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Business in a Box

squareup.com

11–20 of 135 posts

Re: Business in a Box

#11
post #6

The design is great. Even though I don't have a brick and mortar store, it kinda makes me want to buy one, inexplicably. I wonder how many other things you can sell like this, an all-in-one box, that doesn't smell cheap, like a 10-in-1 games CD? The best thing I can think of right now is 'gardening in a box'. I wonder what 'startup in a box' looks like.

Depends what you mean by startup. If you mean some kind of infinitely replicable business (e.g. a cleaning company with subcontractors doing the cleaning) then it contains: a specific and workable business plan, a domain name, a list of potential customers/sources of the same, a company registration, a cheap mobile phone, some web hosting with an open source/simple tool set up to run the business – fuck, I just realised I invented franchising.

If you mean a scalable software business (of the sort HN usually means when they refer to a startup) the problem is that execution >>> ideas, and so no-one would sell such a box for less than it was worth, unless they were desperate. Then they'd sell part of it to a VC ;-)

Re: Business in a Box

#12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it imply that?

"Open wirelessly from your iPad when paired with a receipt printer, as included in the Printing package."

Also the Amazon reviews of that cash drawer say you plug it into a printer.

Re: Business in a Box

#13
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it imply that?

"Open wirelessly from your iPad when paired with a receipt printer, as included in the Printing package."

Those kinds of cash drawers tend to just have a RJ11-style port that the printer can plug into and trigger whenever something prints. They're very dumb devices otherwise and have no wireless capability.

Re: Business in a Box

#14
I love it. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work where you need smartcard chip readers. A lot of the world outside the US uses smartcard + PIN — I can't imagine America is too far behind. Hopefully they have that under development.

Re: Business in a Box

#17

Looks great, but seems to imply that the cash register doesn't open automatically if you don't buy a printer, which rather ruins the paperless option. It might be a good business idea to create a simple piece of hardware that does the opening if Square doesn't release one soon – hell, the hardware could just be a broken printer by the sound of it. But very cool ephemeralisation none-the-less.

It is possible they could program it to trigger the cash drawer with the printer even if going paperless, but you would still need to have the printer. Star printers have a control code to trigger the peripheral device. See this for one model: http://www.starmicronics.com/support/Mannualfolder/tsp200pm....

Re: Business in a Box

#18
post #9

This is fantastic. The POS space has needed massive disruption for decades. Kill the dinosaurs!

How is this disruptive? It's still a cash register. Most cash registers for decades have been digital/electronic in terms of running/totals and counting cash, and they all have credit card readers too.

Re: Business in a Box

#19

Why is a receipt printer $300? Just curious.

It does have ethernet and USB, while cheaper ones only have USB. And it has a paper cutter, while cheaper ones have a tear bar like an old calculator. And this is probably a solid brand. Square doesn't want to sell a package with a cheap printer that then costs them more in support costs.

Re: Business in a Box

#20

This directly competes with Revel POS: http://revelsystems.com , though pricing isn't visible on their site, I would believe that Square's offering is also cheaper -- at least to get setup.

Based on the offering and pricing I'd say it is more in line to compete with http://shop.shopkeep.com/ than revel.
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