Demystifying Ellcrys Products, Budget & Market Cap.
In this article, we will describe the various products to be developed by the Ellcrys PBC. These are the absolutely required products that will ensure we achieve the vision to create an ecosystem where developers create, manage and work for decentralized organizations.
Over the last 3 months, we have received a lot of feedback from our rapidly growing community. Some of these feedback are concerns about our hard caps and market cap. Basically, many people didn’t understand why we are attempting to raise $100M. We believe we have not done a good job in terms of educating our community about the various products and their financial requirements and as such they were unable to see the full picture. Hopefully, at the end of this article, we will make thing clearer.
This article will also include references to existing and similar services and the funding they received within 2–5 years of existence. It is important to note that some of this services/platforms where in Pre-Alpha phase of development. This should give the reader an idea about the financial requirement of a product.
1. Products
1.1 Introduction
The Ellcrys platform will be made up of core products that will bring people from different parts of the world together to achieve a common goal in an open, decentralized manner. While the foundational product is the protocol and the blockchain client, they will be inaccessible to less tech-savvy users. As such, we need to build user-facing web, mobile and desktop applications to allow every category of users access the platform.
1.2 Product Team Structure
To expedite the development of our official products, we have decided to create smaller groups for each product. Each group will have dedicated and talented people working to build and manage a specific product. Groups will continue to collaborate when required.
1.3 Core Products
Our core products include:
1.3.1 Blockchain: Protocol & Client
The protocol is the heart of the Ellcrys platform. It includes the rules that will determine the capabilities of the platform and dictates how thousands of nodes connect and collaborate to maintain, secure and provide the services to potentially millions of developers and non-developers. It determines how our version control system will function and how communities govern themselves.
Similar Products & 2–5 year Funding
Ethereum — $18.4M (2014–2018)
EOS — $232M (2017–2021)
Tezos — $232 (2017–2021)
1.3.2 Communication
It is not enough to build a protocol that is only accessible to developers. We want an ecosystem that is all inclusive. People of a community must have a place where they can converse, share ideas, agree/disagree and track activities etc. We plan to create a platform with a combination of Github and Slack functionalities.
Similar Products & 2–5 year Funding
Github — $100M (2008–2012)
Slack — $17.2M (2009–2013)
1.3.3 Marketplace
One of the most frequently asked question we get, points to the fact that software development is not the only activity technology startups do. Start-up organizations spend a lot of time in areas such as marketing, distribution, human resource, asset acquisition and management etc. To create a successful platform where communities own businesses, we must provide them with access to everything they need to succeed. The Ellcrys marketplace is designed for this purpose. Communities will be able to go shopping for any service they need, review services based on past jobs or ratings, start a purchase proposal and purchase a service after the purchase proposal is accepted. The marketplace team will be responsible for scouting for services, entering into partnership and ensuring service providers accept the native coin as the primary medium of exchange.
Similar Products & 2–5 year Funding
Fiverr — $51M (2010–2014)
Etsy — $31.7M (2005–2009)
1.3.4 Cloud Compute Services
In our whitepaper, we mentioned that we are not just interested in community-owned software products but software products that are executed as services that will be used by consumer and enterprise users. If a community wishes to build a Fiverr alternative, they will require compute resources such as a IP/domain, servers, database etc. While we intend to partner up with existing cloud service providers, we must take control of Ellcrys progression by developing and managing a flagship multi-language compute service. Communities will have the choice of picking the flagship or any alternative from the marketplace.
Similar Products & 2–5 year Funding
Heroku— $13M (2007–2011)
DigitalOcean — $175M (2011–2015)
Conclusion
As an infrastructure company with an ambitious plan, we must ensure we are adequately funded. Hence the need for a proper hard cap.
To say an initial market cap. of $100M is inappropriate for a Pre-Alpha stage project is correct.
But to say Ellcrys needs less that $10M to build an entire platform and ecosystem is incorrect.
To say a certain smart contract platform with not a lot of difference from Ethereum (based on the WP) and also a Pre-Alpha project is deserving of ≥$200M funding, some might say that is ridiculous.
The most important support we need right now is a development fund which will enable us continue to build out the main product — Protocol & Client.
If you care about the idea we propose, please support it by contributing in the Pre-Sale which is currently ongoing and scheduled to end on March 1st, 2018.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed thus far.
Feel free to ask us further questions at hello[at]ellcrys.co
