ICO Review — FundYourselfNow
Overview
Summary
Symbol FYN
Crowdsale opening date 13 Jun 2017
Crowdsale closing date 31 Jul 2017
Country of origin SG
Platform for ICO Etereum
Analysis
My View
I went through their whitepaper and liked the idea and the way all the points related to their platform and investor benefits have been addressed, and being the first cryptocurrency crowdfunding platform in South-east Asia. What makes their value proposition unique is that they are not only trying to solve the governance issues that mires today’s ICOs but also are making ICO Projects & Startups accountable for the promises that they make during their ICO by introducing milestone based payouts or refunds governed by smart contracts where the investors have an option to vote if the project should be denied the payout. This brings the true power of smart contracts in governing a crowdfunding and future ICOs should in the same way should be conducted as envisioned via FundYourselfNow.
Who Should You Invest
Given FYN is the underpinning token for the FundYourselfNow platform and also tradable via other exchanges, it is a valuable asset in long term and also a profitable tradable asset in short term. Hence both speculative buyers and also people looking for a good project to invest and planning to invest in future ICOs should invest in FYN.
Problem
Growth in the crowdfunding space has been explosive over the last few years and is projected to continue growing at 26% a year till 2020.And with the advent of crypto currencies in the last few years, there has also been many virtual currency crowdfunding projects (also known as Initial Coin Offering (ICO)).But currently, ICO projects are manually created and there is lack of control once crowdfunded money is disbursed
In traditional crowdfunding, the backers have very little control over the project as the money is disbursed to the project creators at the end of the crowdfunding effort. When a project fails, most of the backers do not get anything back at all.
Solution
With an innovative smart contract based crowdfunding platform, FundYourselfNow will be soon available to the global entrepreneurial community in the cryptocurrency sector. Designed to connect brilliant ideas with potential cryptocurrency investors, the platform will allow project creators to raise funds in Ethereum and Bitcoin (in future).With the recent mainstream acceptance of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, they want to build an ecosystem that offers entrepreneurs an alternative funding raising platform for their product, with minimal technical and marketing knowledge.
Value Proposition
FYN tokens holders will be able to invest in projects listed on our FYN platform, at preferential rates. 70% of the profits made from FYN platform will be distributed to investors, via a token buyback program. A gradual reduction in token supply will eventually increase on the token value, benefiting all token holders.
In addition, the top 100 token holders will be part of the FYN VIP exclusive club. VIP club members have exclusive access to buy into upcoming promising projects featured on the FYN platform (normally at a discount), during their pre-sales period. If the pre-sale quota is not filled up, they will open it to all FYN token holders.
Platform
Introduction
FundYourselfNow, an innovative cryptocurrency and smart contract based crowdfunding platform that connects innovative ideas with investors is designed to connect brilliant ideas with potential cryptocurrency investors, the platform will allow project creators to raise funds in Ethereum and Bitcoin (in future). They have the following key features/components in their platform.
Project Matching
The system has a friendly and easy to use interface, for project creators to post information on their projects and for Potential backers to browse through projects and filter them by the location and project type. The platform will be curating projects and perform identity verification where necessary.
Request Project Help
For projects in the initial stage (pre-funding), project creators can list their project ideas and seek help from the community.
The platform will allow project creators to seek project help community of professionals with specialized skillsets in the form of marketing support, expert advice, or even getting the community to rate and provide feedback on the idea.
Helpers will be rewarded with Bounty Credits, which can be exchanged Project Tokens that are created during the project crowdfunding phase and will be tradable through their internal crypto currency exchange to eventually convert their tokens to virtual currency or actual cash.
Smart Contracts, Milestone Payments and Voting
Their platform will utilize smart contracts to hold the virtual currency collected and perform the disbursement of the collected money and project tokens automatically , without any coding knowledge required. Optional delivery milestones can be added to the contract, and backers will have power to delay or prevent disbursement of the money if targets are not met.
Project creators create projects where besides backing physical goods and services, project creators can raise funds for ideas and startups and offer unique rewards for people backing their project.
A project can be created with a scheduled list of deliverables, where backers will hold the project creators accountable to their schedule and timeline. When a project is funded, voting tokens are created in proportion to the amount backed by each supporter, who can then approve or reject the next tranche of funding to the project creators.
FYN Tokens
FYN tokens will be a utility token that can be used on the FYN platform. The initial currency for the smart contract they are supporting will be Ethereum and the FundYourselfNow Token (FYN an Ethereum ERC20 Token).
Projects will be expected to accept up to 20% of the funding amount in FYN tokens, and there is no upper limit on how much they can accept in FYN tokens. Backers will get additional project tokens if they contribute using FYN tokens as an incentive to drive FYN token usage.
Support for Bitcoin will be implemented via rootstock technology in the future (rsk.co), which is currently under development.
Key Highlights
- FYN Token holders can use FYN tokens to fund projects and receive bonus project tokens
- Help increase in demand for FYN tokens
- Sustained growth in value of FYN tokens due to limited open market supply
Internal Marketplace
The marketplace will have 2 main purposes:
Token Trading
The platform will allow users to trade Item Tokens/Rewards that have been created during the funding process. Users can post up their trade request and other users will be able trade for it via Bitcoin/Ethereum, cash or other tokens. Besides the internal marketplace, Project Tokens can be listed and traded on external marketplaces, such as https://liqui.io, bittrex.com
Hedging
In the later stages of development, we are looking at building a marketplace that allow projects to hedge against ETH currency fluctuations via conversion to stablecoins, such as Dai, DGX or Santador fiat tokens. This will ensure that projects with milestone payments are not subjected to major currency fluctuations which will impact the project cashflow.
Web Wallet, Crypto-currency Conversion and Cash Support
They will develop an open wallet which will facilitate voting and other token management functionalities. This would provide a gentle onboarding for fresh crypto-currency users, who can take over full control anytime by exporting the wallet to their own node or hardware wallet.
The platform only accepts Ethereum investment and later Bitcoin (via rootstock) in the projects, they will work with existing crypto-currency and Bitcoin exchanges, e.g. Shapeshift and Coin base allowing users to convert the money easily to cash or other cryptocurrency.
Social Ratings & Review
The platform will come with advanced social features like comments and discussion with the project community. Project token holders will be able to rate the project owners and leave their reviews for the project creator.
Pinnacle Digital
FundYourselfNow is being developed by Singapore-based Pinnacle Digital Pte Ltd (Founded in 2014).Pinnacle Digital’s team has deep expertise in software development. They have so far designed multiple web applications for clients from across the world.
Pinnacle Digital is one of the leading technology services firms in Singapore and part of Pinnacle One Consultancy. The company caters to a long list of corporate, providing them web application services. Pinnacle Digital has recently acquired Caxton Worldwide Success Limited, a British Virgin Islands company. FundYourselfNow will soon start operating under the newly acquired company, led by the same old Pinnacle Digital team to earn a recognition of its own in the market.
ICO Crowdsale
Note — Discount period for the tokens ended 4th July
Current Exchange Rate: 1 ETH = 100 FYN Tokens
Crowdsale starts on 13th June, 2017 and will end in 31 Jul 2017 they have a minimum funding amount of 1.5 million USD (Already achieved), calculated using ETH price as of end of crowdsale period and Capped at 7.5 m tokens(which is around 65k eth). This will ensure that they are properly funded to bring our product to completion and execute a proper user acquisition campaign.
If we do not hit their minimum funding target, money invested will be refunded to all contributors. Tokens that are unsold will be transferred to a reserve fund which will only be released when we perform a second crowdsale to raise additional capital down the line to grow the company.
Spending Overview for Fund Raised
Funds raised from FYN crowdsale is planned to go into the following 3 main categories:
- Research & Development (25%)
- Marketing and Business Development (50%)
- Operations & Legal (25%)
Development and Campaign Milestones
1.5M USD
• Launch of FundYourselfNow Platform (FYN) MVP
• Marketing and Branding Campaign to attract backers
• FYN backers are able to use the platform at an attractive discounted rate
3M USD
• Internal Marketplace for Token Trading & Hedging
• Social Review and Rating feature for backers and creators
• Increase spending on marketing campaigns to get more backers and creators
5M USD
• Engage Elite PR and Marketing Firm to spread the word globally and promote the FYN
• Set up Research Center to promote the DAO and blockchain technolog y
>5M USD
• Expert Legal Team to provide legal support to startups who use FYN
• Co-Investment into curated FYN projects to support our ecosystem and provide
investment revenue for FYN platform that will be shared with ICO investors.
Roadmap
Completed
Nov 2016 — Alpha Prototype Development
June 2016 — Idea Creation
In Progress
June-July 2017 — ICO (In Progress)
Feb 2017 — Website Launch (Demo live at http://demo.fundyourselfnow.com/)
Planned
Soft Launch of FYN
They plan to do a soft launch for FYN in Q4 2017.
Q1 2018
Launch FYN platform and Launch Global FYN marketing campaign and user acquisition promotion to reach out to as many potential customers as possible.
Partner with leading legal firms to allow us to provide basic legal advice for project creators using FYN. Develop legal agreements templates that project creators can use. [Applies if we raise more than 5m]
Q2 2018
Complete Development for Bitcoin Smart Contracts using Rootstock (RSK)
Q3 2018
Complete Mobile App for FYN
Challenges
At a commercially-scalable level, the smart contract and crypto technologies are still not there. Market readiness-wise, it depends on whether there are enough companies and investors to scale the platform using the said technology. It comes down to whether Singapore or South-east Asia is an early-adopter market. But cryptocurrency crowdfunding is a viable funding model, given that legislation and technologies are now being developed that rapidly allow for the mass adoption of digital currencies.
There are already startups/funds like cofound.it, Starta vying to be the next platform/fund to support the ICO crowdfunding platform. It remains to be seen how FundYourselfNow would fair in an increasingly competitive ICO crowdfunding market.
Team
Jack Ser — CEO
Kenneth Tan — CTO
Carlos Salas — Legal advisor and Director
Zheng Junyi — Core Ethereum Dev
Charlene Bautisa — UX designer
Jack Ser is an astute investor with a wealth of experience in the Real Estate, Hospitality, Education and Fintech sectors.Jack’s expertise has also been nationally recognised by the Singapore Business Advisor & Consultant Council, where he won the 2015 Management Consultant of the Year award.As a serial entrepreneur, Jack is the founder of Singapore-based Pinnacle Digital, which specialises IT consulting, design and financing for businesses.
Kenneth Tan currently COO of Pinnacle Digital and Cofounder of FundYourselfNow has over 10 years of experience in the design, development and implementation of custom applications, mobile app development, website and eCommerce platforms, helping startups and business build their products.
They are scaling their team rapidly as we reach the end of our funding period.
Q&A with Kenneth (Cofounder FundYourselfNow)
- As you know today ICOs seem to be a highly unregulated and pose grave dangers for a trader or an investor how does your platform address this issue vis a vis for the projects listed on your platform at a high level and projects listed on your platform can they raise capital elsewhere as well or with there be any contract in place. And do you plan for any incubation for such projects
A: Technically the smart contract is public so it they can raise money externally. However the milestone is embedded in the smart contract itself so external investor are subject to the same protection.
- I see that FYN tokens are capped, now lets say this is pegged as one of the tokens to fund a project, don’t you think if there is a volatility of FYN, then that will also impact the $ value that the project is going to raise or will the projects, any plans to hedge against it or mine more FYN tokens
A: Fyn and ether are both volatile. We are looking at a more sustainable long term solution. Already speaking to digixdao on their gold backed tokens. Might partner with them to allow fundraising in dgx tokens too, Since dgx are meant to be stable coins.
- Some of the points that your platform helps to resolve even Waves platform resolves like a wallet, token creation and also a fledgling exchange and they even have their own blockchain. While I see that your project is pegged as more like kickstarter but why you chose ethereum as the underlying platform given the current transaction processing limits, high gas cost and issues with ERC20 tokens.
A: Ethereum is a more proven platform than waves which already raised about 1b via eth ico sales. From a liquidity perspective, most exchanges around the world likes erc20 tokens because they already have an SOP to list erc20 tokens. Waves platform only has minimal liquidity,We want our tokens to be able to be list on external platforms Such as bittrex, Liqui etc easily.I see Ethereum as having a longer term stability.
- Can you please share how you came about this idea and how has been the journey and also share about your current team and share some candid moments regrding your startup if possible.
A: Back in 2014, we founded Pinnacle One Consultancy — a bespoke web design and consultancy firm that tapped on the management consulting expertise of the founding team with a decade of experience spanning across the oil and gas, IT and telecommunications sectors. Over the last three years, we have grown from a local company into a regional firm with employees in the Philippines, India, Taiwan and Hong Kong. We have amassed a strong portfolio of clients, but we also noticed a common recurring problem that they face despite their varied project profiles and geographical jurisdictions. We often have clients with brilliant ideas coming to us to develop their product, but many of them are unable to bring the project to fruition due to insufficient financing or the lack of talented staff with the right skillsets to help them complete the project execution.
We were struck by an “Ah-Ha” moment in late 2016 over coffee with a friend who was heavily involved in cryptocurrency crowdfunding. Back then, “cryptocurrency crowdfunding” was a big word that although meant a lot, was a bit fuzzy to us. However, we were intrigued by the potential of cryptocurrency crowdfunding as a new funding model that could empower project creators to get funding for their ideas from a global audience and bypass traditional fund raising avenues plagued with high transaction costs. We wanted to help make virtual currency crowdfunding more accessible to the masses, and at the same time create a product that could allow project creators to request for project help, funding and reward backers.
This was the inspiration behind FundYourselfNow, a revolutionary crowdfunding platform that aims to reinvent the crowdfunding industry, using the latest innovations in blockchain technologies and virtual currencies.
Conclusion
By creating an ecosystem for funding, investor participation it is helping startups raise capital and investors find curated listing of favorable ICOs which without doubt is a killer combination. From my interaction with founders, ICO creation and management can be a very
hectic fraught with many difficulties. Even from an investor standpoint right now there is so much speculative trading in ICOs which is bringing down the overall quality of the whole process. While some traders make lot of profit on speculative trading and few ICOs without even a working product and with just mere idea and huge media blitz take up so significant funding, the larger investor community and the really sincere startups missout. And it is in this space that using smart contract for milestone based playouts and helpful and engaging platfrom FundYourselfNow is trying to add much needed value to the Crowdfunding & ICO space bringing accountability and community participation at the same time.
Reference
Website
Blog
Whitepaper
Facebook
Twitter
Slack chat
Telegram chat
Pinnacle Digital Pte Ltd
Disclaimer: This is not investment or trading advice, always do your own independent research.
