RunMate

Inspiration: The idea for RunMate was inspired by the common struggles small vendors face in managing customer orders, especially in busy markets. Orders often come from chaotic channels like WhatsApp and phone calls, making it difficult for vendors to organize and track them effectively. Additionally, packing the correct items, finding reliable delivery riders, and handling payments (MoMo, cash, bank) were other key pain points. The lack of proper digital invoicing, especially with Rwanda's EIS compliance, added to the challenges.

What it does: RunMate streamlines the fulfillment process by providing a simple platform for vendors to manage their orders from start to finish. It allows vendors to easily create orders, track the picking and packing process, assign riders for delivery, and even generate invoices in compliance with Rwanda's EIS system. The platform ensures that all the moving parts of order fulfillment are organized, improving efficiency and reducing errors.

How we built it: We built RunMate using Node.js and Express for the backend API, which handles order creation, status updates, and rider assignment. The frontend was designed using React to ensure a clean, intuitive user interface. We also used MySQL for database management to store order data, payment status, and rider details. Real-time updates were achieved using web sockets, ensuring that the order statuses updated instantly across the platform.

Challenges we ran into: One of the biggest challenges was ensuring real-time updates across multiple devices, as it was critical for vendors, runners, and riders to have synchronized data. Another challenge was handling payment integration — especially simulating different payment methods and creating a smooth payment workflow. Additionally, user authentication and security became important when we had to ensure only authorized users could access and modify the orders.

Accomplishments that we're proud of: We’re proud of the real-time order tracking system, which helps vendors track the order lifecycle, from creation to delivery. The Kanban-style board for order statuses made it easy for vendors to manage the workflow, and the integration of EIS-compliant invoicing was a huge step towards making the platform market-ready for Rwanda. Our system has already shown a significant reduction in errors and delays in order processing.

What we learned: Throughout this process, I learned how to balance backend and frontend development while focusing on user experience. Collaborating with my team taught me the importance of effective communication and iterative development, and I gained experience in integrating third-party payment systems and handling real-time data. We also faced the challenge of keeping the platform scalable as we designed the architecture to accommodate more users and vendors in the future.

What's next for RunMate: Moving forward, we plan to add more features, including advanced analytics to help vendors track performance metrics like on-time delivery and order accuracy. We also want to expand our user base by targeting more markets in Rwanda and other regions. Additionally, we’ll work on enhancing the mobile app to improve the runner interface and make it more efficient for field users.