That is a superbly communicated article by DYNA / Alan Yong.
I shared my personal highlights from the above interview to my Facebook wall. I particularly enjoyed the part about first mover advantage, laying the ground work, to then be leapfrogged by a more strategic second mover. Other highlights for me include purposefully withholding project information until they near completion, to help the currency go less noticed by ravenous speculators who buy up expecting top dumping prices after the project's completion. This insulated DNotes from excessive first year volatility until it gained an infrastructural foothold for higher liquidity as it's strategic timeline permits. Many other alternatives to Bitcoin launched too aggressively, too early. At the time they acted, their actions were poorly planned and the outcome was totally foreseeable.
It is also my view that trust is the paramount ingredient in leaders. I would expand that concept, by adding that directness and clarity are the most important builders of trust. You can see that DNote's founders researched the wider crypto community, found what was being complained about, what was lacking, and then formulated a strategy to correct it. We could add analytical skill as another key pre-requisite for any successful strategy.
I wanted to comment on Bitcoin's first mover advantage a bit more:
Bitcoin laid the groundwork for Digital Currency, and is the current prevailing player in the industry. Many third parties have taken what you can do with Bitcoin to the next level, but they can easily integrate with any Bitcoin clone. Bitcoin itself has remained rather stagnant. Bitcoin's main advantages are it's age, popularity, and subsequently, liquidity. I had a thought that a friend was quite dismissive about who knew a lot more about strategy than I. It was, that when you take a large business with massive, disproportionate market share like say...Google or a very large company that is dominant in servicing needs in all three of internet, TV and Phone services - what is the best means to ensure the business performs as though it is in competition, or most efficiently, while providing maximal use to it's clients?
My friend thought that segmenting the company into smaller, more agile entities could enable said competitive status - ie. Phone company, TV company and Internet Company... or Google could separate into a marketing company and a search company. To me, this wouldn't change how efficient the new entity would be in it's industry - it would merely give it the capacity to move more freely without interference from it's former hierarchy. Where would the drive to compete come from? This is where I suggested a large company just create a separately managed wing that provides the same service under the same banner, but with it's own processes and management, to compete with itself internally. Any processes the new, smaller wing improved, could then be rolled out company wide, and the big company's market wouldn't be distorted from having an actual 'real' market player to compete against. Consumers would win, and the existing company would be so efficient, that it could provide services at the lowest cost, perhaps even costs lower than a potential new entrants fixed and operating costs would be - increasing barriers to entry. Sounds a bit like the competitive efficiency achieved by Smokey at Smokey's Daylilly Gardens only 30 or so posts ago in this forum.
I see a similar situation with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is market dominant against competitors that make perfect substitutes (Dashcoin, Litecoin etc), but it is itself a small fish to the world payments market. Having no sense of direction or leadership will be to Bitcoin's detriment. Alt coins with competent coders and developers have come along to compete and innovate. It would be expected that Bitcoin would attempt to innovate too, or adopt some of the winning technologies it has seen the smaller 'wings' in Digital Currency come out with. But for various reasons, it does not happen. I think this brings me back to Alan's winning DNotes strategy that Bitcoin lacks:
"Strong leadership, along with clear and consistent messaging, help to cultivate a highly engaged and productive community working almost seamlessly to achieve long term goals that will be mutually beneficial to everyone."
I can invest in that.
It happens all the time, reach the top and become complacent assuming no one can bump you out of that position. It is just as difficult to keep your position as it is to achieve it.
"Strong leadership, along with clear and consistent messaging, help to cultivate a highly engaged and productive community working almost seamlessly to achieve long term goals that will be mutually beneficial to everyone.""I can invest in that." +1