On Friday 7th September; CEO and Co-founder Tim Bos, and COO and Co-founder Rohan LePage, conducted a live broadcast to answer questions and highlight what ShareRing has been up to recently in terms of product development, ShareLedger, SharePay and general business development progress.
Milestones that were discussed in product development:
- Testnet is up and running on our internal network
- The development of the ShareLedger blockchain has hit all of the targets to date-up and running
- The last sprint completed focuses on the booking process, transfer of SharePay and scaling of QR codes as well as some of the KYC process
We are planning on running a QA/beta test launch at the start of November 2018, and launching the pilot app at the end of November. We will be demonstrating what is close to a finished and fully functional product. As per our roadmap, more features will be added as we progress, such as the reputation engine. The pilot version will include the ability to pay, make bookings, KYC, sign up and ability to scan QR codes. Once the pilot version has been launched, we will have lead time to get the app in the app store, along with getting some additional QA testing and security checks.
SharePay:
- Will be like a payment system, with self sovereign identity attached.
- Anyone who has the ShareRing app is able to go to a rental provider that accepts SharePay and scan their QR code. The rental provider will receive your identification that will show the KYC has been completed
- This creates a high level of trust, and security between the renter and yourself
- The identity is not stored on a server, but is transferred directly to the merchant
- By scanning the QR code, a renters details are put onto the server temporarily which is encrypted with the public key of the merchant. The merchant then needs to use their private key to unlock and view the ID, putting the control of the ID back in hands of user
ShareRing’s app will enable anyone to view a rentable item, which contains its own QR code, scan it onto your phone and be shown all of the information about said item, enabling you to initiate the rental. The QR code will show you the smart contract that is part of the asset you are trying to rent, which will include rules, reputation required, price, etc.
With regards to business development, the focus for the next quarter is on building the sales teams in Hong Kong, Las Vegas and Melbourne. Next year we will move into the UK and Greater China. The business focus will remain on the completion of product development, and achieving platform pick up; with Tim now focussing on the development, whilst Rohan will oversee the sales and marketing teams.
Business updates that were discussed:
- A newsletter will start to be distributed from mid September, and will be the first location of any news from ShareRing.
- Every other week we will be hosting an AMA session on our Telegram channel, where we will be open to answering any questions the community has.
Questions that were asked:
Token unlock and exchanges, what is the plan?:
We want to unlock the tokens as we get closer to them being used as utility on our platform. We do have a couple of agreements with exchanges that are close to being signed. Its likely to be October for the unlock of the tokens. We are in the process of sending out the airdrop and bounty tokens.
When will technical details for masternode holders be released?:
The masternode has been developed, and we are planning on releasing technical details when we close out additional development on testnet. The expected release time will be mid October, where we will be releasing expressions of interest for those who want to run the masternode. The first group who will be contacted about this are the seed investors, then pre-sale and finally main-sale. At the time of the pilot launch, we are only releasing 20 masternodes; this will then grow based on the transaction numbers within the system.
What is ShareRings whole marketing plan as we get closer to Mainnet?:
We have already launched the new website, and will continue to add more content to this as the product becomes more defined and we continue to grow. The sales process has begun, which is focused on the smaller sharing providers, in the initial target regions being Australia, parts of the US, and Hong Kong. The initial focus will be getting companies on the directory listing and then move into SharePay adoption as well as asset bookings and rentals. This staged approach seems to work based on tests that we have done so far, focusing on travel, leisure, events, transport, equipment hire and accomodation.
Mass adoption is key to success of sharering. How do you plan to reach this stage and what marketing, advertising strategies and what locations do you have in place?
In terms of marketing, its a real balance between users and merchants and providers. If you have merchants and no users then they will lose interest, same with users and no merchants. We need to keep the balance. Stephanie, our Marketing Manager, is working with the team on creating marketing and social media content. We are also doing testing of what the user acquisition costs are in terms of sign ups and through social media, youtube videos and SEO and SEM. Laura, who is in charge of our PR, has a bunch of articles and interest pieces lined up for us in papers to increase interest and get people through to sign up. We had about 40,000 people sign up for more information during our ICO, so we are hoping to replicate that in terms of rolling out. We are very confident that we will smash those numbers in terms of providers, so the focus will turn very quickly to get users on the platform.
Any additional updates of of when more merchandise will be available?
Part of ShareRings ethos and our value is to reduce waste in the world, so single use items are not on our radar. We wanted to put it out to the community, to suggest items we can make that will talk to our values and company ethos.
Can you elaborate on your tweet “IDEX is currently the #1 DApp on Ethereum, with 25,000 monthly active users. When @ShareRingGlobal launches at the end of the year, our starting PILOT numbers (with real clients) will be at least double that. Probably closer to triple”?
One of the things that is happening when we launch our pilot, is a really good test around the scalability of the network and capacity of the network. All of bookings currently going through the Keaz (genesis of ShareRing) platform, will also be put through the ShareLedger booking platform from our go live date. The current number of unique transactions is about 90,000 per month, which we will be launching from the ShareLedger platform. This immediately creates a utility for the token and a large amount of traffic and transactions through the platform. What we will do as we progress through the product, is move more of the functionality to the ShareLedger as well. Every user on the system will have a unique wallet address in ShareLedger as well, which will be synchronised back to the Keaz platform. There will be a number of large manufactures that Keaz currently caters for, that will start using the platform.
Have any properties been purchased yet?
We are wanting to get the Mainnet launched first before we get any properties purchased. A key point is that we need to understand from a user perspective, what locations would be the best and right for what we are offering.
Will you be Looking for app testers to supply feedback before app is released? Will there be a feedback function on the app so users can help make it better bye haring ideas and bugs?
Yes, we will be reaching out to the community to get some app testers on board late October/early November. The app will have a feedback and support link, so we can get feedback on the system. The testnet will be done around the same time, so some of the masternode holders can help run some of testnet, to help test the installation process.
When are you targeting testnet launch and who will be involved?
Testnet has been running in our internal network for quite a while. We will be discussing with the development team on when we can have people install versions of the app, to start allowing us to test some of the scales in the app. This will be covered in our next demo video that we release.
What is your view of crypto market and plan of what to do if market stays bad for. A long period. Does this affect sharering as a project?
We generally don’t comment on the market as whole. It doesn’t affect ShareRing, as we are a product that utilises the blockchain as the utility. A good or bad market doesn’t stop the blockchain from working. For us, it is business as usual!
You can watch the video on our YouTube channel here.
