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Ask HN: Ok you've built a rudimentary prototype – how would you proceed next?

13 points by w4tson ↗ HN
Myself and a couple of 'co-founders' are trying to create a service where you can order drinks/food from the bar/restaurant via your phone/device. There are a number of companies already tentatively in this space so in theory there is a demand (or we're all barking up the wrong tree).

Having knocked up a basic iOS prototype we're wondering how to proceed with our next 'sprint'. What should be our goal be we thought?

1. Engage 1 bar and work with them?

2. Engage multiple/many bars? maybe a clearer picture of the problems will emerge?

3. Beef up the prototype? <- it's super basic with no payments integration or webservices, though we're enterprise devs turned entrepreneurs so integration work is just another a day at the office :D

4. Pay designers to make the app so beautiful people just want to hand over their cash immediately ;-)

5. Business plan?

6. Something else we haven't thought of ?

How would you proceed?

24 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 62.8 ms ] thread
danieltillett
You missed 7 which is try something else. If you are set on this idea then start with 1. Work out what all the issues are first with one site and then think about scaling.
w4tson
It was actually option 6 ;-) thanks for the input. That is our hunch too however I suppose the difficulty has been knowing when to engage: too early and you're just some guys with promises and vapourware, too late and you've got a feature rich app that has missed the boat.

It is for this reason we set ourselves a mini goal of a prototype with cut down features.

danieltillett
My experience is try to couple the development of your app as close as possible to solving the problems of your users. You really need to find someone who can help you find out if the concept is viable or not. The major thing to look for is does your app solve some problem that your paying (future) customers need solved. The only way you are really going to find this out is get at least one involved.
SQL2219
Sounds like you're a solution in search of a problem. Go directly to multiple business owners and ask them if this solves any problems for them, or ask them how this might possibly make money for them. Listen, pivot or abandon.
danieltillett
I don't disagree that this looks like a solution looking for a problem, but you need to always be aware that the customer does not always know what they need until they presented with a final product. You need to know when you are just ahead of the curve and when you are barking mad.
busterarm
Find a very understanding bar(and understanding bartenders) to rent out for an evening for a private event. Make sure everyone who shows up for your event is using your app -- Invite friends, your friends friends, the bartender's friends, etc.

Get feedback from these users, the bartenders and the bar management.

Do this a few times. This will cost you a lot of money (you most likely will need to offer heavily discounted drinks where you subsidize the cost for the bar but _not free_), but that's your market research.

benjaminlhaas
I agree with this, but I'd simplify even further: Get two friends to play the role of bartender, buy a few cases of beer, and do this at home. Invite 10-15 friends over and ask them use your app. Watch them use it, and ask lots of questions afterward. Make sure you have a small set of specific questions you want to see answered by your user study.
busterarm
At the stage it sounds that they're at, that sounds like much better advice, honestly. Thanks!
ZeroFries
There's a company in Toronto called Ritual doing that (although I think they specialize in coffee and lunch). They've made deals with various venues and have a decent selection. You probably can't match this deal without VC, but to up adoption they give you $10 when you sign up. Making the app prettier won't help you nearly as much as making it work well and having a decent selection.
codegeek
At this point, do something that does not scale. That means "Engage 1 bar and work with them". Sure you could say why not multiple bars at the same time. But that will be over optimizing which you don't want in the beginning.

Get your very first client by talking to them manually, showing them everything manually and get them to believe that your service will provide value to their business and help them make/save money either quickly or in long run.

Once you have done this successfully (which majority fail at), then you can go to Step 2.

Steps 3-infinity are all good only when Steps 1 and 2 have been done, rinsed, repeated with at least 30-40 ? clients ? May be more ? Depends on your industry. But before you get these many clients, don't bother with anything else.

I am doing this right now. Telling you from experience. Remember, a successful business is not about awesome software, automated stuff or any other fancy stuff. A successful business is about :

1. Aquiring customers

2. Retaining those customers for as long as possible which means keeping them happy.

Of course, doing the fancy things like a great design, automation are important but not at the stage you are at. Hope this helps.

snowwrestler
Relevant Paul Graham essay: Do Things That Don't Scale

http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Edit: I once saw a big bank commercial that said "Our goal is not to process 10 millions checks. Our goal is to process one check perfectly, and then repeat that 10 million times."

w4tson
This article has been our mantra from the beginning. Thanks for the advice. I think we knew this in our guts but when you don't have any experience it's all too easy to do the technical stuff which is more familiar.
rickr
If you've got a basic prototype and something you can show people you should be out talking to potential customers seeing if they'll buy it. In talking to a bunch of potential customers you'll find out a ton of actionable info. What your competition doesn't do, why they're not interested in your competition, other closely related services they would pay for.
huehehue
There have been more than a few companies with similar ideas, and most have since shut down. You might want to look at those companies - what were their features, how much capital did they have, what was their timeline, why did they fail, etc. Trying to corner the entire restaurant market is very hard.

For example, a company called uVore tried exactly this but found greater success catering to a more niche market (in their case, coffee pickups). Maybe consider a more targeted approach? Just some ideas. Good luck!

kra34
http://www.tabbedout.com/

When I was looking at this awhile ago, these guys had gotten pretty far with the concept. I think they had a blog article detailing why POS companies were a pain to work with and in some cases very expensive (they charge partner companies for access to their "APIs")

A business plan might be a good idea. Who is going to pay for the service, are you going to charge the bars or the consumer or both?

OpenTable is also doing this now for restaurants they have the added advantage of having a dedicated PC with their software in each restaurant already.

w4tson
Interesting, I'd not come across tabbedout.

I'm hoping a business plan will form when we follow the good peoples advice in this thread.

Doing a plan at this stage feels a bit like waterfall to me. I realise you can't get far without one but sitting down and writing one before we've established the pain points, opportunities & demands feels too early.

Maybe I'm just naive

cport1
I used to see these guys at every bar in Austin. I used it once and then never used it again. It was almost more of a hassle using the app than just simply using my credit card.
robot
You don't need a business plan, just need to work out how to make money. You need to engage bars/restaurants, and start servicing users (like 5-10 users will do to start with). Know that this is a very crowded space, and ordering alcoholic drinks on an app is usually illegal due to age check not happening.
etarczynski
Save yourself a massive amount of time / strife and just do not do it.

- someone who spent a year and a half of their life working on this exact thing

marcosdumay
As someone else that also spent a year and half working on something not exactly equal, but still very similar, I'd say:

- Decide if you want to be in the business of serving food. It's full of problems, but plenty interesting.

- If you really, really want to go there, discover how to make this work at the local level, in a way that isn't all or nothing (hint, people won't install an app for a bar they'll go once - or maybe they will and I'm wrong, but I don't really see that happening), and go for a small business deployment.

- After you cleared both of the above, yes, talk to bar owners. They'll make you throw your plans away, so talk to them before implementing too much.

scosman
Do whatever it takes to get enough daily usage to see what's working and what's not working, then iterate. Trying to guess what your product needs is incredibly hard. It's much more likely to be a case of you not fully understanding your customers needs/wants than a missing feature [1]. Until you have it working where N leads turn into M recurring customers, don't try to scale.

[1] http://andrewchen.co/the-next-feature-fallacy-the-fallacy-th...