bizNest

Logo
local businesses page
buisness description page
reviews
favorites page
add your business page

Inspiration

Our inspiration for making bizNest stems from us noticing many small businesses in our community closing. We came up with the idea to build an app that could help small businesses promote themselves and build awareness around their business. Users would be able to learn about these businesses and find small businesses that interest them in their community and our app also provides extra features to help users. We hope this app helps provide a helping hand for small businesses to spread awareness, gather lots of new customers, and communicate with customers. Additionally we hope this app allows people to explore local businesses in their community and potentially become a usual customer to them!

What it does

bizNest gives local businesses a platform to communicate with users and share what makes their business special and unique. This app allows a two way user experience between the small businesses and the users using a variety of features such as maps, reviews, and favorites. Small businesses start by inputting their information such as location, pictures, and general information. Users are greeted by an animation and they start by entering their zipcode to find small businesses near them and they are then shown a wide range of small businesses where they can select business to learn more about them. Users can also write reviews and read other users' reviews to share and receive first hand experiences with the small businesses. There is also a favoriting option to allow people to select businesses that they LOVE and allows users to see a list of their favorite businesses. With our added map features users are able to easily navigate to the business that they have selected and this allows users to have easy access to the business’s location.

How we built it

We built bizNest using React Native and EXPO. We specifically chose EXPO because EXPO makes it very easy to put in libraries. The most important library was by far AntDesign as it helped us create a more pleasing UI. We used Scratch for the logo creation because our visual designer felt most comfortable with scratches visual design and animation.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge as a team has been time management. We have had to manage both school responsibilities with production of the app and video. A challenge we ran into while making the app was having to get a server, luckily there are some free ones online. Another challenge we ran into was during video production when we couldn't get the green screen to work properly. We solved this by researching more on greenscreens and on the editing software that was being used.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As a team we are very proud to have completed this app before the deadline. We are proud that we didn't have to stress the final few days since we didn't procrastinate and we managed to manage our time. Lastly, we are proud that we can have an impact on the community around us and that we can help improve others lives.

What we learned

Throughout this journey we each learned a lot of different things, for example Liam learned a lot about different libraries such as AntDesign. Hayden, the video editor, learned how to work with davinci resolve’s greenscreen technology. Finally, Bear, the main researcher, learned a lot about small businesses and how they are suffering.

What's next for bizNest

We hope to improve bizNest by going around to more local businesses and informing them about our app so that we can make a larger impact on the community. We also want to create a filter button so that you can filter the type of businesses you want to see. For example, you set the filter to restaurants only and then it would only show you nearby restaurants.