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Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: jsidhu on February 01, 2015, 07:41:27 pm

Title: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 01, 2015, 07:41:27 pm
Hi guys,

As the devcoin source admin I really enjoyed working in an environment that allowed us to earn coins for work. As such I came up with an idea to open a business which would help market devcoin via a penny auction website. The idea is that it would be better than the competition because it offered crypto aswell as no bots and stuff that things like quibid uses aswell as many other features I found annoying on those sites that I thought would provide a competitive advantage.

1) User to user bid transfer allows you to buy bids at wholesale prices and sell them to others looking for only a few bids at a higher cost (you pocket the difference)
2) general affiliate program offering 1 percentage of the bid package cost to the person who referred you.. this is the standard 2 tier affiliate network model.
3) Coupons that give you a discount for word of mouth, internet advertising models.
4) Allow you to purchase the product you are bidding for by offsetting the cost that you put towards bidding on it. (Buy it now feature)

Some of the competition offers these things but none of the competitors offered all of these choices... and with crypto-currency we can lower fees on both sides aswell as help provide marketing for the coin it accepts.. in this case it was devcoin.


I didn't really get it going after months of development because there was no real community there but with bitshares its different.

The reason I like bitshares is it closely aligns with devcoin in that you work to earn. The ability to vote in delegates is what was always lacking in devcoin and being POW it would be hard to add that... so in fact this is the best of both worlds. By being elected essentially it would become the worlds first blockchain funded business based on consensus of the people.

I would like to rebrand the website for bitshares and clean up the interface to only offer bitassets and maybe paypal... so that I don't have to worry about the seperate bid types (I had to do this because devcoins were worth nothing and no market depth, so I seperated auctions based on acceptance of different coins)... however with bitusd/bitgbp/biteur it becomes a thing of the past.

Further more I'm not sure if I should wait for the turing complete scripting as an auction site might be a perfect candidate for a scripting model on the blockchain but I think as a marketing tactic we would create a delegate and fund the products you see on the site via the funds from the delegate... essentially being funded by the community. Because of this there is incentive from the whole community to succeed and the more people that see it, the more people would learn about bitshares.

Fuzzy introduced me to the idea via a PM and it got me thinking, I already did months of coding and it makes sense to not throw it away.

This would start to head us down the fully autonomous DAC road once we have the scripting, but as a start we can use this site as a platform.

landing page: http://devcoinauctions.com/welcome-landing/
site: http://devcoinauctions.com/

It's essentially turnkey.. and I would strip out all of the coin stuff and add in the payment gateway for bitshares and bitshares login and rebrand the graphics with the help of Cass or something else in webgraphics.

So I ask if the community agrees I can make a delegate and develop/support the idea based off of my own delegate dev.sidhujag... all of the funds will go towards maintaining, funding and growing the business to increase market awareness at this critical time.
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 02, 2015, 04:48:19 am
Please remem that the site is inactive noone has visited for weeks
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: onceuponatime on February 02, 2015, 05:28:13 am
I don't understand the economic model.
Is this like e-bay except that you can pay with btAssets?

Where do the items come from that you auction off for as little as 1% of their retail value?

Where are items warehoused?

Who is being paid to look after inventory and do shipping?

Is someone going to be available to handle customer service (complaints, questions)?



Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 02, 2015, 06:09:33 am
I don't understand the economic model.
Is this like e-bay except that you can pay with btAssets?

Where do the items come from that you auction off for as little as 1% of their retail value?

Where are items warehoused?

Who is being paid to look after inventory and do shipping?

Is someone going to be available to handle customer service (complaints, questions)?
Its going to be bought once auction is over.. I am dropshopping paying in btc to places like overstock

1% retail is still profitable

It is a bidding fee auction site: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidding_fee_auction

Rest is part of delegates job
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: Rune on February 02, 2015, 04:27:26 pm
This should not be a delegate. In fact I think we are on the wrong track regarding delegate funding of for-profit businesses. It only makes sense if we are paying to get the advantage of some major infrastructure, like from an exchange. Otherwise it just means the blockchain is subsidizing projects that aren't economically viable enough to raise capital on their own. Delegates only make sense for things that are public goods for all BTS shareholders like core development, open source project development, or bitasset marketing.
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 02, 2015, 05:06:10 pm
Think of it this way it is a delegate that gives out cheap goods to get ppl interested in bitshares.. since i will hookup bitshares login they will have to download the client to start working with it...

I dont see how its different than other marketing techniques.. others straight drop coins on ppl for free to get themto use.. atleast this is more interactive and fun. We get marketing out of it and get the right to have the first blockchain funded business like we have first blockchain funded devs etc..

I was thinking of use a bitasset to create bids so when ppl login their bids will be transfered to the site.
Title: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: carpet ride on February 02, 2015, 11:32:27 pm
This should not be a delegate. In fact I think we are on the wrong track regarding delegate funding of for-profit businesses. It only makes sense if we are paying to get the advantage of some major infrastructure, like from an exchange. Otherwise it just means the blockchain is subsidizing projects that aren't economically viable enough to raise capital on their own. Delegates only make sense for things that are public goods for all BTS shareholders like core development, open source project development, or bitasset marketing.

Largely Agree. Esp on BitAsset marketing. 


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Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: faddat on February 02, 2015, 11:41:45 pm
Carpetwide: I've no opinion on this argument, but I do want to let you know that the line between nonprofit and for profit blurs more every day.  My own company, has a hard time just "fitting in" to one definition or another.
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 03, 2015, 02:01:11 am
This should not be a delegate. In fact I think we are on the wrong track regarding delegate funding of for-profit businesses. It only makes sense if we are paying to get the advantage of some major infrastructure, like from an exchange. Otherwise it just means the blockchain is subsidizing projects that aren't economically viable enough to raise capital on their own. Delegates only make sense for things that are public goods for all BTS shareholders like core development, open source project development, or bitasset marketing.

Largely Agree. Esp on BitAsset marketing. 


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It is bitasset marketing since it will use bitassets.. since there will be good deals there will be alot of new bitshares users its garanteed...

Its buying new users.
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: Empirical1.2 on February 03, 2015, 02:11:15 am
This should not be a delegate. In fact I think we are on the wrong track regarding delegate funding of for-profit businesses. It only makes sense if we are paying to get the advantage of some major infrastructure, like from an exchange. Otherwise it just means the blockchain is subsidizing projects that aren't economically viable enough to raise capital on their own. Delegates only make sense for things that are public goods for all BTS shareholders like core development, open source project development, or bitasset marketing.

Largely Agree. Esp on BitAsset marketing. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It is bitasset marketing since it will use bitassets.. since there will be good deals there will be alot of new bitshares users its garanteed...

Its buying new users.

I like the other stuff you are working on. I'm also a big fan of anything that directly integrates BitAssets.
However this seems a bit niche, you already tried it with devcoin and it didn't get much traction & BTS won't necessarily be different. Are there any other crypto's  with popular auction style sites?
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 03, 2015, 02:40:11 am
This should not be a delegate. In fact I think we are on the wrong track regarding delegate funding of for-profit businesses. It only makes sense if we are paying to get the advantage of some major infrastructure, like from an exchange. Otherwise it just means the blockchain is subsidizing projects that aren't economically viable enough to raise capital on their own. Delegates only make sense for things that are public goods for all BTS shareholders like core development, open source project development, or bitasset marketing.

Largely Agree. Esp on BitAsset marketing. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It is bitasset marketing since it will use bitassets.. since there will be good deals there will be alot of new bitshares users its garanteed...

Its buying new users.

I like the other stuff you are working on. I'm also a big fan of anything that directly integrates BitAssets.
However this seems a bit niche, you already tried it with devcoin and it didn't get much traction & BTS won't necessarily be different. Are there any other crypto's  with popular auction style sites?

It wasnt tthat it wasnt working... I turned it off myself because i didnt have incentive to keep it up.. There was no market depth to devcoin and they were not in agreement to fund the business.. And everything i had said came true with devcoin now so in hindsight we should have done what I said. Its a great idea to bring fresh eyes and a way to market bitassets in a clever way.. Its only niche cause i thought penny auctions presented great opportunity to create revenue if userbase grew and there is enough traction in bitshares to make that happen. I spent many months writing it so we get to leverage that aswell... I was getting new users but the fact that i had to create special bid types for devcoin made me feel uneasy
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: abelljefrry on February 03, 2015, 08:07:25 pm
I'm familiar with the idea of Penny Auction, but I'm not really sure if I understand your project correctly.

A - Instead of buying 'bid credit' using fiat, your user will buy bitassets using fiat in order to bid (using bitassets)?

OR

B - they have to buy bid credit using bitassets?



Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 03, 2015, 08:17:32 pm
I'm familiar with the idea of Penny Auction, but I'm not really sure if I understand your project correctly.

A - Instead of buying 'bid credit' using fiat, your user will buy bitassets using fiat in order to bid (using bitassets)?

OR

B - they have to buy bid credit using bitassets?

They can buy using fiat (paypal) or bitassets (bitusd etc) to buy bids... then use those bids to win auctions. You can resell bids for bitassets too using the user to user transfer.. which is a feature I was working on last... it is up to community to decide what is best form of acceptance in terms of payments.
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: fuzzy on February 03, 2015, 09:43:26 pm
This should not be a delegate. In fact I think we are on the wrong track regarding delegate funding of for-profit businesses. It only makes sense if we are paying to get the advantage of some major infrastructure, like from an exchange. Otherwise it just means the blockchain is subsidizing projects that aren't economically viable enough to raise capital on their own. Delegates only make sense for things that are public goods for all BTS shareholders like core development, open source project development, or bitasset marketing.

This is kind of where I disagree.  If this helps subsidize a business that can then pass those savings on to customers...Why do you think Walmart is so huge worldwide?  Why do you think it has no real competitors in the space it fills? Because of Government Subsidies!

If you could help build up a website to offer lower costs than all its competitors, and guarantee it will be using bitAssets, then it IS marketing for bitAssets... Of course, that is unless the marketing teams choose not to market the service... and it goes completely unknown by all but a few people who keep it a secret so they can get great deals and have no competition. 
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 03, 2015, 09:54:28 pm
This should not be a delegate. In fact I think we are on the wrong track regarding delegate funding of for-profit businesses. It only makes sense if we are paying to get the advantage of some major infrastructure, like from an exchange. Otherwise it just means the blockchain is subsidizing projects that aren't economically viable enough to raise capital on their own. Delegates only make sense for things that are public goods for all BTS shareholders like core development, open source project development, or bitasset marketing.

This is kind of where I disagree.  If this helps subsidize a business that can then pass those savings on to customers...Why do you think Walmart is so huge worldwide?  Why do you think it has no real competitors in the space it fills? Because of Government Subsidies!

If you could help build up a website to offer lower costs than all its competitors, and guarantee it will be using bitAssets, then it IS marketing for bitAssets... Of course, that is unless the marketing teams choose not to market the service... and it goes completely unknown by all but a few people who keep it a secret so they can get great deals and have no competition.

That is the only issue I can see... we would need to market it and not try to "game" it.. but it would be extremely fun to participate and get people involved.
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: bubble789 on February 04, 2015, 03:53:01 am
was the site functional?
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: jsidhu on February 04, 2015, 04:15:53 am
 yes it works http://devcoinauctions.com/
Title: Re: First Blockchain funded business
Post by: ebit on April 20, 2015, 03:42:44 am
 +5%