Business Models Competition

Working Groups Business Models
#1

Thought of starting a forum post on Business Models Competition to track all discussions related to it going forward.

During the Working Group Session - 04/28/20 @shannon shared that there’s great interest in running a business model competition. Courtesy to @whoabuddy for writing up the meeting minutes.

The objective of the Business Models Competition:

How do we create value and wealth from PoX?

Outline of the Business Model Competition Idea:
Start off with a mini, bring in speakers and community members, people who can inspire what would make a great business plan.

Have group break out into different teams to lead into a competition, inspired by this first event that would lead into a hackathon.

Pros: Very defined, advantage for teams involved
Cons: how do we control what plans are received, where do we want to go after its wrapped up?

Tentative competition date: June 2020

Suggestions from the group:

  • It would be the first time this type of competition would happen in this space. @shannon

  • A culmination of alot of things that were discussed in the group, giving us a wider community space to work out these business ideas. It would be a good fit alongside what we are doing as a working group. @jrmith

  • Work with blockchain accelerators and/or foundations @cameronw.

  • Potentially a great opportunity to reachout to Business school students, provide them with more support on platform development, as there are alot of interests but do not know what to build @cameronw.

Some key questions that came out of the meeting and we need community input to get them answered.

  1. Does June sound like a good target for the competition?
  2. How long should the competition be?
  3. How should the competition be judged, and what are the prizes? (as competitors how would you want it structured and what resources can it offer you to do your best work)
  4. Should we find the best proposal and reward that, or do we want to see follow-up, such as seeing the contestant go on to build something in collaboration with Blockstack or the foundation?
1 Like
#2

1. Does June sound like a good target for the competition?
June’s a good date in my opinion

2. How long should the competition be?
Could start as a one-off competition(trial run) in collaboration with schools/accelerators/foundations. over 2 -3 days.

Then expand it to a competition series in Q3 or Q4 of 2020. With the competition going to different campuses, foundations, accelerators across the US and rest of the world.

3. How should the competition be judged, and what are the prizes? (as competitors how would you want it structured and what resources can it offer you to do your best work)

In the form of a business proposal / pitch deck which includes some of the following points:

  1. The problem they are trying to solve.
  2. Proposed solution.
  3. How is the solution 10x better than the current situation?
  4. Is it sustainable? Generating value ?
  5. Proposed: Business model / Revenue model
  6. Unit Economics
  7. Why the chosen business model / revenue model? Is it complementary to PoX?
  8. What are some of the risks involved in the business / revenue model?

Criteria:

  1. Business Viability
  2. Originality
  3. Executable? How easy to execute on the business plan
  4. Defensible? Is the business model defensible as it scale? (potential network effects?)

4. Should we find the best proposal and reward that, or do we want to see the follow-up, such as seeing the contestant go on to build something in collaboration with Blockstack or the foundation?

Some form of recognition to the best proposals, while at the same time leveraging on the competition to inspire participants to go ahead and execute on their business proposal(regardless if they were chosen as the best proposal). Making platform development resources available to participants and the possibility of Blockstack / the foundation to collaborate or fund some of these ideas if key metrics were met(launching an MVP, acquired first 10 users, etc).

1 Like
#3

Some Ideas

Inspiring introduction of all the problems Blockstack solves (servers, privacy, security, portability, etc)

Educational breakout sessions where people learn the basics of a robust business model, how Blockstack & PoX works, how to become a Stacker, etc.

Interactive design thinking workshop about how crypto and user-staking can change business models for different types of businesses (consumer-facing, enterprise, nonprofit, etc) or by industry (Finance, agriculture, telecom, retail, etc)

Ensure structured model for people to pitch their ideas and build a team

Collaborate with any virtual event going on at that time (ie: Korea Blockchain Week on June 14)

Since this is virtual, people might not feel accountable to stick with their teams. I recommend some sort of staking systems to ensure low attrition

Get people to create Blockstack ID and review current Blockstack Apps

Run a marketing campaign targeted to college students about our how data is mismanaged and used to manipulate truth

Ship swag and send an event-specific NFT to people that submit projects

Hands-on mentorship with industry leaders, business professors, etc. Getting business professors involved is ideal because they will share it with their students.

Interactive breakout sessions with renowned investors and thought-leaders around crypto business models they’re interested in

Enable participants to create their own breakout sessions

Create Telegram channel and get community members to ask probing questions

Prizes are important. People tend to like stuff they can tangibally use (Ie: PS5/video game console, tokens, Casa Node, hardware wallets, high quality webcam & mic, etc)

During registration, we should include a SUPER short survey to test the current assumptions Blockstack is making (ie: People are willing to pay money, even if it’s a marginal amount, for privacy and security).

This might be excessive but it would be cool for the Blockstack community leaders in different time zones to run their own version of this event tailored for their communities (specifically for non-english speaking countries)

Marketing Channels

  • The BAF Network (University blockchain clubs and our community partners)
  • University business schools --> focus on MBA students
  • University entrepreneurship, computer science, and engineering clubs + fraternities (undergraduate)
  • IEEE Blockchain Groups
  • Active meetup groups in targeted time zones
  • Media partners & other conference organizers

Introduction to Design Thinking Workshops: https://medium.com/@ericmorrow/six-magic-bullets-of-design-thinking-5911a8e1d6bc

1 Like
#4

Thanks for these ideas, @Cameron!

Educational breakout sessions where people learn the basics of a robust business model, how Blockstack & PoX works, how to become a Stacker, etc.

Interactive design thinking workshop about how crypto and user-staking can change business models for different types of businesses (consumer-facing, enterprise, nonprofit, etc) or by industry (Finance, agriculture, telecom, retail, etc)

These ideas, in particular, really resonated with me. I’ve created an issue proposing that we host at least one educational session in which we bring together business school students and Business Model working group members to help each other better understand the problems we could be solving with Blockstack: https://github.com/blockstackers/biz-model_pm/issues/3

1 Like