It's very refreshing to see the recent reasonable comments and understanding from several intelligent posters in this thread. Thank you! Also thanks for the New Year's wishes - we're looking forward for a prosperous one with all the HEAT investors. We're in the same boat. The only difference between our role and that of our investors is that we're rowing the boat, whereas you're currently the passengers.
Meanwhile we're moving onto the final ~2% of the HEAT core services implementation to deliver the Genesis block this month, a few clarifications are in order.
About the role of General Manager +CEO, like myself, in a very small company such as Heat Ledger Ltd:
In the crypto sphere the role of personnel outside the lead developer is nearly always hazy to the outsiders. Running business however, especially registered Ltd company in a high bureaucracy - legally uncertain - novel regulatory environment - entails a variety of tasks not obvious especially for persons not familiar with owning business. It may be useful to list here some of my daily / weekly / monthly tasks below;
Tech related: Systems design - UI outlines - Writing specs - Scheduling - Prioritization - Pseudo code - Real code (rarely) - Server setup and management - Forum backend management - Security setup on servers - Security maintentance on workstations - Writing docs for partners - Scouting fintech news and competition - staying informed about crypto - sorting out user issues - interpreting highly technical material from dev for human consumption - Initiating, specifying and managing subcontractor projects - wrapping up product lines to be sold to customers
Interpersonal: Primary feedback channel to / from lead dev - managing existing partner meetings / communication - managing new partners - managing advisor material - managing advisor meetings - Primary feedback channel to / from advisors - managing forums - managing trolling and complaints - user support - subcontractor communication - exhibition and convention communication - writing and practicing public speeches - attending public events - writing press releases - managing press contacts - staff intermediator communication - staff acquisition - managing public sector contacts - managing public sector facilitators / lobbyists (mostly inherited from FIMK) - managing potential investors - managing marketing - preparing co-operation and joint venture proposals
Financial: Company Budgeting - creating investor decks and brochures - managing shareholder's equity - planning ways for fairly equal compensation when both partners live in different regulatory environments - designing most profitable routes in crypto-BTC-EUR shuffling full duplex - designing auxiliary supporting businesses like exchange gateways - leveraging experience for plans of maximum HEAT value appreciation - managing cryptocurrency accounts securely - deciding on liquidation and arranging ways - managing compliance issues with crypto liquidation, both ways exchanger and bank - paying invoices - preparing tricky but legally required crypto bookkeeping for accountant - preparing invoices - preparing offers - managing 3rd party compensations and gathering receipts from crypto expenses to EUR world for accountant - paying wages - optimizing current and future company moneyflow and corporate strategy with advisors' assistance
Regulatory: Staying updated on crypto legal issues - arranging partner agreements - preparing for legislative changes 1-2 years ahead with accountants - writing e-money licensing documents with partner - clarifying e-money licensing authority issues - preparing technical documents - investigating foreign regulatory environments - supplying aggregate infos for accountant's reporting - inventing new ways to remain legal yet operative with the nonexistent / changing regulationsThat's a few... Indeed quite an eye-opening exercise to write it up!
Some of the 20-year experience from multitasking becomes handy. Without that, and some specific personal skills in seeing the big picture and being able to surf in it with often incomplete information and especially unsatisfactory status of issues (such as genesis redemption user support - blame me, it's unfortunately one of the least high priorities on my list of high priorities), I don't believe doing this work would be possible.
In my work there's no routine - except in manually assembling the genesis block, which is massively boring!. Usually the different parts come in streaks, and some tasks are far and inbetween such as the customer related things now that we don't have many customers yet (they're not completely nonexistent). However all of the above is part of what I actually do, I didn't just pick them from
Cryptocurrency Business for Dummies 
We're hiring marketing and technical key personnel. That can't be done quick, however it's finalized before our backs break. We're not lonely bachelors either - we try to live up to the expectations of our families to the extent possible. It's walking on a thin line, but it's the choice we've already made long ago.
The compensation me and Dennis receive from the company is moderate, at a level or somewhat lower than a lead java software architect and CTO would receive when working for a third party in a high tech EU country. Nowhere near $10k a month, just covering our expenses so at this point before there's real turnover we're not getting rich by the wages. Why I'm not disclosing the exact amounts - it's not customary, not good business practice and not wise. Can you tell us any crypto project leaders who disclose their wage? If you can, please do, I'm as curious as you. Regardless, we still won't do that. We're not hiding anything. We're following best business practices like proper businesses do.
"Company expense sheet" whatever is meant by that, is the same. Some time this year the shareholders of Heat Ledger Ltd will receive access to the the company's annual report in which this data is available. Probably a lot of figures need to be made available for the share issue in the next months. HEAT token holders are NOT shareholders. HEAT tokens can be used, through the HEAT options (in Feb hopefully) to obtain shares for half the price.
I did mention we've burned less than 30% of the crypto funds during the first 6 months of company operations. It's not difficult for any interested person to follow the money from the ICO accounts. Eth is untouched, Ardr is untouched, some NXT and some BTC have been liquidated to a.) cover the costs and b.) a healthy bank account balance at the end of 2016. Large chunk of the BTC is still inaccessible at the exchanges. Rattling suspicions that we'd be somehow be using ICO funds covertly are inconsiderate. We're regulated business run by family men with strong morals under highly monitored legislation. That's a combination preventing misuse of investor funds, period.
I wrote the first paragraph as parable to point out the stark contrast - to the misdirected ideations of us being in some kind of position of privileged exploitation towards the HEAT investors. Such is not and can't be the case. Investors have funded the HEAT business venture, which will either succeed or fall depending on our skills and choices taken. We're chained until we've delivered profit OR at least tried our very best. If you want to see exploitation, look rather the other way. Investor is free after he has funded a project. The receiver of the investment is NOT free but bound to work until given best effort. The burden isn't light and there's no escape from it other than the work intended.
In reality there's no exploitation of course, but co-operation. It works best when virtues such as patience, goodwill and bona fide expectations are cultivated.
