Transform PR project closure report

[TanteStefana]

Well, my 2 cents, which is probably worth less, is that when I research Michael Terpin, I don't see any bad comments, Transform PR, no bad comments. I went a couple of layers deep, nothing. So either he is a sham, but super good at covering it up (in which case he's good at what he does) or he's up and up. I don't know where all this negativity is coming from, even your links don't say much. But it seems to me that transform PR was probably worth the money.

I remember earlier in the week, when funds were getting tight, I questioned how the funds were paid out. I thought that it was paid out in USD or something, but there was some other kind of arrangement. Which, because of the tight budget and... you know how it went, anyway, I did say I'd rather see us pay in USD because I really think the price is about to skyrocket. But I didn't want the project voted down. Not sure when that happened, but I sure feel bad for saying anything at all now. I'm sorry if I helped this issue go down the road it did It wasn't my intention. But boy do I feel guilty now, and I'll accept any kicks you want to send my way

 

[tungfa]

InTheWoods
no offence, all around.
i gave a stupid example which (sure) went totally wrong
i just heard from somebody else (i know personal and trust) vey similar stories about Terpin to what you were telling !
he really seems to have a horrible reputation out there, screwing people over,.... ! you were totally right in that ! MY APOLOGY !
but
that does not mean he screwed us over as well, as for the 3-4 weeks we worked with him he delivered as planned !

masternode
apologises, i am totally resting my 'case' here

 

[David]

Do you think I'm getting paid to interact here with you? Some don't even get the $3/hour and lots of people are motivated enough by having a fat stake in the project. They would probably be willing to work for free anyways. They are not here for the $3/hour.

You were part of this little endeavor and I understand why you may suffer a case of sunk cost fallacy. You are biased so let's just leave it at that. Some people just can't admit they've made mistakes. I guess this is why all the people who were involved get so emotional about this Terpin silliness.

It's very normal he wants to see a list of these articles. Nothing wrong with that.

kot said he won't show the articles because of scammers and trolls, obviously hinting at people who have an issue with choosing Terpin PR, people like myself and others

tungfa said you won't show the articles because of false advertising. Was Dash falsely advertised by Terpin PR? Really? If that's true I rest my case.

Did you hire an agency that does false advertising? Sounds to me like Terpin PR was the con artist here if they did false advertising for the project and if that's the reason you can't show the article list. You do realize that false advertising can be quite damaging and counter productive right?

Kot was being generous: I did not work nearly as much on Transform PR as the rest of the folks mentioned did. Lately I've spent most of my time editing for Miami, editing the Evo docs, writing stuff for tungfa, etc. The only thing I did that was directly related to Transform PR was write the announcement that Kot posted. Everything else, particularly the Miami stuff, was used separately by the team, although it may have dovetailed with what Transform PR was doing.

I have to say that the one thing that surprises me about your posts is your absolute certainty that you are right. You ask for numbers, you get them, you say that they are wrong. You ask for a report, you get it, you say there aren't enough measurables. You refuse to agree to disagree, merely repeating yourself in more and more strident forms. Your own certainty of your correctness is crystallizing.

I admire your self-confidence. I confess to lacking sufficient quantities; I've even admitted to you (in PMs) that I could be wrong. I don't think I am, especially with the report kot gave. Nonetheless, I lack confidence in my own infallibility, I suppose.

So I'll say it again: you might be right. But you also might be wrong, which is a scenario you seem unable to accept.

 

[InTheWoods]

David

You are obviously one of the more rational people here which I respect.

The numbers provided are and I quote "unverifiable" (says so in the opening post) because they were provided by Terpin's firm and it's not very clear what they represent exactly - the number of hits, the total number of readers of those magazines have or what exactly? It is very much unclear. What's wrong with a healthy dose of skepticism? Should we just trust whatever Terpin says? Of course it's in his best interest to pump the numbers. If you've been in business for a while and seen lots of crap over the years you do become a bit cynical and skeptical and you learn to protect yourself.

I was vocal about this issue because I happened to be familiar with this pr firm. I didn't want to go into specifics initially because I didn't wanna hurt the other projects that collaborated with Terpin, projects I'm still involved with.

Running the risk of souring my relationship with bunch of people here (which are really nice people btw) I did wanna present my case with the risk of angering some nice gentle souls. I didn't come here to make friends or enemies but to provide constructive criticism, which I think could be valuable in retrospect, once the adrenaline subsides. I've seen the mistakes other projects made first hand and would be sad for Dash to go down the same path, especially if there's something I can do about it. D&D expressed it quite well when she said Dash dodged a bullet with Terpin. She was spot on.

 

[yidakee]

David

You are obviously one of the more rational people here which I respect.

The numbers provided are and I quote "unverifiable" (says so in the opening post) because they were provided by Terpin's firm and it's not very clear what they represent exactly - the number of hits, the total number of readers of those magazines have or what exactly? It is very much unclear. What's wrong with a healthy dose of skepticism? Should we just trust whatever Terpin says? Of course it's in his best interest to pump the numbers. If you've been in business for a while and seen lots of crap over the years you do become a bit cynical and skeptical and you learn to protect yourself.

I was vocal about this issue because I happened to be familiar with this pr firm. I didn't want to go into specifics initially because I didn't wanna hurt the other projects that collaborated with Terpin, projects I'm still involved with.

Running the risk of souring my relationship with bunch of people here (which are really nice people btw) I did wanna present my case with the risk of angering some nice gentle souls. I didn't come here to make friends or enemies but to provide constructive criticism, which I think could be valuable in retrospect, once the adrenaline subsides. I've seen the mistakes other projects made first hand and would be sad for Dash to go down the same path, especially if there's something I can do about it. D&D expressed it quite well when she said Dash dodged a bullet with Terpin. She was spot on.

Man, see, with all the nonsense, this is exactly the type of communication that is highly appreciated.

I do not know Terpin, nor what he has done or not, nor what is fact nor what is here-say. But it this sort of communication style that makes me take someone seriously. I find it highly odd though, that the budget for the PR campaign was presented a month ago, and absolutely no-one questioned Terpin's reputation. Why only now?

So what are we to do when all of the sudden our communication mediums are flooded will quasi-spams and unsubstantiated accusations, pointing fingers directly at the core team of foul play? Not pointing at you right now, just re-capping these past few days. Why only now do these things surface, why not a month ago? If I knew something was really bad for us, I would immediately shout really loud (figure of speech), in a polite and structured way, and warn the community about it. And not care to hurt anyone's feeling, because ultimately, if such is true, the damage is financial, not sentimental!

So my question is, where is the proof that Terpin is dishonest?

.

 

[InTheWoods]

yidakee

I've downvoted the proposal the moment it was released. I've explained why I didn't go into specifics earlier. Check my posting history dating days/weeks back.

Dishonesty is subjective in this context. Go over what I've posted already and ask tungfa He also mentioned a trusted friend of his that shared some information on the topic.

 

[tungfa]

yidakee

I've downvoted the proposal the moment it was released. I've explained why I didn't go into specifics earlier. Check my posting history dating days/weeks back.

Dishonesty is subjective in this context. Go over what I've posted already and ask tungfa He also mentioned a trusted friend of his that shared some information on the topic.

woodman , should have listened to your posts much earlier ! (bad rep Terpin)
recent "derailing " attempts from certain community characters really got the best of me !
I totally admit it

 

[Raico]

Thanks kot and the PR team for what you've done.

It's shame to close the door by utilitarianism that may bring us more opportunities which Dash more urgently needed in the early stage of development.

 

[AnarchicCluster]

thanks for the report. It is very informative. The project shut down and I have absolutely no opinion if it is good or bad (I just don't know enough). However, as I understand, all this animosity boils down to Transform PR being disliked by some members of this community. Overall nobody is against marketing campaigns as such, but the only problem people seem to have with our marketing is that it is being run by this one particular firm. If this is the case (and I believe it is) maybe we should burry the hatchets because what's done is done and we should focus on the next move. Are we going to go with another PR firm? Maybe the one suggested by D&D at the beginning of this thread would sound better with the community? What is the plan B?

 

[yidakee]

thanks for the report. It is very informative. The project shut down and I have absolutely no opinion if it is good or bad (I just don't know enough). However, as I understand, all this animosity boils down to Transform PR being disliked by some members of this community. Overall nobody is against marketing campaigns and such, but the only problem people seem to have with our marketing it the it is run by this one particular firm. If this is the case (and I believe it is) maybe we should burry the hatchets because what's done is done, and focus on the next move. Are we going to go with another PR firm? Maybe the one suggested by D&D at the beginning of this thread would sound better with the community? What is the plan B?

My only problem (and I'm sure tungfa too) was with TheDashGuy - only - and not for his opinion, or even his bad mouth at times. It was that he went ape-shit and spammed more than 8 hours a day on Slack, dashtalk, bitcointalk, Telegram and reddit, several days in a row. He was in a road-raged to accuse the team of hiding information for our own personal gain. It was too weird and too deep into troll territory to ignore. If I was unfair to him, I would apologise, like tungfa did right here to InTheWoods. As I have too, on other occasions in the past. But I don't see any reason to.

It got way too heated, and when other community members jumped in his defence (because he did work in favor of Dash for a 2 months), that discussion steered into the Transform PR campaign. Thing got muddled up. What you are witnessing here is exactly listening to reason. We do listen to the community, this is not an oligarchy.

Just like the RC forks, this ordeal stimulated Evan's imagination and he is deep in code. Plan B is a DGbB v2, where we have contracts. Irrevocable multi-month budgets that cannot be down voted. He laid out some preliminary math and percentages, but it's too soon to start discussing those until it is actually ready. We'll have regular month-to-month budgets, and multi-month contracts - which absolutely make sense.

InTheWoods - I did read your posts, and I'm not pointing fingers at you. I'm sure you're not the only one than knows about Terpin's rep. It's just that I am sorta shocked to only be hearing about this now. All we ever heard was "you guys are nut! PR is bullsh!t, it doesn't work, it's not worth it! where are the stats? Those stats are bullsh!t" - never have we heard "Beware, Terpin may not be as transparent as you judge him".

And also I don't understand why you would not say anything. On one hand you are vocal on how bad Terpin is for us, on the other hand you say

I was vocal about this issue because I happened to be familiar with this pr firm. I didn't want to go into specifics initially because I didn't wanna hurt the other projects that collaborated with Terpin, projects I'm still involved with.

So you're involved with other projects (plural) that are collaborating with him, but don't want to hurt them by saying anything? If he is what you're saying he is, you're definitely hurting the projects by not saying anything! I don't understand this reasoning. If those projects are over and harm has been done, you're hurting us by not saying anything and not being open to it. Why would anyone be hurt by being publicly known they've been cheated on by a contractor? It is a collective responsibility to eliminate the Karpeles, Garza's and Ryan Kennedy's of this world.

Why is he such a bad wolf for Dash, but ok for other projects? Please understand that is this type of innuendo that confuses us in determining what is what.

.

 

[kot]

Thanks for your feedback here as well. All has been noted and taken into consideration.
Maybe a general note from PM perspective. We have limited resources and we can only hire an agency with a price we can afford. To give you some perspective, I can write that 6k USD was my weekly budget for PR in one of my projects in the past (and I considered myself lucky that the agency accepted it - but it was different time and different industry).another thing is vendor management. I am pretty sure that Transform PR was not successful in all their projects. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad. I saw really great vendors failing because of bad project and vendor management.It is always easier to blame on vendor than admit to own failures. I am not trying to protect TransformPR, just sharing my experience. Reality is usually more complex and complicated than post on the forum.
have a good weekend guys!

 

[hiddendark]

Last 2 cents before I depart this fine forum. And I actually cringe to bring it up.

Background: active participant in bringing down Josh Garza and his Gaw Miner scam operation. Intimately familiar inside and outside of their entire sordid operation. One thing that stood out which I just have gone through my old notes, was their sucessful usage of a boutique PR firm, which actually performed quite well for them. That is before everything blew up. Actual MSM interviews 2 x's in the Wall Street Journal, near placement on CNN (blew up just before that), a myriad of MSN outlets lined up but all at the tale end of the scam so they never came to fruition.

Now I don't know how one would approach them to see what can be done. Key being that have experience with crypto, do a lot of work in the dot com space, so perhaps a cold call might be in order? Mention of Garza might make them torotise in as he left them hanging with thousands of dollars of unpaid bills. In that respect from the invoices I have seen, they are not cheap. But can be comfirmed as effective in what they do. Company and contacts:

http://www.wisepublicrelations.com/#about-wise
Harrison Wise <[email protected]>
John McCartney <[email protected]>
Christina Sarracino <[email protected]>

I would suggest some one in their region approach them and feel them out to see what can be done and if there can be a fit. My suggestion would be to get your ducks lined up inn a row. That is don't involve them with votes and payments in DASH and other schemes. If something can be done organize cold hard cash in advance as I am sure that is all that they want to see (or maybe not), if Garza and his charade of companies and operations were able to be invoiced monthly, I suppose if the Dash Foundation as a legal entity with its finances in order, could also very well command 30 day payment schemes.

Any way good luck. Hope next time I check in DASH is trading at 8.50 or 10.00 accordingly.

Those guys look much better. Just compare the http://transform.pr/ and http://www.wisepublicrelations.com/ websites. I know who I would choose to represent me.

 

[D&D]

I'm back! :smile:

Here's a novel idea:

Crowd Source the marketing finance.

1. Where do the funds come from currently that everyone is voting on / about?
2. I wouldn't blink it donating USD100 in Dash to a coffer set up specifically for marketing purposes. I'd blink twice at donating USD500 in Dash to same. Then do it. Provided
3. The objective here is to increase everyone's investment. So far nothing is happening.
4. Contact all MN owners what is it; 3000 at this time. 3000 x 100 USD. If you cannot make that princely sum work to improve the investment we all have, then we are all in the wrong business.
5. If 3000 MN owner's cannot afford a piddly USD100 each per or are unwilling to boost their investment, then they\them\I are fools.
6. OK. Quick reflection there surely isn't 3000 x 1 MN out there - I have 30 I keep seeing someone here has 400 or something on their own etc.
7. Regardless. This is the idea within the inner so called circle if you will. To start. Contacting MN owners and have them 'give' a sum.
8. Thereafter a call to the general populace; via this site, reddit, bitcointalk where ever. Hell, even on a regular crowd sourcing / funding site. A call to arms. We need to raise x amount to achieve the following.
9. The following being prepared before hand. Someone with authority a mandate a letter of authorization whatever, approaches a 'proper' PR firm say like wisePR or any other, sit down with them hammer out a plan, see what they can do and see what it will cost. A tender. You walk into any PR firm and state we have a budget fo 300,000 USD what can you do for us, they'll be in their knees licking bootstraps in a heart beat.
10. The man with the cash is king.
11. Pretend you are buying a car and all you are doing is shopping dealers here. Don't be intimidated that it is a PR firm, a law firm, a bank, doctor, a Phd or President or Prime Minister. I got the money what can you do for me.
12. Sure it sounds and feels dirty; effectively begging for the public's money. So what. Couch it in a way so that it does not come across like a plea.
13. Let the other 'coins' laugh. Big deal. It's time to pull up our socks and do something.
14. Really as I state as an outsider who started mining this coin on GPU's from day one; to date we are languishing, saddled by ridiculous minutiae, trapped in vortex going absolutely no where. ETH is charging a head, people are a buzz things are happening (disclaimer: have ICO 50,000 pieces). This coin has it all but no one seems to know what the fark to do with it.
15. Is there a way to broadcast back to everyone's wallets? Send a message, a propsal, a 'hidden' quiet ... secret request for funds? If not and if necessary code it into a new wallet build where everyone who down loads and installs receives the same. Bad idea? Maybe rude maybe an invasion of one's privacy? Low class desperate measure that may back fire?
16. Do it out in the open the. On this site on all related public sites. On a bona fide crowd souring site.
17. Just do it.

In sum:

Anyone with a vested interest in DASH should be willing to pony up a few dollars to boost its value. If not get lost.

To boost its value it needs to be made known, in order to be made know it needs marketing, in order to do that it needs a credible PR company to effect all of that.

A mere USD100, 50, say min 25 x how many ever, can accomplish that. What ever it takes there are surely enough out there that want it to be done.

Chicken and egg: approach all PR firms in advance of knowing, or first test all DASH owners and see what can be raised. Trial by error: anyone in NY? Approach Wise PR, sit down with them and devise a game plan. Suggest the budget is 100,000, hint that it could be 300,000. And see what can be done. then come back here and let everyone know, then the call to arms and all the above implemented to raise those funds. Or raise the funds and the reverse.

Be Aware: it is a lot of money. Money doesn't grow in trees. One doesn't get to own 30 or 400 MN's from twiddling their thumbs. I did my 24/7/365 coding for many years. We will need 100% accountability of course, a proper coffer set up and a competent capable leader of it to run with the ball.

I think it can be done and should be done and can be done with relative ease.

tl;dr: everyone chip in a sum of real money to hire a real marketing company to provide real results in increasing the value of your initial invest in this coin.

End.

 

[AnarchicCluster]

I'm back! :smile:

Here's a novel idea:

Crowd Source the marketing finance.

1. Where do the funds come from currently that everyone is voting on / about?

Asking for donations is not the best idea. It has been tried before and wasn't very effective. The budget comes from the blockchain itself. When coins are mined they are divided 45% for miners 45% for masternode operators and 10% goes to the budget system and is spent on whatever wins the votes. It supposed to ensure financial independence of the project even if the key players decide to quit.

 

[InTheWoods]

yidakee
I didn't want to post in here anymore to let things cool off a bit but I don't wanna leave your question hanging. You could have easily found the answer in one of my earlier posts (the link I've posted in there).

Don't you think it could hurt a project if people were to find out the most genuinely enthusiastic blogger writing about the project, screaming all over twitter from the top of his lungs he's not getting paid to do it, claiming he's doing it for out of genuine passion for said project, would be later uncovered to have been paid PR all along, and exposed as a fraud? I think this has the potential to be damaging to a project, won't you agree? That's a project I truly believe in, that I think has potential to change the world in incredible ways. I'm not exactly interested in advertising that unfortunate incident to the whole world.

 

[D&D]

Asking for donations is not the best idea. It has been tried before and wasn't very effective..

Not surprising. Again from an outsider looking in, all I have ever seen every time checking in here, is a lathargic, morose, nay-sayering, woe be me, doomsday, cannot be done, defeatist, miserable, unenthusiastic, sad sack, elitist, profound propagandist, beneath me. Attitude.

Yes. And rightly so, first first and first coin of this and that.

Be that as it may, let the coders code quitely in the backroom, the brains dicated the heart beat.

The "job" to bridge the gap between the cyber space and real world is for you and me.

It's clear to me everyone here is waiting for some one to do something. Not unusual when you have the elite of the elite.

Who goes first, would it be rude if I inserted my two cents now, better, let me sit quietly and await my turn.

That's what is happening with DASH as we speak.

Nothing.

Nothing is going on.

We're building a 112 cyclinder 5000 HP turbo diesl engine and the design team , the engineers, who are paid to dream, cannot even come up with a chassis to fit it in.

The core developers in the backroom, the Evan's and whoever else it might be, cannot and should not be expected to spend time and effort marketing their personal dream.

What's wrong with everyone?

You have a brilliant team creating developing the backend, heart and sole, engine that no one has seen. And you're all sitting around waiting, hoping, that they too will introduce it to the world for all to see?

Pathetic.

Get a grip people. Let the tinkerers, mechanics do their thing. It is up to everyone else to make it marketable and introduce it into mainstream.

I'd be very interested to see or hear or learn why in the past donations where not accepted. I very very strongly suspect that the request was made and the intentions offered were wholly and completely utterly misunderstood.

You got a lot of sharp incredibly clever and brilliant minds here, mixed in with a lot of incredibly clever and brilliant dull minds.

Actually I don't want know or learn who couldn't apprecaite the donation need.

DASH coin need to kick it into gear otherwise it will lose the race. Clock is ticking it is 2016 now. Sitting around and moping, well this, and well that, and what if, and cannot, cannot continue.

Upto you who all might care.

 

[InTheWoods]

I agree with D&D 100%.

I think there's plenty of incentive here to chip in and fund some ideas. I was about to fund the Anarchapulco proposal myself entirely hadn't oaxaca intervened and make the claim it would be cooler for this to be funded from the decentralized budget, so that Juan would have an extra reason to make the case about the coolness of the decentralized budget system, but it was totally worth it to get it funded by individual donations. Low investment but high return potential in this case. Juan when asked was ok with doing it all pro-bono (for free). Only thing that needed to be covered was the actual conference speaking slot. Whole thing would have ended up costing few dash, just 93 Dash to be more precise, which would have also included a video of the speech in front of the perfect target audience of 500+ people, many of whom wealthy investors very much interested in privacy.

Lots of lethargy going around and that's not good. People too shy to interact, butt heads and get things going. DD is perfectly right on this as well. There's also a silly kinda` greed going around, the short term kinda` thinking. The budget system is great but doesn't mean we can't combine it with some donations/crowdfunding as well.

 

[BolehVPN]

I feel a bit better about this proposal going down now

 

[alex-ru]

At present, the main drawback of Dash - its low popularity (compared to Bitcoin). Problems with the elimination of this drawback - it is the main and most important issues of DASH project.

I find it hard to believe that DASH investors have created these problems themselves (for the sake of a mythical save a few thousand dollars) - it is more like a planned attack from the outside.

Many months of wasted time for illusory savings of few thousand dollars - is the very bad idea for a multi-million project in an extremely competitive environment.

I am very disappointed about this Transform PR project closure.

 

[InTheWoods]

alex-ru

To give an analogy; just because you're horny doesn't mean you have to screw the first guy/girl you meet. Same with Transform PR, that has a poor track record to say the least.

Terpin is present at all the cryptoconferences trying to sell his PR product, which is why many projects used him. He has been a parasite on the back of many projects if you ask me, extracting value without giving much in return.

Just a few thousand dollars you say? That money is better put to use paying devs to actually get a decent anonymization system going than pissing it away on some low profile PR releases disguised as articles no one bothers to read. If we can't find a decent PR agency better skip it altogether or buy Google/Twitter/FB ads with that money. At least with paid ads you get clear visibility and know what's going on. It's not about the amount of money but how it's being used. The idea is to respect every cent just like you respect a million dollars. That's how you make and keep money. If you're careless with how you spend $1 you'll be equally careless with how you spend $1 milllion.