Financial Management & Team Insight
Christian Eichinger
We had a very successful year in 2019 and are proud of what we have achieved so far, starting from zero. We will be publishing a larger article - Tixl Status Update #4 - on January 8, 2020. In the meantime, we wanted to give a quick update on our financial and team situation.
Photo by Perry Grone on Unsplash
We were able to raise more than $1,350,000 in 2019, from the sale of Tixl tokens. We have been very satisfied with the fundraising so far, but no-one can predict the next phases with certainty. Our fundraising is also dependent on the crypto market as a whole, or at least strongly influenced by it.
Financial Responsibility
One of the most important tasks we have is to use funds efficiently and purposefully. We view expenses with a very critical eye and our financial planning for 2020 has been done assuming no further income from token sales. Even though it is not required for 2020, we are very confident that we will be able to raise further funds from token sales.
Financial Situation
Thanks to the fundraising in 2019, we are financially well-positioned and we expect to have enough capital available for 2020 without needing further funding and without having to tap into the Tixl Global Reserve (TGR). However, as we hold our funds in a mix of Euro, USD, BTC, and BNB, this is somewhat affected by overall market developments. Without further funding, however, we do not plan any large-scale marketing activities, nor would we pursue listings on the major exchanges.
We will be looking very closely at the marketing expenses and make sure we focus on marketing activities that are likely to have a good cost-benefit ratio. This is especially the case in the current market phase, and a survey of the Tixl Community supports our opinion.
Team Update
In relation to costs, we would also like to be as transparent as possible with the make-up of our team. Many projects try to present their team as big as they can, but in the spirit of cost-effectiveness and fiscal responsibility, we try to run as lean as possible while still having specialists involved in each area. We have made some changes to reflect this and wanted to be as open as possible about these changes below.
Christopher is now officially presented on the website as Marketing Advisor. For Tixl, it does not make sense to finance a permanent position for marketing at the moment. Christopher will continue to support Tixl and be involved in marketing activities, as before.
Also, Leon is now presented as an advisor on the website. He will also continue to support Tixl and is available to give feedback and suggestions for further product development.
We thank them both for their great contribution to date and look forward to further cooperation.
Regular Costs
We wanted to give you a quick insight into the current cost structure at Tixl:
At the moment Tixl has one permanent employee: Bernd. Bernd is mainly responsible for the technical implementation and receives his salary in a mix of Euro and MTXLT (with a Lockup period).
Bernd is supported in software development by Tammo. Tammo is a freelancer and works almost fulltime for Tixl and has given us his commitment for the next few months. We have known Tammo for 10 years and have already worked together on several projects. Just like Bernd, Tammo is paid in a mix of Euro and MTXLT with Lockup.
Vihren is also working as a freelancer. He has helped Tixl, especially last summer, with his expertise. In the current phase, however, we will make use of his expert knowledge selectively.
Besides the personnel costs, we have several other expense areas - tools, domains, website and server operation from the official Testnet and a separate Testnet for development. In total, these expenses are very manageable and even with small amounts of spending we regularly question the value it adds. For example, in the last few days we have decided to pause the expenses for Pipedrive, for the time being, and export the data into a table.
In the area of marketing, it is possible to spend any amount of money. If we feel that we are spending money efficiently on marketing, we will continue to do so. But, as described above, we will do this more selectively.
Other Team Members
Christian and Sebastian are working full-time on Tixl but are not included in the costs outlined above. This is because, for now, they receive their salaries from elbstack. This may change in the future, but not before Tixl has raised additional money.
Lennart and Mike also get their salary from elbstack and are always available for further support. Lennart helps us with design and UX, while Mike is especially helpful as a sparring partner. For certain small tasks, other developers from elbstack can also be used if, and when, it makes sense.
Over the course of the project, we have got to know Corentin, Moe, and Jon. All are Tixl investors and active supporters. Corentin and Moe take care of social media support and Jon helps us specifically with the polishing of articles. All three have become a great help so that we can focus more energy on the core topics. For this, they receive a salary in MTXLT.
Conclusion
With the software agency elbstack behind us, we have the advantage of keeping salary costs relatively low. With the currently low fixed costs, we are well prepared for the coming months, regardless of how the general crypto market performs.