Since the beginning, SOMA has promised an MVP in Q2 2018. Now, with only a few days left, we’re meeting our goal. Because that’s what we do. You see, we’re not a cryptocurrency trying to pump investment; we’re a tech company that happens to use blockchain because it solves some key issues in today’s ecommerce and provenance-tracking scene. And, as any successful tech company must do, we make deadlines and hit them. We just released a detailed roadmap that lays out future mileposts — and you can bet on us hitting those, as well.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.soma.app 💡 Don’t forget to rate the app on Play store
What’s an MVP?
A minimum viable product (MVP) comes out of a software philosophy known as agile development. The preexisting approach was to spend years perfecting a product before releasing it to the public. Agile development turned that on its head. Agile thinking says ‘how do we know what people actually want until we give them a chance to test something?’. Agile, therefore, focuses on iteration: get an imperfect product into the hands of the public as quickly as possible and get feedback. Based on the feedback, you can quickly make changes and release a new product, then another — rinse and repeat. In this way, you can develop a final product that matches customer wants and can do so in a fraction of the time that legacy approaches would have taken.
What should the SOMA community do with the MVP?
Test it and tell us how to improve! This is not a commercially-viable version. As an MVP it is now ready for widespread community testing and feedback. SOMA wants our followers to create an account on the SOMA MVP, list items, and interact with the SOMA platform and with one another in the social marketplace.
Trading on testnet
To avoid gas charges on the Ethereum mainnet, SOMA has opted to launch on the testnet. Essentially, the testnet is a version of the Ethereum network that acts as a ‘sandbox’ environment. Transactions function the same way on the surface as on the Ethereum mainnet, only no transactions actually occur. Interactions on the testnet involve demo money.
Play money
Each user will get demo cryptocurrency in their SOMA wallet upon registration. This is ‘play money’ and cannot be exchanged for any other cryptocurrency; MVP ‘funds’ are, in essence, worthless; their only value is for using the platform’s features in a trial version of the application.
Listing, buying, and selling items
SOMA encourages you to list items for sale. Others can then make offers and ‘buy’ your items. Again, these transactions are not valid in a commercial nor legal sense; since members are using ‘play money,’ nothing is actually exchanged.
Community MVP feedback
We welcome constructive feedback about the MVP functionality. Indeed, getting constructive criticism is what propels the product from MVP to commercially viable.
SOMA requests that you submit MVP feedback via one channel only — our Google form created for this purpose! This is crucial for minimizing the work of our developers, and also for ensuring your feedback is actually reviewed by them.
Instructions for use
Registering/First time login
Step 1: download the Soma app from Google Play Store.
Step 2: open the Soma app and login with Facebook — or register a new account using your email.
To register a new account with your email, click ‘Sign In’ and after that, ‘Register.’ You will receive a confirmation email, which you must open and follow the instructions therein.
Step 3: open the wallet view, accessible from the left slide panel. Create a new wallet and create a six-digit passcode. You can then use the ‘Get Ethereum’ feature to load your wallet with your demo funds.
Adding an item for sale
Step 1: press the red circle containing the ‘+’ sign (lower right of screen).
Step 2: press the camera icon on ‘adding item’ view to add pictures. You can add 3 different images from your gallery, or take a photo using your phone’s camera. (First image is always used as a main image.)
Step 4: add a title for your item, assign a price, and select the currency in which you want your price denominated (EUR, USD, & SCT). Finally, choose the category that best fits your item, and write a description.
Step 5: you have the option to manually set the item’s location; otherwise the app will assign a destination via your phone’s geotracking feature.
Step 6: publish the item or save the item card as a draft and come back later to finish.
Reselling
As part of SOMA’s vision of social monetization, users can engage in peer-to-peer reselling (also known as ‘affiliate marketing’) agreements. A seller can opt-in to SOMA’s ‘reselling’ feature at the time of listing. If you enable reselling by sliding the ‘Allow users to resell this item’ toggle to the right, your item listing will display a ‘Resell’ button. The user who successfully locates a buyer for your item will be rewarded.
Profile view
On your own profile, you can view, edit or delete your items. In the ‘connections’ portion, you can email invitations for others to download the SOMA app, and you can also view the people you are following. In the ‘likes’ section, you can view all the items that you have liked or stored for later.
You can also edit your profile in this view by adding a profile image, changing your username, and adding a personal bio.
Viewing the profile of other users
In the profile of another user, you can view the items they are selling, chat with them, and check their user rating & followers.
Chat feature
Here you can view all conversations that you have had with other sellers regarding items you are buying or selling. You can archive old conversations.
Settings
Here you can reset your password and log out from the app.
In conclusion
SOMA thanks you in advance for participating in our MVP testing phase. We’re considering a rewards program for those who contribute by trialing the software and providing feedback.
