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Admin

The results are in: Small Business Hackathon!💡

Hi Seller Community,

 

We are hosting a hackathon for developers to build software applications that enable small businesses to adapt to the post-COVID world. In order to ensure that this competition produces solutions that help solve real challenges you’re experiencing, we need your help. There are two ways to participate.

 

Option One: Share a challenge prompt for participants to solve

 

If you're a Square Seller, please share the new challenges your business is experiencing. For example, here are some of the challenges that have come up over the last few months:

 

  • For some shop owners, they have too much spring inventory that didn't sell and now have summer inventory coming in.
  • Some restaurants may require all guests to use in-app mobile ordering from dining restaurants to avoid extra interaction.

What new challenges are you facing? We want to hear more from you. Reply to this post below with your suggestions by June 10 and we'll make sure they're represented in this event.

Option Two: Participate in the Hackathon

 

If you're a developer and interested in participating, submit your entry by 5:00pm EDT June 22, 2020: The Square Small Business Hackathon.

 

Looking forward!

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center
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Best Answer

The results are in.

 

Thanks for helping make this a successful event and congratulations to all of the developers who participated! I'm following up with a highlight of the top eight submissions from participating developers. To learn more about a particular build, click the link included in the description below and scroll down to Try it Out.

 

Queue with Kyoo "Queue with Kyoo is a simple line management solution built on top of Square that helps solve the pain of long socially-distanced lines at retail shops, grocery stores...anywhere with a socially-distanced line, because of limiting the number of customers in a store."

 

 

Inventory Squared "My wife and I own a candy shop and updating inventory when receiving new shipments was very time consuming. I wrote Inventory Squared to enable multiple people to use phones (or tablets) to update inventory."

 

 

Fetcha - Just sit, we'll fetch! "Fetcha is the easiest way for food and beverage stores to offer safe table service to their customers. Once linked with the merchants square account, Fetcha builds a digital menu using all of the items already stored in their Square point of sales system."

 

 

Voice Order "As a care giver, I have been hyper-sensitive about my contacts in this COVID-19 world. In looking for ways to use technology to improve on processes, I considered my local small businesses. Order taking requires risky face-to-face dwell time that can be limited with the right solution."

 

 

StreamMD "We decided to build a Covid-19 telemedicine solution called StreamMD that allows licensed physicians to screen, treat, and test (we have access to FDA EUA home-collection test kids) patients while minimizing community spread, mitigating person-to-person infection, and reducing unnecessary and inefficient overflow of patients in emergency departments at hospitals."

 

 

Curatio "Curatio helps patients connect to doctors and receive information regarding healthcare according to the patients needs as much as possible without physically being in contact with the doctor or be at a hospital."

 

 

ProFit "ProFit targets the many needs of fitness professionals such that they can build and spread their business across a platform that encourages social distancing and ease of access for both trainers and users."

 

 

Hurdlr's Automatic Business Expense & Deduction Finder "Square Sellers self-identify into a business type, as do Hurdlr users. For this hackathon, we added a feature that goes through all of a Square Sellers expenses (via a linked credit card) and surfaces up the “likely” and “not likely” tax deductions."

 

 

To see all of the outcomes from the hackathon participants, check out the Square small business hackathon website. Note: you can view specific submissions for Retail, Food & Beverage, Healthcare, or Services & Other Use Cases by checking the box under Filter Submissions on the right side of the page.

 

I noticed many of the challenges that sellers surfaced in this post were broadly related to contactless payments, added customization for fulfillment/order management, and needing more control over inventory/item library management. Hopefully, some of the solutions from this event will be useful for your business during these times.

 

We know that all businesses are facing unique challenges and we will keep pushing forward to address them. Thank you for your patience and feedback as we continue to iterate.

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center

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1- I open my tap room only 3 times a week. The other days I am still working at the brewery and  taking orders for pickup on those 3 days open days.  

I need people to order online on Sunday to pick up on Tuesday for example. We should have two platforms for time. One that reflects the time I am open to the public and another that I am open for orders. A bit of a puzzle. Also it would be great to desable the pick up auto generated message that is confusing to my customers.

 

2- I need to have a better way to export orders document. For instance, for now I can only export since last export. It would be good if could export only pending or complet etc.

 

3- Is there a smart way for me at the end of the day contact my customers to remind them to come and pick up their orders. Can I select pending orders and send an unified email? My guess the answer is no. It would make my life much easier. I am a one woman show here trying to sell kombucha. 

 

 

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When starting the cash drawer, it would be helpful if the drawer would open after entering the amount being put in the drawer. Right now, the drawer doesn't open so that I can put the cash in and I have to navigate to another section of the app to get the drawer to open. Thanks.

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We would like to start doing text message campaigns. Is there any way we can do that through square? 

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Beta Member

I have a mobile business and am often selling my product in different counties. I include taxes in my prices, but then I have to go back and calculate out how much I owe each county in NY. It would be super cool if someone would develop a feature, whereby square knew what county I am working in, its tax rate and then based upon my sales calculated out how much I owe that county in sales taxes. 

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Admin

Hello everyone! Wow—thank you for taking the time to share your suggestions and illustrate why these iterations are important for your business. I'm checking in to remind you that today, June 10th, is the last day to submit recommendations for the hackathon.


What's next? We'll compile your insights and make sure they're available to developers as they build their submissions.

 

Thanks again to all who weighed in. We'll circle back with a summary of the outcome after the event—keep in touch!

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center
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San Francisco is requiring all employees to answer 3 screening questions regarding their health and possible symptoms before starting their shift. It would be great if, when they clock in, the system prompted them to answer those questions and send a message to the owner or manager. It should include an option to enter their temperature, which they are required to take upon arrival. I'm sure many cities will have similar requests, so the questions could be customized.

Thank you!

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Super Seller

1. prep and production labeling to use square sales/analytics to produce prep lists for restaurants.  I.E. I sold 1000$ worth of product yesterday of which 5 were ham sandwiches..today projection is 1500 preprint 7 ham sandwich labels for grab and go production.

2. Nutrition labeling

3. Reminders/communication/scheduling to set up to text you "hey truck order for sysco due by 3 today" to keep managers/owners from missing deadlines.

Donnie
Multi-Unit Manager
Order Up Cafe/Tombras Cafe/Riverview Cafe/City County Cafe
Roddy Vending Company, Inc.
www.OrderUpCafe.com

Using Square since July, 2017
Square Super Seller
Square Beta Team

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."

"You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want." Z.Z.
Do you want to have great restaurant menus that are easy to edit and don't cost a fortune? I use MustHaveMenus and you can too!
MustHaveMenus
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Admin

Best Answer

The results are in.

 

Thanks for helping make this a successful event and congratulations to all of the developers who participated! I'm following up with a highlight of the top eight submissions from participating developers. To learn more about a particular build, click the link included in the description below and scroll down to Try it Out.

 

Queue with Kyoo "Queue with Kyoo is a simple line management solution built on top of Square that helps solve the pain of long socially-distanced lines at retail shops, grocery stores...anywhere with a socially-distanced line, because of limiting the number of customers in a store."

 

 

Inventory Squared "My wife and I own a candy shop and updating inventory when receiving new shipments was very time consuming. I wrote Inventory Squared to enable multiple people to use phones (or tablets) to update inventory."

 

 

Fetcha - Just sit, we'll fetch! "Fetcha is the easiest way for food and beverage stores to offer safe table service to their customers. Once linked with the merchants square account, Fetcha builds a digital menu using all of the items already stored in their Square point of sales system."

 

 

Voice Order "As a care giver, I have been hyper-sensitive about my contacts in this COVID-19 world. In looking for ways to use technology to improve on processes, I considered my local small businesses. Order taking requires risky face-to-face dwell time that can be limited with the right solution."

 

 

StreamMD "We decided to build a Covid-19 telemedicine solution called StreamMD that allows licensed physicians to screen, treat, and test (we have access to FDA EUA home-collection test kids) patients while minimizing community spread, mitigating person-to-person infection, and reducing unnecessary and inefficient overflow of patients in emergency departments at hospitals."

 

 

Curatio "Curatio helps patients connect to doctors and receive information regarding healthcare according to the patients needs as much as possible without physically being in contact with the doctor or be at a hospital."

 

 

ProFit "ProFit targets the many needs of fitness professionals such that they can build and spread their business across a platform that encourages social distancing and ease of access for both trainers and users."

 

 

Hurdlr's Automatic Business Expense & Deduction Finder "Square Sellers self-identify into a business type, as do Hurdlr users. For this hackathon, we added a feature that goes through all of a Square Sellers expenses (via a linked credit card) and surfaces up the “likely” and “not likely” tax deductions."

 

 

To see all of the outcomes from the hackathon participants, check out the Square small business hackathon website. Note: you can view specific submissions for Retail, Food & Beverage, Healthcare, or Services & Other Use Cases by checking the box under Filter Submissions on the right side of the page.

 

I noticed many of the challenges that sellers surfaced in this post were broadly related to contactless payments, added customization for fulfillment/order management, and needing more control over inventory/item library management. Hopefully, some of the solutions from this event will be useful for your business during these times.

 

We know that all businesses are facing unique challenges and we will keep pushing forward to address them. Thank you for your patience and feedback as we continue to iterate.

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center
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Super Seller Alumni

Thanks for sharing these @Tom ! So many super cool ideas come to life!

Pesso - he/him
Pesso's Ices & Ice Cream
Square Super Seller - I'm here to help!
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Beta Member

I would like to be able to add a weight to a modifier. Since there is currently no bundle or combo option, I allow customers to create a gift pack using added pricing to each modifier. But... No way to adjust the weight so I have the correct weight for shipping. 

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I am crafter. My big issue is lack of craft shows. When they do reopen here in NY it will be  the safety of doing business. Also transiting my very small business to the internet. How do I get people to find me again and make money. Marketing is a weak point for me. 

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Admin

Hey @HCWife and @alyssaissofine — thank you for taking the time to share here.

While this year's hackathon event has wrapped up, I wanted to check in with some other posts that may help offer some more direction.

 

Regarding automated pricing with weight and bundling, we don't currently offer that functionality within the app. It sounds like you were able to create a workaround, though this discussion may offer some more solutions: Can you bundle items together as a single item or special?

 

As for marketing and getting people interested in your business, this post featuring a seller who does live sales online has some insightful thoughts: Drive Sales on Social Media with Live Sales.

 

To learn more about how we approach feature requests, please have a look at this post: Feature Requests and the Seller Community.

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center
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