Foundry Project Update
Where we were, where we’re at and where we’re going.
Since March, Foundry has exploded with throughput, but it hasn’t all been plain sailing. This document acts as a dedicated project update from March 2021 until present — August 2021.
New Team Members
Between March and May, Foundry recruited a marketing coordinator and community manager (he person who’s writing this post). To avoid the risk of bias, I have requested a feedback writeup from our CEO, Logan. This will give you a better idea of the impact from the increased team.
“Chris and his SwiftChain team have added not only significant development throughput (we built Permapost quite fast!) but also experienced knowledge and intuition on how to most rapidly iterate a product to find product-market fit. In short, we are now building apps faster as well as finding their market fit more effectively.”
“Louw has changed the game with community growth and what you might call “collective intelligence research”. How does an idea grow into a fully embodied DAO with an active, effective voter base? With Louw on these sorts of thoughts full time, the road to Foundry Sovereignty is becoming clearer day by day.”
And there you have it, a subjective account brought to you by Logan himself.
Happy Bros
A happy bro is a hardworking bro. Mix a group of happy bros and you’ll start seeing an overall increase in happy-bro-work-ethic. If that doesn’t make sense, I’ll say it in simpler terms. Overall, there has been a noticeable increase in positive team spirit due to working in person (which 75% of the team does regularly). In-person involvement makes a huge difference when it comes to thinking together effectively.
Structure Injects Pace
There are a couple of key factors required in the effective execution of DAO product management and creation. Chris has been instrumental within the execution of this ethic. His way of communicating and implementing best-practice structures has been vital to creation of structure. Logan says it most impactfully — “we built Permapost pretty fast.” Building a fully functioning decentralized product in a short space of time, cannot be done without precise structure.
The lack of structure bottlenecks projects. Regardless of how good an idea is, if there ain’t structure, their ain’t speedy progress. Failing to implement the right management process exposes many flaws that can cripple a project like ours. Competition nullifying products and angry community members are notable symptoms of poor project management structures.
Luckily, Foundry is speedily on the road of efficiency, thanks to Chris’s project management skills.
The Hardship
You might have seen my story about the Foundry treasury hardship already. But I’ll give a summary to newcomers.
Things haven’t been smooth sailing, to say the least. The Foundry project has hit a couple of bumps in the road. In fact, chances are that, at the current rate, the project may become dormant within about a month or two. We’d very much like to avoid that. So, if you’re an eager investor who is keen to help drive a project that places emphasis on radical freedom, please get in contact.
It’s not failure that will destroy you in crypto but the unearned wealth that comes at you quick. To stay in the game long term, you really need a ‘why’ that is more than money or even ‘success’. — Pe3terpan
It’s safe to say that we’ve not been ruined by unearned wealth. Heck, if anything, an influx of treasury growth will be well-deserved and earned by the team. We might not have infinite wealth, but Foundry sure as daylight has ‘a why’. We have an engaged team who are actively focused on positively changing the course of humanity by building radically free products. Our ‘why’ is the reason behind a dogged persistence, even with the looming threat of a diminishing treasury. We believe in the individual freedom of every single person who chooses to seek it. Read more here.
We’ve Been Promoting
A project cannot develop wings without promotion. Over the last month or so, we’ve started running ads specifically to Brave users.
Brave is a super fast and crypto-optimised browser that puts the user in control of their ad experience. By default, Brave has an ad blocker which makes for a seamless and safe browsing experience. It also places the user first, by allowing full control over personalised ads.
Why did we start advertising on Brave browser? Well, the 40 million active users is one key component. Another, is the fact that 50% of Brave users don’t have traditional social media accounts (like Facebook and Instagram). No, these users live a simpler and freer life, which aligns pretty neatly with the Foundry brand personas. We’re not after your every day social media consumer. We’re after members who want to live a more private and free life.
Lastly, the crypto-friendly approach on Brave also aligns perfectly with, well, a decentralized crypto project like Foundry. Brave has crypto features embedded in its DNA. Therefore, we automatically know that most users will have a much higher chance of appreciating our marketing efforts.
Reaching Out For Criticism
The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there. That same man also didn’t tackle the journey without feedback from others. More often than not, any journey to the top is met with fierce criticism. That is quite simply the nature of growth. Jumping ahead of the curb is almost always the best way in which to get constructive and uplifting criticism.
Running a DAO means embracing all of the different sources of opinion — from overly positive to completely dismissive. Navigating thoroughly through different levels of feedback is essential to growing a product profitably, or dismissing it completely.
We’ve invested great attention to figuring out what the community thinks of the products we’re building. We’ve taken it one step further though. We have recently started reaching out to influential people and thought leaders in the crypto space. Broadening the sphere of criticism is adding a new edge of outer educated feedback that plays a key role in decision making. There is little harm in asking for the opinion of those who have made it in the industry.
We Launched dETH
Arguably the most exciting and potentially profitable product we’ve developed, was launched within the last month. It’s called dETH. I will quote a short summary of the product below this paragraph. If you’d like more info, visit the dETH landing page.
dETH is a novel token that provides holders with leveraged exposure to the price of ETH, without risking a full default of the funds being leveraged. It aims to give a holder of dETH exposure to roughly the square of any price move of ETH. IE if the ETH price moves from $2000 to $2200 (10%), dETH will move from $2000 to $2420 (21%)
The next task for dETH is to replace the current dashboard with something much more explanatory and user-friendly, which will likely include a “calculator” that can give estimations of how much ETH can be redeemable given certain assumptions about the price behavior of ETH.
We Launched Permapost
Foundry launched Permapost in July 2021. This platform is a freedom of speech forum that is un-censorable and unkillable. It is a sleek and bespoke writer’s haven, a space where whistleblowers and oppressed reporters can have a field day. The key function of Permapost is to place freedom first to those who seek it without the risk of being deplatformed. You can view permapost here.
Permapost grants everyone a global, uncensorable voice. By cementing each post into the blockchain, even the creators of Permapost can’t remove any of the content. Further, these articles can receive direct tips from readers. This grants content creators a permanent platform to publish and monetize content, which no one can ever revoke or limit.
Brave ads have been directed at the Permapost landing page with average performance at the current rate.
The motivation of building this platform isn’t profit. Instead, we seek to garner attention to the DAO through the marketing of Permapost. Not only could Permapost get significant PR if the right reporter or influencer talks about it, but it also demonstrates exactly what we mean when we say that Foundry builds “radically free” products.
We’re finishing up a few last crucial pieces at the moment — the primary one being an “author” page that will allow Permapost to be used as a blog. After this, we’ll be re-assessing (partially through feedback from relevant minds) whether or not it would be worth it to pursue Permapost in the long term, or simply leave it built and live as is and focus on more immediate opportunities for Treasury growth.
The Fight For Freedom and Profit Continues
As of August 2021, Foundry’s working on Permapost and further refinements to it as well as on dETH. Brave promotions directed to the Permapost landing page as well as $FRY sale have been paused, while we’ve injected total ad spend at dETH — since it promises to be a more immediate and realistic solution to the diminishing treasury problem.
The Foundry website redesign as well as Foundry brand awareness marketing remains a key component to our strategy moving forward. Development will most likely start in August/September. We have also contacted a third designer to throw some energy behind the logo. However, this is a low concern task.
The core team will continue to pursue product solutions to solve the treasury problem. We are open to community involvement and welcome your input. Please contact Logan if you have any pioneering crypto product ideas. logan@teamtoast.online
Conclusion
The Foundry DAO has seen an immense growth in throughput as a result of enhanced structure and team spirit. The plethora of lessons we’ve learnt has certainly made it worth it. The team has grown into a formidable force that can drive any project.
However, the Treasury has gotten pretty low, and Foundry is at risk of running it dry before the products begin to pull in significant funding. This is pushing us to examine every bit of effort we make to ensure it justifies the limited throughput we have.
Permapost, while an inspiring project, has yet to really prove its merit in terms of immediate results, and is about to start walking the plank if we don’t get some serious success data points. dETH is more promising but also must deliver quickly and convincingly.
