiv, 90% of them are on Square. This makes the upfront work easier, because they can just run our merchant app in the background of their iPad.
As we scale, it'll be important for us to integrate directly into software like Square (which we're currently working on, we're partnered with them), so shops can just install the Cloosiv app from their terminal and have orders and reporting flow through the existing software in place.
Personally, yes. I'm sitting around 50% right now, but have no reservations upgrading if/when I reach the need to. It's something you'll have to play with yourself to see if you can get it working in a way that makes sense for you - I know a few people who felt it didn't provide enough structure for them.
First of all, you only need to be successful once. Statistically, most successful entrepreneurs start in their late 30s and 40s.
Secondly, I don't know you but your 2nd line of text tells me almost certainly what you're doing wrong - Spend less time building and more time launching and trying to get initial users. If they never saw the launch, you made a mistake from day 1.
Think less about startups and more about the sort of stuff you see on IndieHackers.com - Bootstrap, launch quickly.
Since you've been doing this for 10 years, be careful not to fall into the trap of assuming you know the fundamentals and that other factors are causing your failures. Instead, Challenge your fundamental assumptions, go back to Lean/MVP thinking and consider what you need to relearn.
I hope it helps. If not, another strategy I'm personally using is to buy a cheap product which has some minimal proof of value (For example, a productised service or SaaS business with 10 customers) and growing it from there. I discovered I wasn't very good at getting through the launch stage (and it wastes months of time), but Im much better at growing an existing, proven business.
Avoid hustle porn, startup culture (moonshot shit) and lose the anxiety over time - People like you and I are not retiring at 65 to spend our time golfing and in the sun like the previous generation - We live longer, our career prospects are a new paradigm and most importantly, the internet means you can work as long or as little as you like to...
Consider: If you get a 6 figure job age 60, you're fucked for retirement anyway.
If you stumble upon a low-maintenance 10K/month business opportunity at 60, then you're laughing all the way to 100. Invest the profits? Grow the business? Just live off the dividends for decades to come?
My point is, remove the anxiety that your time is running out and that you need to hit X age/financial milestones to be successful.
You have at least another lifetime (I.E another 30 years) to get it right, and you only need to do it once.
A really good way (for me anyway) was to start by using a tool like Webflow.com - It's visually designing websites, but using proper CSS concepts (flexbox, margin, padding etc.) - and so teaches the building blocks at a very accessible and productive level
We're turning the UK's biggest finance company into the UK's biggest tech company and our Edinburgh-based Engineering Hub is growing fast. We're made a big shift to become a software engineering led org and now we're rapidly expanding our Scottish presence as we tackle gaps in UK retirement plans and change our approach to doing business
I'm currently hiring for pretty much all roles across our labs, from Node/React Engineers all the way to Mainframe Engineers and Data Scientists. Also looking for PMs, Scrum Masters and UX designers.
If you want to hear more, Drop me a line: nile<dot>frater@lloydsbanking.com
We're turning the UK's biggest finance company into the UK's biggest tech company and our Edinburgh-based Engineering Hub is growing fast. We've made a big shift towards an Engineering-led, lab-based organisation with autonomy devolved to the teams themselves and are tackling some tough and varied problems like "How do you convince Britain to save for retirement?" or "How do you defend the UK's most critical piece of financial infrastructure from foreign-state actors?".
I'm currently hiring for pretty much all roles across our labs, from Node/React Engineers all the way to Mainframe Engineers and Data Scientists. Also looking for PMs, Scrum Masters and UX designers.
If you want to hear more, Drop me a line: nile<dot>frater@lloydsbanking.com
Struggle to see how you can scale without nailing that!