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The Tennessee Project

A proposal for Nxt marketing, promotion and development over the following 12 months
 
Nxt has came a very long way over the last 2 years. We have created and maintained a solid technology base and community that has been innovative, honest, constructive and forward thinking. You just have to look at the working features Nxt has, as opposed to the promises of many others, and see that there is a lot of value in the Nxt project and ecosystem.

As we all know, our market capitalisation has unfortunately shrunk by more than 90% over that time. Much of that loss, but not all, can be blamed on external market forces, as many other projects are in a similar state. The crypto-currency/blockchain technology market is also changing rapidly, as new players enter the game, like Eris and GetCredits.  Many of these new projects have their origins outside the ‘crypto scene’, and are markedly more professional in their business approach than the first generation of crypto-currency projects.

In this increasingly competitive, professionalised market, our approach to business adoption and development is holding us back: we have no real co-ordinated marketing strategy, and we have an over-reliance on volunteer work. Our main software client, the NRS, although very effective, is complex and intimidating, even for some crypto-currency insiders.  These issues need to be addressed now if Nxt is to carry on as a serious player in the crypto market.

We are the first to say that Nxt does have a superb platform, with some very good external projects in our eco-system (for instance Supernet, DeBuNe, Pangea and many more) and an amazingly dedicated community, but we need to adapt to a changing market by focusing more energy on a coherent and outward looking marketing campaign and by making the Nxt user experience as easy as possible, for both entry level and more advanced users.

We (EvilDave and Damelon) therefore have made the following proposal, after talking extensively to Jean Luc and Lyaffe: to set up and finance a dedicated marketing and business co-ordination team, which will be run under the banner of the Nxt Foundation, with full backing from the Nxt core developers. This can be seen as a professionalisation of the efforts we have been making over the last two years as volunteers.

In keeping with the de-centralised/starfish nature of Nxt, we will act as independent representatives for Nxt and as co-ordinators and facilitators for the marketing/PR efforts of the Nxt community (and outside contractors), but not as a group imposing any  ‘party line’ on the community.  Tennessee is an extra leg for the starfish, not a new brain. As we have already done, we will work with the whole community, and we invite each and every one of you to come to us should you need help.

The core team of Project Tennessee from the Nxt Foundation will therefore be Bas Wisselink (Damelon) and Dave Pearce (EvilDave), who will recieve a part-time salary on a self-employed basis, allowing them to work freely on Tennessee, in addition to their other tasks within the Nxt community.

Several components of Tennessee will also require paid outside contractors or extra manpower, for which we are also here seeking budget.

Goals

Tennessee has three overall aims:

•   A major increase in and professionalisation of Nxt marketing

•   To improve the Nxt user experience, in terms of ease of use, support and documentation

•   The acquisition of leads to both incorporate Nxt into real world applications/businesses.and to attract investors to the platform.

In order to realise the above aims, the Tennessee project will have the following short term goals, to be realised by Q1 2016:

●   Completely overhaul www.nxt.org , and streamline the web presence/SEO for all community owned sites.

●   Create a continuous and coherent marketing/PR campaign, putting the focus on what Nxt has achieved so far, and on highlighting real world use cases for Nxt.

●   As part of the above 2 points: create a complete portfolio of usecases, media packs and other publicity material, to be used in all Nxt marketing.

●   Set up a co-ordinated team for social networking/forums.

●   Create a coherent strategy to interest potential Nxt-based projects and investors who may be interested in utilising or investing in Nxt/SuperNet.

●   Expand and improve on relationships with our media contacts, including establishing exploratory relationships with professional PR agencies.

●   Create leads, and follow them up. This is a task we have been doing for months now, but it desperately needs to be professionalised and that means time.

Long term goals, to be realised by Q2/3 2016:

●   Assist/Finance the development and deployment of simplified NRS software: i.e.  Lite clients and webwallets.

●   Create a comprehensive user guide for the entire Nxt system, from account creation all the way to customised MS issues.

●   Set up an incubator system for both potential and currently running NXT based projects. This will have the aim of helping out projects with both direct technical/marketing assistance, and to bring these projects into contact with investors. The incubator will take a small percentage portion of any projects that it helps, and redistribute this income to the Nxt community.

●   Integrate a professional PR agency into Nxt promotion, and finance a campaign from them.

Further goals will be added to Tennessee as the project progresses, but this outline is a solid basis to build further marketing and PR on.

Funding & Fundraiser

We have talked to the core devs extensively over the last weeks and we estimate that to be able to do this for a period of 12 months, this project will require a minimum of 10 million NXT at current prices. This covers both our salaries for this period and the budget to actually do the tasks we need to be doing.

We have already started an informal fundraising project among NXT businesses and stakeholders to raise the minimum of 10 million NXT, and we are happy to say we have already received firm pledges for up to 5.5 million from Nxt investors and stake-holders.

This makes us confident we can raise the remaining 4.5 million NXT to complete the full 12 month commitment.

We want to start the fundraiser for this as soon as possible, and we will do this by a fundraiser using the Monetary System.

Using the MS in this way will also help us to create a complete use-case for ‘Nxt Monetary System as a crowdfunding platform’ , so we are actually using an aspect of the project to create material for one of the project goals.

The Foundation is also actively looking at methods to create an income stream for holders of the MS coin, possibly via licensing deals or as a result of income from the project incubator outlined above. This is very theoretical right now, however, and will not be happening in the short term. There are other uses for MS tokens and we will be exploring these.

If the 10 million minimum is not met by the closing date of the fundraiser, all reserved Nxt will of course be automatically returned to every donating account. We do sincerely hope it will not come to this, as we think this project is crucial to the future of the NXT Platform.
   
All Tennessee funds and administration will be handled by the Nxt Foundation, and most day to day decisions will be made and carried out by us, though we will be using the MS coin as a voting system to gather feedback from backers on major decisions.
 
Conclusion

You all know both EvilDave and me. We are asking you to enable us to do what we do best, which is go out there and get NXT the attention it deserves. We believe we have proven to have the commitment, skills and above all staying power to do this. Our skillsets are different, but complement each other well. As a team, we believe we can make a real difference, especially as we will be working with many people in the community and helping them to grow and flourish. We do not back down, we do not quit when the going gets tough, because we know we have created something of value and worth with the Nxt project.

We do think this is needed, based on our experience of the last two years, and we also think that this is a very good moment:  Nxt technology is mature, we have enough features to genuinely support outside projects, and the adoption of blockchain technology is starting to reach the mainstream.

And:  it’s almost our second birthday, we should celebrate our achievements.

If you have questions or comments (or encouragement!), please leave them below. We are happy to answer questions.