MuleChain Proposal: Decentalized P2P Logistics on the NEM Blockchain

Project Proposals
#21

Hi Dan,

My answer may disappoint you but you may also get to appreciate finally what MuleChain’s business model is really all about. What you mentioned are perfectly fine but it is not for MuleChain to take up that responsibility to provide, request and train people to use them. That kind of thinking belongs to building and running a business under the existing centralized corporation concept.

MuleChain simply provides a “decentralized platform” for any big and small centralized business owners to run and compete with each other for the benefits of the consumers on our platform. Requesters and Mules can accept or reject orders based on their own liking. Some major corporations may dominate certain part of the business by using better technologies to provide superior services like what you mentioned but we are not going to exclude some individuals or small mom’n’pop shops on our platform who do not want to touch those new technologies to provide a cheaper alternative in price to compete with those bigger businesses with sexier new gigs.

So for example, if some people think there is a great potential to use drones for delivery in the future. Fine, the Amazons and the Alibabas can use their dominant wealth to develop the best drones based on the latest AI technologies to monopolize certain area of the drone delivery business with a high price tag. It would not be MuleChain’s role to aim to develop a more superior technology to compete with them. MuleChain simply provides the platform for some smart entrepreneurs or start-up companies to use MuleChain’s platform to deploy his or her own newly invented drones to beat Amazon or Alibaba in price from low overhead cost to gain a foothold in the new drone based delivery business.

I do see somebody with similar thinking like yours who believe that RF scanner and QR code can make the delivery process more efficient and effective. MuleChain will help them develop a business and brand themselves on the platform where all their Mules and Pack Station Owners wearing their branded uniforms are equipped with these useful devices and they will be successful.

The only problem is that another traditional centralized business with another more superior technologies will never be able to scale themselves to reach out to more than 90% of the world’s population, no matter how big they may grow in the future. That opportunity, to reach out to more than 90% of the world’s population and to create millions of new types of jobs as Mules and Pack Station Owners to benefit the under-privileged people in our human society, would only belong to a new type of decentralized platform like MuleChain in my humble opinion, and that is where we wanna be.

That is the decentralized business model philosophy (or religion) made possible by the NEM blockchain technology that we intend to stick to.

4 Likes
#22

Pack Station - how and who (or what) will finance it?

Yevhen Kliukin, NEM Kyiv Ambassador

2 Likes
#23

Hello Eugene,

There is no financing necessary for being a pack station. Anybody could be a pack station owner for one day, one week, one month or one year, whenever they feel like to they could simply switch it on any time for a period of time and earn money by answering the doorbell by letting people drop off an item and let somebody else pick it up later.

So, it could be yourself, your parents, your neighbors, local gas station owners, local restaurant owners, airport boutique store owners, etc. Try to imagine, these small business owners are paying high rent for the stores and the restaurant owners only make the most money at dinner time. why don’t they open their doors to give the convenience assistance for other people and earn some extra income to help pay for their own rent?

By the time they want to go out for a one-week vacation, no problem, they could simply switch off the pack station status on the mobile app (MuleChain Routes) for one week. nobody will bother them. Then the mules and requesters will simply use another nearby pack station during that time.

3 Likes
#24

Two questions

Who will use your project? I only look like a hype.
You have no bases.

Also, there are members of multiple ICOs in your team.
Why did you let them join the team?
They ran away those ICO projects. Is it only financing?
Do Your Team really feel like making a project?

Because there are a lot of Scam, I become cautious.

3 Likes
#25

Hello GodTanu,

Please kindly read our postscript above. Our team started the project over six months ago. We were ready to launch an ICO three months ago but we held back and changed our plan. Hence we still have many experts on ICOs and blockchain as well as Silicon Valley venture capital fund raising experts, investment bankers on board. We are quite proud of them and they continue to provide us a lot of value. I myself am also a seasoned investment banker on Wall Street and in many leading financial centers in Asia.

There is nothing wrong about an ICO. Please kindly do not treat it as a three-letter word taboo.

Since then we have also ditched our original intended NEO platform and switched to the NEM blockchain. When you continue to search through our website, please don’t treat the NEO as another three-letter word taboo when you discover that we still have NEO experts on our team as well! Wow, that could have really completed a conspiracy story to make a movie on. :slight_smile:

As we have explained our growth philosophy in the postscript, we would not rule out a new compliant ICO later on in the future. If we do we will strictly follow the community fund guidelines. If by that time the community guidelines have not been been kept up to date with the rest of the world to adopt the new compliant ICOs in leading economies and we are asked to return the fund by then, we will return the fund. It is not that much a big deal. We will only be able to evaluate what form of continuing financing methods makes more business sense at that time.

So there is nothing to hide. In fact we may even proceed with a Reg CF in conjunction with the current NCF grant and later on another Reg A+ offering. If you understand what these normal compliant funding processes mean you may have less fears or doubts. It is only natural for tech start-up companies to continue to seek late stage financing.

It would be a misguided opinion to think all ICOs are bad or are all scams. In the same way, not all Mules are drug traffickers! So please, kindly spare us any drama. :slight_smile:

Thank you.

1 Like
#26

I heard there is at least a malicious director in your team.
Other Japanese will say the same thing.
They ran away without paying advertising fees, escape after ICO is over, etc.

I am worried. You have teamed with such a person.

#27

Oh you meant Tomoko. You are right. In fact, we had this conversation already with your NEM Japan group.

We were as puzzled as you guys in Japan are. She has not been involved with us or responded to our team for a long time. In fact we asked her for a translation work for one of our articles with a well-known Japanese magazine publisher. She made the promise to them but disappeared for months with no reply. It embarrassed us. Since she did not respond we could not officially terminate her involvement with us unilaterally as we did not know what exactly had happened to her at that time.

She has never helped us with any substantial work other than those Japanese translations for us on a part time project basis in the earlier days. So we do not know about any of her outside involvements with other companies at all. We did not have the authority to do so as she did not really work for us.

Upon the conversation with the NEM Japan members last week while you were present, we were told for the first time that Tomoko had this bad incident in the blockchain communities there. As soon as @tstream sent us some press coverage, we officially terminated her affiliation with us right away already. She is no longer in the team profile on our website.

We will be very careful in hiring a Japanese staff member going forward. As you know knowledgeable and tech savvy bi-lingual Japanese professionals like yourself are very valuable and hard to find. So right now one of our company’s top priorities is to recruit another trust-worthy Japanese blockchain or online marketing professional to replace Tomoko’s role as our new regional director for Japan. As I told the NEM Japan community that Japan will be such an important country for our MuleChain business in the future, so please do not hesitate if you guys happen to know of some good candidates that you could recommend them to us.

Aligato Gozaimasu!

1 Like
#28

I am worried about that your carelessness.:sweat:

#29

This concept has great potential for improving current delivery systems. In terms of business development, I would strongly recommend you drastically reducing your raise targets from NEM. Getting 200-500k of startup capital is more than enough to get the project off the ground. At that point, you should seek partnerships in your locality and begin to implement your system in the real world. Then, you could showcase your project to venture capital funds as well as local players and if your product is good, they will be more than happy to support you, not only with money, but also with their connections and services. These secondary benefits will be worth more than money to you in the long run. Also, this will leave more money in the NEM fund to fund other projects who need the essential startup capital in the future. 10 projects could get 200k or you’re one project can get 2million. Rather than target 75 cities, target one city. If that works and is profitable, get your Series A funding to expand at that point. Even if your goal is 75 cities, it’s simply impossible to do that in the time frame especially when you have stated that you are actually training your regional managers, rather than hiring some with extensive experience in the industry.

Another point is that there is no reason that your platform needs a native token. Best to do away with that also and use XEM instead. If you would like to discuss this deeper, feel free to connect with me here or in private.

3 Likes
#30

We will be careful screening the people we hire in the future. Do you have some good and reliable candidates you could refer to us to manage the Japanese business for MuleChain? :slight_smile:

I mean not only for helping this NEM community fund purpose but also for helping us with building and managing the on-going MuleChain business in Japan.

1 Like
#31

Great points Corporal_clegg. We will definitely consider your suggestions. There are a lot of other higher priority reasons why we did what we did in this proposal. Among many other things are the global competitions and the various plans and partnerships we have already set in motion.

Since we have already invested heavily and started the project over six months ago. It has passed the idea drawing board stage. So it may be difficult to make any changes now.

We would love to use your talents and insights in some other way. We treasure a talent whenever we see one. :slight_smile: Please feel free to connect with me. Thanks again for sharing your views with us.

1 Like
#33

Must be a mistake Andrew. How could it be? We have not even started the voting process yet.

Perhaps you have mistaken us with somebody else?

#34

Ah yes, I did

#35

Hi,
Really find this project interesting. Though I have couple questions.

  1. Are there any competitors to MuleChain?

  2. What are Back end processes will you use to make sure that my stuff will not get stolen?

Thank you.

1 Like
#36

Hello Cryptoheart,

Thanks for your excellent questions. We have three parts of business focus in the beginning stage of our operations. You can read about the three parts more in details here. https://app.box.com/s/twtih8gap9rwipxp30z2bp51hrjn5koz

For the first part, cross border and inter-city mules, we have no competition at all. It is a complete white space. Same could be said about the companion pack station business to be deployed at airports, train stations and bus depots.

For the second part, the last mile e-commerce delivery business. It seems to be on fire right now as there are so many existing and wanna be participants in all major economies. However nobody has the exact same business model that we are proposing. To begin with the majority if not all of them are operating under the traditional centralized corporate mode. Few people if any are doing a decentralized P2P platform that offers not just a on-demand service, but also the convenience assistance service that MuleChain champions in the new sharing economy.

As for the third part, local courier or messenger business, it is what could be called the second oldest profession of mankind. Since the Neanderthals came out of their caves, that local delivery business already exited. So there is understandable a lot of competition. Then again, MuleChain aims to do it differently.

As far as the risk management of the shipped items, can I refer you to the video? As in the end of the video it was explained very clearly about the casualty risk and the fraud risk on shipped items. Thanks.