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Dash Watch January 25th 2019 Report on
Dash Medellín Colombia by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/JAN19/dashcolombia-stopgap-122018

Dash Watch December 25th 2018 Report on
Dash Latam Mass Adoption Marathon & Expansion by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWLatamExpansionDEC18

Dash Watch December 25th 2018 Report on
Dash Medellín Colombia Merchant Network by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWDashColombiaDEC18

With Dash at $65, our current proposal (59 dash/month) can only buy about USD$3,800 per month which represents only life support for the most essential members of the team and means we are currently losing momentum. We can’t hold new events. We can’t visit all the merchants who contact us. All of our progress so far is at risk.

In order to not grow our ask, but to just restore 85% of the previously DAO-approved buying power for Dash Colombia, we need 120 dash per month for 2 months in stopgap funding. This is our proposal:

https://www.dashcentral.org/p/dashcolombia-stopgap-122018

Will you please assist us in safeguarding the unique growth we have carved out for Dash in Colombia over the last 6 months?

We have been working on partial salaries for 6 months and have still overdelivered.

Please vote yes and please leave a supportive comment.

Together, we’re building the future of Dash.

Dash Watch November 26th 2018 Report on
Dash Latam Mass Adoption Marathon & Expansion by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWLatamExpansionNOV18

Dash Watch November 26th 2018 Report on
DASH MEDELLÍN Colombia Merchant Network by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWDashColombiaNOV18

Dash Watch October 25th 2018 Report on
Dash Latam Mass Adoption Marathon & Expansion by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWDashLatamOCT18

Dash Watch October 25th 2018 Report on
DASH MEDELLÍN Colombia Merchant Network by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWDashColombiaOCT18

Dash Watch September 26th 2018 Report on
DASH MEDELLÍN Colombia Merchant Network by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWDashColombiaSEP18

Dash Watch September 26th 2018 Report on
Dash Latam Mass Adoption Marathon & Expansion by georgedonnelly
http://bit.ly/DWLatamExpansionSEP18

Easy YES. I continued to be impressed by George Donnelly in particular. We are lucky to have George forging the way forward in Colombia.

Very kind of you to say, thanks for your support.

Dash Watch August 27th 2018 Report on
Dash Medelin / Dash Colombia by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatch.org/files/1535392151265.pdf

I enjoyed your segment on the 3 Amigos, and I think it's pretty clear why you're having the success you are based on that interview and your performance so far from starting out with meetups up to what you've already accomplished so far. You're far too smooth as a salesman, glad you're on our side. Looking forward to seeing what you're able to do in the coming months.

I, too, am excited about what substantive and meaningful results we're going to achieve for Dash over the next few months, and hopefully it will become clear that my sales skills are second class and my true contribution lies in creating systems to achieve important goals in innovative ways, and then following through on that with great diligence and care.

Thank you for your continued interest in Dash Colombia. You were one of the few who took an early interest in my pre-proposal back in May. Any feedback you might have for us is something I would love to benefit from anytime.

A superb job done. Colombia goes Dash!

Thanks! A lot of Colombians are very excited about Dash's ongoing interest in and commitment to Dash.

*commitment to Colombia.

I really hope this passes. The synergy between Colombia and Venezuela, especially capturing the remittance flows between them, could be huge for Dash.

Thanks, we're ready to continue as well.

And we're working with some of the Venezuelan groups on a remittance project - it's definitely an interesting area for growth!

I recommend everyone take a look at the quality of responses that George Donnelly has given in this proposal. These replies are some of the best quality answers I've seen to date in any proposal. It is an indication of the high level service that George is delivering to DASH with this project. His team are having immediate results now. Real practical results with real world users of DASH. That is what we need now. More projects like this if we are to see the DASH price increase.

I am confident we will see Colombia moving up rapidly to compete with Venezuela for the top position for merchant uptake in the next few months. George has worked out a low cost effective strategy for signing up merchants and this proposal is going to scale up this tested formula. Along with the Venezuela projects this is one of the most exciting projects we have.

Watch this space. George Donnelly and his team are going to make a big impact on merchant sign ups. I also appreciate that George takes the time to keep the MNOs up to date with his regular reports in English so we can enjoy seeing the progress his team are making. This is something I wish other teams would do.

I am looking forward to seeing the Dash Force News report on Friday with George answering the community's questions. Kudos also goes to Dash Force News for highlighting worthwhile projects like this. I love seeing positive results and George and his team are delivering that for us. Good Luck George!

And I would love to answer any other questions anyone has, receive feedback, etc.

Thanks DeepBlue!

George for Colombia, several strategies could be developed

Colombia has a border with Venezuela, and now there are many Venezuelans displaced to Colombia, the sending of remittances is a strategy.
(Associations of Venezuelan immigrants for example).

I think another strategy is to focus on a group of traders that can generate many tx in Colombia, for example to inform and train associations of exporting merchants that could generate more tx sustained over time, if they use dash as a platform for international payments.

You have my support. Thx for you proposal.

We are experimenting with remittances, absolutely, just completed the first confirmed successful one to Venezuela about 2 weeks ago, saving the user 13.4% over the market rate.

One challenge we have is that Venezuelans are engaged in a desperate flight to safety and tend to only want USD. We're working on it tho and I'm very open to ideas.

Your exporting merchants idea is interesting. I would love to hear more about it sometime. I'm on Signal, if that works for you. All my contact info is in the PDF proposal, or let me know how I can contact you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zd9jjat095p7z9z/Dash%20Colombia%20450%20Merchants.pdf?dl=0

Thanks for your support!

I'll be on Dash Force News's Three Amigos Podcast this Friday Aug 24 at 3PM EDT. Tune in on DFN's YouTube channel and ask me the hard questions in the chat!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiAW4HQiYjpPmyi4v905u1A

I have personally verified many of the businesses here in Medellin, including 5 restaurants, a motorcycle shop, and a health suppliment store. I have been there and paid for goods and services in Dash. The businesses understood how to accept dash and were happy to do so.

Make sure you watch the video to understand the scope of this project!

I'd like to see these kind of proposals tied to growth in transaction volume in some way. Number of transactions and fiat volume. We've been seeing a two-month decline in tx volume and loss of market share vs other ecash cryptos: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactions-bch-ltc-dash.html#log&6m I'm wondering what all these new merchants are doing.

I haven't voted yet. Might still go yes, because without doubt, we need more merchants. But I'd like to see more accountability for these sort of proposals because otherwise it's too easy to "sign up" my buddies and call them merchants. Who are these merchants? What's their business? How much revenue do they run across all payment methods?

And most importantly, how can we get them to actually get their customers to use Dash, rather than just ticking off the "onboarded" checkbox?

A proposal that convincingly addresses this will get my yes votes immediately.

Thanks for your comment, MasterNoodle!

This reply also available as a PDF:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vnzoqfitj12lb52/MasterNoodle-reply-14-aug-911a.pdf?dl=0

(a) We need transaction volume growth.

Our work produces transaction volume by holding promotions with our most suitable, committed and trained merchants.

At the promotions, consumers come to the merchant's place of business, attracted by a joint marketing effort with the merchant, and:

- we orient the consumer about Dash
- we get their contact info (so we can do email marketing)
- they install the wallet
- we teach them how to operate the wallet and about the recovery phrase
- we give them a small amount of dash, between USD$3.50 and USD$6.40 usually
- the consumer goes to the merchant right there on site and buys something (both consumer and merchant are thrilled and bond in a way through this)
- the consumer is almost always left with a balance in Dash and we refer them to other merchants nearby where they can spend it, and we offer them incentives to do so and to record the process.

Starting in September, we plan to also offer “recargas” - when the user’s balance runs low, we’re going to sell them more Dash.

How much transaction volume does this produce?

1. Pollos Don Guillo - 22 June - 0.67 dash
https://youtu.be/AznKqXJoUlA?t=10m25s

2. Salchipapas La 107 - 28 June - 0.44 dash
https://youtu.be/nxq2QFrWT4Y?t=2m47s

3. El Compy & Licorera Villareal - 6 July - 0.71 dash and 0.12 dash
https://youtu.be/UvrGKsCf0nk?t=10m40s
https://youtu.be/UvrGKsCf0nk?t=11m14s

4. Laureles Dash Fair - 26 July - ~1.2 dash?
(video not ready yet)

These results are small, but then so was our budget at 22 dash (~USD$5,000) per month, and we’re just getting started.


(b) Who are all these merchants?

Here are some terms that describe them:

- small (5 employees or less, 3 locations or less)
- almost entirely brick and mortar
- the owner spends a large part of his day present in the business
- mostly only accept cash (and now Dash)
- don’t like banks and/or use them sparingly (because bank deposits are treated as income by the all-seeing tax collectors here)
- hungry to grow and open to new things

Here are the first 42 on DiscoverDash:

https://discoverdash.com/author/dashcolombia/#mylistings

(click on “My Listing”)

Here they are mixed in with a few added by others on DiscoverDash:

https://discoverdash.com/?select=&lp_s_loc=Colombia&lp_s_tag=&lp_s_cat=&s=home&post_type=listing


(c) What's their business?

Of the first 42:

- restaurant: 17
- retail products (bikes, cell phones, etc ): 11
- barber: 3
- mini-supermarket: 2
- schools/training: 2
- crypto-related: 2
- fiat exchange (wants to exchange Dash now): 1
- tailor: 1
- motorcycle repair: 1
- co-working space: 1
- hotel: 1

(d) How much revenue do they run across all payment methods?

That is private information I am not privy to, nor would it be appropriate for me to pry given that my job is to build trust with the merchants. That said, some of the restaurants will do USD$300 or more per day on an average day. Anything else I could say would be speculation.

This kind of information is especially private because the government is very onerous in its financial regulations and tax collections, and so they hide it, and this is one reason why Dash is attractive to them.

(e) What are all these new merchants doing?

- Waiting, learning about Dash and deciding how much they can trust us
- Watching what we here at Dash do next
- Trying to figure out if Dash is genuine or a pyramid
- Asking me to hold a promotion at their business
- Referring me business owners in their networks to become Dash merchants
- Carrying on with their normal business activities

(f) Are these guys just my pals?

Of the first group of 42 new Dash merchants, 41 are people I met after my proposal passed in late May. We found them by going out and burning shoe leather, walking the streets of Medellín and receiving at least ten "no"s for each "yes".

First we tried the touristy part of Medellín (pop: 3.7m). We struck out because those businesses are highly formalized and the owners are rarely present.

Then we tried a less touristy area and we now have nearly 20 merchants in a 4-block radius in that area (called Laureles).

One (1) of the 42 merchants (not someone in Laureles but about 13km away in Envigado) is a martial arts school where I last trained 4 years ago. But even with the owner, it was not a matter of hey pal, fill this out for me. I invested 3 hours in bringing him up to speed and selling him on it before he agreed and we put up the “Pay with Dash” acceptance sticker on the wall.


(g) How do we get them to get their customers to use Dash?

As described above, we have a working strategy for that. But we have more plans in motion with our merchants to, for example:

- distribute Dash flyers via their home deliveries
- sell Dash via our merchants

and more.

Right now, we have achieved way more than we promised for 3 months x 22 dash (with a price that fell by half between initiating our proposal and having it approved), so we need more funding to continue what has so far been a wildly successful experiment by a very transparent proposal owner.

I invite you to check out our MNO reports to see more:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL92ognmkx-f6vnKSRgTyKKJkdeLytsAi_

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, always a pleasure to talk about these things, extremely helpful, too!

Please let me know if you have any other questions or thoughts.

Wow, I didn't expect such a thorough reply. Much appreciated!

Watched the first video to the end. I assume what the two guys are counting at the end are Dash paper wallets? ;-p

Do you have big, fat "Dash accepted here" signage for the merchants to put up? Do you have a way of keeping track how they're doing a few days / weeks / months in? I'm still worried they just pocket your promotion money and a day later forget they ever had that app on their phone.

Yes, creating clusters is good (20 merchants in a 4-block radius).

Of course, and thanks for the questions!

(a) using fiat

If only they were Dash paper wallets, but we have to offer exchange services to the merchants in order to build confidence so they can distinguish Dash from the pyramid schemes.

(b) Do you have big, fat "Dash accepted here" signage for the merchants to put up?

Absolutely. Here's what it looks like:

https://twitter.com/georgedonnelly/status/1029051619000938496

Here are a few examples "in the wild":

https://i.imgur.com/Hr5D97A.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/kHwgyEn.jpg

https://youtu.be/3ArWi6D7bEM

https://youtu.be/J4qrBc2sZqo

https://youtu.be/yej9X5hj1qE

(c) Do you have a way of keeping track how they're doing a few days / weeks / months in?

Absolutely. We use Hubspot CRM (free) and regular personal visits from our support/followup team (not expensive) (just me so far), as well as marketing via email, WhatsApp and social media (also inexpensive).

We're going to do a major round of visits Tue and Wed Aug 21 and 22 and I am going to try to livestream at least part of it on our YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjizxJYH0K7oYhW6gQ9iG4g

(d) I'm still worried they just pocket your promotion money and a day later forget they ever had that app on their phone

It worries me, too. We collect a lot of contact information from them and spend at least on average about 20 minutes with a merchant before giving them the first part of the Dash incentive for joining as a merchant. The second part (2/3 of the total, the total being about USD$10 in Dash) we give on the second visit.

Worst case is they burn about $USD3.50 in Dash, which harms no one but them, and on our next visit the foolishness of such a decision is impressed upon them - not because I scold them but because they realize Dash is serious about expanding into Colombia and they just lost some money (especially now because $3.50 now could be $35 or more in just a few months).

More questions please! Thanks again. :)

> we have to offer exchange services to the merchants

How does that work? What happens when you don't come by everyday to exchange? If I go to these businesses outside of your promotion and long enough before your next major round of visits, will they even let me pay in Dash or refuse because nobody gives them pesos at the end of the night?

Are there actually any regular people in Medellin who pay in Dash? Do these merchants get ANY Dash business outside of your visits? I understand it's a chicken-and-egg problem and you have to start somewhere, so I'm not implying it's not worth it, but I'm curious.

Do those 42 business owners know about the others? At least they could pay each other in Dash, haha!

(a) How does that work?

They can send me a WhatsApp message with the amount of Dash they want to sell and based on the market rate, I then deposit Colombian Pesos in their bank account.

I just did it for a merchant this afternoon and we settled the trade (0.142 dash) in about 3 minutes.

Or they can wait until I come by. Sometimes they ask me to make a special trip and I do.


(b) What happens when you don't come by everyday to exchange?

It has not been a problem yet.


(c) Will they even let me pay in Dash?

If we are not able to guarantee the ability to exchange Dash for fiat, it is likely that some of them will stop accepting Dash.

Everything we do is a continuum of building trust and confidence. The exchange service is inexpensive scaffolding to get us there.


(d) Do these merchants get ANY Dash business outside of your visits?

Oh, absolutely. I visited one of our first merchants last week and he had done USD$200 worth of business in Dash while I was not there in the previous week.

I offered to buy it from him but he wants to hold.

There are at least 5 other merchants I can think of offhand who are like him and doing business in Dash all the time.


(e) Do those 42 business owners know about the others?

Some of them do, yes, but most do not.

We have a bottleneck, which is administration and communications. I have been hoping to hire someone to help me with this but have not yet been able to afford it.

Thanks for the questions again! Thrilled to answer more. :)

Thanks for your replies. I voted yes.

Thanks MasterNoodle, and if you have any more ideas for us, I'd love to hear them.

Doing good work guys!

We're open to suggestions for doing better work, too. :)

You wasted the shit out of treasury funds the last year so now you have to continue giving projects more treasury funds.
I want to encourage all MNO's to log in every month to deny all wasteful POS projects. I'd rather burn the treasury funds than continue to donate it to projects that spend it out on exchanges for all their expenses.
Tired of all the hype without any continued performance.
Is this just a bunch of whales giving Dash as welfare to their buddies?

Thanks for your comment, Stone.

I have solid performance to share on a 3-month proposal of 22 dash per month (~$USD5,000).

We got 42 new Dash merchants in the first 8 weeks. A lot of work went into that and I'd love to discuss it anytime. Among other things, I am burning shoe leather on the streets of Medellín Colombia, getting at least ten "no"s for every "yes".

I don't have any MNO buddies but I do have 2 MNO advisors who provide useful input and guidance.

Let me know if I can answer any questions for you, would be thrilled to do so.

Rodrigo of Dash Brazil always brings a unique, inspirational energy to his videos and this 9-minute interview he did of me on Monday (about this proposal) is no different. Thanks Rodrigo!

https://youtu.be/73iBxNNhY04

Yes from me, good luck with your budget proposal.

Thanks qwizzie! Much appreciated.

An easy yes vote.

Thanks for your continued support! If you have any feedback for us, I stand ready to hear it anytime.

Great progress so far and great proposal. The dash buyback program is a brilliant idea to build merchant confidence.

Thanks! And thanks for your support, it is much appreciated and very highly valued.

Three months ago, George put in his first proposal for 22 Dash per month. The idea of Dash cryptocurrency is extremely new in Medellin. Without knowing what to expect from the public, George has achieved more than was offered in his first proposal: 42 merchants now accept Dash as payment in Medellin! George's first proposal still has a month to go!

I have personally verified that more than 10 businesses in the Laureles area are accepting Dash just as easily as they accept Pesos Colombianos. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3ZbET2Eq_c

George and Juan have achieved far more than they originally offered us. Please visit George's channel and review the brief MNO reports. Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjizxJYH0K7oYhW6gQ9iG4g (scroll down to the MNO reports)

Did you know that George offers businesses in-person training on how to accept Dash? Did you know that George offers a buyback program so that merchants who accept Dash are assured they can get Pesos Colombianos when they need it? AMAZING!!!!

I am voting YES and congratulating George and Juan on a job well done! I can hardly wait to see what happens with Dash Colombia over the next six months. This is so exciting!

Is there an overview somewhere of who those 42 merchants are? What's their business, how big are they, how did they integrate and promote Dash acceptance?

Thanks for your questions, MasterNoodle!


(a) Who are these 42 merchants?

Here are the first 42 on DiscoverDash:

https://discoverdash.com/author/dashcolombia/#mylistings

(click on “My Listing”)

Here they are mixed in with a few added by others on DiscoverDash:

https://discoverdash.com/?select=&lp_s_loc=Colombia&lp_s_tag=&lp_s_cat=&s=home&post_type=listing


(b) What's their business?

- restaurant: 17
- retail products (bikes, cell phones, etc ): 11
- barber: 3
- mini-supermarket: 2
- schools/training: 2
- crypto: 2
- fiat exchange (wants to trade crypto now): 1
- tailor: 1
- motorcycle repair: 1
- co-working space: 1
- hotel: 1


(c) How big are they?

- Small (5 employees or less, 3 locations or less).
- On good days, some might have sales of USD$300
- The owners support themselves and their families from most of these businesses, I suspect


(d) How did they integrate Dash?

They accept payments using the Dash Android and iOS wallets, and POS display advertising that has their QR code on it ("hablador").

For example, here is a photo taken by a Dash user of another Dash user at one of our Dash merchants that the photographer sent me. The young lady in the red sweater is holding the Dash hablador.

https://i.imgur.com/9ZCdGtG.jpg

Now that AnyPay POS software is available, we are developing options for POS hardware we can sell or lease to them that AnyPay can run on, so they have a permanent payment receiving device.

(e) How do they promote Dash acceptance?

Via a "Pay with Dash" ("Paga con Dash") sticker that we made and via the promotional events I discussed in reply to you above. Here is the PDF of my reply above:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vnzoqfitj12lb52/MasterNoodle-reply-14-aug-911a.pdf?dl=0

I hope this answers your questions and I'd love to answer any others you might have. I am also available to answer questions via phone, email, chat, etc.

Signal: +573218423668
Discord: George Donnelly#6938
WhatsApp : +573218423668
Telegram : @georgedonnelly
Twitter: @georgedonnelly
Facebook: @georgedonnelly
Email: george@dashcolombia.org

Ah, thanks, I hadn't seen your reply here yet and asked some of the same quaestions again above. Sorry for the duplication!

We would never have made it this far without your advice and direction, Edward, thank you so much!

George, Juan and his team have been doing an amazing job here in Colombia.
Before their action here in Colombia I was really jealous after coming back from Venezuela in February where you can pay with Dash almost anywhere.

Now, thanks to their really hard working of personally knocking doors of merchants in the streets, I am finally able to use Dash in my city!

Besides that, with a lot of usage comes a lot of feedback to improve our mobile wallets and their team have been really helpful on that front as well.

Keep up with the great work!

Thanks Samuel, it has been a real pleasure being able to offer you ideas for improving the wallets. You have received all of our ideas - even the dumb ones - with warmth and grace. We are lucky to have you here in Medellín.

We need new real-world users of DASH. Practical, real, day to day users, not speculators or Hodlers. This team delivers real users and merchants on a daily basis.

Over the last 3 months, the DASH Colombia team have been refining and building their strategy for signing up merchants to accept DASH. They now have more merchants approaching them than they are able to comfortably deal with. This new funding round is to build on their success and expand their team to be able to deal with the demand.

Think about that for a moment. What other projects can you think of where the problem is that too many people want to start using DASH? It makes sense to be funding these types of projects more where there are little to no barriers to using DASH. DASH uptake in Colombia has few barriers to entry unlike UK, USA, Europe and Asia. They just need funding to pay the staff to convert the merchants that are now approaching them.

George provides regular progress reports in English on their DASH Colombia youtube channel.

Here is one of George’s MNO reports on progress made:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4zb_2ieG18

Real life merchants accepting DASH is the first step to mass adoption and this is exactly what this team are delivering on a daily basis. What I like about this proposal, along with the Venezuela proposals, is that we are seeing real results being delivered - not promises, concepts or prototypes for the future. Results being delivered now on a daily basis, and that is what we need to start increasing the DASH uptake and the DASH price. We need more of this type of marketing now on mass. Gritty, in the streets marketing to create real users.

George Donnelly has extensive business experience and is a shrewd businessman. We are lucky to have someone of his calibre working for DASH on projects like these.

Voting YES!

Thanks for your guidance and support, Deep Blue, we will continue to do everything in our power to be worthy of it.