Ask Bistroo Anything! Over the past few weeks, we have collected questions from our community on Telegram, Twitter and Reddit. This blogs answers all of those questions.
Feel free to join the conversation and ask any additional question you might have over on our Telegram Community Channel.
Next to that, we’re listing on UniSwap.org this Sunday, 16th May, at 10:00PM UTC. Be there!
Let’s dive right in…
Marketing & Community
Is there an approach to draw people to the BIST Token, also after the initial listing?
Bistroo is, compared to other projects in the crypto space, substantially further along in traction and operations. There’s an operational, revenue generating product at its core. The community is growing each day with over 20,000 active and recurrent users that show loyalty and commitment, which is what we want to nurture at all times. This is a major USP compared to traditional market parties.
What does the marketing strategy look like for the next 3 months?
Bistroo’s marketing strategy is a lot “smarter” than that of UberEats, Foodora and others who lose a lot of money in the battle with each other for market share. Instead of using the traditional media and channels, we focus on Community-driven marketing and growth hacking. But eventually you will also see Bistroo hanging in the bus stands.
- Community-driven marketing: We have a large fan group of hospitality entrepreneurs, hotel school students, blockchain investors and food lovers who are very enthusiastic about Bistroo and our mission. We want to grow, activate and reward this group of enthusiasts worldwide (free food, BIST Token rewards, gamification) for word-of-mouth advertising. As everyone knows, word of mouth is by far the most effective and inexpensive form of marketing.
- Online growth marketing: We partnered with Double Agency who are experts in Growth Marketing. They help us to achieve systematic growth through our product & the community. By means of A/B testing and data analysis they find the best ways to find and bind new users.
How will Bistroo bring revolution in the food industry of the World?
Takeaway platforms have made it easy to enjoy our favourite meals, but they’ve made life tough for the restaurants we love.
Current platforms demand that restaurants pay disproportionate fees, while dictating control over data, pay-out and client relations, loyalty and contact.
It’s a stitch-up that results in higher costs for restaurants and a not very exciting or diverse experience for consumers.
Bistroo puts an end to this, by providing a platform where businesses are back in full control. We offer better user experience, lower transaction costs and a fairer infrastructure. Our job is to provide the tools, insights and support to facilitate a direct-2-consumer relationship for our merchants.
It is fully focussed on the infrastructure first, platform as a service utility. With a lot of decentralization of tasks and responsibilities. A merchant is in full control over everything that has to do the THEIR store.
Changing menu’s realtime, updating prices or inventory numbers, switching from preferred payment method, running promotions and ads, come into direct contact with THEIR customers, and allow them to build a loyal customer base with their restaurant or food products!
You have a good team and you must have done surveys before starting this Project. According to your surveys what’s the main problem in the food industry nowadays?
A Lot of restaurant owners feel they are locked in a chokehold between the market and platform providers. A sort of necessary evil. They basically think they have to work with these big marketparties, but lose out on their bottom line. Where most restaurants would be happy with a 10% bottom line margin, they pay 15–30% commission fees just to get the volume in. In essence, this is not sustainable for them. This is one of the main problems we would like to adress.
As long as the infrastructure services them with tools, support, insights and features to fit their e-commerce needs, there is no need for us to operate with the same chokehold strategy as currently is the standard in platform-economy.
A Lot of restaurants are just fed up with not being in control over their (e-)commerce. On the consumer side, we see a lot of frustration about lack of variation on the offerings.
A very interesting fact is from the surveys we could also easily derive that consumers are not loyal to platforms. They will easily transfer to a different platform if there’s enough unique sellings points and merchants that fit their food consumption demands.
I hate 3rd-perties in any dealing and that’s the reason why I love the Decentralized system. How will Bistroo solve this and give freedom to people from a lot of commissions by 3rd parties?
We facilitate, never dictate. We’ve created a platform that facilitates the connection between restaurants, food merchants and consumers, instead of controlling it. Merchants are in full control of their payments, product selection, orders, advertising, and analytics.
A neutral, and level playing field. Also, there’s a lot of dynamics from a centralized platform that we do not incorporate.
For example, rankings and listings of supply parties. On a lot of platforms it has proven very frustrating that the same restaurants are always on top. *cough*paid*cough*, but we will personalize the content & merchants for you, the consumer individual with their own demands, preferences and principles. For sharing that personalization data with us, the user should be rewarded. Stakeholders should provide valuable information and service in a two-way street. This community and merchant equilibrium is what is to be a major USP for us. A loyal community, willing to contribute to the network in any way they can and earn rewards and satisfaction by being part of our ecosystem.
Transparency and neutrality are key, and that’s the ultimate goal for our utility network.
By putting all we can in decentralized tasks, being managed by the protocol and infrastructure. There is way less need for a dominating centralized organisation structure. Resulting in major efficiency benefits on your cost structure as a platform.
Can you please give us a brief overview of your application and it’s features?
Our operational product launched on March 3rd 2020 within the Netherlands and has over 20,000 active and recurring users, generating $250,000 platform turnover monthly, one-year after the platform was launched. Expansion (inter)nationally is on the horizon, with penetration of the Belgium market by late 2021.
It is a fully functional back-office dashboard for merchants and front-end web applications, including mobile applications for consumers in the Dutch market app stores.
You can take a look at the product on our website to see the UI’s and screens for yourself. We have designed it to easily onboard merchants and we have even onboarded fresh merchants within an hour, and have the first order shortly after.
On the Bistroo app fiat currencies will also be an option with BIST token. Do you think this will help you in bringing non-crypto people to crypto or it will just lower the utility of your token?
With a live product we have the perfect opportunity to implement token features and benefit in a modulair and playful manner. Increasing the exposure of regular consumers toward crypto in a smooth experience and gamified model.
There’s benefits/rewards for utilizing the token so once they are exposed to crypto in such a user friendly way we believe it is very beneficial for the token utility.
For example, data rewards will be a completely new thing to them. Realizing that ‘traditional platforms’ have been using that all this time, for free.
Bistroo will rebuy BIST tokens with the fiat they will earn?
Yes, buyback programs, However not fully specified yet, are definitely part of our options to reward the community for the performance of the network or refill our pools which we use for the reward systems.
What are your aims in the next 2 years? Where will Bistroo be after 2 or 5 years?
2 years; fully operational (crypto features implemented) and growing in a minimum of two markets with Netherlands & Belgium. We will be entering our first additional market (Belgium) in Q3 through the first launch version of Bistroo.com.
Next year, if chosen to be a crypto merchant, our Bistroo.com instance is fully plug & play globally so the goal is to provide this utility everywhere, easily accessible when crypto driven.
In 5 Years, the global utility should be an adopted product worldwide with millions of users using our ability to buy and sell their favorite meal or product!
Binance smart Chain blockchain is having high transaction speed and cheap gas fees. Are you planning to launch your mainet or switch to other blockchains in the future?
We are considering bridge solutions, 2nd layer solutions and in the possible future also migration. Our token is ERC20 right now and gas fees are through the roof. When implementing our token features this will be solved through either or multiple of the considerations above.
No one can achieve anything valuable on its own, please tell us about your current and future partnerships that will lead you to success in this highly cramped crypto space?Why did you decide to remain anonymous? So many scam projects are nowadays. How can we trust your project to not to do scam/rug pulls?
Our community and partners are very valuable to us. One of the biggest partnerships we currently have is with the national association of Restaurant Owners in the Netherlands. Validating our project and approach.
We are working hard to form partnerships with big franchise labels and other (tech) partnerships.
We are not really anonymous, just very fresh on the market so rather a bit unknown. We have been operational with real clients and orders for over 14 months so have no intention or opportunity to rugpull. We just want to grow!
Can you explain the current focus of your team, in a broad-sense and in a business sense? Do you think the community is an important dynamic that will contribute to your project? If the community is important to you, what role does it play in your project?
We have focussed on the operational side first. Getting our processes and handling in place. Our community is crucial to us, as it provides a great USP if nurtured.
Crypto enables this, we already have multiple ambassadors reaching out to local restaurants and merchants to start their commerce on our platform. We see community contribution on levels like marketing & sales, and also development in the future.
The community aspect and getting the loyalty from this community is what can really set us apart in this market.
Will there be a need for more team members and ambassadors? What ways can token holders earn more BIST Tokens? Are there any staking programs?
Our first Ambassador program has started the application this week. Liquidity staking will start next Sunday and all details on this released in a blog in the next few days.
Is Bistroo a global project or local project? Can anybody anywhere use Your project without any restrictions?
Not yet, currently it is only operational within the Netherlands on Bistroo.nl.
As mentioned we will be launching the first version of Bistroo.com later this year, when entering the Belgium market.
This Bistroo.com instance will be a global available utility, especially when parties are using crypto as a means of payment. However, we do have to take into account any legal restrictions of course.
Your motto is interesting, “turn your home into a restaurant”.How did this idea come into your mind? How will you bring revolution in the crypto world through bistroo?
This idea came to mind when thinking about our Brand and use case. We really want to give the restaurantowner, or specialty products supplier to be able to transfer their experience to someone’s home.
For example, luxury restaurants have trouble selling through ‘fast food’ platforms and with our features we are currently serving multiple of these high-end restaurants. They bring their dining in experience to your doorstep. Which is what we think a modern consumer is looking for.
We are first mover currently in the crypto space, and already have a working product. We also see high interest in this market for crypto adoption. We want to be the leading next generation food platform, including next gen technology and crypto payments.
Many Project talks only about their strengths, Can You talk about the weak point that You project is currently dealing with?
Compared to our traditional competitors our budget is still kinda small. This might be a weakness, but perhaps an opportunity as well to diversify the model compared to these traditional cost driven platform models.
If we go on an all-out head-to-head expenditure war than this will probably not work, hence the major USP when a valuable community is driving the network.
Have you created some unique and extraordinary policies for short term and long term investors which are different from others?
I find that hard to answer because there is so much happening in the crypto market in general that I’m not sure if someone else is doing them as well.
One of the most extraordinary things for me was to see how (pro)active our community members are already. We have people asking us on a daily basis if they can help us onboard restaurants and spread the word. Nurturing this is extremely valuable for us and seeing this happening since immediately after the token sale surprised me alot and made me even more convinced this is where we stand out in the long term.
What is the market analysis of your Bistroo? How do you meet the demands of your customers? Also tell us something about your delivery services.
For quantitative market analysis I would like to refer you to our lite paper or whitepaper. The most important summary for that analysis is, that the food ordering market is growing tremendously and will keep doing so easily for the next decade. So even with big parties in the market, there’s opportunity to service new users each year!
From our merchant customer perspective we have been getting very positive testimonials for the ease and flexibility of our platform product and service/support.
We do not have a delivery service at this time. Restaurants deliver themselves. The biggest part, by far, of the market is still in this category and we service them in a more flexible, cheap and immediate cash flow manner, this provides a great opportunity for getting market share.
In the future, we might see another module of decentralized tasks for this aspect but thats long term
There are 3 core issues prevalent in crypto and blockchain: Security, Interoperability, and Scalability. How does Bistroo plan to overcome these issues?
Security will be something with testing, testing and testing. We plan periodic (ethical) hacksessions to validate the security of our product and the crypto integrations. Information on using your own wallets and crypto within the platform will be readily available and supported as well.
Interoperability will be something we will be on top of for the next few months. considering bridge solutions for example.
Scalability will be managed both on the platform as on the ledger side of things. 2nd layer solutions or hot wallet structures might help with this, but security should not be compromised.
Is there any news available on additional exchanges, besides UniSwap, and will there be a launch campaign?
There’s no announcements yet on other listings. Centralized or decentralized. We are looking into both options continuously. There’s a couple of really interesting layer 2 ETH solutions coming out that enable cheaper transactions on dexes like SushiSwap. We will keep you posted on all official news regarding exchanges. Follow our channels in order to get the news first.
Are the incentives for the staking program already available?
The specifications on the staking program will be published on Saturday 15th May. It will provide insight in startdate, duration and rewards.
When do you expect the BIST Token to be usable?
The first token use case, liquidity staking, will be available very shortly after the distribution of BIST. Integrating the token (payment & rewards) is part of our roadmap for Q3 & Q4 of 2021.
What are the rewards for onboarding a restaurant?
Please refer to our ambassador program on our current campaign on this subject. In the future the rewards variables might change, depending on the current campaign and objectives.
Will there be a demo for the borderless PaaS product?
Yes, next year will be focussed on scaling Bistroo.com to a global scale and readily available as a PaaS utility. Before launching we will be showcasing the Beta and demo.
ETH 2.0 will not be operational when BIST releases, do you have a solution on GAS fees?
There are multiple options to address this. Currently assessing all of these. For example, Layer 2 solutions, bridges or hot wallets. We will further address these challenges when working on the BIST token integration on the product.
Are there rewards for suggesting new features for the Bistroo ecosyste and app?
Currently not, but in the future this might be part of our community campaigns. We are looking into how we can get the community involved and contributing to all aspects of the ecosystem. Future campaigns might include development related elements.
How is the campaign towards the UniSwap listing being prepared and executed?
We are launching a big campaign through media partnerships, influencers, AMA’s, announcements, events and advertising up to the UniSwap listing, but also for a long period after the listing. It is of utmost importance to get exposure and grow the community! Help us share and promote in all the relevant channels. Sharing information in groups and through social media helps us a lot!
After the Netherlands, what countries are you going to explore with this business?
First on the list is Belgium. There is already a lot of interest in our formula amongst Belgium consumers and merchants. Being a country that really enjoys food & beverages, has digitally mature users with great smartphone market penetration, and spending budget, this is a great initial expansion region for Bistroo.
We have extensive market analysis for global markets, and will decide on more regions of interests based on market analysis, community activation and legal restrictions.
A question on the timeframe for expansion. In 12 months time how many countries do you expect to have your services running?
Belgium & Netherlands fully operational and growing. With more countries being served when Bistroo.com launches as a global PaaS utility later on.
Will Bistroo be available in Spain this year?
Sadly no, but next year there’s a good chance we will be available in the southern regions of Europe.
The Netherlands platform hasn’t used BIST token yet? So will BIST token replace all payment systems on Bistroo platform, or is this an optional?
No, it will be hybrid. A lot of regular consumers are not crypto-ready. There’s benefits and advantages to using the token within the ecosystem and this way we want to introduce more and more ‘regular’ consumers to crypto utilities.
Does the Netherlands platform already have how many consumers on average per day?
We process 6-800 orders monthly currently. Averaging 200–250 orders daily.
Was Bistroo born based on the food business that has been active before? It seems that many customers are using the Netherlands platform. Are there any other competitors on blockchain, as motivation for Bistroo?
We always decided to approach this project as a product-first project. Meaning, create a working and validated MVP / Product before integrating blockchain and crypto elements. Currently we are deemed to be first mover in the crypto space for food ordering. With a working and growing product we are keen on using this to our advantage.
Food delivery via the blockchain is not a novel concept. Other failed projects like Sharemeal tried it so what has this got up its sleeve?
Traction, therefore we deliberately launched the platform in a launching market and finetune the product for scaling (internationally).
Will DeFi be engaged in the project at a point?
We aim to introduce Merchant DeFi in 2022. There will be a blog regarding this use case coming out over the next few weeks but it is based on the model of Merchant Cash Advances, but decentralized!
Do you think that any of the traditional food delivery services are going to try to also enter the crypto space when BIST thrives by having done so, and are you ready for the competition from them on that front?
Yes, crypto (payments) is the future for online commerce and parties will not want to be left behind. We are first-mover in this space and will solidify our presence in the market. There’s competition everywhere in this market, but our concept is unique from the ground-up and for traditional parties currently in the market it won’t be so easy to fundamentally change their ecosystem in a way that they can operate in a similar way as we do, together with our community.
How Bistroo will survive in foodtech while i think there are many like you growing these days?
There’s a lot of innovation happening in this market but our platform has major USP’s over current market parties.
If I ask my uncle who has a restaurant, can he already use your crypto BIST in his shop?
In the Netherlands, by the end of this year we aim to integrate BIST payments.
How will you solve problems regarding the way that some delivery services look at crypto? Will BIST succeed to change their mind quickly?
We think they are already reconsidering their view on crypto markets. As we see across the board in different markets and industries as well currently.
How do you keep your token holders loyal to BIST? How do you expand your market in foodtech besides what you’re doing now?
We are already signing great partnerships in the NL region to quickly get more exposure and validity through ambassadors. For example, respectable magazines in the market that are intrigued by what we do and would like to help us continuously spread the word. Also there will be more resources to implement performance marketing and improve brand awareness.
Is the contract audited?
Yes, our token contract is audited by a prestigious firm. The report showed no issues or risks with the contract and is currently used in Due Diligence processes.
Is there a public Github repo?
Yes, our smart contract repo is public. In the future we see more repos becoming public, especially when we manage to integrate community distributions on the development aspects of the ecosystem.
Get your fill on everything Bistroo!
Bistroo is a direct-to-consumer, peer-2-peer marketplace that significantly reduces commission fees and enables direct online interaction between all process stakeholders on the online platform. An ecosystem where food consumption can be easily organized and personalized to cater to the needs of individual customers and merchants alike. Superior customer convenience but with better terms.
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