He tried distributing prepaid cards to his drivers, which solved the problem of freezes, but presented a whole new batch of headaches. So, Daniel started researching his options. That proved to be a major headache – it would take a few hours to get the bank to unfreeze the card, and in that time, they weren’t able to make deliveries for restaurants they didn’t have partnerships with. “But, the bank kept shutting us down for too many transactions,” he said.
Can bento 4 software be used without contacting the vendor drivers#
When Santa Cruz Deliveries started, drivers used a normal bank card.
For everyone else, he needed a way for his drivers to pay for food when they picked it up. For restaurants that had partnered with them, customers could pay directly through the app. One problem he knew he needed to solve was handling payments. I get curious about something, I research online and I figure it out.”
In Daniel’s view, the goal was not to launch a perfect platform, but instead, to figure out as fast as possible whether his idea for a Santa Cruz-based food delivery business could work.Īnd, how did he find the software he used? “We had six restaurants when we launched, with just six menus.” “We used existing software to get started,” he said.
Some aspiring business owners would spend months building the right platform and getting enough restaurants on board. He took informal surveys of his riders, asking how much they’d be willing to pay for food delivery.Īnd, then came the aha moment: he could be the one to launch a food delivery business. As he drove the residents of Santa Cruz, he had conversations with them about the lack of food delivery options. While he was a student, he drove for Uber and Lyft to keep up a flow of income with a flexible schedule. Then, he decided to return to school, this time to study business. He took culinary classes in college and worked as a sushi chef for a while. His business idea made a lot of sense and ended up working out very well for him.īut, behind Daniel’s ability to see the problem of insufficient food delivery options (in a college town, no less!) was his unique background.įirst of all, he’d worked in the restaurant industry for seven years, starting as a dishwasher and eventually running a kitchen. Daniel saw that his hometown, Santa Cruz, Calif., didn’t have many food delivery options, such as Doordash and Postmates, beyond local pizza delivery. He also advised starting with what you know: your community and the problems you see there. A lot of people keep postponing it – they say it’s not right yet it’s not the right time. When we asked Daniel for his advice to other people thinking of starting a business, he said, “Just go for it. We sat down with Daniel to learn how he started his business and how he solved one of his biggest pain points of managing employees’ expenses with Bento for Business. He holds a BFA in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design and is an adjunct professor in the interaction design department at the California College of the Arts.Whether he realized it or not, Daniel Hernandez spent most of his life preparing to launch his current business, Santa Cruz Deliveries, which he co-owns with his brother Gerardo and his friend Annie. Michael was the recipient of the UNESCO Design for Rehabilitation Award and has lectured, written, and taught on the subject of design. Michael spent four years in the San Francisco and New York offices of Frogdesign as executive producer and general manager. Michael was the global creative director of web and brand at the educational toy company, LeapFrog Enterprises, where he led brand and user experience design. Michael also previously served as vice president of design at Shopkick, a mobile loyalty platform chief creative officer for Fingerprint, a gaming platform and vice president of product for the Alsop-Louie portfolio company, Kidlandia. Prior to joining Khan Academy, Michael served as the vice president of design and user experience at NerdWallet, where he led a team of designers, researchers, and writers across product design, research, and brand toward solutions that enabled consumers to make financial decisions with confidence.
Michael Chanover is the vice president of design. Michael Chanover Vice President of Design