RE: chainBB's path forward - a discussion on revenue
Great discussion starter. I'l have to admit, I've never actually posted through ChainBB though I have used the interface and been very interested as I'd like to set up a community in the future. So the best I can do is give you my take on pricing structure.
I feel the 1 Steem starter setup is on the low end, while the 250 Steem unlock may be a bit high.
The 1 Steem option may have you dealing with too many spam forums that people set up just to play around or test it out. I think this could easily bump up to 10 Steem at minimum.
The 250 Steem to unlock beneficiary rewards seems a bit high. I don't think its really too much to pay for the value your system may offer, but at this point your incentives are totally aligned with your forum owners. The sooner someone has beneficiary rewards the more incentivized they are to recruit people to use their forum thereby driving greater use of the ChainBB system and increasing your 10% revenue split.
If anything I could see forum features and customizations as paid unlocks for anywhere from 10-50 Steem each depending on what they bring to the table, but the beneficiary rewards split could be entirely unlocked and scaled based on forum activity and success. Kind of like any affiliate program, the revenue share of the forum owners increases with volume. Thresholds could be established that unlock 1% increments from 0-10% or so. Example, $100 in generated post rewards a month unlocks 1%. ChainBB at this point will be getting $14 a month and the forum owner will be getting $1! This gives folks a taste for the revenue split however small and gets them hooked...
$500 = 2% owner ($10) 13% ChainBB($65)
We can see here that even at this level, its a great deal more for ChainBB than could be expected from any subscription model or one off payment.
$1000 = 3% owner ($30) 12% ChainBB ($120)
$2500 = 4% owner ($100) 11% ChainBB ($275)
and so on. With extremely active forums that may generate substantial value, I think it's important for the ChainBB split to drop to 5% or below at that point. It would still result in a handsome revenue stream for support services.
Looking forward to seeing how things progress. At some point I know I'll be a customer for sure, and I'll do my best to start in as a user in the very near future to help with your fundraising!
I started started playing with the numbers, is this along the lines of what you were talking about?
This starts heavier on the chainBB side (to ensure revenue is happening), then chainBB sort of plateaus. The 7/8/9/10% ranges all increase the owner more drastically than chainBB.
Another thing I'm thinking about is the timeframe for this calculation.
I'm thinking I start it off as the sum of the posts from the last 30 days. So the % earned by the forum owners would fluctuate over time, and abandoned forums would eventually dwindle back down to the initial 1%.
30 days might be a hardship on forum owners though - and that number could be increased to 45/60/90 days if it turned out to be too rough. I'd rather start with it being difficult though and then relax it, as that would be a welcome announcement. If it's too relaxed in the beginning - a lot of people would be frustrated at it becoming more difficult, should the need arise.
Looks great! I just have a few quick notes/thoughts.
It seems to me like you should avoid the curve trending back down on your end. You shouldn’t make less at the 5% split than the 6% split. Pushing that goalpost to 7200 keeps the revenue at least even.
I may be biased since I’d like to own a forum... but I do think it makes sense to average a longer period of time, particularly in terms of decreasing an owners revenue share. For example, the first calendar month that a forum achieves a milestone they get the % bump, but then a rolling 60-90 day average determines if they lose it. It could help smooth out growth and ensure 1 off month, or the transition period between milestones doesn’t result in a forum bouncing back & forth between %s. This would also allow you to run reporting and adjust %s one particular day each month for everyone.
Lastly, Are these figures in Steem or USD? Steem would be more stable for reporting purposes and fluctuations, but as it grows in value you may need to adjust these down as it stabilizes at certain levels. If Steem spikes to 5-10 USD for instance, new forums drawing in a lot of users new to the Steem ecosystem would become more disadvantaged trying to hit $ post revenue goals 5-10x higher than they are today. ChainBBs revenue share would also go a lot further, hitting $1500-$3000 USD a month even on the mid level forums of this chart. At that point these goals could be relaxed if they’re being valued in Steem.
Thank you again for the feedback - I've really needed some human interaction to help work through what I've been plotting for so long. Send me a PM on steemit.chat if/when you've got a few moments and if you'd like to give it a spin.
If you're interested, I figured I'd share the latest iteration:
Some thoughts I had while adjusting things:
I like the level progression feel, definitely appeals to the rpg gamer in me! The reward curves look great, especially the early progression. I actually messaged you in chat a little while ago, I already set up a forum! Process was easy and straightforward. I'm looking forward to really launching it in a few days.
I have to reread the post and this reply like 10 more times. But I sent you 10 STEEM @jesta hoping I can reserve beer section. Obviously, eh? I like your thinking @jesta and @bryan-imhoff made me send 10 rather than 1. Good luck!