u/Capital_Act8480

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some honest advice from founders and engineers who've built products that depend on third-party platforms.

Over the last 6 months, my co-founder and I built an AI phone agent for restaurants. The product is production-ready and can:

• Answer incoming restaurant phone calls
• Take orders conversationally
• Answer menu questions
• Upsell items
• Send SMS order confirmations
• Transfer calls to restaurant staff when needed
• Create orders directly in the POS

The entire AI voice infrastructure is complete and working.

The problem is distribution.

We first integrated with Clover using their official APIs. After months of development and going through their review process, Clover's legal team rejected our app, saying they currently don't have an established policy governing third-party AI applications.

During the review we clarified that:

• Call recording is completely optional and controlled by the restaurant.
• Recordings remain in Twilio and are not stored on our servers.
• We only store transcripts for restaurant review.
• We do not use customer conversations to train foundation AI models.

Even after explaining all of this, the application was still rejected.

We also explored Toast and Deliverect, but those paths haven't worked out either.

What makes this confusing is that companies like Loman AI and Certus AI publicly advertise Clover integrations and appear to provide very similar AI voice ordering functionality.

At this point we're wondering if we're chasing the wrong problem.

Our options seem to be:

1. Continue integrating with another POS (Square, etc.), knowing it could take several more months with no guarantee of approval.
2. Remove the POS dependency and become an AI receptionist that sends orders to restaurant staff for manual entry.
3. Pivot the technology into another industry (HVAC, dental, plumbing, legal, etc.) where phone automation is valuable but doesn't depend on POS approvals.
4. Something else that we haven't considered.

My questions are:

• Has anyone here built software that required approval from Clover, Toast, Square, Shopify, Salesforce, or another platform?
• Is this kind of rejection just part of building on someone else's ecosystem?
• If you were in our position, would you keep pursuing restaurant POS integrations or pivot before investing another 6+ months?
• Are there other approaches to restaurant automation that don't depend on getting platform approval?

We're not trying to complain about Clover or any specific company. We understand they have legal and security responsibilities. We're simply trying to decide whether this is a normal hurdle that startups eventually overcome, or a signal that our business is too dependent on approvals from platforms we don't control.

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through something similar. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some honest advice from founders and engineers who've built products that depend on third-party platforms.

Over the last 6 months, my co-founder and I built an AI phone agent for restaurants. The product is production-ready and can:

• Answer incoming restaurant phone calls
• Take orders conversationally
• Answer menu questions
• Upsell items
• Send SMS order confirmations
• Transfer calls to restaurant staff when needed
• Create orders directly in the POS

The entire AI voice infrastructure is complete and working.

The problem is distribution.

We first integrated with Clover using their official APIs. After months of development and going through their review process, Clover's legal team rejected our app, saying they currently don't have an established policy governing third-party AI applications.

During the review we clarified that:

• Call recording is completely optional and controlled by the restaurant.
• Recordings remain in Twilio and are not stored on our servers.
• We only store transcripts for restaurant review.
• We do not use customer conversations to train foundation AI models.

Even after explaining all of this, the application was still rejected.

We also explored Toast and Deliverect, but those paths haven't worked out either.

What makes this confusing is that companies like Loman AI and Certus AI publicly advertise Clover integrations and appear to provide very similar AI voice ordering functionality.

At this point we're wondering if we're chasing the wrong problem.

Our options seem to be:

1. Continue integrating with another POS (Square, etc.), knowing it could take several more months with no guarantee of approval.
2. Remove the POS dependency and become an AI receptionist that sends orders to restaurant staff for manual entry.
3. Pivot the technology into another industry (HVAC, dental, plumbing, legal, etc.) where phone automation is valuable but doesn't depend on POS approvals.
4. Something else that we haven't considered.

My questions are:

• Has anyone here built software that required approval from Clover, Toast, Square, Shopify, Salesforce, or another platform?
• Is this kind of rejection just part of building on someone else's ecosystem?
• If you were in our position, would you keep pursuing restaurant POS integrations or pivot before investing another 6+ months?
• Are there other approaches to restaurant automation that don't depend on getting platform approval?

We're not trying to complain about Clover or any specific company. We understand they have legal and security responsibilities. We're simply trying to decide whether this is a normal hurdle that startups eventually overcome, or a signal that our business is too dependent on approvals from platforms we don't control.

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through something similar. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some honest advice from founders and engineers who've built products that depend on third-party platforms.

Over the last 6 months, my co-founder and I built an AI phone agent for restaurants. The product is production-ready and can:

• Answer incoming restaurant phone calls
• Take orders conversationally
• Answer menu questions
• Upsell items
• Send SMS order confirmations
• Transfer calls to restaurant staff when needed
• Create orders directly in the POS

The entire AI voice infrastructure is complete and working.

The problem is distribution.

We first integrated with Clover using their official APIs. After months of development and going through their review process, Clover's legal team rejected our app, saying they currently don't have an established policy governing third-party AI applications.

During the review we clarified that:

• Call recording is completely optional and controlled by the restaurant.
• Recordings remain in Twilio and are not stored on our servers.
• We only store transcripts for restaurant review.
• We do not use customer conversations to train foundation AI models.

Even after explaining all of this, the application was still rejected.

We also explored Toast and Deliverect, but those paths haven't worked out either.

What makes this confusing is that companies like Loman AI and Certus AI publicly advertise Clover integrations and appear to provide very similar AI voice ordering functionality.

At this point we're wondering if we're chasing the wrong problem.

Our options seem to be:

1. Continue integrating with another POS (Square, etc.), knowing it could take several more months with no guarantee of approval.
2. Remove the POS dependency and become an AI receptionist that sends orders to restaurant staff for manual entry.
3. Pivot the technology into another industry (HVAC, dental, plumbing, legal, etc.) where phone automation is valuable but doesn't depend on POS approvals.
4. Something else that we haven't considered.

My questions are:

• Has anyone here built software that required approval from Clover, Toast, Square, Shopify, Salesforce, or another platform?
• Is this kind of rejection just part of building on someone else's ecosystem?
• If you were in our position, would you keep pursuing restaurant POS integrations or pivot before investing another 6+ months?
• Are there other approaches to restaurant automation that don't depend on getting platform approval?

We're not trying to complain about Clover or any specific company. We understand they have legal and security responsibilities. We're simply trying to decide whether this is a normal hurdle that startups eventually overcome, or a signal that our business is too dependent on approvals from platforms we don't control.

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through something similar. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice from anyone who’s built software in the restaurant/POS ecosystem.
Over the last 6 months, my co-founder and I built an AI phone agent for restaurants. The product is production-ready and can:

Answer incoming restaurant calls
Take orders conversationally
Handle menu questions
Upsell items
Send SMS order confirmations
Transfer calls to staff when needed
Create orders directly in the POS

The entire voice infrastructure is built and working.
Our challenge is distribution.

We initially built a Clover integration using their APIs. After months of work, Clover’s legal team rejected our app, saying they currently don’t have an established policy for third-party AI applications.
We explained that:

Call recordings are optional and controlled by the restaurant.
Recordings stay in Twilio (not our servers).
We only store transcripts needed for restaurant review.
We don’t use customer conversations to train foundation AI models.
Even after clarifying all of that, the app wasn’t approved.
We also explored Toast and Deliverect, but those paths haven’t worked out either.
What confuses us is that companies like Loman AI and Certus AI publicly advertise Clover integrations and appear to offer very similar functionality.
So now we’re at a crossroads.
We see a few options:
Continue pursuing POS approvals (which could take months with no guarantee).
Integrate with Square and hope the approval process is smoother.
Remove the POS dependency entirely and become an AI receptionist that sends orders to staff for manual entry.
Pivot into a broader AI phone agent for other industries (HVAC, dental, plumbing, etc.) using the voice platform we’ve already built.
My questions are:
Has anyone here successfully launched a product that depended on Clover, Toast, or another POS approval process?
Is this kind of legal rejection common for startups?
Would you keep investing in restaurant POS integrations, or pivot to a product that doesn’t depend on a third-party platform approving you?
If you were starting today, what would you do?
I’m not looking to complain about Clover or any other company. I’m genuinely trying to understand whether this is a normal hurdle in enterprise software or a sign that we should rethink our strategy.
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s built in this space.
Thanks!

I’m in Ontario and had a standard lease agreement with my landlord. After the fixed term ended, the tenancy continued month-to-month. I did not share kitchen or bathroom with the landlord.

My advance/last month deposit was $2200 and after moving out I only received $1100 back. My landlord is still holding around $1100.

I vacated on Feb 28. For around 2.5 months after moving out, he kept saying he would return the remaining money. Only later did he start giving different reasons for deductions.

The lease says utilities are landlord responsibility. There is no written clause about me paying utilities above $100. Now he is claiming there was a verbal understanding from the beginning that I had to pay overages above $100, even though:

\- no monthly overages were ever billed to me,
\- no pending balances were discussed during the tenancy,
\- and this was only raised after I moved out.

Other points:

\- Lease mentions rent as $2250, but we mutually agreed to $2200 and I paid that amount consistently for \~1.5 years without issue.
\- I informed them in November that I may move out in January. They asked me to stay longer because of holidays and difficulty finding tenants.
\- They involved a realtor and we mutually coordinated the move-out timeline based on finding a replacement tenant.
\- Move-out dates kept changing based on their tenant search and my travel plans.
\- They are now also bringing up additional reasons for deductions that were never previously discussed.

Do I realistically have grounds to challenge this through the LTB or Small Claims Court? Or would this likely be considered too informal/verbal to succeed?

I’m in Ontario and had a standard lease agreement with my landlord. After the fixed term ended, the tenancy continued month-to-month. I did not share kitchen or bathroom with the landlord.

My advance/last month deposit was $2200 and after moving out I only received $1100 back. My landlord is still holding around $1100.

I vacated on Feb 28. For around 2.5 months after moving out, he kept saying he would return the remaining money. Only later did he start giving different reasons for deductions.

The lease says utilities are landlord responsibility. There is no written clause about me paying utilities above $100. Now he is claiming there was a verbal understanding from the beginning that I had to pay overages above $100, even though:

- no monthly overages were ever billed to me,
- no pending balances were discussed during the tenancy,
- and this was only raised after I moved out.

Other points:

- Lease mentions rent as $2250, but we mutually agreed to $2200 and I paid that amount consistently for ~1.5 years without issue.
- I informed them in November that I may move out in January. They asked me to stay longer because of holidays and difficulty finding tenants.
- They involved a realtor and we mutually coordinated the move-out timeline based on finding a replacement tenant.
- Move-out dates kept changing based on their tenant search and my travel plans.
- They are now also bringing up additional reasons for deductions that were never previously discussed.

Do I realistically have grounds to challenge this through the LTB or Small Claims Court? Or would this likely be considered too informal/verbal to succeed?

I’m in Ontario and had a standard lease agreement with my landlord. After the fixed term ended, the tenancy continued month-to-month. I did not share kitchen or bathroom with the landlord.

My advance/last month deposit was $2200 and after moving out I only received $1100 back. My landlord is still holding around $1100.

I vacated on Feb 28. For around 2.5 months after moving out, he kept saying he would return the remaining money. Only later did he start giving different reasons for deductions.

The lease says utilities are landlord responsibility. There is no written clause about me paying utilities above $100. Now he is claiming there was a verbal understanding from the beginning that I had to pay overages above $100, even though:

- no monthly overages were ever billed to me,
- no pending balances were discussed during the tenancy,
- and this was only raised after I moved out.

Other points:

- Lease mentions rent as $2250, but we mutually agreed to $2200 and I paid that amount consistently for ~1.5 years without issue.
- I informed them in November that I may move out in January. They asked me to stay longer because of holidays and difficulty finding tenants.
- They involved a realtor and we mutually coordinated the move-out timeline based on finding a replacement tenant.
- Move-out dates kept changing based on their tenant search and my travel plans.
- They are now also bringing up additional reasons for deductions that were never previously discussed.

Do I realistically have grounds to challenge this through the LTB or Small Claims Court? Or would this likely be considered too informal/verbal to succeed?