Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - domsch

Pages: [1]
1
Marketplace / Looking for Co-Founder in existing business
« on: September 09, 2015, 07:19:23 pm »
We are currently undergoing a pivot for one of our businesses and are therefore looking for a new co-founder from Ethereum to come on board to manage the business and the day to day operations together with us.

About the business:
  • Currently a gateway for Bitcoin and Nxt
  • Pivot into an Asset Manager for Nxt, Ethereum and Bitshares asesets
  • Website is fully operational
  • We already have bank accounts, payment processors (including a credit card processor on board) and the KYC/AML part worked out

What we are looking for:
  • Expertise in managing such a business and running day to day operations
  • Experience in marketing/advertising and user retention
  • Willing to put in the effort to make this a huge success

If you think you have what it takes please contact me to discuss this in detail :) You will be well compensated for your work with equity.

2
After long waiting we can officially announce that the very first trading platform for Bitshares and Protoshares is ready to take Beta Testers!


The spots are limited and we do only allow 30 Bitsharestalk.org members on the platform! For the beta you will not require anything and don't need to move over any of your assets - you can freely and securely play around! For the Bitshares trading we are using "BellaCoin" as a substitute to imitate the trading for our Bitshares and Protoshares. Each beta tester will be granted 500 Bitshares (Bellacoins) and $2000 for the trading. Real trading for BTC/PTS will start next week after Invictus has checked our cold storage method and can confirm that everything is done correctly! Additionally, we have approached several security auditors and will report back once we know more.


We will keep close contact with all 30 beta testers and create a Skype group where we thoroughly discuss bugs/fixes and where users can suggest improvements. The purpose of this beta is it to prepare the platform for the official launch in a few weeks.



3
General Discussion / Bithaus: Progress update [Last Update: 06/03/2014]
« on: February 16, 2014, 10:17:54 am »
This thread will be used to give the community continuous updates about Bithaus.

16/02/2014

Here are the current design concepts. Apart from some minor changes, they should be pretty final. We are now working on the trading pages and should have something to showcase soon.






4
General Discussion / Bithaus: Asking for involvement from the community
« on: February 05, 2014, 07:06:15 pm »
It’s been a long time since I have updated you guys about the centralized, legal exchange for Bitshares/DAC’s. But I am here with great news: We are getting to work!

This project is finally going to get started. We were able to raise an investment round - now it’s about building an A-Team of skilled, like-minded and diligent people. The first source for this is the community itself.

What are we building again?

We are building a centralized exchange and trading platform for Bitshares, DAC’s and any future projects that we think deserve an accelerator in their growth and adoption. Additionally, we are building other technology for these projects, most importantly Block Explorers, Web-Wallets and Apps.

To summarize, we are building:
  • block explorer
  • web-wallet
  • apps
  • legal trading platform


What kind of skills are you looking at?

For the project we are mainly looking for web-developers to help us build and maintain the platform. But other skills such as marketing, adoption and translations are very well accepted!

Here is a full list of skills we are looking at:
  • Designer
  • Front-end Developer
  • Back-end Developer
  • Wallet Developer
  • Security Auditor
  • Marketing/PR/Growth hacking
  • Education
  • Legal
  • Organization/Management
  • Customer Development
  • Writing/Blogging
  • Social Media
  • Translations



If you are interested to apply for any of the jobs mentioned above or just want to get involved, please fill out this form or send me a private message!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/15vjMK6L_xdihRgFyoR25lS9CaosD-4hrEPNAMLtGJdQ/edit

5
Proposal for Angelshares Investment in a DAC Trading Platform

After discussing the matter with Dan, we agreed that it would be the best to bring my proposal to the community and gain support for our mission.

I want to create the first international, legal and automatic DAC Trading Platform. Not only would it guarantee an easy entry to DAC’s through Fiat, it would also allow trading to be conducted with different DAC’s.



What will we exactly do?


There are several things we will work on, but our primary focus will be to create an international and legal trading platform. That means we will work on acquiring all the required licenses (either through partnerships with other companies, or by buying the licenses). There are 3 major licenses we need to acquire in order to function as a legitimate exchange:
  • MTB License (Money Transmitting Business. This is a license which we need to acquire in all 50 states)
  • MSB License (Money Service Business. This is a federal license)
  • PSP (Payment Service Provider. Registered in the EU)
  • And other licenses to assure our legality in all the major countries

As mentioned, initially we will acquire these licenses through strategic partnerships with current license-holders. Directly applying to these licenses is out of question right now as we do not meet the current requirements (e.g. $7m in bonds, having a CCO, etc.). But we are definitely looking to get these licenses in our hand as soon as possible.


Secondly, we will work on a secure web wallet not only for Protoshares and Bitshares, but also for all the other future DAC’s that Invictus and other developers have planned. Since most of us are paranoid about hackers, we will combine some of the best techniques available right now to offer our users the best possible security for their money. This includes:
  • 2FA (standard)
  • Multi-Signature Wallet (Similar model to https://www.bitgo.com/p2sh_safe_address )
  • Cold storage on machines that have never touched the internet and will be hosted by us (so no relying on third parties)

Optional
  • You can set a daily limit on how much you usually spend. When you reach that threshold you are prompted to verify ownership of the account
  • You can also set an estimated time around when you usually buy/sell. Let’s say you usually trade between 7AM/8AM in the morning. If someone makes a sell request on 12AM, further verification is required
  • And obviously more

Thirdly, since we are an advocate of the adoption of DAC’s, we will not only help already established DAC’s with promotion, but we do also want to help them through funding. Therefore we will create an official “DAC Development Fund” in which we donate 20% of our profits. This money would be donated to ambitious Teams and Projects that have been voted and decided on by the community. To add transparency to this entire operation, I would like to get 1 Invictus member and 1 trusted Forum member on the board of the company. They will give additional insight of our operations to the community and act as an independent third-party that control the donation fund with us.

Lastly, (as a long term project of mine), I want to create a platform that functions as a place where ideas are exchanged, knowledge is shared and help is given. It would basically be a Start-up and DAC Owners Manual. Past founders talk about their experience, mistakes, failures and success they have had in the past and what exactly led to it all. Additionally groups will be created in which ideas are exchanged and potential future DAC’s are organized.


Tell us more!

Our focus is it to lower the entry-barrier and give everyone the chance to invest and participate in jaw-dropping new projects. As such, we try to give everyone with Fiat in their hands, the chance to swap to something more technologically advanced and secure. We try to get as many payment options on board as possible, but initially our capabilities are limited. Some of the payment methods we intend to accept are:
  • US Bank Wire (ACH)
  • EU Bank Wire (SEPA)
  • Moneygram
  • Western Union
  • PerfectMoney.com
  • Ukash.com
  • Webmoney
  • Mobile Carrier Payments

(The section below is here to show what can be done)
Once we have the licenses and are operational there is a lot more we can and will do. For example, as a PSP organization within the EU you basically function as a “bank” (without the money lending though). So what does that exactly mean?
  • We can offer insurance on fiat stored on our platform (up to 100,000.00 €)
  • EU residents will get their very own IBAN code. That means that users can give their employer that IBAN and their monthly salaries will be automatically transferred into Bitshares through the platform!
  • We can issue debit cards (I’m not an advocate of this though)
  • Faster and Better banking infrastructure
  • more “legality” to the entire project.

This will be our legal tender for EU residents, but it is our intention to increase the benefits and offers for our users in every country in the world.


What are our goals with this project?

Short-term: Build the very first legal and automatic USD <-> PTS exchange! Not only that, but we do also want to initiate our educational mission for Bitshares, Keyhotee and Protoshares. Some of the methods mentioned here https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1578.0 will be used. But our short-term goal is it to prepare ourselves with the needed material for the Bitshares launch so we can get started on educating and acquiring more and more users!

Mid-Term: From the beginning on we want to be one of the first Bitshares exchanges and online wallets. As mentioned above, we do also want to work closely with future DAC’s and implement them on our exchange and wallet. For specific and quite interesting DAC’s that show a true purpose (such as the LTBCoin for example) we will help with the promotion through our platform. For the “DAC Owners Manual” platform I intend to get as many past-founders and people “that have been there and done that” on board as possible and have them share their experience. This platform should eventually grow to an independent community where like-minded people meet each other and come up with the craziest ideas.

Long-Term: Have my mother, that does not know how to turn on a PC (no I am not kidding), understand DAC’s and join a project through her own initiative! Obviously that is a very long sighted goal but I think we have a very clear roadmap on how we need to proceed. With the right resources and the community we will be able to cross and obstacle.

TL;DR The exchange platform is there to lower the barrier of entry to Bitshares and other DAC’s. Additionally it creates an easy to use environment that can be understood and used by your average non-tech oriented user. We will invest heavily on the educational and adaption part of this and other projects!


How to get started

My inquiry to the community is it to invest some Angelshares to this mission so we can get fully started.  The invested money will be used exclusively on the project and will be spent in an open and transparent way.
As mentioned, our first object is it to set-up a functional (and legal) Protoshares <-> Fiat exchange with a multi-signature wallet. After that is completed, we will simultaneously focus on an international expansion and creation of the actual trading platform.
I will also set-up a blog so the entire community will get daily/weekly updates on the progress.

This is a project by the community for the community and the future of DAC's. Therefore I will be happy to get more participants to help us with this project. If you are interested in joining this, please just send me a message with your skillset and what exactly you want to work on!


So what do you guys think: Should Angelshares be invested in this project or not? Please post your opinion below!


The exact required sum will be discussed in detail with the Invictus members and the community can decide whether it is adequate or not in the next thread.


Update on our progress

Legal progress:
  • We have talked with several lawyers over the last week (Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Berlin and the US) and we have set-up a proper proposition on how to get the initial PTS<->Fiat exchange up and running without much hassle.
  • We have been responded to by multiple MTB & MSB licensed businesses and we are currently in talks to work with them for the future. We are just waiting for the support of the community to proceed here.

Development progress:
  • The initial design concept has already been made and we are currently working on a blueprint. Once that is done, we can simply forward it to my friend (who owns a design and dev. company) to work on the front-end.
  • For the wallet we are trying to partner with Bitgo

6
General Discussion / An open proposal to the community and Brian/Dan
« on: December 23, 2013, 04:40:29 pm »
Great first introduction by Brian. It is a relieving to see someone take on the marketing aspects of the project. But as others said: actions speak louder than simple words. That's why I would like to get in touch with Brian and discuss the entire marketing plan in detail. I'm sure that we will have a great chat on the potential of Bitshares/Keyhotee/I3 and share our expansion plans, ideas and just have a random chat to get to know each other.

I may not be the most active on this forum, as I was just a lurker until recently becoming active, but I definitely think that I can and want to contribute to the success of the project.

I3 and Bitshares can be treated as a technologically advanced start-up that is trying to disrupt and resegment an existing market. The I3 team is done a great job on the product-side but as I had mentioned in my thread, Customer Development is currently being neglected. This is where I want to work with you side-by-side with the I3 team and my people. I will create a short "To-Do" list to present my solution.

But before getting to the fun part, I will give you a brief description of who I am: My name is Dominik S. and I'm an Italian entrepreneur. I fluently speak English, German and Italian. I am an addict of philosophy, reading, start-ups and technology that share my ideology of creating freedom and to completely erase the current threat in our society: Our very own monetary system. 
I am well connected in the start-up scene around the world, but I would focus my connections as of now to London, Berlin, Singapore, Hong Kong and India (because of a partner). The industries I worked in are: Affiliate Marketing (learned A TON from there, especially about creating websites that convert), Advertising and Media (different advertising forms and where to buy cheap traffic), Entertainment  (how do you create addictive games?) and well, the Adult Industry. I first got to know about Bitcoins in 2010 when a seller requested to be paid in Bitcoins. Since then I kept myself up to date with the entire crypto currency world. And lately I came to a stop at Protoshares/Bitshares. A friend introduced me to the system and I instantly knew that this project had tremendous potential. That's why I want to dedicate my time to work on establishing this project.

Either way, lets get started. As I said earlier, I want to work side-by-side with Brian on Customer Development and eventually, work locally together and build an entire team that works with us on solving centralized problems with decentralized solutions.

Customer Development is a simultaneous process with Product Development. That means that the teams focused on pushing the product out the door (sales and marketing) need to get started with a proper plan already before the release of the actual product. And obviously statements like "build the product, users will come don't worry" are blatant lies and never work. Most of the time, Customer Development is the first step every start-up takes (even before creating a product). The reasons are obvious: You need to get a confirmation that there is demand for your product and that you are really solving a problem that not only you, but millions of people have. After this confirmation, you tailor a minimum viable product that solves the exact problems your users have. During the entire product development process the customer dev. team works on a plan on how to make a perfect product launch, how to go from 1 user to 100k and how/where the product will be advertised.

To my understanding, we are still in a very early stage of Visionaries.  The community around I3 is constantly growing but it still mainly consists of Visionaries and Tech-Enthusiasts that are interested in the technological composition and factual use of the disruptive projects. In addition to that, most of the potential adopters are currently waiting for I3 to hold on their promises and release a functional new product (i.e. Keyhotee). If I3 succeeds with that, they(or rather we) need to work on the next step: Widespread adoption of non-techies.

Widespread adoption of non-techies is what the entire ideology behind I3 is: Solving centralized problems with decentralized solutions. As we all know, the problems and needs of techies are distinctively different from the problems of our average citizen. That is why a great effort of the entire operation needs to be put into these 3 steps (pictures taken from the book "The four steps to the Epiphany" - great book, really).:
  • Customer Discovery
  • Customer Validation
  • Customer Creation



Due to to keeping this thread shorter and since I3 already has done an adequate job on customer discovery/validation with Protoshares, I will only focus in-depth on explaining Customer Creation.



Customer Creation



The only question the entire team should ask themselves is: How do I solve problems that are non-existent in the mindset of my potential users? That means that before even thinking of gaining widespread adoption, we first need to create problems to solve. We need to make it clear where the flaws inside our monetary system lie, why they need to be solved and most importantly, why our solution is the best for them. This protracted process of creating the problem and offering the solution should take more than 6 - 8 months and requires patience from all parties involved in the project. But once we get started, the snowball of the revolution can not be stopped.

What we can do

  • More appealing product websites: I personally know the creators of https://www.giftcoins.me/ , http://buygiftcoins.com/#home , https://www.maxxo.com/ . I know how to create easy to understand websites, where the main purpose of the website will be seen at a first glimpse. With the right product development team and a clear vision by the customer development team, I'm sure that we can create the best looking website in the crypto-currency space.
  • How-To Websites/Games: Think of this as an interactive websites that explains our intentions and requires actions to be taken from the viewer. What I want to create is something similar to http://www.google.com/green/storyofsend and http://www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/thestory/ .
  • Giveaways and competitions:Giveaways don't necessarily just create costs: They ask for involvement and users get interested in the project/the ideology. Giveaways do also create some form of reciprocation: "I got something for free, I will try m best to pay back the favor." Competitions instead require commitment and consistency. The more work is required to get something, the more committed I get for the project and once I get started my decisions and actions will be consistent. “It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
  • Games:This should not be understood as an actual game where a Bitshares gunman is shooting down Dogecoin and Quarkcoin. But rather something similar to SatoshiGames that increases the adoption and usage of the coin. Sadly, I could not come up with something while writing this down - but I will think of this thoroughly within the next few days.
  • Guerrilla Marketing!!!: Lets say f*ck it and make posters of hidden entrances on buildings that say "Enter the future at bitshares.com". Obviously this needs to be planned beforehand and requires the allowance of the state, and obviously we need a better PR stunt than my half-assed idea.
  • Videos that actually explain what we do: Simple. Do you want a video that explains our activity in a funny, yet easy to understand way such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI . Or do you want something dull like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LPU3RNDuNI
  • Public speeches and meet-ups: In May I will be staying at Hong Kong for a month. Currently I'm still negotiating with the Hong Kong government to fund one of my projects (think of it as an open accelerator that gives everyone the chance to learn about start-ups). That means I can arrange a talk (or even a seminar) in Hong Kong and invite the press/entrepreneurs/important people and openly present the ideology behind Bitshares and explain what problems the system solves. I had already mentioned something like this to one of the exec's from http://www.investhk.gov.hk/ and I can definitely push this harder. But obviously we would not stop here, and we can even arrange meet-ups where we can discuss/share ideas. And as someone stated, Ted talks are quite possible and will give us exactly what we need.
  • Cold-calls/emails with companies: As I had mentioned, I am well connected in some of the major metropolis in the world. That means we can ask hundreds of companies if they are interested in a system like Bitshares and if not, we will get the reasons behind their decision and understand what is wrong and is halting our growth. 
  • PR campaigns: The value of a crypto-currency is highly dependent on its marketing. As a confirmation: look at Dogecoin. The difference between Dogecoin and Bitshares is that one is a complete joke and the other is a problem solver. Imagine what could happen if the same hype created from Dogecoin, will be done with a crypto-currency that gives its holders an actual value? Forbes India, Yourstory.com, BusinessInsider, Allthingsd, Techcrunch etc. are potential news-outlets that can and will make posts about Bitshares. In addition to that, I can get us an interview on one of the major TV Shows in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Netherlands called "Galileo".
  • Social Media: I know that most of the users here hate Facebook (so do I), but in today's time and age you can simply not look away from the advantages of participating in social media. The potential of reaching millions of people and garnering interest for our project require involvement.
  • Trading Platform and Wallet: This is rather a personal project that I am interested in creating. But what I want to do is create a wallet similar to KryptoKit that offers its users maximum security (not discussing how, for obvious reasons) and includes modern technology like NFC. And a professional trading platform for day to day trading for BitShares is also something I have been interested in for a long time. This is a monstrous project that requires the proper licences and investments. I will see what I can do, maybe we can create something together with I3. But obviously I will call for involvement from the community. More about this in the near future.




Conclusion

Sorry for not getting into too much detail but I rather just wanted to focus on a few aspects to not reveal too much - and my ability to write is currently limited since I am not on my PC. Either way, the reason why I created an open thread, instead of messaging this to Brian, is because I first want to get the opinion and acceptance of the community before talking privately with Brian and Dan. Therefore: Please post what you think below and let me know if you have any questions.

TL;DR: I will influence my ideas and experience in gaining widespread adoption in the BitShares project and will work with Brian on creating a Customer Development team that leads to the success of this and other projects.

To Brian and Dan: If you want to hear more, please contact me via PM and we can share contact details.

7
With the recent avalanche of bad news coming out of China there is a big question floating around: How will Chinese investors be able to purchase Protoshares/Bitshares now?

Deposits from PBOC and third-party payment processors to exchange platforms are (currently) stopped. That means no-one inside China will be able to purchase any crypto-currency any time soon.

What Protoshares/Bitshares, and most other crypto currency with distinctive advantages over Bitcoins, are missing is a clear seclusion from their "mother", Bitcoins. Especially Bitshares, which can be treated as the complete opposite of Bitcoins, should not be affected by fluctuations in the Bitcoin market. To further conclude this, weighing the value of Protoshares in Bitcoins leads to falsification and stops Protoshares to live up to its full potential.

Any ideas thoughts on both of these concerns?

Pages: [1]