@kenCode: "we need to evaluate the demands of the VC's first and foremost. "

With OpenPOS still hot out of the oven, is there a really strong strategic/market opportunity reason why you must secure additional funding for ECHO right away versus say, 60-90 days from now?

VC funding always comes with demands that typically locks most of the value in for a small group of already wealthy entities, both individual and corporate, while shutting out the average man in the street, along with the community which laid the viable foundation upon which you are now able to build value.

So just curious.... What if you could get all the funding needed for ECHO in 60-90 days without going the VC route and giving up equity? Would you and Chris prefer that if there is no compelling reason why you absolutely must take VC money right away?

Obviously I don't know how much you're seeking to raise to build ECHO, how long it would take to build ECHO, or what kind of marketing budget you're looking at after its completed. However, while VCs can certainly put money on the table relatively quickly, it's unlikely that they can give you fast "user adoption" at scale, even if you have received enough to spend $1M on marketing and advertising. Oftentimes, strategic alliances can deliver a far more valuable result than simply going the traditional (and convenient) VC route.

Great projects though, well done! And both your productivity and your stakeholder/supporter communication are exemplary.

 

"Nothing is ready for the prime time yet. Products are still very much incomplete and buggy"

Well this revelation is of concern to me... the impression I got from slack engagement and the bitshares articles shared from time to time, was that bitshares was a pretty matured blockchain platform being a 2.0 platform and not alpha or beta or 1.0. It was even being bandied around as being a "3.0" blockchain, given its 100k tps claims.

I naturally would not have even considered bringing masses of average users to use something that is "incomplete and buggy". I wonder if Ken and Chris share this view of Bitshares' technology state, since they have poured a lot of time and resources into their bitshares based projects.

So my question is, are projects like OpenPOS, ECHO and SollarsandSense intended only for "early adopter crypto enthusiasts" at this time? I'd love to hear the leaders of those projects speak to this, because my impression of those projects is that they are very much targeted at everyone on the planet who happens to have a pulse.

To me, "incomplete and buggy" is a whole different ball game from saying, the wallent/client UI is not the easiest to use and needs to be simplified. That I can understand. However, the only reason I am here today is because the blockchain platforms I investigated before getting to Bitshares, provided me with a truly onerous experience from the perspective of a newbie trying to setup a wallet. I mean I'm not geriatric, blind and don't have alzheimers, but in one instance, I actually made 20+ attempts to "correctly enter the 12-word brain key that was automatically generated for my account setup, and their system kept on telling me i entered it correctly.  The average member of the masses would probably have left as soon as they saw the 12-word bran key. So in contrast, I found Bitshares account and wallet setup to be a breeze and am not confused by the client. Like any new software, you just need to poke around for a week or two and you'll get the hang of it. Yes it can be simplified but I'm made to understand that anyone can create their own version if they choose, to interface with the bitshares system/dex.

But if you're telling me that what's under the hood after connecting, is still an incomplete and buggy engine, then why should persons like ken solomon and myself be encouraged to build their business ventures on top of bitshares at this stage?

If I am a shrewd business person, this info would cause me to put the brakes on my pre-launch ramp up and re-assess if I should be powering my venture with bitshares at this point in time, or should be starting elsewhere with a blockchain that is past the incomplete and buggy stage. Question is, am I qualified to make that determination? Not really, so I would need to engage an independent blockchain consultant who is not partial to any specific chain.

While I have the goal of building my own wallet client and building significant direct blockchain integration for my venture, at this stage my approach is simply to leverage the bitshares UIA component and the bitshares wallet in order to be able to issue my UIAs to my users and allow them to trade, transfer or otherwise manage them. My users will not be coming to bitshares because they have interest in crypto or bitshares itself, they will be coming just because having a bitshares account and wallet is the only way they can access and participate in the value proposition i am presenting to them, so bitshares for them is just a means to an end, a "value access gateway". I was proceeding with bitshares for my venture because its just UIA leverage at this point and I was comfortable that its pretty easy to setup a bitshares account/wallet and that there are a decent amount of good videos explaining the bitshares wallet/client.

Bottom line, however, is that

a) I will be working to inspire millions of people to embrace the value proposition I have crafted over the next 12 months. Even falling short significantly, it should still be tens of thousands.

b) I can't have a situation where my users find that one minute they have x funds in their wallets and the next minute or next day, they're seeing something less (or more for that matter)... or have situations where they make transactions that never go through or other serious issues happening to a large number of users at once.

Therefore, I would appreciate if the core developers at bitshares could tell me definitively and unambiguously as soon as possible, if bitshares is truly ready and stable enough to handle thousands and potentially tens of thousands of people downloading and starting to use bitshares accounts and wallets, over the next six months and beyond.
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"There is too much to do and only a few people actually doing"

Perhaps it's buried somewhere on this forum, but what I find odd is that there are lots of comments like the above on slack and in the two mumbles i attended, but I am yet to see any document or article link circulated where this "much to do" is actually spelt out so people can go through the list and see what they can do. It's as though people are expected to just know what needs doing specifically and just do it without any coordination. Is it because nobody wants to create a long list that amounts to a declaration that bitshares "really ain't ready yet"?
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"That's why we should be targeting marketing to people who can be easily attracted to become early adopters (like libertarians and other people who want to change the current financial system)."

Why should they be "easily" attracted to bitshares when there are scores if not hundreds of blockchain camps all proclaiming change of the financial system?

And are these libertarians and people who want to change the current financial system active cryptosphere participants at a technical level? Or are they people outside the system whom you first have to educate and indoctrinate about crypto before they can be "useful and productive" early adopters?

In my opinion, 90% of adult human beings are libertarians and want to SEE (as opposed to consciously and individually LEAD) change in the financial system. They just don't run their mouths about it and just grumble to themselves or a close friend, and they don't want to be labeled as libertarians. If, however, they can join an initiative that has that stated "change the fs objective" (WITHOUT the libertarian tag and chant) but where they can just blend into the large body of people participating in "building meaningful, significant and rewarding value" with no spotlight on them personally, they will be much more inclined to get involved. I do however take the point that if bitshares is not a product ready for prime time as is an iphone when Apple releases it to their early adopters, then there's no point bringing the masses to it. I also take the point that consumer gadgets like an iphone and a crypto project are two very different things, handled quite differently.

I don't claim to know it all or have all the answers, but speak out of my personal experiences with engaging people and assessing their psychological motivations and comfort zones, in order to strategically craft value propositions that push all the right buttons while soothing and calming all (or most) underlying fears that could potentially precipitate inertia and inaction.

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Thanks @Samupaha for taking the time to respond to my previous substantive comment.