We have hence made the difficult decision to part with some of our staff, including key members of our leadership team: CEO Kellogg Fairbank and CMO Marc Vekemans. In this context, our COO Rob Farmer chose to part ways as well.
Kellogg, Rob and the entire team had a big impact on the core of our business. They have laid important foundations to significantly strengthen our position for the challenges ahead. We have particularly benefited from Kellogg’s extensive experience in corporate governance, which has greatly helped us to mature as a company and establish key processes.
The reduction in staff and further financial measures form part of our comprehensive long-term risk mitigation plan. They allow us to respond appropriately to external developments that put Nash at risk and to maintain our targeted runway. Even in the worst case scenario we are therefore able to maintain operations without external dependencies for a comfortable period.
The founders who are still active at Nash will continue to push forward the processes set in place over the past year and keep working towards the vision set out in 2021. A particular focus will be placed on establishing a framework to attract new users and fine-tuning our existing and planned products. This includes retail as well as business services.
We remain on target for our up-coming releases:
New earnings packages powered by Beefy
A referral program with powerful incentives for both new and existing users
Multi-currency IBAN accounts
Additional earnings protocols to build out the marketplace
Crypto is here to stay and we are excited to continue the work to be an important part of it. We’re confident in our path toward profitability and happy to bring the community and our investors along with us.
Best wishes,
Founders
If you have any questions regarding these developments, please feel free to post them below. We will collect questions until 18:00 Friday 12 August, at which point the topic will be locked and we will prepare responses.
Who are the remaining founders still involved in this project and what are their roles?
It does look like this decison was made in a hurry, considering everything was said in telegram groups from ex CEO, COO and CMO, why not waited atleast for main targets to be delivered (IBANs, Beefy, cards,…)?
Me personally, feel like a fool after everything was said and believe some or most of the community must feel the same way…
Questions from telegram:
Wtf guys, I thought we have couple of years of money to run the company until we go for Series A.
What is the plan from now on, how are you going to generate income and attract more users.
If you don’t have enough money to pay for CEO CMO and other positions how do you plan to promote this product and attract new users ?
And by the way the confidence of the small community that we have is at all time low like the price of NEX token.
Let’s say we stay with the current vision for the product(which I like) - my concern is how are you going to attract new users when we are actually losing old once ?
What will happen if the company ran out of money ? What is the current count of employees, are you planning to fire any developers ?
Please answer all questions as I am sure the other members of this chat wants to know.
I am shocked by this announcement and the way it is done.
My AMA-Questions:
is nash or neon exchange ag preparing for bankruptcy proceedings?
have there been disputes between shareholders and management or differences of opinion regarding the go-to-market strategy?
will the GTM strategy remain as planned?
is a replacement of the functions planned?
referring to your announcement:
“We have hence made the difficult decision to part with some of our staff, including key members of our leadership team…” - who is we?
“…reduction in staff and further financial measures form part of our comprehensive long-term risk mitigation plan…” a) what further financial measures are planned? b) how does the long-term risk mitigation plan looks like?
When leadership steps down and does not announce it themselves, theres a high chance it wasnt voluntary. I hope we hear from the departing parties.
On that note, what does this really mean for Nash?
Is this STRICTLY a financial decision?
What other staff are being trimmed when you say “some of our staff”?
Who will be the face of Nash going forward?
Whats the next phase of trimming? If these folks were the result of cost savings iniatives, what would Nash do for cost savings in 8 months? 1 year?
Sorry to see Kellog Rob and Marc leaving Nash. I hope you all see a good opportunity in front of you in these market conditions. Dont forget us and be sure to share your endeavors on socials. Im looking for new investments
Is it possible to know exactly how many members are left in the team?
When do you plan to improve wallets by adding at least the forks of Bitcoin and Ethereum? (Binance Chain, Gnosis, Litecoin, Dogecoin etc.)?
Don’t you think it’s better to commute NEX into a utility token and distribute dividends by making buybacks?
I believe that Nash’s image has been irreparably damaged with the latest incident, since it is not the first time. So I think it’s worth rebranding. “Nash” is not an easy name, both for overriding google indexing and serious domains like “.com” “.national domains” are not easy to get.
Is there any chance of NASH pivoting to a CEX as Fabio once mentioned before?
What attracted everyone to Nash originally was the idea of an exchange, and earning from the trading fees. I still think this idea is a great one, imo the main reason the Layer 2 exchange failed to gain traction is because it simply could not add tokens fast enough to be relevant. The noncustodial nature made everything slow, complicated, expensive for users and caused Nash to lose its hype. So how about we go the route of a CEX and use the success of the CEX and profits earned from it to then build out our vision of a complete noncustodial product?
There is no reason to be idealist about self custody, people like options. This is what Binance did and it worked well despite the fact that the DEX they built is a fake DEX. I’m sure the Nash team could quickly build a killer CEX that is fast, safe and user friendly, putting Nash
on the path to generating volume and revenue quickly, instead of these long plans that take forever to materialize, the thought is exciting.
As for “earnings”, the crypto space for a while got into earnings and lending but most of the high interest rates that really attracted people were generated through unsustainable ponzis like Anchor/LUNA. After the LUNA crash and the fallout that affected many of the leading earnings “CeDeFi” platforms, I seriously doubt that any large numbers of regular people will be trusting their hard earned savings to crypto lending platforms anytime soon, especially for the meager interest rates that are given. I doubt trying to explain to regular people how Nash is noncustodial will convince them otherwise, as well as that’s an educational burden that’s a big negative for something that’s to be your leading offering. Finally so many of Nash’s investors and community can’t even use these products unfortunately.
Despite all of this, Nash still seems focused on going this route of “earnings” as the main focus and I think it’s a mistake, earnings should be a side product that takes a backseat to a Nash CEX that invigorates a global community and offers this CEX globally, throwing out a wide net to capture investors and users from all over the world, not just in Europe.
Will the direction of Nash change with the departing of the leadership team? or will the direction stay the same? Will there be a larger focus on the layer 2 exchange again (also the app.nash.io web app)?
Will anyone be stepping up to the leadership position that are currently working at Nash (ie perhaps a founder)
Will any older founders that “left” to an advisory position return? (ie Ethan and Fabio)
If Nash runs out of money down the road (or gets close) will a Series A funding happen?
One great thing about previous leadership was the ongoing communication about releases and roadmaps, as well as the quick pace in which releases happened. Can we expect that to continue?
Is Nash close to being profitable or is running out of potential runway a real concern?
In general, where do you see the future of nash in the near and far term (6 months and 1-2 years from now)
Can you explain why team left, is it because of salary cost or there was something more involved?
We explained the situation in the announcement post above. The overall context is that of our risk-mitigation strategy. We’ve benefited in many ways from the team members who have left, but we believe these changes put Nash in a stronger position to succeed than before. We’d like to emphasize that the product vision was put in place by the founders before onboarding a new management team and we remain on course to realize it as planned.
What is status of funders, do they still work in Nash and belive in success of company?
Three of the original founders are still active at Nash: Luciano Engel, Thomas Saunders and Fabian Wahle. Ethan Fast and Fabio Canesin are not involved in daily operations but are available for any advice the company may need. Of course the founders still believe in the success of the company.
When can we expect of Nash to go seriously in marketing, not some small testing in one country?
Part of the reasons for these structural changes are an improvement of our marketing efforts. Leveraging what we keep of the existing framework depends on the results of test campaigns. Also, as a regulated service provider our marketing efforts depend on local regulations. We believe our new measures will help us to increase the effectiveness of Nash’s marketing. We have two new hires planned that will focus exclusively on our programmatic marketing efforts. We’re also going to pursue a range of grassroots marketing efforts, including our extensive referral programme.
Who are the remaining founders still involved in this project and what are their roles?
Luciano Engel is Chief Technology Officer, Thomas Saunders is Chief Engineering Officer and Fabian Wahle is Chief Financial Officer. For the immediate future, the CEO role will be shared among the three founders. We believe there are advantages to co-leadership of a company, which has worked out well for a number of well-known and successful firms. You can read more here: Insead Business School , Atlassian , Co-CEOs at Bosch
It does look like this decison was made in a hurry, considering everything was said in telegram groups from ex CEO, COO and CMO, why not waited atleast for main targets to be delivered (IBANs, Beefy, cards,…)?
This is not a decision we took lightly nor one that was hurried in any way. We felt it was wise to execute on these measures now, rather than to wait longer. As stated in the original post, this doesn’t affect estimated delivery times for the new products.
is nash or neon exchange ag preparing for bankruptcy proceedings?
No
have there been disputes between shareholders and management or differences of opinion regarding the go-to-market strategy?
It’s normal for there to be differences of opinion in any organization, not just between shareholders and managers, but between managers themselves. We’ve always done our best to decide on strategies we have faith in together, but maintaining individual accountability is also important to us.
will the GTM strategy remain as planned?
Yes
is a replacement of the functions planned?
We have assigned responsibilities to existing internal resources. The Nash founders have business experience as entrepreneurs and within the cryptocurrency space, and we have great faith in our internal strategy team. We’re confident in our abilities to lead the company forward. As stated above, we’ve benefited in numerous ways from the team members who left, with important processes being established that we mean to stick to.
“We have hence made the difficult decision to part with some of our staff, including key members of our leadership team…” - who is we?
The Founders
“…reduction in staff and further financial measures form part of our comprehensive long-term risk mitigation plan…” a) what further financial measures are planned? b) how does the long-term risk mitigation plan looks like?
a) We’re reducing operational costs for services that did not bring sufficient value for the money to the company (PR agencies, advisors, etc.)
b) Access to strategic contingency plans is restricted. They consider external and internal factors and are continuously updated.
What is the plan from now on, how are you going to generate income and attract more users?
Our overall strategy has not changed. We believe our earnings marketplace is a very attractive product, and our app will be unique when multi-currency IBANs are introduced. We will market these products accordingly, and will take advantage of initiatives like our strong referral program for earnings in collaboration with influencers and other channels. We’re also actively looking into business partnerships (e.g. hosting third party ICOs through the app) that would bring many more users to Nash.
If you don’t have enough money to pay for CEO CMO and other positions how do you plan to promote this product and attract new users?
Nowhere was it stated Nash doesn’t have money to pay our employees. Nash has ample funds to carry out marketing and operations comfortably. As stated in the post, this measure is part of a broader strategy to better meet market conditions.
What is the current count of employees, are you planning to fire any developers ?
We have 30 team members at present. We are not planning to dismiss developers in order to cut costs.
On that note, what does this really mean for Nash?
This decision allows Nash to extend our runway significantly and to proof the company against what could be a protracted crypto bear market. We believe an effective spending strategy puts us in a stronger position going forward than we were in before.
Is this STRICTLY a financial decision?
Foremost it’s a strategic decision that allows us to refocus our efforts on the long term vision that has been in place for some time now.
What other staff are being trimmed when you say “some of our staff”?
One part-time employee who never intended to join Nash as a full team member, a compliance position in the Netherlands that was filled by another staff member as well as a recent addition to our backend team.
Who will be the face of Nash going forward?
Our products will be the face of Nash for the time being. If the need arises for a public face in a later stage, we’ll update the public accordingly.
No. We do have initiatives planned for L2 but that has been communicated before.
See above
No
We’ve already made sure that this process is kept as is.
Against the odds of any startup, we’ll try our best to make Nash a success. Raising Series A to prevent us from running out of money is certainly an option if that becomes necessary.
We can’t comment on detailed runway / burn / profit figures.
Within the next 6 months we’ll have most of our planned offerings live. We are working towards profitability within the next 1-2 years.
