Reopener

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Inspiration

Do we need to have layoffs? Are these federal loans enough? What will we do if our customers decrease after we reopen? These are the questions small business owners are asking themselves throughout the country.

We wanted to:

Create a platform that addresses this issue
Aide small business owners to make the most calculated decision of whether of not they should open their business
Give the community information on small businesses that have opened up

What it does

A searcher for people to support their local businesses as they reopen with clear and updated COVID information. An average 31% expect their businesses would take more than 6 months to recover, so we need to support especially those heavily impacted by the lockdown, namely restaurants, retail, bars, wineries/breweries, food/beverage, beauty, and healthcare.

How we built it

First, we drew the user flow and app design on Figma. Then, for the frontend, we used React Hooks to implements the different pages. Also, we used React Router to navigate pages. For the backend we used Flask for our server, MongoDB for the database, and Pymongo.

Challenges we ran into

Linking our flask server to the MongoDB database was a major challenge since it was the first time we all dealt with Flask and first time working with MongoDB for the majority of the group. Another major challenge we had was to implement our data analytics portion of the application.

Our goal was to scrape data from a variety of reliable sources (research papers, news articles, etc) and then design an algorithm that would help stores determined if it makes sense for them to currently open up. None of us had experience in data science so this portion raised many difficulties.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite, all of our challenges, we had many accomplishments that we were proud of. Firstly, we were proud of the fact that we made a product that aides people in need (small businesses). Another proud accomplishment we had was how much we learned in a span of 24 hours. For most of us, it was our first hackathon so we not only had to learn brand new languages, but also learn the process of hackathons from forming teams to submitting on devpost. Finally, we are proud of having great team meetings and making clear of each person's expertise.

What we learned

While there is so much we learned from participating in this hackathon, one of the main concepts we learned was what the frontend and backend really were and how they related. We also took this opportunity to learn how to be better overall programmers by learning by doing, getting stuck/developing problem solving skills, and asking for help when struggling(super important!). Finally, we learned how to create an MVP out of an idea by working on the most essential elements of an idea.

What's next for ReOpener

Our next main goal is to develop the data analytics portion. We want to be able to scrape data, and give business owners recommendation on whether or not they should open their business. Also, we want to take this and test it out in the real world. We want to be able to take it to actual business owners and listen to their feedback.