Pay for value, not ads.

iPhone 8 costs 699$, manufacturing expenses are estimated at 295$. Surprised? I guess not.

Price isn’t determined by value - it’s shaped by the amount of demand and supply. Typical examples of products with crazy-high markups include: Designer jeans which have 650% markup & Coffee shops have a bombastic 2,900% margin. Value is included in that, by determining the demand. That is, price is fixed. Value is a notion and can depend on many factors.

A very simple example is a bottle of water. A shop sells it for a 1$. On a cold day this may be worth 50c to you, but on a hot day it may be worth two pounds (due to you needing it more). It also depends on context. Neymar wouldn't be worth 222 million euro to his local cleaners, but in footballing terms, he is worth (ie has a value of) 222 million to PSG.

These different cases have minimum of one factor in common: apparently sound promotion methods and strategies. As a consequence, the end consumer is presented with surprising and expensive results. To cover the costs required to increase sales, businesses need to increase the price of products and services above their actual value. And the extreme examples presented above are typical for businesses across many industries where typically up to 12% of the annual revenue is spent on aggressive advertising campaigns. At the same time,, the efficiency of online advertising has been in decline for years. Businesses are not aware that their ads are being displayed on worsening quality websites and a growing proportion of the ads are not being seen at all (Kalkis Research).

Here are five companies which provide some details about their online advertising budget: Ebay, Amazon, TripAdvisor, Expedia and Priceline. Combined, they have spent over $10 billion on online marketing in FY2015, mainly on digital ads. Their ROI of online advertising is declining: businesses need to spend more for every additional dollar of sale.

The ecosystem has become obscure, complex, and intermediaries are taking an ever bigger cut.

The advertising industry have become highly complex with much more intermediaries (see Figure Below) and the whole sector is about to crash as clients are seeing the inefficiency of online ads and lacking the transparency as well as reporting.

Intermediaries in the advertising industry take significant cuts and that increases the price for the advertisers, resulting in up to 12% of annual budgets to be spent on advertising. Consequently this increases the price for the end consumer and moves it beyond the original value of the product.

It’s easy to blame the intermediaries for the decline in ROI, but the industry players themselves are at fault for ignoring the system that allowed consumers to opt-out from invasive browser tracking. The industry’s resistance to move beyond ads and keep doing things the “easy” is partly to blame for the 615 million devices that now use adblock which is 11% of the global internet population. The ad blocking usage grew 30% globally in 2016 (AdBlock report).

Today, the only messages people see and hear are the ones they choose to see and hear.

The most influential messages are from friends and online strangers. Companies should strive to make fans from their fans.

In the post-Ad stage, instead of aggressive advertising, companies will influence the non-traditional consumer through dozens of interaction points created by the loyal supporters of the business. The community is going to be an integral part of any CMO’s marketing strategy as community or earned media has the potential to create more customers at no additional cost.  

Community or earned media is free, infinite and viral. It empowers customers to create more customers (at no cost for the business).

Moving past the advertising age will bring to market products which pricing is completely transparent and based on it’s actual value. Community or Earned channels are going to be the new intermediary in the advertising industry.

Surely, paid media is not going to disappear.

However, paid media will be used to support the community growth and spreading the content created by earned channels. Over 80% of CMOs believe that by 2020 they will own 100% of consumer relationship management channels. Building a community is the new way to support a brand and cut down on marketing costs.

On crowdholding.com, businesses can build a community that can be their customer who creates more customers. The Crowdholding platform is a place where businesses can create content together with supporters, search for inspirational and innovative product ideas and increase awareness of the project. Check out the Crowdholding platform at www.crowdholding.com

How to become a Crowdholding supporter: Part 1 creating a Ethereum wallet on MyEtherWallet.com

Note: This is a step by step guide on how to create a Ethereum wallet so you can get ready to become a Crowdholding supporter during our Pre-ICO / ICO. If you already have a wallet, you can move on to step two, on how to purchase Ethereum (ETH) and moving your ETH to your wallet. If you wish to learn more about our company or our ICO click here.

In this step by step guide, we will show you how to create a new Ethereum wallet. You will need a wallet to participate in the ICO and if you want to know more about what a wallet is or how it works, You can click here for a beginners guide into wallets. Also it is not essential that you make a wallet created through MyEtherWallet, as long as it is ERC20 compatiable (such as Mist or Metamask). If you are not sure, contact us on our slack channel and we will work it out together!

The reason we decided to use MyEtherWallet in this guide is because it’s very quick, easy and free. So let’s begin!

Step 1

To start the process of creating a wallet, go to the websitehttps://www.myetherwallet.com/ , where you will be greeted with the landing page. Once you are on this page, it is time to create a password. We suggest that you pick a reasonably long password (at least 20 characters).

Once you have done this click on the button “Create New Wallet”

Step 2

Once you have created your password, it will ask you to download your KeyStore file. This file is very important, so make sure to the save the file somewhere safe and also to back it up in another location (we suggest not on the same computer, or writing it down and storing it somewhere). The file will start with a UTC — 2017 (the year it was created) and will have a long string of numbers and letters.

Step 3

After saving the keystore file, click on the “I understand continue” button underneath where you can download your keystore file.

The following page will show your private key information. The private key can unlock your wallet if you forget your password.It is vital that you store this information, if you lose access to your private key you will not be able to access your tokens.

For this reason, we suggest printing out the key so you have it in paper form which you can easily do by clicking the print button. Also do not share this information with anyone! Whoever has your private key will have complete access to your wallet.

Once you have printed the private key, click on the save address button.

Congratulations are in order! You have just finished creating a wallet.

Accessing your wallet

Wherever you want to access your wallet, simply come back to this page and you will be greeted with the options to unlock your wallet. If you ever want to access your wallet, you will need to unlock it first.

To unlock your wallet, you will need the keystore file you previously downloaded at the start of the tutorial. Simply choose “Keystone File (UTC / JSON)” from the list of options. In the middle column, you will see “SELECT WALLET FILE”. Click on that button and upload the keystone file you downloaded. Once this has been selected, you have to enter your password (The one you created at the very start) If the data matches, the unlock button will appear

To check your balance, you will have to select “View Wallet Info” on the top scrollbar, you will have to re-enter your information (safety first!), from there you can see all your information and what your balance is.

The “ox” number is your public address and works similarly to a bank account number. Therefore it is okay for other people to know this address, as they will need to to send ETH or tokens to your account.

A quick reminder, DO NOT give out your keystore file, private key or your password. If any transactions need completing, they only need you public address (number starting with ox).

In our next part, we will be focusing on how to fill your wallet with ETH and the process of transactions. Thank you for reading.

Hi, you got your dream job!

You and many others who go to Crowdholding now are probably - nay, definitely - getting hired today!

Did you know that 96% of businesses fail within 10 years?

The #1 reason is that businesses are not really in touch with customers through deep dialogue. Crowdholding fills this gap by connecting the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing you to give feedback and ideas in return for future revenue.

Nowadays, there is a significant abundance of skills and knowledge, and extreme poverty of innovative ideas. You as the customer hold the key to success for every venture and businesses realize they need to have a deep conversation with you to be victorious. What are you going to make out of it? By participating in startup projects you will earn future revenue (Crowdshares), will exercise your skills and expertise as well as give feedback to inspire inventions.

Earn future revenue

How does it work in practice? Revenue sharing takes various forms and sometimes it is used as a stimulus program - a small business owner may offer a percentage-based reward for your feedback or for referring customers, for example.

The practical specifics for each type of revenue sharing method differs, however, the idea behind it is consistent: using profits to co-create and innovate with the crowd in mutually beneficial ways. It has been a popular tool within corporate governance to develop partnerships, improve sales or share costs. When the crowd and companies co-create or promote a product, a revenue-sharing system utilizing Crowdshares as currency is put in place to compensate each entity for their efforts. For example, a small restaurant with 200,000$ annual revenue joins Crowdholding to co-create a new type of burger every month. The restaurant starts with sharing 1% of the 200,000$ revenue with the crowd, that 1% of revenue equals 1,000,000 Crowdshares. In return for your feedback and ideas, you will receive Crowdshares which are distributed by the percentage of votes for each comment. Anyone who gives feedback and gets a vote automatically receives Crowdshares and starts benefiting from the revenue of the restaurant.

Practice a skill or expertise

Have you wondered where you can practice your skills? A place outside your university or work, where you can put to use all the knowledge gained in those small classrooms. Product and idea innovation should not be seen as something the company does on its own with its proprietary R&D resources, but as an activity, it attempts in collaboration with other stakeholders involved in its ecosystem. You are no more a mere spectator and now have the opportunity to use your skills and expertise to impact every stage of a startup’s lifecycle - in sourcing raw materials, packaging, manufacture, distribution, consumer use - crowdholding involves you in the full experience. Imagine you browse trough startup projects on Crowdholding and then find a bright idea that needs help and it's something that you can do! Apply your knowledge and skills in practice, earning you some Crowdshares (a % of future revenue).

Give Feedback

If your goal is to build a personal brand, position yourself as a professional and a great thought leader, get involved with startups and get your opinion to be considered as significant. When you collaborate and co-create on Crowdholding, you a acquire a constant self-education and personal brand building tool. A personal brand can be useful to anyone who wants to change the world, to better themselves and others.

And...GET HIRED!

Crowdholding can also be a place where you connect with a potential future employer and eventually join startups as their first employees. In order to build a reputation on Crowdholding, it is necessary on the one hand, to accumulate “proof of your personal brand” (for example, the number of project awards received, reviews and recommendations and so on) - and, on the other hand, stand out from the crowd by being unique and unusual.

One smart thing to ask yourself is: How do you derive value from what companies produce? It’s also an effective way of asking: What influences a company’s business - the product or the customer? We are focused on persuading businesses to rethink their marketing and idea innovation processes because the dynamics of value-creation changed. The key point is that if value-creation is to be effective you need to get involved in a startup’s ecosystem!

We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept.

Get in touch via our website.

Watch 1-minute Intro video

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Hi, Your business is now a unicorn!

Can you create a monthly quota of useful content within a week? The annual rate? Maybe you can produce out more than 800 ideas during one brainstorming session? And, maybe, your audience itself is willing to create useful content for your company?

Studies show that between 65% and 75% of new businesses are far from successful and fail within 1 year. Luck is often not on the side of the company that has decided to launch a new product or service. The #1 reason is that businesses are not really in touch with customers through deep dialogue. Crowdholding fills this gap by connecting the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing you to give feedback and ideas in return for future revenue.

How to use crowdholding in your business?

Crowdholding can be used to achieve a wide variety of goals: solving a specific problem, creating content, generating new ideas, conducting peer review, etc. At the same time, the competence of the people involved in the project does not matter much. Here are just a few examples of what can be done with this tactic:

• Ask customers to pass a questionnaire with questions to improve your service/product. Offer them something in return, for example, a small discount or a cut of future revenue (ie Crowdshares).
• Invite the users of your site to participate in the contest for the best idea. Promise the winner a % of future revenue (ie Crowdshares).
• Ask customers to provide feedback on your product or service. The authors of the best or most creative receive the biggest cut of the future revenue (Crowdshares).

Fortune 500 companies actively use the wisdom of the crowd. In 2010, the number of micro-tasks performed in this way increased by 496% and still growing.

At first glance, you might think that crowdholding is too complicated to manage it as part of your marketing campaign. But once you figure out the variety of forms that it can take, you will most likely change your mind. With the help of crowdholding, you can:

• Strengthen the audience's commitment. The customer undertakes to accomplish a task, generates ideas, discusses them with friends, disseminates information about the company and places the result on your site on his behalf. Thus, he motivates himself to produce a high-quality result and becomes an advocate of your company. The strategy of crowdholding includes the involvement of hundreds of such performers.
• Improve current products and services. The information gathered within the framework of crowdholding can significantly improve your product and positively affect the growth of the whole business.
• Increase the overall reputation of your company. Involving a huge number of people actively involved in a project, a constant discussion of the activities of your company and your products creates a positive public response, and also draws media attention to your activities.

Main benefits of Crowdholding include:

• Crowdholding can be used in any industry and business of any size.
• By requesting feedback from customers, you receive very important information for the development of your business, product or service.
• You receive the best ideas offered by a large number of people and do not rely on the creativity of one person or one agency.
• This strategy helps you to see firsthand how your customers think.

How to satisfy a huge number of employees?

Crowdholding campaigns are not primarily for the faint-hearted. At first, it will seem to you that you are trying to control the unmanageable. Over time, you will become stronger in this belief. Either way, you must have 2 qualities in order to succeed - total commitment to your idea and courage.

The following tips will help you make this process as comfortable and effective as possible:

Keep in touch with people. Most people who want to participate in such a project, like to give. Continuous contact with the audience ensures their ability to give and your ability to take. Make sure that you have a common place where the audience can meet and communicate with you and with each other, whether it's an internal corporate network or a private Facebook page. It is necessary that they feel involved.

Listen. The main advantage of crowdholding is the opportunity to share ideas, but if communication is not two-way, you can be sure that your audience will be able to convey this unpleasant fact to you.

Answer. Always listen before you answer. You can not claim that you are listening to an audience if it does not feel heard. If someone has a great idea, encourage the contribution of this person. If there is a problem, find the best way to solve it. Let people in your community understand that they are not a faceless mass for you.

Be honest. Hiding any information will cause anger of the crowd, whether it is the removal of comments left by community members or the constantly lagging answers to current questions.

Empathize. By putting yourself in their place, you can see the situation from the position of your audience. This will allow you to communicate with them more clearly and sympathetically.

Crowdholding is not the most popular content marketing strategy. However, if you have enough courage to organize a similar campaign, your marketing can reach a radically new level. Maybe the future successful development of your company is already ripening in the minds of your customers, and it remains only to get in touch with them and ask the right questions?

We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept.

Get in touch via our website.

Watch 1-minute Intro video

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.