

Ask HN: Review my startup: Cashier Live - tbgvi
http://www.cashierlive.com

======
yumraj
While I understand the Flash hate etc. that some people have below, before you
start doing anything about it do prioritize your features.

Who is your real customer, I'm assuming it's small business owners etc. Do
they real care about Flash/AdBlock etc. Do they even know about those things?

Focus on the real features they care about, do some market research, if you
haven't already. Offline backup is a high priority feature. CC fallback on the
traditional system is another (which I believe works via phone and not
internet).

What about touchscreen support and UI to go with it.

I had worked on NCR POS UI way back in the '95-'96 and we used to create OCX
(remember those?) controls which were huge so that the UI worked well with
touch screens.

~~~
tbgvi
You're right on target - our typical customer is a small independent retailer
that's currently using an electronic cash register.

Market knowledge and research is actually what lead us to develop this. I had
been working for a point of sale reseller and we lost more sales to high cost
than to any other competitor.

Currently our strategy for backup is recommending a dial-up if there's concern
about connectivity, but thats not ideal and I think Gears or HTML5 is the way
to go. And you're correct, the backup for CC transactions is phone
authorization (same as any other POS when internet is down)

Touchscreen support is important, especially with non-technical cashiers, and
our UI was designed with that in mind.

------
cantastoria
You guys should look into restaurant POS. The existing systems are horrible
and usually require a team to come in and set them up and cost a fortune.

Oh and just a quick comment.. I would spell out Point of Sale and not use the
acronym. It has a different meaning to most people.

~~~
tbgvi
Restaurant is definitely something we've thought about, but there's a lot of
trick things a restaurant can need. Retail has easier requirements so that's
where we started.

And I am totally aware of the POS vs. Point of Sale debate, I laugh about it
too. Unfortunately it doesn't always fit, like on the home page. Everywhere
else we refer to competitors as "POS" and us as "Point of Sale" :)

------
tocomment
Oh for the pricing. I'd make the free kinda sucky, and have the current basic
plan be $5 or $10 per month.

My reasoning is that the current free version would meet our needs, but I'm
not comfortable putting a free web service into our sales process. When you
pay for something you feel like it's going to be around for a while.

~~~
tbgvi
Thanks for the feedback - that's definitely a concern we've thought about. The
key point is that the free version requires you to use one of our processing
partners. They subsidize the cost so while it's free to you, they pay us every
month depending on your transaction total.

------
dasht
I'm very skeptical of this idea. I don't mean to spread "negative energy" or
flame but, may I be frank?

Walking it through:

Let's start with the straw-man that I'm a small single shop and don't want CC
processing. Cashierlive will _take_ me as a customer for $50/month - but I can
buy a robust cash register that will last years for less than that and I'll
probably save more than $50/month using my own in-house inventory management
system even if I wind up having to enter journal tape and receipt data into my
PC manually. On top of that, the used cash register I buy will likely be a
more robust solution.

Suppose I'm that same dinky shop but now I want to add CC processing. There
already exists a competitive market for low-acquisition-cost, fee-based CC
processing - just go into any corner liquor store in a big city. I can either
add a service fee to CC and debit card purchases, or set a minimum purchase
price for card usage and adjust my retail prices slightly. (Which is right
depends on the nature of my products and my customers.)

Suppose I'm still a single shop but larger and more sophisticated. I want
integration of POS with inventory management. I want CC processing. If I'm
setting up for the first time to achieve that state I have to drop a decent
chunk of change on HW and I damn sure want to have competing offers from CC
processing companies. Yet with cashierlive I'm locked into cashierlive's CC
processing partners and any subsidy I'm getting on software or hardware looks
like chump change in my larger budget.

The higher up the chain my business goes, the less attractive it is to (a)
trust cashier live to protect my data; (b) trust cashier live to to remain in
business; (c) trust cashier live to keep up with me in feature demands; (d)
trust cashier live to avoid massive attacks on their servers; (e) trust that
cashier live isn't down when I need to collect reports to file taxes; etc.

As a larger, more sophisticated customer - all those unknowns and risks
greatly outweigh the relatively modest cost savings.

What about if I have multiple stores and am really attracted to the cross-site
inventory management features? Or like the "access anywhere" features for
reporting. At that point I'm sophisticated and flush enough that I can
probably do better on my own - with bespoke software if I have to.

The low end of the market has plenty of reasons to find a simpler, more
robust, cost competitive solution in existing markets. The high end has every
reason to run, not walk, from the kind of centralization of control and
purchasing decisions that cashier live implies.

Cashier Live as a business seems to be essentially a value-added broker of CC
processing services. In that sense, it competes directly against the IT/POS
consultant that my local accounting firm uses - the guy who actually comes
into my shop and connects devices and strings wire. Cashier Live is competing
against _that_ with on-line training videos and a help line - which is weak.
It's especially weak since, regardless, I still have to hire my local
accounting firm.

Swapping out my "small business perspective" hat for my "engineer with VC
sensitivities" hat: the centralization of data and services proposed by
cashier live are just nuts. It creates a massive and precarious single point
of failure in direct proportion to the number of customers it acquires and the
number of transactions it processes. Asked to comment on the technology I
would be conscious bound to speak out against it. Asked to invest, I would
have to decline.

BUT: HOW TO FIX IT!!!!

Web-based POS, inventory mgt. etc. is a fine idea provided (as noted in other
comments) it's hardened against interruptions of net connectivity and avoids
centralization. All of the problems I listed above have to do with the
unreasonable centralization of cashier live's model: centralization of choice
about CC processing agents; centralization of choice about software features;
centralization of choice about database structure, backup-policy, etc.; .....

I think cashier live would have a chance if it polished up its code, released
it under GPL, partnered with accounting firms instead of directly CC
processing firms, and went into the premium fee support / consulting business
while learning to franchise sales to put qualified reps on the floor of
customer's shops to hook things up.

I have a _hunch_ that cashier live grew out of doing some bespoke work and
then trying to turn that into a commodity service "web 2.0 style". Perhaps the
better course would be to learn how to do bespoke work at scale, for a
premium.

It would even be OK for cashier live to resell _hosting_ for the web service
provided that hosting weren't centralized and the customer had the option of
finding their own hosting.

~~~
cantastoria
_Swapping out my "small business perspective" hat for my "engineer with VC
sensitivities" hat: the centralization of data and services proposed by
cashier live are just nuts. It creates a massive and precarious single point
of failure in direct proportion to the number of customers it acquires and the
number of transactions it processes. Asked to comment on the technology I
would be conscious bound to speak out against it. Asked to invest, I would
have to decline._

This is an odd criticism. Why is this any different from letting Google store
my spreadsheets or Mint.com store all my banking/cc or 37Signals store all my
business contacts. Is it because it's a startup? So much for cloud
computing...

 _I think cashier live would have a chance if it polished up its code,
released it under GPL, partnered with accounting firms instead of directly CC
processing firms, and went into the premium fee support / consulting business
while learning to franchise sales to put qualified reps on the floor of
customer's shops to hook things up._

This will turn them into every other POS vendor. I don't see what GPL'ing the
code will do (that's not a feature to most people). Same with accounting
firms... I'm going to ask my accounting firm for advice on a POS system??? For
most small businesses, your accountant is guy that works out his house and can
barely use e-mail.

~~~
dasht
_Why is this any different from letting Google store my spreadsheets [etc.]_

It's not, much. I think those things are stupid and irresponsible as well.

 _So much for cloud computing..._

Centralized services != cloud computing.

If you had said "so much for web 2.0" we'd be in vigorous agreement.

 _I don't see what GPL'ing the code will do (that's not a feature to most
people)._

It's not a customer-facing feature when we're talking about small retailers,
that's for sure. It is a feature that faces the small business support service
firms that support small retailers.

 _I'm going to ask my accounting firm for advice on a POS system??? For most
small businesses, your accountant is guy that works out his house and can
barely use e-mail._

Advice? Yes. General contracting? No.

Look at main st in some small city or big city neighborhood. There are (knock
on wood) still some successful retail outlets. Within that market, some
accountants are dominant. And successful in their own right. One of their
issues is how cheaply and smoothly they get data from their small business
customers. They therefore know which customers have winning set-ups for IT
related stuff like POS and which do not. And if they are worth their metal,
they can help a new client re-create that success.

I'd bet with you, not against you, that the median small business accounting
firm is useless in this regard. I'd also note that successful small business
start-ups are unlikely to settle for that median.

------
whereareyou
Way to go. Web based POS's are definitely the future.

An online demo might be a good idea. Best of luck. Maybe Intuit will but it :)

------
tbgvi
Hey everyone, we just ended our closed beta and launched so I wanted to get
your thoughts. We’ve been working on Cashier Live for about 9 months– in beta
for the last 4 or so. Even though it’s pretty polished now, it started off as
an MVP and we’ve had our first two stores/users involved from the start. We’re
pretty happy with it (so are our users) so we thought now is as good a time as
any.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback

~~~
hackoder
Quick comment - is there any benefit in using flash for the start trial now
button?

~~~
tbgvi
It looks nice :) But seriously - we're going to be doing some a/b testing and
that's one of the things we'll be looking at. At this point the main benefit
is that they're slightly animated to catch attention

~~~
bensummers
Is it possible to sign up without Flash being enabled? Admittedly I'm
currently on a Flash-hate marathon at the moment, and most people have it
installed and enabled, but surely it's best to go with HTML for something so
important?

~~~
tbgvi
We went ahead and put in alternative static images for those who don't have
flash/have flash disabled.

Thanks again for the feedback

------
misuba
Convincing people that broadband is stable enough to bet their income on is
going to be a hard one.

~~~
tbgvi
Agreed, that definitely a hurdle here :)

Most people using a POS system already require an internet connection for
processing credit cards, so either way it's critical to a retailer.

If someone's connection isn't stable we recommend a dial-up as a backup plan.
We're also investigating html5 and other options for offline functionality.
You're definitely right thought, not everyone's comfortable with web-based pos
software (yet)

~~~
Huppie
It seems to me that using Gears (or similar technologies) is definately a
must-have.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Gears is being phased out in favor of HTML5

[http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/12/01/google-is-phasing-
ou...](http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/12/01/google-is-phasing-out-gears-
phasing-in-html5/)

------
tocomment
This looks great!

My wife owns a dance studio so I'd love to get her switched over to this
instead of QuickBooks POS. I hate it because there's this insanely complex
process to get it connected to a regular QuickBooks install.

To even bring up switching over these would be her requirements:

1\. Integrate with QuickBooks (not QB POS, but regular QuickBooks)

2\. Manage inventory very well.

3\. Accept QuickBooks merchant service (whatever the one you sign up with when
you install QB POS).

4\. Have a way to operate when the internet is down.

Note that there are credit card gateway services like intercept so your
customers can use their own merchant services. That would probably drive up
your adoption.

~~~
tbgvi
That's interesting that it's hard to connect QuickBooks POS to QuickBooks,
you'd think they would have figured that one out :) They acquired QB POS so
that might be why it's not seamless.

On another e-commerce project we set up an integration with QuickBooks so
we're looking to port that over here.

I have a feeling that Intuit wouldn't take to kindly to their merchants using
us, but that's an interesting idea. We're currently working with a variety of
processors so it's a possibility.

------
stevenwei
Interesting idea. I've been around the restaurant POS space for a couple of
years and have been wondering about the feasibility of doing a web based
solution.

To my knowledge there are a few other players in this space, although I don't
know how big they are or how much traction they have:

<http://www.firesalepos.com/> <http://www.imonggo.com/>

MICROS has a hosted POS solution called Simphony but I haven't seen any
restaurants using it yet.

From a customer standpoint, my biggest concern is reliability and redundancy
if the network connection goes down. You obviously can't stop processing
transactions if the internet is down, which means you have to store that data
temporarily locally. I would be concerned about the security of that data
(especially if you are recording customer information and/or credit card
information, which brings PCI compliance into play).

As an administrator, I would be concerned about:

1) Making sure that you support the hardware devices that I might want to use
(card readers, printers, barcode scanners). Are you doing this via some sort
of keyboard wedge into the browser window, or some kind of ActiveX control? 2)
Making sure the rest of the system is locked down. E.g. I don't want some
cashier being able to pull up Facebook in a second tab while running your POS.
Generally POS kiosks are fairly locked down to only run the POS application
and nothing else.

------
jeromec
I haven't read all comments, so apologies if something has been covered. I
think you could make some serious cash if you execute this correctly as well
as heed customer feedback. For the website, several things... The site looks
great, but needs tweaking. I'd get rid of the Flash. The loading is irritating
and so is the auto changing between tab views. I want to click to move when
I'm ready. The animation is overkill. It really serves no useful purpose
except to say you can design a fancy site. I'd stick the animation in the
video, but make it actually _show_ something useful - like larger screen walk-
throughs. This brings us to the video. I don't like being tricked; when I
click a video reading "view video" I expect something to play immediately, not
link to another page. Next, the video is too long and boring. I'd use the
homepage video to answer these 3 crucial things (applicable to all sites) as
quickly and concisely as possible: 1. What is it? 2. How can I benefit from
it? 3. What does it take from me? Lastly, I'd put "A Complete Hardware and
Software Solution" up higher in the larger green font, as that is an important
point to know. That should get you started, but you've got a great thing going
I think. Good luck!

------
mrtron
This system seems to be like early VoIP applications in terms of product
evolution.

Similar challenges: Stability/security/availability, perceived value to
customers

But similar advantages: Zero chicken and egg problem (VoIP could do outgoing
calls, you still perform the same CC txns), very low costs, ability to compete
in a previously expensive market

------
losvedir
Any reason the video with the smiling guy on the front page can't start
playing if you click him? It looked like it should and I was initially
confused when I pressed "play" and the video didn't play, taking me to a new
page instead.

~~~
tbgvi
That's actually how I wanted to do it - I got overruled by our designer. You
just helped me win that argument, thanks!

Should be fixed up in a second :)

------
wensing
In that Flash piece at the top, I can't click ahead to "Manage your store" or
"Secure data" or "Try it free". You have to wait for the movie to progress
forward. You should change that.

~~~
tbgvi
At the beginning it's still downloading the other sections, after they're
downloaded you can click around :)

------
Raphael
Increase the font size.

