Development Update December 16th
As we wrestle through the last weeks of December, and the last few things before we can release a beta version of Linx, I’m taking some time to talk about our business model, and why I believe it is important to have one.
Development wise we are still on track for release this month. The winter period is making it harder with the general coughs and colds, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch
Nothing in life is free, and that applies for applications you are using as well. Things might look free but in the end you are definitely paying one way or another, with your data for example that’s being sold to advertisers.
Even though we are big community enthusiasts, when we started ThinEdgeLabs we made an agreement that everything we build has to have a solid business model, as we’ve seen how community driven projects without it played out.
A business model guarantees continuity
If an application has a solid business model, it guarantees continuity and makes sure there is always an incentive for developers to keep developing the application. Community projects usually die out because there is a natural tendency to shift your focus every now and then when there isn’t a financial incentive, and time isn’t free either.
A business model allows for research and development
When there is money available to grow your team, there is more room for spending time on new developments instead of only staying up to date. A community project has a hard time of getting in more devs for research and development, and the devs that join usually leave quickly as well as there is no incentive. Besides that, you can’t really rely on people that can walk out whenever they feel to, or perform way below average. The same goes for businesses that got a one time funding (in crypto for example with a token sale) without an actual business model, the development will die out quickly once the initial funding is gone.
What do we need?
Looking into 2023, we are expanding Linx’s functionalities and we will build PoO (if you have no clue what this is, have a read in last week’s article).
If we are going to have to do this with our current team, this will take quite a lot of time, so it makes sense to try to grow our team. We expect that with 4 to 6 (good) developers we can build amazing stuff in a relatively short amount of time.
Assuming the average base salary for a good dev is at least $ 150,000 a year, and we would like to be able to guarantee that salary for at least 2 years so we have time to become profitable, we are looking at an initial funding requirement of $ 1,800,000.
So where are we going to get $ 2 million from? We are exploring multiple options, but a VC funding / seed round is the most likely. At the moment we are so focussed on getting the beta out, that we don’t have time to work on this yet.
And don’t worry, even without the funding, we will keep building.
What is Linx’s business model?
We like to be fully transparant about our business model to fund our operation.
In Linx we think it is fair to ask for some compensation for delivering the best user experience, BUT you will always have the option to use an equivalent function without any fee.
For example, on our chainless transfer, we charge a standard fee of $0.1 so you don’t have to worry about chains, gas fee, finishing cross chains etc. But if you don’t want that you can have full control with transfers, like you are used to, and pay for the gas yourself.
For swaps, we will charge a 1% fee on the swap amount so you don’t have to worry about picking the exchange with the best price, having balance on the correct chain etc. If you don’t want to use this, you always have the option to connect to any exchange easily with WalletConnect and do your swaps there without our fee.
For the planned Fiat On-Ramp we charge a 2% fee.
Above mentioned fees will change in the future, depending on the price of Kadena, community input and/or trading volumes.
We are open about our fees, so you don’t have to worry about your data or if we are going to be around in 10 years.
Beta release
Soon we will be opening up our registration form on linxwallet.xyz, to take part in our closed beta. Yes, unfortunately we have to keep it closed, as the time for a full open release is becoming too short this year.
This doesn’t mean it is going to be a half assed product, it just means we might have some small bugs still in there and we will fix those in a run to the full release.
At the moment we are working on integrating our WalletConnect v2 prototype into our build and finishing up on handling all kinds of transfers.
If you want to learn more on how we started ThinEdgeLabs and what our plans are for 2023, have a read through Radu’s article of last week here.
Next article will be when and how you will be able to get hold of the Linx Beta, so stay tuned!
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Your’s sincerely
Floppie
