Detailed Plan
How NOQ Events (NoQueue) Started – Problems at Events
B2C – Customers
- Long and multiple queues for Food and Beverage (F&B)
- F&B visibility (offers, dietary restrictions)
- Lack of feedback
- Security.
B2B - Merchants
Payment solutions used by Event caterers are charging high transaction costs. They are never rewarded by payment service providers for their hard work, customer service to millions of people, and loyalty for using the same supplier over time.
High costs charged by event organizers and post-event reconciliation issues.
B2B Event Organisers and Food concessions
- Unsatisfied attendees
- Poor merchants’ management
- Poor sales visibility.
NOQ Mission
Providing the most transparent and fastest ordering system for food & drinks, whilst enhancing the event experience through interactive and secure mobile solutions.
NOQ Platform Today (available in the market)
NOQ has created a streamlined ordering system for event-goers, vendors, and organizers.
Mobile ordering was the first part of our business. The second step was to build an Electronic Point of Sales (EPOS) system to offer an end-to-end payment solution for mobile and card. Now, we are finalizing an event management platform for caterers, which is the gap in the market and what we have built towards.
The data is fed into the platform through our payment solutions. Event organizers’ contracted caterers and businesses who manage multiple events and vendors, can use our platform to save time and help scale their businesses.
It is a powerful ERP software where you can set up events, add vendors to the event, assign permissions to the vendors, set up revenue share models, split payment at source, obtain visibility of all sales across all vendors/brands, set up private/public events to manage for pay as you go or pre-paid events, receive real-time, actionable insights for F&B management, handle stock between vendors, understand backlogs per vendor for better resource management, manage staff clock-ins and access, multi-menu management to cater for the staff, VIP, happy hours, but also a big problem is communication during events. Communications can easily be sent via the platform to all your vendors.
NOQ Product Today (available in the market)
B2C - Customers
We have built an Event Native mobile app (marketplace) and Web app to allow Event-goers to order F&B, merchandise, check schedules, simplify, and reduce their time spent queuing.
B2B - Merchants
We have been building our Electronic Point of Sales (EPOS) and mobile ordering system with the help of events caterers, and small businesses to provide them with a simple tool to improve their day-to-day operations and business margins at events and venues.
Our system functionalities:
- Built on the cloud for iOS or Android devices (tablets and mobile phones)
- Integrated card readers and printers
- Split order by items
- Tap & go functionality
- Ability to create tabs
- Cash management & reconciliation
- Refund & partial refund processing
- Tip functionality
- Dynamic promotions & discounts
- Instant stock management
- Real-time sales reports
- Product insights
- Staff logins & permissions
- Clock-in & clock-out functionality
- Dynamic split bill functionality.
B2B Event organizers & Food Concessions groups
We have built a management tool with the following functionalities:
- Setup events, add vendors and set permissions
- Split payment at the source with multiple vendors
- Maintain visibility of all sales by vendor Real-time product, vendor, customer, and sales data
- Data captured through purchases made via NOQ’s versatile payment solutions
- Add brands, promotions & sponsors to events
- Multi-menu management to cater for different people, time of day, or offers
- Real-time vendor backlog visibility.
NOQ Market Traction - To date
We are currently based in the UK Market. In 2021 we have provided our solution to 300+ events and 100+ caterers. From small events (~100 people) to our partnership with the European Tour at the Scottish Open (~20,000 people).
More than 75,000 event-goers have used our platform and we have processed £1M+ transactions.
We are growing fast, and we are members of the following associations which will help scaling our business:
- Association Independent Festivals: https://aiforg.com/directory/noq-group/
- Association of Festival Organisers: https://www.festivalorganisers.org/associate+members
- National Outdoor Festival Association: https://www.noea.org.uk/resources/members-listings/#!biz/id/60bf6124d2334c3e0514519d
- National Catering Association (NCASS): https://www.ncass.org.uk/rewards-partners-suppliers/noq/
NOQ Target Market
The worldwide event industry is worth $1,135.4 billion in 2019 expected to reach $1,552.9 billion by 2028, registering a CAGR of 11.2%.
The UK Event Industry is worth £70 billion and 140 million people have attended outdoor events in 2018 and this trend will be growing after Covid restrictions will be fully lifted.
(https://www.statista.com/statistics/1117183/attendance-at-outdoor-events-uk-by-type/)
Our current focus is on the UK and then to replicate our model Worldwide. The potential is exponential.
About us – Team, News, articles, and case studies
Team
At the moment we have a management team of 4 people and 12 developers from full-stack to QA actively developing our system and products.
Management Team
1. Param Kanabar: CEO/Co-founder - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paramkanabar/
2. Andrea Diaferio: Product Manager/Co-founder - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-diaferio/
3. Ivana Shantilal: Operations Manager - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivana-shantilal/
4. Max Anderrson: Sales Manager - https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-andersson1/
Our Interviews
Elected 80th startup over 3000 participants in the UK
https://techround.co.uk/techround-100/80-noq-events/
Our case studies and blog
https://www.noqgroup.com/blog/
Linkedin company profile
https://www.linkedin.com/company/noqgroup/
NOQ Future Development
NOQ’s future plans are to continue adding value to events by making their ordering tools more and more indispensable, for attendees, organizers, caterers, and bar operators.
On the operation and infrastructural side, we are working with F&B self-service system partners (NDA) to provide more options available to customers.
On the customer side, we are looking to create a more interactive and secure solution, while continuously building on enhancing the customer experience.
From a social perspective, it makes perfect sense.
From interacting and connecting with other Event-Goers, to making it easier to understand when customers are too intoxicated to order, creating an easier experience for women and adults with kids who would otherwise struggle with heavy queues, reducing waste through paperless technology and data analytics, and creating opportunities to donate to charity and reward Merchants for their hard work - NOQ is ready to conquer the industry.
NOQ main issue after launch
As a Startup we are still struggling to negotiate low transactions fees with online PSP’s, and therefore understand the pain of these small businesses. Additionally, the payment realm currently is very complex with various parties involved with hidden costs and no real transparency.
NOQ and Catalyst Project – The synergy
With the help of the Cardano community, we can achieve our future developments (above) thanks to Cardano Blockchain’s potentialities and benefits. Providing enhanced innovations to our clients and consumers.
Our view is to create a Digital wallet and Identity solution available to Event Organisers, Event-Goers, and Merchants (B2B2C) embedded in our platform to reduce costs, increase transaction speed, transparency and security.
Furthermore, the above solutions will allow consumers and merchants to open their data to Advertisement and Sponsors (F&B corporations) in exchange for a reward paid directly to their wallets. This will be the most valuable component for our final development and adoption for Billions of Event Organisers, Event-Goers and Merchants Worldwide.
Our Set milestones are:
1st - Implement Digital Identities with Atala PRISM (this proposal)
2nd - Create Digital Wallet with Cardano, ADA Pay, and our own NOQ token to reduce transactions costs
3rd - Implement a rewarding system for Organisers, Merchants, and Event-goers.
Why the Request for Funds?
We are looking for help from the Cardano community to build this system. Due to limited funding to run our core business (we are a seed early-stage start-up) we cannot deploy them to build the below specifics.
1st- Digital Identities Implementation with ATALA PRISM (this proposal)
Atala Prisms will set the foundation to comply with regulations and enhance security for future NOQ developments.
DID will have many use cases like Identity to access an event, Age verification to purchase alcohol, security in case of illegal actions, transactions fraud prevention, Data sharing, and much more.
We will need to implement the following process:
- Start – Registration; login; confirmation
- Document certification (ID documents, legal documents, certifications, KYC, etc)
- Data Sharing – user permissions on sharing information – Adding also zero-knowledge proofs to certain data sharing cases.
- Third-party access – user controlling third party access
All of this will be accessible to every user account in their profile section
This will speed up the adoption of our product with event organizers using it as a security tool and fraud prevention
Furthermore, as said above this will be the base for the other 2 steps of development.
2nd- Create Digital Wallet with Cardano, ADA Pay, and our own NOQ token to reduce transactions costs
We are creating a digital wallet available to all Event-Goers and Merchants where Cardano can be transacted. The majority of Event-Goers are Gen Z and millennials and statistically proven to have a high correlation and association to cryptocurrencies, leading to mass adoption and usage.
Implementing ADA pay we will provide further transacting tools to consumers.
we have a plan to implement also a NOQ Stable Token - This token will be pegged to fiat currency such as GBP to separate the volatility of the crypto markets. It will be used as a vehicle for transactions and will be possible to withdraw at any time and circumstances by both B2B and B2C.
3rd- Implement a rewarding system for Organisers, Merchants, and Event-Goers.
The main component of this project will be the NOQ Token - The token that Organisers, Merchants, and Event-Goers. This token represents your share of the company. Its value is based on the token’s outstanding supply and market demand. This token comes with the volatility of the crypto markets.
Merchants will be able to stake and or exchange them. It will be rewarded depending on loyalty (usage of our system), customer service, feedback from users, and from Event sponsors for sharing their operation data.
Merchants can earn tokens from users as well as our NOQ automated system that will reward them based on their performance. Examples of KPIs that will be used to reward could include net-zero sustainability measures, quality of food, speed of service, number of sales, referral to other caterers, offering amazing customer service, and many more.
At the same time, we will create token economics for Event-Goers where they can earn our token from Event sponsors for sharing their data, purchase it, exchange it through our NOQ shops, stake them, receive discounts for food and beverage and tickets depending on the amount of staked tokens, donate them through charity, gain them through watching adverts and gaming that we are currently implementing in our B2C apps and more.
Success Metrics
Our Business is growing rapidly and as per our forecast and events planned next year, we will hit the 1m+ users by the end of 2022.
Furthermore, our system is being adopted for day-to-day operations at food markets, open theatres, drive-in cinemas, small events, high street coffee shops, small restaurants, and many others. Therefore, our growth in the UK will reach millions of users.
We have a few big partnership discussions that are still in NDA and I cannot disclose them. if finalized they will increase our transaction volumes by +£500m and will onboard 3000+ merchants.
Roadmap
2022 Q2 - MVP DID and implementation to Summer 22 Event Season + Fixed venues
2022 Q4 – MVP Digital wallets, Cardano, ADA Pay and NOQ Stable Token
2023 Q2 - MVP NOQ Token and rewarding system for Organisers, Merchants, and Event-goers. Launch with sponsors Festival Summer Season 23 + Fixed Venues.
The ASK for the first Milestone:
3 Months - Starting end of Q1
R&D with Atala PRISM and our Own system implementation
Database communication Structure and Security
Frontend prototype
Back end implementation
Initial implementation of MVP functionality.
Alpha version available for people to test.
Release Beta Version
Future milestones (not included in this proposal).
Funding necessary to Achieve the first milestone:
Ask - USD 39,000
1 MERN Full Stack Developer - USD 6000 X 3 Months = USD 18,000
1 Front end - USD 4000 X 3 Months = USD 12,000
Legal - USD 9,000 - cost involved for compliance and regulations
Requested funds in USD 39,000
Other milestones details:
In 6 – 9 – 12 - 18 Months
MVP digital wallet and Cardano implementation Available for beta Testers
Release Beta Version
Starting implementation of ADA Pay
Alpha and Beta Version of ADA Pay Released with testing
Starting implementations of NOQ tokens and rewarding system
Refining rewards and transaction system to be launched during the events summer season of 2023.