Addressing main concerns: Communication, Clarity, Ownership

Community Discussion
1

Hey Martians :vulcan_salute:

Over the last couple of days, the temperature got higher and higher at the same time it’s great to hear so many voices and different opinions!

@father, @eugenefinch @MEMOLOGICAL_EXPEDITI are here.

Lets talk :heart:

1. Poor Communication from team–>

Obviously, it should be improved ASAP. We are in the investigation process and actions will be taken accordingly.

Quick improvements that are in progress

  • The product team will present a product plan for June (to discuss)
  • Growth team will publish a plan of upcoming activities that are already in the pipeline (to communicate in advance)
  • Creators will present the DAOs vision and strategy for this year (to be on the same page)
  • We are going to sync up with mediators, to improve the process and conditions (to improve the communication)

Quick improvements that are in progress

  • We will keep weekly product updates
  • Monthly, the team will handle a community call when sharing achievements for the past month and plan for the next one (Product & Growth) + AMA with Creators

2. More Ownership to the landlords →

Basically. My dream is to let landlords operate a colony they belong to and make decisions they want, build products they want, etc.

Are you guys ready to take ownership or we should build a couple of more tools, increase CLNY utility, boost liquidity, and launch the governance process?

Let’s discuss conditions on which Creators transfer MarsColony Treasury multisig ownership to the community.

  • What kind of modules should be live on mainnet?
  • How big should be CLNY liquidity pools
  • How should look the governance process & how Governance & Multisig contracts should be connected
  • Who will be the First Leader of the First Colony (I assume should be an election)

3. Lack of faith in the team

We are not saints, but we are builders. We did a bad job with communication. Let us improve the process, make the vision and decision more transparent and let us know if your feeling will change :heart:

4. Lack of clarity

Also a good point. In the past several months we talked with quite a lot of people, including our users, investors, advisors, people from the marketplace, and web3 space in general. Plus @vitalik recently published Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul by E. Glen Weyl, Puja Ohlhaver, Vitalik Buterin :: SSRN which aligns closely with MarsColony’s initial vision.

So let @eugenefinch & @father include those inputs into the Creators’ vision and present them on one of our next AMA.

5. Financials

One of the hottest questions :wink: As one of the members mentioned in the last AMA. MarsColony is one of the most transparent teams in the web3 space. But I feel the more we are transparent, as more you guys ask.

I am happy to share MarsColony: finance, ownership & business model. More than that I think every DAO should make its own decision on what kind of information to disclose, and which not.

Public Multisigs

MarsColonyDAO Treasury
0x89Ea5CCF7acC1c0319DD16dEe4349879eB6D0965

MarsDAO (Harmony Grant
0xb4e4703291657EB4eE2bc580Aa7CA437A44050d7

6. Stick to a roadmap plan. Stick to the originating documents.

Lets vote

  • Stick to the originating documents
  • Define a new road map with the community

0 voters

7. Stand up the DAO. Get Official voting on track. Let the community decide on where things should go with real official votes.

Please vote. Which initiative should be prioritize up ?

  • Standup the DAO
  • Increase CLNY utilization (finish missions)

0 voters

8. Respect the investor and the community by listening and taking into account what “they” want to see.

We do respect everyone in our community :heart: :vulcan_salute:

9. Hold smaller component votes on directions that are well thought out and fit into the overall development plan.

Please give us more input on how you see this process. Should it be on-chain voting via DAO or a post on the form with voting? Please vote

  • On-chain
  • Forum

0 voters

10. Mediator Groups Proposal and Project Governance

@AgentGreenStix kickstarted a great initiative. I believe it should speed up the governance process.

Martians, feel free to drop more questions below, I’ll add them to the list above :arrow_up:

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About the 6th point…
I wouldn’t necessarily throw away the old road-map into the trash. I would have a community meeting where we can discuss the existing plans, see if there are any new that would make sense, and put a timestamp on everything we choose.

Here’s my more detailed explanation for the road-map planning:

Also the title: Stick to a roadmap plan. Stick to the originating documents is deterministic, it’s not how the title should be written, because it’s obviously biased. :smiley:
Here’s the suggestion for the new one: Roadmap review.

I appreciate the response to our threads in the past few days :v:t2:

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Some how can’t add your comment to the voting option :sweat_smile: Error appears.

But yea. The question is are we keep building as planned or revise?

4

Not as an option, but as a title :smiley:

Like I said, I wouldn’t throw away the current plan, there’s a lot of great things in it. I would just add more details, and I would priorities Colony becoming the AAA game :metal:t2:

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Thanks Father for taking the time to hear out the community and put this together as it will no doubt help address some of the concerns raised.

I think the roadmap plan is good, i dont think we need to rip it up and write a new one, I just think more detail needs to be given around what is coming next and when we can realistically expect these to be delivered.

Right now a lot of frustration is down to the fact that the project is going off in all of these different directions with the Polygon launch, DEX and IDO but nothing is being done about the game and ever-dropping CLNY value. Whilst launching on Poly and having a DEX is good long-term, it doesn’t seem to be helping us now and if these launches are received badly it’s only going to damage how this project is perceived to potential investors.

What I would like is a walk-through of the product plan. What the current plan is for next missions/feature development. When you roughly estimate each feature would be delivered and perhaps reasoning why this feature is being prioritised over that feature. Let the community vote on what they feel is more important. For example: “Community, do you want more mini-games/missions to build XP or do you want us to start implementing burn mechanisms such as x,y,z”
We’ll start to see small incremental improvements on Harmony so that it starts to assemble an actual game which will help reduce the current CLNY circulation. You’ll start seeing the hype return and no doubt we’ll start to see Plots on Polygon sell out.

I think appointing the Mediator groups will help provide the developers with the community’s
sentiment on what they feel is a priority which will help reduce FUD in future. Lack of communication is really easy to fix if you make it a priority.

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Hey @father what about implementing an agile approach, for example Scrum or Scrumban?

Imagine creating a product backlog with all the epics:

  1. NFT Marketplace
  2. Harmony <=> Polygon assets Bridge
  3. V2 Missions
  4. etc.

Each epic will have many user stories, for example

  1. NFT MarketPlace
    * Create UI component of MarketPlace
    * Smart Contract functionality - Publish NFT functionality
    * Smart Contract functionality - Purchase NFT functionality
    * Create Sorting, Search filters in the MarketPlace
    *etc

For each user story you will estimate using story points (poker planning, fibonacci, etc)

Community as the product owner could vote what goes in each 3 week sprint (or even 2 weeks) so in that way we can measure VELOCITY (HOW WELL THE TEAM IS DOING!!!)

This is a way to be more predictable, this is a way to see how you estimate and by measuring velocity we can determine how good the team is performing.

This way we could see incremental deliveries and make you accountable. Whenever we see any off the chart estimation or not delivering what in the sprint was defined we could understand more than what we understand today.

This is simple, and will allow the community to really take control of the project. You can be the muscle, we can be the brain.

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I don’t think that point 5, financials, is answered. The questions’ goal was to get information on how long MC is able to stay operational using current funds. That’s important to know for any investor.

The treasury wallet is worth ~30k $ at this point, and the MarsDAO wallet is empty.
No information on monthly cost.

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I have to agree here with @joeok . This does not pass the financials data we want to see.

Monthly expenses: $x or X CLNY
Monthly income: $y or Y CLNY

Current Treasury Cash Balance: $Z or Z CLNY
Current Discretionary Account Balance: $W or W CLNY

Expenses:
Payroll $A
Misc Expenses $B
Travel $C
…

This is the type of data that we want to see. This is the type of data that helps investors forecast viability and health of a project’s sustainability.

Produce this data quarterly and post it for everyone to see and analyze for themselves. Provide the ability to validate the data by looking at the wallet addresses. This is what is meant by financials. This is how you gain trust and accountability to the investor.

Producing an overview of target milestones quarterly in the report will get you support from the gamefi folks. It means you actually may need an accountant type person that is good with producing numbers. Expenses, Balance Sheets, Income Statements, etc. Doesn’t have to be fancy, a spreadsheet will do, but got to have something like this for clear transparency. It’s not that we don’t trust the core team, we want to know the health and viability of the project by looking at numbers and projected numbers.

How does adding a CLNY based Market effect the Income? How does a Bank help generate income? Does the Treasury need to invest in land plots to ensure CLNY is available for CLNY payouts to Avatar missions?

Need a governance system in place so that the community can help guide the development plan.

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This discussion post is refreshing to read and appreciate the effort put into writing it. I feel it will add a bit of positivity into the community moving forward as long as this momentum can be carried :v:

Many others have shared great insight so no need to add anything new except an opinion that the voting poll and view exposure seems a bit weak for such a recently hot topic. Not everyone is always on the forum so it may be worth creating an actual Discord announcement to draw attention and further engagement @father @eugenefinch @MEMOLOGICAL_EXPEDITI

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CLNY utilisation must be priority number 1. Building utilisation is a huge part of this - I suggested this ages ago but no dev responded despite the community here agreeing with my ideas. Y’all just pushed ahead with this pointless Polygon expansion.

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Hey, @joeok @TdxTri looks like there is one of the critical misunderstandings on how the project functional financially. I think people are messing up grants, investment, revenue, etc. Let me sync with the creators and try to write a new paragraph about it.

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We also think that CLNY utilisation is the priority number 1.

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Hey @MataiusIM thanks for the valuable input. Actually, we were just talking with @eugenefinch & @MEMOLOGICAL_EXPEDITI to set up two weeks sprints. I think it should improve the process.

In terms of the epics plan. As I mentioned above, we would like to chat with the community to collect feedback and present the product plan for June :slight_smile:

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Hey @JimmyDiglu thank you for your input.

As we discussed earlier with the community. We have accepted the point that communication was poor regarding launching the NFT Land collection on Polygon. You can see in the first point, that we are taking action to make sure that it will not happen again. When I am saying Polygon I mean explanation on why Polygon, strategy, why IDO (in the end we did explain, but from the beginning, it wasn’t clear. It should be improved to avoid such a situation for all upcoming launches).

Regarding the product plan. Answered the above as well. We will present the product plan for June and are happy to discuss priorities.

Regarding Dropping CLNY value. I would like to highlight that in my opinion, the current price represents CLNY value that NFT Landlords found reasonable. Simply, nobody expects Landlords have access to Minting CLNY.

On another side, the product team keeps building improvements that increase CLNY utility. Maybe it’s not as fast as people want, but DEX is here, land improvements are here, and minting avatars are here. And more and more utility improvements coming.

So yeah, I think we are almost on the same page. And as more people come on the forum with the concerns as more we can talk as more our understanding will be on the same page.

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Hi @father, i know it is hard to find some kind of equilibrium between your vision and the needs of the community. I appreciate the work done so far. And i do appreciate your now increased urge to listen to the community much more than before. As all the sincere belivers and supporters of this project from the very early days i too am feeling somewhat sad about the current status of the project especially the none-utilityness of the CLNY, and the bleeding of it everyday. But i do still have hope.

Here are some thoughts that comes to mind that shines a light in this twilight:

I don’t think to say we need utility for CLNY is necessary since it is so obvious,
I think, more than DEX we need our own NFT marketplace, where we can trade with CLNY, burn CLNY etc.
I think we need some kind of proof of burn mechanism. This will increase the sense of belonging to the project at the very least. What do you think about the proof of burn mechanism vivalong mentioned on discord ?(Discord)
We need to have some more minting, say it new creatures, new tools, new neat ideas whatever to bring new motivation to accumulate CLNY just like before the Avatar minting.

Keep up the good work, i belive in the project and know we will see the project shine more vibrant than ever…

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@father @brother @eugenefinch

I also believe there is a misunderstanding of what is being asked for. We, the investors, want to know the entire financial state of the project, the team, and it’s viability.

Simply put. Any source of income should be in the report, whether it is controlled or not controlled by the community. The reason why this is important is simply because it provides data as to the long term viability of the project.

For example.

Sources of Income:

Polygon Launch $X amount received into Discretionary Account currently holds $Y Value in CLNY, MATIC, or BUSD. $I Value still waiting to be sold at 410 MATIC each…
Harmony Grant $Z value remaining. $EE still remaining to be received when Milestones are met.
Community Treasury $AA value with forecasted growth of $BB in 3 months from land plot minting.
Polygon Grant CC value

Total Income: $X + $EE = $HH
Total Balance: $Y + $Z + $AA + $CC = ~$DD
Forecasted Income: $I + $EE + $BB= ~$J

Total Expenses: Core Team Salaries total + Core Team Travel + Marketing Expenses + …

This type of data provides investors with a high level glimpse of how the project financials are holding up and will hold up. This is the type of data that I would like to see and I’m sure others feel the same way.

I’m not asking for a full set of financials… just a spreadsheet that is updated quarterly and released for public viewing.

Another area of concern, is the governance. That should already be up and running. I’m not sure why this is still not up and running. Should be pretty straight forward to setup with Avatars and CLNY holders, Landholders are bit more tricky but should be pretty simple to calculate. Please check with AKASparky or @brother for Gemini proposal details on what was written over a month ago on this.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or concerns.

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Hey @TdxTri let me also bring clarity on how the creators see this situation.

Firstly, as antonmaroun#6639 mentioned in our latest community call. That MarsColony is one of the most transparent and communicative teams in web3 space. We don’t have to be that much transparent, but we do.

Unfortunately, as more, we share more you guys ask. It brings a lot of destructive criticism and affects the mental health of people involved in such a process.

Secondly, I do agree that if the project is looking for investments or grant funding, it’s a common practice or even standard to present finances to the investors.

I don’t have to give you this information. But I’ll share, just to close this topic.

Grant

So far we have received a grant from Harmony ≈ $40k paid in ONE from Harmony foundation. The grant is delivered when a particular milestone is reached. You can find the full report here: https://talk.harmony.one/t/marscolony-play-to-earn-colonization-game-fi-with-full-community-control/6807

Investment

MarsColony was self funded project since the launch (May 2021). The only investment we accepted ≈ $250k paid in ONE from ProjectX.

We give a monthly report to ProjectX in terms of the company progress as was agreed with them on the beginning.

Investment IS NOT EQUAL to Revenue

We, CreatorsDAO would like to make clear to close this topic. CreatorsDAO launches NFT collections, proceeds from collections go to the Company Multisig and are managed by Creators.

We are aware that one of the reasons people claim NFT it’s current and future potential utility and worth (FYI: Harmony NFT Land plot floor price ≈ 9X since the minting event).

This why the core team will

  1. We keep our road map public and transparent at roadmap.marscolony.io
  2. Taking action to improve communication in terms of the company vision and product releases
  3. Continue building new features to bring more utilization to CLNY according to the product road map :arrow_up:
  4. Discuss new ideas together with the community before it goes to the development stage

Community treasury

I think we should release it to the community as soon as possible on-chain governance and Community treasury multisigs.

I really like @AgentGreenStix’s initiative Mediator Groups Proposal and Project Governance - #8 by AgentGreenStix. I think it could be a catalyst for the Harmony colony to the independency.

While the core team will focus on bringing more utilization of CLNY, you guys can form governance and start thinking about how your colony should evolve.

Happy to discuss about it on the Monthly Community Call (May)

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@father

Thank you. I will write a more thorough response as I find some time. I realize that the team is transparent, and I understand that with transparency comes more criticism. This is the natural course of things as the more information that becomes available, the more analysis can be done and therefore the more questions for clarity arise.

I appreciate the core teams transparency. It’s a welcome change from other projects, its also why I have a large investment in the project. So again, I appreciate the extra data.

We, the community, hear a lot of talk about how Marscolony wants to create a movement of change. Change is hard, really hard, but MC is on track for making this type of change happen. Transparency is a huge part of this transformation, as is financial reporting.

Having regular financial reports will set MC apart from all other crypto projects. It gives the community information that is rarely or ever divulged to the community. This step, is a critical step to building a better crypto space. It will provide people, the community, with a new level of transparency that exists in publicly traded companies and builds trust in what the core team is doing, how they are spending the money they generate, types of people they are hiring to help develop and gives those of us who are numbers nerds, something to crunch beyond our token counts, token values, and chart patterns.

I will try and put a template together for you and the team to use that will help provide you a framework for quarterly updates on financial overview of the project as a whole. Not complex, but will provide a high level framework that should only take a few minutes to fill out and post for the community. I’ll see what I can come up with.

Thanks for your response and willingness to discuss. It is very much appreciated, not just by me, but others whom I’ve had conversations with. Thank you for your efforts. Sincerely.

Forward,

TriTDX

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