Decubate AMA Recap.
The session of AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Elliot Hagemeijer was conducted on 1st July 2021 at 7:30 PM IST. (2 PM UTC)
AMA at @CrytoPlayers started with a brief introduction by Elliot Hagemeijer. Here are some highlights of the AMA.
INTRODUCTION
Elliot|CEO
I’m Elliot, founder and CEO of Decubate. Our team exists out of 20+ professionals and growing.
ADMIN ROUND
Jonty|Host
Tell us about Decubate, how does it work?
Elliot|CEO
Decubate is a community-powered investment platform that’s bringing the $3T global startup economy on-chain. Our platform pairs highly-vetted web2 startups with the financial and promotional capital of community members to fuel their wev3 success.
Community members (Decubate token holders) receive an investment allocation and staking rewards for backing startups on the Decubate platform.
So why are we focusing on traditional, web2 startups you might ask?
For blockchain adoption to accelerate, we need to build great/seamless experiences that billions of people will want to use. Many of these experiences are being built today by crypto native startups. We need that traditional will play an equally important role by onboarding their existing solution and audiences. Decubate is the first and only platform that’s 100% focused on this opportunity.
natz®|Host
Can you give some examples here ?
Elliot|CEO
Great question, take a platform like Fiverr for instance. Instead of creating a competitor for a gig economy building from scratch, why not just introduce a token and a MVT (minimum viable team) to the existing business that already has a working product, dedicated user base and more importantly, sustainable business model that doesn’t lean too much on the token.
natz®|Host
How will this help from web2 … to web3 in your example? am a bit confused, if you can explain, please.
Elliot|CEO
Imagine a startup that is near a scale-up phase, the concept is proven, their user base is growing but in order to get more traction, they need to make a very important choice in order to raise money. They could go to a VC, a bank or a crowdfunding platform. We give them a third choice which is web3. Just like companies scaled into web2 by connecting to the internet, we enlighten scale-ups towards blockchain.
natz®|Host
So they can upgrade from web2 to web3 themselves right?
Elliot|CEO
That’s for the long term. Initially, we will provide everything a web2 company needs to become web3 in all aspects. Literally accelerating/incubating only now, DE-cubating ;) Before I answer the above question I want to add; Even if we hired 40 professionals, we won’t be able to incubate (decubate) more than a few companies a month. In order to scale up we will give all the tools to these comapies to go from web2 to web3. A core USP is utilizing our community and user base for that.
natz®|Host
Why did you choose bscpad n tronpad?
both have a bad rating … sorry if am being a bit offensive, but they have very bad track record?
Elliot|CEO
The market situation is not acting in favour of launchpads at the moment, and understandably so. Why try investing in the next big crypto if everything is not performing great. It’s a mirror of what happened with forks in 2013 and ICO’s in 2017. Aside from the fact our success is not reflected on the launch day but will be determined in the upcoming years, we have solidified our backing with Tronpad and BSCpad for a while now. They have been very helpful in our efforts until now.
Jonty|Host
Decubate’s token is DCB. How does it work and what utility does it have?
Elliot|CEO
We focused on maximizing token utility from the start and DCB delivers a ton of value beyond its role as a platform currency. Voting power, staking rewards and platform rewards are just some of the additional benefits DCB token holders receive. A more detailed overview:
Voting power: The Decubate platform is community-powered, not just from an investment standpoint but decision making as well. Token holders receive the ability to vote on which startups to back. Platform rewards: Community members receive airdrops, discounts and additional allocation just for holding DBC. Staking rewards: DCB holders can earn rewards simply for staking their tokens. We’re introducing a burn mechanism to increase scarcity and rewards. Sharing a full list of token utilities here: https://app.gitbook.com/@decubate/s/documentation/the-token.
Jonty|Host
Many projects have interesting origin stories. What gave you the motivation to build a unique project like Decubate?
Elliot|CEO
Great question. I guess it all started five years ago when I founded my first company. I was incubated by Crosspring were one of the startups that were the first cryptocurrency broker. They taught me how to mine Ethereum when it was under $10 ;) It was there where I discovered the importance of an incubator and accelerator that can help the successful efforts of a startup or scale-up. In addition, it was great to brainstorm with other pioneers and discuss problems and solutions. I always kept that in the back of my mind — A powerful concept. Great question. I guess it all started five years ago when I founded my first company. I was incubated by Crosspring were one of the startups that were the first cryptocurrency broker. They taught me how to mine Ethereum when it was under $10 ;) It was there where I discovered the importance of an incubator and accelerator that can help the successful efforts of a startup or scale-up. In addition, it was great to brainstorm with other pioneers and discuss problems and solutions. I always kept that in the back of my mind — A powerful concept. I was missing a platform that provides the services needed to make this possible. So I decided to build it myself with a group of great professionals that believe in that vision as strongly as I do.
Jonty|Host
Could you please provide some progress on your Roadmap and what results Decubate has achieved so far? What are your upcoming plans?
Elliot|CEO
OAs CEO, I have 3 overarching responsibilities:
-Provide a clear vision for Decubate
-Inspire and hire the best people to build that vision
-Make sure our business is self-sufficient so we can over-deliver.
This will sound a bit self-serving but I think I’ve exceeded my own expectations thus far 😎.
-The vision for Decubate is to become the #1 platform traditional startups choose to get on-chain, full stop. The global startup economy is massive, valued at over $3T. Securing a leadership position in this space will unlock incredible financial opportunities for us and our investors.
-The Decubate team is extremely talented with decades of combined experience in blockchain products, startup incubators, software development, and marketing. Building this team has been one of my proudest accomplishments.
-As previously mentioned, fundraising has gone very well but I’m also counting on all of you to participate in our public sale — July 6th on BSCPad and TronPad! As for other milestones:
-Launched a new lead website
-Product in Alpha testing
-Successfully audited our smart contracts
Future plans include:
-IDO July 6th (join our email list to get the IDO time before anyone else)
-Product MVP (Minimum Viable Product) live in August
-First startup live on the Decubate platform in August.
Twitter Round:
Reputation score is mentioned as part of your token utility. How does it work and what are the advantages of having a high score? Also, are there punishments for a low one?
Elliot|CEO
Great question indeed!
Growing a strong community is a massive priority for us. We had community participation in mind when we designed the reputation score, which incentivizes investor activity on our platform in exchange for status and rewards. Investors with high reputation scores will have access to additional allocation, voting power and more. And no, there’s no punishment for having a low reputation score other than getting shamed by your friends and fellow users 🤣.
You’ve stated that the biggest innovation of our time is fractionalizing ownership of assets by tokenizing them. Considering recent innovations like fractional NFTs, what is your view on NFTs and does Decubate plan to launch NFT in the near future?
Elliot|CEO
We’re big fans of NFTs and the wide variety of use cases that are popping up beyond digital and generative art (our marketing lead wants to become a virtual real estate tycoon). While we don’t have plans to mint NFTs ourselves, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the startups we bring onto Decubate decide to go in that direction.
Cross-chain is mentioned as a key feature of the Deubate platform. How will this benefit the startups on your platform?
Elliot|CEO
The core Decubate team will be dedicated to ensuring the successful on-chain launch for the startups on our platform. Each startup will get to decide which blockchain they want to deploy on and this decision may vary depending on their current and future needs. By focusing on cross-chain interoperability, we’re setting these startups and our community of investors up for success.
Community Round:
লেংটা ফকির
My question, Do you have any plan for burning tokens in the future, to reduce the supply of the token and increase its investment attractiveness?
Elliot|CEO
Great question, yes we do. We have a burn mechanism in place for each transaction that takes place on the platform. 90% will go towards our staking pool and 10% will be burned forever. No extra tokens will ever be created after the TGE in order to control inflation.
Eldon
Don’t you think old and new blockchain projects promise or offer the same things to users, customers, companies?
Elliot |CEO
Hey Eldon, I think they’re different. Web3 projects are creating the future from scratch whereas Web2 startups exist in the present. Their product is real, their customers are real, and they can deliver real value to investors today.
Jaki
What are the key milestones on your roadmap — both things you have already achieved and things that we can look forward to? Any partnerships and short/long term technical milestones that you want to talk about or bring some attention to?
Elliot |CEO
Big milestone achievements have been:
1. Hiring our superstar team — read more here https://decubate.medium.com/meet-the-decubate-team-1cc097cae24c
2. Securing funding
3. And Alpha Product.
In addition, we’re excited about what’s coming up which includes: MVP launch and first startup onboarded (August) and a ton of other announcements (DEX, CEX, AMM, etc)
Alex Ryu
What is your roadmap for 2021? What are notable milestones we should look forward in 2021?
Elliot | CEO
Hey Alex, great question. Beyond the Product MVP which is our near-term focus. The ’21 roadmap will include platform features like Reputation score launch, Distribution contracts, Pooling contracts, etc. We’re developing Decubate in an agile way to ensure we’re constantly releasing new functionality to keep the community engaged.
Enajite
As we know market manipulation by whales to do a bear trap..
and IF THE BEAR MARKET COMES will your token PROBABLY DUMP? Do you have any plan to prepared for this bear market?
How will you handle the panic sell ?🙁
Elliot | CEO
Hey Enajite, We are not afraid of a bear market. To be honest with you, it might be the best environment for a team to work in peace towards their goals. We will nicely time our exchange listings in order to avoid “dumps” as you say. But again, we are here for the long run so the market situation is one thing, but what the team continuously delivers on is what the investors are looking at :)
Alice
⭐️ What are the early benefits for investors that trust in startups within the ecosystem of Decubate?
Elliot | CEO
Hey Alice! Love this question. Beyond the potential for financial upside, joining our community early on will allow you to shape what we’re building! Your voice, your feedback, your participation will form our product/feature decisions. Plus, your reputation score will be off the charts!
Dell
Are you planning to integrate with other different blockchain technologies to expand the ecosystem and generate more trust?
Elliot | CEO
Yes, we definitely plan to integrate with additional blockchain partners to create additional utility for the Decubate platform and for our startups. We’re already working on several well-known projects. More announcements coming out soon! 🚀
That’s all…
AMA concluded at 8:40 PM IST. It was our pleasure to host AMA with Decubate team, quite informative & knowledgeable AMA it was.
