What's this? An ordinary vending machine you say? If that was your guess, it would be a mistake, but it would be understandable why you might not notice anything special. That's because, on the outside, this looks like any other vending machine plain-Jane. No screens or touch in special areas or NFC chips or anything like that grace its exterior, however, this machine can accept mobile payments for PayPal or Google Wallet.
How? Well, it has a special device in it - designed and developed by Red Like Us Keyston Ray Hernandez and Clay - which connects to the existing hardware inside and communicates wirelessly to accept payment and add credit and PayPal Google Wallet. Platforms Other payments are being planned right now.
Using either an application for smartphones that developed or mobile website (in order to identify a vending machine ID and to close the transaction cycle) credit is added to the machine when authorized. Pow! Their drink is out like a slipped a crisp dollar bill (or conversely as you fought for more than 3 minutes trying to deploy a bill that could be mistaken for a Spitwad).
Out of the transactional nature of the payment process, there is also a built-fi game. The application can also tabular loyalty points for sharing your purchase and trackable perform other activities. In one scenario, the team is investigating the product price variable depending on the influential status of the buyer. For example, someone with a high Klout score might get an item at a reduced price or even free if they agree to broadcast your purchase. They are even considering geo-fencing some vending units to broadcast your location to impulse purchases. Very clever.
There have been many concepts in recent years, especially international, who have tried and deploy the capabilities of alternative payment for vending machines, but many have required new hardware interfaces, changes or payment methods are agnostic and can add a considerable expenditure of capital deployment. That kind of spending is notorious for delayed roll growth and stifle innovation.
But the beauty of the network approach Like Us is that it is plug and play. You drop your little wireless node in the vending machine, connect it to the motherboard chip old school inside and mobile payments are enabled. No external alterations to the machine itself are required.
monetization
Obviously, it could be difficult to make items for sale, but the team is considering some options. They are investigating a convenience fee for consumers or possibly data rates to owners of vending their cloud node capacity.
What comes to mind as a viable option for monetizing would simply accept a reduction (and only) purchases where payment is facilitated by the system. I mean, that the purchase could not have happened otherwise so the court could be justified.
Overall, I think the concept is a great idea, but who cares what I think? What I really want to know is "what Mark Cuban thinks about it?" As it turns out, actually has an opinion about it and, in fact, is an investor. Mark has spent $ 75,000 so far on the device Like Us Network.
How Mark Cuban got to participate as an investor is an interesting story in itself. Mark and Ray Hernandez met during a freak accident at a gym where a man who had resolved an "event" of pacemakers and fell off a treadmill. Both Cuban and Hernandez and some other good friends, got the help of man, and then the conversation took place and the concept is on the radar of Mark. He advised Ray and Keyston and now we're here at the launch of the concept in TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013.
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