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Show HN: Restaurant POS system built completely on iOS

51 pointsrefulgentis62 comments

Hi guys, I've spent the last 18 months building a restaurant POS app that can run completely and reliably on iOS. Along the way, we've really pushed the devices to their limits and have something special that doesn't rely on the cloud for service, doesn't copy old and crappy "100 buttons on a screen" POS interfaces, and is still just as efficient and much more usable. Combining Bonjour (Apple's implementation of zeroconf) with the excellent Cocoa APIs also made it a relatively magical experience - you can literally watch on an iPad as a waiter takes an order on a iPod connected to the iPad.

This is my first time as an entrepreneur, and we're trying to bootstrap out of Buffalo, NY. I'd love to hear any advice you have on marketing to a relatively hard to reach segment such as restaurants, and any feedback you have on the app itself. The app is available for free (trial version that doesn't allow adding menu items or allow complete printing of checks to receipt printers) at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ambur/id408723017?mt=8&ls=1 , and our website is http://www.refulgentsoftware.com

Thanks for your time!

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The app looks good, but from the video I think, wow it would take me a long time to put in an order.

I was a bartender at a downtown Chicago restaurant using Aloha for more than a year. Aloha is not pretty, but it's really fast. I don't want to scroll, or click into menus and tabs to then go find an order. Just put my tables in front of me as soon as I'm logged in.

Trying to give constructive criticism here, so please don't take this the wrong way. Speed is everything. I almost feel like I can login to Aloha (all I have to do is type my server #), and then enter in an order for a table before I've even finished finding my name and typing in the password into your "server selection dial". Passwords are really not that important at the server level. What I am going to do, go change someone else's check?

Speed. Think raw speed. How FEW clicks can I get from login to item entry. It's not about how logically organized it is. I don't want a magical experience, I want a flawless and fast experience, so that I can get back to the 500 things I have to do to service my customers.

My 2 cents.

I second this. If you have ever waited tables or tended a bar, you know that speed is everything.

A fast illogical system is better than a well organized system that requires several actions to get a result. You can front load the work an illogical system requires when you aren't busy, by memorizing the location of menu items, etc.

This is true...one of the UI things that keeps me up at night is how to optimize that login screen. Passwords are actually important to me because of that, and I'm not sure servers IDs are really a great idea, they just seem insecure to me (the restaurant I worked at constantly was broken because servers would figure out the manager ones) and introduce a whole host of validation issues that would be frustrating to deal with in this distributed system.

We'll have to look at speed a bit more - at the restaurants we've tested at, my experience once it was just pure frustration for a server at first, but after 3 or 4 shifts they settled back down into normal speed for order entry, and it ended up being a win overall because the discoverability of stuff was faster. That being said, I know we definitely have room to improve.

Thanks for your feedback, it's nice to hear from someone else who worked at a restaurant, especially one that was busy and relied on the speed of its POS more than one in Buffalo may have.

If you're going to ask for feedback, you should take it! Here's a professional explaining that you don't have to worry so much about the login. A 2-4 digit code will do. Password-protect the manager login if you want, but not the servers'. This should not be keeping you up at night.

What should be keeping you up at night is the ordering experience. This is where users are going to spend 99% of their time. It needs to be flawless and ultra-refined for speed and accuracy. The cascading screens and tiny "Done" buttons are not going to cut it for heavy use.

Finally, you are going to need to be careful about getting feedback during a 15 minute demo. There is a grand canyon of difference between using a POS all day every day versus once for 15 minutes.

Sorry, didn't see these replies. But I just wanted to add, that at our busy bar, the manager's IDs were passworded. Actually, I assume they were passworded. I do not that for certain functions, the managers had a mechanism to go in a delete items or change price/add discounts etc. I'm not sure of what scenario you could commonly avoid by passwording the server ID. Maybe messing around with other server's checks happens at other restaurants (but then I assume they have a slew of other problems.)

We did however have situations where I would need to enter alternate server IDs for different things. What comes to mind is that we had an ID for bar comps so that we could keep track of inventory.

Perhaps discoverability makes sense in certain restaurant scenarios. At our sushi restaurant/bar, I don't know that I ever had to "discover" something?

Some constructive criticism. The video does a really poor job selling this. Here are a few things I've learned from building software over the years.

No matter what the end user says, they do not care about fine-grained permissions. Not that they don't care about your system having them, they just have no interest setting them up or ever changing them. The way us software engineers think about things and the way management thinks about things are just too different. "I just want Mary to be able to see the f*$%ing orders!" It's really too much to go, "Ok, well Mary is part of the Server's group, so you go into Servers Group Permissions, then look at this list of vaguely worded categories and find the one you want, then click into that and get half a million switches, then find the action verb that we've assigned to viewing orders then click it on. Oh yea, this also gave Carlos and Mike the ability to see orders because they are in the Server's Group. Oh you didn't want that? Ok, well make a new group called Super Servers and then put Mary in that gr....."

At this point management has slipped quietly into a coma.

Split this video into a, "Here is what your servers will see, look how easy it will be to get those minimum-wage monkeys to use this" and a "Here is what you will see, look at how much more money this will put in your pocket as you are able to manage more effectively, you king of food you!"

And then make a third video about the nitty-gritty technical details of Role-Permission systems and launch that into the sun, no one wants to see that ;)

I think it could be a really compelling product but right now the video doesn't seem to be addressing any audience (other than maybe other developers writing POS software).

Personal Note: For some reason the line, "Refulgent is very proud that Ambur saves all the information pertaining to all closed orders, just as if they were open." irks me to the very core of my being. Whoa, you did the most logical thing to do by keeping historical records, this is nothing to be proud of. Be proud of the truly innovative parts of this product, not the silly things that are obvious for your software to do.

I wish you the best of luck, just throwing in my $0.02 and trying to share some wisdom I've learned the hard way.

>Split this video into a, "Here is what your servers will see, look how easy it will be to get those minimum-wage monkeys to use this" and a "Here is what you will see, look at how much more money this will put in your pocket as you are able to manage more effectively, you king of food you!"

Yes.

I'd really want to see it in action at a table to see that the drill-down method of entering orders is going to work fast enough - there's a reason that current systems have the "million buttons" interface and I don't think it is solely that POS designers can't make good interfaces.

As an improvement I'd add in something like a margin/upsell reminder system. The server would have someone to know high-margin items from the menu list and have key upsells highlight when a dish is chosen ... "do you want fries with that!".

You're right, we probably need to reshoot the video (it was made under rushed conditions with a version that didn't end up being our final apps, thanks to the vagaries of the App Review process), and I also want to shoot ones that delve into specifics.

I'm scared to shoot one showing "action", considering how hard it was just to get the first one done, but we'll have to see what we can do efficiently that looks nice. It's key, I think, because really by far the magical part of the product is how easily devices running Ambur can link together and share data easily.

Thanks a lot for your feedback, it's truly appreciated and taken under careful consideration.

I'd highly suggest paying a professional user interface designer to take a look at every screen of your app and offer suggestions and/or redesigned mockups. It looks like you're using nearly all stock UIKit widgets (default buttons, default tableviews, default split view controller, etc.) and the problem is that this type of app needs to be head and shoulders above the POS apps that waiters and restaurant works are used to which are mostly just grids of buttons. You've traded grids of buttons with rows of buttons instead of attacking the usability and user experience head on with a gorgeous, custom interface that totally blows away what's already out there.

This type of app will live and die by demos that you give restaurant owners. It needs to blow people away at first glance, especially waiters. Because you used all stock UIKit elements, at first glance it looks like it could be anything. I really think it needs an amazing interface to stand out from the crowd and blow people away.

Edit: I'd also suggest going to some local restaurants & bars and talking to people there who'd be using this app. Get their information and tell them you'll pay them $50 for 30 minutes of their time whenever they're free. Meet up with them and ask them their gripes about current POS systems, record this audio conversation (with their consent). Have them talk about the top things that they hate and the top things they wished it would do. Ask about what they spend the majority of their time on when using POS systems and which parts of the system fail the most often or are most frequently misinterpreted by the cooks or other waiters. Now you've got a firsthand account of what your competitors suck at that you can focus efforts on.

Agreed on the UI. The standaard iOS is great for certain things, but this isn't one of them.

Navigating repeatedly through these actions is slow and makes for a bad experience. As a bartender or waiter (both of which I've been in the past) this would maker me want to quit.

You're absolutely correct – unfortunately, living in Buffalo means there's a dearth of local talent and bootstrapping means we really don't have the means.

To be honest I took out more custom UI than ended up making it in because the people we tested with who were new to iOS really took quickly to the standard components and had a harder time with custom stuff. That being said, I'm hardly a real designer, so there's a distinct possibility my custom UI was just, well, not too good. :P

Thanks for your feedback. I'm familiar with your work and you saying this automatically means I'm probably going to dedicate the next week or so combing over my UI and trying to make it better.

I'd definitely suggest not caring about where your UI designer is located. It's hard enough to find decent UI people without forcing them to live in Western NY. Some of the best UI people I know live in Europe, Mexico, New Zealand, etc. If you're down for contracting with someone remotely, I'd take a look at Dribbble to find some styles of work you really like and then give those designers a shout. It could really make a huge difference. Good luck!

You should move the video to the home page. It took me a while to find it. You may consider having a professional voice actor narrate the video, it's not as expensive as you might imagine, and the results can really take it to the next level. You may also want to get another domain, something like amburapp.com. Any chance of integrating with Square? Manual credit card entry could be a challenge.

You should also consider offering packages with all the hardware the restauranteur would need.

True, we'll have to see where we can fit it.

You're right on the domain thing too.

Square is great for what it is, but there rates are way, way, too high for restaurants and their app doesn't allow for 3rd party callbacks. I don't think they have much interest in "real" business to be honest with you, I've tried to get in touch with them on multiple occasions for at least information on them integrating a callback scheme, but I haven't heard a word back. They're busy doing bigger and better things though, god bless 'em.

We actually do have integrated credit card processing (kind of). There's an app called Credit Card Terminal that lets us pass charges to it and then calls back to us with the charge amount and type when it's done processing.

For what it's worth, I really quickly became annoyed with the seemingly glacial transition pace of the image slider on your homescreen.

Aye, I do too at times :P needs to delve into the Javascript there and fix it up

By programming in iOS you are requiring companies to purchase expensive mac products to run your POS rather than inexpensive PC products.

You need to go to as many restaurants in person as possible and be able to explain why your product is worth "trying" at the risk of a night of business. The key to understanding your customer is that they need to train all their servers and cooks on the new system and risk a huge single night loss of sales in the event of an error.

This is big business and for large restaurants could be $20K in a single night.

What is the big feature that your product has, that current systems don't have?

*ALSO REALLY IMPORTANT: I would consider not offering it for free since the "cost" is not the product. The cost in your case is the potential loss a restaurant could take on a crashing system (and the cost and lost sales relating to server training). I would try charging MORE than current POS systems as your sticker price.

Pricing is a signal and you need to signal high quality to sell this risk to businesses.

A few quick things that are important to restaurants: 1) Margins (they are really low, anything to improve them is good). 2) Servers are unreliable and turnover is high (anything to help speed up training is a plus, but probably a minor one) 3) Risk (a single night of lost sales may bankrupt a restaurant. You are asking for big commitment.) 4) Costs (upfront costs are harder to swallow because cash flow is always important. Decide whether it is worth figuring out a way to subsidize the equipment and software and get paid back later maybe).

Additional advice: Work in a restaurant as a server, then as a cook. Knowing the business is very important for selling to it.

"By programming in iOS you are requiring companies to purchase expensive mac products to run your POS rather than inexpensive PC products."

Lame. There will be a market for iOS/OS X POS because there are people who prefer them to "PC" products. If a restaurant owner wants the $299 Dell rather than pay a bit more for a Mac/iOS device, they probably aren't a customer he'll want anyway.

Lame. Most restaurant owners already have a POS system, and it likely runs on Windows. You are asking them not only to overhaul their business processes, you are asking them to now go out and buy a $500 tablet per server. There are real cost barriers here, and since this app's UI is not absolutely stunning he's not going to capture that extreme of the market either.

I'm not. The app has multiuser functionality. Instead of paying $1000-$2000 per terminal, I'm asking them to pay $1500 ($1000 for the app; $500 for the iPad), and $500 for any subsequent iPad terminal. Compared to standard prices, it's a steal.

Oh right, I forgot all restaurants have already been opened and no new ones need POS systems. And they all want the cheapest method to handle one of the most important factors of their business, the money handling.

Re: expensive products. Micros charges about $3000 for a terminal, we're charging $1500 for the first one ($999 for our app + $500 iPad) and $500 (per iPad) apiece after. Not to mention the iPod is really just as good for servers taking orders.

Big features? Price, wireless connectivity, commodity hardware. I can't lie and pretend we're as rock solid as Micros, and I'd like to charge a fair price. $999 is low in my opinion, but not that low.

Thank you for your feedback!

1) Price is never, ever, ever, ever a feature. Price is determined by the features (it is the other side of the equation).

2) I haven't done market research, but are you telling me no other POS has wireless?

3) Who will provide iPods? How many will be lost or broken, this seems to add additional expense.

4) As a potential pivot, could you enable your system to run in restaurants with no servers, just food runners and have patrons order the food themselves? There is competition here as well, but it is less entrenched and probably easier to displace.

1) Fair, but to a restaurant owner who is staring at Micros package X that is $15K for a basic two terminal + a few printers set up, we look pretty darn good. 2) Not reasonably priced. I know Micros does, but their handhelds are propietary hardware that costs in multiples of iPod touches. Their terminals are, again, in multiples of iPads. 3) Up to the restaurant. They don't get broken, them 'walking off' is an issue, but a management issue. If you have 3 at 5 PM, you better have 3 at 10 PM or your staff has to answer. 4) Certainly, but I'm not a big fan of that because it compounds issue #3 dramatically and I'm not sure any restaurant would want to do that. Also, it would require a dramatic 'prettying up' of the UI to make it more lively.

My startup is in point-of-sale as well (retail, not hospitality). I'm curious as to why you chose to go with iOS? I'm not saying it's a good or bad choice, but it definitely is the current fad in the POS market. I'm focused on the lower end and small businesses, so I try to work with hardware they already have. How receptive are people to using iPods and iPads, cost wise?

Another question is.. what happens if a server spills a drink on it? :)

Now for an answer instead of another question. For marketing I would focus on finding a scalable sales method that is as self-serve as possible (small biz owners will always want to talk no matter how hard you try though). It's easy and tempting to go 'door to door' and sell one at a time, but economically it doesn't make sense. That's one place iOS helps, distribution through the app store. But you'll eventually need to find people who are generally looking for POS, not just specifically an iPad POS.

Anyways, good luck it looks interesting!

One of the benefits of iOS devices is their ubiquity. What if a server spills a drink on the cash register? Then your register is fried and you have to wait for a replacement from the vendor. If someone spills a drink on an iPod Touch, though, you can run down the street to the Apple Store (or other vendor) and drop $300 on a new one (which you can return if you get the other one working).

The fact that the whole ecosystem (app store, iTunes, backups, etc.) is designed for consumers means that it's easy for anyone to deal with. It would be trivial to teach all your management and supervisors how to reset, restore, etc. an iPod Touch in the case of hardware problems, rather than having to log a support ticket with some company somewhere when the PoS hardware is being problematic.

Most restaurant/bar specific POS systems are water resistant for exactly that reason. I'm sure it that's happened though, that's why it's "water resistant" and not "water proof".

So lets say it happens to your iPad POS and you run down to the Apple store to get a new one. What happens to your data? Is it stored on the device, or is the backend hosted somewhere? How do you get your old data into your new iPad?

Another thing I just thought of... lets say there's a horrible bug that's causing some big problem. Wouldn't you have to submit a new version to Apple, which then needs to get approved by them?

All that being said, there's risks with any POS system since it's pretty much mission critical. When I launched my company and did a Show HN, some people thought it was a bad idea (it's web-based). There's a lot of what ifs you can bring up that all sound terrible to a business owner. I'm sure a lot of people will go with iPad POS systems, I'm just wondering if there's a good reason to or if it's just the cool thing to do.

Wouldn't you have to submit a new version to Apple, which then needs to get approved by them?

That is the showstopper.

"Sorry, we fixed the bug, but Apple hasn't approved it yet. We'll keep you posted."

To the grandparent - what danudey said.

The iPad is fairly water resistant at the end of the day, we've had a glass spilled on it (!) and it was fine. There's a database that the app allows you to email to yourself to backup, and you can connect it via iTunes and use Apple's ridiculously cumbersome iTunes methods of dragging files in and out. I'm not happy with it necessarily, but the attitude I have as an iOS developer is "let's see what happens in iOS 5 to make file management/sharing/backup easier, it *has to get easier...right? right!?"

Think of it this way - up until recently, POS systems were monolithic things that were never updated. Web POS systems take the opposite route of just throwing out what you have and fixing bugs as they pop up, which definitely is easy. With the App Store, it's sort of medium – we can easily ship updates, but it might take 7-10 days. IMHO, it's not a showstopper though. If it was, then almost no software would have shipped before the Internet. You just have to rely on the fact that you're a good developer, with a good testing process.

> What happens to your data? Is it stored on the device, or is the backend hosted somewhere?

That would be good to know since the data on the hard drives of POS systems are a target for thieves to the point of ignoring the cash and just taking the hard drive.

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/blog/2010/03/the-proper-way-to...

This is a really cool idea! How many restaurants do you have signed up? The proof is in the pudding, so the more restaurants that use this, the more likely it is for your to work our any bugs/process issues etc and for your company and product to just take over a huge chunk of marketshare. I know a lot of people who are building or talking about building similar products, so congrats on being early to the party! Also, best of luck!

x, where x is less than 10. To be honest, it looks like it's going to be a lot of hard work to get people signed up and interested.

It's a tough marketing problem: how do you get to people who haven't already invested in another solution down this road, even if our solution is much cheaper we're still talking in the thousands to switch over from someone who already charged them tens of thousands. The answer is to find people who haven't, which means finding restaurants that have not opened yet. Not easy work.

There are tons of small restaurants and take-out places that don't use POS. Start with them. Don't try to get people to switch until your solution is rock-solid and high performance.

If your system actually works, you will have no trouble selling it. What we've seen so far needs improvement.

Great! You have a base to refine your product till it's the cat's meow. There's nothing like word of mouth, better yet, references from businesses who've actually used your product and absolutely love it! You marketing effort should just be the product, but also real verifiable applications of your product. Put together a little marketing video where the existing businesses vouch for your product. <br> I agree with what #pbreit said as well. Once you have 30-40 mom and pop stores using your devices, not only will you be more confident about what your sell, your potential customers will be too. See if you can target small but high traffic businesses, even if it's lunch truck or a no name pizza joint at a Campus near you. </br> You've got a great idea, simple and potentially very effective. Iron out the kinks before other competitors get to market. Once again, best of luck!

First of all, congrats. I'm sure it wasn't easy getting to this stage.

Now, there are lots of good comments that others have made already. I think the most important ones are the issues with the speed of taking orders and the suggestion to talk to local restaurants and bars for input.

My two cents are related to the video. It looks too amateurish. The camera is not 100% steady (use a tripod, or set the camera on a table), the narration is not very fluid (practice, practice, practice) and it's too technical. The video should target your audience and highlight the advantage of using your system. Show a waiter taking orders, and the kitchen receiving them instantly. Show how a fast and easy it is to print receipts and how a manager can help resolve customer issues/complaints. How would you convince a restaurant owner to ditch the multi-thousand $$ POS system that he/she has, and invest in yours?

Also your FAQ page seems to be outdated and missing a few links.

Good luck!

We'll have to look at speed, it's something I'm concerned about because we don't have a huge sample size. I know the restaurants we tested at got up to speed after each server had worked 3-4 shifts, but I'm 100% sure it could be better in several areas.

Reshooting the video is probably the first priority after fixing mistakes on the site, thanks to your comments and a couple others. Thanks for the feedback, hearing things like that from someone really makes it clear what work we have to do and how we have to do.

From the FAQ:

> Is there a demo video of Ambur? > Yes! Please click here to see a real demo of Ambur.

There's no link anywhere near this text.

Noted, thank you. Peer review of a website has the unique ability to make you feel like a blind idiot. :P

The biggest thing with a POS system is support.

Where I work (not my dept.) we were locked in a five year contract with a company based 5 times zones and 5,000km away.

Adding new printers, configuring printers, connected by cheap off-the-shelf switches and routers, too many people with admin access and employee turn-around losing the people who knew the system.

Add to that old and usually proprietary hardware that tends to get damaged faster in an environment with a lot of food and liquids (restaurant/bar).

Add to that restaurant people tend not to be technology oriented.

I can't see my workplace buying a bunch of iPad or iPod Touch devices just to use a brand new system. I know the staff would love it. If you had an iPad/serving tray that would be interesting too.

The perfect system would run on old existing hardware, be bullet proof, very intuitive, cheap and with lots of support every day at all hours.

Most terminals cost ~$3000, while the first terminal for us is $1500 - $500 for the iPad, $1000 for the app. After that, new terminals are just $500 since you bought the app already.

Secondly, adding printers is one of our best pieces of functionality - it's just entering an IP address, a name, a type of printer, and assigning it to a menu item group.

I'm not sure old hardware is the answer. It's underpowered, weak, running on odd platforms. iOS was designed for touch and to be rugged from the ground up, and provides a consistent platform that is essentially commoditized and is growing every day.

When I visit your website I can't find out:

- What the app looks like -- there's a lot of talk about how beautiful, simple and well designed it is, but not a single screenshot;

- If it accept payments;

- Whether it is a complete solution. Will I need a server? If not, what's "Ambur in a box"?

- A 1-2-3 storyboard of setting up, making an order, paying the bill;

- Whether it will work with my cash drawer, or my receipt printer, or my credit card machine, (or any drawer or printer or machine);

- What happens if my iPad (I'm the manager) breaks/is stolen/is low on batteries?

- Can my clients place orders using their own iOS devices?

And important stuff is hidden by the wall of text. For instance:

- Your app needs _no configuration_ when adding more terminals;

- Updates are free for life;

Lastly, a benchmark: http://checkoutapp.com/

Thank you, this is stuff we definitely have to focus on, we're planning on moving stuff and adding stuff based on the feedback we received here in the next couple days.

Really impressive work! I'd suggest for your demo video, instead of showing all your features in action, to instead talk through a typical scenario (someone taking an order, closing the order, etc) and showing what it's like to use the app.

Thanks for your feedback - we'll definitely take that approach with the next set of videos we'll shoot.

This looks very interesting. Quick question, as far as I can tell, one of the iOS devices has to function as the database server. Is this reliable? If so, that is extremely exciting...

Yes, and yes! Core Data + Bonjour + KVO are absolutely magical, it's a truly distributed system, you always can see whats going on accurately.

Do you have restaurant experience (server/owner/manager)?

Server, four long years. My cofounder is an owner.

You will be very successful! You have something here.

You have (at least one) misspelling on your page: "unbelieveably" should be "unbelievably". Just jumped out at me (maybe since it's italicized!) so I thought I'd report it.

Also, though this one's just my opinion: "point of sales system" seems awkward to me compared to "point of sale system" and I note from a couple of Google searches that the latter seems to be used a lot more often.

Anyway, good luck!

Thank you! Getting more eyeballs on the site has had the effect of mostly making me feel like I'm illiterate and blind. :P

Good call on point of sale, I had never thought about the distinction before.

From the FAQ:

"Is there a demo video of Ambur? Yes! Please click here to see a real demo of Ambur."

However, nothing is hyperlinked.

Same here:

"Ambur will be available for free shortly in the App Store. You can also download the software from any iOS device by launching the the App Store and searching for "Ambur"."

I would actually just link to the app (there is chance someone is viewing that page on an iPad after all).

Doh! Thanks, I don't know how we missed both of these.

This discussion from about a year ago might be relevant: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1382566

(Not endorsing or dis-endorsing anything in it, but a possible point of reference to see if anything's changed.)

Aye, actually I ran into that a year ago and took a bit from it, thanks for bringing it up again, I forgot about it.

The main caveat is, the article assumes that servers would be carrying around iPads - we've found iPod touches are more than sufficient and iPads acting as centralized hubs like a traditional POS work well.

Looks interesting. I especially like the idea of using Bonjour. There is a missing closing tag on the "click here" anchor tag on the Get a Quote page

The magic of the app (from an engineering perspective) is really Core Data + KVO + Bonjour. Sometimes it feels more bubblegum and sticks than anything, but it really is magical after all the kinks were worked out.

I wish I could open source the framework, but at this point it would be an engineering effort to tease out the code and it's also giving away a lot of secret sauce.

easy to click: http://www.refulgentsoftware.com

This is a space that does require some disruption.

Good job.

Its really tough to market to restauranteurs because there are tons of scammy companies out there...

My company helps SMB's find the best credit card processor, so in theory Restaurants would be great customers because they are often getting screwed. In reality, we don't convert restaurants well at all.

I've been to trade shows like the NRA (Nat'l restaurant association), Pizza Expo, etc, and a new trend is well-funded companies offering a "free" POS system. It's free because they include the merchant account, and they KILL you on the fees. Almost all of the POS vendors are partnered with http://www.mercurypay.com/ which is a very expensive solution with hidden fees/upcharges etc.

Restauranteurs become lured in with the free POS and are locked into a shitty payment processor. I think being on iOS is a strength though - maybe there are ways you can focus and optimize your ranking on the app store? Participate in blogs/forums whenever you can.

We've had some luck getting in publications (QSR, Food News Today, etc), which has been very useful in getting the word out. You should try to get in QSR.

Drop me a line if you want to talk further.

It feels like app store ratings isn't going to be the driving force here. There aren't enough restaurants out there downloading iOS PoS software to drive you to the top of anything but a small and inactive category.

In this case, the App Store is just a distribution method, and all of the marketing and discovery is up to the company themselves. As Wil Shipley once said, the App Store should be a warehouse, not a storefront.

Huh, fascinating, my involvement in the restaurant business has been limited to mostly waiting and somewhat being aware of what was going on in the back end with processors, but I've only worked at one restaurant so my experience was limited. I had no idea they were gouging that much, we're actually looking into using iDynamo ( http://www.magtek.com/v2/products/secure-card-reader-authent... ) in our app, which would make it dirt easy to just pick the best payment processor and run with it. I'll have to drop you a line when we're done with that, probably in the next four weeks.

Thanks for your feedback, and the information about publications, it's been hard for me to figure out what publications exist and which ones exactly matter.

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