I cannot stress this more, No.1 is the whitepaper. Always look at the whitepaper. If you can understand what the team wants to do, and like the concept, consider putting money - else no use. No2. is the team. Look at the engagement that they are having with the community, also look at how old are their public profile like linkedin. QUtm CEO changed his name recently before doing qtum, he has been known for doing frauds in past- so do look into the history of people involved. No3 thing that I check is the community around the project.
This is bang on the money in my eyes. Here is what i would look for in an ICO, a little more than 3, but they are all interconnected.
- Strong team - Both in development team and also the CEO's / marketing (People focus too much on the developers which is important but not everything. no point having a great team to create something, if nobody can advertise it and push the startup in the right direction.)
- Realistic vision - not aiming too high or if they do not reach their target everyone who invested will be disappointed
- Solid whitepaper - Well thought out, shows realistic goals, a strong good vision and a plan of action
- Strong social media presence - A social media that shows they are connected with everyone
- Good customer support - Shows they care, and they have invested time and money into making sure the average investor can ask questions
- Good website - A business who is willing to throw time and effort into a good website are less likely to be a scam
- finite supply - ICO's with no cap can be dangerous and can simply just damage their own coin by releasing more for more investment.
-Market they are getting involved with - Is this a new market? or a dying one? who controls the market?
Finally
- Good concept and catchy name - A good ethos and a name that makes them stand out. Personally i would avoid anything that is something "coin".
If these are in place, then it's a good sign. I am looking at Crowdholding at the minute, seems like a good upcoming ICO (They are in their pre-sale). I like this one because it is about co-creation (Which i am interested in, which also helps and i would advise) and also you can get more for your investment as they are in their pre-sale.
https://ico.crowdholding.com/________________________________________
Hello PHOENIXDOWNDEE!
Very well said!
Your break down of what matters in an ICO is very well thought of, and the description you made is lacking nothing in my view.
I couldn't agree more and I've actually "stolen" something of yours and taken inspiration for our own Energy Market focused ICO.
I hope you don’ mind.
PROSUME
The ICO we're promoting is called "PROSUME" (
www.prosume.io)
Reading your post, I realized that on the PROSUME ICO side, we're lacking two things which you mention (but I promise that they'll both be sorted out within Monday), which are:
1. a strong media presence;
2. a very available and responsive customer service platform.
Objectively speaking, I was happy to assess that PROSUME is actually really good concerning all the other points you listed.
PROSUME’S HISTORY AND MISSION
PROSUME is an ICO aiming at building a business, geared to provide effective customer friendly solutions, for some of the major challenges the energy market is facing globally.
The business divisions we are implementing have all been devised as a result of extensive energy market related experience, most of which has been experienced directly by PROSUME’s team members.
Nearly three years ago we grouped up with the best people we knew in the tech field in order to devise cutting edge digital solutions addressing pressing present needs.
At the same time we started thinking about how to structure a company able of providing products and services, effectively devised to face the needs which are clearly going to become predominant in the near future, in order to aim at the most sizable opportunities connected to energy.
We quickly came to the conclusion that PROSUME could become a provider of solutions having an objectively global reach and started testing our concepts, on an informal and friendly basis, with a number of established energy companies globally.
Substantial work has been put into this ICO, mainly in devising the range of products (better defined as "improvements" or "solutions") which we are bringing to the market.
PROSUME is fashionably "disruptive", but I prefer to think of PROSUME as a real generator of added value, facilitating and enabling significant improvements in existing business segments.
We're a platform enabling energy related transactions, and we’re inter-connectors.
We help our clients to quantify and measure, we help them maximize and we provide them with tools enabling them to buy and sell more efficiently, for a better price, no matter if our customer is an Energy Utility, a Transmission System Operator, an Energy Trader, the owner of a Renewable Energy Power Plant or a simple retail energy consumer.
The PROSUME business concept isn't only “a platform”, it also comprises, and is embedded with, an array of solutions facing current problems we all experience daily when it comes to energy.
Most of our team members have extensively worked with and had access to historical customer service stats and data, we've accumulated years of relationships with all levels of management, at traditional State Owned Energy Utilities, Corporate and Private Clients as well as with Renewable Energy power plant stakeholders.
So, in substance, at PROSUME we know what the issues are, and we have a series of "ready to deploy" solutions which effectively answer some of the most relevant demands Grid Operators, Energy Generation Businesses, Traders and end customers need.
PROSUME’S TEAM
Please check out each of our team member profiles on PROSUME (
www.prosume.io).
PROSUME has very senior energy professionals on board, having an extremely relevant array of experiences, in both the traditional fossil fuel energy market, as well as in the renewable energy business. Storage and Electric Vehicles are also business segments PROSUME team members master and are developing actively.
The Team Members of PROSUME have been directly responsible and personally involved in the development and construction of over 1,5 GigaWatts of different kinds of power plants globally.
All Energy Group members of the PROSUME team have sat in decision-making positions concerning deals of major relevance on a global scale.
In fact, most of the members of the Prosume team presently work in some of the largest and most influential companies in the energy market.
PROSUME – RISK ASSESSMENT
We're aware of regulatory restraints and we’ve carefully assessed all risks our business model faces today and may face in the years to come.
We have no fear of regulations and Laws and we do not see them as an obstacle to PROSUME’s success.
We are in fact already providing extremely substantial services to certain major European Energy Utilities, based on existing regulation.
Most of all, as shareholders of PROSUME, we’re all newcomers and we are part of a new digital generation, so by definition, we strive to be flexible and to learn all day, every day.
According to our internal assessment and based on extremely qualified Legal advice, Regulatory hurdles, however notable, rank amongst the least problematic risks that Prosume will have to tackle.
As a company, following a successful ICO, we will have to interview and select a sizeable team of qualified professionals, able of hitting the ground running and confortable with teamwork based task assignments.
Selecting, securing and retaining top-notch human capital will be our most challenging and expensive task.
Anyone who has been an entrepreneur or has been involved in human resources selection and management knows how difficult and important finding the right people is for an organization.
Our hope is that talent will attract talent and that our work place environment will represent an element of strong seduction for the best people out there.
PROSUME – BUSINESS CASE
We all use electricity. More and more of it every year.
On a global scale, we will use TWICE as much electricity (this is a very conservative figure) per capita globally, only within the next 10 years.
Why?
-Because of the billions of people which are struggling to come out of a life of poverty, who want to own a fridge, a TV and be able to turn on lights at night, or even have air conditioning and heating...
-Because at a pace never experienced in history, we create, transmit, modify, share, store, need to protect MORE AND MORE DATA, of higher and higher quality, in UNPRECEDENTED AMOUNTS, which grow every day.
- Because our cars, our phones, and all other appliances in our lives, are becoming more sophisticated, are powered by electricity and becoming progressively more interconnected, powerful and “intelligent”.
Based on projections of penetration of electric cars alone, the world will require additional power plants able of generating 10 times the electric energy presently available, and we’re only taking developed economies into account.
Electric Vehicles, which are estimated to gain a market share of around 15% of global vehicle sales within 5 years, will require cities to be completely transformed, especially power grids will have to become purely data driven and able of processing and prioritizing colossal amounts of complex data inputs.
The blockchain and smart contracts are the only present solution, able of making this daunting challenge possible.
None of the objectives listed above can possibly be achieved unless a true digital transformation is implemented.
Fundamentally, digital disruption and the realization that technology can enable impressive new possibilities is changing most markets profoundly and very fast.
- When it comes to Energy, some of the most frequent and relevant questions we face are:
Can we pay less for it?
Can we possibly choose where it comes from?
Can I buy locally, maybe from my neighbours PV plant?
Can we choose to buy energy generated from clean sources, rather than energy generated from very polluting sources?
Can we keep extremely polluting energy generation accountable and somehow discourage its proliferation?
Can I invest in renewables and storage and does it make any financial sense?
The answer to all of these questions is YES
Prosume was conceived in order to make it happen.
PROSUME - PRESENT ACTIVITIES – BUSINESS CASES
PROSUME is currently working with leading European traditional utilities on a variety of projects.
A common request Utilities ask us to implement is aimed at pooling a small to medium sized sample of their existing clients, some of which produce energy with solar plants (for example) who agree to be joined into a “micro-grid”, in which energy exchanges between energy producers and consumers become possible with the help of smart contracts and by means of crypto-currency payments or exchange of services between the beneficiary of the energy and the supplier.
These transactions happen seamlessly, without any requirement for personal actions on behalf of sellers or buyers, simply based on algorithms automatically programmed to select the closest, cheapest energy source available and buying it when one of the members needs energy.
Clients can pre-select and choose where they buy energy from and save money buying from different generators which are part of the microgrid. Producers maximize their returns on renewable energy investments because they are enabled to sell the excess energy produced by their power plant to private or corporate clients for a higher price compared to the price the Utility would have paid them.
Another major application PROSUME is actively deploying with a European leader in distribution and transmission is described below:
TSO (Transmission System Operators), are often State owned and are the owners of the medium and high voltage electrical power lines.
TSO’s have an outdated and obsolete business model and face pressing needs when it comes to maintaining the stability of electric grids in the face of renewables which by definition are non programmable energy sources.
Their business model as it is doesn't make sense any longer. Not from when renewables have become a relevant part of the global energy mix.
Their dispatchment and transmission lines are used to transfer energy from one place to another, from producers to consumers, based on obsolete pricing systems, based on obscure and imprecise algorithms used to price transmission costs...
The electric transmission system is one of the most inefficient and primitive markets of the world today and TSO operators work under great stress and we risk blackouts due to instability and demand-response issues and inefficiencies.
PROSUME has initiated talks with major European TSO's, in order to implement a blockchain based system under which each unit of energy can be tracked by each TSO in connection with the distance it covers, the source it is produced by, whether it is local energy or "imported", whether its clean or dirty, the priority ranking the demand side ranks under (Imagine the TSO where able to distinguish between "energy priorities", such as the demand for energy coming, for example, from a breathing machine in a hospital. We all agree this kind of need would have to have priority over an electric oven)
This is a good part of what we’re striving to achieve.
I'm available to answer any questions with all the spare time at hand.
Giacomo
