Getting into the grocery store with Aislefinder

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When Curtiss Pope, CEO of Aislefinder, first pitched me a web service that lets me know what aisle the diapers are on at my local Safeway I asked myself “why do I need that?” But then I remembered all the time I wasted walking around looking for something weird, like Taragon, or tomato paste or something like that. Here he shows me how it works and we brainstorm about what else this data could be used for.

One nice thing is he didn’t try to build a bunch of apps for each mobile phone. Since the service is pretty simple it only needs to be done as a web service. Nice to see that new companies aren’t feeling pressured to build a mobile app just for apps sake.

Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

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6 thoughts on “Getting into the grocery store with Aislefinder”

  1. I disagree with them making it a web service. What if I’m at some supermarket in a low-pop region that gets splotchy coverage? A dedicated app with the ability to save data would really help out.

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    1. James – One thing I see a good deal of web app developers do is utilize the HTML5 “manifest” attribute for offline caching of content. That way, you get the best of both worlds – flexibility of the web and portability of native. Kind of like the old Google Gears but better and part of a (soon to be) standard.

      There’s nothing easy about what Curtiss is up to or it would have been done by now.

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  3. The biggest problem I see with supermarkets is very low signal strength. This is why ShopKick uses custom hardware in-store to interact with the app.

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