I would be remiss in my duties to not focus this month's budget report on the dramatic price increases of the past days and weeks. To say that it represents a dramatic change in the outlook for our project would be an understatement. We are seeing this manifest itself in a number of ways besides price, including being approached by talent interested in joining the project, increasing transaction volumes on the network, increasing interest in integrating with Dash, and social media / Dash Slack signups. We've even been receiving phone calls back from previously uninterested integration opportunities.
In terms of our budget and strategy, I've been saying for about the last six weeks that our biggest problem right now is not funding, but growth. Few entities ever experience the kind of growth rate we are experiencing right now. Since the first of the year, our market cap has grown 4x just since the first of the year, and more than 5x over the past three months.
This kind of growth is challenging to grapple with effectively. Growth often comes at the expense of efficiency as time doesn't permit the full analysis of opportunities, and new employees take time to onboard and become productive.
It was less than a year ago that I joined the team full time. My first order of business was to take our financial planning from reactive to a prioritized proactive planning process. Over the late spring and early summer of 2016 we went through a strategic planning exercise across the entire team that was intended for Dash's growth up to about $150-200 million market cap. While we'd already begun the planning process for the next phase of growth, we just moved rapidly past the range that our existing strategic plan was intended to address.
Luckily, we had already begun our planning for the next phase and had some large opportunities already in the pipeline. We will be working diligently on the next financial planning efforts to ensure we deploy our resources as effectively as we can, in a manner that is consistent with our strategy and has continued impact on our growth.
Our budget system is now producing nearly $4 million a year in project funding. The additional funds open many potential opportunities for Dash, which we will be evaluating carefully to be good stewards of the network's funds.
To start, we should be able to shift to market-rate compensation for existing contractors. We did anticipate the need to re-evaluate pay several months ago, and already funded and kicked off a project with August Talent Ventures to assess the roles on the team and recommend market rates. This will ensure we can attract and retain top talent without alienating the long-standing team that's helped get Dash where it is today. Our existing resources have been stretched to their limits between the events of the last couple of months, and the rollout of 12.1. We need to ensure we can retain the existing expertise on the team as we plan our next expansion.
Second, we plan to ensure the development teams have all the resources needed to rapidly deliver the highest-quality product possible. We will soon be posting a number of positions to expand the development team, and I encourage you to watch the Forum jobs section for updates.
We also want to have a much stronger presence at relevant conferences. We see dramatic rates of return just communicating with businesses and investors what makes Dash so differentiated, and sharing our vision for the future of cryptocurrency. This return shows back up in our budget and fuels our expansion. By collaborating with BlockCypher at these conferences, we anticipate even stronger results going forward.
Other areas we are still evaluating include professional marketing, adding an HR function, expanding project management capacity, adding merchant or customer support, undertaking security reviews of our code, and promotional partnerships to accelerate Dash usage and adoption.
We welcome input from the community, as always, and will discuss in more detail on next week's conference call as our evalutations and plans continue forming. Meanwhile, please make sure to check this month's proposals and vote if you haven't already. Every vote counts!
Exciting times ahead!
http://dashvotetracker.com/
In terms of our budget and strategy, I've been saying for about the last six weeks that our biggest problem right now is not funding, but growth. Few entities ever experience the kind of growth rate we are experiencing right now. Since the first of the year, our market cap has grown 4x just since the first of the year, and more than 5x over the past three months.
This kind of growth is challenging to grapple with effectively. Growth often comes at the expense of efficiency as time doesn't permit the full analysis of opportunities, and new employees take time to onboard and become productive.
It was less than a year ago that I joined the team full time. My first order of business was to take our financial planning from reactive to a prioritized proactive planning process. Over the late spring and early summer of 2016 we went through a strategic planning exercise across the entire team that was intended for Dash's growth up to about $150-200 million market cap. While we'd already begun the planning process for the next phase of growth, we just moved rapidly past the range that our existing strategic plan was intended to address.
Luckily, we had already begun our planning for the next phase and had some large opportunities already in the pipeline. We will be working diligently on the next financial planning efforts to ensure we deploy our resources as effectively as we can, in a manner that is consistent with our strategy and has continued impact on our growth.
Our budget system is now producing nearly $4 million a year in project funding. The additional funds open many potential opportunities for Dash, which we will be evaluating carefully to be good stewards of the network's funds.
To start, we should be able to shift to market-rate compensation for existing contractors. We did anticipate the need to re-evaluate pay several months ago, and already funded and kicked off a project with August Talent Ventures to assess the roles on the team and recommend market rates. This will ensure we can attract and retain top talent without alienating the long-standing team that's helped get Dash where it is today. Our existing resources have been stretched to their limits between the events of the last couple of months, and the rollout of 12.1. We need to ensure we can retain the existing expertise on the team as we plan our next expansion.
Second, we plan to ensure the development teams have all the resources needed to rapidly deliver the highest-quality product possible. We will soon be posting a number of positions to expand the development team, and I encourage you to watch the Forum jobs section for updates.
We also want to have a much stronger presence at relevant conferences. We see dramatic rates of return just communicating with businesses and investors what makes Dash so differentiated, and sharing our vision for the future of cryptocurrency. This return shows back up in our budget and fuels our expansion. By collaborating with BlockCypher at these conferences, we anticipate even stronger results going forward.
Other areas we are still evaluating include professional marketing, adding an HR function, expanding project management capacity, adding merchant or customer support, undertaking security reviews of our code, and promotional partnerships to accelerate Dash usage and adoption.
We welcome input from the community, as always, and will discuss in more detail on next week's conference call as our evalutations and plans continue forming. Meanwhile, please make sure to check this month's proposals and vote if you haven't already. Every vote counts!
Exciting times ahead!
http://dashvotetracker.com/
