BusinessIQ

Inspiration

I'm a huge advocate for supporting small business. These business are what give communities "life". Whenever I'm studying or walking about, it's these local business that act as landmarks in my community. That being said, the world is changing and small businesses are always at risk of dying out because of this trend towards a digital-first economy or the dominance of brand-name items.

As a result, one of the ways I thought I could help local businesses was to help them understand how to use their own data! Tons of these local businesses have data from years of operation but have no means of analyzing it or understanding it. For instance, hiring tech consultants or data scientists is simply out of the question because of budget constraints and attempting to understand their own data may be problematic in their day-to-day operations as cleaning messy data can take hours, much less understanding it.

So that's why I created BusinessIQ.

What it does

BusinessIQ is a modern analytics platform that helps businesses make sense of their data. Users can upload their business data, and the platform processes it to provide dashboards, interactive charts, and AI-powered insights. It supports different business types (e.g., restaurant, retail, service), giving tailored analysis. The app delivers a smooth, modern user experience with responsive design, animations, and customizable widgets.

How we built it

We built BusinessIQ using React 18 for the frontend, structured into modular components for dashboards, analytics, and file uploads. React Router powers client-side navigation, while Tailwind CSS provides a clean and customizable design system. We used Framer Motion for smooth animations and Lucide React for icons. The app is bundled with Vite, enabling fast builds and an optimized developer experience. Data models and API interactions are handled in the entities layer, with utility functions in utils for reusability. The upload flow supports drag-and-drop, real-time progress tracking, and business type selection, while the analytics section leverages charting and AI-generated insights, using Google Gemini, to help businesses turn raw data into actionable decisions.

Challenges we ran into

I ran into the challenge of implementing the smooth animations and visuals. Coming from a more software engineering background, front-end work is incredibly challenging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm happy to say that I've figured out the main front-end components in time and have got all the main functions working!

What we learned

I learned how to use Framer motion to animate visuals and charts, making a nice UX for users to understand their data.

What's next for BusinessIQ

Ideally, I'd like to fine-tune some of the display issues and AI-generated insights. While correct logically, there are small kinks that can be worked out in order to accommodate for a better UI/UX experience and allowing non-technical individuals to understand their data even easier.

Built With

• google-gemini
• javascript
• react