Nyfty Delivery Website and Apps

Nyfty was an on-demand delivery startup that I founded and managed starting in 2014. It had a mission of helping local businesses and did so by allowing customers to request deliveries from any local store. On-demand shoppers would then travel to those stores before purchasing and delivering the order to the customer.

The service primarily served the triangle region of North Carolina. At the time, this was unique to the area. Certain services offered food delivery for select restaurants, but no company provided delivery for all stores. This allowed customers to choose local for any purchase, not just select restaurants.

Although the company ultimately stopped operations in 2019, it remains the project I am most proud of. It was an enormous operation, and we were able to build something really amazing in the process. The business didn’t work in the end, but I remain impressed by what our small talented team could create with limited resources.

Responsibilities

As the head of the small company, I was personally responsible for a lot of the work. For projects or domains where I didn’t personally have the necessary expertise or the resources, I hired and managed teams for the work. For the 6 years we were in business, I entirely – or at some point – was hands-on personally responsible for the following.

• Technical design of the system / third party API integrations
• Coordinating different software engineering teams across front-end, back-end, and Android development
• iOS development
• UX / UI design of the platform
• Branding, marketing, and advertising
  (detailed more thoroughly here on the Bateman Agency website)
• Managing and filing necessary legal paperwork
• Organizing finances and filing taxes

System Design

The platform consisted of a custom back-end hosted on AWS, a website for customers to place orders, and 2 mobile applications for delivery drivers (branded as “Pilots”) to fulfill orders.

The website was designed for customer use. It allowed customers to find a store, browse that store’s listed items, and submit orders for delivery. Customers could also create custom orders either for stores not listed in search results or for items not listed on a particular store. The search page integrated a live map search, which utilized the Google Maps API. After crafting an order, customers would proceed through the checkout process, which was integrated with the Stripe API. The website additionally integrated with the Twilio API to automate sending customers text messages for account validation. For customer support, we also added functionality with Chatra to allow customers to chat live with members of the team. We also built a separate support portal for the company that provided answers to FAQs, guides for effectively managing storefronts, and a support ticketing system.

Most of the system logic was server-side with an internal API helping coordinate and sync the website with the iOS and Android apps.

The apps’ primary functions were to –

• Onboard drivers
• Set shopping budgets or update Nyfty Pay card balances via Pex API (detailed below)
• Accept / decline orders
• Navigate to store and customer with Google Maps integration
• Order management (shopping checklist, item details, etc.)

Store Data Scraping / Validation

Data for the site was gathered through a combination of manual user entry and scraping the web to either gather new data or validate existing data.

Since the service was limited to a small area, the number of stores inside the delivery area was limited. This made it feasible to manually enter and validate many of the most popular stores. Contractors were hired to manually research businesses and input data about the stores and their product offerings. A custom dashboard was developed for them to input their findings, which is shown below.

We also developed scripts that analyzed various websites and data sources to gather up-to-date store data (address, hours, etc.) and product listings / pricing where possible. This allowed us to validate manually-entered data and update data as store information changed over time.

Nyfty Pay

The platform integrated with PEX to allow delivery drivers to purchase orders with company money rather than paying out of pocket and being reimbursed. These reloadable debit cards, branded as “Nyfty Pay,” allowed drivers to deliver as many orders as they wanted, not just what their cash flow would allow.

Once a driver was onboarded and approved with Nyfty, a personalized PEX card was created and mailed to them. We created custom mailers and envelopes to ship the cards in. Each mailer had a custom reflection graphic and drop shadow where the PEX card was adhered. This is shown below. In the photos, you can see the printed reflection of the card customized to include the actual cardholder name. And the printed shadow matched where the card was mounted. A second image also illustrates how this looks when the card is removed, better showing the effect with the card out of place.

These cards were integrated into the Nyfty system using the PEX API. We developed a flow where a driver’s card would be immediately loaded with the appropriate amount of money after they accepted an order. This included a buffer amount to allow orders to be completed even if the estimated prices were slightly off. The driver would then purchase the order, and as soon as the order was delivered, their card would be wiped back empty to avoid additional purchases.

UI / UX Design

Along with one other designer, I designed all of the interfaces for both the website and applications. This process generally began with wireframes to roughly flow through the user’s interactions. After the flow was defined, we would progress to high-fidelity mock ups with design considerations made down to the pixel-by-pixel level. And these mockups would then be assembled into clickable prototypes to evaluate the hands-on usability of the design. After a design was finalized, final specs would be created that detailed every element’s exact measurements and attributes. And any necessary assets would be properly exported and collected for developers to use.

Languages

HTML/CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Java, Swift

Technology

Web Development, iOS Development, System Design, Software Engineer Managing, UI/UX Design