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March 2017 Budget Report

Ryan Taylor

Well-known member
Foundation Member
I would be remiss in my duties to not focus this month's budget report on the dramatic price increases of the past days and weeks. To say that it represents a dramatic change in the outlook for our project would be an understatement. We are seeing this manifest itself in a number of ways besides price, including being approached by talent interested in joining the project, increasing transaction volumes on the network, increasing interest in integrating with Dash, and social media / Dash Slack signups. We've even been receiving phone calls back from previously uninterested integration opportunities.

In terms of our budget and strategy, I've been saying for about the last six weeks that our biggest problem right now is not funding, but growth. Few entities ever experience the kind of growth rate we are experiencing right now. Since the first of the year, our market cap has grown 4x just since the first of the year, and more than 5x over the past three months.

This kind of growth is challenging to grapple with effectively. Growth often comes at the expense of efficiency as time doesn't permit the full analysis of opportunities, and new employees take time to onboard and become productive.

It was less than a year ago that I joined the team full time. My first order of business was to take our financial planning from reactive to a prioritized proactive planning process. Over the late spring and early summer of 2016 we went through a strategic planning exercise across the entire team that was intended for Dash's growth up to about $150-200 million market cap. While we'd already begun the planning process for the next phase of growth, we just moved rapidly past the range that our existing strategic plan was intended to address.

Luckily, we had already begun our planning for the next phase and had some large opportunities already in the pipeline. We will be working diligently on the next financial planning efforts to ensure we deploy our resources as effectively as we can, in a manner that is consistent with our strategy and has continued impact on our growth.

Our budget system is now producing nearly $4 million a year in project funding. The additional funds open many potential opportunities for Dash, which we will be evaluating carefully to be good stewards of the network's funds.

To start, we should be able to shift to market-rate compensation for existing contractors. We did anticipate the need to re-evaluate pay several months ago, and already funded and kicked off a project with August Talent Ventures to assess the roles on the team and recommend market rates. This will ensure we can attract and retain top talent without alienating the long-standing team that's helped get Dash where it is today. Our existing resources have been stretched to their limits between the events of the last couple of months, and the rollout of 12.1. We need to ensure we can retain the existing expertise on the team as we plan our next expansion.

Second, we plan to ensure the development teams have all the resources needed to rapidly deliver the highest-quality product possible. We will soon be posting a number of positions to expand the development team, and I encourage you to watch the Forum jobs section for updates.

We also want to have a much stronger presence at relevant conferences. We see dramatic rates of return just communicating with businesses and investors what makes Dash so differentiated, and sharing our vision for the future of cryptocurrency. This return shows back up in our budget and fuels our expansion. By collaborating with BlockCypher at these conferences, we anticipate even stronger results going forward.

Other areas we are still evaluating include professional marketing, adding an HR function, expanding project management capacity, adding merchant or customer support, undertaking security reviews of our code, and promotional partnerships to accelerate Dash usage and adoption.

We welcome input from the community, as always, and will discuss in more detail on next week's conference call as our evalutations and plans continue forming. Meanwhile, please make sure to check this month's proposals and vote if you haven't already. Every vote counts!

Exciting times ahead!

http://dashvotetracker.com/
 
Other areas we are still evaluating include professional marketing, adding an HR function, expanding project management capacity, adding merchant or customer support, undertaking security reviews of our code, and promotional partnerships to accelerate Dash usage and adoption.

This would get my vote any day of the week. Bitcoin had the benefit of "slow" roll-out in the beginning. Serious issues could be fixed before the stakes were too high. I'm afraid Dash are trying to pull off just as much, or even more, new code and innovation in a much shorter time span and when the stakes are already really high (market cap, merchants etc). I've posted in this forum before that Dash, especially with Evolution, looks to have an increased attack surface compared to Bitcoin.

I think it really makes sense for us to invest in professional security audit and stability/DOS-resistance testing. A number of white-hat-hackers trying to break Dash in any possible way and from any possible angle. There will always be bugs and security holes. We just must make sure we do what we can to minimizes the risk for the big ones that could end in catastrophe.
 
Thank you for the report.
I do have growth concerns, most likely similar to yours.
DASH suffered from a lack of liquidity following the recent price surge when the market became controlled by margin traders placing shorts.
We are fortunate DASH remains on a positive trend.
This is perhaps not the best time to reduce the miners reward ?
If the office workers are now becoming centralized it is time to revisit the cost of MasterNode participation.
When a centralized office facility becomes more efficient, centralized MN ownership becomes a flaw.
We can all see what happens when nodes are not rewarded sufficiently, clumped on specific trunks, or too expensive.
https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

Many things to consider with that new budget!
rc
 
I would be remiss in my duties to not focus this month's budget report on the dramatic price increases of the past days and weeks. To say that it represents a dramatic change in the outlook for our project would be an understatement. We are seeing this manifest itself in a number of ways besides price, including being approached by talent interested in joining the project, increasing transaction volumes on the network, increasing interest in integrating with Dash, and social media / Dash Slack signups. We've even been receiving phone calls back from previously uninterested integration opportunities.

In terms of our budget and strategy, I've been saying for about the last six weeks that our biggest problem right now is not funding, but growth. Few entities ever experience the kind of growth rate we are experiencing right now. Since the first of the year, our market cap has grown 4x just since the first of the year, and more than 5x over the past three months.

This kind of growth is challenging to grapple with effectively. Growth often comes at the expense of efficiency as time doesn't permit the full analysis of opportunities, and new employees take time to onboard and become productive.

It was less than a year ago that I joined the team full time. My first order of business was to take our financial planning from reactive to a prioritized proactive planning process. Over the late spring and early summer of 2016 we went through a strategic planning exercise across the entire team that was intended for Dash's growth up to about $150-200 million market cap. While we'd already begun the planning process for the next phase of growth, we just moved rapidly past the range that our existing strategic plan was intended to address.

Luckily, we had already begun our planning for the next phase and had some large opportunities already in the pipeline. We will be working diligently on the next financial planning efforts to ensure we deploy our resources as effectively as we can, in a manner that is consistent with our strategy and has continued impact on our growth.

Our budget system is now producing nearly $4 million a year in project funding. The additional funds open many potential opportunities for Dash, which we will be evaluating carefully to be good stewards of the network's funds.

To start, we should be able to shift to market-rate compensation for existing contractors. We did anticipate the need to re-evaluate pay several months ago, and already funded and kicked off a project with August Talent Ventures to assess the roles on the team and recommend market rates. This will ensure we can attract and retain top talent without alienating the long-standing team that's helped get Dash where it is today. Our existing resources have been stretched to their limits between the events of the last couple of months, and the rollout of 12.1. We need to ensure we can retain the existing expertise on the team as we plan our next expansion.

Second, we plan to ensure the development teams have all the resources needed to rapidly deliver the highest-quality product possible. We will soon be posting a number of positions to expand the development team, and I encourage you to watch the Forum jobs section for updates.

We also want to have a much stronger presence at relevant conferences. We see dramatic rates of return just communicating with businesses and investors what makes Dash so differentiated, and sharing our vision for the future of cryptocurrency. This return shows back up in our budget and fuels our expansion. By collaborating with BlockCypher at these conferences, we anticipate even stronger results going forward.

Other areas we are still evaluating include professional marketing, adding an HR function, expanding project management capacity, adding merchant or customer support, undertaking security reviews of our code, and promotional partnerships to accelerate Dash usage and adoption.

We welcome input from the community, as always, and will discuss in more detail on next week's conference call as our evalutations and plans continue forming. Meanwhile, please make sure to check this month's proposals and vote if you haven't already. Every vote counts!

Exciting times ahead!

http://dashvotetracker.com/

Great update and a logical way forward.

I feel like we have been catapulted a few years forward all of a sudden.

One area I think we should aim to improve is our strategic capability. Now that the network has proven itself, we should aim to attract some heavy hitters from the crypto and financial payments world to sit on the Dash foundation board.

They will have great strategic insights on how to grow, and open a number of new doors.

Its been a while since the foundation board has been revamped. Now might be an opportune time to attract strategic talent. I'm thinking AA, Roger Ver, former heads of Visa / PayPal etc etc.
 
[QUOTE="I think it really makes sense for us to invest in professional security audit and stability/DOS-resistance testing. A number of white-hat-hackers trying to break Dash in any possible way and from any possible angle. There will always be bugs and security holes. We just must make sure we do what we can to minimizes the risk for the big ones that could end in catastrophe.[/QUOTE]

I have similar feelings about security, so it's good to know that others are really looking to make security a priority.
 
Nicely said, I remember watching your recent interview with Amanda. You said you now have a plan to expand to a billion dollars market cap which is fascinating. With such rapid speed we can become top 2 in the near soon.
 
By the way I'm curious what exactly has to happen for a vast majority of merchants start accepting cryptocurrency?
I mean, currently Bitcoin is not good for retail but Dash has the best chance of succeeding with InstantSend and privacy feature as well.

So assume we have Dash Evolution already launched which will simplify user experience on both sides, what kind of strategy is required to convince merchants start accepting Dash?

The reality is that small businesses still need fiat currency at the end. So right now we don't have much platforms that allow to accept Dash and instantly convert it into any fiat currency. Are those platforms are going to be developed or at least considered to be developed?

I've heard only about SpectroCoin which allows to exchange Bitcoin and Dash into dollars and euros. But what about other fiat currencies? There are so many of them.

Need some thought on this one because I would really like to help businesses simplify their lives.
 
Nice update, thanks. I agree with halso about strategic update of the foundation board.

Also, am wondering about your engineering hiring practices, since that is now likely to be a major bottleneck to growth. How many developers do you have, and how many dev managers? Are the dev managers competing against each other, effectively, in hiring, or are they coordinated? A centralized eng hiring process is a great way to ensure a consistent talent bar and hire into the most important roles.
 
Good update BG. I'm so happy to hear this: "...to assess the roles on the team and recommend market rates..." and "adding an HR function". This addresses one of my two biggest apprehensions about plowing more money (and possibly time, energy etc.) into Dash. This entire thread hints at the other, that is, managing the growth contrasted against power/control & security.

Will the results of the "August Talent Ventures" consulting be public?
 
The reality is that small businesses still need fiat currency at the end. So right now we don't have much platforms that allow to accept Dash and instantly convert it into any fiat currency. Are those platforms are going to be developed or at least considered to be developed?

I've heard only about SpectroCoin which allows to exchange Bitcoin and Dash into dollars and euros. But what about other fiat currencies? There are so many of them.

Need some thought on this one because I would really like to help businesses simplify their lives.

BlockPay is an app that does exactly this. They already accept Dash have been partnering with DASH to develop Dash Evolution.
 
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