I question the premise of the OP.
BitShares cannot "take off" while bitcoin and the rest of crypto are in a bear market.
It's useful to look at the 1-day view of this chart:
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitfinex/btcusdBTS went active last summer, while BTC was in a bear phase that began in December 2013. The only reason I could buy AGS and PTS in the first place was because my BTS investment had increased by multiple times. After the BTC run up in 2013, it made perfect sense to diversify into the best crypto 2.0 projects. But Bitcoin is the Rosetta stone of this new industry. Bitshares is one floor down in a bitcoin edifice.
It doesn't make much sense to talk about a BTS "take off" while BTC is in an epic bear mode.
The fortunes of BTS is tied to the price of BTC. That is the Occam's Razor solution for why Bitshares is not "taking off" and why there is nothing you can do about it.