Proposal “Evolution_Offers_and_Promotions_Platform“ (Closed)Back
| Title: | (RETRACTED)-Evolution Offers & Promotions Platform |
| Owner: | srolinson |
| Monthly amount: | 845 DASH (25492 USD) |
| Completed payments: | no payments occurred yet (3 month remaining) |
| Payment start/end: | 2017-11-18 / 2018-02-15 (added on 2017-11-01) |
| Final voting deadline: | in passed |
| Votes: | 613 Yes / 449 No / 21 Abstain |
Proposal description
Hi all,
based on the feedback from our pre-proposal and previous submission we are re-submitting our formal proposal for the Evolution Offers and Promotions Platform that will that will bring automated digital marketing to the Dash Network and Evolution as well as Dash digital currency to local retailers and etailers through our targeted offers and rewards platform.
The PDF version of our proposal is available here: https://goo.gl/5zcoZs
Our previous submission can be viewed here:Â https://www.dashcentral.org/p/Evolution-Marketing
Comments from our pre-proposal can be found here:Â https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/pre-proposal-merchant-digital-growth-platform-for-evolution.17426/
Proposal:Â Evolution Offers and Promotions Platform
The Acme is a digital marketing and ecommerce technology company specializing in engagement and direct response marketing fueled by consumer data intelligence, machine learning, and digital payments. Our clients are brick & mortar local businesses (retailers) and online small businesses (etailers) that need more repeatable and predictable revenue from repeat customers.
In collaboration with FetchRev, a customer retention marketing software company established in 2012, we have worked with over 3,000 small businesses to reach their customers with offers and coupons across multiple digital channels. Working with brands and companies like Elements Massage, 18|8, SkyZone, Precision Tune and Urban Air, our combined team of 30+ employees consistently sends over 28M emails and 21M social ads to over 19M consumers driving over $2M USD in additional revenue for our customers every single month.
With a desire to bring increased awareness, acceptance, and growth to the Dash Network, The Acme has entered into a formal Integration and Escrow Agreement with the Dash Core Team to develop an automated offers and promotions marketing platform and network as defined in much further detail below. And to bring this software to market initially, we have also entered into a formal agreement with FetchRev to integrate the platform with their existing, and growing, network of 19M+ consumers and ~1,000 merchants, allowing consumers to use Dash for both merchants already on the Dash Network and those that have not added digital currency to their current methods of payment.
The Pain
The Dash Network benefits and grows when Merchants and Consumers come together to transact using Dash digital currency. But Retailers and Etailers alike lack a strong incentive to accept digital currency as a viable payment option for their business, and Consumers often struggle to find an opportunity to use their Dash wallet in the normal course of their day. Ultimately, the best way to increase usage on the Network will be to provide tangible user benefits like an exclusive offers and promotions platform, for example.
Additionally, those merchants already on the network (as well as any future ones) often struggle to bring their customers back in their physical door or to their online store. The main problem is that the majority of small business owners lack the data, the expertise, and the time to effectively target their customers with relevant offers or content across the right digital channels at the right time in order to drive a return visit or direct purchase.
Many business owners attempt to send special offers or messaging using traditional digital marketing methods (e.g. ConstantContact, Mailchimp) but they consistently achieve low open rates, low click rates and even lower conversion rates through poorly constructed subject lines, non-responsive design and weak calls-to-action.
In order to improve their results, these business owners need to first collect and analyze large amounts of transactional and demographic customer data, develop the expertise to create content that will generate the interest leading to higher open and click rates, and lastly utilize or develop a system that will distribute actionable offers to their customers across multiple digital channels that gives the consumer the ability to make an impulse purchase immediately.
They are simply too busy to find the time.
And while Dash Evolution is simplifying the digital wallet, The Acme will bring one-click offer purchases to the Network, along with exclusive Network-only promotions and repeat transactions for both the merchants and the Network as a whole. We will help Dash become top of wallet for e-commerce transactions.  Evolution consumers and users will receive and purchase offers through a friction-free portal while merchants on and off the Network increase their reach to new customers across the Dash Network while also re-engaging with past customers.
The Solution
We believe that a fully automated offers and promotions platform on Evolution will benefit all merchants on the network and will create one of the first real enticing incentives for new merchants to integrate and accept Dash as a viable cryptocurrency. And not only will an offers and promotions platform drive new customers to merchants, it will bring even more value to the average Dash user, giving them an incentive to use the Dash wallet to get access to these exclusive offers. Consumers will even be able to purchase offers using Dash from merchants who are not on the Network since we will take their Dash transaction and immediately convert to USD and deposit in the merchant’s bank account.
We know that the best way to get consumers to take action and make impulse purchases is to send them individualized offers at the right time across the right marketing channel. Therefore, to increase consumer engagement and utilization of Dash on the Network and to increase the revenue that merchants generate from new and past customers, we will release a fully automated, machine learning, direct response offers and promotions marketing platform with Dash firmly in place as the exclusive digital currency.
This software will guarantee persistent engagement with a merchant’s existing and past customers through targeted digital touches and nudges, delivered with individually-optimized offers, at the times and via the digital channels (Evolution) where each customer is most likely to take action--thereby monetizing current and past customer data, continually engaging each consumer and maximizing customer lifetime value.
Project Summary
We see the potential for the dual powerhouse of automated digital offers and promotions combined with digital currency to revolutionize small business customer retention marketing, making it more relevant, convenient, secure and less time-consuming, thereby increasing overall Dash Network usage.
As merchants seek to increase the lifetime value from each customer and bring each one back in the physical or virtual door while saving time, The Acme seeks to completely displace traditional digital marketing tools and drive consumers to make a digital purchase, using Dash, from Network merchants as a precursor to returning physically or virtually to the business.
Our system will generate increased direct revenue with little-to-no additional effort from the business owner by providing a network-based Offer-to-Consumer matching platform that can take a consumer, augment the base consumer data, and then use machine learning to automatically match consumers to offers from products and offers uploaded by the business.
We have spent the last several months researching Dash, collaborating with Dash engineers, reviewing the BlockCypher-Dash API, the Evolution platform in development, and meeting with partners to bring together all of the necessary components to build a system that will provide significant value to the Dash Network of Consumers and Merchants alike. We will be integrating all of the components identified below together into a simple and cohesive solution.
Consumer
This module provides the capabilities for the upload of Consumers and the management of preferences and registration services. The objective is to make it easy for consumers to sign up for offer notifications and tailor the offers received to their personal preferences based on frequency and product mix. Initially this will be a simple subscribe/unsubscribe with preferences that increase as the merchant network and product portfolio increases.
Business
This will encompass the initial registration services and preferences with an automated onboarding flow to enable businesses to self-serve and benefit from automated campaign services once product information has been captured.
Subscriptions
Subscription management encompasses the creation of different subscription types that can be combined to form a complete monthly subscription charge. This module will also perform monthly billing, invoice production and statement creation and delivery. This would work directly with the Dash Evolution system to perform monthly billing.
Products
The products component captures the data needed by the offer matching and creation engine. Products are entered with details of the discount thresholds, industry, product category, descriptions and purchase options which are then used to create custom offers for consumers based on previous purchase history and demographic information.
Offers
In the same way that the offer matching engine can create offers unique to a specific consumer, it will also be able to match consumers to offers created by the business. This module allows the creation of those offers, scheduling runs, throttling the frequency and retiring old offers. This is the most efficient method of targeting customers while purchase history and demographic data is limited.
Offer Matching Engine
This is the heart of the system and brings all of the data collection components together and continuously scans its consumer base to identify consumers who are ready for an offer. When a consumer is primed, an offer will either be generated or an existing offer matched to them and sent through email and the Dash network, and complemented through additional channels such as SMS, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
Offer Delivery Engine
Once offers and delivery channels are decided by the matching engine, details are submitted to the delivery engine. The delivery engine will format the offers correctly for the channel they are being sent to and the associated connectors will deliver the offers. Logic is built into this delivery mechanism to allow the throttling of send info to ensure delivery is successful and not stopped by velocity filters. The delivery call back mechanism allows customers to create their own delivery channels.
Project Phases
In order to get a working product to market in an accelerated timeframe, we will follow Agile/Scrum methodology and divide the capabilities to get a fully functional product to the network and market sooner. Our Phase 1 and Phase 2 plan will allow merchants to automatically distribute timely, relevant,individually-targeted offers across multiple channels, including Evolution, to each of their customers while allowing them the ability to make immediate purchases with a secure Dash digital payment quickly and conveniently and then configure preferences for future offers. The phases, highlighting the requisite capabilities, are detailed below.
Phase 1
The initial phase focuses on the delivery of base capabilities from billing through to campaign creation. By the end of this phase merchants on the Dash Network will have the capability to push offers via the Dash Network and opted-in email to its customer base, driving repeat revenue and return customers.
Duration:Â 4-5 months
Capabilities:
Phase 2
Phase 2 focuses on bringing significant levels of automation to the process by taking product information, enriched consumer information and automatically generating offers specifically designed to maximize conversion of each individual consumer offer. This is achieved through machine learning algorithms that constantly learn as the dataset grows. To kickstart this process we will bring purchase history from the opted-in database of over 19M consumers from one of our strategic partners in order to train the foundational algorithm set, after which we will continue to refine as the dataset grows.
Duration:Â 4 months
Capabilities:
Technical Development
The Acme has the relevant digital marketing, data science, and software engineering personnel and expertise at its disposal. We are additionally partnered with both a digital marketing software company and a software development ï¬rm that together combine the innovative DNA of a start-up with the wisdom, scalability, and process rigor of a six-sigma company. They offer both technical implementation and strategic advisory services including DevOps, Cloud, Mobile, UI/UX, Social Ad API, Big Data, Blockchain, Predictive Modeling, Database & System Architecture, Digital Payments, and User Testing.
Viability and Partnerships
For the past several years, through our work with our strategic partners, we've developed significant and unparalleled expertise in direct response and engagement digital marketing and have developed a large consumer-to-purchase data set with which to train our machine learning algorithms needed to automate our individually-targeted product-to-offer-to-consumer matching and distribution engine.
At our core, The Acme is a digital marketing company building an automated customer retention software platform that will generate direct revenue for merchants via consumer-targeted offers transacted on the Dash Network; leading to regular repeat customers for each merchant on the Network. As a business ourself, we will make money through monthly software subscription fees and a results-based revenue share.
Beyond the Dash Network and integration with Evolution, we have several major verticals identiï¬ed and solidiï¬ed reseller partnerships that will roll out our software and its Dash-powered Offer Purchasing Platform to thousands of local businesses:
Dash Funding Details and Proposal Terms
We are asking the Dash network for 2534 DASH ($691,000 USD) for the development of Phase 1 and Phase 2 with the capabilities as specifically detailed above throughout the timeline detailed below. The Acme also has significant skin in the game. We have already contributed $479,000 USD to the project over the last year and are contributing another $764,000, which is approximately 64% of the total project costs.
We are requesting the proposal funding to be split evenly across three superblocks. We have signed an Integration and Escrow Agreement with the Dash Core Team so that they will hold the project funds in escrow and paid out according to the funding details below. One of the benefits is that payments will be adjusted according to the Dash/US Dollar exchange rate at the time in order to protect Dash as the value is expected to increase. The funding schedule is proposed as follows:
The Acme has come to an agreement with the Dash Core Team that includes a penalty extending up to 36 months of digital currency exclusivity for Dash on the developed offer platform. The Dash project cost details are listed below.
Project Development Timeline: 8-9 months
The Acme will provide a high level bi-weekly update (via Sprint Review) to the Dash Core Team. Detailed updates will be tracked and communicated with the Dash Core Network Team and assigned Dash Project Manager. The Acme will also generate a report to the community once each month throughout the term of the project.
Phase 1 Development Timeline: 4-5 months
NOTE:Â At the end of Phase 1, Offers/Promotions delivery functionality and Dash payments will become available to the Dash Network. Funding for Phase 2 is dependent on the successful delivery of Phase 1.
Phase 2 Development Timeline: 4 months
Dash's Total Contribution for Project
1. Technology Design Sprints, Business Requirements, Wireframe Design, API Review, Business Logic $46,000
2. Technology Development (2 phases @ 4-5 months each)Â $467,000
4. Product Manager and Product Documentation for 8 month term $56,000
5. Third-Party Integration and Development Costs $38,000
Total Dash Contribution Total for Project $691,000
The Acme’s Total Contribution for Project
1. Prior Costs already Invested in the Project $479,000
2. Additional Technical Development/Dev Ops/QAÂ $264,000
3. Administrative Costs $82,000
4. Operational Costs $54,000
5. Marginal Travel Expenses $5,000
6. Data Science Team $113,000
7. PCI and SSL Compliance and Testing $9,000
8. Additional UI/UX Development Costs $52,000
9. Project Variance/Hired Guns $50,000
10. Development Server, Software, and Network Costs 12 months $38,000
11. Production Server, Software, and Network Costs 12 months $112,000
12. Deployment & Code Management Software $3,000
The Acme's estimated contribution to the Dash Project $1,261,000
Total Dash Project Cost paid by The Acme + Dash $1,952,000
Our Leadership Team
Brandon Willey, CEO
With more than 10 years of executive leadership experience in sales, marketing, product and business operations, Brandon has established and grown scalable sales, marketing, customer success, product and fulfillment teams at Reputation.com, Recruiting.com, FrontSpin, Hopscratch and FetchRev. He has broad knowledge of the local digital advertising ecosystem with extensive experience in social media, email and search marketing, retargeting, geotargeting and geofencing, segmentation, cryptocurrency, blockchain, automation, and machine learning.
Stuart Rolinson, CTO
A 26-year IT industry expert. 19 years at American Express overseeing technical development, he led the global core platform and product team for the Global Business Travel division, architected the global distributed authorization network and ran the Mobile Infrastructure and Research & Development group. Stuart holds a variety of patents related to payments and Business Travel.
Greg McGuire, COO
15+ years extensive experience managing interactive projects including website buildouts, email marketing campaigns, online technologies, blogging & social networking platforms with the goals of increasing company revenues, improving the standard of customer service, and developing business to business relationships while delivering completed projects on-time and on budget.
Alison Gerbens, CFO
Alison Gerbens brings 10 years of experience in accounting, auditing and reporting for a diverse set of clients and employers. Alison is a licensed CPA in Arizona and earned her Master of Science in Accountancy & Information Systems degree from Arizona State University in Tempe.
Our Advisory Team
In addition to our wealth of expertise, we’ve partnered with several innovative companies and advisors in automation, machine learning, blockchain, and digital currency to create our simple, but powerful direct response marketing platform.
Brad Selby
Advisor & Investor, Weathering Steel PayPal, Flixster, VerticalResponse, Affirm
Rick Oglesby
Product & Market Research, Payments Industry Double Diamond Group and AZ Payments Group
Sean Coleman
Adjunct Faculty, Arizona State UniversityDirector of Technology & Development, Drawbackwards
Carlos Noguera
Server, Cloud & Geospatial Architecture Cliffhanger Solutions, Inc.
Stephen McAleer
AI and ML PhD Student, Arizona State University Goldman Sachs, STORE Capital
Augustus Ge
Mathematics, Statistics, and Data Science, University of Arizona Machine Learning, Cliffhanger Solutions, Inc.
based on the feedback from our pre-proposal and previous submission we are re-submitting our formal proposal for the Evolution Offers and Promotions Platform that will that will bring automated digital marketing to the Dash Network and Evolution as well as Dash digital currency to local retailers and etailers through our targeted offers and rewards platform.
The PDF version of our proposal is available here: https://goo.gl/5zcoZs
Our previous submission can be viewed here:Â https://www.dashcentral.org/p/Evolution-Marketing
Comments from our pre-proposal can be found here:Â https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/pre-proposal-merchant-digital-growth-platform-for-evolution.17426/
Proposal:Â Evolution Offers and Promotions Platform
The Acme is a digital marketing and ecommerce technology company specializing in engagement and direct response marketing fueled by consumer data intelligence, machine learning, and digital payments. Our clients are brick & mortar local businesses (retailers) and online small businesses (etailers) that need more repeatable and predictable revenue from repeat customers.
In collaboration with FetchRev, a customer retention marketing software company established in 2012, we have worked with over 3,000 small businesses to reach their customers with offers and coupons across multiple digital channels. Working with brands and companies like Elements Massage, 18|8, SkyZone, Precision Tune and Urban Air, our combined team of 30+ employees consistently sends over 28M emails and 21M social ads to over 19M consumers driving over $2M USD in additional revenue for our customers every single month.
With a desire to bring increased awareness, acceptance, and growth to the Dash Network, The Acme has entered into a formal Integration and Escrow Agreement with the Dash Core Team to develop an automated offers and promotions marketing platform and network as defined in much further detail below. And to bring this software to market initially, we have also entered into a formal agreement with FetchRev to integrate the platform with their existing, and growing, network of 19M+ consumers and ~1,000 merchants, allowing consumers to use Dash for both merchants already on the Dash Network and those that have not added digital currency to their current methods of payment.
The Pain
The Dash Network benefits and grows when Merchants and Consumers come together to transact using Dash digital currency. But Retailers and Etailers alike lack a strong incentive to accept digital currency as a viable payment option for their business, and Consumers often struggle to find an opportunity to use their Dash wallet in the normal course of their day. Ultimately, the best way to increase usage on the Network will be to provide tangible user benefits like an exclusive offers and promotions platform, for example.
Additionally, those merchants already on the network (as well as any future ones) often struggle to bring their customers back in their physical door or to their online store. The main problem is that the majority of small business owners lack the data, the expertise, and the time to effectively target their customers with relevant offers or content across the right digital channels at the right time in order to drive a return visit or direct purchase.
Many business owners attempt to send special offers or messaging using traditional digital marketing methods (e.g. ConstantContact, Mailchimp) but they consistently achieve low open rates, low click rates and even lower conversion rates through poorly constructed subject lines, non-responsive design and weak calls-to-action.
In order to improve their results, these business owners need to first collect and analyze large amounts of transactional and demographic customer data, develop the expertise to create content that will generate the interest leading to higher open and click rates, and lastly utilize or develop a system that will distribute actionable offers to their customers across multiple digital channels that gives the consumer the ability to make an impulse purchase immediately.
They are simply too busy to find the time.
And while Dash Evolution is simplifying the digital wallet, The Acme will bring one-click offer purchases to the Network, along with exclusive Network-only promotions and repeat transactions for both the merchants and the Network as a whole. We will help Dash become top of wallet for e-commerce transactions.  Evolution consumers and users will receive and purchase offers through a friction-free portal while merchants on and off the Network increase their reach to new customers across the Dash Network while also re-engaging with past customers.
The Solution
We believe that a fully automated offers and promotions platform on Evolution will benefit all merchants on the network and will create one of the first real enticing incentives for new merchants to integrate and accept Dash as a viable cryptocurrency. And not only will an offers and promotions platform drive new customers to merchants, it will bring even more value to the average Dash user, giving them an incentive to use the Dash wallet to get access to these exclusive offers. Consumers will even be able to purchase offers using Dash from merchants who are not on the Network since we will take their Dash transaction and immediately convert to USD and deposit in the merchant’s bank account.
We know that the best way to get consumers to take action and make impulse purchases is to send them individualized offers at the right time across the right marketing channel. Therefore, to increase consumer engagement and utilization of Dash on the Network and to increase the revenue that merchants generate from new and past customers, we will release a fully automated, machine learning, direct response offers and promotions marketing platform with Dash firmly in place as the exclusive digital currency.
This software will guarantee persistent engagement with a merchant’s existing and past customers through targeted digital touches and nudges, delivered with individually-optimized offers, at the times and via the digital channels (Evolution) where each customer is most likely to take action--thereby monetizing current and past customer data, continually engaging each consumer and maximizing customer lifetime value.
- Continuity - tirelessly engages customers around the clock with BEM*- and data-informed, individually-crafted and personally-timed Converters and Collectors.
- Push - strategically sends real-time bulk communications to customers with our custom content builder as well as request time-sensitive or occasion-dependent Converters for distribution en masse.
- Pursuit - persistently retargets customers when they take a specific action or trigger predefined reactions as well as those customers that abandon your Continuity or Push landing pages before taking action.
- Reach - consistently delivers those touches to customers across essential digital and social channels, including Dash Evolution.
- Learn - continuously improves results as it formulates insights and optimizes outputs, creating new neural pathways from its ever-growing database of past touches and nudges.
Project Summary
We see the potential for the dual powerhouse of automated digital offers and promotions combined with digital currency to revolutionize small business customer retention marketing, making it more relevant, convenient, secure and less time-consuming, thereby increasing overall Dash Network usage.
As merchants seek to increase the lifetime value from each customer and bring each one back in the physical or virtual door while saving time, The Acme seeks to completely displace traditional digital marketing tools and drive consumers to make a digital purchase, using Dash, from Network merchants as a precursor to returning physically or virtually to the business.
Our system will generate increased direct revenue with little-to-no additional effort from the business owner by providing a network-based Offer-to-Consumer matching platform that can take a consumer, augment the base consumer data, and then use machine learning to automatically match consumers to offers from products and offers uploaded by the business.
We have spent the last several months researching Dash, collaborating with Dash engineers, reviewing the BlockCypher-Dash API, the Evolution platform in development, and meeting with partners to bring together all of the necessary components to build a system that will provide significant value to the Dash Network of Consumers and Merchants alike. We will be integrating all of the components identified below together into a simple and cohesive solution.
Consumer
This module provides the capabilities for the upload of Consumers and the management of preferences and registration services. The objective is to make it easy for consumers to sign up for offer notifications and tailor the offers received to their personal preferences based on frequency and product mix. Initially this will be a simple subscribe/unsubscribe with preferences that increase as the merchant network and product portfolio increases.
- UI and API based module that allows Dash merchants to upload consumer lists
- UI and API for consumer online registration
- Backend data enrichment services
- UI and API for consumer preference management
- Unsubscribe and resubscribe services to support privacy legislation such as CASL
Business
This will encompass the initial registration services and preferences with an automated onboarding flow to enable businesses to self-serve and benefit from automated campaign services once product information has been captured.
- Business registration
- Business preferences
- Customizable business onboarding
- User management / Access control
Subscriptions
Subscription management encompasses the creation of different subscription types that can be combined to form a complete monthly subscription charge. This module will also perform monthly billing, invoice production and statement creation and delivery. This would work directly with the Dash Evolution system to perform monthly billing.
- Subscription management
- Start new subscription
- Cancel subscription
- Invoice creation &Â delivery
- Statement printing &Â delivery
- Payments
Products
The products component captures the data needed by the offer matching and creation engine. Products are entered with details of the discount thresholds, industry, product category, descriptions and purchase options which are then used to create custom offers for consumers based on previous purchase history and demographic information.
- Add products
- Delete products
- Edit products
Offers
In the same way that the offer matching engine can create offers unique to a specific consumer, it will also be able to match consumers to offers created by the business. This module allows the creation of those offers, scheduling runs, throttling the frequency and retiring old offers. This is the most efficient method of targeting customers while purchase history and demographic data is limited.
- Add offers
- Edit offers
- Disable offers
- Schedule offers /Â runs
- Throttle runs
Offer Matching Engine
This is the heart of the system and brings all of the data collection components together and continuously scans its consumer base to identify consumers who are ready for an offer. When a consumer is primed, an offer will either be generated or an existing offer matched to them and sent through email and the Dash network, and complemented through additional channels such as SMS, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
- Consumer monitoring
- Offer matching engine
- Offer creation
- Offer submission to delivery engine
- Offer callback to allow custom delivery by merchant channels
Offer Delivery Engine
Once offers and delivery channels are decided by the matching engine, details are submitted to the delivery engine. The delivery engine will format the offers correctly for the channel they are being sent to and the associated connectors will deliver the offers. Logic is built into this delivery mechanism to allow the throttling of send info to ensure delivery is successful and not stopped by velocity filters. The delivery call back mechanism allows customers to create their own delivery channels.
- Offer formatting engine
- Social media connectors
- Mail connectors
- Dash Evolution connector
- Delivery call back
- Offer process tracking (delivery, opens, click, conversions)
Project Phases
In order to get a working product to market in an accelerated timeframe, we will follow Agile/Scrum methodology and divide the capabilities to get a fully functional product to the network and market sooner. Our Phase 1 and Phase 2 plan will allow merchants to automatically distribute timely, relevant,individually-targeted offers across multiple channels, including Evolution, to each of their customers while allowing them the ability to make immediate purchases with a secure Dash digital payment quickly and conveniently and then configure preferences for future offers. The phases, highlighting the requisite capabilities, are detailed below.
Phase 1
The initial phase focuses on the delivery of base capabilities from billing through to campaign creation. By the end of this phase merchants on the Dash Network will have the capability to push offers via the Dash Network and opted-in email to its customer base, driving repeat revenue and return customers.
Duration:Â 4-5 months
Capabilities:
- Business Registration
- Consumer Registration
- Consumer Data Uploads
- Consumer Preference Management v1
- Customer Support-Assisted Onboarding
- Consumer, Business, Admin UI
- Subscription Plans (Create/Edit/Retire Basic capabilities)
- Subscription Management (Assign/Start/Stop/Delete)
- Invoice Generation and Delivery
- Dash Billing
- Dash Payment Processing
- Offer Management (Add / Edit / Delete / Schedule /Â Stop)
- Offer Delivery Engine (Dash Evolution &Â Email)
Phase 2
Phase 2 focuses on bringing significant levels of automation to the process by taking product information, enriched consumer information and automatically generating offers specifically designed to maximize conversion of each individual consumer offer. This is achieved through machine learning algorithms that constantly learn as the dataset grows. To kickstart this process we will bring purchase history from the opted-in database of over 19M consumers from one of our strategic partners in order to train the foundational algorithm set, after which we will continue to refine as the dataset grows.
Duration:Â 4 months
Capabilities:
- Customizable Business Self-onboarding
- Business Preference Management
- User/Role Management
- Subscription Management
- Revenue Share Payment Processing
- Revenue Share Subscription Management
- Admin UIÂ Enhancements
- Statement & Reports Generation &Â Delivery
- Business Product Management (Add / Edit / Delete /Â Disable)
- ML Consumer-Product-Offer Matching Engine
- Offer Channel Delivery Engine Phase 2 (Social, SMS)
- Consumer Preference Management v2
Technical Development
The Acme has the relevant digital marketing, data science, and software engineering personnel and expertise at its disposal. We are additionally partnered with both a digital marketing software company and a software development ï¬rm that together combine the innovative DNA of a start-up with the wisdom, scalability, and process rigor of a six-sigma company. They offer both technical implementation and strategic advisory services including DevOps, Cloud, Mobile, UI/UX, Social Ad API, Big Data, Blockchain, Predictive Modeling, Database & System Architecture, Digital Payments, and User Testing.
Viability and Partnerships
For the past several years, through our work with our strategic partners, we've developed significant and unparalleled expertise in direct response and engagement digital marketing and have developed a large consumer-to-purchase data set with which to train our machine learning algorithms needed to automate our individually-targeted product-to-offer-to-consumer matching and distribution engine.
At our core, The Acme is a digital marketing company building an automated customer retention software platform that will generate direct revenue for merchants via consumer-targeted offers transacted on the Dash Network; leading to regular repeat customers for each merchant on the Network. As a business ourself, we will make money through monthly software subscription fees and a results-based revenue share.
Beyond the Dash Network and integration with Evolution, we have several major verticals identiï¬ed and solidiï¬ed reseller partnerships that will roll out our software and its Dash-powered Offer Purchasing Platform to thousands of local businesses:
- Independent Software Vendors (ISV) – Point-of-Sale software partners, formal agreement with our online marketing automation partner, FetchRev (~1,000 clients), and more
- Additional Brick-and-Mortar Retailers & Ecommerce Etailers
- Value Added Resellers (VAR)
Dash Funding Details and Proposal Terms
We are asking the Dash network for 2534 DASH ($691,000 USD) for the development of Phase 1 and Phase 2 with the capabilities as specifically detailed above throughout the timeline detailed below. The Acme also has significant skin in the game. We have already contributed $479,000 USD to the project over the last year and are contributing another $764,000, which is approximately 64% of the total project costs.
We are requesting the proposal funding to be split evenly across three superblocks. We have signed an Integration and Escrow Agreement with the Dash Core Team so that they will hold the project funds in escrow and paid out according to the funding details below. One of the benefits is that payments will be adjusted according to the Dash/US Dollar exchange rate at the time in order to protect Dash as the value is expected to increase. The funding schedule is proposed as follows:
- Dash to fund The Acme 25% upfront to start the project, funded in a single disbursement by a project manager appointed by the Dash Core Team.
- Dash to fund 20% in equal monthly disbursements over four months through the completion of the Technical Development for Phase 1.
- Dash to fund The Acme the another 5% after all testing and the Phase 1 product is ready to launch. Only once Phase 1 is complete and a functional initial product made available to the Dash Network will the Phase 2 receive funding.
- At which time, the Dash Core Team will fund 25% to start Phase 2, followed by 5% monthly disbursements over four months through the completion of Technical Development for Phase 2.
- Dash will fund The Acme the final 5% after all testing and the Phase 2 product is ready to launch.
The Acme has come to an agreement with the Dash Core Team that includes a penalty extending up to 36 months of digital currency exclusivity for Dash on the developed offer platform. The Dash project cost details are listed below.
Project Development Timeline: 8-9 months
The Acme will provide a high level bi-weekly update (via Sprint Review) to the Dash Core Team. Detailed updates will be tracked and communicated with the Dash Core Network Team and assigned Dash Project Manager. The Acme will also generate a report to the community once each month throughout the term of the project.
Phase 1 Development Timeline: 4-5 months
- Initial Funding Payment of 25% for Phase 1
- Business Requirements and Design Sprints - 4Â weeks
- Initiate 10% Monthly Funding Disbursements totaling 20%
- Technical Development & QA - 8 two-week sprints
- Final Quality Assurance Testing, Load Testing, Bug Fixes - 2 two-week QAÂ sprints
- User Acceptance Testing/Usability Testing - 1Â week
- Time Variance - 2.5Â weeks
- Final Phase 1 Funding Payment of 5%
- Phase 1 Push to Production and Go Live 2-3Â days
NOTE:Â At the end of Phase 1, Offers/Promotions delivery functionality and Dash payments will become available to the Dash Network. Funding for Phase 2 is dependent on the successful delivery of Phase 1.
Phase 2 Development Timeline: 4 months
- Initial Funding Payment of 25% for Phase 2
- Business Requirements and Design Sprints - 4Â weeks
- Initiate 10% Monthly Funding Disbursements totaling 20%
- Technical Development & QA - 6 two-week sprints
- Final Quality Assurance Testing, Load Testing, Bug Fixes - 2 two-week QAÂ sprints
- User Acceptance Testing/Usability Testing - 1Â week
- Time Variance - 2Â weeks
- Final Phase 2 Funding Payment of 5%
- Phase 2 Push to Production and Go Live 2-3Â days
Dash's Total Contribution for Project
1. Technology Design Sprints, Business Requirements, Wireframe Design, API Review, Business Logic $46,000
2. Technology Development (2 phases @ 4-5 months each)Â $467,000
- Project Manager - Scrum Master ($45,000)
- Sprint Team 1 - 5 developers - API, Backend Development ($140,000)
- Sprint Team 2 - 4 developers - Frontend & Associated API Development ($112,000)
- Sprint Team 3 - 4 developers - 3rd Party and Dash Integration ($112,000)
- UI Designer - Graphic Design Services ($30,000)
- UI Engineer - Front End UX Development ($28,000)
- 2 QA Engineers ($56,000)
- 1 Dev Ops Engineer - Release Management, Infrastructure Management ($28,000)
4. Product Manager and Product Documentation for 8 month term $56,000
5. Third-Party Integration and Development Costs $38,000
Total Dash Contribution Total for Project $691,000
The Acme’s Total Contribution for Project
1. Prior Costs already Invested in the Project $479,000
2. Additional Technical Development/Dev Ops/QAÂ $264,000
3. Administrative Costs $82,000
4. Operational Costs $54,000
5. Marginal Travel Expenses $5,000
6. Data Science Team $113,000
7. PCI and SSL Compliance and Testing $9,000
8. Additional UI/UX Development Costs $52,000
9. Project Variance/Hired Guns $50,000
10. Development Server, Software, and Network Costs 12 months $38,000
11. Production Server, Software, and Network Costs 12 months $112,000
12. Deployment & Code Management Software $3,000
The Acme's estimated contribution to the Dash Project $1,261,000
Total Dash Project Cost paid by The Acme + Dash $1,952,000
Our Leadership Team
Brandon Willey, CEO
With more than 10 years of executive leadership experience in sales, marketing, product and business operations, Brandon has established and grown scalable sales, marketing, customer success, product and fulfillment teams at Reputation.com, Recruiting.com, FrontSpin, Hopscratch and FetchRev. He has broad knowledge of the local digital advertising ecosystem with extensive experience in social media, email and search marketing, retargeting, geotargeting and geofencing, segmentation, cryptocurrency, blockchain, automation, and machine learning.
Stuart Rolinson, CTO
A 26-year IT industry expert. 19 years at American Express overseeing technical development, he led the global core platform and product team for the Global Business Travel division, architected the global distributed authorization network and ran the Mobile Infrastructure and Research & Development group. Stuart holds a variety of patents related to payments and Business Travel.
Greg McGuire, COO
15+ years extensive experience managing interactive projects including website buildouts, email marketing campaigns, online technologies, blogging & social networking platforms with the goals of increasing company revenues, improving the standard of customer service, and developing business to business relationships while delivering completed projects on-time and on budget.
Alison Gerbens, CFO
Alison Gerbens brings 10 years of experience in accounting, auditing and reporting for a diverse set of clients and employers. Alison is a licensed CPA in Arizona and earned her Master of Science in Accountancy & Information Systems degree from Arizona State University in Tempe.
Our Advisory Team
In addition to our wealth of expertise, we’ve partnered with several innovative companies and advisors in automation, machine learning, blockchain, and digital currency to create our simple, but powerful direct response marketing platform.
Brad Selby
Advisor & Investor, Weathering Steel PayPal, Flixster, VerticalResponse, Affirm
Rick Oglesby
Product & Market Research, Payments Industry Double Diamond Group and AZ Payments Group
Sean Coleman
Adjunct Faculty, Arizona State UniversityDirector of Technology & Development, Drawbackwards
Carlos Noguera
Server, Cloud & Geospatial Architecture Cliffhanger Solutions, Inc.
Stephen McAleer
AI and ML PhD Student, Arizona State University Goldman Sachs, STORE Capital
Augustus Ge
Mathematics, Statistics, and Data Science, University of Arizona Machine Learning, Cliffhanger Solutions, Inc.
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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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Brandon and I have been doing a significant amount of planning and review based on feedback from calls and the forum. The ask was to significantly reduce the scope and provide an MVP solution which we would then monitor and adjust to gain the best momentum for the Dash network. While we still believe in Dash and that we can provide value to the community through our platform, we have taken the decision to focus on development of our full product rather than an MVP, pause, review and continue. We still think there is a great opportunity to build a complex digital cash eco-system of which we believe an offer and retention marketing platform will be key to its success.
For these reasons and the fact that we would prefer to offer a solution that was more broadly supported by the community, we are retracting this funding request. I want to thank all of you that have taken the time to review and provide feedback.
Kind regards,
Stuart
Thanks for being a part of our great experiment, I have a feeling that next time when more is public about evolution and documentation has been written for 3rd parties this proposal will be able to succeed.
--Quantum
For a project that costs $1.5m, there is total opaqueness.
The revenue plan doesnt corelate to realword business margins.. 20% revenue share will torpedo every business. Seems like they havent even approached a single potential customer with this.
"not using the official finance based definition of return on investment"
-this one takes the cake
No chance of any votes from me.
Except for now we are totally left confused with this complex concept ROI.
..."not using the official finance based definition of return on investment"...
With such a large team of CxO's I am amazed no one is able to identify your customer's ROI, which should be part of your sales pitch to them...
Let's differentiate your customers return, your return and OUR return, from now on RODI - Return on Dash' Investment.
It is unfair to present your client some window dressing numbers and buzzwords. 5xROI-Transact 5x the value payed.
And now this is exactly what you are selling us too: "we will transact 5x the amount you pay us"!
I don't like this KPI, at all. That's not RODI.
Instead Dash accepting/paying customers could have a reduced fee. This way you top up the pessimistic 10% usage forecast.
Are we still up for this tiered pricing model?
99 with 20% rev share, (OMG robbery)
199 with 10% rev share,
299 with 5% rev share.
I do agree Dash accepting businesses should get a _very_ large fee discount to provide more incentive for them to accept Dash.
Thank you both again for your valuable input which pointed this matter out so painfully clear.
Thanks Joe for your reply, that means a lot to me. Go Dash!
Why should google take money from our PIE ? and we all know how Google abuses its position anyway
ALso i understand these guys have some escrow mechanism with the CORE , so its perfectly valid proposal , I suggest you to change your votes to Yes
How can we trust a team that doesn't communicate clearly and openly to us or their own customers?
I did not even get to evaluate the technical competence or the real benefiting value of suggested implementation.
All I that matters for now is that clients will pay an enormous fee, not suitable for anything else than their current offering, a massage.
I hope you reconsider.
Now what PaulKuit has point out (thank you, always inform your fellow masternode owners if you see something, I am certain most did not see it(yet), including me). I look at you as untrustworthy, I have neither the time or the either to read the small prints. Sorry you lost my votes and you'll never get any off ever again, you broke the trust !! There probably many other things your not telling us, including the cost of certain aspects of this project, including integrating dash into your software (it's already becoming quite easy to integrate dash into web-shops(
In other words, you clients are already paying an enormous fee, probably because the very low conversion rate, which you don't disclose. US$2 million/month in sales for 1000 vendors is not impressive in my book.
Now you are asking us too a whopping 2500 dash for half a project (phase 1), without clear measurable ROI...
Again I ask, what is in it for the Dash customer, besides exclusivity? Does he too has to pay this ridiculous fee?
I realize that I did not communicate our ROI in the correct terms and we will be updating the proposal to better clarify our position. Basically, we generate 5X the monthly cost in direct gross receipts as processed through our platform. Therefore, if they spend $200 on our platform, the average merchant experiences $1,000 in gross receipts processed through our Buy Now landing pages. Of course, there are additional acquisition costs and gross margin to consider when calculating their final ROI, but since our typical customer averages a gross margin of 60% (depending on the product or service) they still make money on the platform.
Additionally, most consumers spend even more than their initial purchase through the software once they walk into the location or visit the online store. As you can imagine, we would not continue to maintain and grow our customer/merchant base if they were not seeing positive ROI and consistent value from the service.
To one of your other points, I just had a great call with Joe Moraca (for his Dash Force News article) and clarified that since we signed an Escrow agreement with the Dash Core Team we will still only receive the actual USD amount requested and not the full 2.5K Dash since the currency has increased in value since we posted the proposal.
Lastly, the primary benefit is to both merchants and consumers on the Dash Network. We intend to build a fully automated promotions and offers platform that allows merchants to send targeted and customized offers to consumers on the Dash Network via the Evolution platform thereby increasing the number of Dash transactions and further increasing its actual marketable value so that more people join the network and use the digital currency.
The tangible benefit to the merchant is increased revenue via more purchases and the benefit to the consumer is a good deal on a service or product. All while using Dash to transact.
I'm also happy to hop on a call or chat further if you'd like as well. Feel free to email me at brandon@theacme.us or text me at +1 480-233-0196 and we can set up a time to chat.
Thank you!
Brandon
But I don't think explaining this again is useful to me.
opting out
I am sorry you feel that way, we have no intention of deceiving any one, in fact quite the opposite. I will post an update to the proposal to clarify for others.
Thanks,
Stuart
I feel insulted for our intelligence being underestimated.
Will the update be audible this time? Maybe some slides with working numbers?
This is supported by the Dash Core team.
Ryan posted on our pre-proposal, quoted below with a link:
"I can confirm that Brandon and Stuart have been working with us directly on their proposed solution, are designing their system to be compatible with our platform approach, and have met with Andy and others on their approach and received their buy-in to continue working together. They have exhibited professionalism and willingness to work collaboratively on the details of their solution and how it will interact with the network. Their existing company FetchRev has been operating in the offers business for several years, so they also have the needed expertise to build this solution. "
Link is here --> https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/new-proposal-to-be-submitted-merchant-digital-growth-platform-for-evolution-submitted.17426/#post-142908
I understood the solution currently 20% of the merchant's attributable revenue.
What is the avg. conversion rate?
Will Dash merchants have to pay the same fee even if we help pay for the platform?
Will you submit a second proposal for phase 2, for how much?
Returning customers and other purchases aren't tracked through your platform? Wasn't that the goal of the platform to create recurring and subscription payments?
I did not understand point 3 - Initiate 10% Monthly Funding Disbursements totaling 20%. Which milestones and deliverables will release how much escrow over the 4 months delivery time?
One thing I did understand; only 5% is payed on final working delivery. I don't like that.
The pricing model for the merchants is tiered, depending on the volume or revenue they expect to achieve through the platform. It is formed of 2 components, a subscription fee and a revenue share. The revenue share component only kicks in after the merchant has made 2x their monthly cost, so for a 99 monthly plan, the merchant would pay 20% revenue share on transactions after they pass the 198 mark.
The plans are:
99 with 20% rev share,
199 with 10% rev share,
299 with 5% rev share.
This is for any size email or customer list as long as they are genuine customers and not purchased lists, and you can change your plan at anytime.
In answer to your questions on the funding. The overall funding amount will be put into escrow, this covers both phases 1 and 2. Funding the escrow account is done over 3 months following feedback from a previous proposal to ease any pressure on the monthly Dash budget.
When the project starts the core team will fund 25% of the first phase (about 12.5% of the overall amount) and then release 20% of the funds needed for that phase each month. We will work with the Dash core team project manager to build a milestone plan after which funds will only be released for the next milestone work once the previous one is completed to their satisfaction.
The platform will bring back and re-engage existing and new customers, and while we do not track all activities that come from POS, we are happy to integrate with POS platforms and receive purchase history from them and push purchase information back in if required. As we build this solution out we do so with integrations in mind and have an API platform that can be used to close the data loop for the merchant.
We would be happy to provide a discount to merchants that are signed up via the evolution platform and with funding from the Dash network we would be able to develop Dash specific offers that further boost Dash adoption.
The conversion rate is highly vertical/industry specific and to some degree specific to the type of offer or promotion. Low ticket price offers in high repeat-service industries will convert at very high rates, up to 50% whereas higher ticket items can be much lower, even down to 0.5%.
This is something that our ML algorithms and our customer success teams work to refine with and on behalf of merchants.
I hope this helps,
Thanks,
Stuart
I was mislead by - Funding for Phase 2 is dependent on the successful delivery of Phase 1.
The 5xROI story is misleading too. Revenue should deduct product cost before calculating ROI.
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722066
But the tiered pricing model makes more sense and would actually be more transparent then previously linked concurrent. Could you include this info in the already too lengthy proposal, please?
Attached is Ryan's comment on our pre-proposal:
"I can confirm that Brandon and Stuart have been working with us directly on their proposed solution, are designing their system to be compatible with our platform approach, and have met with Andy and others on their approach and received their buy-in to continue working together. They have exhibited professionalism and willingness to work collaboratively on the details of their solution and how it will interact with the network. Their existing company FetchRev has been operating in the offers business for several years, so they also have the needed expertise to build this solution. "
Link is here --> https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/new-proposal-to-be-submitted-merchant-digital-growth-platform-for-evolution-submitted.17426/#post-142908
Thanks for your comment. The product we are proposing is a significant evolution from current capabilities, building on current expertise and growing the machine learning and automation functions while offering Dash payment capabilities. General adoption of Dash will only happen if it is readily available and easy to use. We are looking to raise its profile and create a frictionless method for allowing digital payments and engaging with new and existing customers.
How does Dash make these promotions better?
How do these promotions make Dash better?
Or is this just a deal between 2 unrelated things?
As in Dash helps pay for your development and in return you promote Dash to your customers?
In that case, why would your customers be interested in using Dash?
The primary benefit is to both merchants and consumers on the Dash Network. We intend to build an automated promotions and offers platform that allows merchants to send targeted and customized offers to consumers on the Dash Network via the Evolution platform thereby increasing the number of Dash transactions and further increasing its actual marketable value so that more people join the network and use the digital currency.
The tangible benefit to the merchant is increased revenue via more purchases and the benefit to the consumer is a good deal on a service or product. All while using Dash to transact.
Also, I'm happy to hop on a call or chat further if you'd like as well. Feel free to email me at brandon@theacme.us or text me at +1 480-233-0196 and we can set up a time to chat.
Brandon
The stronger the network offering from launch, the better the adoption is likely to be. Capitalizing on the momentum from the launch will be advantageous to engaging with new merchants and consumers.
So this is a website where merchants can list their products for Dash and your company will market this to their distribution lists to increase sales and in turn usage of Dash?
Also you say this will be developed alongside evolution - if there are significant changes to Evolution as its still being developed on the fly, will you re-code your entire site if need be to ensure you can still deliver an end product? If so you need this in a legal agreement with Dash Core....if not, its a big no from me as we will have paid money for the hope it will work and if Evolution changes then we are left exposed.
At this stage its a no from me.
It seems that there is a misunderstanding but I'm sure we can work through it. I would love to talk with you directly to explain how our platform will work with Evolution and how it will generate repeat revenue for merchants and increase the usage of Dash.
Feel free to email me at brandon@theacme.us or text me at +1 480-233-0196 and we can set up a time to chat.
Also, it is important to note that we have signed a legal agreement with the Dash Core Team and Ryan and Andy have confirmed this with several MNO owners directly. Looking forward to connecting.
Brandon
I added a response to lemonysnicket below, but wanted to copy it here as well so it wasn't missed. I know Brandon is looking forward to walking you through our proposal, in the mean time here is some additional information.
Thanks,
Stuart
The solution we are proposing in essence is about connecting consumers and merchants with offers that are of interest to them and then provide a frictionless purchase of that offer. Offers are similar in style and layout to a Groupon so consumers are familiar with the look and feel. However, the costs are far lower for a merchant and focused on bringing existing customers back as well as bringing new customers in for the first time.
The flow works like this: Merchants upload their customer, product and offer information to the platform and then the system will use this information to create and generate offers for their customers automatically.
The application then operates in the background looking for subscribers that are ready to purchase, at which point it will create a custom offer appropriate to that customer and send via the most appropriate digital channels (e.g. email, SMS, social media ads or the Evolution application).
Once that offer has been received by the consumer, they can purchase the offer through standard credit card or via Dash. Once purchased they will receive an email voucher that can be redeemed at the brick and mortar store or a receipt for an item that will be delivered directly to the consumer.
When payment is completed, the purchase information is available to the merchant and the funds are deposited directly into their bank or Dash account depending on the currency used to purchase.
When a voucher is redeemed by a merchant, they use our application to mark the voucher as redeemed. Vouchers can be redeemed or refunded as per any specific purchase terms and conditions set by the merchant. We have a recommended template that can be used.
Our technology would also track when people start the purchase process but do not complete and will retarget them via social media and email to prompt them to complete the purchase. Historically, this results in a 10% uplift in purchases.
The reason we can adjust to meet the needs of Evolution as it changes is that the integration will focus on a few areas:
- Payment integration
- Offer Channel, push offers to Evolution
- Consumer sign up
- Consumer release of information for purchase, for example name, email address, physical address, agreement to receive future offers from this merchant, agreement to receive similar offers from other merchants on the network.
- Statistical reporting to be provided back to the Dash Core team.
So while we may need to be flexible with the Evolution integration, almost all of the components of the system would remain unchanged if the Evolution solution needed to change.
As far as benefit to the Dash network is concerned, this application will bring merchants and customers together through an offer network that has Dash as the exclusive digital currency as per our signed escrow and integration agreement with the Dash Core Team. Making general commerce simple and frictionless will be the key to any digital currency’s widespread adoption and creating an opportunity for Dash merchants to send offers to their customers to get that to purchase again. We will help simplify that process. We will also add the Dash payment option to FetchRev’s growing customer base of 1000+ merchants and 19M consumers through our signed partner agreement with that company.
Links will be included in over 30M emails sent every month to push Dash as an alternative to credit card payments. These links will also be included on the offer landing pages that are viewed in excess of 400,000 times every month.
Overall this will raise the profile of Dash across merchants and consumers and in conjunction with Evolution provide a simple point for people to sign up and start transacting with Dash.
I appreciate you and your team have put in funds for this, and your commitment to the project is absolutely clear. But I think that without a clearer view on the marketing plan, and some insight work up front, you may be building a white elephant.
Open to discussing further and even changing my votes - but I'd like to understand the compelling use cases and insight that back this venture up.
If you take a look at the comment below, I have included a brief POC video that may help. If not would be happy to host a call to discuss further if you are interested.
Thanks,
Stuart
I've been through the video, this does not answer my questions and if anything I'm actually more confused - what is the link between this and Dash? The succinct value proposition would be a start, and something where there is a compelling need - Points and Offers works where there is an existing market to extract additional value; how will you guys even get this off the ground, hence my questions about the actual use cases and marketing plan to get this to consumers/businesses.
And to clarify on our end, are you asking about the use cases and value proposition for the Dash Network itself? Or for the actual merchants that would use the software?
Thanks,
Brandon
Thanks for the offer to host a call, but to make this efficient and due to the size of this proposal why not host a webinar so others can understand as well? I think before any call I just need to understand at a summary level the actual proposition for your addressable market whether it be merchants or consumers. The Dash network needs to consider whether this realistically adds value to Dash, am even less convinced after watching that video. Sorry guys but although it's ambitious it does not appear to be a realistic proposal from a business standpoint.
Can you access their entire customer base? Will you be offering Dash as a payment alternative on offers sent by FetchRev on behalf of their partners, and what is the compelling reason for people to pay with Dash, rather than using their credit cards/Applepay etc, does it somehow make it more convenient for them?
And what is the proposition to merchants who wish to accept Dash - note that there can be up to 15% attrition/dropped cart simply by adding another payment method, so high-vol e-commerce merchants need a compelling reason to do this.
These are the questions that I feel need to be answered, otherwise this seems like an expensive technical build without a clear runway to real business being done.
I appreciate your diligence and it seems that there are still some unanswered questions so I would love to talk with you directly to clear everything up.
Feel free to email me at brandon@theacme.us or text me at +1 480-233-0196 and we can set up a time to chat.
Looking forward to connecting soon.
Brandon
Sure will email you directly. I would also like to have the questions above answered here, so other MNO's can see what are the key concerns that remain. These are in my message above..
I know Brandon is looking forward to talking to you, in the meantime here is some additional info to help explain the platform.
Thanks,
Stuart.
I will try and clear up some of the points you have raised:
The solution we are proposing in essence is about connecting consumers and merchants with offers that are of interest to them and then provide a frictionless purchase of that offer. Offers are similar in style and layout to a Groupon so consumers are familiar with the look and feel. However, the costs are far lower for a merchant and focused on bringing existing customers back as well as bringing new customers in for the first time.
The flow works like this: Merchants upload their customer, product and offer information to the platform and then the system will use this information to create and generate offers for their customers automatically.
The application then operates in the background looking for subscribers that are ready to purchase, at which point it will create a custom offer appropriate to that customer and send via the most appropriate digital channels (e.g. email, SMS, social media ads or the Evolution application).
Once that offer has been received by the consumer, they can purchase the offer through standard credit card or via Dash. Once purchased they will receive an email voucher that can be redeemed at the brick and mortar store or a receipt for an item that will be delivered directly to the consumer.
When payment is completed, the purchase information is available to the merchant and the funds are deposited directly into their bank or Dash account depending on the currency used to purchase.
When a voucher is redeemed by a merchant, they use our application to mark the voucher as redeemed. Vouchers can be redeemed or refunded as per any specific purchase terms and conditions set by the merchant. We have a recommended template that can be used.
Our technology would also track when people start the purchase process but do not complete and will retarget them via social media and email to prompt them to complete the purchase. Historically, this results in a 10% uplift in purchases.
The reason we can adjust to meet the needs of Evolution as it changes is that the integration will focus on a few areas:
- Payment integration
- Offer Channel, push offers to Evolution
- Consumer sign up
- Consumer release of information for purchase, for example name, email address, physical address, agreement to receive future offers from this merchant, agreement to receive similar offers from other merchants on the network.
- Statistical reporting to be provided back to the Dash Core team.
So while we may need to be flexible with the Evolution integration, almost all of the components of the system would remain unchanged if the Evolution solution needed to change.
As far as benefit to the Dash network is concerned, this application will bring merchants and customers together through an offer network that has Dash as the exclusive digital currency as per our signed escrow and integration agreement with the Dash Core Team. Making general commerce simple and frictionless will be the key to any digital currency’s widespread adoption and creating an opportunity for Dash merchants to send offers to their customers to get that to purchase again. We will help simplify that process. We will also add the Dash payment option to FetchRev’s growing customer base of 1000+ merchants and 19M consumers through our signed partner agreement with that company.
Links will be included in over 30M emails sent every month to push Dash as an alternative to credit card payments. These links will also be included on the offer landing pages that are viewed in excess of 400,000 times every month.
Overall this will raise the profile of Dash across merchants and consumers and in conjunction with Evolution provide a simple point for people to sign up and start transacting with Dash.
I have some questions:
1)
Could you make a video, pdf, powerpoint, with examples of practical cases?
So we can see and understand the depth of the proposal, I would appreciate it. (for see examples)
2)
This approach will be oriented to the local market where you operate USA? Or could it be extrapolated to Europe?
3)
As a European or Asian merchant / customer could you benefit from your proposal?
Thank you for your proposal.
I have included a link to a proof of concept video that explains a few of the use cases, hopefully this will help explain the potential a little better.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Jz6yQQjdS4Q19WcC1jd1NMelE/view?usp=sharing
Please bear in mind this is just one set of use cases for a specific industry, but I think you will get the idea about how it can be used for many different scenarios.
On your question about markets, we will support USA and Canada initially with a view to covering major European markets 18-24 months in. There is no issue with the software working for different currencies and countries, the main issues we see here are multi language support for the software and our customer success staff, and ensuring we meet all marketing legislation and data protection laws in the European markets.
We have considered Asia, but at this moment we are picking and choosing our target markets carefully to ensure we grow at a sustainable rate.
I hope this helps. I would be happy discuss follow on questions either through the forum on via a call if that would help.
Thanks,
Stuart
It is being designed in parallel with Evolution, so nobody is jumping the gun here.
solarguy
i just double-checked myself with andy and ryan
and they told me the same thing , are in touch , work together, early adopters, timing fits ,....
why now ?
there is no product, shouldn't this proposal come in 3-4 month when there is a working version and u actually know what you are promoting (and know it is there and working ) ?
The discussions we have had with the core team are about having the product ready as close to the launch as possible. Adding capabilities to the network early will help to demonstrate the value to both merchants and consumers and hopefully increase the momentum of additional 3rd party services on the network.
The platform we are proposing will be developed in conjunction with the Evolution product development and while we appreciate things may change along the way as development challenges arise and we are ready to accommodate and adjust accordingly.
that sounds good
i just confirmed
quote from Ryan Taylor 20-oct-2017 from the pre-discussion thread of the previous budget proposal, that contained the large one-time payment of 2559 dash :
"I can confirm that Brandon and Stuart have been working with us directly on their proposed solution, are designing their system to be compatible with our platform approach, and have met with Andy and others on their approach and received their buy-in to continue working together. They have exhibited professionalism and willingness to work collaboratively on the details of their solution and how it will interact with the network. Their existing company FetchRev has been operating in the offers business for several years, so they also have the needed expertise to build this solution. "
i just talked to andy about it and he said yes this fits
From what I understand, you're offering promotions to online and local retailers who subscribe to your service to accept Dash?
Is this proposal to subsidize the promotions? IE we are paying for people to buy things at a discount with Dash? Or are retailers offering discounts themselves to people that pay with Dash?
You will also be doing direct marketing for those retailer's customers that sign up to your subscription service?
Questions:
What are some examples of the types of promotions you intend to do?
Do you have a plan for how the subscribed retailers going to "cash out" of their Dash if they need to?
Let's say a local computer service store gets paid in Dash and they want to only keep 10% of their transaction value in Dash. Is there an exchange/ATM/POS to go along? Or is that up to the individual retailer?
Will the analytics be shared with the Dash Community? What will those entail? IE new wallets/addresses/TXs etc.
It is primarily up to the merchant to provide the discounts / offers to their customers, however it is entirely up to them how much or if at all. It would also be possible for the Dash Network to fund a promotion or offer for example offer an additional 10% discount on all purchases paid for with Dash.
As far as Dash to fiat is concerned, we are going to offer a choice to the merchant. If they register for Dash and opt to keep then we will transfer directly to their wallet, however if they would prefer the funds in fiat currency or they haven't setup a wallet, we would convert the Dash to fiat immediately. We will be partnering with Alt36 to offer this capability.
Detailed analytics would absolutely be available to the Dash Core Team. Key data points and insights could be made available to the whole community. Those data points will need to be defined, but my initial thoughts would transaction volume, new wallets, repeat purchases, ratio of revenue kept as Dash vs Fiat.
On your point about us direct marketing to retailers customers. Customers will have the option to opt-in or out to other offers on the network, we will also add companion offers as an option, such as a deal at a local restaurant to accompany an offer for a trampoline park.