| >The email shows two big misunderstandings in how SwiftDemand works. Well, since an HN comment isn't under the pressure of a 10-minute speed date and you can take control of your own narrative right here in this forum... Can you gather your thoughts and explain in 1 or 2 concise sentences how SwiftDemand works? Your concise sentences should basically answer: + What's the revenue model? Is it memberships/subscriptions or ad revenue? Why would the buyers (consumers or businesses) pay money into the SwiftDemand ecosystem? + how SwiftDemands YC's $150k seed investment at 7% equity turns into ~$50 million. (Those example numbers assume YC's 7% being diluted twice down to ~4% with subsequent investments, and a ~$1+ billion dollar exit valuation.) Your webpage mentioning "everyone gets 100 Swifts a day" and "3% fee" doesn't really explain the commercial _value_ of the UBI blockchain. This would also explain the motivation of _why_ people would pay non-Swifts currency like $USD to convert it into Swifts UBI blockchain. Your other comment summarizing it to "to become a global currency that focuses on social economic good in the form of UBI" doesn't really connect the dots of how YC gets a ~$50 million return on their investment. |
A little more info on the revenue model:
There are 2 main streams of revenue, the first comes from transactions on the platform in which SwiftDemand receives a fee similar similar to that of Amazon. The second is that SwiftDemand receives Swifts for each identity that it manages (payed by the protocol itself). If we continue our growth we think it's more than possible to get 100 million users on the platform receiving $1-$10 per day generating around $0.10 to $1 a day in revenue per user that would put yearly revenue in the 10's of billions.
More details and justifications:
The first thing that needs to be understood is that there are essentially two separate pieces. There is the underlying Swift Protocol and then SwiftDemand itself. The Protocol is essentially a decentralized government with 3 components, Swift Citizens (regular people), Delegated Nodes (elected officials that have voting power and can forge new blocks), and Identity Providers (companies that can approve Swift Citizens and are responsible for preventing people from creating fake accounts). SwiftDemand is an Identity Provider that sits on top of the Swift Protocol.
SwiftDemand is incentivized to bring more people onto the platform since Identity Providers receive Swifts for each Swift Citizen that they actively manage. Identity Providers are also kept in check by the Delegated Nodes as they have the ability to remove Identity Providers that act poorly. If an Identity Provider did not have the motivation of profit, people would be less likely to create competing providers fostering less competition which would lead to a weaker ecosystem. We believe having a capitalistic system that is kept in check by the decentralized government is the optimal strategy to make the Swift Protocol successful.
To the numbers. We already have nearly 500,000 registered users with Swifts currently being value at somewhere around $0.001 to $0.005 based on transactions in the marketplace. User growth should remain relatively easy as our pitch to consumers is simply "sign up and receive free money" and we have achieved our entire userbase without any paid marketing. The trickier part is growing the economy part to the point where the value of Swifts can increase to $0.01 to $0.1 per Swift. We already have over 5,000 submitted products on the marketplace (mostly people that believe in SwiftDemand selling personal services), however our intention is to partner with bigger companies that can utilize our userbase essentially to give out promotional offers and consequently transition that into a larger economy over time. Based on our early adoption these numbers aren't unreasonable and should be more than achievable making SwiftDemand a strong investment opportunity.
To answer your other question:
- Why would people pay non-Swifts to buy Swifts?
Unlike most other currencies we're not really focused on getting people to trade between Swifts and non-Swifts. Our goal is to create a new currency with a fair distribution model. Our vision is to have people collect their Swifts, use their Swifts to buy goods and services that interest them, allow people to sell goods and services to receive more Swifts, and essentially create an entire economy without any need to convert their Swifts to non-Swifts or vice versa.
Other:
I'm curious if you have any suggestions on a better way to pitch the business opportunity to investors (YC and other). The consumer pitch is relatively straightforward as the value proposition is clear, but I do think I struggle on the investor side.