reSTORErant

Overview

Through heart-wrenching stories of our favorite local places closing, we developed an understanding of just how restaurants and small businesses are suffering. For them, it is difficult to attract and maintain customers, to find the needed products, and to predict demand, all while trying to stay afloat and improve their revenue.

Through our research, the reSTORErant team discovered that a lack of a consolidated information database on the inventory of wholesalers is making it difficult for restaurants to find vital products at their usual suppliers. In turn, this makes it extremely difficult for restaurant owners to determine their supply, and topped with the unpredictable demand, restaurant owners are being forced to either operate at a loss or shut down.

To solve this problem, we created a website where small restaurants could search wholesalers nearby to find the closest location with the necessary items, while also being able to compare prices. By building a bridge to better connect restaurants and wholesalers, we are not only boosting the economy but also saving small businesses and restaurant owners some time and money they especially need during these times.

Team Members

Zahraa (Pro Squad; IT; project manager)- background includes business analytics and economics. Worked on creating and editing documents and designs as well as assisting the Go Squad with its business research.

Jerry (Pro Squad; Web Programmer) background in full-stack web development and data analytics. Chose the technologies and dev tools of our app, designed the architecture, and implemented the core functions of our app with Alan.

Alan(Pro Squad; Web Programmer) - background includes java programming and data analysis. Collaborated with Jerry and contributed to the front-end coding and template designs. Brainstormed and executed business models and ideas on the website.

Samantha (Go Squad; Marketing) - background includes marketing and market research. Worked on Go-to-Market Strategy including market competitors, environmental analysis, empathy mapping, and business model canvas.

Kristina (Go Squad; Business Analysis) - background includes data and business analysis. Worked on the environmental analysis, empathy mapping, business model canvas, and the final pitch deck.

Breckyn (Go Squad; Analysis and Marketing) - background includes business management, marketing, and entrepreneurial business planning. Worked on idea conceptualization, environmental analysis, empathy mapping, the BMC, and the final pitch.

How did you decide on this customer segment, problem, and solution?

We researched business trends and consulted with both our coaches and local businesses to find who and what was impacted the most by COVID-19. Through the analysis and models created by the Go Squad, we determined that small businesses and restaurants are struggling with inventory fluctuations and the inability to predict what is in stock at wholesalers and how much inventory they themselves should carry. To best solve this, we believe that unifying all the inventory of wholesalers on one database allows business owners to quickly search for a wholesaler who will have the products they need.

How did your team build and iterate on the solution?

We did some research and picked Material-UI as our UI framework and Google Sheets/Forms as our backend. They make a powerful yet easy-to-handle suit for prototyping web applications. Material-UI saves us time in UI/UX design and page layout because we were unfamiliar with this topic. With these decisions, we are able to handle most of the features elegantly within the given time frame of this project.

To make an iterative process, we first sent the prototype to Go Squad members and our coaches for feedback. Once we got their comments, we wrote down in a Google Doc, which essentially serves as our impromptu issue tracking system. Specifically, we assigned issues by highlighting them in the color we picked for ourselves, and mark them as resolved by crossing them off from the list. We also ensured that the list is ongoing to ensure that all issues are constantly resolved and not ignored when the product is finally published.

With an ongoing list, we also instilled a comments or concerns section on the website so that users are able to express any issues they find. Enforcing continuous deployment ensures that issues are constantly brought to our attention.

Key Metrics

-Number of wholesalers who register

-Basket Size (the number of items getting sold in one purchase)

-Customer Acquisition Cost (how much it costs for a company to acquire one customer)

-Customer Lifetime Value (the amount of money a customer brings in over the entire time they do business with a company)

-Abandonment Rate (measures how many callers disconnect from a call before they speak to a company's representative)

-Frequency of Purchasing

-Frequency of visiting the website

Technical Architecture

https://github.com/zhengj2/ReSTORErant

Architecture Diagram:

Database Schema:

Key Tools, Libraries, and Frameworks

-React React allows us to break down our codebase to a component level. It facilitates collaboration in our squad as it allows Alan and I to build components in parallel without interfering with each other. Even better, its JSX syntax allows us to put everything, including the style, the logic, and the HTML template all in one place, which keeps things organized. Also, we personally want to avoid hard-wired data binding with jQuery. Because we thought our app will mainly encompass data, passing the data around using jQuery will certainly be a nightmare, so it’s necessary for us to pick a library that supports data binding. Last but not the least, to ease the transition to mobile, we picked React to get ready for that, as React Native can help us ease this transition.

-Material-UI Because our squad does not have a designer, we decided to pick a UI framework to save our time and effort from designing our website. With the purpose of moving this app to mobile platforms in mind, we decided on Material-UI because it mimics a look similar to that of a mobile app.

-Material Kit React We utilized material Kit React for a better appearance and easier implementation. This kit overall gives the website modern and lively morale. It also has a plethora of previously designed icons, tools and templates we can choose from. We borrowed a free licensed, free download template from one of the online designers named Creative Tim, as it provides a smooth aesthetic for our front page and log in page. The style that Material Kit React also suits well for our theme as it gives it a well-rounded touch.

-Google Forms & Sheets One of our coaches said her team uses Google Forms and Google Sheets when she prototyped her backend. After doing some research, we set up an experimental environment to test it out. We found it quite amazing: it’s fast and stable, and it even comes with a GUI for free. And while it does come with a few limitations though, we believe it is good for a prototype.

If you had another 5 weeks to work on this, what would you do next?

-Contact Wholesalers and ask for collaboration

-Research on React Native and replicate our app on mobile platforms

-Phase-out from a makeshift backend

-Create a search engine so that restaurants

-Account Authentication

-Implement real-time map services

Built With

• google-form
• google-sheets
• heroku
• javascript
• materials-ui
• react-native