@cob,
Some people on this forum have begun to question your ability to execute. While I do not yet count myself among them, I have a growing concern with your lack of professionalism, casual dismissal of the valid grievances of MUSE shareholders, and apparent unwillingness to provide a greater level of transparency. I understand that what you are attempting to build must be very difficult, but if you were to spend some time finding ways to improve communications with MUSE shareholders, then I think a little effort would go a long way.
As a Peertracks crowdfund investor, I would like to bring to your attention some concerns I have about the way you have conducted your fiduciary responsibilities to your shareholders. To be clear, I am aware that you are not legally bound to any duties as such, but nevertheless I hope the contents of this letter can provide you some insight and feedback that you will choose to take to heart.
I do not possess any “insider” information that would give me a reason to doubt the project, but I also do not have much solid evidence to the contrary. Therefore, I believe that my evaluation is likely similar to what others who are “outside the loop” have found.
Here’s my assessment:
From October 6 thu. December 5, 2014, you raised 1,436 BTC, ostensibly towards the development of a Music promotion/sales/peer-2-peer platform based on the DPOS software protocol.
I assume that you immediately converted those funds to a stable fiat currency, rather than holding the BTC and speculating with the funds that investors entrusted to you. Between the two crowdfund dates, Bitcoin never fell below $350, so even if you only managed to get $300 per BTC, that would still put your grand total over $430,000.
http://www1.agsexplorer.com/From December 2014 to present, you have averaged less than 1 official update to the Bitshares community (your largest crowdfund donor pool) per month, usually 3-4 paragraphs each, in which you have repeatedly claimed that 90% of your plans must remain under lock and key, as they are so amazing that they would immediately be stolen by the competition.
During this same period, you published 4 different websites, IMO all rather unprofessional looking, but nevertheless full of big promises. Setting aside the numerous spelling and grammatical errors, none of them seemed to leave the reader without much sense of what Peertracks actually is. In fact 13 months after the completion of your crowdfund, you have yet to deliver a business plan, timeline, milestones, strategy, budget, marketing materials, or much real evidence that you have done anything besides talk. (I personally believe that you have done more than talk, but nevertheless I am finding little empirical evidence to support this.) I'm not a coder, but AFIK releasing a clone of the Bitshares light client and labeling it "MUSE" is does not require more than a few days effort.
Last Thursday, you dropped a bombshell of an update. Please correct me if I misunderstood, but you stated that you must raise more money or you will not be able to continue development? I thought it was rather strange that you chose to spend 1/3 of the update justifying how your admittedly bad decision to outsource developers "actually worked out in your favor" because of labor market forces beyond your control. This does not inspire much confidence in you ability to make sound business decisions.
What I mean is - if you are trying to prevent a loss in confidence, then why would you spend 3 paragraphs highlighting your error, and then attempt to cover your tracks by basically saying “don’t worry guys... due to a fortuitous accident, we didn’t mess up as badly we should have”. I’m not trying to be a jerk, I’m just trying to highlight that you guys should really consider hiring a PR manager.
More to the point - my number one question is - How have you spent the rest of our money? I know that nobody likes to be micromanaged, but since you have taken funds from a public crowd sale - I believe we have the right to know. Even if you round to the nearest $1000, I would find that more satisfactory than nothing.
Frankly, your inconsistent and cryptic communication over these last 12 months would never fly if you were a publicly traded stock. At this stage, you would be hard pressed to raise a 2nd round of capital from any investor who did his due diligence. Of course you could always try your luck with a naive and unsuspecting “kickstarter” crowd, which is apparently what you are now considering.
To be perfectly clear, I am not at all accusing you of foul play, but I am trying to highlight the fact that a few short paragraphs of hype and promises does not satisfy your responsibilities to the people who have been waiting patiently for over a year. I have extended “benefit of the doubt” up to this point, and have chosen to watch and wait patiently. I have not overlooked the obvious roadblocks that you have faced, least among them the bumpy upgrade to DPOS 2.0. I have been a huge supporter in my own circles, and several of my friends and family members have invested in Peertracks. I say this to disclose that perhaps my feelings or opinions are not entirely unbiased.
I very much want this project to succeed, and so I hope that my feedback will useful to you. I also hope you will honor your responsibility and address some of the recent feedback of other concerned shareholders, rather than the “ignore and push on forward” method that I have seen you adopt in the past.
Thanks for your time,
Michael
Topic: Open Letter to Cob (Read 7060 times)
