One Friday evening, on pre-covid good old days, me and my friends went to a very busy fine dine restaurant in HSR Layout, Bangalore. There was a crowd in front of the restaurant, and two muscular men stood with a notepad, I gave my name and contact number, and we chilled around, occasionally pushing through the crowd to ask if our turn was up.
Later in the office, there was a free help checkup for all employees, and I went multiple times, only to come back because there was a big queue. Once the lockdown was announced, unable to go outside and chill our weekends, we saw on the TV or when we stepped outside were long queues.
These few things made me think if there is some generic problem here that we could use technology to solve. Thus was born the idea of Simpl-Q (Simple Queue), a "generic" virtual crowd management website.
The idea was very simple. Instead of waiting in a queue, enter a link or scan a QR and wait using your smartphone. A virtual waiting room.
- No standing in an unfair physical queue
- No wondering if your turn is approaching.
- Crowded businesses can use the system to make the customer waiting experience more delightful.
I worked on a basic prototype, iterated over it a couple of times (more on that, and some learnings here), and we have a fully working MVP now: http://simplq.me/
SimplQ is not a startup. It is just an idea and a MVP as of now. Honestly, it's more of a hobby project / experiment than a startup idea. We have no plans to monetize it. Our code is open source, we have around 30 active collaborators from around the globe who have contributed to the project.
I am currently thinking of making an android app that would listen in to events on the queue that the user created (here), and send out SMS in the background to the people when they join the queue. Otherwise thinking of how to market the app and get some real users.
Thoughts? Looking for any feedback, ideas, or any advice. Thanks.
Top comments (4)
You may already have this feature. Make sure people actually have to present themselves in person to join the queue. As in, I can't get in line at a restaurant if I have not actually come to the restaurant.
At least have that be an option.
This is in my roadmap. Will implement it over time. Thank you.
Beautiful web app.
Thanks