Over the past several months, the team at DropChain has achieved some amazing milestones. We’ve struck partnerships with global brands to pilot the DropChain ecosystem, signed strategic partnerships with Chinese government-backed entities to bolster our influence, and even enjoyed the recognition of the blockchain community with wins at several pitch competitions.
However, these achievements will be meaningless if there is no product. The overall market has been challenging to say the least, but these times have also given our team the opportunity to focus on building out DropChain. It’s time to end the silence. We’re excited to give our supporters a glimpse of what we’ve been working on and how our development roadmap will unfold.
From Foowala to DropChain
Since 2015, Foowala’s been serving East China’s small-medium business community, providing a one-stop-shop mobile platform addressing their food and alcohol procurement needs. As Foowala grew as a startup, we built components to our platform in addition to the B2B e-commerce capabilities, such as a mobile distribution management system for our operations team and a logistics tracking platform for our distributors.
As we laid down the development roadmap for DropChain, we quickly realized the potential of leveraging all the assets we have built over the last 3 years for Foowala. If we were to build on top of Foowala’s existing infrastructure the DropChain project would immediately benefit in several ways:
- The development time for DropChain’s proof of concept would be reduced since our development team can utilize existing code and infrastructure
- We can tap into a product already on the market with an existing user base, revenue, traction, and team.
- We’d have instant access to an existing supply chain, with brand and distributor relationships already in place.
To capitalize on the achievements and recognition DropChain has made to date, we are proud to announce Foowala’s platform has been rebranded to DropChain. DropChain echoes all Foowala has achieved over the last 3 years, while at the same time reflects our future aspirations of leveraging blockchain and AI technology to create a more transparent and accountable supply chain network.
The technical and branding transition from Foowala to DropChain is almost complete and we’ve already begun executing on the next phase of our development roadmap.
The Next Few Months
Over the next several months, DropChain is looking forward to accomplishing a lot more. Our priorities are the following:
- Develop and expand on DropChain’s existing infrastructure
- Integrate further brand partners and technology partners into DropChain’s ecosystem
- Develop an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with our key partners to demonstrate DropChain’s capabilities.
WeChat Mini Programs and Existing Infrastructure
Foowala has given DropChain a great base to expand on. Our existing Node.js NoSQL/MongoDB backend tech stack, coupled with our existing integration into the WeChat ecosystem, enables us to ramp up much faster than other projects.
Our first focus is on improving the tools distribution partners have access to and their overall user experience. We must ensure any application we develop is easily accessible, convenient and simple to use. To achieve this, we’ll build WeChat Mini Programs (微信小程序) to rapidly develop, release, and test our product directly within WeChat itself.
WeChat Mini Programs will reduce DropChain’s development time and enable faster user adoption simply due to the fact users don’t need to download another application.
Distributors along a supply chain can quickly launch, scan and key in logistical data for an order. They will also be able to track existing orders, order status and the revenue they’ve generated through DropChain. All from within WeChat.
Down the line we will begin incorporating gamification elements into the experience, along with developing standalone apps on both iOS and Android for users based outside of China, who may not have access to WeChat.
The Path to Success: Strong Partnerships
Partnerships are integral to the growth of any ecosystem. They can be:
- Brand Partners: Actual users of the ecosystem; or
- Technology Partners: Providing the hardware or software technology complementing our product offerings; or
- Service Partners: Delivering on future value-added services or benefits that will increase the utilization of the DropChain ecosystem.
We’ve been working incredibly hard in this space and have several partnerships signed on to date (with more in the works!). We look forward to revealing more in the days and weeks to come.
Key Milestone: The MVP
Capping off work on product development and partnership building will be DropChain’s MVP. The product will integrate all our key partnerships, enabling us to demonstrate the ability to track and trace the movement of goods from end-to-end through DropChain’s ecosystem.
The project will involve label and traceability technology from one of the biggest players on the market, global brands and their products lines, existing distribution partners, and end-retailers such as established bars, restaurants and cafes. It’s a significant undertaking we’ve been looking forward to since day one.
We’ll be very focused in our approach to reduce initial complexity and enable us to test and reiterate quickly. As we get closer to our MVP’s launch date, we’d be excited to release more details to the public. Until then, please follow us on Twitter or Telegram for more news and please come say hi if you see the DropChain banner at an upcoming event!
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