We have the opportunity to build an app for a client similar to Cover and Dash... @aac@dashjeff POS integration seems to be a challenge for the business model. Do either of you have experience with the http://www.ethor.com/ API ?
@megerman@aac you know you guys didn't invent the concept of paying at restaurants with your phone. what benefit does it do for cover when both of it's founders show such a lack of humility and willingness to compete.
I was helping a friend build the tech for Tab (no longer with Tab). (He and friends went to NY to inspect Cover on their own accord. I found this part to be lame.) The tech of Tab is robust and I'm pretty proud of having built the tech behind it. That being said, I can promise you that the operations side is not something that can be "copied". It takes much more than building a solid tech and product.
You probably know a bunch of folks in the startup scene but stepping on others to try to make yourself look like you pioneered mobile restaurant payments isn't cool. I've spoken with Andrew Parker from a while back and he seems like a super humble guy and he had nice things to say about you guys as well. I'm sure you guys are really nice people and have built a neat product! But calling everyone doing restaurant payments a "copy-cat" is a little childish. Call them out on their business model, distribution, growth, etc. Wish you both, Cover and Dash (@dashjeff), best of luck.
@rrhoover I could list out a bunch of reasons why one platform is better or worse than another, but it wouldn’t mean much coming from me. The truth is that Dash and Cover solve similar problems, in different ways, for different types of restaurants. Let the best man win.
@rrhoover Any good idea has fast-followers. Despite cribbing a tagline or two, there are much worse copy-cats who straight-up lifted a lot more from us.
@megerman@dashjeff it's interesting to see entrepreneurs converge on the same idea or market around the same time. Competition is a good thing for consumers and often for founders -- it helps validate their business and educate the market.
Dash Vs Cover could be similar to Mastercard Vs Visa, where users don't care much for the difference as long as one of them is accepted at the restaurant they visit. I haven't been able to try either since I don't live in NYC, so I can't comment on user experience. But if it comes down to a choice between the two, I would pick the one which has a venue list that fits my taste and doesn't need much input from me like Uber's app. It looks like right now the answer is Cover.
Stark