Launch HN: Aura Vision (YC W19) – Google Analytics for Physical Stores

I joined a company with exactly this pitch in 2012. In 2016, I acquired a company with this pitch as part of a major international Telco. I have built a prototype of this technology and run a pilot with a major international conference venue.

The stores aren't interested in your aggregated data, and they wouldn't know how to use it even if they were. They're interested in insights which you can't have, because you don't know their business. You're not delivering enough value to make a business. Sorry.

> of course..there is no better application for sharp minds and PhD in AI than helping retailers to sell more sh*t.

We can write computer vision algorithms for military drone targeting systems instead, if that makes you feel better.

I found this idea really interesting and I completely agree with you that stores want insights / actionable data instead of aggregated metrics.

Maybe start by focusing on one specific field (grocery store? fashion?), or become the technology provider to enterprise clients?

While at a major beverage brand conglomerate, I used to be interested in this kind of data.

We had various projects that helped us gain insights on consumers from hiring agents, observing camera footage, tracking SKU sales & out-of-stocks, and use of beacons.

Every major FMCG company I've worked with already uses some tech vendor for segmented footfall model to drive placements of branded displays and promotional space.

We did run into real challenges conducting A/B tests in the retail environment though. Unlike with web apps where A/B tests are easily deployed and measured with analytics, in the retail environment, its hard to effectively measure success of A/B tests and attribute shopper motivation. Say if an A/B test is conducted on whether a retail display will drive sales of SKU's we'd need to be able to attribute sales against those SKU's. The challenge is that a FMCG company will try to place new products everywhere around the store and only on paid-for displays so it'll be hard to assess the success. Can you also track where in the store a product was picked into a cart?

What I think is an interesting angle you guys have is that you integrate with existing hardware/ security cameras in stores. Solutions sold to me required us to install new cameras to gain insights on our brand's aisles. It may help your go-to-market to partner with major security camera companies (like Avigilon http://avigilon.com/) to sell your document as a part of a bundle.

They also have the right to kick me out, but I hope they don't do either.