Introducing the Pledgecamp Ecosystem
The Pledgecamp Ecosystem consists of three major parts: the core Crowdfunding Platform, as well as the Market Network and Knowledge Center. An article published by IBM titled “Blockchain and the Sharing Economy 2.0: The real potential of blockchain for developers” (2016), predicts a new type of peer-driven economy. The Pledgecamp Ecosystem is based on a blockchain-powered, peer-driven economy.
Market Network
One implementation of this new economy will be a Market Network that aims to help creators successfully collaborate with the many third-party vendors necessary to execute on their projects. We’re building a network of key professional services with blockchain-secured reputation scores and work histories
In a market network, the specific fit between the service provider and the client is very important and the focus is on building long-term relationships around executing a complex project. For example, a creator on Pledgecamp may specifically need a supplier experienced with plastic injection molding and another for cross-border shipping.
The Pledgecamp market network combines properties of a marketplace where buyers and sellers of services are brought together, with a network where individual characteristics, identities, and references matter. This requires sophistication and care on the part of the creator to carefully evaluate which vendors have sufficient expertise to fulfill the task.
On Pledgecamp, a creator will be able to easily connect with various vendors, such as plastic injection molders and shipping companies, who are on the platform to earn their business. The creator will be able to reliably review each vendor’s reputations and history with past clients in order to compare actual work histories and gauge fit. For an aspiring entrepreneur, finding trustworthy and appropriate partnerships is a critical success factor and huge pain point that can be addressed by a blockchain-powered market network.
The market network has added benefits for the service providers and campaign backers as well. Service providers can access a new marketplace from which to obtain new business. In addition, cryptocurrency makes it easy to guarantee payment for services through smart contracts. For example, the plastic molding company can be certain that if a campaign is successfully funded, payment will be transferred directly into their account. Thus, they would be more willing to help the creator in advance with well-researched production quotes and roadmaps in advance of the campaign.
If these arrangements are made in advance, backers gain the benefit of knowing that the creator has 10 the partnerships they need to execute. They can see in a transparent way that campaign funds will be used on production partners as promised, lowering their risk. It also creates an incentive for suppliers to maintain excellent work histories and for creators to seek them out as an added point of validation.
Knowledge Center
A final, natural application of this collaborative economy concept is the creation of a Pledgecamp Knowledge Center. This will be familiar to many current users as the concept of a wiki, such as Wikipedia.
This Knowledge Center will catalog the expertise of the crowd specifically as it pertains to entrepreneurship, product development, and any other topic of use to creators, backers, and the network as a whole. Users will be able to ask questions, post articles, and leave feedback on user-generated content with feedback preserved as a reputation score on the blockchain.
Users will manage moderation, with the possibility of electing expert moderators based on their history on the platform and reputation as awarded by other users. The advantage of preserving reputation on the blockchain is that the history and accuracy of a particular contributor can be 11 preserved and transparent to all in the form of a single value, determined by factors such as “likes” and “dislikes” of content.
Currently, no such decentralized database specifically geared toward helping entrepreneurs exists. What will distinguish this Knowledge Center from centralized efforts from other brands or nonprofit Wikis is the ability to scale from user-generated content that is motivated by increasing their reputation scores, and consequently their status as experts on Pledgecamp. For example, vendors who are selling services on the Market Network will be highly incentivized to provide helpful content to creators and brand themselves as experts in the Knowledge Center.
By creating a decentralized framework and incentives for individuals to share their collective expertise, Pledgecamp aims to further unlock the huge latent potential of the crowd to benefit hopeful entrepreneurs and the backers who depend on their education.
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