BlockTalks x Ally AMA Transcript!
We recently hosted an AMA with Ally, on July 9th at 2 PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Roman Tsarovsky, CEO of Ally. So here we are up with the AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be a saver & feeder of knowledge for them.
Introduction Questions Asked By Team BlockTalks!
Q1. Could you please introduce Ally to our community in layman’s term?
Ans — Our mission at Ally is helping the world work together and to strive for the perfect transaction. We’ve built the Ally Platform as a software-as-a-service platform that directly connects businesses, service providers (drivers at the moment), and customers built on blockchain.
The platform provides enterprise technology to merchants and service providers that remove unnecessary costs and maximize profits.
In our space, you have mainly marketplaces such as DoorDash and Postmates. These marketplaces charge high commissions (sometimes over 40%) to both the businesses and delivery drivers.
This eats away at margins.
We chose the SaaS model because it provides for fixed, low cost that allows our businesses and drivers to keep 100% of what they earn. This reduces costs for everyone - businesses, drivers, and, ultimately, the end customer.
Our main objective is to stay away from the transaction itself and empower everyone with software so they may grow and expand their business. SaaS model allows for a clear and transparent fee structure so no one is surprised with huge fee’s. Our platform is dramatically cheaper then the competition because of the low overhead.
Q2. What are the advantages of Ally to the other alternatives in the Blockchain field?
Ans — Ally provides an open ecosystem for developers to build their own DApps on top of the 10 protocols we have built. These 10 protocols define the perfect transaction and focus on maximizing relationships, revenue and direct commerce.
We dont really have any alternatives in the blockchain space.
Ally from a business standpoint really is an ecosystem powered by our technology.
Our users can work together and accomplish amazing things.
Q3. What are the major milestones Ally achieved so far & what are in the future pipeline?
Ans — Since our launch Ally has been committed to do things differently then other projects. Before moving to fully decentralization we focused on building a real solution, solving the problems, finishing our tech and gaining adoption.
We have been in business since 2019 and have some amazing achievements.
We currently have over 500 brands, in over 2000 locations, with over 90,000 drivers in all 50 states in the US.
In 2020 our platform was responsible for over 24 million deliveries and we are happy to help so many people save, maximize and survive during covid.
We believe it’s time for us to expand outside of the US and brind our platform to the world.
We’ve set aggressive goals for the team both for the Ally Platform and the Direct Token. For the Platform, the goal is to increase its reach within the U.S. and to expand abroad in to the Canada, Australia, Armenia, U.K., and Russia.
That’s from an expansion pipeline, from a development pipeline.
We are working on POS Ally, Scribe (going live in less then 20 days) and our Autonomous Rover Technology.
Questions Asked on Twitter For Ally Team!
Q1. I understand that Ally will have a completely transparent order tracking, but how will it really work? Will it simply be a built-in GPS that will have the delivery vehicles, which will notify customers of the location of the vehicle?
Ans — Order Transparency, Tracking and Chain of Custody reporting is very important to us. We have developed tools within our application to empower service providers to submit as detailed info as possible.
The Service Ally Application tracks the location, status, and provides helpful tools to the drivers.
Tools such as Bathroom Finder, Order Suggestions, Chat and much more.
This information submitted by the driver is presented to the merchant, and end consumer for tracking.
End Consumers get a SMS with a portal link so they can follow their delivery/order status.
Our Chain of Custody features allow for complete end to end tracking and 100% confidence in the delivery product with tools such as Drivers License Scan, Photo Verification and Face Recognition.
This is very important to some of our clients like Kaiser Permanente.
They need to know that the Medicine gets delivered to the right people on time.
Q2. How is Ally able to do such a complete business/customer service without taking any tax/commission for it, how is the revenue model of the platform to make it sustainable, and profitable as a business?
Ans — The answer is very very simple, we decided to stay out of the transaction and focus on the business and technology. By structuring ourselves as a SaaS (Software as a Service) company we are able to focus on providing the best software possible. This keeps our overhead really low and we pass the savings onto our clients.
We charge a very small SaaS fee to grow.
We are happy to say we have been profitable since 2019.
We have reinvested our earnings since then to grow and acheive some of our amazing results.
Drivers also get to drive on our platform for free until they make $1000 and then we charge a very small monthly fee as long as they make over the $1000 in those months.
Q3. On your website you claim to be an ally of traders but also of drivers, so can you explain how you plan to educate these sectors about cryptocurrency to become really massifiable in time? What are the benefits for traders and drivers?
Ans — Yes, our platform provides great technology for Merchants and Drivers and at the end the End Consumer benefits by saving over 30%.
We believe that CryptoCurrency is the next evolution of commerce and are making the technology available to everyone.
But we are not forcing it!
The DRCT token is the lifeline of our platform powering all our 10 protocols and handing things like Transfer of Value, Escrows, Disputes, Arbitration, Reputation, Distribution and much more.
Merchants and Drivers choose what currency they want to view everything in and DRCT at times is in the background empowering everything.
As the user becomes more comfortable with Crypto Currency all our applications support, DRCT, Bitcoin, Eth, Ltc and any ERC-20 currency.
Our sophisticated Rewards and Loyalty program combined with our Marketing tools really empowers merchants to take control of their business and grow.
Education is also the most important part of Ally and is part of our expansion and strategy to bring this to the world.
We have done a good job here in the states, but have to repeat the process everywhere in the world.
Q4. Businesses can export their customers' data outside of Ally for campaigns, newsletters or other things. But we've heard of how some companies use the data for illegitimate purposes, so how do you handle this issue? How do you protect customers' privacy?
Ans — Yes! We too know of these companies that use their power and access to data in the wrong way. Because we focused on strictly being a Software Company we have built our platform to put the data ownership 100% in the hands of merchants and customers. They decide what can and cant be done with their data.
We hold Privacy and Security at the higest standards.
Merchants can use their own data for campaigns, newsletters, promotions, alerts and notifications as they see fit. This is currenlty not possible with other platforms because data ownership sits with those companies.
Q5. Ally aims to connect merchants with customers without the need of involving third parties into the equation. But if I'm honest with you, Ally seems to me just like another intermediary app like Uber Eats, Fiver or DoorDash, so what is different on Ally to not consider it as that?
Ans — These other companies possition themselves as intermediary, they own the data, customers, and force themselves to be the middleman.
Ally empowers the merchants with technology and everything is Branded to the merchant.
So the end consumer see’s only the merchant’s brand and the merchant controls the whole process.
We do have plans to open a marketplace called ZERO that will provide merchants with extra orders for FREE!!! Will never charge anything to be on the platform. ZERO fee’s.
This will be a helpful marketing tool for businesses.
Unlike the other companies that charge % of up to 42%. Ally does not!
We do not get involved in the transaction, thus removing us a middleman and allowing everyone to work with eachother.
We are just a software company that focuses on providing needed tools and automation to empower everyone to maximize everything!
These tools empower the businesses to be very competitive, advertise and grow.
We are happy to say during Covid, we were able to help a lot of businesses stay open and actually profit.
Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to Ally Team!!
Q1. Could you tell me about the rates that people find in Ally when placing an order and a delivery? High rates are not a big problem that many companies offer?
Ans — Our platform does not add any extra fee’s so it’s whatever the food + delivery + tips.
Our delivery fee is as low as $3.5 and with batched orders can get lower! The end consumer saves over 30%.
Q2. Reading about the project you mention having a reputation system, but I didn’t find more details about it. So, can you explain how such a reputation system works? How does it affect the ecosystem of the project? Does it benefit traders and drivers?
Ans — Merchants and Drivers stake into the platform to maintain their reputation, Reviews are only added to real and confirmed transactions and published on chain. Merchants get a chance to manage their reputation, dispute reviews and build their reputation up.
Q3. The problem which Ally is solving is something that has been longing for solution, I’m glad to see a courageous platform coming up with a solution that will help merchants and service providers remove unnecessary costs and maximize profits. However, I think one of the challenges you will be facing is educating the users about the benefits of this technology of yours, do you agree with me on that? If yes, how will you strive to ensure you solve this problem so that you will be recognized globally?
Ans — Education is very important.
We have done a good job in US, but still have a lot of work to do! We will adapt our strategy and expand to all parts of the world. Mainly is to onboard merchants, then drivers and work with them to grow their business to bring in the consumers.
Q4. How does your platform generate the capital required to sustain and run knowing that you operate a Zero fee system for merchants? Isn’t this inconvenient to you and unsustainable in the long run? Besides, what are the models you have for generating income?
Ans — We charge merchants a small SaaS monthly fee and same with drivers. Very very very small fee, but with volume we generate a lot of profit.
Q5. Your platform has the Ally software available on iOS and Android, but can you explain how simple or easy to use your software is for users, traders and drivers as it is super important to be user-friendly for all parties?
Ans — Our applications are available on Web, iOS and Android. Simply download the applications, sign up to be a merchant/driver and get started! It’s that easy.
Q6. On their website they make a lot of emphasis that with Ally they will be able to "get their customers back", but what guarantee will companies have that will recover large amounts of customers just by incorporating Ally’s software?
Ans — Well, we empower the business to grow their brands. Remember, we brand everything to the customer. Customer get loyalty points and rewards pushing them to switch from other platforms to the businesses.
Q7. Security & User Interface is the most important aspect that users see on a platform. ALLY has performed on this platform. Is this platform suitable for newbies in the crypto world?
Ans — Security is very important! We conduct Audits on a weekly/monthly basis to ensure it meets our highest standards.
Q8. Are you planning to launch NFT for Native Protocol? Recently, many projects like ALLY have launched NFT to attract investors, what is your opinion about the NFT industry?
Ans — We have 5 Unique Usecases for NFTs, Such as Patents, Copyright, Subscription, Digital LIcense verification, and Distribution management. These 5 Unique protocols really adds to the NFT functionality.
Q9. You have been here since 2019. Many projects has been disappeared in this time period. Could you tell us what makes ALLY so successful and how did you survive in this longer bear market?
Ans — We focused on building, expanding and perfecting before going to the market. We are succeeding and growing in the bear market. We are focusing on doing this correctly.
Q10. How to win $DRCT Besides translating some texts?
Ans — If you are talking about Scribe. This is a new Product that adds to the utility of the Ally platform and DRCT token. We are releasing it next month! This will empower users to translate and earn DRCT.
DRCT can be earned through becoming a merchant or driver and working.
Q11. Project team has a big role in building up a project to its maximum capacity. So can you please tell us more about your team and their experiences?
Ans — We have a team of 50 people, about 35 developers. I am very very proud of our team.
Q12. Is your project a local project or a global project? Can anyone use your services from anywhere in the world? Is there any restrictions of using your service?
Ans — We are currently all over the US, but are expanding globally.
Q13. Can you tell us how to become a trader at Ally? What are the requirements that we must prepare?
Ans — You can sign up to become a merchant on our website or applicaitons. It’s easy!
Q14. Does this project have a ready platform? If so, will it support other blockchain integrations as well if Ethereum is not scalable?
Ans — We are fully ready, and live, we have L2 and Sidechain technologies to optimize for cost and speed.
