What we've tried so far, which brings in enough for us to financially limp along, is:
* zaps
* crowdfunding (Geyser.fund and soon some others)
* individual devs in the team applying for grants for their own work (hasn't worked, yet)
* relay subscriptions (premium version coming later)
* and company formation.
Revenue-sharing contracts would also be interesting, but we would first need some revenue. 😅
Do you have any revenue models sketched out yet?
Well, there is the simple method of sharing the income we receive for n years, or whatnot. A sort of universal zap-split on the whole project, including any grants, subscriptions, zaps, or etc. that we receive. That could end up being a whole lot or very little, depending on how things go, so that's a shared risk which would justify good conditions for the investor.
And we have other, more-dramatic options on the backburner.
We're trying to be creative and keep options open, but we're not feeling rushed. We are working on a 5-year road map and can hold our financial breath for very long.
Shared income agreements can get complex fast. Is it net income or are you selling gross- and for how much? Assuming net, do the “investors” get input on how you spend before you account for what is net? Even if it’s gross, do they get input on how you spend what they give you up front? Now factor in the proposed timeline of n years- are there milestones, budgets, etc over that time period?
Basically as you try to strike these deals you end up back at something that looks like equity or debt eventually, with the same issues but more complex to lock in because you’re trying to do a standalone agreement with no established norms. Never mind the fleeting nature of zaps, and the impossibility of measuring the impacts of specific actions in a decentralized system.
Not saying we can’t innovate with how we get funding but there’s a reason things are done the way they’re done in the startup world. It’s not all evil. Not exactly sure how your products will leverage Nostr’s distributed identity, global reputation, web of trust social features, etc to offer value that users will pay for at scale but there are DEFINITELY ways to do this without selling your soul. I’m curious what your other rev models are- I’ll gladly share ours if you want.
The killer FOMO thing for investors is access to a user base that every single Nostr app grows collectively (one viral app/client brings users in for ALL apps/clients). If there isn’t a way to make this investable then we’re all fucked anyway… sorry to say I don’t think charity has the horsepower to compete against the behemoths.
My two sats, trying to come from the investor’s perspective.
I'm an equity investor, myself, so I'm the last person who thinks it's evil. And as a Christian, I see a moral difference in debt-for-investing and debt-for-consumption.
But I think revenue-sharing makes more sense than debt, with Bitcoin, as percentages of financial inflows would allow the nominal amount to sink in parallel to the rise in the purchasing power in Bitcoin, without the purchasing power of the contract sinking.
And, as I said before (but don't want to discuss publicly), we have a more-dramatic option.
Sounds like we have a few things in common then 🤙🏼. Excuse me if i went ahead and explained something you‘d already thought thru.
Fair enough- we’re taking the more-dramatic route right off the bat and will do so publicly and transparently. Maybe we get spanked for it. Who knows
And there's always the Saylor nuclear option of leveraging the business to take on a corporate loan, buy Bitcoin with it, and then repay it from revenue or through selling part of the Bitcoin at a higher price.
I don't know if any Nostr companies have already done so.
As for access to user bases, I think this is something that each implementation has to justify, in its own right, by targeting particular sectors of the market.
I think it's also heavily discounted that Nostr dramatically reduces infrastructure costs and marketing costs. The important thing, after all, is not how much revenue there is, but rather how much profit there is.
Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity
don't forget that some #gitcitadel devs are doing things on their own dime and weekends too
also some #gitcitadel devs are also running ongoing, reasonably profitable services
but i think that sooner or later someone's gonna front us for finishing something in progress into a fully polished, and profitable service
because we are serious about doing this the right way, and not just pandering to some OGs with more sats than ideas and warped by years of bitcoin twitter
Yes. I think we're a good investment opportunity because we have a healthy internal project culture, stable and experienced management, all project roles covered by proven talents, and we run a really tight budget. We're also steadily growing, with new workers and suppliers, which shows our attractiveness as a company: we have a magnetic effect.
Another big thing we have is a project line aimed specifically at underserved markets: e-readers, academics/intellectuals, software project teams, and Christians.
We're not Bitcoin-focused or catering to Bitcoiners, we just use Bitcoin like it's money. That means we don't overlap heavily with OpenSats, but I think that's a good thing. There can be more than one umbrella company on Nostr. There should be lots and lots of companies on Nostr!
