NEM Foundation - Funding Proposal 2019

Thanks for the work you put into this, Alex.

A couple of thoughts. To start, I love the revamped focus on product and like that the elimination of regional bloat, but I think there may be too many C-suite folks right off the bat. I’ll wait on job descriptions, as C-suite roles can mean different things to different folks, and different management styles necessitate different C-suite roles. However, as an initial instinctive postulation, the Chief Finance Officer and Chief Revenue Officer, can possibly be combined with a qualified individual. Chief Business Development and Marketing may also be possibly combined, but I also can see how those can be structured to be entirely distinct roles. Perhaps fewer C-suite roles can be allocated at the beginning, and added as their need becomes more urgent.

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Are there any projections or targets for revenue that you intend to share before the vote?

Combining roles is on the table and something we continue to explore. We have job decriptions already written up and tomorrow we’ll post them in the forums for everyone to check out. Regarding CFO and CRO, I still see them as separate. CRO was envisioned for sustainability. Basically, our growth team. If we had this role previously in 2018, I think we would have made better choices and been in a different spot than we are today. I like your thinking though and will add this to our video AMA that we plan to do. It’s worth spending time to go deep on these roles. Thanks! Keep ‘em coming.

I can see Business Development and Marketing being under one department. They do have different roles but ideally there should be a lot of cooperation and synergy between the two so I can see someone who can balance both sides work on this.

However I don’t think CFO should be combined with Revenue. The CFO ought to be a check and balance to make sure spending is reined in and the books are all good. It’s a role that is important in its independence from other departments and crucial to prevent the kind of exorbitant spending that led us here.

If Finance and Revenue were combined, then Finance would be incentivized to approve programs for its own Revenue programs and it may be a conflict of interest in my opinion.

Yes. We’ve been brainstorming ideas and vetting through various folks — including core devs and Tech Bureau North America. I have a few proposals I’m reviewing now. This is an area I’m hyper focused on. I’m not seeing it done perfectly in the crypto space. The innovation of NEM Ventures inspires me that we should go beyond accepting status quo for how things are done. So I’m interviewing experts in this area to broaden my horizons of what opportunities we should be considering. You’ll hear more on this, for sure.

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Hi,

The key difference between marketing and business development: is that marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large whereas business development is the process of pursuing strategic opportunities by developing new products, entering into new markets and forming business partnerships with other companies.

As a global organization we must maintain teams with focused and precise tasks, in order to achieve the objectives in the time offered.

Working in professional teams, we can obtain better results.

Organizational challenges and catapult road maps are separate.

Please do not affect the announcement of catapult road map.
Please announce the catapult road map as planned.

It does not matter what happens to the result of the ballot.
Can the Foundation keep promises?

I will vote for ‘NO’ if promises to announce in the first quarter are not observed.

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Hello God Tanu.

All the efforts of the NEM 2.0 Foundation will be to collaborate with all the teams working to deliver CATAPULT in its public version.

You can feel calm, that from this new foundation 2.0, we have the greatest interest to deliver this as soon as possible.

Can the Foundation keep promises?

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I give you my word that we will fulfill 100% what we promise.

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I agree with Wally’s sentiment on Telegram:

The CRO and CFO could easily be combined for the right person
Likewise the CBDO & CMO as long as the support is there lower down.

This is much better than the existing structure no doubt - I am concerned about the Service Providers and the governance around these but it is a good start.

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Actually - why is there a marketing budget in this at all? I would vote that all Marketing / PR be completely held back until Catapult is ready on the public chain - I know this will be detrimental but it will just be completely wasted marketing a product that IS NOT READY!

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Converting all current and future consulting projects into paid (commission-based) consulting projects (ranging anywhere from 5%-15) refs: NF Funding Proposal_Final Feb 5, P51

  • Are there standards for percentages to be applied?
  • Does the foundation get consulting fee both side?

Hi Dan. Thank you for your question.
Like Alex called out in the presentation not all positions will be immediately filled. We will ramp up accordingly. You can be assured that the marketing budget will be spent efficiently and follow key priorities.

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Hello Daoka.

  • Are there standards for percentages to be applied?
  • Does the foundation get consulting fee both side?

Standards and the exact mechanism will be defined by CRO with the Council. In our actions we will be guided by the best practices and in the best interest of the community.

Hi, Anton. Thank you.

Is it not decided yet?
If then, I hope that appropriate standards will be presented.

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This is in progress. That is why it is very important for new council to get feedback from the community and hear your ideas, be open to suggestions and not repeat past mistakes.
If you have questions that need a more detailed answer, you can always message me in telegram (@antonbsnko) or put them here.
Thank you.

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Is the burning paradigm suitable to run business?
too much volatility in markets, and it has a finite supply.

I would like to highlight this point that Jason brought up. Being revenue driven means that in the future, we will make it such that we will be less reliant on community funds and be self-sustainable. We can reduce the burn rate of XEMs every month and eventually contribute back.

I can see a few ways in which NEM can bring in revenue. As mentioned in the proposal, NEM already has a few projects that have agreed to retained NEM as consultants (paid). There are a few more deals in the pipeline. So revenue streams can be:

  1. Consulting
  2. Business Intelligence (many traditional corporates are keen to get regular advise and news updates from a blockchain insider and I have received a lot of interest from even government players on this)
  3. Revenue sharing (referrals to partners etc)

Of course, there could be other streams as well such as paid developer training or technical audits.

At the same time, these revenue generating streams need to be examined. We need to ask how it will contribute to NEM’s ecosystem. For instance, if business intelligence services can bring in more big multinationals and get them to build on NEM. We need to be mindful of the impact of say, a consulting service on the larger goals of NEM Foundation- Catapult, Sustainability, Governance.

Being revenue driven certainly will help Sustainability, but it will be all the better if the activities done by Revenue can also help Catapult (say if corporate partners can give feedback on their business needs for Catapult) or Governance (if a more robust ecosystem of professionals can provide more checks and balances to the system).

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So basically they are asking 210 million of XEM to use only 960k$ for tech salaries. Doesn’t sound good as still the most will be used for paying high salaries for non-tech people doing basically the same as in the past.

And if you account that price will likely head lower and lower in the upcoming months, it is very likely they end up being broke again. I would rather vote yes if this budget will mainly used to hire more devs, but at the moment I’ll probably will no.

The same guys are still running things who manage to spent over 22 million mainly for hiring people to travel around the globe with 0 big partnerships and with minimal results.

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