We have two levels of focus: The whole system and individual features.
System
With the system I mean the blockchain and how it is governed. We have the best blockchain, let's keep it that way and make it even better. This means that we can't just focus on individual features but to remember also look at the system as a whole. We need to nurture it as a whole system. Let's make it more antifragile.
From the blockchain governance point of view we are still lacking at least GUI for committee. Is something else critical still missing?
We need more committee members. Let's find more real members and drop all inits this year. Shouldn't be too hard to achieve?
Marketing has been bad. It would be a good start if the website and blog were updated regularly. No need to have flashy videos or other gimmicks, just tell what we are up to, so outsiders don't get the picture that project is dead.
When we communicate better the strengths of our blockchain and all the possibilities it offers, I hope we can attract more users, developers and investors. Now it's like this amazing blockchain is just our little secret and nobody else knows about it.
Fee Backed Assets are going to be really important part of funding new features. Let's make sure that everybody knows that FBA exists and how it can be used.
Individual features
If we want to get the blockchain profitable, we need to have profitable features. This should be the focus for everybody.
No need to get everybody to work on same feature at the same time, we can have lots of different projects. But when you are thinking about business idea or should you start developing something or should you invest, try to focus on short term profitability.
Hopefully FBA will bring lots of funding money on the table, but it's not going to fund everything. Something is still left for the workers. When thinking who should you vote to be funded, focus on if the feature will be useful for somebody in the short term. If it is useful, it will bring money in. Right now we need just some profitable examples for others to be inspired to do their own thing in the Bitshares blockchain.
Stealth is already coming, that's awesome, it has been wished by so many that it probably is useful. Point of sale system might get more store owners interested in Bitshares, which is very promising.
Recurring and scheduled payments are great for any kind of subscription based service. As far as I know, there is no competition in the cryptosphere. We should probably prioritize these and try to monopolize the market.
What comes to the exchange itself as a feature, I think it's kind of vague to say that we should focus on making it better. Better for what? An exchange can be used for many things. Of course the user experience etc. should be polished, but besides that there should be more clear objectives. Who wants to use it right now and bring profits for Bitshares? Let's go after those people and serve them first.
Features/businesses that I have mixed feelings:
Any kind of crowdfunding platform. Right now there is lots of competition, it might be hard to get any meaningful traction fast. But on the other hand, would it really be that hard to try something in small scale? Like forking Mike Hearn's Lighthouse to work with Bitshares?
Features/businesses that I would delay:
Prediction markets. Let's face it, Augur is already leading. They have lots of intelligent people and a big chunk of money. If we are seriously going to go for prediction markets, we need a good team and enough money backing the project. It's not only the technical side, but it has to be marketed as well. There has to be website/webwallet dedicated to it, with good UI and videos to explain how it all works. So far I haven't seen any serious plans to actually make it all happen with Bitshares. So don't hold your breath while waiting PM bringing profits for Bitshares. Not going to happen soon. Probably some day, but not in the near future where I'd like our focus to be now.
Features/businesses that I would ditch for now:
All market pegged assets for cryptocurrencies (including bitBTC). These are only useful for traders, and not even everyone of them will use these. Remember, Bitshares exchange is a derivatives exchange, so all these MPAs are derivatives, not the real thing. For normal cryptouser bitBTC is inferior to real BTC because they can't use it anywhere else than in our exchange. So it will bring only little value for small group of people. That's why I'd like to see more focus on trading with gateway-BTC (and other gateway-altcoins). On the other hand, fiat/gold/silver-MPAs are useful for all people, so we should emphasize those markets more.
Feel free to add your own analysis for different features, services, products and other business ideas.