Hi there,
I recently came across BitCoin via a business idea I've been considering. I'd like to share this idea with you now, and would appreciate the feedback/criticism of the BitCoin community. Thanks!
I have been working on an idea somewhat similar to the
GLBSE, though it had nothing to do with BitCoin. I actually had never
even heard of BitCoin until a few days ago.
It truly was rather serendipitous, as is the path that even led be to
BitCoin.
The idea that I've been thinking about, and on the verge of beginning
to implement, is a crowd sourced business. When I say this, I am
referring to a business model that is completely crowd sourced. All
decisions, management, and production are all done by the crowd. This
business is intended to be a "real" business, not a BitCoin one. I
would like to offer BitCoin as a form of payment though. This
business is to operate partially as a co-operative. It is to
implement an open/transparent business model with a voting democracy
for it's decision making processes. It's whole organization is to be
determined by the crowd - even the naming of it. Primarily, the
business would be developing it's own framework - framework being the
voting system. After this framework has been completed, the business
would then implement new projects/startups which utilize this same
framework. All members of the business are able to submit project
ideas. The aim of the projects is to earn a profit, but the profit is
distributed across the contributing members. It's members would
consist of individuals with strengths in Internet Marketing/Social
Media, Business, Creative, and IT/development.
In my business model, the percentage of income would be dependent on the
number of hours contributed. For example, in September, you as a
programmer contributed 10 hours of work. Me as a graphic designer
contributed 5 hours of work. John as a social media expert
contributed 5 hours of work. Total, then, for September would be 20
hours and would be broken down as: You - 50%, Me - 25%, John - 25%.
Perhaps this one particular startup that we are all cooperatively
working on, has earned $5K profit in September. All profit are paid
to the contributing members based on their hours contributed. In this
example, you earned $2,500, and John and I both earned $1,250 (payment in cash or BTC.)
Of course, if in October we did not earn a profit at all, then no one
gets paid. There are a lot of other details I could explain
surrounding this, but I'm unsure if you'll have the time or interest
to read. In the end though, it's not even my decision how this works
out - it's up to the crowd.
I'd like you to consider something. Consider
this particular start-up that I am am proposing. What would I need to
do in order to help it come to fruition? Perhaps, it may look
something like this;
- Create a Business Plan
- Develop a website
- Develop a marketing plan
- The website needs registration capabilities
- The website needs voting capabilities
We'll call that list our Product Backlog. It can change, items can be
removed, added, etc. They are vague, and short. Perhaps you're
familiar with "User Stories"? These are all User Stories. These are
voted up and down in order of priority. Your votes (by the way) are
relevant to the hours you have contributed to the project. Each week
(or every other week), the top voted "Product Backlog item" is
selected. Let's say "Develop a website" is the top voted item. We
then take this item, and break it in to numerous modules:
Develop a website
--- User Interface
--- Logo
--- Wiki
--- Forum
--- Registration Capabilities
--- Content
--- etc..
All of the modules are then "jobs" available to anyone. I'm not 100%
sure as of yet, how it would be determined 'who' to give the job to.
For example "Add a Wiki" could be a job, and perhaps there are 10
'applicants' volunteering to complete this job. They all submit how
many hours they wish to complete this. Only one person will end up
being responsible for this task. He says he will require 2 hours to
do this. At the end of this stage, our modules for the "Develop a
website" task looks like this:
Develop a website (23 hours)
--- User Interface (5 hours)
--- Logo (3 hours)
--- Wiki (2 hours)
--- Forum (3 hours)
--- Registration Capabilities (5 hours)
--- Content (5 hours)
--- etc..
Essentially, this is how the process works. All of these tasks &
modules are all for this startup Project. After working 'n' number of
hours, anyone can post projects, and the process repeats itself.
Perhaps you have an idea for a startup to design your own running shoe
on-line. You post the project, it awaits for votes to get 'accepted',
and the process begins again.
This is just a very high level overview of my concept. Again, it's
tough to even describe, because I'm not the 'decider' of it all -
everyone is.
Feedback and criticism is appreciated.
Thanks