Dear Investors,
While building my first company, I learned the importance of having regular communication with our investors.
I wanted to send a recap of Q2 so as to keep you informed.
I'd also love your help w.r.t. finding an accredited investor who would invest $10k via New Layer's syndicate — see at the bottom of the document.
Overview
To provide an overview, dlcBTC started last Q4 but received meaningful funding in Q1 ($250k from Stacks, $65k from Chainlink). We graduated from Stacks Accelerator on June 15.
Q2 was on-track. Looking at our core metrics, we added 252 leads to CRM, grew to 705 Twitter followers and hit our goal of 10 active pilots
Arkadiko became our first paying customer at $250/mo. At the moment, they're paying for 200 API calls/mo.
An API call is a DLC open or close event, so this lets them manage 100 DLCs/mo. Overage is calculated at $1/call. This is just initial pricing but validates that they value our joint solution.
Maximum theoretical pricing would be a percentage of the 4% interest that they charge their customers
We follow the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) methodology and thus are holding our first retrospective (Q2 Retro) next week
Product
Our product vision has been evolving as we move from idea to implementation with our pilots
Our original business model idea was to provide a network of DLC oracles run by node operators that get paid in our token for running the data.
We’d own a reserve of the token that we’d sell off to cover expenses (similar to Chainlink’s model)
However, we've run into a tactical challenge in that users need Bitcoin wallets that support DLC signing and user flows. Building these wallets is a required step with all of our customers.
It may be an implementation headache or it may represent a real commercial opportunity for us
We're also thinking through DLC developer tooling such as support for more complex oracle types (e.g. payout curves), oracle data integrations (e.g. with Chainlink and RedStone) and other value-added tools and services
Sales & Marketing
In Q2, we hit our goal of 10 pilots. 4 are in more advanced stages (Arkadiko, Freehold, Blocksurvey and Bitflow). We also have 7 pilots in a scoping stage and 16 opportunities that are being developed
We have verbal commercial interest from a VP at Foundry Digital, the largest mining pool in North America.
We're envisioning a consulting engagement but need to pitch their VP of Product, who owns budget
We have the beginnings of an early sales & marketing engine set up. We've installed HubSpot and began creating content.
Makki, our social media/community engagement resource is also doing prospecting and inbound BDR.
Matt on our team is fielding inbounds, prospecting and is attending conferences as well
Partnerships
We've had a breakthrough with Chainlink: we were accepted into the Chainlink for Startups program.
Further, we’ve built a relationship with Elvie Kamalova, Chainlink's Head of Ecosystem Strategy & Investment.
Elvie is enthusiastic about the mission of what we’re building and pledged to help with fundraising and customer introductions
GSD Ventures accelerator program is starting on July 28. The program will enable more access to potential investors, partners and supporters
Finance
In general, we’re seeing a lot of investor interest in our seed round in the fall.
So far, we’re fielded inbound interest from Coinbase Ventures and Circle Ventures (to mention two heavy-hitters) but are actively in talks with over 50 VC funds.
Around 10% of VCs I’ve engaged have passed. We feel confident that we should be able to raise a good round on reasonable terms this fall
Unfortunately, we applied for Stacks Residency but did not receive it.
This puts 10 of our Stacks pilots in jeopardy as they are unable to pay for our services. We are unable to support startups pro bono without Foundation support.
We've appealed the decision and hope that we can get some partial funding to keep working with these startups
Currently, we're burning around $50k/mo. We have around $200k in the bank and are receiving $50k to be wired over the coming days.
This means that we currently have 5 months of runway
How You Can Help
New Layer has a syndicate open. They’ve raised $40k and are looking for an additional $10k to close their round.
If you (or someone you know) is an accredited investor who might be interested in investing $10k via their syndicate, please let me know
Reply