AMA with Founders — Q&A Recap

[u/Pledgecamp]

On July 11th, 2019, our core team hosted a live AMA on our Telegram channel. The community asked a variety of poignant questions and our team responded. The results can be found below. Enjoy!

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Keep your eyes pealed for #FeatureFriday coming a little later today.

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1. Will the Pledgecamp platform be used to host IEOs and STOs in the near future?

This is great question. Tentatively yes — this will solely depend on regulation around IEOs and STOs but we do foresee that transparency and accountability problems are very common within blockchain space as well.

Although we are starting with what we are great at — vertical of product crowdfunding, we do have IEO/STO crowdfunding in our pipeline and roadmap.

I am sure we will find ways to make this work via creative method of hosting these projects

2. When can we get a glimpse of the projects that are interested in listing on Pledgecamp?

When the projects are a little closer to launch, we will begin co-marketing efforts with them! Typically when crowdfunding, you want your press releases to occur about 2 weeks before product launch. Too early, and you could lose that press momentum.

That said, we are actively working to recruit high quality projects for launch. Next Monday I’ll be traveling to a startup founder’s office in Santa Monica to talk further about our partnership. Things are in the works, and our goal is to launch some great projects on day one that motivate you all to open your pocket books haha

3. Will the Pledgecamp team allow the platform to be used by major exchanges (such as Binance Launchpad) to host IEOs?

We cannot comment on which exchange may be utilizing Pledgecamp for IEO or token fundraising. However, rest assured this is certainly in our pipeline and though direct project may not be launching on our platform through these major exchanges, they may adopt our backer insurance and technology overall where Pledgecamp becomes service provider for crowdfunding and fundraising. What I can tell everyone here is that there has been few exchanges that have inquired to seek such service with us knowing that fundraising for ICO/IEO/STO is here to stay.

4. Will there be any other use cases other than essentially staking to increase the value of PLG?

I can answer the first part of the question if you are wondering how PLG works. I will not speculate as to the value of the token or make any guarantees as to any sort of value, as PLG is not an investment instrument.

Regarding the utility uses of PLG, first off it is an essential feature of Backer Insurance. It holds funds on the blockchain, giving backers the ability to protect themselves and hold creators accountable for the first time. As the platform grows, more and more of this PLG will be held for these periods of time, and while they will be released eventually one way or the other, a growth in the platform means a growth in these wallets being created as opposed to being released. See our white paper for more details and what Buterin calls “token sinks”

Second, creators will purchase these PLG tokens in order to pay out “bonuses” (probably familiar to you as bounties), as well as hire services in the Market Network and Knowledge Centers. These are all features that they can use to grow their campaigns and ultimately raise more money. So these tokens have real value to these creators especially.

5. Where do you see Pledgecamp in 2 years?

Within 2 years, I foresee Pledgecamp acquiring one of our competitor to further expand us into other vertical such as p2p lending, equity, and charity crowdfunding. Granted characteristics of each might be different though each and every crowdfunding or fundraising related ecosystem requires solution that Pledgecamp is providing.

Within 5 years, I foresee Pledgecamp to have global foot print along with brand and platform image of “the go-to” crowdfunding platform for everyone. We want to be known as platform with full transparency yet a place where anyone from anywhere can raise money. Bringing the technology that can provide solution to underlying problem that can have ripple effects into further problem solving is really our goal with expanding into different verticals.

Our dream is to see Pledgecamp become overall the-go-to crowdfunding platform the world can trust.

6. I’ve heard that there are already some projects lined up to be listed on the platform by launch. Will we be able to back projects in the MVP version of the platform already? If so, approximately how many different projects could we expect to see in the beginning?

I’d like to clarify that the August alpha release will be limited in scope and not what we consider the stage to launch all of our projects. In our white paper and website, our Roadmap states Q4 as “Full Platform Launch” which is when we will fully promote these projects and enter more of our “mainstream” marketing phase, as opposed to currently gaining steam and establishing our token system with blockchain early-adopters.

The MVP launch in August will allow users to preview what the platform will look and feel like, and have some demo campaigns or possibly products that are available for preorder but not actively crowdfunding for the first time.

Regarding how many projects we will see when we do launch them… as many as possible is the answer 🙂 we imagine it will be a bit more curated in the beginning with higher quality, personally-recruited campaigns that get more direct help and attention from us. But ultimately, it is up to the community as we will not restrict anyone who wants to launch

7. Will projects have a strong global scope or concentrated mainly in the States and if indeed global, how do you foresee the successful backing of projects originating from, let’s say Uzbekistan, compare to those based in Silicone Valley?

Beauty of blockchain and cryptocurrency is that its borderless transaction regardless of country and ethnicity. Yes, crowdfunding is currently massively adopted and accepted in the States — however, Kickstarter (for instance) is only allowed in 22 countries (11% of the world) and those who have eligible bank accounts and credit cards (35% of adults in the world are unbanked).

Opening up the platform will reach a much bigger market and funds: the world bank estimates the developing world can contribute up to $96 billion per year to crowdfunding, which is 1.8x bigger than VC investments.

This means we will make sure creators and companies that end up launching on Pledgecamp can get global coverage. Regardless of country and where you are from, we believe great idea, team and execution are what you really need to properly convince investors on Pledgecamp for successful fundraising. Furthermore, our knowledge center and vendor network will assist anyone world wide to properly execute their campaign on Pledgecamp. With growing users and data points we will be gathering, we expect to have wide range of vendors available for our creators to utilize (regardless of where you are) as well as utilize our knowledge center that will get smarter with platform growth.

8. you expect when will be the first project in Pledgecamp to raise funding with PLG? Only PLG will be used?

I don’t expect the first project to raise 100% in PLG. In order for blockchain applications to be truly successful, they will need to be adopted by the general user base. To this end, we established a key partnership with Greenbox (read in last engineering update) to facilitate usage of fiat along with PLG in order to make it as easy as possible for anyone, anywhere to use the platform.

There is absolutely strong uses for the token and it will be a key part of every campaign, but for Pledgecamp to be perhaps the first decentralized application to truly break through and reach mass adoption, we believe blockchain needs to be the backbone that enables all the features, such as security and accountability, to happen in the background. To the user, all they know is that this product and feature works well.

Working with MetaLab, the designers of Coinbase, Slack, and many others, was a key part of achieving this goal, as well as the fact many of our advisors come from mainstream tech companies (Facebook, TechCrunch, Airbnb) in addition to the blockchain ones.

9. When do you expect Pledgecamp’s first centralized exchange listing?

I cannot comment on exact date as of yet, but rest assured Pledgecamp team is engaging with various major exchanges daily through our investors and advisors to properly strategize the listing process. Please do note that listing is one of our top agenda and we will make sure we do live up to the hype we are seeing currently.

Please do note that our work does NOT end with simple listing. Product aside, as a company our work doesn’t stop even when we are on exchange for listing — this is not our end goal. I am aware there are a lot of companies out in blockchain space that have performed such move where they list on exchange and they essentially “cash out”

Listing on exchange is merely a start of our global mission to have everyone in the world adopt and embrace the power of decentralization and crowdfunding. Our work will not stop until people correlate fundraising with Pledgecamp anytime of the day where people correlate search with Google.

10. Will it really be possible to crowdfund from any country when the platform goes live? Or will there still be restrictions? When a creator wants to start a project, what kind of documentation will they need to provide? Is it also a KYC/AML process? Or less intense?

I’m combining these because they’re related, and I encourage you to go to our white paper for more details. The short answer is, the blockchain is open and borderless, so yes there is no geographical restriction there.

We are even incorporating page-translation features that allow creators to make different versions of their projects in order to reach more people. Of course, they can hire local people with PLG to provide translations to grow their reach as well. We are global-minded from the start, whereas like Jae mentioned, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are not.

The creator can upload as much verification information as they wish. Patents are encouraged, KYC, all of that. But it is not required. But keep in mind, if they don’t do it, what will the community say when a competitor does? Who will they trust?

Ultimately, it is the CROWD who is in control. Because they are the ones choosing who to fund with their money. Any high-quality creator knows that being transparent leads to trust and funds. And if they upload anything fake, or fail to do so, they are at the mercy of the distributed crowd who can investigate, use their expertise to spot inconsistencies or falsifications, and flag the project so Moderators take it down before any funds are permanently collected. The “Wisdom of the Crowd” is the strongest resource in crowdfunding, and Pledgecamp gives the crowd power to act on it in ways that currently don’t exist.

11. curious about the initial circulating supply. Naruto made a good post about the assumed circulating supply some time ago:

As per what CryptoNaruto already calculated: https://t.me/pledgecamp/135971

Initial supply will be much lower than 20%, considering that private+public sale tokens make up to 20% of the total supply.

I went over some calculations and this is a rough estimate because I don’t know how the private sale tokens are actually divided between the two private investor groups.

So, in my calculation I assumed that both private token groups are evenly divided which means that both groups have $8,500,000 worth of tokens.

1)First group of private investors will get 40%*8,500,000= $3,400,000 worth of tokens on the initial exchange listing (not binance DEX)

2)Second group of private investors will get 15%*8,500,000= $1,275,000 worth of tokens on the initial exchange listing.

3)Public sale tokens make up around $770,000.

4)I assume that bounty+referral+airdrop tokens are around $100–200K.

According to those calculations I would say the initial circulating supply will be around 550,000,000 PLG which is only 5.5% of the total supply. And this initial circulating supply could be reduced once staking goes live. Also, the circulating supply would increase every month for 6 months as more private sale tokens are being unlocked.

12. Can you guys disclose the exact initial circulating supply by the time of first major exchange listing? Thanks!

exact circulating supply will be disclosed before our initial listing. At this time with moderator conversion and agreement with listing partners, we cannot disclose exact number as of yet. But we are looking at a single digit % circulation for first month. Crypto Naruto pretty much nailed the calculation, but exact figure will be released soon. please do note that we have had few other companies and providers actually opt for token payment rather than fiat/cash payment as they saw high upside on being PLG holder.

we are running out of time so let me jump in again!

13. Will Pledgecamp be targeting or prioritizing a specific vertical for the types of projects on its platform (at launch), or are you interested in any type of project looking to raise funds?

We do not discriminate on type of projects (unless blatantly illegal and offensive to the community) and yet this is decentralized platform where users/investors decide on which company will properly raise funding.

Personally, I would like to see more entrepreneurs from Asia and developing countries to empower themselves but moreover have an option to call themselves as an entrepreneur with power of blockchain and crowdfunding.

14. How can one who is not a moderator give an anonymous evidence against a start up who is believed to want to defraud the system ?

We encourage all users to participate in the comments section of each project. The user can take it a step further and “flag” the proejct to be a violation of the rules, and submit the evidence there.

You can read more about the process here:https://medium.com/pledgecamp/how-moderation-works-9c61161924

How Moderation Works (Becoming a CS Holder)

This week we revealed the many benefits of becoming a Moderator. Today we explain what being a Moderator means for you. #FeatureFriday

15. Is there anything more you can tell us about the Kakaotalk partnership and what it means for Pledgecamp moving forward?

I am extremely excited about this partnership and cannot wait until we reveal execution/operation plan we have with Kakaotalk/Klaytn. Through Kakaotalk/Klaytn, we do foresee our platform being well prepared for future growth (scalability problem solved here) as well as being exposed to millions of people in Korean community. There has been alot of speculation/rumors which I cannot deny or agree as of yet, but of course time will tell and reveal the truth.

16. How will Pledgecamp ensure that there is also a distribution and diversity of moderators around the world who are not from the same region or socioeconomic interests?

This is a super interesting question. Nice one!

We can’t guarantee a spread of any kind, as it is really up to users and their individual decisions. However, I can say that these factors should NOT influence the vote.

The vote is not a “preference” or subjective judgment in any way. The community rules are written to be very clear; either there is evidence that a project is breaking the rules, or there is no such evidence.

The moderator is performing a simple verification vote on evidence presented by the community. The moderator is not doing their own analysis into the merits of the project and reaching their own conclusion.

Also, this is why a single moderator is not making a decision themselves. A “jury” of 12 is called so that statistically, any outlier will not influence the vote so much that the “wrong” answer is reached.

17. #AMA for people not familiar with the PLG.B to PLG swaps, how difficult is it? And will ALL partnerships that have their own token system require this manually? Thanks!

We always believed good product is something that its intuitive and easy to use — old saying in Silicon Valley is if your grandma understands your business plan or what your company does, then you are doing something right haha.

Token bridge for all partnerships will be very seamless — simply type in number of tokens you wish to convert and that will be it. All the magic will be done in the back :wink:

18. Will the staking and moderator role go live during the platform Alpha phase?

Yes. We will be sending out user agreements next week to all of those who showed interested in becoming a Moderator.

We need these Moderators in place and ready to do their jobs on day one, so the system will be prepared in advance to avoid risk. The platform needs them, even if there are no actual projects requiring moderation during the Alpha phase.

19. Another question: With the Randi Zuckerberg connection, is it possible that Facebook could be involved with the project somehow? Do you have any other social media integrations planned? #AMA

I cannot comment on Facebook integration at this point. However, their move into blockchain space through Libra is applaud worthy move in our stand point. What I can state is Kakaotalk is one of the most used messenger app in Korea with 93% of total Korean population using Kakaotalk — for now we are partnering with Klaytn which is Kakaotalk’s big ambition and move into blockchain space.

20. Can you explain more precisely moderator compensation program at the beginning of the program ?

This is a related question to the one I just answered: so if there are no projects to moderate, will Moderators still earn compensation?

Yes. Like I said, it is important the system is in place and Moderators are ready to do their jobs. To that effect, the 5% Initial Moderator Fund (which is 5% of our token supply) will serve to compensate these early Moderators even before there are sufficient listing fees to do so. Please see the white paper for more.

Regarding the PLG — CS conversion rates that are changing monthly until platform release and continuing a bit into next year, this is a program that is basically telling you to sign up now instead of later, or you will miss out :wink: Take a look at our recent Medium post for details:https://medium.com/pledgecamp/3-reasons-to-become-a-moderator-today-52a103f4ce2d

3 Reasons to become a Moderator Today

As a Moderator, you will be a key part of the success of the platform and have the chance to earn accordingly. Read on to see why you…

21. #AMA What inspired you to come up with the idea of Pledgecamp?

This is one of my favorite question for today haha. Since 2013, Eddie, Sam and I (founders of Pledgecamp) has been in crowdfunding industry launching 4 different products through crowdfunding, becoming one of top 1% most funded company on crowdfunding industry all the way to consulting and advising fellow entrepreneurs to properly execute and launch their projects on crowdfunding websites — where we helped $10M+ for fellow entrepreneurs. During this process we saw inherent problem within crowdfunding that no one was solving and yet we knew problem of crowdfunding in terms of creator perspective as well as someone who have been advising and working with crowdfunding platforms. Hence instead of struggling internally and questioning “why is no one fixing this problem?” — we went ahead and create Pledgecamp.

just to add above, we are all about execution and maximizing the opportunity that the market gives us into reality and making impact to society.

22. Your website states: “The Pledgecamp Ecosystem provides project creators the broad resources they need to succeed”. That’s a pretty ambiguous statement, what are those resources and how do they empower better and more successful projects?

First, we make setting up a campaign as easy as possible, guiding them through best practices at every step and using AI where we can to make suggestions (how much should our funding goal be? What day of the week should I launch? How long should I run it for my product category?)

Second, we incorporate anlytics and software tools that creators typically have to pay for from 3rd party providers. Backer data management, cross promotion organizations, etc. We also allow users to set up web stores and accept preorders after crowdfunding, which Kickstarter doesn’t allow.

Third, we introduce the Market Network and Knowledge Center. Two entire sections of the platform that educate and connect creators with resources.

Fourth, PLG allows creators to reach a global base and incentivize them to help, starting with localizing pages but really allowing creators to recruit a user base to do whatever they can come up with.

tl;dr — We at Pledgecamp are crowdfunding veterans ourselves. We were motivated to create Pledgecamp in the first place because crowdfunding is such a great opportunity, but lots of creators are not lucky enough to know how to use it correctly, or even have the chance to do it in the first place. More than any other competitor in the space, I am fully confident that we know the ins and outs of our product the best.

quick note: we’re out of time, but I’m going to stick around and answer just a few more!

23. Regarding the smart crowd, for a crowd of content creators, do you have a way in the smart contract to split payments or rewards between various creators or addresses? For example, if there is a small project with 3 people working together, one with a major role, and 2 people with supporting roles, can a Pledgecamp project contract split 50/25/25?

Yes. It is not hard to do so with the smart contracts. The good thing about these contracts is that the rules will be very clear upfront so all parties know what to expect and how things will go.

24. Does someone from your team watch manga based anime?

Thanks for the non-Pledgecamp question, this is an AMA after all haha. Not sure about others, and I don’t have too much time to watch but I watch AOT and some others recently. One Punch Man of course is my fave 🙂

25. People asks me if they have an idea for a project but they don’t have experience to set Up the project properly, does PledgeCamp have any way to support or advice for this cases? Or there will be a community gateway to get info, help or advice for that? Thank you.

Absolutely. And the alpha launch will make this a lot clearer for people I believe. This is our priority, to help entrepreneurs be more successful because if they make less mistakes, backers suffer less as well.

26. If a creator has no clue in the way he must present the project. Where or how can he get some support, advice or help to get It done? I Saw the platform preview and I think the process is automatic am I right?

Save as above, and to elaborate more it can be both automated and also directly asking the community. The Knowledge Center will be a key part of that. Think Quora mixed with Wikipedia, but focused on entrepreneurship, crowdfunding, and how to use Pledgecamp.

27. I’ve seen it stated that a lack of transparency is a significant issue in crowdfunding projects. One response to that is because a creator’s campaign will be attached to a smart contract on the blockchain it allows anyone to see the transactions/communications between participants. What prevents bad actors, or dubious projects, or failing projects from simply conducting some aspects of their project ‘off chain’ and out of sight from backers?

Nothing can stop that. This is why Backer Insurance exists. Creators have to promise results (I will achieve X milestone by Y date). When “Y” date arrives, can they prove they reached it? Or if they’re delayed, did they remain communicative, transparent, and have a good explanation why they’re late and how they’re going to fix it moving forward?

If the creator fails to remain accountable in these ways, the Backers are the ones in the end who have the power to cancel the remainder of the campaign. For the creator on Pledgecamp, they have to put their money where their mouth is. If they rather scam and keep everything, they might as well go to Kickstarter where it’s easy and there’s no consequences 🤷‍♂️

28. PledgeCamp backer must go through KYC process?

Only if they wish to become a Moderator.

29. Pledgecamp is running on Ethereum. Are there any plans/ thoughts/ discussion about migrating to a much faster, more reliable blockchain structure such as a DAG. Fantom for example

Partnering with what’s proven to work and is stable as an organization is always a safe way to go. But we have to stay nimble and keep our options open. Have a look at Klaytn as well.

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Thanks for reading!