CryptoVentures is a brainchild of mine wherein I share potential business ideas with the world for all to read, weigh in on, and yes, even steal (all I ask is for is a small 10% return if/when you hit it off :D #cryptocode)
In this world of people being scared of someone stealing their ideas I like doing just the contrary and openly sharing mine. I’d rather see one of my ideas come to life than to leave it on the shelf gathering dust. Admittedly I would like to be at the helm of bringing it into fruition, I am, however at the same time not enough of a doer to get the ball rolling. Then again writing this blog and putting it out there could be doing just that, so comme ci comme ça haha.
A quick intro about myself. I entered the crypto space little under a year ago. Mainly traded coins, made a fair amount of money but also lost most of it again. Of late I’ve gotten more and more interested in the societal impact blockchain technology can and will have in the years to come. Entrepreneurship has always been a fascination of mine and coming up with (dreaming about) ideas is my forte. Over the years I’ve had many of these ideas which I have cultivated into what I have dubbed as the Business Idea Matrix. Its a list of business ideas ranked based on a number of my own personal criteria. You can find the latest version below.
Now I’m sure this list beckons a significant amount of questions like:
- What’s dogger? or
- You do know that Geek Squad already exists don’t you? or
- [For the keen observer] what are your top 2 ideas?
However I’ve highlighted the business venture that I would like to zoom in on for this post, namely:
- The Social Enterprise
The social enterprise came about after I watched an interview on HARDtalk with Nick Hanauer, a billionaire venture capitalist who is basically waiting for the pitchforks to be raised and a revolution to begin against the wealthy people of this world. An event that would be heralded due to the ever growing divide between the rich and the poor. Nick Hanauer also has an interesting Tedtalk to be seen below
Apart from that interview, I also saw a Dutch documentary on enterprises in which the question was asked ‘is a line worker that puts in 8 hours of strenuous work, day in day out for many years not equally or potentially even more so entitled to the profits of the company that he or she works for?’ Without lessons in financial literacy this person will probably keep living paycheck to paycheck never truly reaping the rewards of all their hard work.
After having watched those two programmes I asked myself, isn’t there a better way? The answer to which was the social enterprise. Much to my delight I found an excerpt from my notes (I found the fully worked out plan, but saying excerpt from my notes sounds way cooler).
Note: the following should be read with a grain of salt.
So what is the social enterprise? Basically an enterprise where the distribution of the proverbial pie (profits) is more evenly divided amongst all parties involved. See it as a crowd-sourced company where the employees are given access to a fixed amount of the profit based on a set of predefined roles/criteria. The breakdown illustrated in my notes can be considered an alpha version needing some (quite a bit of) refining, I believe however that the general idea is clear. Now funny enough before (I knew about) blockchain technology and smart contracts the technological advancements I spoke about would “magically” make this possible. Fast forward a year or two and it should be quite easily obtainable. Amazing!
While researching the subject I stumbled upon the article below by Daniel Jeffries.
A highly recommended read about the history of money and what he believes is the most promising aspect of blockchain technology (which no cryptocurrency has yet to tap into) namely the distribution of wealth upon creation. From kings and queens of old with their silver, to current nation states with its fiat, the distribution of wealth has always worked top-down. A system which, he argues, is nearly impossible to change.
“to redistribute the money after it’s already been distributed is nearly impossible” — Daniel Jeffries
Making a new enterprise a perfect opportunity to take this new, dare I say revolutionary approach to wealth distribution for a spin.
So… without further ado I can finally get to the actual business venture. Combining the previous concept of the social enterprise with a viable business, I present to you [drum roll please]:
Crypto CoinSupport site
A community based central support platform for all things crypto with 1 goal:
Help people with crypto related matters.
The breakdown:
Potential spin-off from Steemit utilizing their token. (Steemit team feel free to hit me up;)
It needs to be a platform which allows for the principles outlined in the social enterprise to be made a reality. People are paid for their services (outlined below). CoinSupport makes its money by collecting fees. This income will be used to cover all costs, and the profit can be redistributed every week/month/quarter to the “token-holders”.
· Side note: I don’t get why everyone and their grandmother are making their own coins/tokens. Why not back an existing coin, increase its value, and increase its, and your own chance of survival?
Services include:
setting up accounts
setting up masternodes
setting up / advising on the right protection
courses explaining crypto / trading
trader challenges (competitions)
charting specific coins
And more (feel free to share your ideas)
Addendum to the services
- Services will probably be split into two categories
Community: open to all
Vetted professional: verified CoinSupport agents
- Think of services such as one-on-one calls via skype or some desktop sharing service.
The problem this is solving: I believe there is a large community of people out there who would like to enter the crypto space, but just don’t have the knowledge or time to deep dive into all the nooks and crannies of the space. Assisting these people and making crypto more accessible for the masses will play a critical part in increasing the global adoption and ultimately making cryptocurrencies a part of our daily lives (real big business dreamer lingo here).
Gary Vaynerchuck (if you haven’t already I strongly suggest you watch some of his vlogs) regularly says “removing the friction will be the key to success” pertaining to the Googles, Alexas, and Siris of this world (voice activated assistance). I argue that the same can be said for all things crypto. People are inherently lazy, and so lowering the entry barrier and making it as seamless and easy as possible will be a winning recipe.
Not only that but the crypto space is also very complicated and so broad, even for tech-savvy people it can get overwhelming at times. So CoinSupport will also function as a place to better structure and pool the knowledge out there and offer assistance where needed. Not to mention that there are so many individuals trying to monetize their time and knowledge without an easy to access, well structured platform for doing so.
A quick A4 pitch of the idea. Now what or who will be required to get this off the ground? I recently had the pleasure to read the May 2018 edition of 21cryptos, a magazine about all things crypto. In which the following was said:
“The developers can be the best in the market but without vital data from the market and legal environment, their product cannot go mainstream. In my opinion, every successful project must have these key positions in their team. They need people to cover their marketing, brand development, compliance, public relations, legal consultancy, community relations, country relationship experts and partnership advisory positions efforts” — @Cryptobulld0g
· Side note: what a world we live in that these are the quotes of the future xD
Based on the above I have come up with a minimum list of persons required to get something like this off the ground. During my years at university I got familiarized with the concept of effectual entrepreneurship and MVP (minimal viable product). This idea lends itself to just hitting the ground running and using the community validation and feedback to better the product. However if there are any angel investors that like this idea or the person sharing it feel free to get in contact.
- Blockchain developers (smart contract knowledge) 4x
- Marketing / brand development / community relations 2x
- Website developers / UX designer 2x
- Legal adviser / public relations 1x
- Financial controller 1x
So there you have it. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this article. Has this article got your synapses firing on overdrive? Do you like the idea? Feel free to share your thoughts and comments in the section below, or contact me directly.
Footnote: For this and future installments of CryptoVentures there’s one key caveat that I need to add, namely that I have done little research into finding out if this is already being done or not. These posts will basically just be me thinking out loud, wondering, and identifying various opportunities. If you have indeed seen this implemented somewhere else or if you have any other interesting thoughts to share please feel free to drop some knowledge in the comments below.
Discussion topics:
- What platform/cryptocurrency could be used to achieve the goals outlined above?
- Why is everyone coming up with their own blockchain/token?
- More services to add to Crypto Support?
- Seen something similar already being worked on?
- Other thoughts about the idea?