Inspiration

Purchasing and selling products/services that involve large dollar amounts is a tedious and tiresome affair, prone to human errors and high broker/transaction fees - especially with the diversity in clientele (both geographical and currency-wise) available within the market today. Foreign countries outside of the United States struggle with transferring large amounts of USD to service providers, which involve hideous FX fees, international wire transfer costs, and long processing times - all the while international investment activities, such as space tourism purchases, have become increasingly popular.

We developed this Django/React based Rapyd Virtual Accounts API platform to make it easy to acquire and sell services from the comfort of your laptop or smartphone on the international landscape, without being subject to FX fees, wire transfer fees, and delinquently long processing times. Sellers, such as space-tourism providers, can now directly list their products without the assistance of a enterprise banking system, respond to buyer purchases/deposits, while being able to view the most accurate and up-to-date payment processes - all for a lower cost. Whether you would like to purchase your dream vacation on mars, sell a life-changing experience for profit, or give the world’s luckiest man/woman an engagement present, Touch the Sky has got your back!

What It Does

We understand that buying and selling a ticket to visit the Red Planet can be complicated, which is why we created a network to put you at ease. Touch the Sky makes it as easy as filling out two pages worth of personal information, including your ticket quantity and payment deetails, and the Rapyd Payment API directly connects to your local bank account to conduct a domestic wire transfer, bank draft, or certified cheques - in your home currency with live FX rates! This fundamentally changes the way transactions are doncuted on a global basis - instead of sending and receiving international wire payments, which take 1-7 business days and cost anywhere from 10-100 basis points, sometimes even involving overnight interest rates (absolutely outrageous), this platform allows suppliers and buyers alike to conduct transactions with their preferred local currency of choice.

How We Built It

We built our platform using React, Redux, MaterialUI on the frontend (alongside the assistance of a few LIVE currency converters), with an Django backend that leverages the Rapyd Payments API to store transaction data and listings/purchasing history. We opted to use Netlify as our hosting platform because of its versatility in deploying static sites quickly and easily.

Technologies Used (Our Stack)

Stack	Technology Used
Front-End	React, Redux, MaterialUI
Back-End	Django
Cloud/Hosting	Netlify

Challenges We Ran Into

Creating a smooth user experience targeted towards the UX of affluential clients
Working with various team members to coordinate and manage time, across different cultures and timezones
Coordinating as well as networking with Rapyd team members at the same time!

Accomplishments We're Proud Of

Creating an Accessible Design
Implementing most designs into code through styling
Building a functioning Proof of Concept that can be demonstrated to clients

What We Learned

Through the process of developing Touch the Sky, we learned many skills that will help our team as we work on other projects in the future.

Prioritization of features
Git and project management skills in a fast-paced team environment
Greater collaboration for data analysis and modeling
Importance of planning and user research prior to developing an application

Business Viability

Revenue Streams

Platform fees, similar to but (of course) lower than payment fees
Integrating a point system, where the user can earn points through using the system to save on gas and/or platform fees - or discounts for their next big trip.
Google ads, monthly subscription to get rid of ads - both Buy and Sell ends.
Premium Accounts with more users to one account (family plan) - bundle and save!

Obtaining Users

Working with private investors and institutional clients.
Target certain demographics & adapt to environments such as hedge funds, investment trusts, Wall Street old-school trading firms, or other communities with need for accessible payment providers for international transactions.

Lowering Expenses

Deploying & building a web app allows for extensive A/B testing of users with respect to new features
Scalable backend technologies provide throughput to scale the technology needed.
Minimalizing on "additional features" by having the goal set to peer-relationship building

Competitive Advantage

Less monetization, no mandatory costs for use for the end-customer
Faster turnaround time compared to more traditional “brick and mortar” bank branches and brokerages
Rather than over-complicating the entire purchasing and sale process, we made it as simple as possible
Not presenting an overwhelming amount of data like other platforms (OFX, WISE)
Ability to export and share data with team members and accountants/lawyers if necessary.