Reinventing the wheel, knowingly

The research lands where nobody wants it to: a deep search on the competition shows the restaurant-menu idea is, “de cierta manera”, reinventing the wheel ▸ 4:39. Loggro, Restobar, Sigo POS, Gastrobar, Fudo: complete suites with cloud POS, DIAN invoicing, inventory, kitchen display systems, Rappi and Didi integrations, monthly subscriptions ▸ 4:53, some already phone-first, which was supposed to be their innovation ▸ 6:05.

Two responses share the entry. His: find the disruptive-but-easy thing incumbents don’t do, and his sketch is a mic on the waiter with an AI structuring the table’s conversation in the background, orders, preferences, the dog named Trosky, the birthday on the 17th, the CRM writing itself while the human just talks ▸ 6:52. Julia’s is the sober half: “no necesitamos reinventar la rueda, pero copiar lo que ya está bueno y mejorar lo que puede ser mejorado” ▸ 9:17. The distribution wedge they agree on: build the self-serve kind of product, register yourself, digitize your own menu, promoted on social instead of sold door to door ▸ 8:06.

la rueda ya existe; lo vendible es el radio que a la rueda le falta →

The design conversation that follows is the diary at its best, arguing itself to a finer spec. Julia’s Crepes & Waffles pain inventory: queuing with no menu to read, ten minutes to flag a waiter in a full house, ten more to chase the check ▸ 10:13, against Brazil’s Burger King “corta a fila”, order and pay from your phone and watch your name jump the line ▸ 11:36. Then his own counterweight: part of the charm of a family restaurant is the lingering, so a fully automated table would be uncanny ▸ 14:08, and Julia resolves it cleanly, cut the dead minutes, not the visit, mostly at peak hours ▸ 17:30. The open risk gets said out loud: maybe the digital menu is the extra and not the core ▸ 19:26, so next comes mining restaurant subreddits for the pains they haven’t heard yet ▸ 18:53…