What is DEB?
DEB is an aspiring ride-share platform utilizing blockchain technology to provide a safer, and stronger relationship between both our riders and drivers. Stellar's payment network will allow us to charge a lower commission on each ride, effectively leaving more money in the pockets of drivers.
How will DEB improve the ride-share industry?
- Low Commission Rates: Our competitors offer 20-30-40% commission rates. We are aiming for sub 10% commission rates.
- Safety: Ride-share drivers should not be placed in an unsafe working environment. Why only require drivers to be background checked? If DEB is able to save riders $XXX a year in ride costs, is a $30 yearly background check provided by the rider too much to ask for? Should drivers be matched with riders which potentially have records of assault and/or criminal activity? What is the possibility of an individual committing a crime and stealing someones phone in order to call an Uber? What is the possibility of an individual stealing a ride-share vehicle and committing crimes against riders? This has all happened before within the current ride-share platforms. Could this risk be mitigated with current technology? Could we implement a fingerprint scanner within the app? Could we prevent riders entering incorrect cars by using Bluetooth or NFC?
- Benefit-like features: Ability to connect drivers with services which enable paid-out-daily dividends on their daily ride-share earnings. Mimic game-like competition pools which pay out to the winner.
What is the End-Goal for DEB?
DEB wants to provide BOTH the rider and driver a safer, cost-effective, more-enjoyable, modern ride-share experience. The ride-share industry is a XX billion dollar industry with over XXX million users.
Our end-goal is to overtake 10% of one of the current ride-share market monopolies. The stepping stone will be to overtake 2 - 5% of a current well-known ride-share service. This would place our user base at 78,000 - 195,000 drivers worldwide and 1.5M - 3.75M riders worldwide, while taking 280K - 700K rides each day. Of course these are very ambitious numbers, however we are starting out in San Diego, CA which is a huge tourist spot. We will be starting our marketing efforts towards registered TNC companies within San Diego, and afterward expand into other California markets. This will allow us to avoid any AB5 law issues regarding independent contractor status as the TNC companies themselves will be able to use our software for their drivers/riders.
Why Stellar?
Being able to communicate with a reputable block-chain at the least amount of cost, in the least amount of time is the goal for everyone I believe. We chose Stellar, not only for their network statistics, but also for their documentation. As for a ride-share use-case, fast payments/transactions are a must. No rider will be willing to wait at the curb for a transaction to confirm in order for their driver to begin the trip. Our drivers will be able to confirm transactions with the rider within 5 seconds with low transaction fees. Which brings us to our second reason for choosing Stellar: the ability to scale to the multi-million user-base found within the ride-share industry. Stellar's low transaction fees will allow us to charge the lowest commission possible for drivers, even during high-network surges. Low commission rates ensure happy drivers which in turn encourages drivers to provide a better service for riders.
Stellar opens up the possibility to allow everyone to cash-out their balances in whichever currency anchor they would like. If we are able to incorporate debit cards, riders on vacation outside of their bank’s normal operating territory, can convert their balances to their currency of choice possibly reducing foreign transaction fees and allowing the user to potentially have a more-beneficial exchange rate compared to local currency converter establishments. Drivers can cash-out their earnings to different currency anchors found on the Stellar Block-chain, effectively auto-investing directly into whichever currency they wish to hold at the time of ‘cashing-out’ their daily earnings.
What makes DEB + Stellar unique?
DEB is exploring the opportunity for drivers to earn dividends on their earnings. Being able to earn dividends on daily earnings will distinguish ourselves from the competition.
Will DEB be able to compete in the Ride-share Industry?
DEB will increase safety, bring realistic commission fees, provide drivers a chance to experience game-like achievements/in-app competitions, and allow drivers to earn dividends on their daily earnings.
How will DEB win over riders/drivers?
Organic Marketing. Easily winning over drivers by offering them a low commission rate along with the desired feature for drivers to earn dividends on their daily earnings by utilizing a dividend stable coin provider in the Stellar space. Drivers will be displaying the DEB window decal alongside Uber and Lyft. This will raise questions from riders and when drivers mention their app of choice is DEB, riders will become intrigued.
What are the next development steps for DEB?
We are going to use the funds to continue development for DEB, whether that be internal or external is still to be decided. We are exploring external development solutions that would be interested in holding DEB’s hand through this development journey.
How will DEB benefit Stellar?
DEB will bring traffic and users to the Stellar Network. By being able to incorporate currency anchors, we could bring a large amount of users (liquidity) to the Stellar Network.
Why develop another ride-share app?
Every individual that has either used ride-share, or driven for ride-share knows that ride-share monopolies have broken ride-share for the drivers, and possibly many riders as well. The earning structure has been lowered and lowered among the leading ride-share providers. This has caused many drivers to resort to unethical behavior such as faking cleaning fees in order to be more profitable. While driver pay has decreased, the amount the rider is being charged has remained the same, if not raised. By raising the price, you have many riders that report false claims about drivers in order to receive free rides. Our goal is to encourage an ethical ride-share community. A community that does not need to resort to unethical behavior to survive.
We believe it is #TimeForChange and will improve the ride-share community in numerous ways:
- We aim to be transparent with our commission rates. We will not allow our platform to incorporate variable 30–40% commission algorithms found within other ride-share companies.
- We aim to offer benefit-like features using a combination of achievement/group goals, combined with the crypto-market volatility.
- We aim to leave more money in both parties wallets by limiting the amount of commission charged on rides. Given Stellar Network’s low fees, we can accomplish this.
- We aim to improve safety on our platform by requiring drivers to be 1+ year vetted ride-share drivers with respectable ratings. (Required time may be substituted with number of rides, depending on driver saturation in a given market).
These are just a few goals we are striving to accomplish. There are many more ideas going on behind the scenes in which will offer not only a safer platform, but a more enjoyable one, in essence, a platform that allows users to thrive.
Pre-Q4 2020 Reported Progress
August 2020 Reported Progress
WhitePaper v0.3
The current DEB Demo
Currently as it stands we have a developed, ready-to-test Web Application. We are utilizing a driver simulator in order to replicate the ride-share driver while developing. Payments are currently being processed using XLM. We will be working towards incorporating live GPS feeds from user devices in future demos.
While trying out the DEMO (https://demo.drivedeb.com), be sure to use Google Chrome Desktop Browser. You may also try using Mozilla Firefox Desktop Browser, Safari Mobile Browser, and Google Chrome Mobile Browser (both currently tested and working on iPhone XR). Please keep in mind we have done the majority of testing and development within the Google Chrome Desktop Browser.
If you are testing on only one computer, you will need one browser window for the Rider, and another Incognito browser window for the Driver, to keep the cookie sessions separate. If you are testing on mobile, you will need either two phones or one phone and one computer. Users will also need to hold at least 1 DEB Token in a Stellar Wallet in order to utilize the app. I will be giving out 1 DEB to each user (Stellar Wallet) who wishes to test out the app. Contact me via Keybase (drivedeb), Email (creator@drivedeb.com), or Twitter (@DriveDEB) to receive your tokens for access.
While testing the app, keep a few things in mind:
- Driver simulators are assigned a random geo-coordinate upon registration. This means that you may need to register your driver more than once if you are placed way in the middle of nowhere.
- You need to have at least 1 DEB Token in the connected Stellar Wallet in order to utilize the app. I will be more than happy to send the token as long as you have a connected trust-line to the DEB Token. Token information is =>here<= | if you have any issues, feel free to reach out
- To avoid UI issues, wait until the driver simulator makes a complete stop before clicking any "Ready To Go" or "Drop Off Passenger" Buttons.
- Ride requests must be made within 2KM of your driver simulator.
- When registering an account, choose a unique password that you do not use on any other account/system. Keep your existing passwords safe.
- Create a new Stellar Wallet before you connect it to the app. Make sure you are not connecting wallets to the app in which hold large funds. Remember you will be needing two separate wallets; one for the rider and one for the driver. Each one will need to hold 1 DEB to unlock the app features. We are doing this in order to avoid spam accounts and malicious attempts to flood our server.
Message from the DEB Founder and Developer
Let me end this project description by introducing myself, founder and currently sole developer. My name is Deryk Chad Grimes. Over the past few months I have taken an interest in the Stellar Community and what their payment network has to offer. The birth of DEB (Drivers Earning Benefits) was influenced between the skills I have attained being a Computer Science graduate, combined with my ride-share driving experience over the past 5 years. This project means a lot to me as I have driven ride-share for the past 5 years, and I know what the ride-share monopolies are missing from their platforms. With over 200K+ miles driven and 3000 trips, I have spoken with many participants within the industry, both drivers and riders. Learning and experiencing the pros and cons within the industry has inspired me to break the ride-share mold and really create something that will positively benefit riders, drivers, and ride-share as a whole.
Links
Demo (https://demo.drivedeb.com)
Website (https://drivedeb.com)
Reports
2020 August Progress Report
2020 Pre-Q4 Progress Report
Video Demo
