[Top Builder 2024]: Alpaca Retail Management System

[dme1sc]

🏗️ Top Builder 2024 Application Form to track progress through Round 1 - 3 ~ Currently in Round 1

📝 Instructions

1. Only complete this form if you have been chosen for Top Builder, by PlebLab.
2. Provide detailed information to assist the judges in evaluating your project.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Team

• Team Name: Alpaca RMS
• Number of Founders: 1
• Team Background: Doug is a long-time techie believing in personal freedom, and software that empowers that freedom with skills covering Tech Support to Data & Reports to DevOps, as well as running the Charleston Bitcoin group. Doug is focused on bringing Bitcoin adoption to the mainstream through transition products, such as AlpacaRMS, that blend Bitcoin and fiat in the tools that businesses need to succeed. We also have one full time dev, Vishal T. whom worked with Doug in previous ventures, and came on as the lead programmer. A part-time reporting dev is being hired currently.
• Bitcoin & Lightning Involvement: In Bitcoin since 2017, currently runs the Charleston Bitcoin group educating the community on Bitcoin from usage, mining, wallets, theory, economics, etc; and have parlayed that knowledge when building a business management system that incorporates Bitcoin throughout it.
• Origin Story: What inspired your idea? My background is retail point of sale and I have always wanted a point of sale of my own due to the systems out there are poorly made, inefficient and run by large companies with other agendas than to provide a good product and great support. When Bitcoin became legal tender is El Salvador, I had been looking for a point of sale prior to this by six months, and believed that if I provide an integrated Bitcoin payment solution in a retail and business management system, it would foster adoption of Bitcoin quicker. AlpacaRMS (retail management system) was the brainchild of that vision.

💡 The Idea

• Project Overview: What does your project do? AlpacaRMS is a business management system and point of sale. Built for retail businesses (B2C) to sell products, accept credit cards, manage inventory, and market to customers, with the end goal to also accept Bitcoin as payment within the system in order to orange-pill businesses and staff. It has morphed into a business management system that also helps B2B businesses manage accounts, track invoices and work orders, and oversee accounts receivables and billing. All while promoting Bitcoin through its direct integration through payments, as well as on reports and in the sales process by displaying sats alongside the fiat price. This enables education of the conversion to Bitcoin thru daily use.
• Website: https://alpacarms.com
• GitHub: Private
• Project Stage: Describe the current progress. Version 2.0 (new GUI) was released August 2023 and the focus has been on-boarding existing clients to the system. Going into 2024, the goal is to start marketing for new sales, and to increase functionality.
• Supplementary Materials: Provide any proof of work, workshops, or demo videos. This is an older video on the project with current features in use as AlpacaRMS: https://youtu.be/rMQQGd7__t8 Our current pitch deck is available here: https://alpacarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/AlpacaRMS-Pitch-Deck-Presentation-2.1.pdf X.com: https://x.com/alpacarmspos

📚 Additional Information

• Additional Links/Info: Our graphic...

📌 Submission Type

• [ ] Initial Project Creation

🚀 Current Project Progress

• Progress Made: The system is up and running with a core set of functions. New features/tasks/bugs are being built/resolved daily. The system currently has 30 paid seats.
• Challenges Faced: Growth for new business. Budget for hiring new dev, security, director of sales.
• Future Roadmap of what's next: 2024 will see the transition to active sales of the product. 2023 was a focus on getting core features built that our current client base would use to transition from their prior very popular point of sale.

⏳ Round 1 Milestone

• Keep in mind that completion will need to be by February 10th, 2024.
• First-round milestone the team has set for themselves: Complete transition of updated GUI to both mobile and web browser for an updated UX.

📝 Submission Complete

• All required information has been provided above.

📅 Top Builder Program Structure

Registration Opens: Monday, December 18, 2023

• Application: Interested teams apply for Top Builder.
• Selection: Teams will be chosen based on their application. See FAQ for details.

Round 1: January 13 - February 10, 2024

• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops start, available live and online.
• Chat Access: Selected teams join the PlebLab internal chat.
• Mentorship: Begins for teams.
• Project Milestones: Teams are set and judged on their first-round milestones.

Round 2: February 10 - 24, 2024

• Team Reduction: PlebLab cuts half of the Top Builder teams. (Only half continued in Round 2.)
• Project Milestones: Teams are set and judged on their second-round milestones.
• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops continue.
• Mentorship: Continues.

Round 3: Starting February 24, 2024

• Team Reduction: PlebLab narrows down to 6 Top Builder teams. (All will be pitching in Austin.)
• Final Milestones: Teams set final project milestones for the last round.
• Preparation: Teams prepare their pitch in front of judges. Final teams are contacted to come to Austin for Startup Day.

Final Round at Startup Day: March 14, 2024

• Preparation: Teams work on their final pitches at PlebLab.
• Presentations: Final teams present before judges on Startup Day.
• Deliberation: Judges decide during a happy hour.
• Announcement: The winner of Top Builder is announced at Austin BitDevs.
• Celebration: After-party for Top Builder.

[dme1sc]

Round 1 milestone is complete. We have added over 89 fixes and enhancements that were published January 30, 2024. https://support.btcretailx.com/january-30-2024-alpacarms-product-update/

[dme1sc]

Specifically for Top Builder, we have merged our mobile view into our desktop view to streamline the views into one.

[dme1sc]

We have increased our Bitcoin sats conversion and view on the desktop by building a central sats storage on our admin server. Prior, every time sats showed on the dekstop, a query had to run to a btcpay server. Significant slow-downs occurred. There could be 20-30 sats queries per transaction. Now we pull the price once every minute and convert off that on a local server.

[dme1sc]

We updated/cleaned up and made faster the epay email invoices that shows payment choices of credit cards and Bitcoin.

[dme1sc]

Minor issues were resolved this week as well:

1. Azteco OnChain Voucher code was missing on receipts, added, verified.
2. BTCPayServer troubleshooting with a json parse error, resolved.