Announcing our Road-map for 2019
Dear LockTrippers,
today we want to share with you our roadmap for 2019. Especially for the first half of it. As our marketplace reaches a certain level of maturity and development, we want to provide a more general outlook in terms of quarters compared to the exact timelines we provided during the early development stages.
We believe that this approach suits best for the transition period between a heavy development phase and a marketing/growth phase.
First Quarter
In the first quarter of 2019, we will complete our work regarding the integration of 300,000 additional hotels and the development of the flight tickets section.
The development of the flights section took longer than expected, partly because we are integrating more airlines than initially planned. During the stage of development, we were able to secure 150 additional low cost carriers.
Thus, the current integration now includes more than 900 regular airlines and 350 low cost carriers.
Another important milestone will be the launch of the LockTrip testnet. Progress has been very strong and we are now finalizing our work. Not only that, but we are also planning to launch a testing bounty for it at the same time.
The bounty will include the engagement of our community with multiple features of the blockchain, such as the voting mechanism. In addition, we will validate and observe the network stability through various tools and metrics. Those tools are being developed as we speak. We aim for at least 200 nodes to take part in the bounty.
We have also scheduled a series of stability and security improvements for our marketplace. Those include frequently requested features such as 2 factor authentication (2FA), IP whitelisting features as well as email notifications for cases where our system detects a login from a new or unknown IP. Those are just a few (visible) examples of what will come.
In Q1, we plan to redesign our website to reflect all the changes we have undertaken since the last revamp. In order to achieve this, we are altering the concept of the website significantly by launching a LockTrip blockchain sub-site, a token economy sub-site and by switching the marketplace to the root domain. All three sites will co-exist on LockTrip.com in a cross-promoting user interface.
We also expect to release a completely new version of the Whitepaper & the One-pager built from scratch.
Second Quarter
In the second quarter, major user experience (UX) and design upgrades on all levels of the marketplace will become our core focus. During the last few months, we have gathered a lot of feedback from our community and added a series of improvements/suggestions to our UX roadmap.
Regarding our mobile apps, we will be switching to a fully native experience with improved usability on all device types.
We also plan to develop powerful affiliate tools to massively empower our affiliates and improve their conversion rates. We have gathered many suggestions/requests from affiliates and we will implement them during the second quarter and beyond.
At the same time, LockTrip will launch campaigns to attract and leverage super affiliates. Those will become a central element of our affiliate strategy. In this context we aim to support local events, organized by super affiliates, that are meant to educate and train their own networks of professional affiliates.
During the second quarter, we also expect to launch LockTrip Gift Cards. Not only as a standalone element, but also with the possibility to couple them with the affiliate campaign. More details in this regard will be shared once we get closer to the launch.
An especially exciting event of Q2 will be the mainnet launch of the LockTrip blockchain. Staking-wallets will be available and fully developed for all major operating systems. A swapping smart contract will be available at that time in order for LOC token holders to swap their tokens for LOC coins of the new blockchain (you can swap at any preferred time; there is no hurry).
Third and Fourth Quarter
During the third quarter, our primary focus will be to rebuild liquidity by migrating the exchanges we are listed on to the new blockchain and by launching support for the new LOC coin on multiple wallets (including mobile and hardware wallets). After reaching a solid base, this will become a continuous process.
We will also transition our marketplace operations to the new blockchain.
From then onward, our roadmap will mostly consist of growth and marketing activities. More details regarding later development stages will be shared as we progress.
Q1 2019
— Launch of Global Air Travel Service with 0% Commission
— Launch of 300,000 additional hotels
— Stability & Security improvements (Marketplace 2FA, IP whitelisting, account login confirmation via email upon non-whitelisted IP login)
— LT Blockchain Testnet launch & Blockchain bounty campaign for achieving a minimum of 200 nodes, stability testing and validating all features (including all possible voting types of the LT Distributed Governance Protocol)
— LockTrip.com main website redesign and major visual re-branding to a 3-in-1 concept (Launch of LT Blockchain sub-site, token economy sub-site and switching the marketplace to the root domain). All three sites will co-exist on LockTrip.com in a cross-promoting user interface
— Completely new Whitepaper & One-pager Version built from scratch
Q2 2019
— Major UX and Design Upgrade on all levels of the current marketplace
— Launch of full native mobile apps with improved usability
— Affiliate tools & Gift Cards Launch — to massively empower the current affiliates + bounty campaign for super affiliates and local event organizers
— LT Mainnet launch together with staking nodes/wallets for all major operating systems
Q3 2019
— Exchanges and marketplace migration from Ethereum to LT Blochchain
— Growth and Marketing
Q4 2019
— Growth and Marketing
Please note that individual targets can see their priorities/timelines shifted depending on the chances and opportunities we identify as we progress.
We want to specifically emphasize that the listed items do not represent the entire progress we will be making. The launch of additional payment methods for example, such as PayPal or BTC, is not listed as a separate item since we view it as an extension to the already launched fiat payment module.
Other milestones such as the integration of property management software (PMS) are also not listed, because they partly rely on third party factors. We thus do not want to commit to specific timelines that are not fully under our control. Timelines for such elements will be communicated separately and as we progress.
It is evident from the roadmap, that the remaining core development work of the marketplace is slowly coming to an end. It means that we can focus more and more on convenience features and on improving thousands of details on our way to perfection.
2019 will be a very important year for us. And we are glad to have a growing number of supporters with whom we can share our excitement along the way.
LockTrip is the first marketplace with 0% commission where you can save on average 20% on your hotel and rental bookings compared to anywhere else. Read how to buy LOC tokens here!
