Just got off a call with the Director of IT at Overwaitea Food Group (OFG). OFG runs Save-on-Foods, PriceSmart Foods and Urban fare.

I have been trying to reach him over the past one week and left voice mail messages. He got back to us y’day. He is interested in exploring indoor positioning. We have a face-to-face meeting scheduled for Feb. 20th.

ZT: We are in the process of developing a retail store navigation product [explained the key functionality] and would like to know whether it is some thing that you might be interested in.

SOF. We are interested in extending into the mobile space. We have a mobile application for Save-on-Foods, but it does not include the indoor positioning aspect. We are interested in the technology.

ZT: We would like to know more about problems that SOF would like to address with a mobile solution. Could you give us some insight?

SOF: We have a large amount of customer anlalytics data in our databases, but are yet to figure out a good way to use the data. One of the things that we have been thinking about is developing intelligent shopping list. Based on previous shopping behavior data (from Saveon loyalty cards) we could provide recommendations and intelligent shopping lists when the shopper visits the store.

ZT: Would you be OK with providing product lists and product shopping list to us for secure storage to help customers locate products through the app?

SOF: I do not foresee us having a problem with sharing the data. We already share our product lists with a few partners.

SOF: Will you need a projector for the demo?

ZT: We would like to show our mobile application installed on a mobile device. We will try to arrange a live but limited version of the demo at one of your stores.

We completed stage 1 of verification of accuracy of our location API yesterday – the site survey is done. We will perform the testing using the RF fingerprints next week.

We have contacted the Director of IT at Safeway in Vancouver and requested an appointment. I will also be meeting a store manager at Bestbuy on Saturday. Advertising agencies are a customer segment we would like to explore. To this end, we will be attending the Branding, Digital Advertising & Digital Media Event organized by VEF  in Vancouver on Feb 26th. We will also be at the Entrepreneur Bootcamp on Feb 20.

Pengfei has spoken to a store manager at T&T supermarkets, who has promised to arrange a meeting with some one higher up the ladder.Also, we are looking to expand our team to include someone with Sales/ Marketing experience with the retail industry. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

January 29, 2012

After meeting with our mentor, we carried out the site survey for the indoor positioning system. The effort serves two purposes: 1. Verifying accuracy of positioning systems 2. Understanding deployment considerations. The test continued until 1am. We also managed to squeeze in a meeting with an entrepreneur in the retail app. space to exchange ideas.

January 29, 2013

Quite a busy day. The highlight of the day was a meeting with our mentor, Mario of LightHaus. We had an extensive 2 hour discussion about different aspects of the solution. Our takeaway from the discussion:

Problem statement:

Brick and mortar retail stores face increasing competition from online stores as shoppers are attracted through promotions, e-coupons and better knowledge of products, prices. Customers shopping online have faster access to information about products including promotions and deals. Sites such as Amazon also provide intelligent recommendations based on user behavior. In order to compete with online stores, conventional retail stores need to provide comparable services and easy access to information to shoppers. Deals and information about products must be easily available to the retail store shopper. New forms of customer engagement that provide insights into needs, preferences and behavior of the shopper while in the store would allow retail stores to customize the shopping experience.

The ZThru value proposition for retailers:

1. Increase the basket size

2. Improve sales conversion rates

3. Improve customer shopping experience – better customer engagement

4. Customer analytics data

Value proposition for shoppers:

1. Save time

2. Save money

January 28^, 2013

I met our lawyer in the morning and handed over our patent prosecution files. I made use of the opportunity to do a customer interview. She said she would certainly use a product navigation application. She visits Home Depot frequently and often finds it difficult to locate what she wants. I have always thought that lawyers would potentially be good advocates for this product – they think of billable hours.

Talking about lawyers, a former colleague of mine at RIM (now BlackBerry) said she would have privacy concerns in using ZipThru as a shopper. Something to think about. Perhaps, sufficient measures to safeguard privacy may be required to convince some shoppers to adopt the technology.

January 27, 2013

Pengfei and I carried out step 1 of our indoor-positioning tests today. The process is time-consuming and there is a learning curve. We have obtained some preliminary measurements and a better knowledge of deployment considerations. Not a great way to spend a Sunday, but the excitement was not missing.

January 25, 2013

Customer discovery

Our customer segments: retailers, product vendors, advertising agencies and the shopper. We expect the list to narrow down as the customer discovery progresses. Advertising agencies is an interesting addition to our list of customer segments. It was suggested to us by Brad Wheeler of UILO. It appears that product vendors hire ad agencies to determine their ad strategy – i.e. which mediums to use and how much. Something to explore.

After our meeting, I set out to meet our potential customers.

1. Dan, Store manager, SuperStore Richmond – response was positive

Armed with a mini-whiteboard, I stepped into SuperStore Richmond to meet the store manager. Fortunately, the store manager was available for a brief discussion. I explained our product quickly within a minute or two. He was interested in the product and thought that such a system would be quite useful, if deployed in his store.  He also seemed interested in using the application as a shopper. I managed to get the contacts of the District Manager for Loblaws, who appears to be a decision maker.

2. Jason, Memory Express – very positive

Memory Express is a small electronics chain – they have 10 stores, half of which are in Alberta. This is a relatively small company and the key decision makers are apparently two individuals.

I spoke to Jason, the store manager who was enthusiastic about both the navigation and product advertising aspects of the application. We discussed the product for about half-an-hour. He enquired about the cost of deploying the service, when I asked him if he would recommend deploying our solution. He has promised to discuss the matter with the decision makers.

From the end-user perspective, he said he would use the application. Jason also suggested contacting Fry’s, a large electronics retailer in the U.S.

3. Later in the afternoon, I met John and Vahag, two salesmen at Futureshop. John would not comment on ZipThru due to company policy. Vahag seemed interested and said that he would use the application, if it was free. However, both the individuals are not decision makers. We will have to contact the Futureshop head office in Burnaby. That is going to be high on our list.

January 25, 2013

Today, we had a detailed discussion about our action plan and priorities. The action plan the next week (January 28^th – Feb 2^nd) is as follows:

1. Know the customer

– understand the workflow and buying process of the customer

– needs of the customer

– is the customer interested in the product?

– How much will they pay?

– will they allow network deployment inside the store?

2. Identify the customer segments

3. Meet with our mentor from LightHaus.

4. Test accuracy of the indoor positioning system

5.  Arrange for patent prosecution.