The challenge

A Palo Alto, CA venture-backed startup was developing a first-of-its-kind IoT platform for in-store retail audio advertising — a directional speaker system that uses computer vision and AI to deliver targeted, programmatic audio messages to shoppers at the shelf level in brick-and-mortar stores. The platform needed to serve three distinct audiences: brands and agencies creating campaigns, retailers managing in-store advertising inventory, and operations teams managing a fleet of IoT devices across multiple store locations.

The technical scope was substantial:

• A hardware-software IoT system combining directional audio, computer vision, and AI-driven audience targeting
• A cloud-based campaign management platform for brands and agencies to create, schedule, budget, and analyze in-store audio advertising campaigns in real time
• A shopper analytics engine providing retailers with data on foot traffic, audience demographics, and campaign performance
• Multi-store, multi-device management with remote configuration, health monitoring, and firmware updates
• Campaign budgeting, billing, reporting, and content delivery infrastructure
• A working prototype to demonstrate the product to investors

Our approach

Starting from the founder's initial product specifications, DSL partnered closely on wireframes, UX/UI design, system architecture, and technical roadmap from day one. DSL operated as the startup's full-stack product development team — the engagement included full-stack developers, ML and data science engineers, computer vision and facial recognition specialists, hardware testers, and dedicated frontend and backend engineers.

The engagement began with prototype development and continued through seed fundraising into production deployment and market launch:

• Collaborated with the founder on wireframes, UX/UI design, product roadmap, and feature prioritization throughout the entire product lifecycle
• Built the working prototype that the founders presented to investors, directly contributing to closing the seed round
• Developed computer vision models for real-time shopper detection, audience demographic analysis, and engagement measurement at the shelf level
• Built an AI-powered shopper analytics engine giving retailers and brands actionable insight into foot traffic patterns, audience composition, and campaign effectiveness
• Designed and deployed a programmatic campaign management platform enabling brands and agencies to create, schedule, target, budget, and analyze in-store audio advertising campaigns from a centralized real-time dashboard
• Engineered a cloud-deployed multi-store IoT device management system with remote configuration, automated provisioning, health monitoring, and over-the-air firmware updates across retail locations
• Built campaign budgeting, billing, and performance reporting tools giving brands full financial visibility and ROI tracking
• Developed the content delivery infrastructure for distributing audio advertising assets to devices across store networks
• Implemented role-based dashboards for brands, agencies, retailers, and system administrators
• Hardware prototyping and iteration for reliable deployment across diverse retail environments

The results

• Built the prototype that helped the founders present to investors and close their seed round
• Delivered a complex, production-grade IoT platform unifying directional audio hardware, computer vision, AI targeting, campaign management, device operations, and shopper analytics under one end-to-end system
• Brands and agencies gained the ability to create, manage, budget, and analyze in-store audio campaigns in real time via a centralized dashboard
• AI-powered shopper analytics delivered actionable data on foot traffic, audience demographics, and campaign performance — capabilities retailers had never had access to before
• Multi-store, multi-device management enabled remote configuration, monitoring, and updates across all deployed retail locations from a single operations console
• Campaign budgeting, billing, and reporting provided brands with full financial visibility across their in-store advertising spend
• Continued working closely with the founder through product launch, shipping the platform to market
• Full documentation and operational handoff — the startup's team operates the platform independently