By:
Brian Malina |
October 4th, 2019
Nemi Shah's new app aims to help small businesses adapt to cashless transactions
Stop in any Starbucks or McDonalds and you’ll see the signs by the credit card reader: Google Pay accepted here, Apple Pay accepted, or tap to pay.
Visit a vendor at a farmers market and you’ll find many accept credit or debit cards using an attachment on their smartphone from Square or Clover.
The mobile payment world is a crowded marketplace, but Nemi Shah, a computer science student at the Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC), sees a still-growing ecosystem and an unmet opportunity for some businesses – specifically small business owners in the service industry who still rely on cash transactions, such as New York City food cart vendors.
His solution – PiipPay.
Piip is similar to PayPal or a cash app in that a consumer would link a bank account to the app to make payments.
But it’s different in two primary ways.
One, it’s a QR code-based app. A cash-based small business such as a food cart owner would get a QR sticker, attach it to their cart, and a customer could simply scan with their phone to pay. There is no need for any additional accessories.
But the big difference between Piip and its competitors is the bottom line. Its cost to vendors is only 1.5% per transaction.
That’s about half the cost of the competition.
So far, Shah has 30 vendors signed on for the initial test launch set for next month. All the vendors are located near NJIT in Newark or Columbia University in New York City.
Shah believes a university campus is the perfect spot to test market or launch a product because students are often early adopters of technology and willing to try new things.
Necessity Sparks Invention
The idea for Piip was sparked by a very simple, but real need. Shah and his Piip business partner, Michael Nguyen, were hanging out in New York and spotted a food cart. Nguyen was hungry, but like many college students he had no cash on hand.
From that hunger, the idea for Piip was born. “It fills a need. A lot of vendors accept mobile payments, but a lot of small businesses have been left out, the bodegas, the street carts who cannot afford the costly transaction fees. Piip fills that need,” Shah said.
And why name the app Piip? The name comes from a character in the popular Pokémon series.He also has come up with a catchy tagline for the product: No cash, no problem, just Piip it.”
Shah said he was already actively working on Piip when he signed on to take his capstone course requirement at NJIT.
The capstone course is a project-based learning experience where students work in multi-disciplinary teams to address a real-world problem faced by a company, government agency or non-profit. It’s a required course for all students in the College of Computing.
In addition to offering students the opportunity to work with an outside company, the capstone also offers an entrepreneurial track – called Capstone eTeams — where students can bring their own idea and team up with classmates to develop it and test its commercial value.
That’s the option Shah chose.
Suresh Kumar, professor of practice and director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship programs at NJIT’s YWCC and director of its Innovation and Entrepreneurship program, is the supervisor of these projects. He said that Shah’s project was one of 16 student eTeams that he supervised in the spring 2019 semester.
Kumar said of the 16 projects, about half were really good ideas and that Shah’s was one that had an excellent potential for commercialization.
“Shah’s venture stands an excellent chance to succeed. Beyond that, my philosophy based on 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur, is to back the jockey (the entrepreneur), not necessarily the horse (the technology or product),” Kumar stated. “There are some students who are very committed to an idea, it might not be the perfect one, but they have the capacity to launch, learn and improve it. Even if Shah’s venture does not succeed initially, he will persist and find a way to make it happen. That is the essence of a good entrepreneur.”
Kumar said Shah has the drive to make his idea a success, juggling a full-time job as a database administrator at Columbia University with his studies at NJIT and his startup.
An entrepreneurial mindset and the ability to conceive, create and sell an idea or a product is an important and practical skill that students will need once they enter the working world.
“We are rapidly moving from a nine-to-five economy to a gig economy,” Kumar said. “An entrepreneurial spirit is needed to be successful in that world. You should be able to move fast, make quick decisions, be comfortable with taking risks and develop the ability to sell your skills, services or idea.”
Nemi Shah and his idea illustrates the College of Computing’s strategy of providing more support for student entrepreneurship within the college. In addition to Professor Kumar and Dean Craig Gotsman, the Capstone eTeams are advised by Professor Osama Eljabiri, director of the capstone course; Simon Nynens, chief commercial officer, NJIT; Sean Andrews, director of research, YWCC; William Lutz, director of VentureLink; and several industry professionals.