Evan raised some serious questions which haven't been answered and were in fact almost dismissed.
Evan. you need to take control, before your community destroys what you are building.
Companies need leaders not chaos, it's a romantic thought decentralised. It's not ready for that, yet.
Please don't ruin an incredible project by forgetting the goal and falling victim to peer pressure.
As an example, facebook became a household name because friendships were lost, Mr Zuckerberg did what he did because he had to for the good of his project.
This proposal is a mistake. Please consider the following.
There is zero information about how the funds are going to be allocated.
No directive for what will be achieved.
No Achievable's with mile stones.
No Accountability.
It is laughable that a proposal like this would get consideration.
DASH is its own entity. If you want to create a business off the back of DASH do it with your own funding and your own steam.
Don't lose sight of what DASH is trying to achieve. It is not ready for the type of adoption you are asking funding for. Further more it's not the kind of growth you want.
It should not be the focus of DASH to figure out how to make it mainstream. it should be the focus of DASH to design a product that others want to make mainstream..
Focus on the fundamental design of the product. Core funds should go to development, proposals need to go towards marketing and PR and development.
The vending machine was a gimmick. nothing more nothing less. Lammasu ATMS are a gimmick, nothing more nothing less.
Facebook didn't create computers so that people could use facebook.
People bought computers to use facebook.
The community is strong but please don't be ignorant enough to believe you know better than hundreds of years of business design and practice.
Evan. Please take control.
Even I know soda machine sounds like a good way for promoting DASH and it is good for demonstrations and conferences but not yet for large scale usage, so I agree with you emitkirby.
I dont want anybody to find him/herself offended by this. Soda machine was great and attractive way of getting attention and I am happy you made it on time guys!

I can say this as my team are in process of developing few projects where it will show also power of DASH and privaTX and instanTX and we are not asking for any budget. Actually we are creating business model in a way where our projects should share profit streams with dev team!
We are trying to create new solutions for faster development of DASH ecosystem, and I think budget should only be focused to the development of
DASHe (evolution).
I want to point few major issues why we are still not in production:
1. there is not a way to sendmanyIX
2. there is not a way to mix coins trough dash-cli
3. there should be a better way to get notification if transaction came trough IX or normal.
I know devs are busy but I think these issues could be fast resolved.
Long Live DASH!
I'm thinking you need to be apart of the proposed 'team'
If you're working on 'DASH stuff(s)' that correlates to what they are doing - get together and compare notes
Moocowmoo is a TREMENDOUS asset in any coding project - not to discount the other guys - just picking on 1 person here....
but
I do, whole-heartedly' believe that, what they are trying to do IS for the benefit of the DASH ecosystem
- - they just didn't really go about it in a very thought out way. Looks WAY rushed....
and
Now people have to hope that their proposed project isn't going to be as unorganized and under-informed as the proposal it's self
There is plenty reason for concern - I agree
BUT
as I said -
I'm thinking you need to be apart of the proposed 'team'
If you're working on 'DASH stuff(s)' that correlates to what they are doing - get together and compare notes....
I'm sure each of you could hold an answer to a question that is currently unresolved by another....
[steps-off soap box]