First time posting, so go easy me... :-)
I made a tool you can use when you try to onboard a Square merchant. I struck out this week onboarding two guys at the coffee shop - the owner and the main barista - who I know by name, who I've been talking to since Nov. No go.
I decided that the next time I try to onboard a merchant I needed to be able to quickly show them the savings if they turn on the bitcoin option.
It shows them what they save in fees on your purchase, and what that adds up to over a year if you come in monthly, weekly, 2x/week, or daily.
If they’re interested after they see the math, you toggle to a QR code they can scan to learn more.
App - https://orangedaddocs.github.io/square-bitcoin-savings-calculator/
Please offer any advice on how to make it better, or fork it on GitHub and make a better version
https://github.com/orangedaddocs/square-bitcoin-savings-calculator
Can you add a slider/toggle for number of customers per day? Like I want to see if I have 10 people per day come that pay with bitcoin, what is the difference per year?
Fantastic idea. Yes! I'll get that done. I do like the UI right now, but I think I know where I'll put that. I'll have it so when you scroll on your phone, it's below the QR code.
If you haven't used it, I think what's hard to understand is that the idea is to hook them with the fee savings, then toggle to the QR code so they can scan it and read it on their phone. I think the obvious place is beneath that. If you can open the app on your phone, I'd love to know what you think. Really appreciate the feedback here.
Also, how does this work? Can I zap you back for a good question? On Nostr, that's what I would do right now.
I think the business doesn't really care if single customer comes multiple times per month, but rather how many total customers they get per month. The fee saving is the clear story and I think it's good to give the merchant some good way to estimate the total (3 numbers - amazing estimate, realistic estimate and low estimate). Especially if they would market it to clients.
Yes, zapping back for whenever the content provided value to you is a good idea. People generally zap more sats here than on nostr.
Done. 😀
I set the default to what felt like the fewest customers at a reasonable purchase size: $13 and 7 people per day. That gets the merchant above the $1,000 mark.
The the math you secreenshoted above was good too, but this one dials it back and shows how a merchant can realistically get to $1,000 or more in saved fees. On their side, that is a real number. Four digits gets attention.
This has been great to build and talk through with people here.
To be clear, I know there are tradeoffs with trying to do this through Square. Obviously there is the KYC aspect, and this is completely different from me buying the bison ribeye I ate last night over Lightning. I prefer that.
But the flip side is that everyone starts somewhere.
In my own journey, I owned the ETF, then I ran a node, and now I’m putting together my signing devices. I don’t think we should automatically discredit the newbie or the normie who just wants to save some fees in their business. And I'm not sure that isn't one of the most important people to orange pill.The small business owner.
For the guy at the farmers market I just bought pasta from, I think I have a much better chance of going back next week while he’s packing up and showing him how I could pay with Bitcoin.
And honestly, an important part of that interaction was that I had two bags of pasta in my hand when I asked if I could come back next week. He's open to it.
That is a completely different situation than walking up empty-handed and saying, “Turn this on.”
But yes, P2P with two Phoenix wallets is the goal.
Anyway, enough of me. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.
https://orangedaddocs.github.io/square-bitcoin-savings-calculator/#/
Great! Now it's very visual and easy to work with! Do you plan to put it on a simpler domain? savewithsquare.io or something like that...
Another thing that you could consider is to print little cards with the different example calculations and you can then just hand these over to the merchant to check out :)
I've been working seven days a week for months and launching a new business in July. I'm sitting at my desk now and working.
As much as it's been enjoyable to build this while Codex works on the new business, I need to keep some things simple, like just using that GitHub URL for now. My thought is that if I build something like this and it really catches on and people use it, I'm happy to clean it up later this summer. It's definitely functional now. Also, I don't really want another URL to manage. The GitHub URL is really handy.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate the feedback, because this was something it absolutely needed, and it's much more functional. Two guiding principles in my life are simple and useful, and I do think this is both of those things.
Again, thanks for helping out.
Here you go: v1.1
https://orangedaddocs.github.io/square-bitcoin-savings-calculator/#/
I fiddled with the math so that the savings per month was neat, but I don't think this is a completely unrealistic outcome a year or two from now.Although the calculator takes into account how many months are left in 2026 when the fee is 0% and then when it transitions to 1% in 2027
Solid! Thank you. That's actually where the math starts being interesting for the business and it shows that they should actually market it to their customers. My suggestion would be that you even default to showing something like this.
sorry but that is converting a merchant in a even more ferocious fiat maxi....
How many times we have to say it?!
BITCOIN IS TO FUCK BANKS AND GOVS, NOT TO GET RICH IN FIAT.
Point taken.
As a small business owner I calculate what I pay in credit card fees in January for the previous year, and I get pissed off. That, coupled with being pissed every time I have to send a wire, is part of my pleb journey. Every wire I've sent since I've run a node has made me angry - it's a scam.
So I think a farmers market stand merchant - most of whom use Square - or a coffee shop owner behind the counter, are a bit closer to where you are than it might first appear because they feel like they're being taken advantage of.
But yes, maybe my energy is misguided - I'm open to your critique.
Bitcoin is money. I feed my kids with beef I bought with sats, I cut veggies for that meal on a cutting board I bought with sats. Now I want to enjoy an overpriced coffee and burrito I buy with stats.
And yes, I reject the idea that bitcoin is for everyone.
A farmer stand market don't even need to use Square. That is misleading them.
They just need a fucking LN wallet, that's all.
With 0% transaction fees I am surprised that more merchants are not pushing customers towards bitcoin. Especially if they can just convert it straight to USD.
How hard are Square communicating this to their customer base? As the incentives from their perspective are broken.
I think there's more of a stigma than you might expect.
I'm almost positive that the hipster coffee shop I was trying to onboard, the owner who's behind the counter (who I know by name and have a great relationship with), doesn't want to be known as the Bitcoin coffee shop. All the 25- to 35-year-olds in the coffee shop think it's a Trump scam.
I could be wrong, but I really think that's part of what's going on. In the city I'm in, some people are having better luck onboarding small business owners in the suburbs. I am forced to live closer to downtown, where it's deeper blue, and younger, so I do think that's some of what's going on.
yeah I sense this stigma as well. I do feel that the potential to save thousands of $ should overcome this with time. Education is the key as has always been the case.
Dopeski
Great first post! Keep 'em coming.
Thanks! Glad to be here!
Have you been lurking or did you just find Stacker News?
I'm active on nostr - orangedad85@happytavern.co - and I follow Stacker News there, and click on a post most days. I hope it was okay to post this. I think it's useful - it works - and I think it's harder than Square makes it sound to onboard people.
Thanks for saying hi!
And yeah, I didn't know what Stacker News was a few months ago. Still relatively new to bitcion. Tomorrow is my "satsbirthday" - bought my first sats June 2024.
Calculations are very realistic.
Another great marketing tool to educate SMBs. Most of them take card fees for granted, they don't know there's an alternative. I'll use this myself, thank you 🙏
Adding this to my bookmarks for our upcoming TM7's ~AGORA Marketplace update
Alright! So glad you're going to use this!
Nice 🙂
Thank you!
Great tool! I built a similar one for Bitcoin paper wallets - generates private keys (HEX+WIF), compressed/uncompressed public keys, P2PKH addresses, and vanity prefixes. All pure Python stdlib. Available for custom Bitcoin scripting at 5000 sats. ⚡ mailto:user593174@coinos.io