Steemit, Inc. Financial UpdatesteemCreated with Sketch.

in #steemit5 years ago

financial update.jpg

Hello Steemians, my name is Elizabeth Powell, and if you didn’t already know, I’m the Managing Director of Steemit. In an effort to be more transparent, I would like to share this financial update to show how we are improving from a cost-cutting stand point, and adding advertising revenue.

Looking Back

For reference, let’s go back to December 2018. The only income Steemit reported was the monthly selling of Steem (which we have done since 2016), while expenses were off the chart! Amazon Web Services (AWS) bills were $225k alone. In addition, we had closer to 15 employees so salaries and benefits were high, our office lease was $20k a month, etc., etc. In order to survive, we had to really focus on reducing these costs. And we did. The engineering team has a few more cost reductions to implement, but the major reductions are now in effect.

January: Revenue!

January was the first month we saw advertising revenue simply by turning on AdSense. We began to optimize, sell direct ads and have since added a 3rd party bidding network. Our campaigns are returning good CPM’s and continue to increase every day, and we did this without acquiring any data on our users. As with cost-cutting, we will not stop tuning the advertising program and are always looking for ways to add more revenue. Some ideas include adding more bidding networks and possibly paid “sponsored” posts. The ultimate goal, of course, is to maintain a good user experience. I still consider the advertising program in it’s “infant” stage. So, definitely more work to be done.

Looking Ahead

At this point, I feel confident that our expenses will remain consistent, which allows for better budgeting and planning. We currently have nine full time employees and one contractor, so salaries and benefits make up the bulk of our expenses. We cut our monthly lease from $20k to $2k and still do not plan on much travel or other extra expenses that do not help add to the bottom line. The only real variable is the advertising revenue. In order to not programmatically sell Steem each month, we need to bring in enough ad dollars to not only cover expenses, but make enough profit to ensure future stability. Obviously the sooner this happens the better so we can slow down the programmatic selling and ultimately stop it altogether. That has always been the plan and like I said, we are working hard every day to make this happen.

Thank you for reading and for the continued support of this amazing ecosystem.

-Elizabeth
AWS Expenses and Advertising Revenue.png

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If that was a crypto chart, I'd be bullish. Head down, graph up!

But its not a crypto chart and you KNOW this man! You should be more vocal against this woman and her mismanagement of steemit inc AND thus Steem Blockchain WHICH it is the LARGEST Influencer and Owner of... look at how the blockchain feels about her posts....
![]

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A lot of steem whales seem to NOT like this post and I agree with them. Who is this woman who just pops out of nowhere and claims to have all this experience on steem when she barely makes any posts and has not enough Steempoiwer to have RCs to make a single post until i DELEGATED her 2 SP

even though she could click one button and ACCEPt her rewards :D she seriously went MONTHS without even logging in to ACCEPT her steempower rewards from her earlier posts! she doesn't CARE about steem! she doenst USE the chain even though with #share2steem https://shaqre2steem.io she could EASILy post from her instagram twitter or youtube with one click

That's one whale, and a small selection of their alts.

Fine I shouldnt have said a lot fo steem whales, andposted that image, misleading, but its STILL true, and the picture still showes at least ONE had the BALLS to downvote her,

and its STILL TRUE a LOT OF STEM WHALES do NOT liek elipowell, I know this not form a fucking list of votes dude, but from talking to them in discord and on chain, its obvious to anyone in the know

and it will be up to her actions right NOW, to determine if peope will power down or not, and
SO what if its one person? they still own enough Steempower to make a difference dont they? How is it any different from multiple people with teh same SP?

You seem to be at least semi-knowledgeable on steem and it's operations.

How did you not know about Bernie?

Bernie is just the only whale with teh BALLS to downvote her, but I COULD name a LIST of whales and dolphisn who are annoyed or at least DIs Satisied with elipowell... i dont need that upvote list...

doenst matter if thats just one whale and his alts, he has teh SP doesnt he? and do you not know the otehr whales who POST on chain about their disatisfaction with eli and the oens hwo make it VERY clear on their very popular discords? Of course they wont leave a papper traiol opf negative comments against steemit inc exectives, but honestly, your raguiong semantics if you try to say that this is not proof enuf that tehers now hales dissatisfied with elipowell

i do appreciate eli's recent posts but its not enough she must do more

i hope you know that the price of steem is lowert than its ever been...in BTC which si what actually matters ...

when Steem is low enuf @ned will fire @elipowell

I thought she coudl turn thinsg around recently but she hasnt posted anything new, and she should be posting every DAY, her lack of posting on her OWN platform is in excusable... fi she has been doing work she can show it.... she is suppose dto be working in the new world of transparency and blockchain and she wants to take refuge in the cop out of "Its a private business id ont owe you shit" and it is only hurting her own reputation as a fraud, when LIVES DEPEND on steem, but eli would know shit about the thousands of women and children in venezuela and Ghana Nigeria who depend on styeem, or did depend on it, many of them now cant depend on the price even staying above 40 cents, but her cold heart will just claim that they shouldnt have tried living on steem lol, instead of trying to make steem greatr again and help get that price up, she will probably just slink backinto her cold reptillian grasp of reality

Wow, that's a wall! Tell me how you really feel! :D

Never dealt with ned or eli personally but if she is rattling bernies cages, that's enough to get my vote for now. Thank you for answering my question of how you didn't know about bernie though.


IMHO the main reason steem is failing is due in large part to people like bernie and marky thinking that their SP makes them right no matter what. Combine that with the fact that it's exponentially harder to setup/understand/obtain a steem account, sprinkle in less dopamine rewards(upvotes) and you have our current all time low. I say current because I don't think support will arrive before these and other bad actors are dealt with.

TL:DR buy bitcoin! :D

Faster moving average passing a slower one to the upside... bullish!

😂, a sexy graph!

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The only real variable is the advertising revenue. In order to not programmatically sell Steem each month, we need to bring in enough ad dollars to not only cover expenses, but make enough profit to ensure future stability. Obviously the sooner this happens the better so we can slow down the programmatic selling and ultimately stop it altogether. That has always been the plan and like I said, we are working hard every day to make this happen.

Yes please! That alone would help the price of steem go up.

@elipowell, that is great news and we appreciate the transparency and the positive intention. I have just done some napkin math so far came up with this estimate:

Monthly Income:
800K selling @ 0.35 USD - $280 000
AWS/AD Revenue Surplus -$ ~40 000
Total income: $ 320 000

Monthly Expenses:
Rental - $2000
Telephone, Internet, Sundries - ~$3000
Electricity and Water - ~$700
Other combined - $10 000
Total Expenses: $15 700

Nett Revenue before salaries: $304 300 per month, assuming you still have 15 employees, (gerbino, roadscape, justinw, vanderberg, andrarchy, birdinc and yourself are the only ones I'm aware of however.) that would mean an average of $20 286 per month each or $243 440 per annum, I would say only executive (yourself) and blockchain devs should be anywhere close to this, blockchain dev job offers I have seen can be around $150K per annum, Steem is very niche so you could perhaps argue the above max for 2-3 of the Steemit devs, but is still high.

This basically means everyone else is severely overpaid at the expense of the Steem price and the community, bear in mind there are many Steemians from low-income countries that will see these numbers as obscene, and a $10 post value helps them sustain their family for a few days, and it hurts them further as the Steem price drops due to sell pressure.

So not knowing the full extent of your expenses and doing some napkin math, I don't see why a small reduction right now is not possible, I would say even 700K monthly sell off instead of 800K is possible right now at the very least, 600 or 500K is likely possible too.

Why do you assume that all revenue per month is spent? They never said that this is the case and it likely isn't. At least they should not spend it all if they want to manage the company sustainably.

Employee salary and benefits not included yet


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I'm blown away by the fact that @elipowell has basically been able to cut two of their largest operating expenses by 90% and has begun generating sustainable revenue streams. All the pieces of the puzzle aren't there yet, but labor costs likely can't be cut without cutting employees, which they've already done, regardless of how we feel about how much they're getting paid. Further cuts would likely damage top line growth, which would sink the ship. The real trick here, in addition to shoring up the outside revenue, now will be to trigger a rise in the price of Steem and slow or reverse the net selling by users, which would serve to further benefit the low income folks of course. After what I'm seeing here, I'm feeling confident that they can pull it off. None too soon either.

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That only took someone competent to take the helm. The level of waste on Ned's watch must have been horrific.

What? @ned is the one who hired @elipowell and she is too afraid to announce she is the NEW CEO when this new article states it clearly

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/23/steamit-reddit-new-boss-rebuild-elizabeth-powell/

Formerly the company’s head of communications and advocacy, Powell has replaced former CEO Ned Scott — who is now executive chairman — at the helm of the business, which has 12 full-time staff.

SO @ned is the FORMER CEO? WHy wasnt any of this ever announced on chain ? SO weird...

Im praying the reason ned is so overconfident and absent is because he has way mroe BTC than steem.... im hoping he is waiting for steem to drop LOWER than it is now its LOWEST EVER price in Bitcoin.... because he knows he can buy it up cheap and pump steem at any time....

I don't know what exactly "executive chairman" means. But I'm guessing Ned is still Chairman of the Board at Steemit Inc because he's still presumably a major shareholder if not the largest one. Eli Powell answers to the board. It was a good move of Ned to step down and hire Powell to manage the company. Ned is a visionary but less effective as a manager. CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer. Managing Director means practically the same.

Ned doesn't need to be at the forefront at this time. It's better that way. He probably still has regular and frequent meetings with the staff in addition to board meetings. Powell is a fresh new face and has been able to turn the company around. She's been a good hire from what I can tell from the published information.

But I'm guessing Ned is still Chairman of the Board at Steemit Inc

HAHAHA dude now theres a BOARD? I was talking about how Ned should step down and just be on a "board" for a while but I didnt think it woudl actually happpen, but tell me who else is on this brand new BOARD of directors at steemit inc? No seriously show me everything you know :D You seriously think they have board meetings? I would be impressed if there was now a board of directors for steemit inc.... why cant ned make a simple announcement about having stepped down as CEO? so many peopel still think he is ceo.... does it really matter?

what matters is who owns the keys to the steemit inc accounts @steem @steemit and etc, and I am pretty sure that is still ned why would he give up control of his keys to other people? So in the end its just ned, ned owns a bunch of steem.... unless elipowell owns some steem no one will respect her...

Of course, there is a board. Steemit Inc is a corporation. Boards are a standard part of corporate governance. In below the post by @steemitblog, it is mentioned that the Steemit, Inc Board as nominated Ned Scott as Executive Chairman and Elizabeth Powell as Managing Director. At the very least, boards exist so that certain formal decisions can be made. And yes, I seriously think they have formal board meetings, at least when key hiring decisions are made.

See:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/steemit-inc-leadership-changes

P.S.

By the way, Executive Chairman is not the same position as that of CEO. A CEO runs the day-to-day operations of the company while an Executive Chairman often acts as the Chairman of the Board and also in an advisory and supervisory capacity in co-operation with the CEO.

what matters is who owns the keys to the steemit inc accounts @steem @steemit and etc, and I am pretty sure that is still ned why would he give up control of his keys to other people? So in the end its just ned, ned owns a bunch of steem.... unless elipowell owns some steem no one will respect her...

He couldn't treat any company-owned accounts like his personal property without facing the possibility of criminal charges.

He couldn't treat any company-owned accounts like his personal property without facing the possibility of criminal charges.

WHAT? I dont think you understand how any of this works or how ownership works lol

Also do we even know if steemit inc owns the steem or does ned? its ned , he usesd it whanever he wants to, like to flag @dan 's post "for aggrandizement" yeah he used the official @steem or @steemit account to do it and give a $2K flag are you saying that was a personal use of company funds? :D

come on man your just trying to use big words and sound important and also this is teh first anyoen has ever heard of a steemit board in public by the way... all of it is just ned and his friends making up titles... none of it matters when steem price is this low...

we STILL have no idea the official title of ned or eli.... between me you and that article theres multipel answers as to whats going on and thats a result of a lack of leadership, because THEy are suppose dto TELL US what THEy are :D They are leaving us to make wild guesses about whats even going on

Here maybe THIS will solve All of steem's problems, you can get some goodboy points for defending steemit inc

Let's not give Ned too hard of a time. If it was easy to be a CEO, everyone would be doing it. Sometimes when you're in the middle of things, what seems obvious in hindsight or from the outside is difficult to see. Let's just be glad we've got someone here now who does see, and hope she can keep it going.

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Steemit Inc must have sold STEEM for such massive sums of fiat that any technical problems should've been overcome in a timely manner by simply hiring enough good people. The market cap of STEEM was billions of dollars a year and a half ago. I suspect Steemit Inc may have sold close to a hundred million dollars worth of STEEM during its existence. What kind of a software engineer can you hire for a million bucks a year? What about marketing professionals to counter all the FUD? When the bear market hit and the price collapsed, that was the day of reckoning.

You're doing a great job on the finances. Now just power up your Steem so you have enough RC to interact more with the Steem community.

It would also be great if @elipowell could take a proper look at the @jpbliberty law suit because Steem will have a huge claim to put in as it is such an obvious competitor to Facebook and was clearly damaged by Facebook's part in the cartel that banned crypto advertising last year!

Seriously, that should have been a part of her hiring was a powering up of enough steem to interact effectively. Should be a pretty simple thing to dump a bunch more in and not have to worry about RCs.

I had to delegate her the SP to even post... she didnt even realize she HAD some Steempower rewards but she never claimed them , she probably never figured out how to use the new confusing https://steemitwallet.com to get her active keys :D

That is pretty funny, truly. Given the position I would have thought there would have been a bit of training on how to use the system....
Really why was she not given 5k or 10k SP from Steemit to start with, knowing she would have to respond to comments and post? Or was that not expected to be a significant part of the job function?

Yeah its pretty funny how she wasnt even able to make this post until I delegated her 2 SP so she could have enough Resource Credits to even make a POSt as the NEw head of COMMUNICATION who couldn't even COMMUNICATE :D

https://steemit.com/steemit/@ackza/delegating-2-steempower-to-elipowell-so-the-steemit-communication-director-can-have-enough-resource-credits-on-her-steem-account

Thank you for the communication and transparency. And the fact that you are posting it on your own blog means a lot.

the fact that you are posting it on your own blog means a lot

She should be using #share2steem @share2steem.io https://share2steem.io so she can actually share the twitter and instagram posts she makes , same with @ned and his twitter https://realnedscott its annoying how much ned posts on twitter but he wont even post on his own platform when its so easy with share2steem he literally just has to type in 1 hashtag

Anyway thanks for being one of the only people on twitter promoting steem, when i type ion #steemit all i see on twitter are videos of people doing Pushups :D we need a new campaign, pushups have nothing to do with crypto, we need people to show off their steem wallets instead, thatd be actually helpful, the pushup thing has run its course man! :D lets make the #seven77 project actually useful! Those posts you promote on steem could be actually bringing us users and investors if you changed it from pushups..... to people recording their STEEM wallet balance! THAt would encourage new users!

I'm building the killer DApp STEEM and Seven77 just laying the foundation

Don’t worry about the money, money follows the people, people should follow the dreams….money will come”

-Jack Ma

It's a shame that we don't get the whole picture with salaries expenses as well but I get why you won't want to show them.

Very insightful and bullish though, I didn't think that ad revenue would amount to this much so soon. I can't imagine how steem would look without the programmatic selling.

Please do this kind of things more often (every month or two months would be amazing).

I dont expect her to post for another month now :D I had to send her 2 SP just so she could have the resource credits to make the post, sad :D

https://steemit.com/steemit/@ackza/delegating-2-steempower-to-elipowell-so-the-steemit-communication-director-can-have-enough-resource-credits-on-her-steem-account

Maybe she will have to buy some steempower if she wants to avoid the NGC flags :D hahahah Social JUSTICE is sweet :D

But instead of buying SP she will just ask @ned for qa delegation and CHEAT when everyone ELSE has to PAY OUT OF POCKET for delegation

THIS is why no eon values steem, people like ned gave it away like candy to his girlfriends before he pumps and dumps them :D

Lets take bets on how long until elipowell gets pumped and dumped

when she reads comments like this I GUARANTEE she will ask @ned to delete them from the front end citing brand new TOS violation, and if he does then THIS will be the END of steemit inc and steem as we know it as no one else has a viable front end t replace steemit, steempeak wont be enough and no one will stay to watch eli systematically ban users from teh front end who upset her :D

This graph looks promising. Hopefully it's not some made up BS cause I really doubt you made almost 100k last month just from AdSense.

Looks awesome! :) Thanks for putting both posts up in such a short term!

Keep up the good work & transparency, and I can bet that the community will support you! (apart from the moaners and haters) :)

In my experience moaners and haters are people that care that feel let down. If they stop caring they leave. If they complain it's because they want something more from someone or something that they like.

Except that we also just have moaners and haters on steem that just like to moan & hate and be heard doing it. Not saying you're wrong but there's a lot of accounts here you wonder why they don't have anything better to do.

Actually the act of leaving a comment to "complain" is more helpful than most of the brown nose comments you see on posts like this. Thankfully we have heros like NGC who arent afraid to flag @elipowell to show her she cant just *** all over us like this , stepping into OUR chain OUR community and make posts like this expecting to be treated with respect when she is supposed to be a leader? Who doesnt even make steem posts? She has the nerve to be getting a paycheck and not invest a dime into the chain, which PAYS her freakin salary... if people werent investing in steem, there would be no marketcap and nothing for @ned to sell to pay @elipowell

Maybe the peopel who you say are "whining" are actually INVESTORS who and have done ENOUGH with their actions? Enjoy your flags @elipowell if you want to ever have a post thats not flagged consider buying some fucking steempower.

...Just these few words alone, provides more information about the attitude, perspective (and lack of intelligence), of steemstinc - than you will ever realize....

I am a lover. givesherthatclinteastwoodlook

Thanks for the information Eli and the two posts in one day!

Yep, two posts in one day! Now it's comment mgmt. I can't respond to all the comments. So hopefully people will understand that... now back to getting things done! TY.

Please do this evaluation every first of the month, with all the data on employees, costs and revenue. Because why not.

Also is it possible to bring back the status update for SMTs with the dotted charting posts for what needs to be achieved before release? Progress equals happiness...

What about testing HF21? Are the witnesses happy with the testsystem or not?

Agreed. If this was a monthly post, Steemit would already be operating above and beyond the traditional quarterly standard, which is every 3 months.

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