It's a bit of a rant. I'm having big concerns about Steem's public image. I just thought I needed to speak up.
In a comment under @stan's post about Cryptonomex, I expressed my concerns about there being very few people on the dev team and the lack of public announcements about plans to expand the team:
I'm a bit worried that there are so few people behind such a big project. I guess potential investors also would like to know what your plans are regarding human resources.
And this is how @summon replied (and he got a lot of upvotes for his response):
I get your arguments here, well, if you right with your fear that a few people are getting such a "big project" started - just imagine what happens if these "a few" are getting help from more devs entering this game :)
Anyway i can say - this small group of really experienced and talented devs are pulling this out of the ground in less time - then other mutli-million dollar dev teams are not able to get out of ground within years.. just watch the game here and i will notice :)
Did i mention before - i really don't like the expression "human resources"
(For those who don't know: @summon is a big fish here, one of the initial investors)
Seriously, guys, is this the way you are going to manage public relations?
What if I were a bigger investor considering my options? Is this a reply that would make me invest? Apart from being a bit arrogant, it just boils down to this: everything will turn out just fine, "just watch the game here and you will notice".
Did i mention before - i really don't like the expression "human resources"
Sir, yes, sir! I'm sure you did mention it before but I was just not paying attention. I deeply regret using this phrase. I just did not know it annoys you so much. I promise - I'll never do it again. Please forgive me. And I hope you'll still upvote my posts.
On a more serious note: I agree that Dan and his small team has done a tremendous job with very little resources (damn, I'm using the forbidden phrase again). And this is great news when market cap is 12 or 16M. But now the project's valuation is 10 times more and we are competing with giants like Bitcoin, Ripple and Ethereum. So I think it's time to act in a more professional way regarding managing Steem's public image.
Perception matters. Public image matters.
Put yourself in the shoes of a potential investor - what can they conclude by looking at the official Steem website?
Who are the developers? No information. How many of them are there? What's their background? Who is doing what? No information.
Is there a roadmap? Yes, there is one, if you manage to find a tiny footnote at the bottom of the page. And what will you see? Actually, it looks quite funny. And it hasn't been updated since the launch back in April.
Any updates from the devs? No information. Look how much care other projects show - e.g. compare our case with the regular and detailed updates made by the MaidSafe team.
The introductory video? It's not state-of-the-art but it was OK for the very initial phase. But if we consider how much money is being distributed by Steem on a daily basis, for me, it looks quite strange that we cannot afford to have better a one at this stage. All that's needed is @ned announcing a competition (we have so many creative people here) and then choosing a winner and putting it on the website. It's not that hard, is it?
Are there any testimonials from reputable people? Yeah, exactly three of them and they are the same people we had back in April. We pay thousands of dollars to famous people who join Steem yet we can't be bothered to tell about it on the official website. That's pretty wasteful, isn't it?
Is there an explanation which makes the distinction between Steem and Steemit clear? More and more people confuse these two and use the name Steemit when they actually mean Steem. As a result, the outside world starts perceiving Steem as just a website managed by a private company.
Our concern for public image is almost completely non-existent.
Please understand my motivations correctly. I'm in love with Steem and I don't need any convincing. However, there are things that can be done by the community but also there are areas that require Steem business leaders and main shareholders to step up and take some initiative. Or at least encourage others to step up. Or at least watch out when valid concerns are raised and not dismiss them with everything-will-be-just-fine statements.
BitShares has always suffered from bad public image (to this day there is not a single screenshot of the product on the BitShares webpage) and I feel we start making the same mistake with Steem.
Put yourself in the shoes of people from outside this community and ask yourself this: would you invest in Steem after spending a few minutes of your precious time on the official website?
EDIT: I really don't want to distract the Steemit team from what they are currently doing. I think we can improve the website on our own. We just need to coordinate our efforts with @ned & @dan (maybe they already have plans in this area?) and only use their help to kick-start the process.
I was thinking of doing it this way:
- First, let's hear some kind of acknowledgement from the biggest shareholders that the steem.io website is not satisfactory, does not match the current status of Steem and a significant improvement is needed. We just need the whales to acknowledge the need for action, nothing else. Otherwise it's hard to start doing anything when you're not sure, if there is any real demand for it.
- Open up a competition to design and then maintain the website. This could also include redoing the introductory video. We already have all the resources needed: the funding & voting mechanism plus lots of creative people. We we just need someone like @ned or @dan or any other big shareholder to trigger this process (by announcing it) and then the process will take care of itself.
- Create a new Steem tag (e.g. "steem-website-competition") and set a date when all proposals should be revealed under this special tag. When the date arrives, we have a vote, choose a winner and let her/him take over the task of redoing and then maintaining the website. Runners-up might choose to build their websites anyway, but the winner will have the privilege of being the official Steem website.
It seems u are personally offended by my comment - if so i apologize - this was not my intent. You have many good points here .. pls take into your consideration that due the massive growth and success of the early beta most people at the dev team had to work in getting steemit.com tweaked and polished. So maybe the lack of updates are caused by the lack of man power currently!
Pity to see how serious u did take this comment - we have free speech here and your comment on this is (as @steempower mentioned before) a bit off. To go one bit further IMO u are insinuate i would stop voting for your after u are getting upset on my comment and expressing that. But hehe, i'm not taking it personal, as i'm able to see you have good interests and also good ideas to work with so i value the good points by far more then the bad ones ..
(Maybe u noticed i have also voted for this post - so …)
Let's start working together to get this achieved :)
As I already stated it in another comment, it was never about me being offended but about us being careful in this anonymous space.
I could say the same now: pity to see how serious u did take my comment about your comment. But OK, all is clear now, and let's start working together as you suggest.
And I really appreciate your upvote in this context. It's great to see people acting like that.
i will get in contact with @cass tomorrow ;)! IIRC he is in charge of steem.io or at least he was creating the first version with help of @dan and @ned
That's great.
I was thinking of doing it this way:
Big idea..!!! nice post & congrats @innuendo
I agree with some of your points (marketing, PR, team details on the website) but i think your interpretation of what was said by @summon is a bit off, my view of his comment is that he is just pointing out that the dev team we have is doing an amazing job.. he even agreed with you in the first statement and suggested that if the small team can produce such a big project imagine what a larger team could pull off.
In relation to the statement about human resources, it does lack context; but i tend to agree, it sounds so mechanical, like when you have a work force, you have human resources... A dev team in my mind is more relaxed more like a loosely coupled group of individuals/team-mates striving towards the same goal. Anyway just my thoughts.
Nice suggestions i think there is some real value in the feedback you have given. When i am assessing a project i like to find the right mix of professionalism, transparency and ability to translate the vision to me without having to trawling through the whitepaper; i like to see the team, the goals or 'edge', the road map and latest news or releases.
I had this thought as well. I am a software development manager, and I know a lot about what it takes to have a successful project. A team of 3-5 dedicated talented individuals can often do a way better job, and be 10 times more productive than a 20-30 person team.
I've been really impressed with the Steemit dev team so far in the amount of new features they have been churning out, and their dedication to making the site better. It is also worth noting how they are not breaking things in the process. Pretty much every new feature I've seen them launch, I've seen no negative side effects, and they are adding new things to the site quite often.
OK, I agree with that. This might be the case that a bigger team in not needed at this stage. But what we lack is proper communication is this respect. Investors don't know these nuisances so it has to be properly explained: "we deliberately have a small team and here is their background".
Otherwise they perceive projects like Ethereum as solid and prosperous, whereas Steem can fall into the category of some-brave-guys-working-in-a-garage type of company. Perception matters, even if it's groundless.
I know, I'm not a big fan of this expression either. But what struck me, was that it was clear what I meant and giving people lectures in this context is just arrogant. You never know who is behind a Steem name and such behavior might backfire badly. Public image is being built by all those small events.
EDIT: I can see that @summon has upvoted this post - I really appreciate this. It was never about me being offended but about us being careful in this anonymous space.
I agree that communication could be better, however it's important to note that the platform is still in beta.
Sure it's great that a beta project has gained amazing traction (testament to how huge the potential is) however I don't think the Steem Team should be detracted from getting the site to production level.
Personally I cannot stand crypto projects that have fantastic looking roadmaps yet nothing to show. Most turn out to be vapourware.
It's refreshing to have a project that just gets on with getting real shit done! Learning lessons along the way and producing a product that people actually want.
We are the opposite: we have a fantastic roadmap (I mean it, it's very strong) but we just don't care to announce it. We think it's so fantastic that it doesn't need any publicity. I suggest we stay more humble in our approach.
Are you an investor? Have you pitched to one?
My guess is no. I HAVE.
PR is great, but what investors look for in SV is mostly one thing: TRACTION TRACTION TRACTION.
Steam is doing traction just fine
It's seeing an explosion of traffic and maintaining this is the most important thing they can do. Any PR should be about bringing users. Normal users really don't need to know all the nuances to join, and can be educated later.
They are doing it right.
@summon is just responding with the truth. Small, extremely skilled teams are orders of magnitude faster than big teams. And I know from experience: I manage dev for a digital agency doing work in sports and entertainment. these are multi-million dollar deals and the team size is under 10.
The info you want is often private.
Other than traction, VCs look at team. The team at @steemit is very very experienced in the crypto realm. @dantheman comes from bitshares and was looking at blockchain tech in the early days of bitcoin. The rest have similar experience.
** Basically: There is nothing for them to manage. Steemit is working about as perfect as you could hope for an alpha/beta project.
They are learning as they go, and fixing things. But things are fine, don't worry.
Actually, I have.
And from my experience the most crucial concern in investors' minds (apart from the idea itself and its traction) were these aspects:
Most start-ups fail not because the idea is bad. They fail because the founders run out of determination to carry on or they start fighting with each other and lose focus on the long-term goal. So information about people behind a project is pretty important, not just TRACTION TRACTION TRACTION.
I talked about this. Team matters - especially at the seed stage. But they are past that, and have a proven product. Then the value of things is going to be about the success of the product.
Bravo. Please continue with this attitude and everything will be just fine.
I KNOW this and, as I said, I do not need convincing and cheering up. Chances are I know Dan longer than you and I know what he is capable of.
But my point is this: how a person coming from the outside of the crypto-world can know this? You expect them to dig deep into discussion threads?
Also, the ability to manage huge IT projects and ability to build and manage big teams might still be a challenge. His biggest project, BitShares, has never reached this stage so it's uncharted territory.
I think I like this reply better than your original post! The key phrase, for me, is:
"But my point is this: how a person coming from outside of the crypto-world can know this? You expect them to dig deep into discussion threads?"
This is where you really had me...
I admit, my post (and my thinking) evolved a bit and this might cause some confusion. Initially I was mostly upset about @summon's response but then I started to dig deeper into the root of the problem and now it seems @summon has little to do with it.
I'm a developer myself and this post makes me cringe.
Instagram was a billion dollar company with 13 employees (including founders) when it got purchased.
Small teams make big impacts.
This comment makes me sad.
It seems you entirely misunderstood my point.
I never advocated expanding the dev team, if up for Dan Larimer to decide this and I'm in no position to advise on such things. All I wanted to convey is this:
I understand you're a developer yourself but please understand that people who invest usually have substantially different mindset than yours. So what is satisfactory for you is not necessarily satisfactory for them.
If they waited until it was "investor ready" as you say then it still wouldn't be released. In the product world you need to build the minimum viable product and do small iterations on it so you don't build shit people dont need, like an investor landing page.
But I am just talking about having a proper website with all relevant information listed there so that investors can make up their mind without relying on third-party sources or having to dig out pieces of information from discussion threads.
If this is your definition of being "investor ready" then yes, we should definitely be "investor ready". Especially at this stage, having reached such a high market valuation.
Is it really such an impossible task for a $150M enterprise? Thousands of dollars a day being spent, hundreds of creative users and yet we cannot afford a proper website. It's a shame.
is that not exactly what http://steem.io is?
There are over 63000 members now, all of whom can have an impact and make an input. I think this shiny PR stuff is irrelevant. Maybe later. But the site's rapid development and fast iterations speak for itself.
The smart money will see that when it arrives
Most of which are passive one-off users or fake accounts.
Isn't us paying a celebrity joining Steem a PR stunt? We do it and that's fine. But we are not being consistent with our strategy and don't take full advantage of those events.
Don't you think it looks bad in potential investors' eyes when we easily throw 10k USD at anybody famous joining us while we can't be bothered to update the list of those people on the official website? Or can't be bothered to say anything about the developers? For me, it just looks like a wasteful management of our assets.
I love STEEM and Steemit as well, but the official website does look like the Counterparty site rendered in blue :D
I would think that large investors would first look at the Steem Dollar. 10% interest. That by itself could be the big idea that gets Steemit noticed.
STEEM is a deflationary coin currently because everyone sells it off continuously to get their payday. It's gone steadily down since it's launch bump and I would imagine most outside investors are waiting for it to settle into it's real price before buying. SBD currently holds a good steady price, but people may start selling that too.
I would expect that large investors think like this: first they find out what the main concept is, and how much traction it has received so far. But then, this big question arises: can this team really pull it off?
I have full confidence the dev team will pull this from a bland-ish beta form into a sparkling fancy version very soon. I read one post this morning about incentivizing investment, and placing ads as well. I believe it was @juansgalt who did a video
mentioning the long term prospects for the site, sans advertizing.
I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to hear @ned @dan & @summon views in this issue.
Take care and keep up the great work! I have high hopes for steemit.
You're mostly spot on with your remarks imo, but I suspect it's mostly down to the team being swamped with work at the moment. I know they're working on hiring more people and have already hired at least one developer, and I'm sure more will come soon.
Recruitment just doesn't happen overnight, these things take time.
I know they're busy and I don't want anything from them except this: to trigger a process which will enable the community to take over those tasks.
I don't expect @ned to hire someone to fix the website. I just want him to acknowledge the website requires a significant upgrade and let us do it.
Someone that doesn't already know what they're looking at will have no idea what they're looking at if they just stumble into Steemit in its present state. And most of the mainstream media articles I've read about Steemit are exclusively focused on the crypto world which many people just plain do not understand.
But the platform is innovative on so many levels that smart financial investors will see past these things to Steemit's rock solid bottom line and huge upside potential. And the much larger pool of people who want to invest time in developing this upside potential are currently free to do so in any way they choose with the understanding that the value they create will be rewarded.
From my perspective, the pathway along which Steemit is currently developing makes perfect sense for any investor that wants to grow this site's value long-term and reap the benefits of this every step of the way. This developmental pathway also naturally deters the sort of person that is looking to use an investment of time or money as a device to pry money out of this community, pocket it, and walk away. Which is part of why I like it.
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