This post has been brewing for a while, but it was catalyzed today by four posts: @abh12345's shitpost about delegations to bidbots, @tarazkp's response (and @threrealwolf's comment there), @steemitblog's post about app development resources, and @timcliff's idea to have a social media blast day.
A lot of the discussion around putting money into Steem focuses on "investors," but mostly they aren't really investors as I understand the term, they're at best speculators or lenders. People who show up, delegate to a service for a return, and in one way or another sell off their stake rewards aren't investing. People who buy Steem hoping that it will increase in value aren't investing.
An investor is someone who puts capital into a project in hopes that it will create value.
If you buy into a company, you're not just thinking "I hope the stock price will go up," you're putting that money in with the idea that the company is going to use it to create something, and that something will have value, which is reflected in the value of your share of ownership increasing, or your dividends. In that sense almost all of the investment on Steem is being done by @misterdelegation, which lends large amounts of money to startup companies, although as far as I can tell the return is completely opaque to the public. I'm very interested in information on how that works, if anyone has some.
There's more money in that than there is in bidbots.
I hope Asher didn't stop reading when I called him a shitposter, cause I think this is a key point for him. There's risk in putting money into ownership of a company rather than just lending it out, but the reward is also much, much higher. If we can create a significant equity market for building businesses on Steem, that should both attract new investors and encourage the existing ones to move their capital to somewhere that's more productive for Steem as a whole than the huge percentage that's going to vote-selling right now.
The vote-selling services themselves are some of the most successful businesses in Steem's history, and yet as far as I know only @minnowbooster has ownership available to investors. Part of this is that corporate ownership is complicated, especially for people who are focused on software development like most blockchain entrepreneurs. Part of it is that people have seen more potential profit from bootstrapping than relying on startup capital.
I think we can change that, and that's why I unexpectedly started a new project today: @forinvestors. That account aims to be an informational and social resource for entrepreneurship, both founders and investors, and help us move from a bootstrapping economy to one with structured equity investment, with all of its potential advantages.
SMTs are going to be a big deal for this, as one available class of SMTs will be ownership tokens, essentially stock certificates on the cryptographic open ledger. @buildteam is already planning one, as I understand it, and with those available it will become much easier to develop robust corporate ownership structures on Steem.
I'll be writing more about this on that account in the future.
I am a professional investor. My job is maximize return on their people's money. Philosophy of "creating value" is of second consideration at best.
Return. Risk. Liquidity.
I read most of your content, and concede todays post lacked depth i.e. Shitpost definition by many.
My focus, as detailed brilliantly buy @tarazkp, is less about the investors, and more about the content creators who don't come here to invest at all.
The folks that produce content daily, wish for engagement on their (sometimes quite excellently arranged posts), yet are sold out to x y z meaning they can give their curators/commentatators dust. You want to be an investor and a content creator with engagement on your posts? Best be leaving some of your influence knocking around for your visitors, or it will be tumbleweed in your comments.
I've spoken about it more on tarazkps post with ats.david.
I keep looking for better ways to make the point that as much as delegation sometimes looks like it's earning money, really it's giving it up, and that outgoing votes are a much better use of resources. Which seems like it's at least somewhere on the same track you're on here.
I disagree with your definition of an investor, but I understand your point.
I'm looking forward to everything coming out of @forinvestors!
I really look forward to seeing what you post under that new handle. I believe so strongly in STEEM's future and also care about helping the people around me find things that will greatly benefit them. So I talk up STEEM a lot at it is, both to content creators and people who invest capital in search of returns (what I would call investors). Having more ways of making either case would be great. Thanks for providing this resource to the community.
edit: Also, having been a business consultant for a decade and having many entrepreneur friends, it also will be an additional way I can connect with people around STEEM to talk about the businesses that might be built on it. Again, this is not the direction I've gone in the past, but I like it.
It's interesting to read this from an investor perspective. As an news content creator trying to bring news to a new readership I agree with @abh12345 that there is very little value in dust votes, growth is very slow. Our investor value is created by the traffic generated by steem platforms carrying our news articles as well as brand awareness. Plus it's an interesting experience being a part of the steem echosystem.
BTW what the heck happened to the VP 100% vote $ value lately?
Sorry, I "TL;DR'ed" most of this, since you referenced 4 other articles in the first paragraph. I did however think I skimmed reasonable well, and picked out this major highlight:
If STEEM is only hanging their hats on SMT's for businesses gaining access to our blockchain, they better Hurry It UP and roll it out, already. I mean a finished product, not a half-a$$ facsimile.
Personally, I'd like to see ad income infused into the Blockchain, by making the companies purchase STEEM to get their ads onto our feeds and other visible areas. I know this is anathema to some, but this FAKEBOOK-FIGHTER Image that some perpetuate will just fade unless something is done to actually monetize the blockchain in a MAJOR WAY.
THIS looks promising...
WHO will be issuing these "blockchain ownership SMT's"? ST.INC would be the only one, unless a spin-off corporation is made. I was a big time (dolphin-sized) early adopter of the as yet unissued SH tokens, and as long as I am getting my weekly 1000+ tokens added up I will likely stay in that initiative, or until something better comes along. MIght even sell the ERC20 tokens if they have a substantial value, and buy back STEEM if it stays so low. I am "all-in" on Steem, and would WELCOME a chance to have these "ownership SMT's"
I am Staying Tuned, @tcpolymath :D
Great Article, I will read in more detail and wait for more, following this and the new account...
I'd suggest pitching this idea to the other front ends. It's clear that Steem Inc. doesn't really see Steemit as an important product in any way. It's really just here for minimal viability as they look for other people to develop front ends. There's no reason Busy or Steempeak or Ulogs or someone couldn't do that with advertising if they wanted to.
They aren't blockchain ownership SMTs, they'd be individual company ownership SMTs, which are based on Steem in sort of the same way that equity stocks are based on their primary currency. Anyone will be able to issue an SMT. Definitely look into what @buildteam are doing if you're interested in that.
Awesome Info, sometimes I forget the differences between Steem, and Steemit & other UI's...
Buildteam you say? CHECK.
and your new account is @forinvestors ! Just ordering this in my mind, Thank You!
By this time next year I will be looking to dispose of a good bit of "disposable income" per month. Definitely not Institutional Investment Level income, but it could make my retirement rather luxurious as opposed to simply comfortable ;-)
Let’s talk about investing.
Let’s talk about investing.
Re-#3: I will be happy already to know how much actually came in and didn’t again leave. Even if crypto-angels. @abh12345 ?
Addendum: I would invest in Steemit Inc. I think they have correctly identified the wrongs in the otherwise beautifully designed alternative economy
It is good “one” isn’t here anymore and now we have a long approach to things.
Yes, last year has damaged potential and a lot of work is required to get momentum again but... great times ahead.
As someone who has spent much of his career in content I can't agree with 1 and 7, although if you wanted to change that to "there's not nearly enough money in it to make Steem operate at this level with this number of users" that would be more accurate. Steem is doing weird and interesting new things with content monetization and I don't pretend to know where that will go, though.
Show me who's trying to raise any. @sndbox maybe does, I'm not totally clear on their model. @originalworks kinda sorta in a sideways fashion? People here seem to think money is just going to show up. Why would new money come into a place where nobody knows how to write a pitch? We need to fix that part first.
Which is pretty much the point of the post. (I would change it to "teams with plans" though.)
If you’ve spent swathes of your career in content and disagree with 1 and 7, then you forget that most likely all content you’ve capitalized on was transactional. Even if ads.
Steem currently doesn’t have that “transaction”.
Preaching to the choir. I think I had made it obviously clear with those 7 points that we are on the same wavelength. Unless of course your “transactional factor” is social “guru” capital in which it is important here that you maintain the lead. Which, again, is transactional.
Profile building is transactional. But... only few can capitalize on that social capital.
I do like that you raise ‘not nearly enough’ but that’s not an issue right now. Right now there’s more than enough in the rewards pool. Especially for the content created at this point. But there’s not enough to welcome the whole “blogging industry”. There’s not enough to replace pay all writing gigs advertised on craigslist. And most definitely not to pay the rates some above average freelance writers earn online and want to continue earning in the race to the bottom economy that is the globalized internet.
The next two years will be interesting. Not merely interesting but also an eye opener, reality check, and definitely absolute disappointment to many now on Steem when they realize what’s going to happen and it excludes their own “blogging utopia”.
Sndbox is a circle jerk. It’s guaranteed upvote buying.
Steemhunt may jump a surprise (of the apps currently active). Maybe also Tasteem. I have reservations about both though, not because of anything app or team related but because of... “on Steem”.
Addendum: plans are “irrelevant”. Drive, insight, and ability to #flearn matters. Yes, plans matter but more often than not plans are built on assumptions. I’m lean, I need validation. Plans don’t do that so I need brains, open-minded brains with acceptance that most assumptions will not be validated and the roadmap will more often than not include at least 2, maybe even a third pivot.
Spot on. You put it in better words than I was thinking about. And I giggle a little bit every time I see "investor" in quotes, and I was always hoping more people would be making this distinction.
I suppose the only objection to the term is that one might consider dividend chasing purchasers of stock to be investors as well, but in terms of starting out, it seems the most significant growth appears to be from ownership structure.
did you see his thinking on delegations ? to stop those and upvote higher?
Huh?
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yayyyyyayayay the huh club is backkkkkkk!!
polymaths thinking is not to dele and to give higher upvotes as its losing money.
ps you made me snort :p
This is what I've been saying. Steem needs fiat injected into it. For that to happen, there need to be compelling reasons to do that. Those reasons involve real-world value creation.
Meanwhile steem doesn't have even a A-class fiat to steem exchange.
That would be important for liquidity and probably help fuel speculation, too. Steem needs more apps with real world use cases the users of which want to pay fiat to get STEEM to pay for services provided by the apps. On DLive, there is a gifting functionality that looks good. That's exactly what is needed. The (hopefully) onboarding masses will have very little value in their SP. If they want to reward their favourite content producers in any meaningful way, they will have to do it by gifting, which is exactly what this platform needs because in order to gift someone with STEEM you need to buy STEEM in the first place.
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Love this post
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There are some interesting things on the way that are going to fundamentally shift the dynamics. I was just talking about some investment aspects with @fknmayhem in chat. As normal, the majority focus on the wrong things, myself included often enough.
Early Nightingale said some 60 years ago that if you lack a proper role model for what you want to do, instead look to the majority and do the opposite.
And then tell the majority:
Well shit man, what am I supposed to do with all the money then?
LOL. It’s a side effect.
Remember that Steve Jobs once said that he didn’t want to become the richest man on the cemetery. Yet, he became exactly that guy while trying to make the world a better place. It just wasn’t his focus to be rich.
LOL!
It is really important to motivate creativity on platform in order to solve problem. Thank you @tcpolymath for sharing this post.
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As a follower of @followforupvotes this post has been randomly selected and upvoted! Enjoy your upvote and have a great day!
You got a 47.61% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @tcpolymath!
I can say that i really the real post have been looking for this while, yes i keep wondering what will come out of it apart from the vote but you really inspired me to follow the link @forinvestors. the pin point to me is " I think we can change that, and that's why I unexpectedly started a new project today: @forinvestors. That account aims to be an informational and social resource for entrepreneurship, both founders and investors, and help us move from a bootstrapping economy to one with structured equity investment, with all of its potential advantages." yes even do it my first time stumbling on your post, it make me fulfill to some extend.
Thank for that and i will love to more enlighten day by day on stuff like this.