2019 Spectiv Status Update
VR Platform, Expenses, and “Spectiv Open”
Spectiv VR Platform Update
We’ve heard your grievances on the state of the cryptocurrency space. As a result, a lot of attention has shifted away from relatively newer projects. It would be impossible for this downturn to not have an effect on our company. We are releasing this update to let you guys know more closely how Spectiv has been effected — it is a crucial priority that we maintain our standard of transparency with our community.
From June to September, our development team worked diligently to build the next version of the Spectiv VR streaming platform. The current alpha version is live at www.spectivvr.tv. This new release of the VR platform is a complete overall. We have reestablished the platform identity, redeveloped the upload process, redesigned the user interface, fixed several issues, and made many other improvements. Aside from a development challenge related to pulling thumbnails from 360 video, and the integration of SIG transactions, the platform is ready to be launched for public testing.
We plan to to release this update once the cryptocurrency space is in a better state, when public attention shifts back to smaller projects like ours. This is the 360 VR streaming platform we’ve always envisioned, and we’re very excited to launch this release!
Check out these screenshots to see some of the progress:
We are holding off on the release because, as with any major company release, timing is important. There is currently very little attention being paid to smaller projects. If we release this update now, we would be announcing it to a small audience. To be strategic, it is important that we wait until the industry sentiment improves. When this time comes, the launch should bring more users and have a create a much more substantial impression.
Expenses
On August 2017, we sold about 4500 ETH in Signal Tokens. We proceeded to sell ~2000 additional ETH in Signal Tokens from August through November. That ETH was used to develop the first version of the Spectiv VR platform, the first version of the Signal Marketplace, build the token and token sale portal, and to do some marketing for the token sale we executed on December 2017.
We achieved~5000 ETH in sales during the December token sale. We did not receive this ETH until February 2nd, when Baker Tilly finished their audit and we completed the token distribution. By the time we received the ETH, it had fallen in value from its high of ~$1400 to $800. We opted to not sell any ETH — it seemed questionable to do so immediately after a 50% drop. Unfortunately, this drop progressed into a full-blown bear market, where ETH now sits at ~$120. Naturally, this puts us in a difficult situation. From a budgetary standpoint, we have no plans to sell ETH at these prices except for where we absolutely have to. I would like to make it known that I, CEO Dylan Senter and Co-Founder Nick Ravanbakhsh, have not paid ourselves a penny in salary from Spectiv since February 2018. We have continued working diligently without pay for a full year because we still firmly believe in the future of the cryptocurrency space and the Spectiv mission. We know that what we’re in charge of is bigger than us, and we’ve held ourselves to that standard. As entrepreneurs, we have been able to support ourselves through separate income streams we’ve held since long before Spectiv.
Regarding the 5000 ETH from the December token sale, here is the breakdown of our 2018 expenses and what we have in holdings now.
Development Salaries, External Development, PR Consulting: 2005 ETH
These expenditures fed all the development for the Spectiv VR platform and the Signal Marketplace. At peak, we’ve had 4 full-time developers and 2 outside developers on board. We are proud of what we got done within the time and budget that we did. Development has and always will be our top priority. Additionally, we engaged with a PR deal last year. This was fruitful as it gave us an introduction to the Emmy Awards, where we held a media presence on the red carpet and had the chance to gift Signal Tokens to various guests. It also got us on the American Dream TV show, among other smaller PR moves. We’ve ceased all work with this PR firm.
Marketing and Crypto Partnerships: 365 ETH
Expenses for social media marketing, crypto awareness marketing (i.e. CoinTelegraph & Bitcoin.com articles), and partnerships (i.e. Bancor).
Rent, Office Costs, Printing/Promotions, etc: 225 ETH
Expenses for rent, office costs, computers, food, marketing materials, etc.
Website Costs (Hosting, etc.): 102 ETH
Expenses for hosting, databases, emails, and other necessary tools.
Legal Fees/Accounting: 66 ETH
Conventions/Travel: 37 ETH
Total holdings today: 2200 ETH
“Spectiv Open”
We’ve done a lot of thinking on what we should do to prosper, in our own way, through these tough times. We’ve chosen to cut our budgets through this bear market, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still innovate and grow towards our mission. Our next plan is to welcome the community to work directly with us on all things Spectiv. Over the next 2 to 3 months, we will be rolling out Spectiv and its associated projects as a fully open-source enterprise.
Our goal is to bring the community together, in true “open-source” fashion to directly work on Spectiv. Of course, this means we will welcome developers in our community who want to build platforms that integrate Signal Tokens or contribute improvements/additions for Spectiv VR and the Signal Marketplace. These contributors will receive Signal Tokens for their efforts.
But the “Spectiv Open” concept is bigger than just open-source development. In fact, our goal is to make everything open for anyone to participate in. This starts with a public task and milestone board that will be open to the community for contribution. This means you guys will be able to post tasks and suggestions on a public board. As popular postings prevail, highly supported posts will be acted on by the Spectiv team and Spectiv community. We’re doing this to bring you guys in as co-managers — everyone who has ideas will have an opportunity to bring them to the forefront.
We will also be opening the new Spectiv VR platform for any content creators to come on board, as opposed to our current application-based system. The Signal Marketplace is already open to all parties who want to advertise or promote anything, and we aim to grow the active user base on this front. We hope to bring everyone who is involved with Spectiv together. With our combined creativity, we’ll be able to position Spectiv to make an awesome splash when the industry recovers.
If you have any questions or comments regarding these updates, feel free to reach out or start a discussion on Telegram. Cheers from the Spectiv team!
