Wemark

I do like the team and advisor board here, though altogether the project does not look business oriented. Maybe the advisors didnot see the WP attached. Just a very liitle data, almost no numbers and funny pictures. Blockchain here seems a bit practically far-fetched. Not clear where are the gains for investors. The whitepaper does not give a clue as it lacks both financials and business planning

Wemark is building a blockchain-based marketplace for digital content and its a decent size market at $4B. However, it might be a tough competition going into the market because of the nature of the digital content industry. That said, I think the fact that they have already $1m funding in equity financing proves a really strong case that it actually is a legitimate project, invested by traditional funds.

Good team and decent white paper. I liked the concept blockchain-based marketplace for digital content - something new but not sure if there will be enough demand across the photographers on Blockchain! My opinion is neutral on ROI. MVP is always good for the projects now a days. Will like to see what they come up with.

"Wemark is a growing community of leading independent photographers licensing their photos directly to customers, with no agency involved."

How many independent photographers do you have now?

Great team ... all great people's in one places will.suggest to take some experience advisors .... Great vision ... Best of luck team

1. Judging by the profiles, the team has experience in this direction. WeMark - especially someone as legendary as Lars Perkins (found of Picasa which later became Google Photos)
2. The vision is correct, everything moves to platforms where the content will be distributed. It is not clear how the blockchain will protect the rights to content.
3. Product is missing. No MVP. No white paper on website.

Killer team. As a former photographer and arts school grad in photography (Western Academy of Photography, Victoria BC, Canada 1993), I can only offer my full support for this on merits alone. The advisory board which includes founder of Picasa and Google director makes it unstoppable. Not to mention Shutterstock as well. My only criticism would be that the token allocation for the public is a bit low at 38 per cent. However the cap is modest so waiving deduction on that.

The one bit of magic with Blockchain is it's ability to create scarcity with digital assets and that is a game changer.

Quote from brilliant post written by Alex Evans, called A Crash Course in Mechanism Design for Cryptoeconomic Applications:

"Blockchains enable us to enforce scarcity and facilitate value transfer in areas where that would otherwise be impossible and, therefore, radically expand the range of problems to which economic incentives can successfully be applied. Viewed through this prism, cryptoeconomic systems are fundamentally new ways of incentivizing human behavior. And their potential is massive."

https://medium.com/blockchannel/a-crash-course-in-mechanism-design-for-cryptoeconomic-applications-a9f06ab6a976

Wemark has a great concept and and equally good team to execute it. If they can execute it in a proper way, they can cut out the middleman in the digital content industry.

They have a strong team of experience professionals in place. The concept is a good one, however I am not completely sold on the premise that decentralization is the way to go for sharing digital content. It sounds good in theory, however in practice I see fragmentation issues with searching and identifying content. Let's take the concept of decentralized market places. Most consumers would rather perform one stop shopping at Amazon as opposed to going to 10 different online stores and checking out 10 times. I think the concept is a good one. However we need to question and vet the use case of decentralization as it appears to get an pass from the reasonable scrutiny.

A very interesting concept, Great team and experienced Advisory board. I really love this project and wish them to get the proper success. A good vision is in place as well.

Soft cap is suitable for this project.

Have MVP and it's online. Best of luck for team and concept.

Team - Strong advisers and some good minds in the core team, but a perhaps a little light on leadership experience in the core team (CEO's previous company profile does not appear on LinkedIn or in google). Other than that, advisers appear to cover any other shortfalls for experience in the target market.

Vision - Good market to disrupt ($4bn pa market) and smart use of blockchain tech to create a decentralised marketplace that gives more to content creators. Taking 15% instead of up to 85% of content providers' revenue is great, but from a commercial aspect may be beatable by competitors entering the market taking a lower fee (no logic in the WP to explain the reason for such a charge, merely that it is lower than what is available at the moment). This is the only real downside of the token from a longer term appreciation perspective. There is very little in the way of business plan or detail on use of funds and such silence on these issues leads to a lower score for vision.

Product - No mobile version available as yet, but not really a big deal as consumers will probably be laptop/desktop based. Over 1m photos uploaded already. Good reasoning for choosing photos as their first content to disrupt. MVP alpha appears to work on laptop, and search engine seems easier and more logical to use than their centralised competitors. However, tokens aren't available to purchase to complete a transaction as yet, but on the assumption this will be relatively headache fee, I feel happy to give full marks here.

A very interesting concept, and it is being led by a great team backed up by advisors with a wealth of experience. A good vision is in place as well. I look forward to seeing this grow

Definitely a space that needs disrupting and stopping the artists making their fair share.

In my opinion this project makes a lot of sense. I am a bit old school using Fireworks to size images, clean them up and tag them for SEO. I download a lot of photos every month and understand the importance of each photo. I really like this project, just curious to see the elasticity, price vs number of clients....

*Please see my profile for disclosures.

A robust team with strong credentials in both technical and business areas.

The advisors team seems well positioned in the sectors that the business can potentially grow in the future.

Business model looks well thought off and with ready validation of its utility from the community of photographers like Gurushots

I believe this project has great potential. Definitely it will not disrupt anything in the near future and also it will e very hard to fight Shutterstock or Getty. Actually, this is exactly why I admire the team for entering this David vs Goliath fight.
Change is made step by step, with little steps. This project can be a small step towards stock photo evolution.

The reality is that it will be difficult for Wemark to compete with Shutterstock and Getty. There is a strong competition in this market and Shutterstock and Getty have already loyal communities. I don’t say that it will be impossible but it will be really hard for Wemark to give returns to investors.

Picasa, Canva, Shutterstock... You guys obviously know what you're doing and how to run the business.

As an ICO - token structure/economics are a tad concerning. Additionally, I don't really see (yet) why this can't be achieved utilizing any other currency available and just swapping out the model onto blockchain.

I definitely see the value in the product, but I think this is one of those projects that will be determined by the kind of reach you eventually have and therefore the adoption rate, as the content creators are your primary focus for sustainability, and that's a completely different demographic from those who can and would invest in the ICO at this stage. I'm not completely convinced of potential ROI because of this, strictly from an investor standpoint. But I would love to see what kind of traction Wemark achieves against the biggies like Shutterstock and Getty. It's obviously a huge market. Capturing that market, though, not so easy. Especially if you factor in users - majority of whom I'm assuming are going to be businesses and corporates looking for stock images/video for advertising purposes. The objective isn't just to get the non-creative masses to use Wemark as an alternative to SS and Getty, but the uphill climb is going to be to get them everyone on to a platform where they transact using a utility token. Just a thought.

Good luck! Would love to see this in all its glory.

Finally an ICO that has a good Use Case and a profound business model.

What VC did invest? Probably not a well know VC otherwise they would have mentioned.

*Update*: I revised my Team score from 4 to 5 after they reached out to me and answered my questions. Here are the VCs:
NFX (Silicon Valley) Elevator Fund (NY) Sarona Ventures (Israel)

Very strong for the concept!
Great use of distributed ledger technology as there is a need for this for digital content
Token metrics and caps are sound and viable
Looks bery pomising

Good luck with the project!

If there are projects deserving support, this is one of them. Solid all over:
1. Very good team assembled, one can tell they are already a company that works. And they have the backing of professional investors and advisors.
2. Market they are disrupting is ideal for blockchain, and they have a great vision to disrupt it.
3. Although there's a lot more to be done, one can tell their product is on its way and it looks good already.
I especially like their ICO structure - it's not to raise investments, it is designed to create a community, and it's just one step in many. This is how it's supposed to be.
The only minus I see is that market they are after is small, but I see that the team already has some good ideas how to scale it when (or if) the main idea is successful.

My concerns with a project like this is that There are a considerable amount of competitors who have attempted this and succeeded. While I do think that there is merit for licensing on the blockchain, I think this can easily be done without creating your own token (again history shows the success of this). A DL is perfect for this kind of venture but it really shouldn't go beyond that in my opinion. Furthermore, you will need a huge database to compete with the current players in the market. Their whitepaper doesn't convince otherwise either.

Wemark is building a platform that will empower content creators — without the need of middle-men.

Project has a strong team, however they might be lacking experience in the field they want to tackel. Wemark makes up for this with a very good advisory board, setting them up for possible success.

It remains to be seen whether the project can create enough traction to move the marketplace for digital content to a decentralized blockchain-based variant.

Digital content is used around the world everyday. How the content is protected and proper credit is given to the source of the content is critical for transparency. Blockchain may be the solution for this type of project.

The team looks strong and is familiar with digital content. Not to mention advisors who do have blockchain experience is a plus.
Having backing from VC's is an added bonus that they believe in the project and the team behind it.

I look forward to see where Wemark goes and builds a solid community in the digital content space. Best of luck!

A very interesting idea. A huge amount of digital content is sold online every day, and piracy is on the rise.

Blockchain could be the right solution to solve the problems of this sector.

This ICO has detailed Whitepaper, well structured roadmap and qualified team members.

Good luck, guys!

Note :

It should also be understood in the project rating that the 10/10 is the Ethereum project


Strong core team !
Unlimited market !
New protocol -> It s real blockchain company!
Road map and allocution seems good

Projects seems promising !

VISION: Acceptable blockchain use case, although by no means unique. Established players have a lot of control in this market and may represent tough competition. However, already having $1m in equity financing is good to see. 3/5

TEAM: Good team, although possibly lacking in crypto experience. An extensive list of advisors seems to provide substantial experience in the business and crypto areas. I note that the team is based in one location. 4/5

PRODUCT: White paper is not clear on financials and provides very few numbers. However, it is good to see the that the MVP is available to use. 4/5

This is not an invitation to invest. ICOs are risky and you can lose everything you put in.

Team
Pros:
- a lot of knowledge and experience with UX and tech
- great advisors and cooperations from the photo community
Cons:


Vision
Pros:
- distribution platform for digital content where the content provider gets a fair share
Cons:
- centralised curation
- distribution without community

Product
Pros:
- creators get finally a fair share
Cons:
- pure utility token, the 15% fee goes to Wemark
- Founding Team&Employees getting 11% of the tokens
- 12% of the tokens for Advisors & Partnerships

updated on the 12th April after helpful comments from Roy Meirom

26th April 2018: updated after a talk with the CEO, Tai Kaish, who convinced me more about the product vision and the renumeration policy including vesting

Great team build up, vision seems also quite straightforward.

What might be a slight issue is actual product usage and its development, why to ask for such a huge sum with such simple product?

Team : Wemark team is strong. Some of the advisors are impressive as the co-founder of Forbes. They could compete in this industry for sure but it will be a huge war.

Vision : They want to disrupt actors as Shutterstock or GettyImage. That's a very good point to use DLT to transform this kind of marketplace but the crypto investors are now looking for more than a marketplace. The more important factor for their project will be for sure the marketing budget and I'm
not convinced that they will have sufficient fund for that.

Product: the product is not available as an MVP. Cannot really give my opinion with a cartoon video. Understand that this will be a marketplace on blockchain but it's not enough.

Good team of digital marketing and developers with appropriate advisers for the right background in this space to be effective in execution of this project.

A good idea to get the ownership back in the hands of creators/ photographers etc, when the likes of Shutterstock and Getty do take a large proportion of sales, and the creator gets a smaller %, but there are other platforms that have massive user bases and fairer deals the the biggest players for content providers meaning the competition in the middle ground here is more significant than implied.

I have some experience in this space as both a consumer for Media and as a content producer.

As a buyer I want the best price and a consistent price for volume and go to one place where I have variety of choice, shuttestock for example have 1000x more images than Wemark at this time (early days), and on other platforms I can also get Audio or Stock video which is great as a media company one stop shop.
As a seller I want visibility and to actually make sales and to be honest am happy to be paid in $ and cents, so the mass market, and the Platform I use pays quite fairly without the need for me to do any of my own marketing saving significant budget and leveraging off large existing user bases.

Wemark needs to overcome crypto adoption as well as choice and variety issues user base and ultimately pricing structures.

This is marketed as not a Stock photo site with centralized Content but as a decentralised protocol with ownership retained by creator which is nice, however not all creators have the same demand for their product, this means some can be successful and charge more and some will need to charge less to get sales, and some may get no sales at all, this may be bad for the consumer such as Marketing departments of large corporates that may have a high volume of demand of several months or a year in advance and will want to buy packages of credits to get a set number of images over time within predictable budget constraints, a huge variation in pricing may turn off large volume consumers who also represent the majority of where $miillions of sales in Images purchasing will come from, it may also ensure that the successful do very well but the majority of content providers will just get no business at all and revert back to platforms with a large enough volume of users..

The existing Leaders in this space have dominated the market for a very long time. Demand is driven by the consumer, which will be mostly content creators agencies and marketing department of Corporates etc, and they will go to ready sources of Images they wasn't with a wide variety of options and pricing that suits them. For a new player to enter this market they may attract the artist who wants more reward for his product, however that product needs to be seen by the consumer, large existing companies like Shutterstock will see the competitors and just price them out of the market, the consumer for the most part is less concerned that more income goes straight to artist, in the same way Fair trade is nice morally, but ultimately companies rely on Bottom line to remain successful and this means keeping costs down.
Lower marks on the product as it is at this time, although what they have so far looks good, they are competing with existing platforms that also have stock video and audio offerings alongside the Images making them more of a one stop, Wemark will need to nail this to stop users going to other platforms and being tempted away.
The use of tokens is another question, ultimately artists that one to make a living from their work need to have visibility and volume and need to be paid in real money, so there is a real question here about the potential adoption of this service as its is an additional barrier on top of Market penetration with a couple of Market dominating players and limited offerings on the platform currently.
The selling point of Digital currency rather than Credits is a dangerous one in current times (q3 2018) with hugely volatile markets, at this time I would rather buy credits for image packages for my media company knowing they will still have approx same value tomorrow next week and in six months from now, certainly most Crypto available today is between 5-10 times less value (or worse) vs USD than 6 months ago and this should not be ignored until there is stabilized markets which maybe a few years away, which is not good for Marketing teams controlling spend of budget over periods of moths or even a year in advance.
For me the idea is great, the team is defiantly right to execute, the challenges are mighty, although there are a couple large players there a very large number of smaller players such as Istock and Dreamstime that are still very good with long established client bases, making Wemarks competition much larger than their marketing implies.

Recently IHT announced investment in this one citing the strong community of 12k followers on telegram, it is worth noting that platforms such as Dreamstime has 22 million users, so in perspective they do have some way to go.

the Whitepaper doesn't say too much with no financial projections , but there seems to be an upside for Advisers to this project with a good chunk of token reward, as an investment I would be very cautious.