💡The Solution Construct
A marketplace owned and governed by its users
Dema's solution to the current state of marketplaces was borne from four elements:
Create Day ONE incentives & benefits for sellers and shoppers
Create a UX so shoppers and seller have zero to minimal habit changes.
Use free ownership & referrals to reduce shopper & seller acquisition costs
Deliver progressive governance
While it's obvious why we need to deliver the above; let's explain the "CAC" one a little more.
Why Reducing CAC & FREE ownership go hand in hand?
It's all about incentive alignment! Raising capital to spend on massive marketing budgets & acquisition costs is one of the primary problems startups face. Dema's ownership model is designed so sellers & shoppers will want to promote Dema.
Almost all ownership sellers & shoppers receive comes from the model. And only when you shop on Dema, are you able to govern Dema. This provides other utility & benefits which includes sellers & shoppers getting substantial financial returns if they're able to sell their earned Dema ownership.
So what else did we need to do? And why?
Making it easy for Shoppers and Sellers to use Dema right away: Our UX mantra is "don't change seller & shopper behavior". This not only reduces the cost of acquisition (CAC) (Dema would have to spend gobs of money trying to redirect traffic away from other marketplaces) but we'd be fighting a nearly impossible uphill battle for attention; one of the very things we espouse against! It also simply does not work against behemoths with established deep pockets. We'd be at the mercy of advertising algorithms: A no-go! So we designed a seamless UX for both sellers and shoppers.
Only users can govern: Ensuring no non-user (e.g.: operator or investors) can raise fees & change policies limits how Dema can be used as a tool for profit accumulation. Even sellers & shoppers ownership (making them co-opted investors) is distinct from their ability to govern. Using Dema determines how you can govern it. Ownership in its delivered value does not confer that privilege.
Sellers & shoppers need an incentive to use Dema on Day ONE: On day one, we reduce selling fees and pass some of the fees we collected to the shopper. So on day one, even without sellers reducing their prices, shoppers get a discount on any item priced the same at a marketplace. Over time, we'll reduce the shopper incentive down to zero and in turn collect lower selling fees always preserving the no-profit mantra.
On-Chain Reputation & other objectives
There's more to discuss than what we're showing here! For example, our mission includes developing a reputation that aligns to our vision, as well as giving the ability for anyone to instantiate a marketplace platform at any time, allowing permission-less shopper and seller sign ups and privacy enabled transactions between seller and shopper while preserving transaction integrity. We're saving an explanation of all this for another time.
It's time for Dema!
We've already developed much of the tech and elements needed for Stage 1. Stage 2 is a stone throw further away. We're building it now so sellers & shoppers can come together and own their marketplace. Join us to build Dema; it really is for all our benefit.
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