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Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

smart.tohands.in

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Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#71

Post by fuzzfactor »

anujdeshpande wrote: post #47
LeafItAlone wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the hardware like in the next version?

It's a lot more capable than the current version - but from the outside it's almost the same size and shape. - Denser display with full color range (current one is monochrome) - USB support - Cellular modem built-in (WiFi isn't always available in stores, shopkeepers mostly end up using phone hotspots. It will still have WiFi though) - Speakers

Would you say a shopkeeper could pick these up for themself or their salespeople and immediately continue with the same workflow, if they had been using a popular plain calculator up until then?

And it could provide additional layers of local and remote data handling from an easy to administer server app on the owner's phone without the need to concern the end users of the calculators with software whatsoever?

Seems to me one thing the calculator in hand can do is traditional real-time negotiating and discounting. Where something like the distraction of software could be a disadvantge compared to what came before.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#72

Post by justinlloyd »

This is absolutely brilliant. It doesn't change the way shopkeepers and small business owners currently work, which is absolutely critical to its success. Uses a familiar form factor, another critical aspect to its success. Can work offline. Store the history of millions of transactions and then sync the next time it connects. Is mechanically robust. Has a long warranty by industry standards.

Congratulations to whoever came up with this.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#73

Post by wolpoli »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43
detourdog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think moving to a full blown operating system is moving in the wrong direction. I think moving in the other direction towards a strictly hardware double entry book keeping system would be progress. I think any operating system over complicates and encumbers the idea with un-needed dependices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping

> I think any operating system over complicates and encumbers the idea with un-needed dependices. The prime problem is latency , which becomes both noticeably larger and unpredictable . Both those aspects cause huge loss of ergonomics. It's quite easy to tell whether a piece of hardware is doing things directly in firmware, or if it's running a full OS with a software stack - the latter has neither instant nor predic…

It's gotten worse since the introduction of smartphones. Instead of a button being hit changing into a pressed state instantly, they added animation that looks nice, but they end up making UI feels laggy and unresponsive.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#75

Post by YeBanKo »

santhoshr wrote: post #37

I think this is a ridiculously brilliant idea. It's probably hard for Americans and folks in the West to imagine why this is a big deal. There are millions of vendors who basically dominate India's retail market, which is probably one of the largest unorganized corners of the global economy with the world's largest population. There have been tons of efforts and a significant amount of VC funding to digitize unorgani…

Does this unorganized corner of economy really need to be digitalized?

I assume that it is organized well enough, maybe just not in a conventional western way.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#76

Post by gulbrandr »

account_created wrote: post #32

Nice project. Few suggestions: 1. Change/Update your logo. I find it hard to read it the font is not best for alphabets. 2. In the product itself, the brand name is reversed for the shopkeeper. I initially thought maybe it's some smart name that could be read in reverse as well (like 1300135 lol). It is overengineered, just keep it simple it. 3. Add a real use-case demo in your website. It is currently filled with ga…

> In the product itself, the brand name is reversed for the shopkeeper

but it is not reversed for the client, who may be a potential future buyer of this product.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#77

Post by ska »

danielfoster wrote: post #54
santhoshr wrote: post #37

I think this is a ridiculously brilliant idea. It's probably hard for Americans and folks in the West to imagine why this is a big deal. There are millions of vendors who basically dominate India's retail market, which is probably one of the largest unorganized corners of the global economy with the world's largest population. There have been tons of efforts and a significant amount of VC funding to digitize unorgani…

India's informal "shadow" economy makes up nearly 40% of GDP. There are clear advantages to maintaining proper books, such as improved planning and better access to credit. But do you think the smaller merchants this tool is designed to help will want to move into the formal economy and accept the responsibilities-- namely higher taxes-- that go alongside this? Or is tax evasion generally not an issue among smaller m…

> Or is tax evasion generally not an issue among smaller merchants in India?

I've read income tax evasion is nearly endemic there, but don't know how reliable that was. In retail the more likely problem is avoiding collecting sales taxes etc, but India has a goods and services tax which means most of that is baked in by the time you hit retail.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#78

Post by ska »

tokai wrote: post #64
detourdog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think moving to a full blown operating system is moving in the wrong direction. I think moving in the other direction towards a strictly hardware double entry book keeping system would be progress. I think any operating system over complicates and encumbers the idea with un-needed dependices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping

Nothing wild about using Linux on an embedded system. It's done extensively.

Lots of embedded work won't tolerate an OS, sometimes not even an RTOS, which I think was GPs point - nothing specific about Linux.

Or to put it another way, the only reason you would want to move to an OS is to add complexity to what the device is doing. GP is arguing that's a bad trade off.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#79

Post by ska »

detourdog wrote: post #53
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gst is indirect sales tax on goods and services. Indian gst is modelled after Canadian gst/hst if you know that.

I think I know it as simply sales tax and some USA states have it and some don't. Thank you.

It's not a sales tax, it's similar to a VAT but doesn't just compound.

So I suspect that if you are manufacturer, you pay it on your raw materials, you collect it on your finished goods, and there is a credit system in place so it effectively passes through.

Re: Tohands – Smart calculator for small businesses

#80

Post by yoz »

hvs619 wrote: post #22
gbin wrote: post #10

This product page is just terrible. I went through it, played a couple noisy videos, I could not even read the labels of the 3 first rows of buttons, I have no idea how it exactly works... Surely just adding and subtracting like the video shows doesn't record cash in hands etc?

Hi, I work at Tohands. Thankyou for the feedback! We're confident that you'll notice significant positive changes in the upcoming months. We would love if we can get more feedbacks for your end in order to be better.

Just a few of the problems:

* If your browser viewport is narrower than 1024px wide, the above-fold page section (i.e. the top, before you start scrolling) doesn't have a product pic. If the viewport is between 768px and 1024px wide, the main pic is left aligned and there's a chunk of empty space.

* Most people will view this page on a phone, which means that - unless there's a product pic - the headline alone has to do the initial work of explaining who this is for. The photo shows the ideal customer: a shopkeeper. It should be above or alongside the headline even when viewed on a phone.

* Top headline is about one of the main features but doesn't grab you with an obvious concrete benefit (e.g. time saved, not having to learn a complex new tool). "easily" is too relative. "Track your sales without any extra work" is more concrete (and I don't think it's a great slogan either, but it's better)

* The notice about "Unable to take orders" should be lower down the page, maybe on a separate page entirely. Let people click "Order Now" to see it, and you can track the clicks to see how well the page sells

* The Instagram videos are good but take up too much of the page, especially on mobile

* The YouTube videos don't explain anything well at all. The "Calculate Record Sync" video at least shows the ToHands in action but goes too fast and doesn't walk through clearly, step by step. There's a blue text bubble that had lots of text in it that looks useful but it disappears far too fast. This video should be at least a minute long and walk through multiple different steps.

There's a lot more to say about this and I'm not even a marketer, I'm a software engineer! But I'm happy to chat for a little longer about it if you'd like - let me know.

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