We started behind the counter.
Canter comes out of building Nightcap, point-of-sale and delivery technology for independent liquor and convenience stores. Doing that work kept showing us the same thing: the shelf is real, the demand is real, and the internet can barely see either.
A big idea with a small, practical start.
We believe the physical economy should be as accessible to software as the digital one. That’s a long way off, and it won’t happen because of a slide.
It starts with a device on a counter in a store whose owner has a dozen other things to do. It has to be easy to install, hard to break, and worth keeping. Then it has to happen again in the store down the street.
Nightcap carries on as a point-of-sale product. Canter is the network, and it’s being built for every store, whatever register it runs.
The four things we have to get right.
1Never break a register.
Our hardware sits next to the thing a store can’t work without. A store forgives a lot, but not a checkout that stops on a Friday night.
2Understand sales from messy data.
Scans get voided. Barcodes lose digits. Every register prints its receipts its own way. The value is in turning that mess into something honest.
3Keep stores plugged in.
A connection only counts if it’s still there in six months. It has to keep earning its place on the counter, and we have to notice the day it doesn’t.
4Make one connection useful to many.
If only one party ever benefits from a connected store, this is a feature. If several do, it’s a network.
None of these is solved. We’re saying so because anyone worth working with would ask.
Talk to us