Topic: bitSymbio Elevator Pitch (Read 1752 times)

A very interesting video worth consideration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfqwHT3u1-8

...for those with eyes that see and ears that hear...

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/02/4605951/equity-crowdfunding-platform-relayfund.html

"Crowdfunding – or money raised online for charities, projects or pre-selling products or services – has quickly emerged as an estimated billion dollar market worldwide, yet this is expected to pale in comparison to the potential created by new legislation allowing crowdfunding for capital.  The bipartisan JOBS Act – passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in April 2012 – allows online micro-investments for startup businesses and creates a platform for private equity for the masses."

something interesting to contemplate. so crowdfunding is just now coming into stride, after only 6 years since the first ideas were introduced online. Crowd-Sourcing is the natural evolution, especially when considered in the context of using crowd-sourced work as equity. Does it really matter if I raise $5000 and then pay a graphics designer, versus the graphics designer doing the work for $5000 equity in the venture? I can see a future where teams scour from project to project helping to put fundamentals in place, contributing literally tens or even hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in equity to get a project ramped up in record time, complete with planning, engineering, graphics, marketing, technical documentation, testing, and yes, even management [for what it's worth ].

This is another very fascinating article with several great questions and interesting answers:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-power-and-the-peril-of-our-crowdfunded-future/259304/#

I especially liked this question:

"Can there be a Kickstarter for everything? Why do we need banks for anything, if we can create systems to crowdsource loans? (Or investment banks, if we can crowdsource investments, or foundations and government grants if we can crowdsource donations?)"

this is also worth a read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/crowdfunding-isnt-legal-y_n_1634060.html

I think you also make the common mistake of only talking in BTC but meaning USD values converted to BTC at ~current prices.

A work contract for 10 BTC per hour that is longer than jst a few weeks or so makes absolutely no sense for both employer and employee considering the volatility of BTC. Also expenses like web hosting, development, even projects that people want to realize with your platform will have most, if not all, expenses PRICED in USD (they can be PAID in BTC in some cases...).

There are only very few things that can be truly and stable priced in BTC no matter the conversion rate to fiat currencies. One of the main features of such a platform that you offer should be imho to be able to price something in (a lot of!) fiat currency but "backers"/"funders"/"donaters"/"share holders"/...? are paying a certain amount in BTC. This could even go that far that you put up a slight error margin: Let's say I want to help fund something that costs 100 USD, 1 BTC = 1 USD atm - you collect 110 BTC in total and on the final date you take the current trading price to really determine the actual price (101.0001337 BTC) and transfer that to the person proposing (minus fees). The remaining amount goes back to the accounts of the backers (or to a "penny fund"/"spare change fund" of their choice out of which certain projects are funded, e.g. "green energy" or whatever the topics could be). Lower currency conversion risk for all parties involved, people can actually buy their manpower/equipment/whatever in fiat or in shops that also accept BTC, everyone's happy.

Sorry for being incomprehensible - I wrote that in bed.
What I meant is a crowd sourcing methodology removes the need of forking over a BTC70k funding just to raise a BTC30k sum. You'll be hard pressed to expect people would provide over ~$400k just to develop a site like this.

John, I'm not sure what you mean by 'cuts down on the inefficiencies of the overhead cost incurred'? Could you please clarify?

@newtenberg, perhaps we can pull our resources and ideas together? Just a thought. I was hoping to have more time to work on this over the past couple of days, but i've been swamped with other projects. I'm hoping to get a fresh start next weekend (following the holiday).

This +1. Cuts down on the inefficiencies of the overhead cost incurred, too.

Granted...but consider if you were to contribute to the project: let's assume you and I agree that your time is worth 10BTC per hour and you are going to contribute 200 Hours to the project, so that would be 2000 BTC. Now if 10 of us were to so collaborate, each contributing 200 hours (graphics, UX design, architecture, UI engineering, database engineering, etc) then we'd have 20,000 BTC contributed. Now, someone else comes along and offers to host our project for us so there's another 1000 BTC (or whatever) etc. But someone else is very excited about our project as well, but they do not have skills in any of the identified project gaps, so they would be able to contribute BTC and thereby join the project.

The way I see it, the key components are to have (at least) the following:

• Good Reputation System
• Individual Skills/Abilities profiles
• Project Profiles
• two-way matching / search between individuals and project gaps
• UI to manage agreeing to value of contributions

Just think instead of match.com or eharmony.com, as examples, we're able to match along 27-dimensions of skills/abilities for successful projects to match up projects against individuals with skills, funding, infrastructure and other resources.

Thanks for your feedback

70,000 BTC overhead cost to raise 30,000 BTC for community projects seems like massive overhead costs. Surely there must be more efficient methods of raising coin for community projects.

-MarkM-

- How are you going to compete with Kickstarter?  Is your sole differentiating factor accepting Bitcoin?  If so, couldn't Kickstarter destroy your business by accepting Bitcoin payments themselves?

>>KickStarter only works with USD, and only funds in the US. Furthermore, review KickStarter rules and you'll see that KickStarter does not allow for developing Social Sites, Web Sites, or other types of projects that would be beneficial to BitCoin. There are a lot of restrictions to KickStarter that would prevent many BitCoin projects from even being accepted as projects on KickStarter.

- You say "share in the financial gain of success".  Does this mean you are selling securities?  Is your business competing with GLBSE?  If so, how will you take market share?
>>What I am saying is that for every transaction, the BTC will be split as explained. I need to research GLBSE to see if it's a competition.

- Are you worried about the regulatory hurdles of offering financial products which are expected to produce a return?  Where are you operating this business?
>>Returns are strictly in BTC, not USD. This business will be operated out of United States (possibly Delaware corporation).

- Your 1-minute pitch is much longer than that and still leaves me with a lot of questions.  Who needs it and why?
>>I believe that the entire BitCoin community can gain from collaborative monetization and production.

-" marketers, graphic designers, project managers, engineers, consultants, technical writers, testers and of course funding partners (and many more)" <-- this line does not belong in a 1-minute pitch
>>thanks, I'll work on tightening it up a bit.

- How much have you raised so far, and how do you plan to raise the rest of it?
>>I have raised nothing so far. I do have up to 500 BTC to pledge to the project, assuming I find others willing to aid in development and funding.

Thanks for the questions. I'm actually quite surprised that this has garnered so little interest. But again, thanks for taking the time to respond

Sounds interesting.  I feel there are some important details that you left out.

- How are you going to compete with Kickstarter?  Is your sole differentiating factor accepting Bitcoin?  If so, couldn't Kickstarter destroy your business by accepting Bitcoin payments themselves?

- You say "share in the financial gain of success".  Does this mean you are selling securities?  Is your business competing with GLBSE?  If so, how will you take market share?

- Are you worried about the regulatory hurdles of offering financial products which are expected to produce a return?  Where are you operating this business?

- Your 1-minute pitch is much longer than that and still leaves me with a lot of questions.  Who needs it and why?

-" marketers, graphic designers, project managers, engineers, consultants, technical writers, testers and of course funding partners (and many more)" <-- this line does not belong in a 1-minute pitch

- How much have you raised so far, and how do you plan to raise the rest of it?

Call to Action
Regardless of whether you feel this idea is good or bad, please at least respond with your insight. Perhaps I can be persuaded to give up my foolish ambitions in this Quixotic endeavor, save my hard-earned money, and just keep my head down and my shoulder to the wheel at work. But on the other hand, maybe there is enough support for the idea to merit optimistic collaboration. All I am asking for here is a critical consideration and honest feedback--but no haters

Tagline
bitSymbio; where crowd-funding meets crowd-sourcing.

Mission
Take BitCoin mainstream or bust!

1-Minute Pitch
Inspired by the success of crowd-funding sites such as IndieGoGo and KickStarter, bitSymbio provides an online social forum to support the funding and incubation of BitCoin related projects. bitSymbio is the first online, global funding platform that also provides for collaborative production. bitSymbio provides the online social tools to allow members to collaborate on projects and to share in the financial gain of success. Additionally, bitSymbio is the first organization to be structured such that the majority of profits go back to the bitSymbio community to drive further innovation, which in turn drives more profits... bitSymbio is also unique in that its structure also provides an efficient marketplace for common components that may be shared between many projects (e.g. templates, Web Service APIs, controls, hosting, testing, translation, etc).

bitSymbio provides a symbiotic environment where online members collaborate by sharing ideas, skills, resources AND funding to help distribute start-up risk, decrease launch costs and ensure a successful project. Just as important, bitSymbio provides a social knowledge-base that will help improve project development processes from cradle to flight. Furthermore, bitSymbio works with other BitCoin services (e.g. NameCoin and OpenTransactions) to provide a means to ensure collaborative monetization (shared rewards) between all project participants. bitSymbio provides the community services and tools to help project owners identify members to fill skill and resource gaps. Additionally, members can research not only projects and teams to fund, but also search for project teams with which to collaborate. bitSymbio supports profiles for marketers, graphic designers, project managers, engineers, consultants, technical writers, testers and of course funding partners (and many more) to collaborate, distributing risk and sharing in the rewards of more successful projects.

Goals
•   Become profitable by January 2013
•   Do one thing and do it well
•   Roll out a Phase every 30—45 days
•   Build something Satoshi could use (i.e. [eventually] anonymous)
•   Share all success with project founders and bitSymbio community members
•   Fund bitSymbio as well as 10 other projects as a marketing blitz launch
•   Perpetuate a flow of funding and collaboration that leads to profitability across the board
•   Wrestle control from the corporate stiffs (i.e. the man)
•   Be the change we wish to see

 
Profit Model
bitSymbio’s profit model is very simple: collect approximately 5% for every funding transaction. Beyond that, by example, bitSymbio sets the precedence and encourages successful projects to also commit back to community through various reinvestment funds.

Proposed Equity Structure

NOTE: MISSING CHART IMAGE
 
What this chart shows
This chart shows how revenues generated by bitSymbio will be distributed. This is only a proposed structure to begin the process. It would be possible to adjust the percentages based upon agreement of all founders. Right now there is only 1 founder. bitSymbio is also actively seeking partnership agreements with NameCoin and OpenTransactions for systems integration.

The Numbers
In this scenario, estimate that bitSymbio funds 1-million BTC within a year on various projects. A 5% transaction fee would be 50k BTC. Founders would earn 27.5k BTC, with 5k BTC going back into Platform Development, 5k BTC would be allocated to popular community projects needing funding, and 12.5k BTC would be distributed among members according to a tiered reputation system.

What this chart doesn’t show
By establishing a business model that gives a significant contribution back to the community, bitSymbio sets a precedence that other business models will be judged by. Successfully funded projects will most likely include a financial component that gives back directly to bitSymbio members and projects. This foments an environment of reciprocal trust and growth. To the libertarian, as well as to the common person, this model breaks from the corporate capitalism model that seeks only the return on investment to shareholders. In contrast, one could say that bitSymbio focuses on a return on investment for all stakeholders by ensuring all stakeholders have a share in success, even in projects in which one is not actively involved. 

Proposed Funding
•   Total Funding: 100,000 BTC (~$650,000 dollars)
•   Use of Funds
     o       70,000 BTC Used to Develop and Promote bitSymbio (~$455k)
     o       30,000 BTC Used to Fund New Community-Nominated Projects (~$195k)
     o       More details revealed in Executive Summary and Founders Disclosure

Proposed Timeline

NOTE: MISSING CHART IMAGE

This chart reflects the general approach to launching the site. Each phase is estimated to take approximately 1 calendar month, which means that the site will have to break functionality down into small pieces to allow for adequate time for development and testing between phases. Early phases of development will happen in parallel. For example, planning for Phase I should be complete by the end of July, along with identifying all the necessary founders. Assuming this happens, then the first release of development will not be until Phase III because Phase II is a beta-invite phase, which simply allows us to queue people for notification when the site goes live. After Phase III, the plan is to continually add functionality piecemeal based upon available resources and ongoing success. The key will be to tie the 100,000 BTC to benchmarks, setting the precedence for other future projects founded under the platform.

Next Steps
The next step is to toss this elevator pitch out for consideration and see what comes back. In parallel, the single founder will work on the following: exec summary outline; gaps in funding, skills and resources (e.g. founder share opportunity); specific features / benefits; suggested roll-out plan; basic philosophy and vision; instructions to contribute; basic submission guidelines.

A Note from a Founder

sHeba Praeotius Nobly aWare

Who is Nolybab Praetorius?
Nolybab is to me as Neo is to Mr. Anderson. I am not pretending to be anonymous in some vainglorious attempt to mimic Satoshi Nakamoto. I have been using Nolybab Praetorius online since at least 1999. Nolybab is simply a well-established pseudonym I have adopted for online.

As th Caterpillar Asked Alice: No, Who are You?
Well, the idea isn’t completely new. Credit goes to KickStarter and IndieGoGo for their part. Also, BitCoinStarter was also exploring business models in regards to BitCoin and Crowd-Funding. But this work is actually the culmination of over 8 years of research and development. The research stems from 2004-2006 in a series of essays outlining what I referred to at the time as Neo Tribalism and Digital Nomadism. In the essays, I argued that Open Source and Crowd-Sourcing could lead to impromptu digital tribes of collaborators that could ultimately outperform inefficient corporate structures. From 2006 through 2008 I completed another series of essays on what I referred to as Collaborative Monetization, Production and Consumption, as well as focuses on the coming NoSQL movement (referred to as non-relational databases at the time), and my personal passion, Fractal Transactions (slight variation from Thomas Frey’s conception, though I did lift the name from him as he coined the term first). I also lectured extensively both in the US and Japan with regard to Social Networking, Cloud Computing and Collaborative models.

Finally sensing my time had come—I abandoned Golumn and took up with a Hobit named Bilbo (just kidding)—I  quit my 9-5 Corporate Job (pharmaceutical industry) and started a company with a few partners. We specialized in leveraging Cloud Computing (chiefly AWS and GAE) to create engaging social applications for Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Orkut and other social networks. Although we did succeed in raising initial angel funding and acquiring one major client, the economy tanked in 2008 and our major customer had to lay off 18,000 employees worldwide and cut back on all unnecessary projects. Unfortunately, our project was not core. They reorganized or let go everyone within the innovation department and closed all innovation projects.

After that failure I was forced to tuck my tail between my legs and return to Corporate America. For some deranged reason, I felt that the Finance Industry would suit me well (they did pay VERY well). So I landed a cushy VP position with a very reputable financial institution in Jersey City and went to town. About 3 months later, I got a call from one of my business associates about additional opportunities in Japan related to my ideas on Collaboration and Fractal Transactions.

As this started taking up more and more of my time (writing patents, translating presentations, late night conference calls) my work suffered. Finally I was forced to leave my cushy job again in pursuit of my life’s passion. We started another company, developed a prototype, received seed funding, recruited a top-notch executive team and launched the product. We even had a stock listed via some exotic reverse-merger technique. With offices on 49th and Madison Ave in NYC, I thought this was finally the time. Alas, greed and power-struggles for control of the company destroyed all hope of success, returning me to a job in Corporate America, yet again (do not pass go, do not collect 200 BTC).

So here I am again, knowing the time has come. The pieces are fitting together and technologies converging. I find it difficult to even focus at work, so consumed by thoughts of rejoining the revolution. Yet BitCoin is only one aspect of that revolution. For BitCoin to go main-stream, the community must find a way to come together and evolve the platform beyond mining. bitSymbio offers not only a means to achieve incredible development, but also to transform and exhibit the ideals of organizational social responsibility. This is an experiment that needs to be tried. Now...or so I perceive.

I am planning on uploading the PDF online somewhere within the next couple of days. I will post the link. In the meantime, if you want a copy of the PDF and you really don't want to wait, then just reach out to me and I can email you the PDF.



Call to Action
Regardless of whether you feel this idea is good or bad, please at least respond with your insight. Perhaps I can be persuaded to give up my foolish ambitions in this Quixotic endeavor, save my hard-earned money, and just keep my head down and my shoulder to the wheel at work. But on the other hand, maybe there is enough support for the idea to merit optimistic collaboration. All I am asking for here is a critical consideration and honest feedback--but no haters