Cube

Go from ideas to business in an instant

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What it does

Cube is an e-commerce application that seamlessly integrates with Square's robust suite of tools. It empowers merchants to effortlessly set up an online store, manage inventory, process payments securely, and gain valuable insights into their sales and customer trends. The app acts as a catalyst, allowing users to transition swiftly from conceptualizing their business to establishing a fully functional online presence. It uses Google AI to generate useful insights for their business ideas and help them grow the business. It then dynamically generates a website where the merchant can sell products using square checkout flows.

How we built it

Cube was built through a collaborative effort, combining the expertise of our development team with the powerful capabilities offered by the Square platform. We utilized modern app development Flutter and Next.js frameworks, ensuring a responsive and user-friendly experience for both merchants and customers. The integration with Square's APIs was a critical component, enabling seamless payment processing and synchronisation of vital business data. Google Palm APIs helped make the app gain superpowers with reliable data for the given prompts

Challenges we ran into

During the development of Cube, we encountered various challenges like :

  1. Optimising the integration with Square's APIs to ensure a smooth and secure transaction experience. But with the help of elaborative Docs provided by Square, and a little determination we were able to pull that off.
  2. Achieving a balance between feature richness and simplicity in the user interface posed a unique challenge. We had several design brainstorming sessions and overviews where we collaboratively researched UI/UX trends to sort of reach the balance of both.
  3. Authenticating the user is an important part of any application and we also didn’t want to miss it in Cube. The OAuth system built by Square kind of posed a challenge for us as it is not mobile-friendly. With OAuth, the authentication is done at a website and then the user is redirected to a particular url. But as our product is mobile-first, we faced challenges. But with the brilliant ideas of our team and Square support, we were able to resolve this with the help of a deep-link. So we used a deeplink as a redirection url, which redirects to the app itself. So after authentication, the user is redirected from the OAuth website to the Cube mobile app where the user can continue the onboarding flow.

Overcoming these obstacles required careful planning, collaboration, and innovative problem-solving.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We take pride in successfully creating a platform that simplifies the complex journey from business idea to a live e-commerce store. Our team's dedication and perseverance in overcoming technical and design challenges have resulted in a user-friendly application that empowers entrepreneurs and small businesses. With Cube we are able give every problem-solver, creator and innovator a golden opportunity to validate their idea, view key insights and modify according to their aim so that they can create a value-giving and problem solving solution to the public. We're proud to have harnessed Square's capabilities to build a solution that brings value to both merchants and their customers.

What we learned

Throughout the development of Cube, we gained invaluable insights into the e-commerce landscape, and Square's API capabilities, Integrating the APIs was challenging as the docs were sometimes unclear and required a constant demand of clearing out questions on the discord, and the importance of a seamless user experience. We enhanced our understanding of how to leverage technology to empower businesses and individuals, facilitating their growth and success in the competitive e-commerce market.

What's next for Cube

Looking ahead, we envision exciting developments for Cube. We plan to continuously enhance and refine the application based on user feedback and evolving industry trends. Our roadmap includes expanding the feature set like :

  1. Constant AI-generated insights and learning articles which help the seller optimise the business and upskill himself as well.
  2. We can give options to the seller to modify anything on the website we created for them using AI. So that if they are not fully satisfied with the content and colour schemes we have provided, they can always change it according to them.
  3. We can include more business-focused features like customer tracking, generating invoices, track each order and handle multiple business locations by integrating more Square APIs.
  4. Optimising performance, and exploring new ways to further integrate with Square.

Ultimately aiming to provide a comprehensive, all-in-one solution for e-commerce success. Stay tuned for Cube's journey towards revolutionizing the way businesses establish their online presence.

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