Presentation from Tony Sakich from Augur & TonySakich.com that was given on November 17th, 2015 at Oakland University. The "Marketing A Startup" event broke attendance records for AMA events at OU, along with receiving press coverage before the event.

1. TONY SAKICH
Marketing A Startup
- Blockchain Technology, Ethereum, Decentralization & Tech’s Cutting Edge

2. EMINEM
TO OU
TO BITCOIN• Began my career working for Eminem’s indie label,
Web Entertainment, based in Ferndale. The
industry’s inability to change and compete with
decentralized technologies like BitTorrent left an
impression.
• Graduated from OU’s School of Business in 2009.
Marketing Professor Larry Schramm was a mentor.
• Discovered Bitcoin in 2012, no one I knew had any
knowledge about the technology.
• Hired by BitPay in 2014, one of the oldest and
largest Bitcoin startups based in Atlanta.

3. Partnering with ESPN, Warner Bros., NewEgg,
ChangeTip and celebrities on the most successful
Bitcoin related social media campaign in history.
Guest Tippers
Three hours before the game
began, Warner Bros. tweeted
information on the campaign.
The Announcement
#BitcoinBowl Campaign

4. The most successful social media
campaign in Bitcoin history.
• Distributed $10,000+ in Bitcoin to new users,
provided by ChangeTip.
• Tripled Engagement from the previous year’s
game, astonishing ESPN
• Multiple front page Reddit posts about the
campaign.
• “Bitcoin” trended nationwide on Twitter for
the first time in history.
Total cost of campaign to BitPay: $0
#BitcoinBowl Campaign – The Results
Front page #BitcoinBowl Posts
Estimated Twitter Analytics

5. Using music connections to get
media during a slow period:
• During a period of slow merchant acquisition, I reached out to
contacts to express interest, some time later the manager of 50
Cent’s ecommerce platform contacted us and a deal was made.
• Warner Bros. reached out to BitPay to work with a different artist,
that fell through but Grammy Nominees Mastodon shared an
Atlanta home and loved Bitcoin.
• Country Singer Shooter Jennings is a huge Bitcoin supporter who
went out of his way to help both BitPay and myself, ultimately
becoming a friend.
• These resulted in getting press in non-traditional outlets, exposing
both bitcoin and BitPay to many for the first time.

6. Managed production on two nationally televised
Bitcoin commercials, both debuting in prime time
on ESPN.
• Collaborated with an Atlanta company filming both
advertisements locally at a very low cost (about 1/5th of
expected budget)
• Aired on ESPN, December 26th, 2014 in prime time, the first
Bitcoin commercials to be seen on Television.
First Bitcoin Commercials on Television

7. In the Blockchain Technology space, good
marketing starts with good customer
service and interaction. This is why a
constant presence on Reddit was key to
maintianing BitPay’s reputation.
BitPay’s Reddit strategy was successful to
the degree that multiple merchants using
a competetor switched to BitPay after
seeing our customer service.
For BitPay and the Bitcoin space, Reddit is
more important than all other social
media platforms combined.
BitPay Presence on Reddit

8. Case 1:I took the role of a Sales Engineer & convinced a merchant ($90+ Million Dollars in Revenue) to switch from
our competitor to us.
Case 2 (Communication below): getting Ferguson Public Library set up to accept Bitcoin during the city’s tragedy,
from under the nose of a competitor (Twitter helped too)
BitPay Presence on Reddit
Post #1: alerting /r/Bitcoin they are interested in
accepting Bitcoin donations (Linked Tweet posted at
8:54PM)
Post #2: post by me alerting the community that they are
all set up to accept donations (Tweet also posted at
11:39PM)
Original communication, note competitor is also tagged in Tweet

9. Partnered with major brands including ESPN, Microsoft, PayPal, Warner Bros., NewEgg
& more on marketing campaigns & announcements, consistently making mainstream
media news pieces dominating Reddit.
Other BitPay Campaigns

10. • Within the space, Ethereum is known as a “Blockchain 2.0” technology as it is based on the tech
of Bitcoin, but adds new features and has a different focus than the original Bitcoin technology.
• The project originally raised over $18 Million Dollars in 2014 for development, making it the 4th
highest crowdfunded project in history.
• Apps can be developed “on top of” the platform and many are in development now. These
projects have access to a unique method of funding that was used during Augur’s successful
crowdfunding campaign.
• Currently, the two largest supporters of the technology are IBM and Microsoft, with both
developing and financially supporting projects developed on Ethereum.
Ethereum is a Blockchain technology that is “turing complete”, which means that
applications (AKA “Smart Contracts”) can be developed on the network itself. The
original goal was to “decentralize the web”

11. Augur is an open source, decentralized prediction
market platform built on Ethereum, a Blockchain
technology similar to Bitcoin.
• Augur was the first major project with a token
crowdsale on the Ethereum program.
• Raised $5.2 Million Dollars via a crowdsale of
Reputation Tokens in 2015.
• Named one of the most exciting Blockchain
projects of 2015 and named “Breakthrough
Technology” by CNBC & Singularity U.
• Currently working with IBM and their Watson
project on a future integration.

12. Marketing Augur was the most challenging thing
I’ve done in my career, I knew the challenge going
in and is part of why I joined the project.
Knowledge of Blockchain Technology is necessary
before even beginning to explain Augur, this is
something the mainstream media has been
struggling to explain for 5+ years.
Augur is a complicated project built on a
complicated technology, simplification is a
necessity, but how?

13. Augur’s first and largest marketing expense was
creating a two-minute animated “explainer” video,
utilizing one of the best motion graphics designers in
the world (Jonathan Mayo-Buttry).
I reached out to a friend, Country Singer Shooter
Jennings (son of Waylon Jennings) to provide the
video’s narration. His experience hosting a satellite
radio show along with his access to a studio made
this easy and free.
The result is one of the things I’m most proud of in
my entire professional career.

14. How Augur Works (Narrated By Shooter Jennings)

15. Results:
Used in our submission to CNBC & Singularity U’s
Exponential Finance Conference. Responsible for
immediate acceptance & placement as a “Breakthrough
Technology”, skipping the FinTech field.
190,000+ views since May 20th, resulting in the most
viewed prediction market video in YouTube History.
Simplifying multiple sophisticated technologies to
potential crowdsale participants in two-minutes.
Multiple front page Reddit posts, with hundreds of
upvotes and comments on each.

16. Market leader Coinbase named Augur as one of the top 5
most exciting Blockchain projects of 2015, in the same
category as startups with $110+ Million in funding (21).

17. A ridiculously ambitious startup with 6 team
members was able to get mainstream media
coverage from the largest outlets before the
crowdsale.

18. What’s Next With Augur?
October 1st was the final day of the crowdsale, this day
also began the next phase of Augur and the project has
shifted focus greatly as of this date.
• My role has been reduced to part time as marketing is
unnecessary during this phase.
• Team members have changed and the dev. team will
expand by 2 to 3 people.
Rough Timeline:
Augur Beta Release – December 25th, 2015
Project Launch – Sometime 2016

19. What’s Next With Ethereum?
Ethereum’s ÐΞVCON1 conference last week was
accompanied by a huge announcement, Microsoft’s
announcement of a partnership with ConsenSys to Use
Ethereum To Provide Blockchain-As-A-Service for enterprise
customers on the Azure platform.
The conference also featured a keynote presentation by Nick
Szabo, the very first conference appearance by the
mysterious and influential developer. Szabo was responsible
for “bit gold” a proto-bitcoin technology in 1998. His
involvement with Ethereum has given the platform a huge
credibility boost.

20. Phase One – Frontier (Launched in August 2015)
• Frontier was only the first phase in Ethereum’s launch process, each upcoming
phase will be adding a layer of usability and functionality. Frontier is bare-bones
and for advanced users, command-line only.
Phase Two – Homestead
• Still for advanced command-line users, but with increased security and network
adjustments.
Phase Three – Metropolis
• A fully-featured user-interface for non-technical users of the platform. Features
include Mist browser & dapp store.
Phase Four – Serenity
• The final phase with tweaks to mining process and other advanced, technical
changes.

21. Notable Tweets about Augur

22. Favorite media quotes about Augur:
TechCrunch Feature Writer, Jon Evans

23. 2015 Projects Include:
• Collaborated with Singularity University’s Mike Halsall on a Blockchain Technology Report, prepared
for UK Prime Minister David Cameron
• Prepared materials for Datt (decentralized reddit project) used in presentations given to raise funds
from VC Firms and to attract potential developers.
• Advised large VC firms on blockchain projects for potential investment.
• Teaching an “Introduction To Bitcoin” course provided by Atlanta’s largest accredited technology
educator, Ledet Training.
TONY SWISH
MARKETING & BUSINESS SERVICES
Marketing is where many blockchain startups lack talent and expertise. Many hire traditional software
marketing consultants that lack knowledge and a proven track-record in the space. Others choose to
hire someone with experience marketing other types of software, but lacking essential industry
knowledge that is needed to succeed in this space. These reasons, coupled with increasing demand for
my services, led me to launch TonySakich.com

24. • The “decentralized reddit” receiving press from Wired,
TechCrunch, Engadget, Fortune & more.
• The business model takes a portion of payments
between users rather than using advertisements,
better aligning incentives & user interest.
• Disrupts & decentralizes journalism with a financial
incentive outside of corporate-owned media.
• Ensures free speech, eliminating censorship &
moderator abuse.
• Learn more:
• Datt.co
• On Twitter at @DattNetwork
• Contribute at http://GitHub.com/DattNetwork
DATT = DECENTRALIZE
ALL THE THINGS
Ryan X. Charles
- Datt Founder
- Reddit’s Former
“Cryptocurrency Engineer”

25. • Host of decentralize.fm, known for a variety of guests and it’s focus on Blockchain & open-
source technologies from an inside perspective.
• Launched in September 2014, it has a growing fanbase & unique industry perspective.
• Featured OpenBazaar, who received VC funding after being featured.
Notable Decentralize Guests:
• Steve Albini (Musician & Audio Engineer for Nirvana, Foo Fighters, The Pixies, Cheap Trick & Iggy Pop &
The Stooges)
• Glenn Jacobs/Kane (WWE Performer & Actor)
• Shooter Jennings (Country Music Artist & Owner of Black Country Rock Media)
• Andreas Antonopoulos (Notable Bitcoin evangelist known for media & senate appearances)
• Robin Hanson (Godfather of prediction markets, former cypherpunk and former employee of NASA)
• Jeff Garzik (Bitcoin Core Developer & Founder of Dunvegan Space Systems)

26. AFFILIATED PROJECTS:
Website: TonySakich.com
Email: tony@augur.net
Twitter: @TonySwish
Augur:
Website: Augur.net
Twitter: @AugurProject
GitHub: GitHub.com/AugurProject
FaceBook: FaceBook.com/AugurProject
YouTube: YouTube.com/AugurNetworkProject
Augur Alpha: alpha.augur.net
Decentralize:
Website: Decentralize.fm
Twitter: @DecentralizeAll
Datt:
Website: datt.co
Twitter: @dattnetwork
GitHub: GitHub.com/dattnetwork
TONY SAKICH
OU AMA: amaoakland.wix.com/amaou
College Crypto Network: CollegeCrypto.org
Michigan Bitcoiners: MichiganBitcoiners.org
THANKS TO: