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

[NewMine]

I will take advantage of this thread being used for showing what people want in bs and add my opinion: Originally I came to BitShares because I was looking for a platform allowing easy trading of stocks (particulary indexes). BitUSD is a huge thing, I love it, but it needs merchant adoption to be useful. Trading stocks would be hugely beneficial alone, because the cost for an ordinary mortal to enter the stock market is quite big. If we had (pegged) stocks trading platform, we would get plenty of users AND we would have a use case for bitUSD. Also when trading bitUSD <=> bitStocks, you don't need gateways as desperately as we do now, because you only enter once, then gamble the market or hold for an extended period of time, and leave once a while after making some profit.

tldr> BitShares were supposed to be a trading platform. Trading currencies is a gamble, nobody (few) wants to do that. We need bitStocks! bitIndexes in particular..

 

finally something gave me hope again just reading it!

PS we need CFDs like trading and the option for leverage in general ...

Totally agree. options would be great.

[luckybit]

If we sitting on a $100 acquisition fee/user:

Social network ID verification,
Install client,
Get free 20bitUSD,
Make a transaction of over 5bitUSD --> get another 15bitUSD
Get a friend to sign up and send them 5bitUSD --->get another 15bitUSD.

Like dropbox 

In my opinion there should be a way to track and prove that the user did every step in a process. A sort of process chain where hashes or zero knowledge proofs are used. You need a sort of proof of process.

[Akado]

If we sitting on a $100 acquisition fee/user:

Social network ID verification,
Install client,
Get free 20bitUSD,
Make a transaction of over 5bitUSD --> get another 15bitUSD
Get a friend to sign up and send them 5bitUSD --->get another 15bitUSD.

Like dropbox 

This

[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.

Interesting ideas.

Promotions are also huge for getting consumers to take the leap. If we were to consider adding promotional incentives, then the contracts between referrer and referee should be allowed to be set to a "limited time offer".

For example:

 "Sign up with my link within the next ten minutes and get %10 off transaction fees for the next two months"

Further - there could be promotional offers in USD and GOLD. 

"Sign up within the next ten minutes and get a free $5 worth of gold"   ($5 worth of bGOLD could be escrowed and then released to referee upon sign up)

One additional note on this promotional scenario.  The contract would be even better for the DAC and parties involved if the referree has to buy some amount of bit assets prior to earning the escrowed amount.   To accomplish this, the b/ch would read the contract, scans the referees account, and if the amount is in the account, the escrowed amount is sent from the referrer's escrow account to the referee's account.

"Buy 20oz of bGOLD, type in this promotion code and get 5oz bGOLD for free"

[MrJeans]

If we sitting on a $100 acquisition fee/user:

Social network ID verification,
Install client,
Get free 20bitUSD,
Make a transaction of over 5bitUSD --> get another 15bitUSD
Get a friend to sign up and send them 5bitUSD --->get another 15bitUSD.

Like dropbox 

[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.

Interesting ideas.

Promotions are also huge for getting consumers to take the leap. If we were to consider adding promotional incentives, then the contracts between referrer and referee should be allowed to be set to a "limited time offer".

For example:

 "Sign up with my link within the next ten minutes and get %10 off transaction fees for the next two months"

Further - there could be promotional offers in USD and GOLD. 

"Sign up within the next ten minutes and get a free $5 worth of gold"   ($5 worth of bGOLD could be escrowed and then released to referee upon sign up)

[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.

Interesting ideas.

Promotions are also huge for getting consumers to take the leap. If we were to consider adding promotional incentives, then the contracts between referrer and referee should be allowed to be set to a "limited time offer".

For example:

 "Sign up with my link within the next ten minutes and get %10 off transaction fees for the next two months"

[Stan]

Thanks everybody for making this a very constructive thread.
You might be amazed how many of your suggestions are "conceivable".

You need to think BIGGER, Pinky... 

The Ring of Fire is an area where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. It has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.[1] It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt.

[Stan]

In other words the only thing that can keep this ship moving forward is additional funding and a change to the business model of the DAC that so that it can generate more revenue per user than it costs to acquire a new user.
...
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.

Surely this is wrong!? Are those really the only options?

Surely there is an option to consider more carefully how you are selling what you have? You don't necessarily need additional funding or to make a change to the business model.
...

"Dağ sana gelmezse, sen dağa gideceksin…"
("If the mountain won't come to you, you must go to the mountain.")

We have always said that the goal of a DAC is to be profitable
and as a business it should be constantly in persuit of that goal.

[starspirit]

(i) Product usability (ii) Business model (iii) Marketing.

 

[rgcrypto]

Thanks everybody for making this a very constructive thread.
You might be amazed how many of your suggestions are "conceivable".

You need to think BIGGER, Pinky... 

[merivercap]

1) "A referral program alone won’t get users to share your product. Your product has to solve a painful problem that the customer would naturally want to talk about even without the incentive." 

Problem: Bitcoin volatility and confirmation times for mass merchant/user adoption for payments
Solution: bitUSD (save 3% on credit card transaction fees just like Bitcoin without volatility or slow confirmation times.  Note: credit cards account for well over $3 Trillion out of $8.5 Trillion total payment processing volume.)  Focus everybody.  We need focus.

2) "Once you have a great product, make referrals as natural and effortless as possible."

From: The 2 Things You Need to Make Your Referral Program a Hit
https://blog.rjmetrics.com/2015/01/27/the-2-things-you-need-to-make-your-referral-program-a-hit/

Dropbox Example -

How Referrals Built The $10 Billion Dropbox Empire
http://www.referralcandy.com/blog/referrals-built-dropbox-empire/

3) Their product cost:  $99.   Cost of Acquisition: $238-388

4) 2-sided referral program - Both referral and referred got extra space.  Why not do the same with BTS?

5) Great Dropbox product + great referral = 100k to 4 million users in 15 months. 

[suwoder]

basically the devs are giving up?

I only try to figure out the "reason" for their posts lol

How can we tell when a volcano will erupt?

Most volcanoes provide various types of warnings before eruptions begin. Although an explosive eruption could occur without warning, some premonitory events more likely will precede the next eruption. Steam-blast eruptions could occur with little or no warning as superheated water flashes to steam; magmatic eruptions, however, involve rise of magma toward the surface. Such an upward movement of magma normally will generate detectable earthquakes, may deform the ground surface, and may cause anomalous heat flow or changes in the temperature and chemistry of the groundwater and spring waters.

metaphor again 

[Stan]

Thanks everybody for making this a very constructive thread.
You might be amazed how many of your suggestions are "conceivable".

[Stan]

basically the devs are giving up?

I only try to figure out the "reason" for their posts lol

How can we tell when a volcano will erupt?

Most volcanoes provide various types of warnings before eruptions begin. Although an explosive eruption could occur without warning, some premonitory events more likely will precede the next eruption. Steam-blast eruptions could occur with little or no warning as superheated water flashes to steam; magmatic eruptions, however, involve rise of magma toward the surface. Such an upward movement of magma normally will generate detectable earthquakes, may deform the ground surface, and may cause anomalous heat flow or changes in the temperature and chemistry of the groundwater and spring waters.