An Open Letter From Evan and Ryan Regarding Dash Marketing

[fernando]

Is there any particular benefit to having the core team hire a marketing firm instead of hiring a CMO either with their own team or to work with a marketing firm? If Core contracts with a marketing firm then working with that firm still requires work, and unless there is a dedicated person, it is going to fall on the existing team which is already stretched thin.

It is not internal team or external agencies. 99% of the companies have a marketing team and hire agencies. Work is marketing is usually super specialized and what makes sense is to hire the work, not the people. We think that it is better to wait until we are certain about what kind of marketing work we need. Then we hire the people. In the meantime, top agencies have great talent and will keep us flexible and fast.

It is true that managing the firm(s) will require a lot of work, but we can do that in the team. If we hired someone, marketing is so tied to many other things that all the team would need to dedicate a lot of time to that person anyway. There will eventually need to be someone, but we don't believe it is the time just yet. By setting this in motion now we will prepare the field for that future person/team.

 

[David]

" The "hundreds" of discussions about unused budget were not misguided at all..."

They were misguided in the sense that many people were working under the assumption that the unspent funds are burned or destroyed and are lost forever.

They are not lost forever, and could be used if the community decides it would be useful and worthwhile to do it.

Whether it's a good idea to resurrect the un-allocated budget money is a different and interesting question that we can work on as needed.

Anybody have a back-of-the-napkin estimate of how much is in our "savings account" ??

Maybe when it's time to run some 5 million dollar superbowl ads, there won't be much controversy about dipping into our savings account...

Of course they're not lost forever--from the point of view of code. Heck, Core Team could change the code right now to create 5 MILLION DASH out of the blue. There is no *technical* reason why it couldn't be done. The problem is that it's unlikely the network (e.g. the masternode owners) would ever allow that to happen. That's why I think it's important to spend the funds right away, or to create a formal savings account. The notion that "we shouldn't worry about it because we can always create them later" is a bit of a red herring. Yes, you *can* create them later, but no, the network won't ever *allow* you to. Think the scaling debate was a big deal in Bitcoin? Can you imagine trying to create new coins (even if it doesn't change the intended emission rate)?

 

[dwyer70905]

I strongly support rolling over the unused portion of the budget. Let's put that to a vote as soon as possible. The vision should continue to be a long term one that provides Dash with discretion on how to shepard our resources.

 

[solarguy]

Of course they're not lost forever--from the point of view of code. Heck, Core Team could change the code right now to create 5 MILLION DASH out of the blue. There is no *technical* reason why it couldn't be done. The problem is that it's unlikely the network (e.g. the masternode owners) would ever allow that to happen. That's why I think it's important to spend the funds right away, or to create a formal savings account. The notion that "we shouldn't worry about it because we can always create them later" is a bit of a red herring. Yes, you *can* create them later, but no, the network won't ever *allow* you to. Think the scaling debate was a big deal in Bitcoin? Can you imagine trying to create new coins (even if it doesn't change the intended emission rate)?

I wasn't necessarily advocating for it, just pointing out that people were working under the false assumption that if we didn't spend it all this month, it was gone forever and wasted.

It was false on two counts, it's not necessarily gone forever, and failing to create it does add value to the remaining Dash supply, so not necessarily a waste.

Now, perhaps people will be less concerned if we can't spend the whole budget.

I would not be opposed to making a real life savings account for the excess rather than resurrecting them later.

 

[Leonidas]

Now, perhaps people will be less concerned if we can't spend the whole budget.

They should because currently there is no way the majority of MN would support a resurrection at anytime.

MN just might support a saving of future unused budget, but that's still to see.

We could easily resolve the question of whether unused budgets should be rolled over to future periods through a simple network vote.

Does that means Core is supportive of that and will put up a proposal ?

 

[TroyDASH]

Deciding to roll over funding going forward is one thing, but to have previous unallocated funds resurrected is never going to have MN support, IMO.

 

[martinf]

Deciding to roll over funding going forward is one thing, but to have previous unallocated funds resurrected is never going to have MN support, IMO.

I guess that depends on what the funds would be used for. As long as everyone are aware of the possibility of bringing them back from now on. Evan suggests that bringing the funds back would require a special proposal with stricter requirements (https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/6jtje1/what_to_do_with_unused_1m_in_budget/djhroke/)

 

[Biltong]

Short term greed vs long term strategy
Interesting that Evan's moving to HongKong

 

[SimontheRavager]

First the more interesting point is to assert how high the number of "unspent" aka "burned" DASH really is???

 

[julianeon]

Thanks for this; I learned a lot. I believe we should make intelligent choices among budget proposals, and not move too quickly or too slowly.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Personally, I really don't want marketing to be part of core. I understand there is a need for tight intergration, but it's more important to me that we have the ability to fire one group without compromising our position over the other. I can easily imagine a situation where MNOs are totally upset with marketing yet unable to fire them because of their loyalty to core.. or, indeed, a conflict of interest between core's decision to keep marketing when MNOs don't want them.

 

[JAMAL KARMOUD-FOREAU]

Thank you for your updates

 

[Dandy]

Deciding to roll over funding going forward is one thing, but to have previous unallocated funds resurrected is never going to have MN support, IMO.

I agree. Rewriting history is in total opposition to the blockchain philosophy.

 

[TroyDASH]

Personally, I really don't want marketing to be part of core. I understand there is a need for tight intergration, but it's more important to me that we have the ability to fire one group without compromising our position over the other. I can easily imagine a situation where MNOs are totally upset with marketing yet unable to fire them because of their loyalty to core.. or, indeed, a conflict of interest between core's decision to keep marketing when MNOs don't want them.

A fair point. I am completely on board with the direction of focusing on awareness, business partners, and features when it comes to marketing, and not as an investment opportunity. After all I think the best investors to attract are the ones who can draw the conclusion that dash is a good investment on their own from the fundamentals, not because we sound off about masternode ROI and having a strong historical market performance.

That being said, it is an interesting question whether the people who coordinate and pay for a marketing firm need to be internal to the core team. Having an understanding and an agreement with this marketing strategy is not something that is necessarily exclusive to the core team, and it might even be something that another team could be more well positioned to execute. Making the scope of the team even bigger to even further increase the weight of the "nuclear option" is not something I like very much. However in the absence of other viable options presenting themselves, going with the core team's plan might be all we have to work with right now.

 

[rick]

@GrandMasterDash and @TroyDASH — good arguments. I think I err on the side of marketing strategy (eventually) being on par with Core decisions about Product, Engineering and Biz Dev. It's too central to user adoption to be completely siloed.

But I don't know, and I'm curious to ask: are there sensible compromises, short- and long-term? Limiting the Core marketing budget, and any additional spend/contractors/media are on a proposal basis?

 

[DAOMN]

Thank you Ryan and Evan you for the "clarificommunications".
I must say, this topic seems to be a quite the button-pusher.
Quote from Evan in Dashpay reddit in reference to unused budget here: "We have a predicted emission curve, that releases a very specific amount of coins. If we don't use the whole 10% allocation, the coins are simply not created at that point, but that doesn't mean they are never used in the future. I've always thought of this unused balance as our bank account, it's a dash savings account for a rainy day. By the time we want to access those funds, we'll have a really good reason and they'll be worth a lot. I'd rather incentivize the network to save then to spend."
Of course, 'then' was likely meant to be 'than' in the last sentence. But, if you add a comma, it becomes - "incentivize the network to save, then to spend." Going to have to spend DASH to make it all work, right?

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Looking from the outside in, it would be pretty hard to declare dash as "decentralised" if we have this massive single group responsible for development and marketing. It would be near impossible to de-fund it. And I would also be worried about government interference from one side or the other.

It makes me uncomfortable that a single point of funding could keep bolting on these various functions in the name of "cohesion" or "integration". In the name of "joining the dots".

 

[bhkien]

In my opinion, the marketing function should be closely tied to the product strategy, business development strategy, brand strategy, and other public facing communications (like the website and PR efforts) - those all need to be working closely together. Given the benefits of tight integration / collaboration are critical to an effective marketing function, I believe that marketing should be part of the core team and not operated independently.

Exactly, marketing is not only advertising or promotion, but it also understanding user's need and producing products to satisfy user's need.

I also believe marketing must be a part of the Core Team, and the CMO should be a member of the Core Team.

 

[Biltong]

I can see the need to include Marketing in Core at the moment, but IMO it might be good to split the two down the line. A statement in this regard with a possible timeline would settle fears of centralization.
(Personal capacity)

 

[bhkien]

I can see the need to include Marketing in Core at the moment, but IMO it might be good to split the two down the line. A statement in this regard with a possible timeline would settle fears of centralization.
(Personal capacity)

In my opinion, Dash ecosystem can have to multiple DAOs, and each DAO will need it own CMO. But the CMO must works closely with development team.

 

[TheSingleton]

In my opinion, Dash ecosystem can have to multiple DAOs, and each DAO will need it own CMO. But the CMO must works closely with development team.

There is only the one Dash DAO what we can have are multiple sub organisations like the Core Team.

 

[djcrypto]

I participated to many discussions on that matter and I knew about those resurrecting funds.

I always have been against it. I believe that funds that we wasted because we couldn’t get organise to save them is on us.

Now, the nuance is what will we decide to do about the future unused funds, this is what I (and so is @Ryan Taylor if I understood well his post) am talking about.

That would means taking the decision at some point (the sooner, the better) to agree through a proposal that we will pile up all unused fund from the date the decision was taken.

It is possible that the technical or accurate term for that pile up is “resurrection” but it is a real poor choice of words if we refer to a decision that we take now about future funds.

Nothing to do with a decision made in the future about unused funds in the past – which would be resurrecting and bad thing IMO (or decide now to bring back to life the unused funds from last month for exemple - that's on us).

I don't know if I manage to express the nuance..

I feel like there should be incentives for the MNOs to be more fiscally responsible with funds. As the price rises, there will be the temptation for MNOs to spend all the money before it disappears.
For example, right now there is no incentive for MNOs to not spend all of it (AFAIK).
Perhaps all or some of the funds that aren't spent should be refunded to the MNOs to encourage fiscal conservatism when evaluating potential proposals.

 

[solarguy]

I feel like there should be incentives for the MNOs to be more fiscally responsible with funds. As the price rises, there will be the temptation for MNOs to spend all the money before it disappears.
For example, right now there is no incentive for MNOs to not spend all of it (AFAIK).
Perhaps all or some of the funds that aren't spent should be refunded to the MNOs to encourage fiscal conservatism when evaluating potential proposals.

This would produced poorly aligned incentives. Under the current structure, Masternodes are rewarded for spending the Treasury money well by producing the result of a better and more robust and more capable Dash ecosystem. Dash wins = Masternodes win.

If unspent Treasury money goes in the pockets of the Masternodes, Bob the Masternode owner can benefit directly (lining his own pocket) regardless whether the Dash ecosystem benefits or not. This cuts the feedback loop of Dash wins = Masternode wins.

 

[Vedran Yoweri]

right now there is no incentive for MNOs to not spend all of it (AFAIK).

There is, it's called selling pressure. Every budget dash spent is probably going to be dumped on exchanges. So for MNO spending the least amount should always be a priority.

 

[TroyDASH]

There is, it's called selling pressure. Every budget dash spent is probably going to be dumped on exchanges. So for MNO spending the least amount should always be a priority.

Imo, selling pressure from the budget is negligible. The entire budget 6600 dash per month is 220 dash per day. Even if the entire amount is dumped, today our coinmarketcap daily trading volume was 270,000 dash and this wasn't even a high volume day. Even less of an effect if we are only considering the unallocated portion of the budget

 

[kot]

Looking from the outside in, it would be pretty hard to declare dash as "decentralised" if we have this massive single group responsible for development and marketing. It would be near impossible to de-fund it. And I would also be worried about government interference from one side or the other.

It makes me uncomfortable that a single point of funding could keep bolting on these various functions in the name of "cohesion" or "integration". In the name of "joining the dots".

For bigger projects (like hiring an external agency) we create separate budget requests in order to give the network an ability to fund or defund it.
It happened in the past that external agency was defunded and project closed, so I think there is no reason to worry about it.

 

[AgnewPickens]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brauner

This is a marketing consultant I can highly recommend. Also, would like to distinguish the concept of "Marketing" from "Advertising". Marketing encompasses advertising but includes everything necessary to bring a product to market. Dash has done a lot of Advertising so far, but precious little marketing, who is going to sell the POS system that is in the works, who are the boots on the ground that will approach small retailers? Please understand this crucial difference between marketing and advertising and best of luck moving forward with finding a compatible marketing firm for Core.

As a marketing director for a $1-2M sales firm in the early 90s (before my nervous breakdown) my duties included overseeing the Advertising, Sales management, Training and new product development, so I ask that you not use the terms Marketing and Advertising interchangeably.

 

[camosoul]

There is, it's called selling pressure. Every budget dash spent is probably going to be dumped on exchanges. So for MNO spending the least amount should always be a priority.

I've been monitoring a few approved budget items.

Not one of them has cashed out a single duff.

While y sampling is narrow, the 100% nature of what data I have is still compelling.

 

[camosoul]

Lots of stuff

After having held my breath for so long, and feeling like such a fool for doing it...

I am quite relieved to say that I agree with all of the stuff you just said.

Weird, right?

 

[camosoul]

I strongly support rolling over the unused portion of the budget. Let's put that to a vote as soon as possible. The vision should continue to be a long term one that provides Dash with discretion on how to shepard our resources.

DASH/MNOs still have a difficult time making sounds decisions and/or following up with it's choices. While I abhor the current system, and outlined something much better years ago... I think releasing an even bigger pile of free-money-for-nothing to the autistic drunks that are the MNOs, would be just about the only way to make an even bigger mistake than is already being made.