natanimxo/net-birr

Digital ledger for Ethiopian small businesses — income/expense tracking, tamper-evident customer debt (ዱቤ) ledger, Telegram-based reminders. Portfolio case study. # Net-Birr — Digital Ledger for Ethiopian Small Businesses A full-stack mobile app that replaces the paper ledger used by Ethiopian shop owners: income/expense tracking, customer debt (ዱቤ) management with tamper-proof edit history, and Telegram-based payment reminders — built end-to-end by one developer. > **Status:** Functional MVP (3 phases built and tested). Development paused after market research — see Why this isn't a startup (yet) for the honest analysis. This repo now serves as a case study in building *and evaluating* a product for an emerging market. --- ## The Problem Small retail businesses dominate Ethiopian commerce, yet most run on paper: - Many owners **don't know their actual profit** — money comes in as a mix of cash, Telebirr, and bank transfers, and nothing reconciles it. - Sales on credit (ዱቤ) are tracked in notebooks that get lost, disputed, or quietly "corrected." - More than 76% of small Ethiopian retail business owners fail to succeed beyond 3 years (Geleta, 2013; Woldehanna et al., 2018; Woldeyohanes, 2014, as cited in Gebrehiwot, 2021). ## What I Built **Phase 1 — Core ledger** - Telegram-based authentication (no passwords — Telegram is the dominant platform in Ethiopia) - Fast income/expense entry with daily view - Free-tier usage limits **Phase 2 — Subscription flow** - Manual payment verification flow (Telebirr/bank transfer + screenshot upload + admin approval), modeled on how successful Ethiopian apps actually monetize in a market without app-store billing **Phase 3 — Debt tracking (the core feature)** - Customer credit ledger: mark any sale as "on credit," track balances per customer - **Append-only audit log**: every edit to a debt stores old value, new value, and timestamp — nothing can be silently changed, making the digital record *more* trustworthy than paper - Telegram reminders sent to customers about outstanding balances ## Tech Stack | Layer | Technology | |---|---| | Mobile app | React Native (Expo) | | Backend …