The morning a rival slips, she knows

Elsa runs a phone repair shop on Södermalm in Stockholm. Cracked screens and tired batteries pay her rent. Seven repair shops sit within a short walk. When one of them slips, its customers go looking, and she finds out months later. Last spring a rival closed, and its regulars walked straight past her door to a chain store. With xMap Flows, Elsa built Sentinel. Every morning at eight, across Södermalm, Sentinel searches the map for phone repair shops, spots any whose rating fell or that closed, explains what it means for her shop, and sends it to her phone on WhatsApp. In March, Sentinel tells her a rival’s rating fell from four point six to three point eight in two weeks. Elsa puts a same-day promise in her window and online. Within a month, twenty-three new customers mention the other shop by name. When a rival stumbles, Elsa’s door is already open.

The story in words