Proposal “dash-core-group-business-development“ (Completed)Back

Title:Dash Core Group Business Development (December)
Owner:glennaustin
One-time payment: 570 DASH (22110 USD)
Completed payments: 1 totaling in 570 DASH (0 month remaining)
Payment start/end: 2019-12-15 / 2020-01-13 (added on 2019-12-09)
Votes: 814 Yes / 107 No / 6 Abstain
External information: app.dashnexus.org/proposals/dash-core-group-business-development/overview

Proposal description

Dash Core Group December 31st Funding Proposals
DCG is submitting 2 funding proposals for the December 31st budget cycle:
1) DCG Compensation: 2/3 (multi-month proposal)
2) DCG Business Development: $29,400

What is this proposal about?
This proposal funds Dash Core Group’s ongoing business development expenses. The last time funding was requested for the Dash Core Group’s business development budget was in March 2019. 

A look back at the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter 2019 business development activity
Since our last funding request, the business development budget has been used to fund a large number of integrations, promotions, and co-advertising efforts.  
We maintained a high level of activity with a total of 28 new integrations during the first three quarters of the year, averaging 9 integrations every quarter.  This is in addition to the activities needed to foster and grow existing key integrations such as Kriptomobile, Cryptobuyer, Panda and Alt36 in our strategic markets.  

Our Q1 2019 Integrations were as follows:
  • Exchange Strategy Pillar:
    • VegaWallet, Cryptofacil, Jinance
  • Venezuela Strategy Pillar: 
    • Church’s Chicken “free fries by paying with Dash” Promo, Coinbene 
  • Cash-based Industries 
    • Alt Thirty Six Promotion

Our Q2 2019 Integrations were as follows:
  • Exchange Strategy Pillar:
    • Crypto.com, Quantfury, 2gether.global, Blox.io, Aircoins
  • Venezuela Strategy Pillar: 
    • Cryptobuyer Traki, DAEXS in Colombia
  • Chargebacks Pillar
    • eGifter, Travala

Our Q3 2019 integrations were as follows:
  • Exchange Strategy Pillar:
    • Coinbase (incl. Chainlocks), Coinbase Pro (incl. Chainlocks) 
    • Bibox, Indodax (InstantSend Upgrade), 
    • Cubobit exchange in Mexico, opened up the possibility for remittance solutions along the US to Mexico and Mexico to Venezuela corridors.
  • Venezuela Strategy Pillar:
    • XpayCash POS integration through Panda exchange, 100+ locations in Venezuela and Colombia.
    • Farmarket pharmacy chain with 22 locations in Venezuela as a result of XpayCash integration (rolled out in 3 locations so far), trained teams about Dash with Dash-specific material in the stores.
    • Integrations support for Dash-funded organization business development efforts such as Kamoney in Brazil and Carmillenium in Venezuela.
  • Cash-based Industries Pillar: 
    • Alt Thirty Six - Promotion for launch of their first consumer service at Releaf to incentivize Dash transactions.
  • High Chargebacks
    • FOMOHunt
  • Payments and additional High Value Integrations:
    • PayNow - Payment Processor 
    • BTCPay Server InstantSend integration
    • Integration of Uphold into iOS 

We have attempted to provide as much detail as possible in our partnership descriptions. Unfortunately, many items, such as partner level costs are commercial in confidence. Disclosing exact dollar amounts would hinder our ability to negotiate future partnerships and complicate existing ones as the commercial terms would be made public and visible for everyone to directly compare. Generally speaking, the integration deals we directly fund are low-cost as evidenced by the large number of integrations and promotion activities funded by the previous proposal. Larger requests (above $20k) are always directed to the DAO for funding decisions under separate proposals. We have also created a policy in Q3 2019, that restricts the maximum amount DCG can spend on any single partner per rolling quarter. 

Additional detail on how we spend business development funds
  • On average, 45% of these costs are for the direct benefit of the Dash User and to drive transactions via discounts, waived fees or a small amount of Dash.  
  • In such cases, the partner also has “skin in the game”. This can consist of matching discount levels or fee waivers, absorbing incremental direct costs of their own, negotiated permanent fee reductions, dedicated developer resources, partner supplied PR and marketing channels, etc.
  • Total onboarding costs can consist of:
    • Direct integration costs  (i.e. API fees, compliance costs, i.e. cost of resource redeployment etc.)
    • Promotional activity    
      • Variable expenses such as fee waivers, contests or discounts to promote usage, marketing through channel partners.
  • Co-investment grants:
    • Integration grant programs
    • Joint marketing and promotion efforts

What will the funds be used for? 
All 5 pillars of DCG’s business development strategy (Hyperinflation, remittances, high chargebacks, cash-based industries, and exchanges) are active and evolving as we learn from our engagements and focus on areas within these strategies that have had the largest impact for the network and our partners.  The budget requested in this proposal is to cover a number of initiatives. This budget will include funding for:

  1. Promotional and integration costs associated with:
    1. Increase number of high level integrations in Venezuela and increasing access to Dash for the consumers.
    2. High chargeback industries - To provide users with clear value differentiation and make it easier for businesses to integrate with us, we are in talks with several exchanges offering widgets that will allow you to acquire Dash and deposit it into your account on a given platform instantly
      1. eSports: Potentially large opportunity for cryptocurrency in this industry. In a short amount of time, this industry has seen significant growth, tokenization is ubiquitous across the industry, the demographics for eSports and cryptocurrency are very similar
    3. Cash-based industries: As announced in the Q3 2019 DCG Quarterly Call, Alt Thirty Six is preparing to turn Dash transactions on as a default on their system which will take effect across current and future clients. This will bring Dash into major cash-based businesses across the supply chain. This move fast-tracks the progress of our cash-based industries strategy.
    4. Exchange Strategy: We have been running a campaign to enable InstantSend and ChainLocks on exchanges listed in the Blockchain Transparency Institute
      1. Currently, many exchanges are in various stages of integrating InstantSend and/or ChainLocks into their platforms. We are in talks with others. Most of the exchanges targeted are those listed on BTI.live which reports real volume. 

We remain focused on keeping expenses low while aligning with our partners on mutual goals. 

Requested funding is as follows for the December budget cycle:
565 Dash ($29,400 USD @ $52 per Dash)
    5 Dash reimbursement for the proposal cost
Total: 570 Dash

Note: Should any funding remain, we will apply it toward future business development expenses and related taxes.



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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?

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1 point,4 years ago
No votes on proposals from core are going to multiply if evonet is again delayed for some or the other reason.
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0 points,4 years ago
Yes from me.
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1 point,4 years ago
Will the Business Development team add Zimbabwe as a point of focus?

It appears to be the only other economy in the world experiencing a strong demand to switch currency products.
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1 point,4 years ago
I am writing this on behalf of our Ernesto Contreras, DCG business development:
As of now and for the short term, especially with the price decrease, we do not have the resources to add another point of focus to our growth strategy and start from scratch. If a team starts working in Zimbabwe, and its approved by the DAO we will gladly share the learnings, and resources we can, so they can leverage the experience we have had in the past two years in Venezuela.
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1 point,4 years ago
OK--please start investigating the viability of the Zimbabwe economy switching to a new currency (like ours) as soon as the budget permits
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0 points,4 years ago
Ryan Taylor can make whatever excuses he likes but the markets know better. 

It is out of the top 25, hobnobbing with the trashcoins of the industy.

The market knows that the Evolution Main Net is still far from completion and the open house was a botched attempt at trying to prove otherwise. The explanation that "Evolution is a philosophy" has further eroded faith in the management.

In the last three years, Core has consistently underperformed and delivered nothing of note. Even the hardcore supporters who might be argue in support of Dash on Discord dont dare to put their wallets where their mouths are.

Core has also been consistent in avoiding any real criticism, choosing instead to stay in a bubble and the coin speeds into complete irrelevance.

The arrogance has reached such a level that no one is prepared to even consider seeking replacement of proven non-performers such as Fernando. It is also common knowledge that many core employees owe their jobs to personal friendships.

Even public companies with the stated aim of bringing dash to shareholders have moved away from Dash and diversified into coins with a future.

The value of nodes have gone down from a Million to a few grand and yet there hasn’t been any serious uprising against a core management that has performed miserably and run the project into the ground.

It is time to start pushing core to make necessary changes otherwise the day is not far when dash might actually go to 0.
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5 points,4 years ago
<Venezuela Strategy Pillar:
Church’s Chicken “free fries by paying with Dash” Promo, Coinbene >
Can we get an update on Tx counts at Church's Chicken locations? So we can learn from it, see what worked, what didn't.
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2 points,4 years ago
I am writing this on behalf of our Ernesto Contreras, DCG business development:

Thanks for your question Currency_use_case, in the first Q we ran a promotion in Church’s Chicken in order to complement the launch of our exclusive deal with them.

This promotion cost a few hundred dollars as they were giving the fries at cost and it lasted a bit more than a quarter.

This was the first time we ran a transaction focused promotion with any partner so we knew it would be a good learning opportunity. Here are the results:
-We had daily transactions happening throughout the chain, with a heavy focus (51%) happening at their top 3 locations.
-Most of the transactions come from repeat users, the store operators even started to recognize the Dash payers (Some small interactions allowed us to learn these Dash payers are people who receive Dash as freelancers and traders)
-The % of payment is relatively small (Around 1%, depending on the location)

As a result of this activity, we understood that having Dash as a payment option should be complemented with an increase in liquidity through cash-in and remittances, because even though paying with Dash provides a great UX, the acquiring part is still not easy. It is still very difficult to acquire Dash in Venezuela for the average person. This is why our next steps in our strategy have been around signing up merchants though POS integrations and enabling liquidity boosters.
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1 point,4 years ago
1) OK.
2) <This is why our next steps in our strategy have been around signing up merchants though POS integrations and enabling liquidity boosters.> What is the liquidity boosters strategy? It will make it easier for Venezuelans to acquire our product?
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0 points,4 years ago
I am writing this on behalf of Ernesto Contreras, DCG business development:
Thanks for your questions Currency_Use_Case, our liquidity booster strategy means we are focusing on enabling a set of activities that will allow for an UX focused way for people to get Dash. This means working with exchanges that can operate and scale within Venezuela’s situation, enabling remittance origination from places where there is a Venezuelan diaspora and other innovative options that will get Dash in the hands of people in a constant, scalable way (For example we are introducing some Dash-acquisition products such as cards to the teams that are working on the ground so they can bullet proof them, and then we can work on a scalability action plan with such products).
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0 points,4 years ago
I am writing this on behalf of Ernesto Contreras, DCG business development:
Thanks for your questions Currency_Use_Case, our liquidity booster strategy means we are focusing on enabling a set of activities that will allow for an UX focused way for people to get Dash. This means working with exchanges that can operate and scale within Venezuela’s situation, enabling remittance origination from places where there is a Venezuelan diaspora and other innovative options that will get Dash in the hands of people in a constant, scalable way (For example we are introducing some Dash-acquisition products such as cards to the teams that are working on the ground so they can bullet proof them, and then we can work on a scalability action plan with such products).
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1 point,4 years ago
The lack of response shows the arrogance of the DCG in dealing with real issues and shows how out of touch they are with reality.

Despite years in the making, the price of dash has not moved one cent on the "evolution announcement". This shows a colossal failure on the entire DCG on all fronts, especially marketing. Forget others, even mnos havent really picked up more nodes since there is no real vision which reflects in the price.

We can all claim XYZ conspiracy but the free markets know better and Dash is #24 already, speeding into irrelevance.

Fernando has not done one thing of note I am surprised that DCG continues to have faith in him. If DCG was an organisation that was running on merit, I doubt if he would have made it into 2017, let alone being hired at all.

No doubt this proposal will pass but the community needs to ask some hard questions.
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1 point,4 years ago
<Forget others, even mnos havent really picked up more nodes since there is no real vision which reflects in the price. > Interesting point
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1 point,4 years ago
Sorry for taking a bit to reply to your earlier message. I had a busy week with several podcasts and off-site meetings the second half of the week. I hope my answer helps to clarify.
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1 point,4 years ago
Can you also take up the question on Fernando and the perception of marketing failure on DCG's part?
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9 points,4 years ago
I though the MNOs voted against giving Alt36 promotional funds in their proposal. So, why has DCG funded Alt36 promotions when the MNOs clearly voted no. Now you're expecting MNOs to vote in your business plan when you are supporting Alt36.

Alt36 received over 1 million investment from DASH. That is enough money. They need to now get on with funding their own business. I do not support DCG funding projects we have clearly not approved in their own proposals.

It appears to me that Alt36 are receiving preferential treatment. I have asked this question before but receive no response. So I will ask again. What is the past history and connections between Ryan Taylor and Alt 36 ? If Ryan has had past dealings with Alt36 before DASH this needs to be disclosed because it is appearing Alt36 is receiving favourable treatment over other projects.

I also believe all "promotional" type work should stop entirely. We should not have to incentivise people to use DASH. We should be investing in projects where making using DASH is so beneficial and so useful to a user that they have no alternative but to want to use DASH. That means finding real world, specific problems that DASH can solve and developing a solution for that specific problem. I also believe that DCG need to also consider earning its own way with developing these types of solutions. e.g. The Airline industry is going through a very tough time at the moment. Norwegian airways is developing a crypto payment system to save money on chargebacks and credit card commissions that could save them around 5% per annum on their total profit. In my opinion we must focus on becoming established in niche projects such as this. We cannot compete against bitcoin but we can dominate niche solution markets specifically chosen and targeted by us and to be actually paid for developing the solution e.g. for an Airline. We get marketing, credibility and niche domination if we can adopt this type of strategy. I would cut out all other promotional work and focus on building dedicated solutions to specific niche payment problems that normal currency cannot solve. Choose a big enough problem with millions of users e.g. Airline payments and we could establish the DASH brand as an advanced payment solution. I feel our business development is unfocused and non strategic and needs a serious overhaul.
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2 points,4 years ago
I have answered the question in the past about prior connection between Alt36 and myself many times. There was absolutely no connection prior to Dash. I first connected with the CEO in the spring of 2016 when I first started working for Dash full time. A payments industry consultant that I had previously met recommended that reach out to Alt36 because I was seeking to build payments industry connections locally. At the time, Alt36 was focused on credit and debit card interchange optimization. I explained Dash and shared my views on crypto and what industries it was likely to impact, cannabis being among them. By early 2017, after several discussions, Alt36 decided to pivot and create a solution for cannabis based on Dash.

Under no circumstance do we circumvent the network by funding activities that the network rejected. We have written policies that prohibit spending business development funds on rejected proposals, and a policy that restricts the amount we can commit to any other activity with a partner who's most recent proposal was rejected. In the case of Alt36, we conducted a joint promotion at a launch event that featured both Alt36 and Dash, and shared a booth at the 2019 California Tech Crunch conference. The Dash network and currency is used to facilitate the transactions on Alt36's platform. The amount we contributed toward the launch was extremely modest ($1,000) and was used to incentivize user signups. Alt36 invested far more than Dash for travel and staffing the event all weekend... our contribution was minimal. I also don't think it would be in the network's best interests to spend as much as we have with Alt36 and be unwilling to invest a small amount to help the product launch successfully in the first dispensary. It also was such a small amount that it would never make sense to submit a separate proposal... the proposal fee would have been about $500 at the time.

I do not agree with your assertion that promotions in general are not effective tools for obtaining new users. Providing a switching incentive is frequently an essential part of getting agreement from a potential partner to integrate Dash in the first place, and it is equally important for users of a partner's platform to try using Dash instead of other payment options to which they are accustomed. I do agree that it would be foolish to continue relying on promotions with a particular partner on an ongoing basis after the launch, so we never do that. By incentivizing a partner's users to try Dash (usually for the first time), they will continue using it based on the speed, savings (e.g., if credit card payments carry fees for example), and low transaction costs.

I do agree with you that airlines is another high-chargeback category that we can target. It has long been on my list of potential strategies if we could increase our business development capacity. With airlines, it's not only the high credit card fees that crypto can address, it also allows travelers from other countries to pay cross-border far more easily than fiat (card fraud causes many transaction declines), and at far lower costs (e.g., avoid cross-border fees and currency exchange fees from their card issuers). I would love to pursue that strategy in the future, but it is not possible with a team of two.
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2 points,4 years ago
@babygiraffe, this is the first time I am aware that you have answered the question I posted regarding your past connections with Alt36 in any DCG funding proposal. A proposal question needs to be answered in the proposal and not assume that MNOs are going to be reading everything you write in other locations. If you have answered this question in a DCG funding proposal could you provide a link to that proposal so that I can confirm this is the case. If you responded to this question somewhere else, other than in the DCG proposal, then MNOs that are focused on devoting their time only to proposals, such as myself, would not see your answer.

For more than a year I've been posting valid questions in DCG but very rarely, if ever, getting a reasonable response from anyone in DCG. This means DCG is losing out from the feedback MNOs with business experience can give but it also means we are simply wasting valuable time.

The reason I asked for clarification on your background to Alt36 is that they have been receiving preferential treatment from DCG e.g. you have funded them on past occasions when MNOs have not voted their proposal through. It is important MNOs have the information necessary to fulfill our role in the governance process of assessing and giving feedback on proposals. We cannot do this if we do not have access to the information we need.

Last year I had contacted DashWatch and asked them if they would do a DW report on Alt36. DW informed me that you had told them that DCG were looking after the Alt36 account and they were not granted assess to get the information they needed. I find that response unacceptable. There is a governance system in place. It should not be blocked or inhibited by DCG on any projects. This is just one reason I feel Alt36 are receiving preferential treatment. In addition you have provided them funds, even if modest, after MNOs had voted no to their further funding requests and this has not only happened once but on at least one other occasion previously that I can recall. Alt36 have received over 1million dollars in funding. If they cannot make a project work with that amount of money by now then it really does not deserve to be further funded by DASH. We have completed our part. It is now time for Alt36 to deliver. They need to get their own funds to promote their own solution.

Since you have taken responsibility for Alt36 and have not permitted DashWatch to do a standard DW report you have impeded the normal functioning of the Governance system Ryan. As a consequence by extension you have taken full responsibility for the Alt36 project's outcome. In addition you advised Alt36 not to respond to challenging questions posted by MNOs in their proposal. Again this is circumventing the governance system. We have a right to know the details of a project we are responsible for funding. If the questions are valid questions and constructive questions a response is required. The time to ignore a question is when someone is clearly trolling.

I am requesting that DCG *not*, under any circumstances, impede or obstruct the governance system we have in place for MNO investors to accomplish our task of assessing projects again.

I personally want DW reports on Al36 work and indeed DCG itself. I am aware that DCG provide a quarterly report however we need an independent report to ensure we are receiving accurate and unbiased information regarding funding requests. I personally feel that quarter of a million dollars every month just salaries is a huge amount of money considering Evo delivery was missed by well over 2 years and it looking more like 2.5 years by the time it is released. People say that you are creating something new as being the reason for late delivery. I disagree with that point of view. Developing any new software is also building something new. Such a late delivery on Evo clearly points to issues in the DASH development process itself in my opinion.

I wise businessman once said to me "Don't loose a project on your own" DCG have kept the Alt36 project tightly guarded and effectively shielded that project from the normal governance system by not permitting DW reports on Alt36 work. I hope the Alt36 project is going to work out Ryan. Because if it does not, you are responsible for us not being able to make proper and clear decisions regarding that proposal.
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-1 point,4 years ago
I am also going to have to agree with the views expressed by DeepBlue,

This gravy train of funding has to stop

Voting NO on all dcg related proposals for marketing
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1 point,4 years ago
This is business development. The work they are doing with exchanges like Coinbase to integrate and gain confidence in the technology and about the regulatory environment, is essential
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-2 points,4 years ago
@deepblue to answer ypur question, it all lies with there alumni and affilation.

ASU!
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4 points,4 years ago
The open house has attracted very little attention, evident from the lack of media coverage or price action. This points to a failure on the Marketing and PR to do their job.

Is there a plan to shake up the marketing team and replace low performers with professionals?
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2 points,4 years ago
The Open House was not intended as a marketing event or a launch event. We are launching Dash Platform on evo-net later this month, in line with the timing guidance provided on the last two quarterly calls (the testing launch date has not changed during that time). The Open House event was intended as an internal community-focused communication and in particular focused on developers to help them understand what functionality is launching, the phased plan for testing, where testers can find technical documentation, and how participants can assist with the testing process.

We are planning consumer-oriented communication for when Dash Platform and Dashpay are launched on mainnet and are available to users. Media is very interested to cover Dash Platform when it launches on mainnet, but testing is not an event they are interested in covering. Our PR firm did reach out to media and obtained a small amount of coverage, which was very much in line with our expectations of a pre-testing communication event. Of course, we will pursue and expect much larger coverage for the mainnet launch.

We did not want to host the Open House on the date testing will begin because the date for release falls too close to the holidays.
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0 points,4 years ago
I agree with you completely!!!
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