Report for investors and ccFound fans for 4Q 2023

Dear investors and ccFound users!

Several things happened last quarter that may prove groundbreaking for the ccFound platform.

Highlights

1. Redefining what ccFound is - crystallization of the vision of the platform as a solution for monetizing their communities for internet experts.
2. Introduction of thematic groups on ccFound - a large pivot leading to community monetization (subscription access to closed groups).
3. Establishing a groundbreaking cooperation with Adrian Kołodziej - a famous internet marketer - and promoting the platform as a solution for internet experts.
4. The establishment of groundbreaking cooperation with Tomek Jankowski - a well-known marketer in the field of IEO and tokens - concerns the entry of ccFound on the stock exchange around April 2024.

I will discuss points 1-3 above simultaneously, and the fourth one separately at the end.

Mission and vision

So far, in ccFound's vision, we have focused on a social medium of questions and answers, analogous to Quora, but: fluently translating content into other languages, tokenized and providing many opportunities to monetize knowledge.

It is easy to see that in such a vision the target group of the solution is "everyone". Marketing science shows that activities with a narrowed target group are much more effective. This had been bothering me for months and I was looking for a group we could focus on.

We decided to reformulate our mission and vision. This is a groundbreaking thought for me and I will try to explain why below.

Currently, ccFound is a discussion platform for experts, influencers and community leaders that helps monetize the work put into running online communities and the information - and knowledge - provided.

Marketing strategy

These may seem like theoretical considerations to some of you, but they have huge practical implications.

For example: we stop advertising ccFound as a social media and acquiring users (“all”) from advertising. We clearly see in the website's statistics that this strategy does not work. Most of these users are not active. We hoped that opinion leaders would emerge from them, and to some extent they did. But it had no network effect whatsoever.

Now we create sales funnels for teachers and experts. We are creating an educational group for them to teach them how to build and advertise their own groups on ccFound. We create a paid course for them on how to make money on ccFound.

We could start doing it ourselves in January - it would probably take me several months to create a course, group and ads from scratch - and set up the sales funnel until it was profitable.

Instead, we could do what you read above. We have started cooperation with my long-time colleague from the industry, Adrian Kołodziej, who has trained thousands of online teachers for many years.

Adrian first became acquainted with the functionalities of ccFound and started cooperation with us only because he was fascinated by how great the possibilities this platform already has. However, Adrian's important role is now also to set us priorities in product development, which will be tailored to the needs of his long-term target group - experts.

We develop ccFound functionalities to primarily meet the needs of creating products such as courses and closed groups. We advertise exactly that - ccFound is your place to sell knowledge.

Adrian also knows what advertising and arguments work to convince people interested in making money from their communities and knowledge products. Its course, tailored to the functionality and specificity of ccFound, is already being created and in January we should launch advertisements for a group that will teach how to make money on our platform.

Competition and offer

What is equally important - we already have competition in the field of platforms for listing paid groups and courses. For the most part, these platforms charge huge commissions (Udemy) or a subscription rate (Skool and dozens of others).

Adrian and I analyzed the possibilities and came to the conclusion that we would make the market an offer they couldn't refuse. For now, until further notice, ccFound will be almost free for experts.

We will not charge commission on sales until further notice. At some point, however, we will introduce commissions that will start only when a certain level of revenue is exceeded. Therefore, everyone will be able to get started and start making money on the platform without any risk.

Most likely, we will pass on to sellers commissions related to payment processors, the fee for the invoicing machine and the cost of hosting video files (and data transfer).

Ultimately, however, we will enable creators to use their own payment processors.

We are considering a pivot for advertising on the website. We believe that an internal advertising system may have greater potential in monetizing traffic than commissions from sellers on ccFound.

The above change may make ccFound a free platform for sellers, or at least allow us to increase the revenue limit without commissions.

Network effects

In principle, this should create a feedback loop: more and more experts generate more and more groups with more and more users (we will teach them how to advertise their thematic groups). More and more users are writing more and more content.

We are translating this content into more and more languages (from now on, we will systematically add new languages - we have developed technology for this in recent months).

Translations are becoming better and better optimized for search engines (we are also still investing in SEO).

As a result, we also have more and more organic visits from search engines from all over the world (which we have also been observing for months - we have more and more visits from countries where we are not present). This will translate into an increase in the number of users who publish more and more content, etc.

The nuances of the new mission

We also see many community leaders on the Internet, e.g. on Facebook, who run their own groups and do not have the opportunity to monetize their work. They are not teachers, but moderators and sometimes animators. We are a dream solution for them too.

That's why in the mission we also talk about influencers and community leaders - and about monetizing the work put into building the community. It's not necessarily about selling courses or any knowledge. It can be simply supporting your favorite creator with a fixed monthly amount and closer access to his private publications. Access to the group on ccFound can therefore be an alternative to Patronite , as well as to Substack .

Finally, we placed a very important emphasis on the fact that ccFound is a discussion platform, not just a knowledge gathering platform. Even when it comes to geopolitical news, we can imagine that the ccFound group is used to publish information from around the world, not knowledge.

Artificial intelligence

This section is quite visual and theoretical, so if you expect specifics, skip it entirely.

When we consider what knowledge and information are, we see that artificial intelligence can aggregate and formulate it, but so far it is unable to observe and create it.

In other words, as I say - artificial intelligence does not have senses and its own perception of reality (its own opinion about the world of matter). Of course, she can pretend to have an opinion, but this is only the so-called artificial intelligence hallucination.

In other words, in the future we will still want to know other people's opinions on topics such as: "What movie do you recommend in cinemas now?", "What do you think about the new Audi A8 versus Mercedes S-class and BMW i8?", "What will the future of technology be like?" AI?

For the first two questions, AI can only aggregate other people's answers. AI cannot drive an Audi A8 and express its opinion. He can tell us how the car is reviewed by other people.

AI can get senses that recognize a dog or cat in an image, and even recognize whether a woman or a man fits into the canons of beauty. In the future, AI may even recognize the pattern of a film's structure contained in its script and assess whether it is hypothetically exciting, whether the action is dynamic and whether it contains twists.

But AI does not yet have emotions, soul or spirit, so it cannot "experience" a film as an experience that touches deeper chords in the human heart. Of course, AI can "pour water" on any topic we ask about and pretend that it really liked a particular movie at the cinema. Many people may be deceived and not notice the difference between a real woman and a virtual AI girl with whom you can chat.

Like the minimum wage or American superhero movies, it can meet human needs up to a certain level of intelligence (this is not a judgment, but a fact). We are therefore dealing with a progressive stratification of society on subsequent levels.

But the practice of dealing with technology shows that we are gradually becoming resistant to manipulation and we are starting to notice, for example, how Facebook uses our data to target ads, how television manipulates public opinion and how phones make society addictive.

Discussions vs knowledge. Therefore, I expect that we will continue to need people in the future. In the era of AI, we will value contact with other - living - people. We will be interested in his opinion. We will hunt for opinions that are not generated by artificial intelligence and are not hallucinations. We can expect that the value of statements published by accounts that have verified their identity or at least are not a robot will increase.

Therefore, ccFound no longer defines itself as strictly a knowledge portal.

We note that discussions - i.e. a set of opposing opinions, argued and subjective - constitute knowledge. Artificial intelligence can be phenomenally useful for summarizing discussions and the arguments they contain.

Values

The highest value of ccFound is truth: it contains, among others: striving to understand the reality around us, exchanging experiences and solutions, knowledge and wisdom.

ccFound is a discussion platform.

We are no longer a question and answer platform. We want to gather different perspectives. We understand that everyone has their own version of the truth and arguments behind a certain vision of reality.

Understanding arises from many perspectives, and discussion is the most natural method of exchanging beliefs and observations. All this is still needed in the era of artificial intelligence.

Listing on the stock exchange (IEO, IDO)

Many of our findings are confidential at this time, so please forgive me if this part of the report will be extremely brief.

We have established cooperation with one of the best IEO process leaders on the market, Tomek Jankowski.

We planned the entire IEO strategy as well as marketing activities in social media and PR. We are currently updating the whitepaper, pitch deck and roadmap.

After further analysis of the possibilities, we currently believe that we will start with the IDO (initial decentralized offering) process, i.e. the issuance of liquidity on decentralized exchanges. We are also planning to launch in launchpads.

We planned the functionalities of the token and the strategy for creating a new smart contract.

We have made decisions regarding tokenomics in order to stabilize the token value after issuance. For example, we have planned a new staking program and the transaction fees that will finance it.

We have planned how we will engage the community in a qualitative way through a points system (related to reputation) and airdrops.

In communication, we will promote freedom of speech and lack of censorship to attract users looking for an alternative to current social media platforms.

We have planned to build awareness: activating partners, social campaigns, engaging key opinion leaders (influencers). We plan promotional campaigns on Twitter, Telegram and activities within Zealy.

Choosing a market maker: from a comparison of four offers, we chose one of them.

Promotion and advertising

We have 35,997 registered users on the portal with confirmed registration (out of 51,783 total registrations). 204 users created accounts using the referral program on the portal.

I would like to remind you that you also have access to some of the platform's statistics on the right side of the website, in a special widget that we have recently implemented. Feel free to use it.

So far, 48 trainers have joined our platform and have published 127 products. We also offer 19 items that are free of charge.

As of January 4, 2024, the value of all courses listed in the ccFound marketplace is $3,516 (PLN 13,949).

From October 1 to December 31, 2023, 707 courses were purchased, but most of them were free.

So far, 27 trainers have agreed to join the Affiliate Program, which we informed you about in the mailing and on the platform. Thanks to this functionality, trainers offer us an additional commission so that we can advertise them ourselves.

We have also implemented a marketing strategy whose main goal is to publish advertisements (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) for individual courses. We regularly publish posts on our social media in which we refer to the advertised courses in order to constantly increase our reach.

Since the beginning of June, we have published 73 posts about trainers, courses, platform and substantive content that can be learned thanks to our courses. We will also include posts that refer to current events. We reached over 22,542 people.

Of course, these are still not the numbers we are counting on and which would allow us to maintain the ccFound platform.

However, we are making a breakthrough that should bring the platform to profitability - I wrote about it above in the "Marketing Strategy" section.

The above trials and experiments on small capital have shown us that the correct path is to educate experts on how to make money on ccFound. This is what led to cooperation with Adrian Kołodziej.

More details:

We have completed activities aimed at organizing the tracking and attribution system and setting up sales funnels in advertising systems.

We were constantly testing campaigns on Facebook and TikTok - as a result of these activities, we decided to end the campaigns whose sole purpose was to obtain registration on the website. We focus on product promotion.

We tested ads targeting trainers in various languages.

We have started advertising activities on Google Ads - remarketing activities aimed at people who have visited our website but have not yet registered on the platform.

We have implemented the Hyros system, which allows for even more accurate tracking of the attribution of our ads.

Over 20 new video ads were created to promote the portal and individual courses on the marketplace.

Finance and taxes

At this point, the company has PLN 3,470,016 in savings (approximately USD 867,504). These funds should be enough to maintain the project until the end of 2024.

As you probably remember, we obtained a positive interpretation from the National Tax Chamber regarding the qualification of our tokens as vouchers for various purposes.

Due to this interpretation, we applied to the Tax Office for a refund of funds paid for VAT and CIT. For now, we have received a refund of the VAT paid. An inspection procedure is currently underway, which will enable officials to determine the basis for CIT refund.

The proceedings require sending to the Office a number of explanations regarding both revenues and costs. The number of inquiries from the Tax Office increased significantly in the last quarter. We handle all inquiries on an ongoing basis, which to some extent burdens some of our team.

Therefore, we have the potential to recover approximately one million zlotys, but it may take until 2025.

It is therefore necessary that the hypotheses indicated above start working this year:

1. We need to succeed as a platform for paid closed groups.
2. We need to start making money on our own products: I mean groups and courses for experts on how to make money on ccFound, by Adrian Kołodziej. This will make advertising expenses pay off right from the start and will enable you to scale the acquisition of experts to the platform.
3. We plan for the IEO process to bring direct profit to ccFound.

Platform development (IT)

1. We have added the ability to create open groups, including:
   1. adding content with tags
   2. broadcasting group leader
   3. blocking group members
   4. preview of group members
   5. archiving the group
   6. pinning products of leaders and the founder in the group
   7. auto translation of titles, descriptions and content
2. We are finalizing the implementation of mechanisms for automatically issuing invoices from all parties - to all parties to the transaction (not only sales, but e.g. affiliate commissions and tokens)
3. We have added the option of purchasing a product and simultaneously creating an account on the platform, which allows you to directly promote courses
4. We designed the dark mode of the platform
5. We have added products and groups in the search engine and updated the search results view
6. We have added badges in the user ranking
7. We have added translations into Chinese and Arabic
8. We've added a feature to select your interests after creating an account
9. We have added a window with user data when you hover over it
10. We have added categories in the marketplace

The iOS application is used by 323 users, and the Android application by 1,620.

A surprise at the end

Many of you have asked why the Cryptography Institute (ccFound's parent company) does not publish its courses on ccFound.

So far, the platform's functionalities have been too limited in relation to the needs of the Institute's courses. For example, the Institute's trading courses used chat and forum functions, as well as installments and subscriptions. Meanwhile, groups on ccFound are free for now and we only launched them recently.

I have good news. The Institute of Cryptography, under my supervision, has initiated a new, large project related to geopolitical and war topics.

We will discuss topics related to securing yourself and your family, company, employees and property in the event of conflict escalation. We will talk about geographic diversification, analyze available countries, and even real estate and tax schemes around the world.

But it's not only about safety that will be discussed. We will also talk about investment and earning opportunities related to conflicts in the world. We are inviting dozens of different experts to this project - it will not be a project of just one face.

Many different thematic products will be created in this area in the "masterclass" format (an interview lasting several hours to acquire knowledge from an expert). We will create summaries and checklists for them to quickly implement the knowledge from each expert.

These products will be published on ccFound so that both companies start supporting and promoting each other. In this way, we want to pave the way and show that ccFound has already become a mature tool for monetizing knowledge, information and communities.