What i've tried to type down in the text below are the mechanics of the system I'm trying to design around. This does not necessarily mean that I am actually going to implement it, but after some feedback and internal thought, it seems to me that it is important to get a basic framework of how the thing would hypothetically work.
What I would like to receive from you guys is feedback on these points:
- Does the system make sense to you?
- Would you find certain parts (or everything) delivering value in an overcomplicated way? If so, how would you simplify it? Does this bring any value at all?
- What parts you find difficult / complicated / hard to understand?
- In what way would you see this system working?
- Any other thoughts, really.
First thing first: this system assumes that cryptocurrencies are a thing, meaning that people are actually using them on day-to-day basis, just like one would use dollars or euros. This makes the project kind of speculative, but think of cryptocurrencies (ETH) as real money in the text below.
There are three types of actors in the system:
- Professionals
- Founders
- Investors
The roles are not mutually exclusive, thus one person can be all of the above.
The Professionals are people with certain skill and capabilities. These people can be hired to do a job according to their skills: coding, illustration, UI/UX, etc. The incentive for these people is to make money in exchange for their skills.
Founders are people who initiate projects with a story / reason / goal / concept / etc. These people initially own 100% of the project, but are willing to give some of that away in exchange for services or other contribution. The incentive for these people is to develop projects in order to get revenue or to sell the project to a different owner.
Investors are people who are willing to take over certain part of project's share they're interested in, in exchange for agreed monetary value. The incentive for these people is to receive part of the revenue the project generates, or sell the share of the project for a higher price.
Once initiated, every project has a finite amount of tokens that act as shares of the project. In the beginning, the 100% of tokens belong to the initial Founder(s), but they could be transferred to any other person in the platform, used as currency to pay to Professionals, or sold to Investors.
Founders can create requests for any type of contributions to their projects, where they would describe the brief / task in such detail, that Professionals would be capable of applying for the jobs. The request also has a reward attached to it: a certain amount of money (ETH) or shares (tokens).
In order to ensure trust, a smart contract is signed between both parties. This smart contract guarantees that once the task is marked as done by the Founder(s), the amount of money or shares is automatically transferred to the Professional's account.
The truth is, however, that early projects rarely have any budget, and for some of the Professionals shares may not be an interesting option. Thus, a smart contract can be signed in such way that would make a payment to the Professional's account once there is any money in the budget of the project. In such way, professionals are given a promise by a smart contract that they would be paid if there is any income into the project's budget.
If for some reason there is a disagreement between a professional and a founder (for example, the founder does not mark the task as done for the professional), one can create a dispute, that would be voted on publicly by the overall community in the platform.
Founders can issue some of the shares (tokens) for an internal sale within the platform. In such way, people having access to the system, can buy (invest) the shares (tokens) from the founders, and the income from that sale would fulfil some (or all, depending on the amount of money received from the sale) of the smart contracts signed with the professionals, if any were signed.
Founders can also initiate public sale of the shares of the company (so called ICO, an Initial Coin Offering), thus leaving the closed system of the platform.