It has been the productive year since the launch of Opporty, and six no less productive months since our team decided to kick off the Opporty ICO. This certainly was a decision that we do not regret, because it led to many changes — both significant and minor — that have served to move our project forward and bring the team closer to our goals.
We could not have done any of this without the support of our followers and people like you who have had faith in our project. The strong community of Opporty enthusiasts inspires confidence and encourages us to deliver even better results. And so, we would like to share a summary our achievements and milestones that were reached in 2017.
January
- The website supports US SIC codes to ensure better searchability and user experience.
- We created a Data Scraper for direct access to from our site and more relevant search results.
- Our users can edit their requests and offers, thanks to improved functionality.
- To enhance website performance, we refactored the code and migrated to React.
- A new feature — chat — was integrated for better communications on the platform.
- Our database of businesses grew to 17 million US companies.
February
- We upgraded Personal Accounts so that companies on our database can claim themselves instead of creating new accounts.
- The Sign-In page no longer has bugs and works smoothly.
- SIC categories were expanded for a broader representation of all industries in the US.
- Another portion of back-end code was upgraded for quicker load time and higher performance.
March
- We optimized the code and applied new algorithms for higher responsiveness of the site.
- Being a content-sharing platform, we continue to update our blog, this time to the 1.1 version.
- Data Scraper now helps return better results based on resting and reviews.
- Our Terms and Conditions were added to the site so that users can familiarize themselves with our platform’s rules and regulations.
- We implemented pagination to our catalog to improve the website’s navigation.
- A new search filter is available on the site, which makes navigation and search smoother.
- Users can leave reviews and rate companies with whom they have interacted.
April
- We released a new version of the “TOP Professional Rating” feature.
- Data Scraper was updated with new algorithms to increase parsing speed.
- Services and Categories were updated to provide more comfortable navigation.
- We redesigned and filled the main page with fresh and informative content.
- An RSS blog feed now appears on the site for easier access to our blog publications.
- By using Google Maps, we included geolocation to profiles.
May
- The blog engine was once again updated to enhance our blog’s look and performance.
- We fixed bugs and rolled out new updates of “TOP Professional Rating” for more stable performance.
- We developed a wizard for users to fill company profile information in a convenient and quick manner.
- A services section now appears on our catalog view so that users see more details about a company without clicking to view full information.
- Users receive new email notifications which include updates, new actions and other new activities.
- Gamification 1.0 was successfully released.
- Some minor bug fixes associated with the admin panel also took place.
June
- Paypal services are now integrated and fully operational on our website.
- The old sitemap was replaced with a new one which offers extended navigational possibilities.
- TOP 5 companies are listed in a completely new section.
- We synchronized the search between the Opporty and SIC categories catalog.
- Opporty blog posts with the most engagement appear in the popular articles section.
- The Add Request/Offer section is accessible from any page on the site.
- Search filter and the company profile functionality were further optimized.
- We cleaned up the code and updated our services and categories.
July
- We have differentiated roles of newly registered users and users with advanced company profiles.
- The Company Review section is now completed.
- We send auto-generated email notifications to users who have entered our “TOP Professional Rating”.
- Prioritization of companies on search results is implemented based on multiple principles.
- Latest blog articles are displayed on the Home Page.
- We implemented the author signature functionality on our blog.
- Blog performance was further improved through the refactoring of its code.
- We rolled out a new back-end for enhanced offer/request functionality.
- Billing section operates correctly, without any bugs.
- While any page is loading, users see a preloader which signals that the request is in progress.
August
- We announced our intentions to launch the Opporty ICO across multiple social media channels.
- Team members started developing the Opporty whitepaper.
- Our first advisors showed interest in our project.
September
- Opporty was moved to a more powerful and productive server.
- Major security improvements of the admin panel took place.
- The team actively prepares to kick off the ICO. We took the following measures:
- Developed our landing page
- Devised a bounty campaign
- Developed a participant’s account feature
- Incorporated Ethereum blockchain
- Developed smart contracts
October
The most important update was related to our blog, which is now upgraded to Blog 2.0 and divided into two sections — “Blog of Companies” and “Opporty Blog.” The former gives users the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience by posting their articles. The latter is for Opporty’s internal authors.
December
- We released an advanced Gamification feature — Gamification 2.0 — with a more complex structure and comprehensive rules.
- A new contract with a new holding period countdown and minimum investment was deployed.
- Users receive email notifications whenever others leaves a response to an offer or request.
- Investor accounts undergo some updates and bug fixes.
- We released Opporty’s UK version.
- The first version of Opporty Decentralized Escrow is available on the site.
- The ‘Ask Questions’ and ‘Send Message’ buttons are active and fully-operational.
- There were some bugs on the ICO landing page which were quickly fixed.
- We smoothly launched opporty.ca — the Canadian version of Opporty.
- The ICO landing page has a new design and three language versions.
- Opporty established a strategic partnership with Bancor.
- We created two explanatory videos about our Decentralized Escrow 1.0.
- There are more new rewards available in our Gamification feature.
- Opporty contributors are rewarded with a cup and rating points.
- We created prototypes for design layouts of the Opporty service marketplace.
Also, some other essential changes happened in the course of project development in 2017. We:
- Shifted from Ember.js 2.0 to React.
- Reviewed the architecture of the project and removed invalid code.
- Structured and optimized our database.
- Developed a new admin panel that runs on React.
- Implemented the live chat feature and created email notifications about messages received when user is offline.
Future Plans
We have certainly achieved a lot over the past year, but many more amazing changes are yet to come. Our team has ambitious plans for the future, which we know will be transformed into reality, no matter what. As laid out on our project’s roadmap, by the end of January the Opporty marketplace will be presented to the world, and by the end of February there will be up to six different language versions of the site.