Proposal: Business Development (January)

[Ryan Taylor]

This is a cross-post from www.dashcentral.org/p/bsdev-general-201701

After a temporary break in business development funding in December, this proposal seeks continued funding for our ongoing business development activities, adjusted to current exchange rates.

The Business Development budget funds development support and other business integration expenses to incentivize the adoption of Dash through deal-making and direct support of our business partners.

By setting aside a small amount of funding available to capture opportunities as they arise, we are able to act quickly and nimbly to grow our ecosystem of businesses integrating Dash. We are beginning to attract much larger-impact opportunities, but these opportunities appear to require more substantial support, so we may increase the monthly allotment in the near future if specific opportunities begin regularly exceeding the available budget.

Requested funding is as follows for the January 4th budget cycle:

• 602.41 Dash ($6,000 USD @ $9.96 per the December 26th average rate at https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/price-dash.html)
• 5.00 Dash reimbursement for the proposal cost

Total: 607.41 Dash

Note: Funding from this proposal will be reserved for business development purposes.

Manually vote YES on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many d51d314eece0c5e1e0c810335902a2ecd7d294b4d8045fce849935a7ee3e1296 yes
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many d51d314eece0c5e1e0c810335902a2ecd7d294b4d8045fce849935a7ee3e1296 yes

Manually vote NO on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many d51d314eece0c5e1e0c810335902a2ecd7d294b4d8045fce849935a7ee3e1296 no
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many d51d314eece0c5e1e0c810335902a2ecd7d294b4d8045fce849935a7ee3e1296 no

 

[TroyDASH]

Who is heading up Business Development activities and managing these funds? @Minotaur has not posted here on the forum in over four months and no one seems to be able or willing to respond to repeated requests about a certain large business development project of ours. I don't think I can support additional open-ended funding for busdev without an explanation/clarification from the team on this.

 

[freshdopamine]

These actions are affecting DASH price. I will also be voting NO.

 

[Stealth923]

As much as I hate saying this, I will be voting no against @babygiraffe and the core team proposals.

They keep asking for money but have zero responsibility and accountability to provide updates.

If there are no updates throughout January, I will start offloading my masternodes as continual behaviour like this will never result in a successful project.

@kot @babygiraffe many people have been asking for updates for months for projects you are running. Stop ignoring us.

 

[1whoLikesDash]

Good DASH has cash to throw around.
YES.
@TroyDASH how would Minotaur be involved ?
@freshdopamine Affecting price positively.
@Stealth923 Haven't there been monthly reports.

 

[TroyDASH]

@TroyDASH how would Minotaur be involved ?

Source: https://www.dash.org/team/
He is the only person listed as "Business Development" and he has been referred to many times as the Business Development lead.

There have been reports on some projects, which is great, but the one we are referencing (lamasssu Dash ATM) was funded with over 6000 DASH over the course of 12 months, and we still don't seem to have anything to show for it, with nobody providing updates or even an ETA for an update. AFAIK, Minotaur was the main contact person for that, as the business development lead, and he seems to be MIA.

 

[Stealth923]

Projects with no communication or updates except for ambiguous comments or excuses:

1) Legal work Part I - 1492 Dash - (Masternode rewards etc for IRS) https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-legal-sept.10457/
2) Legal work Part II - 1728 Dash - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-legal-part-ii-oct.10786/
3) ATM Master Compliance Program Phase 1 - 748 Dash - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-dash-atm-master-compliance-program-phase-i.10312/
4) Marketing - Brand & Design - 350 Dash - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-marketing-brand-design.11279/
5) Lamassu epic failure of a project - 7327 Dash - Multiple threads on forums, slack etc asking for updates and silence for months and months!
6) Proton Mail Integration - countless developer hours with many meetings and travel and nothing?
7) Mycelium Integration - ditto as above?

Thats 11645++ Dash gone into thin air?? anyone? @kot @babygiraffe @eduffield

 

[Ryan Taylor]

Projects with no communication or updates except for ambiguous comments or excuses:

1) Legal work Part I - 1492 Dash - (Masternode rewards etc for IRS) https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-legal-sept.10457/
2) Legal work Part II - 1728 Dash - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-legal-part-ii-oct.10786/
3) ATM Master Compliance Program Phase 1 - 748 Dash - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-dash-atm-master-compliance-program-phase-i.10312/
4) Marketing - Brand & Design - 350 Dash - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-marketing-brand-design.11279/
5) Lamassu epic failure of a project - 7327 Dash - Multiple threads on forums, slack etc asking for updates and silence for months and months!
6) Proton Mail Integration - countless developer hours with many meetings and travel and nothing?
7) Mycelium Integration - ditto as above?

Thats 11645++ Dash gone into thin air?? anyone? @kot @babygiraffe @eduffield

I cannot provide an update on all of these projects, because I am not the owner of any of them. I do own Wall of Coins, the Office Space project, the Miami conference, and of course financial activities from planning to payments. But I will do my best to provide you with what I know about the various projects. Also, it is not yet publicly viewable, but we've actually created a new section of the Forum for project updates that will have a thread for each of the projects you listed and other major ones. That was just completed today, so next step is to start populating it which should happen within the next week.

I know that Robert publishes monthly core team updates, which may contain more up-to-date information on status. To the extent the following conflicts with those reports, the reports are probably more accurate because the below is my own understanding.

Legal Work - This project was delayed because the lawyer we hired (Marco Santori) left Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and joined Cooley LLP. Because of the change, we had to transfer our already-funded retainer from Pillsbury to Cooley in the fall. Work finally began last month, and the law firm completed the first document call the "Statement of Facts" this month. I do not have an updated completion date yet, but I have requested one. The funding for "Legal Work Part II" has not been distributed to Cooley (it remains in our wallet), and we are still using the initial retainer funded with "Legal Work Part I", most of which is still unspent.

ATM Master Compliance Program - I do not have a current status update on this. The latest I know is quite stale. There was as issue with Cogent Law's BitPay account that prevented us from funding the retainer for several weeks before they managed to resolve it, but this was way back in September and October. It was finally funded in October and to the best of my knowledge, the work began at that time.

Marketing - Brand and Design - This funded in November with the intention of kicking off the work in December. I know the project was kicked off, but is not yet complete. I will be sure to request an update on tomorrow's core team call.

Lamassu - The project is obviously delayed, but I do know work continues on it. Multiple issues have caused the delays, from major changes to Lamassu's official stack to unforeseen technical limitations of that new software that caused the entire architecture / approach to require changes. I prefer to not provide the full update on this project myself because I'm frankly not exposed / familiar enough to the details. I understand that an update is in the works on what issues were encountered and what the effects were. This project predates my involvement with management of the finances. I know that in addition to the project delays, there is a lot of concern over the amount paid as Dash appreciated. Two tenants I've followed since taking over the finances are 1) no Dash denominated contracts lasting more than three months (because of potential price appreciation), and 2) no payments directly to vendors (the core team should be the intermediary unless the network decides otherwise). This approach is working well with Wall of Coins, which is on budget and on time right now.

ProtonMail - There are delays in the project, but they have all been on ProtonMail's side. We were working with them on updated documentation as of last month and I'm afraid I don't have any updated information on the status this month. To the best of my knowledge, it is still ProtonMail's intent to integrate Dash.

Mycelium - The original estimate for this project was publicly published in the press release as October. It was Mycelium's best estimate at the time of the news release back in July. We continue to work with them and in fact I know we were supporting them just last week. The delays are not specific to Dash... the entire release in which Dash will be included is delayed. So we continue to work with Mycelium and they continue to plan to include Dash in the next version.

I recognize the need to provide more information, and as soon as I get the Miami conference, office lease, and liability insurance stuff complete, I plan to use that freed-up capacity to dig into some of these stale / partially completed projects to hopefully figure out what can be done to bring them to completion. We've put a lot of time and effort into all of them, so finally closing them and gaining the associated benefits is important to me, and I'm sure to the entire community.

I'm sorry for not being more responsive and I hope this is sufficient until a more comprehensive update can be gathered.

 

[Stealth923]

I cannot provide an update on all of these projects, because I am not the owner of any of them. I do own Wall of Coins, the Office Space project, the Miami conference, and of course financial activities from planning to payments. But I will do my best to provide you with what I know about the various projects. Also, it is not yet publicly viewable, but we've actually created a new section of the Forum for project updates that will have a thread for each of the projects you listed and other major ones. That was just completed today, so next step is to start populating it which should happen within the next week.

I know that Robert publishes monthly core team updates, which may contain more up-to-date information on status. To the extent the following conflicts with those reports, the reports are probably more accurate because the below is my own understanding.

Legal Work - This project was delayed because the lawyer we hired (Marco Santori) left Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and joined Cooley LLP. Because of the change, we had to transfer our already-funded retainer from Pillsbury to Cooley in the fall. Work finally began last month, and the law firm completed the first document call the "Statement of Facts" this month. I do not have an updated completion date yet, but I have requested one. The funding for "Legal Work Part II" has not been distributed to Cooley (it remains in our wallet), and we are still using the initial retainer funded with "Legal Work Part I", most of which is still unspent.

ATM Master Compliance Program - I do not have a current status update on this. The latest I know is quite stale. There was as issue with Cogent Law's BitPay account that prevented us from funding the retainer for several weeks before they managed to resolve it, but this was way back in September and October. It was finally funded in October and to the best of my knowledge, the work began at that time.

Marketing - Brand and Design - This funded in November with the intention of kicking off the work in December. I know the project was kicked off, but is not yet complete. I will be sure to request an update on tomorrow's core team call.

Lamassu - The project is obviously delayed, but I do know work continues on it. Multiple issues have caused the delays, from major changes to Lamassu's official stack to unforeseen technical limitations of that new software that caused the entire architecture / approach to require changes. I prefer to not provide the full update on this project myself because I'm frankly not exposed / familiar enough to the details. I understand that an update is in the works on what issues were encountered and what the effects were. This project predates my involvement with management of the finances. I know that in addition to the project delays, there is a lot of concern over the amount paid as Dash appreciated. Two tenants I've followed since taking over the finances are 1) no Dash denominated contracts lasting more than three months (because of potential price appreciation), and 2) no payments directly to vendors (the core team should be the intermediary unless the network decides otherwise). This approach is working well with Wall of Coins, which is on budget and on time right now.

ProtonMail - There are delays in the project, but they have all been on ProtonMail's side. We were working with them on updated documentation as of last month and I'm afraid I don't have any updated information on the status this month. To the best of my knowledge, it is still ProtonMail's intent to integrate Dash.

Mycelium - The original estimate for this project was publicly published in the press release as October. It was Mycelium's best estimate at the time of the news release back in July. We continue to work with them and in fact I know we were supporting them just last week. The delays are not specific to Dash... the entire release in which Dash will be included is delayed. So we continue to work with Mycelium and they continue to plan to include Dash in the next version.

I recognize the need to provide more information, and as soon as I get the Miami conference, office lease, and liability insurance stuff complete, I plan to use that freed-up capacity to dig into some of these stale / partially completed projects to hopefully figure out what can be done to bring them to completion. We've put a lot of time and effort into all of them, so finally closing them and gaining the associated benefits is important to me, and I'm sure to the entire community.

I'm sorry for not being more responsive and I hope this is sufficient until a more comprehensive update can be gathered.

Thank you @babygiraffe for taking the time to at least respond

You say many times that you have no status update for many of these projects as you were not the owner or stale information. So the question is - WHO WAS RUNNING THESE PROJECTS, and why was there not even questions asked internally from the Dash core team?? We have Project Managers like @kot and other PMs that we had working, why did no one ever care to keep these projects on track or accountable?

The big lesson learned here is each time a proposal is passed it should be made public who the PM is, how many projects they are currently managing and have a visible weekly updated status report. Not monthly.

Secondly I don't think you should be submitting all the proposals, this is why you are the one being hunted for information. The PM for that project should initiate the proposal from start to finish so that we can see transparency as to who is managing etc.

I hope you follow through on your promise to get these projects back on track and hope that the Core team stops trying to bite off more than it can chew. FINISH a few projects to completion with high quality is better than having many sitting there unfinished with wasted money and no momentum.

 

[TroyDASH]

Thank you @babygiraffe for taking the time to at least respond

You say many times that you have no status update for many of these projects as you were not the owner or stale information. So the question is - WHO WAS RUNNING THESE PROJECTS, and why was there not even questions asked internally from the Dash core team?? We have Project Managers like @kot and other PMs that we had working, why did no one ever care to keep these projects on track or accountable?

The big lesson learned here is each time a proposal is passed it should be made public who the PM is, how many projects they are currently managing and have a visible weekly updated status report. Not monthly.

Secondly I don't think you should be submitting all the proposals, this is why you are the one being hunted for information. The PM for that project should initiate the proposal from start to finish so that we can see transparency as to who is managing etc.

I hope you follow through on your promise to get these projects back on track and hope that the Core team stops trying to bite off more than it can chew. FINISH a few projects to completion with high quality is better than having many sitting there unfinished with wasted money and no momentum.

I am ok with monthly status updates, speaking from my own work projects I think a weekly frequency has diminishing returns and can negatively affect performance. It depends on what the project is though, if the duration of the project is not even expected to be more than a month obviously then it makes sense to have more frequent updates and have a higher expectation for responsiveness. Agree on your other points though. I suspect that @kot and other PMs may be doing some work internally that they have not always decided to share information outside the team with the MNOs and wider community. I'd be interested to have @kot weigh in on this, though.

Still interested about Minotaur (Daniel Diaz) though, is he still the business development lead and if so, when we can expect him back? Is he going to be managing the funds for this particular proposal?

 

[demo]

I cannot provide an update on all of these projects, because I am not the owner of any of them. I do own Wall of Coins, the Office Space project, the Miami conference, and of course financial activities from planning to payments. But I will do my best to provide you with what I know about the various projects. Also, it is not yet publicly viewable, but we've actually created a new section of the Forum for project updates that will have a thread for each of the projects you listed and other major ones. That was just completed today, so next step is to start populating it which should happen within the next week.

I know that Robert publishes monthly core team updates, which may contain more up-to-date information on status. To the extent the following conflicts with those reports, the reports are probably more accurate because the below is my own understanding.

Legal Work - This project was delayed because the lawyer we hired (Marco Santori) left Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and joined Cooley LLP. Because of the change, we had to transfer our already-funded retainer from Pillsbury to Cooley in the fall. Work finally began last month, and the law firm completed the first document call the "Statement of Facts" this month. I do not have an updated completion date yet, but I have requested one. The funding for "Legal Work Part II" has not been distributed to Cooley (it remains in our wallet), and we are still using the initial retainer funded with "Legal Work Part I", most of which is still unspent.

ATM Master Compliance Program - I do not have a current status update on this. The latest I know is quite stale. There was as issue with Cogent Law's BitPay account that prevented us from funding the retainer for several weeks before they managed to resolve it, but this was way back in September and October. It was finally funded in October and to the best of my knowledge, the work began at that time.

Marketing - Brand and Design - This funded in November with the intention of kicking off the work in December. I know the project was kicked off, but is not yet complete. I will be sure to request an update on tomorrow's core team call.

Lamassu - The project is obviously delayed, but I do know work continues on it. Multiple issues have caused the delays, from major changes to Lamassu's official stack to unforeseen technical limitations of that new software that caused the entire architecture / approach to require changes. I prefer to not provide the full update on this project myself because I'm frankly not exposed / familiar enough to the details. I understand that an update is in the works on what issues were encountered and what the effects were. This project predates my involvement with management of the finances. I know that in addition to the project delays, there is a lot of concern over the amount paid as Dash appreciated. Two tenants I've followed since taking over the finances are 1) no Dash denominated contracts lasting more than three months (because of potential price appreciation), and 2) no payments directly to vendors (the core team should be the intermediary unless the network decides otherwise). This approach is working well with Wall of Coins, which is on budget and on time right now.

ProtonMail - There are delays in the project, but they have all been on ProtonMail's side. We were working with them on updated documentation as of last month and I'm afraid I don't have any updated information on the status this month. To the best of my knowledge, it is still ProtonMail's intent to integrate Dash.

Mycelium - The original estimate for this project was publicly published in the press release as October. It was Mycelium's best estimate at the time of the news release back in July. We continue to work with them and in fact I know we were supporting them just last week. The delays are not specific to Dash... the entire release in which Dash will be included is delayed. So we continue to work with Mycelium and they continue to plan to include Dash in the next version.

I recognize the need to provide more information, and as soon as I get the Miami conference, office lease, and liability insurance stuff complete, I plan to use that freed-up capacity to dig into some of these stale / partially completed projects to hopefully figure out what can be done to bring them to completion. We've put a lot of time and effort into all of them, so finally closing them and gaining the associated benefits is important to me, and I'm sure to the entire community.

I'm sorry for not being more responsive and I hope this is sufficient until a more comprehensive update can be gathered.

You claim that you are not the project owner but you are the one who posted some of these proposals into the budget. 116000 USD have been given, and still no results for the dash community. Are you proud of your Job? Are you proud to serve them as an intermediate?

 

[ericsammons]

I want to thank @babygiraffe for this update on these lingering projects. I find both he and @kot do an admirable, professional job in communicating to the community to the best of their ability. And for longer-term projects, I think monthly updates is fine, unless there is some pressing information that needs to get out sooner. I also am glad to hear Ryan has instituted some financial controls, like no longer-term Dash-denominated contracts and no payments directly to vendors.

However, I do think it is a problem that Ryan (and Evan before him) submits all the core-sponsored proposals, when he is not the PM of them. As the proposal submitter, he does "own" them and is therefore responsible for them (just like Amanda is responsible for any proposal submitted under her name, etc.). It would be better if each proposal were submitted by the actual person responsible for seeing it to completion. Along with giving the public knowledge of who is running the proposal, it will also allow MN owners to see which owner's proposals have been the most successful, and vote accordingly. As it is now, both successful and not-so-successful projects are all lumped under Ryan, which is unfair to him, and to MN owners.

 

[Ryan Taylor]

I want to thank @babygiraffe for this update on these lingering projects. I find both he and @kot do an admirable, professional job in communicating to the community to the best of their ability. And for longer-term projects, I think monthly updates is fine, unless there is some pressing information that needs to get out sooner. I also am glad to hear Ryan has instituted some financial controls, like no longer-term Dash-denominated contracts and no payments directly to vendors.

However, I do think it is a problem that Ryan (and Evan before him) submits all the core-sponsored proposals, when he is not the PM of them. As the proposal submitter, he does "own" them and is therefore responsible for them (just like Amanda is responsible for any proposal submitted under her name, etc.). It would be better if each proposal were submitted by the actual person responsible for seeing it to completion. Along with giving the public knowledge of who is running the proposal, it will also allow MN owners to see which owner's proposals have been the most successful, and vote accordingly. As it is now, both successful and not-so-successful projects are all lumped under Ryan, which is unfair to him, and to MN owners.

Thank you for the kind words. I do think there is something to be said for specialization within the core team... let the coding teams focus on coding, Daniel focus on Business Development, moocow focus on infrastructure, etc. I think expecting everyone to submit their own proposals would take away from productivity, and make simple tasks like creating quarterly financial statements a real challenge. However, I agree that transparency over ownership of the projects is lost when everything is submitted by me on behalf of the entire team. Perhaps a happy medium that addresses both concerns would be to include the information in the proposal over who the "owner" is for delivering the project, managing the vendor, or otherwise responsible for overseeing the team executing it. I will start providing this information going forward if that would be helpful.

 

[ericsammons]

Thank you for the kind words. I do think there is something to be said for specialization within the core team... let the coding teams focus on coding, Daniel focus on Business Development, moocow focus on infrastructure, etc. I think expecting everyone to submit their own proposals would take away from productivity, and make simple tasks like creating quarterly financial statements a real challenge. However, I agree that transparency over ownership of the projects is lost when everything is submitted by me on behalf of the entire team. Perhaps a happy medium that addresses both concerns would be to include the information in the proposal over who the "owner" is for delivering the project, managing the vendor, or otherwise responsible for overseeing the team executing it. I will start providing this information going forward if that would be helpful.

That would most likely be sufficient. I think the two most important things to know are:

1. Who is the true "owner" of this proposal? I.e., who is responsible for seeing it to completion.
2. Who is responsible for the funds associated with this proposal? I.e., who is in control of the payout address, and how is he/she distributing the funds?

Of course, those two people (or one person, if the same) would then be responsible for regularly updating MN owners what has been done on the project.

 

[Ryan Taylor]

That would most likely be sufficient. I think the two most important things to know are:

1. Who is the true "owner" of this proposal? I.e., who is responsible for seeing it to completion.
2. Who is responsible for the funds associated with this proposal? I.e., who is in control of the payout address, and how is he/she distributing the funds?

Of course, those two people (or one person, if the same) would then be responsible for regularly updating MN owners what has been done on the project.

I definitely agree with your two main points. The only part I would question is whether my role should entail updating the community on the status of projects (at least the ones I don't "own" personally). First, it divides responsibility between two people (which could cause overlaps and gaps in reporting). Second, as whomever fills my role doesn't actually own the projects, it would require obtaining the information from the project owner, an unnecessary "middleman" step. Even if I obtained updates directly from the vendor myself, that would create frustration and confusion with our vendors whom are now reporting to two Dash representatives.

That said, I think to the extent my role involves steps in the project's completion, I could do a better job reporting the status of those steps even though I don't own the overall project delivery. In the case of Wall of Coins - which I do "own" - I have been reporting regularly, including the most recent API demo. But in the case of the Legal project (which I don't own), I could have done better reporting the payment status... While I did report in the Q3 2016 Conference Call that the retainer was funded with Pillsbury, I could have 1) posted that information on the forum, and 2) when our lawyer switched to Cooley LLC, I could have reported that we needed extra time to transfer our retainer to the new firm.

What I want to avoid is unneeded administrative overhead. We are still a bootstrapped startup with far too little staff to keep up with everything. This whole "episode" comes down to prioritizing communication, both within the team and with the community. It doesn't need to take a long time... it just needs to be made a higher priority. I told the guys on the core team call on Thursday, "This isn't rocket science. It just comes down to good old fashioned communication."

EDIT: One thing I would add is that there's also the Project Management function, which compiles status information for the monthly and quarterly reports as well, so I think as long as the "owner" of each proposal keeps their own status up to date, and Robert up to date, there should be sufficient communication channels in place.

 

[TroyDASH]

I definitely agree with your two main points. The only part I would question is whether my role should entail updating the community on the status of projects (at least the ones I don't "own" personally). First, it divides responsibility between two people (which could cause overlaps and gaps in reporting). Second, as whomever fills my role doesn't actually own the projects, it would require obtaining the information from the project owner, an unnecessary "middleman" step. Even if I obtained updates directly from the vendor myself, that would create frustration and confusion with our vendors whom are now reporting to two Dash representatives.

That said, I think to the extent my role involves steps in the project's completion, I could do a better job reporting the status of those steps even though I don't own the overall project delivery. In the case of Wall of Coins - which I do "own" - I have been reporting regularly, including the most recent API demo. But in the case of the Legal project (which I don't own), I could have done better reporting the payment status... While I did report in the Q3 2016 Conference Call that the retainer was funded with Pillsbury, I could have 1) posted that information on the forum, and 2) when our lawyer switched to Cooley LLC, I could have reported that we needed extra time to transfer our retainer to the new firm.

What I want to avoid is unneeded administrative overhead. We are still a bootstrapped startup with far too little staff to keep up with everything. This whole "episode" comes down to prioritizing communication, both within the team and with the community. It doesn't need to take a long time... it just needs to be made a higher priority. I told the guys on the core team call on Thursday, "This isn't rocket science. It just comes down to good old fashioned communication."

EDIT: One thing I would add is that there's also the Project Management function, which compiles status information for the monthly and quarterly reports as well, so I think as long as the "owner" of each proposal keeps their own status up to date, and Robert up to date, there should be sufficient communication channels in place.

That sounds good, but I'm still not clear on the answer to the second question. For this particular proposal, are you the person who is controlling/distributing the funds, and is Daniel Diaz still involved with business development or this proposal somehow?

 

[ericsammons]

I definitely agree with your two main points. The only part I would question is whether my role should entail updating the community on the status of projects (at least the ones I don't "own" personally). First, it divides responsibility between two people (which could cause overlaps and gaps in reporting). Second, as whomever fills my role doesn't actually own the projects, it would require obtaining the information from the project owner, an unnecessary "middleman" step. Even if I obtained updates directly from the vendor myself, that would create frustration and confusion with our vendors whom are now reporting to two Dash representatives.

That said, I think to the extent my role involves steps in the project's completion, I could do a better job reporting the status of those steps even though I don't own the overall project delivery. In the case of Wall of Coins - which I do "own" - I have been reporting regularly, including the most recent API demo. But in the case of the Legal project (which I don't own), I could have done better reporting the payment status... While I did report in the Q3 2016 Conference Call that the retainer was funded with Pillsbury, I could have 1) posted that information on the forum, and 2) when our lawyer switched to Cooley LLC, I could have reported that we needed extra time to transfer our retainer to the new firm.

What I want to avoid is unneeded administrative overhead. We are still a bootstrapped startup with far too little staff to keep up with everything. This whole "episode" comes down to prioritizing communication, both within the team and with the community. It doesn't need to take a long time... it just needs to be made a higher priority. I told the guys on the core team call on Thursday, "This isn't rocket science. It just comes down to good old fashioned communication."

EDIT: One thing I would add is that there's also the Project Management function, which compiles status information for the monthly and quarterly reports as well, so I think as long as the "owner" of each proposal keeps their own status up to date, and Robert up to date, there should be sufficient communication channels in place.

Yes, I agree that unnecessary administrative overhead is to be avoided, especially in a small team.

Just to be clear, here is how I would see it happening in practice:

• The true owner of the proposal would give regular (most likely monthly) updates on the progress of the project. This could be done either directly to the community, or given to Robert to include in the overall status reports, whatever is most efficient.
• The controller of the payout address (is this always you, Ryan, for core proposals now?) would give an update when funds are spent on the project, either by updating the proposal owner, or by updating Robert to put in the overall status report. In practice, the proposal owner probably would already know about this and include it in his/her regular report anyway. I don't think that the controller of the payout address, if different than the proposal owner, should do much other than just report when funds are spent.

 

[Stealth923]

That sounds good, but I'm still not clear on the answer to the second question. For this particular proposal, are you the person who is controlling/distributing the funds, and is Daniel Diaz still involved with business development or this proposal somehow?

@babygiraffe thanks for the updates, I am happy that you are willing to improve communication and transparency. This needs to be done not only for investors but to keep projects on track and accountable from a delivery perspective.

I second @TroyDASH in saying what on earth is going on with Daniel Diaz and his projects!

 

[Ryan Taylor]

@babygiraffe thanks for the updates, I am happy that you are willing to improve communication and transparency. This needs to be done not only for investors but to keep projects on track and accountable from a delivery perspective.

I second @TroyDASH in saying what on earth is going on with Daniel Diaz and his projects!

@TroyDASH & @Stealth923 We discussed the lack of communication this Thursday on the core team call, and Daniel and all other project owners committed to getting full updates out to the community this week.

Daniel is still our business development manager, but to answer TroyDash, he does not unilaterally control the funds. Any expenditures from BD funding requires the consensus of the rest of the core team.

I also play a lesser role in business development along with Daniel (generally working on standalone projects I deem worth spending my time on). Shake debit card and Wall of Coins are examples of projects I took upon myself. We are also adding a new still-unpaid member to the business development function that will also be pursuing opportunities.

I agree that there has been woefully inadequate communication on many of the projects and I am personally coordinating an update across all the owners of each of those projects.

I know the community is concerned with the lack of communication, and the vote tallies this month are a manifestation of that frustration. I take it seriously and am doing what I can to address it quickly. I know patience has worn thin, but we have a large specific opportunity coming up that the community will need to specifically vote on, but in the meantime, it would be very helpful to set some funding aside for the expense (one I'm confident will be approved by the community) to make the remaining costs more digestible. Consequently, I strongly encourage all to vote yes on this proposal while we work through the communication void.

 

[n00bkid]

I agree with sentiments expressed here that it would be ideal for the PM of each project to also be the one making the proposal itself. This provides the network with "one throat to choke," so to speak, as so eloquently put by @babygiraffe in his excellent IOHK response writeup.

 

[TaoOfSatoshi]

This thread, although not originally designed to talk about communication, has turned into a fantastic discussion and consensus regarding communication. I'm happy to see it. Great job to all participants, a pleasure to read!

 

[Stealth923]

Thanks @babygiraffe - not sure if it was you but Ira Miller has now joined the slack and communication and updates are starting to trickle through from the Lamassu project perspective.

Will give you the benefit of the doubt this time and have reversed my votes on this proposal to yes and you now only need 17 votes more for it to pass.

 

[oaxaca]

... but we have a large specific opportunity coming up that the community will need to specifically vote on, but in the meantime, it would be very helpful to set some funding aside for the expense (one I'm confident will be approved by the community) to make the remaining costs more digestible. Consequently, I strongly encourage all to vote yes on this proposal while we work through the communication void.

While I might be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I can see that there are MN owners that might have a problem with pre-allocating funds for a yet-to-be-announced project that will require future voter approval. I also understand that spilling the beans might queer the deal. It's a problem.

 

[TroyDASH]

Thanks @babygiraffe - not sure if it was you but Ira Miller has now joined the slack and communication and updates are starting to trickle through from the Lamassu project perspective.

Will give you the benefit of the doubt this time and have reversed my votes on this proposal to yes and you now only need 17 votes more for it to pass.

Yes, thanks @babygiraffe -- I don't consider this problem to be solved by any means, but I am encouraged to see some small steps in the right direction. So I am down with the hold-my-nose yes vote on this one, and I hope that next month's will be easier to support --

 

[bertlebbert]

By setting aside a small amount of funding available to capture opportunities as they arise, we are able to act quickly and nimbly to grow our ecosystem of businesses integrating Dash. We are beginning to attract much larger-impact opportunities, but these opportunities appear to require more substantial support, so we may increase the monthly allotment in the near future if specific opportunities begin regularly exceeding the available budget.
...

Note: Funding from this proposal will be reserved for business development purposes.

Excellent ! I would prefer to see this type of non-specific Business Development proposal every month. Build a reserve fund to be appropriately dispensed as opportunities arise - detailed announcements and progress reports can be released in a timely manner. Over time, MNOs will judge performance and vote accordingly.

 

[fernando]

Some more thoughts on the one person making all proposals or distributing them.

One person makes the proposals (and controls the funds, you need to prove ownership of the payment address)
Pros:

easier to control all funds and have standard procedures
separation of manager and payments means that a manager can't go rogue because he can't mismanage and pay by himself​

Cons:

less transparency on who is really responsible. We should be able to address this with more communication
concentrated risk... if a bus hits @babygiraffe more funds are lost. It would also be sad because he's a really nice guy ​

Distributed proposals among project managers
Pros:

more transparency​

Cons:

less control over funds and procedures
distributed risk means a lower chance of losing funds, but a higher chance of something happening
​

I would go with one person making the proposals, but clearly identifying who is responsible for each project. It is not possible yet, but at some time in the future I would try to use multisig addresses for proposal payments so we have distributed decisions and more security.

 

[demo]

In case this proposal is voted, then the budget money is allocated and transfered to the wallet address (which @babygiraffe controls), and @babygiraffe is the one responsible of giving that money to the people who succesfully finished the required job . But what if the job fails? What happens then?

WHY THE PAYEMENT ADDRESS OF THIS PROPOSAL IS NOT A DEDICATED (to the bsdev-general-201701 project) ONE, BUT IT IS A VERY COMMON AND USED WALLET ADDRESS WHERE A LOT OF TRANSACTIONS HAPPEN INSIDE IT EVERYDAY? Additionaly, the above wallet's report at coinfirm is not generated. Isnt the use of such a wallet address a way to obfuscate things and (in case the job finally fails to finish) a way to take control of the allocated budget money?

My question is the below:

IN THE BAD CASE where this proposal is voted but the job is NOT finished and the whole thing finally turns to a total failure, then who owns and controls the budget allocated money? Will this money remain forever into the payement address?

 

[Ryan Taylor]

Some more thoughts on the one person making all proposals or distributing them.

One person makes the proposals (and controls the funds, you need to prove ownership of the payment address)
Pros:

easier to control all funds and have standard procedures
separation of manager and payments means that a manager can't go rogue because he can't mismanage and pay by himself​

Cons:

less transparency on who is really responsible. We should be able to address this with more communication
concentrated risk... if a bus hits @babygiraffe more funds are lost. It would also be sad because he's a really nice guy ​

Distributed proposals among project managers
Pros:

more transparency​

Cons:

less control over funds and procedures
distributed risk means a lower chance of losing funds, but a higher chance of something happening
​

I would go with one person making the proposals, but clearly identifying who is responsible for each project. It is not possible yet, but at some time in the future I would try to use multisig addresses for proposal payments so we have distributed decisions and more security.

If I am hit by a bus, or my house burns down, there is a procedure to recover the funds. With Evan being local and instructions in the event of my death, all funds would easily be recovered. We are also planning payouts to multisig addresses in the near future (right now the code doesn't allow that) and secured with hardware wallets.

I think if I start including the proposal owner in the proposal going forward, we have addressed both of the cons with the current arrangement, and retain a separation of funds ownership and project execution ownership that increases accountability within the team. The only shortfall right now is that I could theoretically run off with all the funds... with only modest amounts of money, I think this is acceptable for the time being, but we'll need to address that as well as budgets grow into the millions. It would be unacceptable - no matter how much the community trusts my character - to leave the current setup as is. For now, my professional reputation and jail-free aspirations should be enough to keep community members from worrying. When the monies involved grow and it becomes worth the expense, we should consider hiring security staff (perhaps experienced staff from exchanges) to create a financial system to protect the funds and ensure no single employee can make off with them.

 

[Ryan Taylor]

In case this proposal is voted, then the budget money is allocated and transfered to the wallet address (which @babygiraffe controls), and @babygiraffe is the one responsible of giving that money to the people who succesfully finished the required job . But what if the job fails? What happens then?

WHY THE PAYEMENT ADDRESS OF THIS PROPOSAL IS NOT A DEDICATED (to the bsdev-general-201701 project) ONE, BUT IT IS A VERY COMMON AND USED WALLET ADDRESS WHERE A LOT OF TRANSACTIONS HAPPEN INSIDE IT EVERYDAY? Additionaly, the above wallet's report at coinfirm is not generated. Isnt the use of such a wallet address a way to obfuscate things and (in case the job finally fails to finish) a way to take control of the allocated budget money?

My question is the below:

IN THE BAD CASE where this proposal is voted but the job is NOT finished and the whole thing finally turns to a total failure, then who owns and controls the budget allocated money? Will this money remain forever into the payement address?

The reason the payout address has been use is because that address is the Business Development fund address. It was first created back in June for the first Business Development payout in July and has been in continuous use ever since. When balances drop, or new expenses are anticipated, we replenish or build the balance within the same address.

We keep all funds within that address, and when a payment is made out of the BD fund address, the change is returned to that same address. This is done to provide full transparency over the balances and transactions (not just for business development, but ALL core team proposals). Anyone can view our financial report at the end of each quarter and see for themselves on the block chain that the amount in that budget's address matches the reported balance in the quarterly report's balance sheet. Pretty cool, huh? One of the benefits of a transparent blockchain.

EDIT: To be clear, the address IS DEDICATED to business development, but business development is a rolling fund in which the balance drops and then reloaded over time.

EDIT 2: By definition, unused funds in the business development fund will eventually be used. However, even in fixed budgets (say for a conference), ALL core team budgets state that any leftover funds will be applied toward similar activities (for example any leftover funds from a conference expense will be applied toward a future conference).

 

[fernando]

If I am hit by a bus, or my house burns down, there is a procedure to recover the funds. With Evan being local and instructions in the event of my death, all funds would easily be recovered. We are also planning payouts to multisig addresses in the near future (right now the code doesn't allow that) and secured with hardware wallets.

I think if I start including the proposal owner in the proposal going forward, we have addressed both of the cons with the current arrangement, and retain a separation of funds ownership and project execution ownership that increases accountability within the team. The only shortfall right now is that I could theoretically run off with all the funds... with only modest amounts of money, I think this is acceptable for the time being, but we'll need to address that as well as budgets grow into the millions. It would be unacceptable - no matter how much the community trusts my character - to leave the current setup as is. For now, my professional reputation and jail-free aspirations should be enough to keep community members from worrying. When the monies involved grow and it becomes worth the expense, we should consider hiring security staff (perhaps experienced staff from exchanges) to create a financial system to protect the funds and ensure no single employee can make off with them.

I didn't know that you had those plans already in place, but it doesn't surprise me a bit. Anyway, please look both ways before crossing!

I agree that in the future we need to look more security, not only because of character, but also because of computer accidents or hacks. When we are able to have multisig as part of the monetary base we should be able to implement any scenario we dream.