A) who said anything about getting rich B) you are so wrong, so, so, so, so very wrong and you don’t even know it. In fact you are so wrong you must be joking.
I see what you’re getting at in the rest of your post, but I would personally disagree that this statement is a given. I would posit that the order is perhaps reversed in your chain of events. Rather, I don’t think think companies see the “inevitability” of Safe and decide to help promote it from infancy into adulthood. Rather, I’d say, only once Safe is mature/more mainstream, will companies be likely to hop on the bandwagon.
(Not to say it’s not worth it to try, but, in my opinion, this mode of appealing to companies will not be the driver of Safe in the early years).
Good ideas do not mean they work in practice. Likewise, things which are objectively better in in practice don’t even implicate people will adopt it. Inertia is a strong force, and so is the power of propaganda and counter-campaigns that arise when establishment gets wind of a new competitor. Beyond this, established companies are largely not early adopters for very pragmatic reasons beyond just competition avoidance as well.
My point is there are a litany of reasons for companies NOT to embrace Safe Net. Safe is a noble endeavor and, here especially, we focus on benefits a lot. But I think people in this forum often underestimate how vulnerable we are as a newcomer.
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I totally agree, the web is the most powerful marketing tool and cloud is the most powerful business and Data is the most important resource.
The SAFE network will provide anonymous web and serverless autonomous network. It is the most useful network attracting whole mankind without any marketing.
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(big post incoming!)
I’d like to offer some thoughts here as to why I think, and it’s a view shared by the team, that the primary audience for our marketing efforts should be the people using the Network for their personal data in their day-to-day lives: aka The End User*.
I know a lot of this thread is talking tactics and messaging but straightening who are target audience is, and building a collective understanding of them will help make all other efforts in regard to strategy more efficient and pointing in the same direction.
(We had some long discussions on this in a hangout a few weeks back, so @Sotros25 already knows we have differing views on this 
, and hopefully we’ll be able to put the video up of that some time—but it was so long I think its already killed @m3data’s computer 
.)
So here’s just some of the reasons…
Why our primary target group should be the End User
There’s the perception of a chicken and egg problem at the heart of the debate around who we should target first, Developers or End Users. Is it demand driving supply? Or do we build it and they will come?
Here’s the reasoning as to why we need to do both, but marketing to End Users is crucial:
People will need to have a relationship with the Network itself
What the Network offers is chance for people to change their relationship with their personal data, and who owns it. So it’s fundamental that people will need to have a relationship with the Network itself, and trust it. And that, right there, is a clear cut reason why we need to market it to them.
This is not just a tech that is used in the back end of apps, like a chat app running on a blockchain. If all we have is a bunch of apps running on the clearnet with Safe-based storage backends, then we have failed.
Building and marketing apps alone will not do the job. Talking about the Network only to devs, and submerging it from the consciousness of end users could end up backfiring… do we inadvertently promote the the idea that the Network is merely something ‘powering’ apps like a blockchain, something that should not be visible to end users? If so, we may encourage devs and businesses to do just that, decoupling user from their data once again.
The diversity and utility of the app ecosystem available to people is doubtless important, but which ever way we look at it, to make use of them it necessitates that regular people interact with the Network—they need to be onboard with it, comprehend this realignment with their data, and what that means for them.
Without data, there is no Network
You’re probably all sick of me saying it, but without a healthy supply of data, there is no Network. The Safe Network is data. The fate of farmers, developers, investors etc all depends on a healthy and growing supply of data. That means demand, and lots of it.
“But how do we build demand without killer apps and a functioning network yet!??” I hear you cry.
Well, being in the period just prior to the end of development of the Network, and its launch, is actually a real advantage in this regard.
Let me draw on a wee bit of a music industry analogy, a blast into the past for me 
. When I used to work with new bands, we’d occasionally get questions along the lines of “how can we market ourselves when we don’t have a record yet?”.
While this can seem a hard circle to square at times, the answer is the same for this young band as it is for us: build a fan base. Then, when the record is all set to be go, it’s already eagerly anticipated. You want and need anticipation of it and demand for the recording on day one of its release. This is what propels an album on launch, how you climb charts, and get it amplified on radio playlists, and get the band up to the next level.
Marketing an album alone, even the most extraordinary of recordings, without that built in support come release, is much, much harder. It’s an uphill struggle.
So that’s what we need to do right now. Build a fan base. Build anticipation and demand for the Network, by the people who will be using it, prior to launch, so that when we are ready to hit the button, the data flows in with abundance.
There are a myriad of strategies we can employ to achieve this which we can discuss, but we don’t need to have a functioning Network to do it. In fact it could be said we won’t have a functioning Network if fail to do this.
Because we need to market outside of the crypto bubble
The solution to the chicken/egg is not a choice between marketing to developers or end users, it’s not one over the other, we clearly need both; but we absolutely need a concerted, repeated, and consistent drive to market to end users… it’s something we haven’t been doing effectively, and we need to change that.
That means stepping outside of the crypto bubble. Not just enticing people to move from one DLT to a DLT alternative. It means we shouldn’t be offering Safe as an alternative dApp ecosystem, nor simply offering an alternative to Blockchain.
We are offering an alternative to surveillance capitalism; we are offering an alternative to the web. Or as @m3data put it: we are offering people hope.
The need for this alternative is huge of course, and the vast majority of people who need what the Safe Network has to offer are stuck in the clearnet traps, and aren’t currently within the ‘crypto space’.
There are a bunch of reasons for this, I’m sure, but the end user-base for dApps is currently very small, extremely niche, and comprised of people we’d likely be able to reach through marketing to outside of this space anyway.
The marketing landscape in crypto land is also very very noisy, awash with scammers, fly-by-nights, pump-and-dumps, and armies of trolls claiming every other project is just that. Marketing to people within this sphere is difficult, and marketing to people outside it, using the language from within, even more challenging.
If we successfully market to End Users, we’ll be reaching developers too
As I say, it’s not an either/or choice of marketing to developers or end users, it’s not one or the other. But if we successfully communicate to end users, then we’ll be reaching developers anyway, because devs will be users of the Network too. However, this isn’t true to the same degree the other way around.
One marketing strategy feeds into and supports the other, and there’s a relationship between the two, but I’d argue erring on the side of inducing demand at this stage is where we will see most benefit.
And I’d also postulate as to what a truly successful end user targeted campaign might look like to developers: When devs start hearing their non-techie friends talking about Safe—that is a very strong signal that it will be a breakout technology, and they should jump in. This is what we should be aiming for.
In conclusion, I’m urging that we are right to spend time marketing to developers, but our primary target audience should be people for whom we are building the Network: People who are currently trapped in the web of surveillance capitalism that has deliberately intertwined itself in their lives, and would happily start to disentangle themselves from it, if only there was an alternative.
*I know, I know, the term User is disagreeable. And I wince when I use it too. It’s far better to be able to take about humans—individual people with thoughts, feeling, hopes, dreams and fears. It’s one of the reasons in the design world, we have tools called Personas, that allow you to synthesis user research, and put a name to that individual… and from then on talk about them as a person not an aggregate data set. I suggest we do that too. But at this point, it can save bit of tongue twisting to employ the term User so I hope you’ll forgive it.
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That is right, decentralization is the game who get the end users, and I think blockchain cant hold end users. Gogo team! There are billions uesr waiting truly freedom network.
This makes sense when you have a product (or are at least creating a type of product people know like a flavor of soda or representing a band). What end user (who doesn’t already care about decentralization) is going to care about a Network that offers no value they can readily use, especially one that is perceived as being perpetually in Alpha? Why would you first market to end users (who don’t understand, use or trust decentralization / crypto) about something like this when you have no idea when the product will be released? Why would you target end users who care way more about a valuable and convenient experience when there is no experience to share?
Why wouldn’t you at least simultaneously target developers who could help you create and deliver that valuable and convenient experience, thus increasing the value of the Network to end users? As you’ll see in the video when it gets posted, I thought we’d aligned on prioritizing both end users and developers.
I’ll ask it again: name a single high-performing dApp/web3/ decentralized storage project that has not invested in targeting developers? Name one single advanced technological product that met with success by first targeting the mass market consumer?
When I first asked @JimCollinson this question, he raised the example of marketing bands that didn’t have albums yet. Music, however, is as old as time—the furthest thing from innovative tech. Anyone can imagine what the product would be because they have great familiarity with the concept of music. Indeed, if the band stinks, the longer you can keep an album off the streets and just market on fluff, the better.
Marketing Safe will be like marketing music when Safe transitions to Maturity.
When devs start hearing their non-techie friends talking about Safe, they’ll recommend alternative technologies with tangible experiences (likely on the platforms where they’re already building). But, if those devs were invested in Safe because they were building on Safe, they’d say: checkout my prototype dApp! Keep in mind that the earliest users of the Network will highly overlap with the developer target group. Devs need to know that Safe can help them realize their vision to deliver value to end-users better than any other platform.
Marketing Safe is a fundamentally B2B2C endeavor. Like Uber—MaidSafe needs to reach the drivers (devs) and the riders (end-users) to launch successfully. As noted above, I thought this is what was agreed to on the call. Both design and marketing must be user-centric, because if the driver doesn’t think the rider will find value in using Uber, they won’t drive. Similarly, devs won’t build on Safe if they don’t perceive value to the end-user. But! If riders are never able to get a ride on time because there aren’t enough drivers, they’ll bail on the service. To extend the metaphor, if end-users show up to Safe and there’s little more than storage on the Network b/c there’s no thriving dApp ecosystem, they’ll bail quickly.
Effective marketing will communicate end-user value and how devs can participate in delivering that value to end-users while simultaneously realizing value for themselves. This is why I’m gathering data to understand what will be considered compelling value to devs and users (as well as the two other target groups—farmers and investors/traders). Without this knowledge, it’s too early to decide on any marketing hook as well (which is why my comments on this thread have been largely limited and highly speculative).
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If I read @JimCollinson correctly, and @Sotros25 too, there is agreement that we need to market to both, though a hint from Jim that if we had to ditch one it should be developers because marketing to users would reach them anyway. I see that is contested, but I think we can do both so it is more a matter of getting the emphasis about right.
I don’t know what “marketing to” either will look like in practice, but I think it is credible to market to both and use materials targeted at users as a component which will impress developers. I’m thinking of the super videos which Jim and others will produce showing how easy this is - that will help convince developers that this is a serious proposition, and convince some to look more closely.
I’m not sure how we market to developers tbh. I floated today on Twitter that I’m baffled that so many are flogging the dead Blockchain horse after years, rather than looking around for alternative technology and going bananas about Safe when they dig into it. Really, Safe will sell itself to developers once they take a proper look, so I think the aim would be mainly to:
- differentiate, to avoid the ‘just another’ tag
- make it easy to discover that this technology is both different, and works
The “works” point will I hope be self evident to most once we have a working network.
I think marketing to end users will be harder than this, and agree it is important because without users the network will struggle, with them it will fly.
So although I’m always advocating the importance of marketing to developers, I also think we will need to put extra thought and effort into marketing to end users, leveraging that as part of how we market to developers.
Personally I think I can get a lot of developers to take a look because of my reputation and following. A lot of what I do can be seen as marketing to developers, but what has held that up so far is not having something working to show and draw people into deeper discussions.
I’m sure others will be in a similar position, so I think we can expect a lot of good networking based marketing through the community, supplemented with a relatively small amount of resources, or at least without the need to go all in early on. We do already have resources prepared for developers and much of that can be updated.
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Seems like it makes sense to target both devs and end users in tandem because devs are the ones who can do something now to help facilitate data storage on an anticipated launch and of course yes, we will need end users (normies let’s call them 
) who anticipate the network because it provides convenience and solves a problem.
I’ve caught little snippets of agreement in each of your posts about marketing to both but I’m getting the sense that it seems as though devs are being targeted more heavily at the moment.
I agree we need to reach outside of the crypto crowd. Most are concerned with financial gain and that’s it. If you have a DeFi app then you can suck up a lot of cryptonauts but it’s not like it’s the same as grass roots growth and network loyalty that could come from someone who aligns with the problems the network solves.
Side note I’ve noticed that the #rustlang hashtags on Twitter have decent engagement from crustaceans and I’ve also noticed a couple new devs (look like outsiders as far as I can tell) that have forked Maidsafe code and made a commit. Is this some proof in the pudding perhaps?
I heard of Maidsafe on the LTB podcast and it wasn’t necessarily marketing but David and Nick gave the elevator pitch to what the network would solve and as a user I was hooked. Eventually I wanted to see what I wanted on the network and decided to start JAMS. So there’s merit to what Jim is saying. Devs are also users because everyone uses the internet first.
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Maybe a little off topic but I was wondering the following: with the upcoming testnet within reach, how far off are we from implementing the Safe Network App that you are working on in Figma @JimCollinson?
Is this just combining frontend with backend or are we after, let’s say after beta, still miles away from a working app? Is it possible to implement the app before development on the network itself is finished or would this be a waste of work since the changes in development would break the app?
I’m convinced that having this app would be the best marketing tool out there.
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This should be true, but there’s so much resistance among devs to even engage with Safe at all. One thing (of many) I’m trying to understand is: why?
A big part of the active disinterest is due to MaidSafe’s damaged reputation due to slow development and limited marketing activity that makes the project seem inaccessible to all 4 target groups (devs, end-users, farmers, and investors/traders).
I don’t think we can effectively market to devs (or farmers or investors/traders) until we can succinctly articulate the value to the end-user. At the end of the day you can’t sell (or build an ecosystem around) a product/service no one wants to buy. That being said you have to build the ecosystem—which is why I think it’s crucial to motivate developer engagement by communicating how Safe will help them deliver value that end users will find compelling.
Exactly! This issue will be magnified even more if attempting to directly market to end-users right now. I’ve suggested that maybe this could be circumvented by either:
- Re-releasing the browser with example dApps
- Showing wireframes or mock-ups of the browser with example dApps
- Encouraging 3rd party devs to start developing and sharing what they’re working on like @happybeing does with Git Portal
I don’t think we have to (or should) re-invent the wheel here. I think we can first lean on tactics other projects have successfully leveraged (e.g. up-to-date tutorials, sample dApps, dev tools, office hours, AMAs, dev meetups, hackathons, contests, sponsored development, etc.). But, these require investment in time, money, & labor.
In terms of marketing, all that’s really happening right now is social media with messaging that has been pretty broad (and if anything tilted to towards end-user concerns like “own your data”).
I think all of the above is absolutely true.
Yes, seeing is believing. Even a released app will require positioning and comms, however.
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The SafeNetworkApp and its on boarding and storage/permissions/SafeID and data management really would be the most comprehensive and attractive dapp to almost anyone adjacent to the crypto space. @HTPeacock is right about that. So I think @JimCollinson had effectively made it easy to join and engage with the ecosystem through his designs.
How do we get them excited for all of that before they can even touch it? Probably as suggested before, more videos from Jim, fundamentals slide @Josh has made, the video productions @m3data is working on. Just telling the story of what’s possible, how easy it all can be, how much money and trouble will be save through the security, the freedom provided by no intermediaries and inherent anonymity of the network. With that though, I think, should be some strict and determined release date.
So unless there will be resources suggested or advertised aimed at devs while simultaneously having a main focus on end users, to me it makes more sense to focus more on devs now (since they can participate sooner) and end users when we have a timeline for launch/release (since they will want to know when).
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I’d say devs can be quite practical folks. Right now, they see a product that may be great, but isn’t ready. They also see it has taken a long time to get this far and there isn’t even a test network to try out. They don’t even know if the core tech will ever work.
Given development takes a lot of time and/or money, are you going to sink it here or build on a proven platform?
Even those of us here who are devs have been burned. Many of us started excitedly writing apps and utilities, only to see APIs change or disappear. We have crowd funded dapps that faded to nothing and others still waiting for something to build on. Fertile development soil this is not.
If you want devs to engage, the tech needs to be proven. The APIs need to stop changing. A road map to launch needs outlining. Without these, we’re expecting devs to invest time in what could be a pipe dream. Most can’t or won’t do this.
Get a basic test net out, prove it works, then plan what is coming next. Devs can work with that. If it makes them as excited as those of us who frequent here, then devs will engage.
Lastly, it only takes one killer app to bring legions of users to the network. With limited marketing reach, we must remember this.
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Just to be clear…
We did agree this yes! That’s why I said:
and
But that it is vital that we talk to, and have the end user firmly in our sights, when we do both, and as such they can be considered the primary target audience… but not to the exclusion of developers.
So I really reiterating and my points from the call, for the benefit of folks here.
Well, I could hazard a guess, but I’m sure you could tell me 
. And again, I’m not saying we don’t invest resource in attracting developers.
But I’d also like to push back on the premise of the question: I don’t think there are any high performing dApp/web3/ decentralized storage projects. Not when it comes to cutting through in to the mainstream as viable alternatives to the web, as certainly not measured against the objectives of the Safe Network.
Yes there are those that are high performing when looked at from within the crypto space… but take for example Blockstack; how many regular people are actually using this as an alternative to the web day to day?
I get what you are saying here… but remember in this analogy, the Safe Network is Uber (* shudders *) and Uber spends a lot of money and time marketing itself to the rider (it would appears the majority of it’s marketing spend indeed). Why? Because they want the brand to be synonymous with convenience, safety, and to be trusted.
And reiterating again… anyone using an app on the Network will need to have a relationship with the Network, and therefore know and trust the brand.
So it’s more B2CviaB. Notwithstanding of course the core functions that will be available to users at launch, without 3rd party apps, which are pretty game-changing in nature by themselves.
I’m not suggesting we need to ditch marketing to developers at all. But what I am saying is our primary target should be end users, and one feeds the other, so when we are marketing to developers we are still have the end user in our sights. Both are work together; they can have separate streams, but can overlap and converse where necessary, but the primary should always been the end user, because without them we have no network.
So if the marketing venn looked like this:
Then then at this stage yellow circle would be things like understanding the needs and desires of end user, ‘building the fanbase’ by attracting people responsive to the aims, ramping up awareness outside of crypto land, talking their language and offering them the hope of what lies beyond the current web… priming the pump read for launch.
The developer circle would likewise be tailored to their needs: spending the time to get the right tools and documentation in place, rebuilding the reputation after the long haul etc…
And what for the overlap? Well that should again be informed by the end user, but offer opportunity for both… say competition or hackathon for building a feature highlighted as an user need, or showcasing to developers business opportunities uncovered via research which can be enabled by the technology… two streams with a conversation between the two.
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I’m not sure that follows. Uber markets to users because drivers themselves cannot. App devs, on the other hand, can market killer apps directly
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The Uber thing is not a perfect analogy, but I’m teasing out of it the point that…
While this is true; they cannot have end users use those apps without the user also having to interact directly with the Network themselves… therefore they need to know and trust the brand of the Network itself.
And this also feels like a good opportunity to fire back with a TBL anecdote, from when David met him at the dWeb summit. David was describing the Safe Network to him, when someone chipped in with advice that we’d “need a killer app”. Tim snapped back “can you tell me what the killer app was when we launched the web?” the web itself was the killer app. And there is reason to promote that in an of itself.
Just by way of reminder of what is on offer just from the core functionality, no 3rd party apps involved:
- Globally accessible, secure, perpetual public data.
- I can easily author and publish a static website, and anyone anywhere can see it.
- No servers, nothing to configure or maintain.
- I can upload and share a file with anyone. And it is accessible forever.
- I pay once to upload and it is stored forever.
- I can share files and data privately and securely
- Person-to-person token transactions at network speed, and without transactions fees.
- Private transactions to-boot.
This is a pretty monumental list as is! And something that we should rightly be proud to talk about.
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I hear you, but a killer app can also deliver many users. You could argue that the web browser is the killer app for the Internet too.
Imo, users don’t necessarily need to have a deep understanding of safe network. If the app is read only, even more so. Installing the safe client might just be considered a library, like a bar code scanner, or some such.
I do get that people should understand and get to love the safe network too, but both angles have benefits. Trying to market to end users is a very expensive task though and app devs may have a better reach in many cases.
Perhaps giving users an understanding of what safe network is, is important. Much like a https padlock is something they can trust, so should the safe network.
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Sorry for the delay. There was a posting on ZH about it. I want to say there was another guy posting about another “safe” internet type idea, but I don’t remember what it was or the name, and I went to yours first.
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Uber markets to both drivers and riders although not with identical messaging / promotions or via the same channels.
Drivers do market to riders primarily at point of sale (the ride) by insuring their car is nice, offering drinks/snacks (which I personally never accept b/c who’s trying to get taken), providing chargers, etc. all so they can boost their ratings and get more rides.
One advantage a decentralized data platform has over something like Uber, is developers have more levers to pull when it comes to marketing their product, which in turn supports marketing (i.e. communicating the value of) the Network itself.
Ideally, they won’t—just like almost no one understands how the internet actually works (or that there are consortia like W3C that decide the standards upon which the internet runs). To the consumer, the internet is magical convenience that just works. Safe will/should be magical convenience that just works privately and securely.
I’m glad we’re aligned. The following (and the general tone of your post) cast a shadow of a doubt:
These are wonderful features, but how often are users public-content creators as opposed to public-content consumers? I will hazard a guess that the majority of data uploaded to Safe will likely not come from the many (consumers) but rather from the few (business-entities, like developers).
Performance is relative and environmentally contextualized. For now, let’s use developer activity, end-user trial/usage, and working (if not complete) releases as the parameters against which we measure performance. Let’s look at some stats:
- Algorand: 100 relay nodes, 600 devs participated in last hackathon, released v2.0.2
- Blockstack: 153K use accounts (16K w/ evidence of human user), 11 core devs, 7K 3rd party devs, released Stacks 2.0
- Cardano: 500 nodes,100K delegators, 19K users, 111 core devs (per Santiment, has more dev activity than Ethereum), released Shelley
- Ethereum: 4.5M unique users, 1.25M active users, 2K core devs, 200K 3rd party devs, released Serenity (ETH 2.0)
- Filecoin/IPFS: 5K 3rd party devs, released mainnet
While all the projects listed above have their shortcomings, they are all currently high performing relative to other dApp Platform d-Internet/Storage projects. Unsurprisingly, the market has rewarded them in kind.
Comparing Blockstack usage to clearnet usage is a red herring fallacy like stating Tesla is unsuccessful because they don’t sell anywhere near as many cars as Toyota.
Whether we like it or not, the early adopter looks like a participant in the DLT ecosystem which heavily overlaps with Crypto. That is the environment in which Safe is at play. That isn’t a bad thing. The mark of good strategy is to lean into one’s strengths to take advantage of the present environment.
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Thanks for taking the time to reply and welcome to the community. 
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This is very true and in the early days they paid drivers $60 an hour to build the number of drivers. I should say drivers easily made $60 or more an hour. Sadly this is now much lower.
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