Dream and Hustle

Defining Requirements and Prototyping QR Code Shopping Like You from the West Side of Chicago

We spoke about the QR Shopping system as one of the patterns and practices from Asia that we brothas and sistas should look at to apply to our own side hustle. We then realize brothas and sistas out there reading Dream and Hustle just skimming these articles without going deep into the content. So we broke down one of the aspects which is the QR shopping system that we spoke of. Now in this article, we are going to take the first step to making it happen.

There is nothing I’m saying or doing in this article that is new – everything I’m talking about, we discussed on Dream and Hustle, but cats wasn’t listening. There are steps you should have to take whenever you see a hustle out there and that is learn how to define requirements and create prototypes. This is a very important part of the hustle that Black people over and over like to leave out and get mad when they fail or f*ck up their hustle.

I’ve seen it 100% of the time from cats contacting me about the IPTV to mobile money to the GeoAirport hustle where cats really think all they need is the software code from Ed Dunn that works and they going to just hustle the “looking professional” part. I blame that bullsh*t mentality on Black Enterprise magazine where Black Enterprise seem to love showing this portrayal of business Negroes smiling instead of brothas and sistas doing the real work of hustling to make something real out of their dreams.

I mean this from a real talk perspective – learn the technical part of the hustle the same way street cats know how to test the product, cook the product and chop up the product and distribute the product. All of that is technical and you got cornball brothas and sistas out there want to front the street corner lifestyle, we got these cornballs wanting to front the Black technology entrepreneurial lifestyle. Don’t be like these other cats which and this is why I want you to understand the requirements and prototyping.

Because once you know how to define the requirements and understand the technology, then you smart enough to add your own features and improve the hustle to grow the way you want to. You don’t know how many whack Black tech cornballs out there that try to get some white-label software download and claim it as their business model but can’t grow no faster than that white-label BS they bought expecting it to make them millions and millions, with their dumbass.

Defining the Requirements Using Mind Mapping

I started with a free download called FreeMind to do the mind-mapping diagram. Many people recognize this diagram as the brainstorming diagram back in the day. The first nodes from the center are usually the nouns/objects I discover in the hustle and the second nodes are the attributes or things these noun/objects are about, also called attributes.

This is where you throw everything you can think of in the mind map and give yourself at least 30 minutes to get it done. Remember that mind maps are not only good for software development, but you can use this same technique to organize your life and put everything in perspective.

Define the Features

Now that I got all that information in the mind map, the next step is to write down a list of features from that mind map as my marching orders.

QR Poster. Display Store Name at top with a Directive to Scan for Deals. Show each product below in an listing type fashion or grouping. Each product has a photograph, product title, suggested retail price, our price and show the discount savings. A QR Code will be there to scan and also displayed transaction powered by Paypal.

Web Site. Enter the products from the web hosting database, just have a clean simple display with a buy with PayPal button. Show the store name, title, price, photograph, form to enter quantity and show inventory of items left. Show product information showing the description and show order detail that give instructions on how to pick up from store or have the product ship to their home.

Backend Processing. Paypal will send the confirmation to our web site page and we will save this data to the database. We will have a generic page but have a process that clean out the raw data sent to us from PayPal to confirm that someone made a purchase. Send a text message to the mobile phone to let us know in real-time money was made.

Fulfillment. Paypal should have the person shipping address stored. We sent to that address and use UPS or FedEx to get a signature of the item to avoid any trouble. If they coming to pick up from a store, we can sent a QR code to the customer smartphone containing the unique transaction code that we can use to scan in the order. We probably can text them a passcode as another form of authentication or ask for a photograph id.

Start Prototyping

When I mean start prototyping, that means start creating the basic bare bone functionality with a mock-up design. This is where Black people always mess up in their hustle because they act like they have too much pride or got no time to do prototyping. By creating a mock-up design, this allow us to fine-tune the end product and the interactivity very fast before polishing up the product.

As you see in the image above, we already there and make very advance progress on the QR shopping application while other Black tech bloggers continue to talk worthless ish. So you already know we will have this project wrapped up very soon. And that will be the next installment – a working example on our $5 GoDaddy account using this blog as the virtual QR code shopping wall.