First of all, we would like to thank everyone who gave such tremendous feedback and positive response to our first announcement post Introducing the Steem Business Alliance (SBA). As we believe that we are creating something of value not only to the member businesses but to the Steem blockchain as a whole, we hope to have your continued support and engagement.
Since the last update, we have worked hard to complete the next steps mentioned at the end of the post. These include the launch of our website, completing a founder's agreement document, writing the first version of a governance document, and proposing details of a token-based ownership model. This has all been in preparation to allow new businesses to join the SBA as active members contributing to achieving the scope of activities while gaining their fair share of influence in the organisation.
Explore our new website www.steemba.com to learn more of what we do and how to get involved
Joining or working with the SBA
As of today, the Steem Business Alliance is open to accept new members and form partnerships with others interested in the growth of business on the Steem blockchain. We are happy to invite Steem-based businesses to apply to join as new members of the Steem Business Alliance following this link. For any business or projects who are not yet on Steem, but would like to get started through working with the SBA, please visit this form.
The application form is now open for individuals looking to contribute, as well as businesses wanting to join as either a working or a supporting member
We are also happy to invite individuals interested in making other contributions towards accomplishing the goals of the SBA to express their interest. We will be providing a structured forum where proposals can be made from community developers for contributions they believe they could make that would add value. The SBA will also be providing an updated list of tenders issued by the SBA members with tasks that anyone can contribute towards completing.
CONTRIBUTE TO SBA HERE:
We look forward to hearing from you and will try to respond as quickly as possible to new requests. If there are any questions regarding joining the SBA, please feel free to leave a comment below.
2019 roadmap
Before going into any details regarding the governance structure and token system, we would like to share with you our current roadmap for 2019! Each quarter serves a strategic purpose in that it creates the necessary foundation for more advanced activities, whilst also adding the capability to provide one or more of the activities within our scope presented in the previous update. Please keep in mind that the new steering committee established in the second quarter will have the opportunity to revise the priorities for the following quarters. Thus, any points beyond the second quarter may be subject to change. These are, however, the current intentions of the existing members and represents a plan for how we hope to accomplish this year.
The SBA 2019 roadmap proposed by the members Q1 2019
First quarter
The first goal in Q1 was to bring the many ideas expressed by the founding members since the first meetings in November 2018 down to a few concrete sets of activities and a strategy for how to collectively accomplish these goals. The next priority was to prepare the required governance model, organisational structure and other baseline resources such as a website and a way to track and measure contributions and progress. This was all needed in order to prepare the SBA for growing its membership while remaining productive and to enter a more operational stage.
Second quarter
With a governance document and organisational structure in place, the goal of the second quarter will be to grow the SBA through inviting new member businesses from within the Steem ecosystem. Starting off as 5 initial businesses, we hope to at least double the number of active members and also bring in more collaborating projects. The process will then start to allow new members to have their say on the proposed governance document and agreeing on what activities they would want to contribute to getting started. The early contributors who join at this phase are Steem projects and businesses who have shown an early interest in the SBA and shall be instrumental to shaping the SBA, how it self governs and how it operates. These early phase members shall be knowns as Growth Members and shall earn additional SBA Rewards.
Third quarter
Once the new steering committee is established and has approved the agenda for the third quarter, the SBA is expected to move into a more operational status. This includes beginning the work to compile a database for shared resources, best practices and initiating the first working group focusing on a defined area of interest. The main objective at this stage is for the resources to benefit existing Steem-based businesses while producing the foundation on which further consulting services can be built utilizing the combined knowledge and experience.
Fourth quarter
The main objective leaving the fourth quarter is to have an autonomous organisation capable of consulting external clients on how to integrate with Steem and benefit from various aspects of the blockchain. A legal entity should have been formed before the end of the year, currently planned as a joint venture between the founding members. Once accomplished, all working members who contributed will receive their fair share of SBA tokens for the first effective year.
SBA governance
As mentioned in the roadmap, the governance paper will be subject to revision by new members during the second quarter with the goal of being approved before the end of the third quarter. At that point (and ideally before), we intend to make the governance document public for better transparency and to enable community feedback.
Steering committee
The SBA steering committee is responsible for defining activities for the next quarter according to the scope of activities, and then to request the contributions necessary to accomplish the target goals. The steering committee consists of contributing members with the largest share in the SBA, together with high tier supporting members who earn a place through their financial support of the SBA. The committee is organised by a chairperson together with a secretary. The committee members will serve as a chair and secretary on a rotating basis, where each member of the committee is obliged to serve for a 2 month period once every 2 years. The role of the chair is to organise and moderate the weekly meetings of the steering committee and seeing to that the updates made to the roadmap, meeting notes, and communication for the SBA is according to consensus. The secretary is responsible for taking notes in the meetings, updating the agenda in collaboration with the chair, report the meeting notes to the members and do communication to other stakeholders and parties of interest. Additionally, the SBA shall be appointing a Publicity Officer and a Treasurer. It is yet to be decided how these roles shall be elected.
SBA tokens
One goal of the organisation is to have a transparent and fair mechanism for distributing ownership of the SBA to new and existing members according to their contributions. Furthermore, members who earn their fair share of the SBA should have a say in the further development of the SBA, and thus be able to cast votes on important decisions with an influence according to the size of their contributions. To accomplish this, a dedicated token for the SBA will be used. The token will serve as a voting system for members on questions that may include making changes to the organisation, approving new sets of activities and priorities, dispute resolution, as well as the allocation of potential profits.
A fixed number of new SBA tokens will be issued every quarter to contributing members based on their share of the confirmed contributions. Contributions are made in the form of completing tasks that are either defined and issued by the steering committee as requests for contributions or proposed by any SBA member. The expected number of days required to complete the task shall be stated in the task. Any contributing member may then take on the task and will by default agree to the number of days expected for its completion. Once confirmed by the committee as complete, the member who completed the task will receive a percentage of the newly issued shares in the SBA according to the percentage of the contributions they made measured in days it took to complete the task.
The goal is to have a system that is inclusive to new members who are capable of adding value and motivated to contribute to the growth of the SBA, and that incentivizes active participation and a willingness to add value back to the SBA and its members.
Steemba.com
We have launched the first version of our website containing basic information about the SBA, its members and an entry point for businesses or individuals interested in joining or working with the alliance. We hope it can serve as an ideal point of reference to anyone when encountering businesses, organisations and curious individuals looking to become more familiar with what business opportunities exist on Steem and how to get involved.
The steemba.com website is up! Have a look and tell us what you think!
Please bear in mind that the website is still under development and that the most important piece to have ready for this update was the applications form to be able to start inviting new members and contributors.
Steemba.com
Hear the SBA talk at the Global Block Builders conference in Austin
The Steem Business Alliance is currently be represented at the Global Block Builders conference in Austin this week by @fredrikaa. If you're there, feel free to ask any questions to learn more about the SBA. A recording will be released shortly after the event for those who can't make the travel. With the topic being how blockchain businesses and projects can come together to collaborate and seize new opportunities together, there should be no better place to announce the SBA open for new projects to join!
We hope this update has been informative as to what the SBA has been working on since the last update, as well as our intended future direction. On behalf of all current members, we look forward to an exciting new quarter and hope to see many new voices joining our quest to building more and better Steem-powered businesses.
Now this is how an initiative like this should be done:
Professional website
Clear goals
Introduction post that goes straight to the point
It's all very professional looking and easy to understand. I wish you the best with this!
Great start. I would however remove the moving background on the about page, its very distracting: https://steemba.com/about.html
Best of wishes.
dude, you almost fooled me fake dan, you almost got me LOl i thought for a second the real @dan had come out of steem retirement to respond to one of fredrikaas posts now! haha
I am a new Steemit user and small business owner.
I have an Etsy store and FB Business account, which is where I get most of my orders from.
Steem could be a great way of expanding to a wider customer base.
Awesome! We look forward to working with you!
Looking forward to you guys delivering on the road map. As @aggroed said, this blockchain is well suited for business. But "businesses" come from the centralized world, they need someone to talk to, someone who takes responsibility. A business can't enter into collaboration with a diffuse group of "Internet @ handles". It needs a counterpart to sign down the contract.
Steem needs a face, an identifiable person that businesses can talk to. Ethereum has the "EEA", I hope you plan to make SBA into its steem equivalent.
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we absolutely do, and would like to have valuable advice and support from people like you among the group! We hope you will be interested to contribute in any way you find useful
I have always accepted Steem for my music production and now that I'm about to launch a podcast section, I see no better body I rather be with.
I've long been a follower and believer of @stakerz and the value in > value out system.
I'll integrate my business in the coming month.
We are new to Steem, but we set up this account in order to be able to accept Steem. We did this with the idea that we might make our first expansion into internet sales through Steem. We have some logistics to work out on our end to make that happen, but in the meantime, we will start accepting Steem as soon as our season starts this spring.
I haven't read your whole post yet as it's early here, but I was wondering if things like producing a "Steem accepted here" sticker would be something the SBA would sponsor.
We wouldn't mind being one of the first members, but let me read about it a little more once my eyes fully awaken.
This sounds great! Would be great to work with u! We know a project called @rutablockchain is working on these signs. Maybe contact them
That's great. I was thinking about it a little and I will probably just print something out with a QR code to my profile. But I think it would be nice if we could have a little pack for new merchants accepting Steem.
Hello @chainnuts, we are adopting stores in Venezuela, we have some label arts that may interest you. Also, any help we can offer, on the wallet or any other aspect, do not hesitate to tell us. You can communicate with @danielvehe in our discord https://discord.gg/ExeSSwK
Thanks @oracle-d
Thank you for this valuable article. I believe that this project will reach the target. SBA to the moon
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I hope to see lots of businesses joining Steem. There's a ready-made market of people holding lots of crypto and looking for ways to spend it. We need the pioneers who will lead the next wave.
Steem certainly is the best place to start quickly, prototype and get instant access to a community. Let's build the best tools and shared practice for how new businesses can make use of the best aspects of Steem!
Fully supported!
Nice post! Website looking good too :D
yeah im glad we have a business alliance to make it official, like ethereum enterprise alliance etc
but steem will be lost without EOS style venture capital fund and only @ned can fund that sort of thing. and we ALL fund it really cuz if he sells steem to pay for anything for steem as a whole, we all take a hit, so its really all fo us taking a risk with ned :D
@steemba, As an Steem Enthusiast waiting for this kind of Roadmap and the goal oriented steps to integrate Steem Blockchain and different businesses. Good wishes team and keep up the good work.
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Many thanks! I think a more goal oriented approach with a clear focus is exactly what we need at this point.
Welcome and good wishes brother and definitely the focused steps will move the idea towards the Phase Of Fruition. Stay blessed.
I was actually thinking of @Steemba 2 days ago and was worried that we couldn't hear anymore from you. Thanks that @Steemba was still working in the background.
Personally, I've integrated #steem to my business and I've started receiving STEEM as payment for services I offer in my Creativity Hub in Uyo, Nigeria. I hope to make this #steem popular with this step.
Thanks for staying on track. I'll checkout the forms and know where I can fit in.
Looking forwards to it
Hello @uyobong and thank you for the reply!
Yes, perhaps we will need to do more frequent posts to keep the interest up.
That's really cool to hear! Would love to hear from you what the process of setting up what you needed to support STEEM payments was like. Any resources you found particularly useful or lacking?
Thanks for the response @Fredikaa and the readiness to keep @Steemba fresh on #steem.
As for receiving payments with #steem, am doing it manually. That is, the clients are offered 25% off for payments they make with STEEM, with these, some of them opt to create an account, then probably do a stem transfer to my account.
Since am not Tech savvy, am looking for a platform that can be preparing vouchers for me to enhance this.
I recommend https://steemapps.com/apps/steemwallet it especially for your clients. It is not necessary to have an account in Steem, so they can pay while waiting for the confirmation, just by placing the memo that gives the exchange
I congratulate you for that discount
I would like to introduce this article to Japan. However, time may be required.
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I would be happy to support that blog post!
Thank you
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Would really appreciate this
Thank you
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Wish the best of luck for SBA project. This is powerfull project so far steemit blockchain hopping.
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It's certainly going to add value to Steem!
This post has been included in the latest edition of The Steem News in 10 posts - a compilation of the key news stories on the Steem blockchain.
This roadmap looking amazing, thank you.
Great roadmap. And it's nice to be open to new partners
Thanks!
OK, serious question here...
Are there any actual businesses in the Steem Business Alliance? Any prospects that are actual businesses?
I only see projects that are funded via generous delegations - and one that has no delegation and is just a Wordpress plugin - and that pretty much have no revenue model of their own. (One of them is apparently failing as we speak.) Will this be changing in the future?
Fair question. Both for Steem-based businesses and a majority of the crypto/blockchain-space. I agree with you that there is a long way still to go for Steem-based projects to develop, implement and scale proper business models that enables growth not limited by the rewards pool. For me, the main motivation for creating the Steem Business Alliance in the first place was exactly that, to help existing projects who has the intention to build sustainable businesses with developing and executing functional business models that bring value to Steem.
I do, however, not think that it is necessarily critical for all Steem StartUps to have a traditional working business plan early on. The last 10 years have been a repeated story of social app StartUps reaching multi-million or even billion-dollar valuations before earning anything. More pragmatic investors chose not to invest in those now well-known companies for that reason. So I think the lesson is that you can use the first years to first build and improve your product with an early userbase, then grow the number of users, before starting to capture value on those assets to create a revenue stream. Point being, as long as there is a strategy for how to get there, it is fine not to be a “typical business” in the early stages. I think what we’re seeing is quite typical when there’s a lot of developers in the Steem-ecosystem and very few experienced entrepreneurs. My hope is that the SBA can help bridge that gap.
Speaking for myself, we certainly have a plan for a revenue model outside of the Steem-based rewards that I hope to announce soon.
If you have any suggestions for business expertise within the Steem community, or ways in which we can/should attract more of that talent to the blockchain, then I am all ears.
Still making the pitch starter for Indonesia Center, hope it will finish soon, so I can join with Steemba
Sounds great! Hope it's coming along well :)
Thanks. Can we discuss?
Nice! Good job guys 👍
Do you have examples of the type of businesses you're looking to take in? This may sound silly, but what do you consider as a "business"?
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A business is registered as a legal entity in a country and has a named representative.
Short term: Steem-based businesses interested in collaborating to build and share resources and best practice and also prepare the SBA to be capable to consult and incubate other businesses not yet involved in Steem who might be interested.
Mid/Long-term: Any business or enterprise interested in making use of the blockchain in at least some way. Many will not appear as "blockchain companies", just like most EtherAlliance members are corps such as Microsoft and EY etc.
got it, thanks for the info!
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As long as the intention is to create a business that will use Steem and there is a clear roadmap towards registration of and a sustainable, ethical business that follows or intends to follow SBA best practises, a business or project would be eligible for membership
Gotcha, thanks for the explanation! I've seen a few businesses sell things in exchange for STEEM.
Perhaps @teamhumble / @dayleeo would be interested?
I know that I would totally buy a Steem-Shirt from beeb.ee if they accepted STEEM... just sayin' ;^)
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I only found this article today, much too late to resteem it.
I would love to do a German translation if that gets your approval.
This roadmap looking amazing, thank you.
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And were off and running :)
Congratulations @steemba!
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J’utilise cela, c’est vraiment très utile et nous facilite vraiment nos tâches !
(J’ai pu de steem power donc je me suis sacrifié pour écrire ce commentaire ;-) merci
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Is this plugin still working I feel like it has not been posting my blog posts to steemit lately ?
Sweet. I this will come in handy for this post.