Why BitShares isn't Taking off and What we are doing about it.

[Globally Distributed]

Please consider adding the ability for the referrer to give a portion of his transaction earnings to his referees. Add this because it allows referrers to incentivize potential users to sign up with the referrer's code/link.

"Sign up with my link and get 2% off transaction fees for life". 

This is like the "trade spend" concept we see in CPG businesses.

[lzr1900]

bugs still exist in the market place, according to the designed rules, some BitUSD/BTS orders should be traded but now they do not, even the old  users are disappointed for this, please try to fix the bugs ASAP.

always..

[fuzzy]

bugs still exist in the market place, according to the designed rules, some BitUSD/BTS orders should be traded but now they do not, even the old  users are disappointed for this, please try to fix the bugs ASAP.

 

we are selling top notch bicycles without wheels and we are wondering why we have not enough sells...

I guarantee you:
1)even if we raise the salary of our bicycle sellers (we already tried that with the merge)
2)even if we use fancy colors to attract more buyers
3)even
4)even
5)...
6)...
7)...
...
...

I bet we will not have much better results if we don't...
Install the fu#@# wheels
Think simple NOT complicated

  haha, you said it better in less words then me

Yep.. this is pretty much as simple and poignant an explanation there is.  Really does boil down to that. 

[GaltReport]

1st= Usability and user experience
2nd=Marketing & acquiring Customers

BitShares needs well-heeled investor(s)/white knight/business CEO to push this all through.

[sittingduck]

I think it is assumed that bugs must be fixed. But it doesn't change the fact that PayPal and other companies with no bugs still had high user acquisition costs. 


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[speedy]

make the trade experience simple as it is on traditional centralized on-line exchanges

Exactly, thats why Im so excited about the web-based wallet. Bter/cryptsy's cost per new user is so low because they can instantly sign up, deposit and trade. Our web-based wallet is not there yet because there is no clear place to deposit, and there is no trollbox which people are used to seeing in a crypto exchange.

But with just a bit more effort it could get there. We should make it use Metaexchange's api without even having to visit their site. That would lower the cost per new user.

Thanks Bytemaster for this post!

[vlight]

In our case the cost to acquire a new user is currently well over $100, we need to find a way to fund that while lowering costs.

Give people free 50 BitUSD just for installing the wallet and getting used to it. Profit. 

[CLains]

Yes all the new clients, fixing of bugs, merchant adoption, etc. will bring in users and drive down cost of acquisition, but we still need an autonomous system that intrinsically pulls users into it with affiliate marketing. Aligning incentives is what we're supposed to be good at in the first place, so why not from the periphery of the DAC as well as within it

Just type up that whitepaper BM and let a million brains pick it appart ASAP so we can get marketing whitepaper 2.0 out before BitShares 1.0 launches

[Shentist]

bugs still exist in the market place, according to the designed rules, some BitUSD/BTS orders should be traded but now they do not, even the old  users are disappointed for this, please try to fix the bugs ASAP.

 

we are selling top notch bicycles without wheels and we are wondering why we have not enough sells...

I guarantee you:
1)even if we raise the salary of our bicycle sellers (we already tried that with the merge)
2)even if we use fancy colors to attract more buyers
3)even
4)even
5)...
6)...
7)...
...
...

I bet we will not have much better results if we don't...
Install the fu#@# wheels
Think simple NOT complicated

  haha, you said it better in less words then me

[liondani]

bugs still exist in the market place, according to the designed rules, some BitUSD/BTS orders should be traded but now they do not, even the old  users are disappointed for this, please try to fix the bugs ASAP.

 

we are selling top notch bicycles without wheels and we are wondering why we have not enough sells...

I guarantee you:
1)even if we raise the salary of our bicycle sellers (we already tried that with the merge)
2)even if we use fancy colors to attract more buyers
3)even
4)even
5)...
6)...
7)...
...
...

I bet we will not have much better results if we don't...
Install the fu#@# wheels
Think simple NOT complicated

[Shentist]

100 USD to aquire new users?

Where comes this number from?

It is clear we need a marketing solution, but consider to do it in the now possible ways. Get some delegates elected to fund it.
I am against "BIG" changes again. This will scare the last investors away. We need, that people can have faith in what we are
doing and not changes everything after weeks.

And i am for an open discussion,

 i don't like this "we are talking behind closed doors" stuff, and in the past, the decisions you did
on your own (this closed circle) were not the best choices. Ok, it is easy to say it later, but you have to take it, because not one time
where the community envolved in the process, because of "we can't say anything in public".

This is the same way, it was done in the past - we should learnt something and do it better. It feels the same, i hope it is not!

[CalabiYau]

I would highly advice to have deterministic wallets, that don't require saved file. For some people restoring a backup is just way too stressful. In fact many thought that password was all that was needed and got burned when not also backing up the wallet file. I still think a big deterrent is the lack of good user experience. I've ran it on all 3 platforms and have various problems that I could manage as a power user, but know would scare the crap out of a newcomer. I think fixing the bugs is definitely a major step in the right direction of reducing the cost of user adoption

 

[liondani]

make a stable client,
make the trade experience simple as it is on traditional centralized on-line exchanges (you don't need to invent the wheel again here),
don't hard fork  to much times,
get seriously the advises from members they are complaining the last months
....
...
...(to be continued)

[inarizushi]

bugs still exist in the market place, according to the designed rules, some BitUSD/BTS orders should be traded but now they do not, even the old  users are disappointed for this, please try to fix the bugs ASAP.

This is crucial... Losing money because of bugs is excruciating. It's sad and probably very telling how many long term believers /people that invested much time and energy have become disappointed (on the top of my head, I'm thinking of tonyk, toast, Ander... Rune and Methodx are not active anymore).
Every geek I met is excited by what bitshares can offer. But currently, if the proof of concept is here, it still doesn't deliver as promised. Get rid of the bugs, have a working market and a flawless user interface, only then people won't jump out of the ship. At the moment, acquiring new users that aren't nerdy enough to believe in the vision is useless.

[xeroc]

That is exactly what I experienced with the tests I ran on Facebook and Twitter. The cost per conversion is too high.
We are not selling socks here. We are selling a pre version 1 software that most people don't understand why they would need that in the first place.

The affiliate system would be a great way to recruits entrepreneurs and businesses who would then go ahead and gain users.

But running ads to attract users to understand bitshares core is a losing game. (It is still valuable to create content and be involved in the media but direct marketing for bitshares core...nah)

Services like MineBitShares, Moonstone, Limewallet, etc are project that could flourish if they gained an affiliate compensation for bringing in users (may reduce the need to go all out politic and run for a delegate position too).

Curious to know how that plan would be funded.

Any thoughts?

I have it all figured out and am working on documenting it so it can be reviewed.

How can I be of assistance here?