Colony AMA#1 — Project Overview with Wessal Er (Recap)
Colony AMA#1 — Project Overview with Wessal Er (Recap)
On 12/01/2021 at 12:00 p.m. (PST), an AMA session was held on Avalaunch with special guest Wessal Er, Chief Marketing Officer, at Colony. Below we present to you an excerpt from AMA with questions and answers.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Hello and welcome to our first AMA with none other than Colony Lab. This heavily anticipated project turns tokenomics on its head and we believe it is going to be a pillar in the Avalanche Community. Today, we have Wessal Er, Colony’s CMO as our guest. Glad you could join us today Wessal, how are you? Ready to lock horns with our Avalaunch faithful?
Wessal Er | Colony
Hello everyone! Thanks for having me today. I’m very excited for this AMA session!
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Excellent. Good to have you. Given your excitement, I won’t make you wait for the first question. To begin with, please give us a little bit of background about yourself. What did your career look like before joining the blockchain space?
Wessal Er | Colony
We’ve been waiting for this AMA to engage with your community for a while, so yes, I’m pretty excited.?
I was actually a Sourcing Manager and data analyst in the Nuclear field for a while.
As a libertarian I’ve been seduced by the blockchain a few years ago and when I dug deeper into it, well I was here to stay.
I started as a simple investor and throughout the years, I became more involved and helped some projects with their market research and building marketing strategies based on that. That’s how I ended up joining Colony’s team!
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
I think a lot of people from the nuclear field world have transitioned to the blockchain. Not ? It’s an interesting path you’ve taken to be sure and the team itself is pretty varied in background. To that end, how did this dynamic and well rounded team come together to build Colony in the shape and light that it is today?
Wessal Er | Colony
That’s very true, the team members have varied backgrounds. Not sure they were excepting a nuclear expert to join at a certain point, but it happened.?
Colony’s core team is mostly composed of experts with decades of experience and pedigree in the blockchain, and traditional finance space. The team founded ExoAlpha a few years ago, a systematic crypto Hedge Fund that has amassed a trading volume of half a billion dollars per month.
With decades of experience and having already worked together, they were more than ready to take on a new challenge. A challenge led on Avalanche, a blockchain that the whole team was following since its very beginning and supported for its great technological breakthrough. (the first true innovation since Nakamoto consensus ?)
The vocation was to create a completely unique approach to accelerate the growth of Avalanche’s ecosystem ? while putting the community at the very heart of its mechanism.
And as a DeFi enthusiast.. when I first heard about their project and vision, I absolutely loved it and joined them a few months ago to bring the right support regarding the Marketing front.
(Fun fact: the total years of experience combined of the team is about 70 years ?.. it makes some of them feel old.)
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Thank you for the thorough and informative answer…The first true innovation since Nakamoto with the approach to consensus. High-minded stuff indeed and the Rocket paper is lore at this point and rightly so. This is a community initiative to be sure and an innovative one at that. With respect to the raison d’etre, the spark behind it all — At what point did the team decide to fill in this market gap of helping communities and team building projects reach their goals by providing this central hub of support?
Wessal Er | Colony
That’s a great question.
Not only every member of the team has been involved in finance or crypto since the very beginning, but they are rather pretty active within the community today. Keeping an eye at the innovative emerging projects, but also, facing the constraints of the crypto space. It’s known that institutional investors and VCs dominate early-access deals of emerging projects and leave retail investors the declining action during the public sale rounds. Why are everyday DeFi enthusiasts losing out on wholesale prices and paying the mainstream consumer rate for tokens?
We have noticed the lack of community-funded accelerators in the blockchain ecosystem, and we wanted to create a mechanism that puts Community as the beating heart of its strategy.
Our motto is pretty forward “Community at core for a truly decentralized and democratized financial ecosystem.”
So you might have guessed it already… projects will thus be provided with an initial community from the get-go! In addition to the funding and the community, there are other critical pillars that condition early-stage projects’ success: community, marketing, tech expertise, momentum, and of course, network. Colony is bound to cover all these elements to bring the right customized support.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Thank you again. How does Colony fit in the current landscape of incubators and accelerators? What is the competitive edge that Colony has over similar competitors in the space?
Wessal Er | Colony
This a first in the entire crypto space. Our inclusive DAO introduces a new concept: Ecosystem Farming. Colony, as an Avalanche accelerator, allows investors, thanks to one coin ($CLY), to access the growth of an entire ecosystem (Avalanche). ?
As I said earlier, for the average investor, it seems almost impossible to invest into projects while they are still in their early stages. These types of investments are generally restricted to VCs, angel Investors, and so on. Colony conceptualized a revolutionary approach, in which this gap can be bridged.
From the start, governance will be actually given to the community with strong incentives aligned with the long-term growth of the ecosystem. And of course, all the created value will be rerouted back to the community, through: Avalanche staking rewards, Liquidity provider rewards and Tokens via airdrop of early-stage Colony funded projects.
This is very aligned with Avalanche values “Community first”.
So besides the fact that the community will have a seat next to big Vcs, the community has between its hands the power of voting and influence (sharing deal-flow, projects analysis, capital allocation decision making, etc..). They’ll be the one running Colony.
Projects will be provided with a community from the get-go in addition to funding, network, tech expertise and marketing support.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Ecosystem farming is conceptually speaking very cool. Exposure to a burgeoning base chain through a single token. Can you talk to us about the mechanisms behind Colony, and what plans are there in place to help Colony achieve this deal flow?
Wessal Er | Colony
We’ve established very close ties with the strategic key players in the ecosystem such as: The Avalanche foundation , Ava labs, Avalaunch, and so on.. We’ll be sharing deal flow with these experts in the field and working alongside them to empower projects building on Avalanche to reach their full potential. As for our Liquidity Providing program for example, we’re working closely with Yield Yak and other players.
In addition to that, our backers, such as Shima, Hashkey, Synaps.. who got visibility on different ecosystems & the latest innovations, are of great value as well.
But the best part about Colony’s deal flow mechanisms, we place our Community at the very heart of it. Community will be able to upload projects and their information on our application, and following that there will be project analysis, again done by the community with the help of Colony’s Analysts team. At Colony, we highly encourage our community to provide ideas to increase the Accelerator participation in the ecosystem.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Colony presents itself as a hub of community-driven support. Can you give us a high level overview of how the value is returned to token holders?
Wessal Er | Colony
As I said earlier all the created value will be rerouted back to the community, through: Avalanche staking rewards, Liquidity provider rewards and Tokens via airdrops of early-stage Colony funded projects.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Nice graphic and that is straight forward. Can you tell us a little bit more about the $CLY token. How its utility extends beyond that of a token and access to governance rights?
Wessal Er | Colony
Of course. This joins what I was saying earlier. From the start, governance will be actually given to the community. What our community needs to understand is that they will be the ones leading:
?Voting:
• Changing the fund Capital allocation.
• Changing the Liquidity Provider program capital allocation.
• Liquidation of token positions.
• Changing index rules, working principles, constituents, etc
?Influence:
• Sharing Deal Flow with Colony’s Analysts Team.
• Providing Analysis on projects.
• Providing ideas to increase the fund’s participation in the ecosystem.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
The next one goes out to the HODLers with fundamentals in mind — What are the key milestones that token holders should look forward to 6 to 12 months after the public launch?
Wessal Er | Colony
Well, first of all, the community can expect the following : Avalanche staking rewards, Liquidity provider rewards and tokens via airdrops of early-stage Colony funded projects.
Other features of the Application will be available in the next 6–12 months such as the deal flow sharing/analysis and the voting mechanisms.
We’re also implementing Colony’s studio which is a platform where supply meets demand regarding developers or marketing experts. One can add his/her information, experiences and key competencies and see if he/she meets a demand. Projects can scroll through and discover these experts profiles easily. We want to create a hub to facilitate networking to build on Avalanche.
Pretty exciting stuff ahead of us.
There is plenty of stuff I could talk about, but I’d love to share these in more detail with our community in the coming weeks/months! ?
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Look forward to that as well. Changing gears and getting a little personal — As a CMO, team member and nuclear defector…what excites you most about Colony, is there a particular feature, milestone or aspect perhaps, that you’re excited about and looking forward to?
Wessal Er | Colony
Simply put? The inclusiveness of our DAO and this new revolutionary concept we’re introducing called Ecosystem Farming, are one of the things that excites me the most about our project.
It’s a completely new approach in the crypto space and all we want to do is put community at core, to create a truly decentralized and democratized financial ecosystem.
I was never a fan of the gatekeeping by the big Vcs and institutional investors,dominating early-access deals of emerging projects and leaving retail investors out of these opportunities. DeFi for me is first of all about decentralization and making financial opportunities more accessible to large populations (to the underserved and unbanked as well) and that would be starting from giving community access to seed/private rounds of early-stage projects.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Ecosystem farming does have a ring to it.
Now…final question before we move on to the good people’s queries from the Twitterverse at which point, all freedom shall be abandoned — are there any last points you’d like to discuss, or share with the Avalaunch community?
Wessal Er | Colony
Community is the lifeblood of Colony, in fact.. It’s the lifeblood of any project.
Our vocation is putting you at the center of our mechanism and making sure the true sustenance and created value is routed back to you! It’s a pleasure to be among you today and I look forward to seeing you among our community members. We’ll be welcoming you with the warmest greetings.
Twitter Questions
@EdwardMastah Edwards want to know — Now that the Bridged market value on Avalanche exceeds 7Billion + USD and still advancing, how can the @Colonylab make a positive impact in the ever-growing Avalanche Ecosystem? What are the strategies for GROWTH?
Wessal Er | Colony
Funding is needed to launch projects, but there are other critical pillars that condition their success: marketing, tech expertise, community, momentum, and of course, network. Working alongside the Avalanche Foundation and other key players of the ecosystem such as Avalaunch, Ava Labs, Yield Yak etc, Colony will empower projects building on Avalanche to reach their full potential.
In addition to Colony’s plans to deploy capital in the Avalanche ecosystem with 50% ring-fenced for early-stage funding, there are 30% for liquidity provision to existing Avalanche DeFi protocols, 10% to validate Avalanche-based networks through AVAX and subnet token staking capabilities, and 10% to purchase top Avalanche projects to form a quarterly rebalancing index, voted on by the community.
@AkshajAgarwal3 What are the key milestones on your roadmap — both things you have already achieved and things that we can look forward to? Any partnerships and short/long term technical milestones that you want to talk about or bring some attention to?
Wessal Er | Colony
Let me see.. Building the right network inside Avalanche, having raised $18,5M in our seed & private rounds plus seeing our application become alive like we’ve imagined.. with those features we longed enough to offer the community.. These are our best achievements so far.
Other features of the Application will be available in the next 6–12 months such as the deal flow sharing/analysis and the voting mechanisms.
We’re also implementing Colony’s studio as I mentioned before which is a platform where supply meets demand regarding developers or marketing experts. (Network is important!)
@dachs_come_back wants to know — What criteria will Colony consider when determining the projects it will invest in?
Wessal Er | Colony
There are 2 things to take into consideration here, the current criteria are established by the core team to kickstart Colony’s operation. Once the early-stage features of the application are live, the community will be able to make the capital allocation decisions.
Where are we at the moment? Colony’s core team is focusing on projects with advanced products, teams that are able to deliver and tokenomics that makes sense. Usually we intend to help projects to change their tokenomics/strategies to have a better market fit and a higher adoption.
Once the early-stage function of the application is live in Q1 2022, the community will be able to choose/vote on projects. Colony will provide the right tools and some analysis to make sure the community is able to take decisions based on the best information available.
@tolatli Will the community have permission to decide ALL Issues on accelerator / investment processes? Does ColonyLab have any big traditional investment consultants?
Wessal Er | Colony
We are going to decentralize everything overtime. At first, operations will be performed by Colony’s Core Team to reflect the votes of the community, in the long term, once the DAO structure is fully implemented, everything will be decentralized and the power will be in the hands of CLY holders.
Lucky for us, Colony has some investment specialists in the team. The CEO has been involved in crypto since 2013 and has been involved heavily in a crypto VC in the past. He also has been investing in equity deals representing institutional firms.
That’s regarding our CEO but we don’t work alone like lone wolves. Network is very important. Some specialists of the crypto ecosystem are working closely with Colony’s core team to make sure we have the right insight in order to make the best investment decisions possible.
@bXavTmWTg9bU1E6 inquires — Why is it called Colony？Why use this icon?
Wessal Er | Colony
Since the project is community driven, Colony’s name stands for the incredible work that a community can achieve together (like ants). Here’s a fun fact: ant colonies operate without central control. (DAO?)
Telegram Questions
Is your platform suitable for crypto beginners? Or does it only limited for professional users ?
Wessal Er | Colony
Colony is building a platform with a great User Experience to make sure it is easy to use for everyone. Beginners will be able to stake their colony token, they will then receive over time, multiple airdrops of promising projects building on top of the Avalanche ecosystem. Perfect for beginners, just one coin to stake, to receive plenty. For more confirmed and professional users of crypto, Colony will allow open governance, where community members will be able to participate in projects, analysis and decide if an investment should be made or not. Colony will be accessible to everyone, the level of involvement will depend on one’s will.
Do you have AUDIT credentials or are you working to AUDIT your project, to make it more secure and reliable?
Wessal Er | Colony
Colony will be fully audited once smart contracts are deployed. We have 3 solidity developers working hard on the application and we can’t wait to share our first look and feel the coming week. 🙂
How does Colony compare to similiar project? and why would investors choose it over others?
Wessal Er | Colony
Inclusive DAO and open governance. Ecosystem farming (Access to the growth of an entire ecosystem Avalanche)
What is the Best way to follow All your Upcoming news and updates? What are your plans in coming Future?
Wessal Er | Colony
On our social media:
Twitter:https://twitter.com/Colonylab
Global channel: https://t.me/colonyavax
Turkish channel: https://t.me/ColonyTR
https://colonylab.io/
https://medium.com/@Colonylab
STAKING is one of the STRATEGIES to ATTRACT USERS and HOLD Them and long term.
Does your GREAT PROJECT have plan about to Staking?
Wessal Er | Colony
Staking is indeed a good feature, Colony intend to use this feature to let people access our application, thus having access to the deal flow inside Colony, to be able to allocate capital inside the Avalanche ecosystem.
On top of the voting features enabled by staking, the rewards will also be reserved for people staking Colony tokens: Airdrops mechanism, Avax staking rewards, etc.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
I’d like to thank you for coming out today and answering so many questions so very thoroughly.
Just want to share the appreciation I’m sure our community is feeling right now. Very much look forward to the Colony launch and all that lies ahead for this very inventive and inclusive project.
Wessal Er | Colony
It was my pleasure. Thank you for hosting Colony today. We’re looking forward to what we’ll build with our marvelous community.
About Avalaunch
Avalaunch is a launchpad powered by the Avalanche platform, allowing new and innovative projects to seamlessly prepare for launch with an emphasis on fair and broad distribution. With its values deeply rooted in the early Avalanche community, we are able to offer projects confident, informed users who are aligned with the long-term goals of the rapidly expanding application ecosystem.
Leveraging Avalanche’s scalable, high-throughput, and low-latency platform, Avalaunch is built by users, for teams, to help grow strong communities.
About Colony
A community driven fund, evolving into a DAO, to boost Avalanche’s ecosystem growth. Powered by a governance token: $CLY.
Colony will deploy capital within Avalanche on early stages projects, provide liquidity to DeFi protocols, maintain an Index on top Avalanche projects, and validate networks through stacking capabilities.
Our open governance mechanism ensures capital is allocated across the Avalanche ecosystem for its sole benefit. The value generated by Colony’s investments is routed back to the Community through airdrops, a buyback mechanism, and staking rewards.
Colony AMA#1 — Project Overview with Wessal Er (Recap) was originally published in Avalaunch on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
