Farm Quality Streak

Customers rate each mushroom packet using a one-time code, and the farm's website counts every day the average stayed at four stars.

Who this is for

Prakash Sonawane grows oyster mushrooms in two rooms behind their house in Talegaon Dabhade, outside Pune. About a hundred and thirty packets a week: a Saturday stall at a society gate in Chakan, four small restaurants, and home deliveries by their nephew on a Splendor. The moment it lands is at the stall, when a woman picks up their packet, turns it over, sets it back down and buys from the man beside them. Prakash has nothing to show her.

How the job is done today

Prakash asks people at the gate and everybody says chaan, chaan. The real news arrives at eleven at night in a WhatsApp group of about sixty home customers, a voice note saying Sunday's packet was wet, a photo of a browning stem. Those go into the last two pages of a diary as Sharma, wet, refund. Nothing gets written down on the days the mushrooms are perfect, which is most days. So when a stranger asks whether the quality is reliable, Prakash can only say that it is good, which is exactly what the man at the next stall is also saying.

The screens, in order

1. Rate this packet — Lets a customer holding the packet type the code from the sticker and tap one to five stars, and nothing else.
2. What your stars did — Shows the customer, straight after they tap, the number of days running the farm has held four stars, so the rating feels like it went somewhere.
3. The count — A plain public page anyone can open on a phone at the stall to see how long the run has lasted and when it last broke.
4. Morning codes — Gives Prakash the day's fresh one-time codes to print or write on stickers before the packing starts.
5. Last night's stars — Shows Prakash, in the evening when the light comes back, how many people rated yesterday, what the average was, and whether the day held.

What it keeps track of

• Packet codes — the code, the day it was printed, whether it has been used yet
• Ratings — how many stars, which code it came from, the day and the time it arrived
• Days — the date, how many packets were rated, the average stars, whether the day held the run or broke it

The one decision that matters

Either the rating page is an open link that anybody can tap as often as they like, or every rating needs a one-time code printed on the packet. The open link is easier and gets more ratings. Go with the codes anyway. The whole point of the number on the front page is that a stranger at a stall in Chakan can believe it, and an open link can be tapped fifty times by Prakash himself or by the man at the next stall in a bad mood. A code that dies after one use means the count is a count of real packets that real people carried home. Print the codes in the morning while the power is on, so an afternoon cut costs nothing.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out written comments, photos and replies. Prakash cannot read and answer paragraphs in an afternoon with no fan and no light, and one long angry review would stop them building anything else that week. Stars take three seconds from a customer standing in the sun with a bag in the other hand. The complaints already arrive as voice notes at night; that channel is working. What is missing is a count of the good days, and only the stars give that.

How you would know it worked

At the Saturday stall, a customer Prakash has never sold to before picks up the packet, reads the sticker, checks the number on their own phone, and buys. Not a returning customer. A stranger deciding on the strength of the count.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I grow oyster mushrooms near Pune and sell about a hundred and thirty packets a week. I want a website where customers can rate each packet they buy. Every morning I want a fresh sheet of one-time codes to print as stickers, one per packet, and when a customer opens the link and types their code they give one to five stars and nothing more. A code must stop working after it is used once. The site should count the days where the average was four stars or better and show that number large on the front page so any stranger can check it. A day with no sales at all should not break the count. My power goes off most afternoons, so all the counting must happen on the site and not on my computer, and I should be able to see yesterday's stars on my phone at night when the light comes back.