Bericht für Investoren und ccFound-Fans für das 1. Quartal 2024
Dear Investors and ccFound users!
I am publishing this report on the day of the emission of our $FOUND token. We are starting with adding liquidity on the PancakeSwap exchange today, on Wednesday, 17th April 2024, around 12:00 PM Polish time.
This is a big moment for our platform. In the coming days and weeks, the market will evaluate how much ccFound is worth. We continue to work diligently towards the success of this community. We have many plans, and I will tell you about them shortly. Let's start with a summary of "where we are".
Information: the original report was prepared in Polish. Automatic translations in other languages may contain minor errors.
Promotion and Advertising
In the first quarter of 2024, 1356 users registered on ccFound, of which 865 verified their registration with a phone number, which is a staggering 64%.
Currently, we do not advertise the platform as such, as we believe that acquiring users in this way is not very effective in building a true, engaged community.
(You may have read about the changes in our strategy and cooperation with Adrian Kołodziej, and if not, I will mention it below).
As a result, the users mentioned were mainly acquired through organic methods. There are not many of them, but their quality has increased, as indicated by the high account verification rate via phone.
It is worth noting that 795 new users joined the platform based on recommendations from others, which also speaks well of the ccFound community.
There are currently 193 courses on the platform, with 28 of them being available for free. This is already a significant number of educational resources that attract users with different interests. So far, 62 trainers have joined the platform.
Beginnings are always difficult - convincing an expert to operate on a platform where there is no one yet borders on a miracle. It is even more important for us to be grateful to Adrian Kołodziej, who recruited the first 30 experts for us a quarter ago, and thanks to that - as we see - this number is not standing still in the following months, but is growing. We are slowly building a snowball.
Financial results for the period from January to the end of March 2024 show that the total revenue from course sales in this period was $749 (2996 PLN).
Of course, this is still a low number. It shows that for now, we do not really have effective marketers on the platform. However, he only started promoting his group in April, in the next quarter - beyond the scope of this report.
By the way, I would like to inform you that a new educational project of the Cryptography Institute also started on ccFound, namely: the Citadel. In the marketplace, you can already find the first 6h masterclasses on topics related to personal protection and defense. The whole series is inspired by the difficult geopolitical situation and the threat of war. In June, a promotional campaign for the Citadel will take place on the Institute's media, which means an influx of new users to ccFound as well.
Returning to sales. We understand why the current results are so low. The first trainers recruited by us were tempted by the "full service" offer. We offered material transfer, promotion, support, and full service. Unfortunately, this created an expectation among experts that they absolutely do not have to do anything - they only provide us with their materials and wait for additional sales beyond the websites they already have and focus on. Most of them have not fully transitioned to ccFound and continue to sell through other channels.
We decided to approach the issue completely differently. First and foremost, we understood that we need to teach experts how to operate and succeed on ccFound. We want to recruit people who will mainly operate with us, as ccFound does not cost anything and removes the obligation for experts to have numerous systems and websites. The advantage lies with novice experts who do not yet have their own sales systems, to which they have been accustomed for years and would not want to change. This is how our new strategy of acquiring and training experts was born.
The next step was to establish cooperation with Adrian Kołodziej, a teacher of experts who knows how to acquire them through advertising - and has been teaching them how to do business online for years. The next step is an alliance with the channel Time Is Money, which also teaches people how to earn on ccFound. Time Is Money does not strictly teach experts - it teaches earning online. Collaboration with such teachers is a valuable discovery. This observation stems from the fact that many experts start their business by asking "how to earn online". Recognizing this fact allows us to go to the market much more broadly than just through expert teachers.
Here it is worth mentioning the most important change in our strategy. We have moved away from a commission-based model in settlements with experts. I remind you that ccFound was supposed to charge 20% of the revenue generated by experts. We decided to make the market an offer they couldn't refuse and offer ccFound as a sales tool practically for free.
The expert covers only the cost of the payment system (currently 1%) and - in the near future - hosting and transferring heavy video files. Today, many experts pay much more for payment systems (around 3%), so even in terms of obvious costs that the expert must repay to the platform, we outperform the competition.
We count on the experts enthusiastically jumping on ccFound in the coming months and starting to create paid and free groups here. By promoting them, they will acquire users for the entire ecosystem. Users, by writing content, will drive our translation engine in 18 different languages. Content indexed on Google in a dozen languages will result in a landslide of new people coming to the ccFound platform. This is the essence of our current strategy.
In the first quarter of 2024, users gained access to 1111 courses, of which 58 were paid courses. At this moment, the total value of all products published on ccFound is $10,087 (40,050 PLN).
In the period from January to the end of March of this year, 894 questions were asked. At the same time, the number of answers given, which is 8624, shows the community's openness to sharing knowledge and the willingness to discuss.
There are a total of 80 groups on the platform, 11 of which are paid. The variety of thematic groups enables users to find a place where they can share their interests, deepen their knowledge, and make new contacts.
Paid groups may be particularly attractive to users looking for more advanced content or exclusive opportunities, including making connections. These paid communities are, in our opinion, the future of education. The market has shifted somewhat from selling knowledge in the form of strictly video recordings, and the trend is moving towards enabling people to ask questions and remain in constant and organic contact with an exclusive, closed community.
The total monthly cost of joining all paid groups on ccFound is currently $1004 (3987 PLN). The longest offered period is an annual subscription, which would currently cost $8181 (32,480 PLN) for access to all groups.
IT and Token-related activities
We have focused a lot on SEO optimization, which has significantly increased the number of indexed pages on Google to almost 120,000.
We have enabled the creation of paid groups, including subscription-based groups, with automated billing.
Additionally, when creating paid groups or products, we have allowed the addition of their own Facebook pixel code for tracking sales conversions.
We have enabled additional translations of content into Italian, Dutch, German, Japanese, Indonesian, Portuguese, and Bengali.
We have implemented new profile settings and user profiles with additional information such as their products, knowledge of foreign languages, additional links, and skills.
We have redesigned the quick registration and login popup to be more user-friendly and to speed up the registration process.
We have written a new smart contract that has passed a positive audit, and we have issued the $FOUND token on it.
We have prepared the platform for the TGE so that users can easily deposit and withdraw their tokens, as well as stake them.
We have launched two airdrop campaigns and have collaborated with influencers to increase the reach on Profile X. Thanks to these actions, we have achieved over 150,000 impressions in the last 28 days.
Finance and Taxes
At this point, the company has PLN 2,830,000 in savings (approximately USD 690,000). These funds should be enough to sustain the project until the end of 2024, but we are still waiting for a refund from the Tax Office - up to PLN 1,366,000, which is approximately USD 333,000. The risk factor is whether and when these funds will be obtained.
As you may recall, we obtained a positive interpretation from the National Chamber of Commerce regarding the qualification of our tokens as vouchers of various purposes. Following this interpretation, we applied to the Tax Office for a refund of the amounts paid for VAT and CIT.
Currently, the Tax Office has requested detailed explanations of what each person collaborating with ccFOUND was doing - attention - in each month of 2021, along with presenting documents confirming the collaboration. In addition, we must very thoroughly explain how EACH expense is related to income. This is a huge and detailed inquiry that should not have happened. No normal company maintains such detailed documentation.
Of course, the amount of work we need to put into explaining these issues is absurdly high. At the moment, 4 people from the administration department are working on the inquiry, with the support of lawyers and tax advisors.
The inspection is carried out in a way that indicates that the Tax Office assumes from the outset that irregularities will be detected. Therefore, we are considering, depending on the time available, taking legal action (potential lawsuit) and media action (publicizing the issue).
Of course, we do not give up. We have put a lot of effort into running the company in accordance with the rules, which has distinguished us from the beginning in the blockchain startup environment. This is also related to incurring additional costs for high standards, lawyers, and tax advisors. We will consistently clarify questionable issues to recover the taxes due, and any publicity of the matter - we hope - will contribute to the popularization of the platform.
Dear Investors and ccFound users!
I am publishing this report on the day of the emission of our $FOUND token. We are starting with adding liquidity on the PancakeSwap exchange today, on Wednesday, 17th April 2024, around 12:00 PM Polish time.
This is a big moment for our platform. In the coming days and weeks, the market will evaluate how much ccFound is worth. We continue to work diligently towards the success of this community. We have many plans, and I will tell you about them shortly. Let's start with a summary of "where we are".
Information: the original report was prepared in Polish. Automatic translations in other languages may contain minor errors.
Promotion and Advertising
In the first quarter of 2024, 1356 users registered on ccFound, of which 865 verified their registration with a phone number, which is a staggering 64%.
Currently, we do not advertise the platform as such, as we believe that acquiring users in this way is not very effective in building a true, engaged community.
(You may have read about the changes in our strategy and cooperation with Adrian Kołodziej, and if not, I will mention it below).
As a result, the users mentioned were mainly acquired through organic methods. There are not many of them, but their quality has increased, as indicated by the high account verification rate via phone.
It is worth noting that 795 new users joined the platform based on recommendations from others, which also speaks well of the ccFound community.
There are currently 193 courses on the platform, with 28 of them being available for free. This is already a significant number of educational resources that attract users with different interests. So far, 62 trainers have joined the platform.
Beginnings are always difficult - convincing an expert to operate on a platform where there is no one yet borders on a miracle. It is even more important for us to be grateful to Adrian Kołodziej, who recruited the first 30 experts for us a quarter ago, and thanks to that - as we see - this number is not standing still in the following months, but is growing. We are slowly building a snowball.
Financial results for the period from January to the end of March 2024 show that the total revenue from course sales in this period was $749 (2996 PLN).
Of course, this is still a low number. It shows that for now, we do not really have effective marketers on the platform. However, he only started promoting his group in April, in the next quarter - beyond the scope of this report.
By the way, I would like to inform you that a new educational project of the Cryptography Institute also started on ccFound, namely: the Citadel. In the marketplace, you can already find the first 6h masterclasses on topics related to personal protection and defense. The whole series is inspired by the difficult geopolitical situation and the threat of war. In June, a promotional campaign for the Citadel will take place on the Institute's media, which means an influx of new users to ccFound as well.
Returning to sales. We understand why the current results are so low. The first trainers recruited by us were tempted by the "full service" offer. We offered material transfer, promotion, support, and full service. Unfortunately, this created an expectation among experts that they absolutely do not have to do anything - they only provide us with their materials and wait for additional sales beyond the websites they already have and focus on. Most of them have not fully transitioned to ccFound and continue to sell through other channels.
We decided to approach the issue completely differently. First and foremost, we understood that we need to teach experts how to operate and succeed on ccFound. We want to recruit people who will mainly operate with us, as ccFound does not cost anything and removes the obligation for experts to have numerous systems and websites. The advantage lies with novice experts who do not yet have their own sales systems, to which they have been accustomed for years and would not want to change. This is how our new strategy of acquiring and training experts was born.
The next step was to establish cooperation with Adrian Kołodziej, a teacher of experts who knows how to acquire them through advertising - and has been teaching them how to do business online for years. The next step is an alliance with the channel Time Is Money, which also teaches people how to earn on ccFound. Time Is Money does not strictly teach experts - it teaches earning online. Collaboration with such teachers is a valuable discovery. This observation stems from the fact that many experts start their business by asking "how to earn online". Recognizing this fact allows us to go to the market much more broadly than just through expert teachers.
Here it is worth mentioning the most important change in our strategy. We have moved away from a commission-based model in settlements with experts. I remind you that ccFound was supposed to charge 20% of the revenue generated by experts. We decided to make the market an offer they couldn't refuse and offer ccFound as a sales tool practically for free.
The expert covers only the cost of the payment system (currently 1%) and - in the near future - hosting and transferring heavy video files. Today, many experts pay much more for payment systems (around 3%), so even in terms of obvious costs that the expert must repay to the platform, we outperform the competition.
We count on the experts enthusiastically jumping on ccFound in the coming months and starting to create paid and free groups here. By promoting them, they will acquire users for the entire ecosystem. Users, by writing content, will drive our translation engine in 18 different languages. Content indexed on Google in a dozen languages will result in a landslide of new people coming to the ccFound platform. This is the essence of our current strategy.
In the first quarter of 2024, users gained access to 1111 courses, of which 58 were paid courses. At this moment, the total value of all products published on ccFound is $10,087 (40,050 PLN).
In the period from January to the end of March of this year, 894 questions were asked. At the same time, the number of answers given, which is 8624, shows the community's openness to sharing knowledge and the willingness to discuss.
There are a total of 80 groups on the platform, 11 of which are paid. The variety of thematic groups enables users to find a place where they can share their interests, deepen their knowledge, and make new contacts.
Paid groups may be particularly attractive to users looking for more advanced content or exclusive opportunities, including making connections. These paid communities are, in our opinion, the future of education. The market has shifted somewhat from selling knowledge in the form of strictly video recordings, and the trend is moving towards enabling people to ask questions and remain in constant and organic contact with an exclusive, closed community.
The total monthly cost of joining all paid groups on ccFound is currently $1004 (3987 PLN). The longest offered period is an annual subscription, which would currently cost $8181 (32,480 PLN) for access to all groups.
IT and Token-related activities
We have focused a lot on SEO optimization, which has significantly increased the number of indexed pages on Google to almost 120,000.
We have enabled the creation of paid groups, including subscription-based groups, with automated billing.
Additionally, when creating paid groups or products, we have allowed the addition of their own Facebook pixel code for tracking sales conversions.
We have enabled additional translations of content into Italian, Dutch, German, Japanese, Indonesian, Portuguese, and Bengali.
We have implemented new profile settings and user profiles with additional information such as their products, knowledge of foreign languages, additional links, and skills.
We have redesigned the quick registration and login popup to be more user-friendly and to speed up the registration process.
We have written a new smart contract that has passed a positive audit, and we have issued the $FOUND token on it.
We have prepared the platform for the TGE so that users can easily deposit and withdraw their tokens, as well as stake them.
We have launched two airdrop campaigns and have collaborated with influencers to increase the reach on Profile X. Thanks to these actions, we have achieved over 150,000 impressions in the last 28 days.
Finance and Taxes
At this point, the company has PLN 2,830,000 in savings (approximately USD 690,000). These funds should be enough to sustain the project until the end of 2024, but we are still waiting for a refund from the Tax Office - up to PLN 1,366,000, which is approximately USD 333,000. The risk factor is whether and when these funds will be obtained.
As you may recall, we obtained a positive interpretation from the National Chamber of Commerce regarding the qualification of our tokens as vouchers of various purposes. Following this interpretation, we applied to the Tax Office for a refund of the amounts paid for VAT and CIT.
Currently, the Tax Office has requested detailed explanations of what each person collaborating with ccFOUND was doing - attention - in each month of 2021, along with presenting documents confirming the collaboration. In addition, we must very thoroughly explain how EACH expense is related to income. This is a huge and detailed inquiry that should not have happened. No normal company maintains such detailed documentation.
Of course, the amount of work we need to put into explaining these issues is absurdly high. At the moment, 4 people from the administration department are working on the inquiry, with the support of lawyers and tax advisors.
The inspection is carried out in a way that indicates that the Tax Office assumes from the outset that irregularities will be detected. Therefore, we are considering, depending on the time available, taking legal action (potential lawsuit) and media action (publicizing the issue).
Of course, we do not give up. We have put a lot of effort into running the company in accordance with the rules, which has distinguished us from the beginning in the blockchain startup environment. This is also related to incurring additional costs for high standards, lawyers, and tax advisors. We will consistently clarify questionable issues to recover the taxes due, and any publicity of the matter - we hope - will contribute to the popularization of the platform.
54 users upvote it!
9 answers