Can Sparkster light a fire in a bear market?

Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser. All of the article is my opinion. Please do your own research.

A few weeks ago, a high-speed blockchain project called Quarkchain caught the attention of several freelance analysts. Once the recommendations came flying in, the public crowdsale turned into a lottery. Lotteries are a new ICO tactic to cope with an increasingly saturated number of retail investors looking to get rich fast. Quarkchain claimed 1 million transactions per second (TPS is now the latest measure of masculinity for blockchains, shallow as it sounds). Edit: I believe Quarkchain have revised their TPS goals.

In fairness to Quarkchain (which I personally invested in) they boast an innovative dual blockchain, utilising sharding and providing a turing complete smart-contract-savvy platform to rival the successful upcomer Zilliqa. Quarkchain's post-ICO token release peaked at a whopping 15x. All this in what could be politely described as a comatose market. Despite a subsequent correction, Quarkchain (QKC) is to this date holding its own, and looks like it will be a medium term success.

Let me be clear, the crypto market is in its infancy. Cries of bubbles, crashes and fads are always by their nature misguided. This space is a new engine spluttering and wheezing into life, but make no mistake, it will take off like a rocket once the fire is well and truly lit. Quarkchain certainly turned heads, but now it looks like there's another kid in town. This cocky smartass boasts a well-hung 10 million TPS (is that a rocket in your pocket?) with a platform that allows anyone to build software without coding experience. "In plain English!!!", we've heard more than once.

What the hell is Sparkster anyway?

Since I first heard of it, I've asked myself that question. The short answer is that it's a potential beast with many interesting and original elements. But like any new kid in town, while it promises an opportunity for disruption, it's also quite raw, untamed and well... divisive.

Whatever you feel about Sparkster, it's impossible to ignore, since everyone who wants to get into the public sale is writing, tweeting, facebook-ing, and referring the hell out of it. Why? Because that's what Sparkster wants to you to - prove your love. The question is, will it be an undying love or a quickie? The cold hard rationalist in me suspects it might be the latter, at least for now. Why? Because the bear market is making everyone fickle. Investors are being outpaced by "flippers" - people who hope to make a quick multiple by cashing out on an ICO token release. That's a shame, because, I do think Sparkster has a lot going for it, though it does have some issues (which I will get to).

Let's roll back 1 month...

Like Quarkchain before it, Sparkster appeared to come out of nowhere. In early May, ICO sniper Ian Balina visited a Blockchain Expo in London, an early stop on his European tour. Sparkster had a stand at the event, and took they took the opportunity to send messages and links via Ian's telegram group. My first reaction to "10 million TPS" was "forget it". By the way, that was my first reaction to Quarkchain's 1 million, and Zilliqa before it. In fact, "forget it" was my first reaction to blockchain. I’ve since learned to open my mind a little more.

Ian continued on his tour of Europe; his next stop, Amsterdam. The CEO of Sparkster, Sajjad Daya made a decision to follow him. His mission? To enter and win one of Ian's "ICO pitch" contests. The contests allow a number of ICO promoters to pitch to the attending audience, through a number of knockout rounds. The winner is chosen by the spectators, with Ian in tandem. Sajjad won the Amsterdam contest by a landslide. He blew the others out of the water with his final passionate war cry, "I don't need to make loads of money. I'm already rich. We want to change the world". The audience roared. How could you not love it?

Let's slow up for a moment, and talk about me. As well as being a passionate retail crypto investor, I am a professional public speaking coach. I've trained thousands of people (on a part time basis) and I have competed in public speaking contests on an international level. I wouldn't call myself Barack Obama, but I know a little bit about presentation skills. One of the biggest issues I've seen with pitchers of ICOs is... well, their presentation skills suck. Like it or not, it is not enough to be able to walk the walk. You need to able to talk the talk.

Sajjad nailed it in Amsterdam. His content and delivery was super sharp. He successfully sucked the audience (and Ian) into wanting to know more. Cue the follow-up AMA with Ian. Are you ready for a review of the Ian Balina-Sparkster AMA? Are your knives sharpened?

Sorry to disappoint the trolls, but I actually thought Ian's AMA was decent. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but it had some interesting elements. As Ian mentioned, to be able to do a live demo pre-ICO is not something we see often enough. Sajjad showcased 6,000 TPS, and it was impressive. The problem I had with Ian's demo was that it was rushed and not well structured. I will take a wild guess that both parties’ schedules were crazy. Thanks a lot guys – now I had to do my own research!

By the way, the whitepaper answers almost all of the questions left open by that AMA. If you haven't read it, do. Whitepapers are notoriously variable in quality and balance. Sometimes it's unclear who the audience is supposed to be: investors, academics, the media? Fortunately, Sparkster’s whitepaper is an excellent read, though it leaves some technical/logistical questions open, such as what specs you really need to successfully participate in a large cell. At this stage, I would say those are challenges that can be ironed out with a strong and dedicated team... sorry, "warriors".

What about the Sparkster platform? I do feel it's underrated. I recommend doing the walkthroughs on the website. Let's discuss the platform for a moment...

They do have a challenge in who they sell it to, in the sense that non-developers usually don't develop; not because they don't know how to, but because they don't want to. They would rather let someone else work out the logic and code it accordingly.

Who is the platform really for? And who will end up using it, in any organisation you care to target? Sparkster should be careful about the idea of "plain English". Strictly speaking, I don’t think it is. Plain English to me implies speaking to an Amazon Alexa style interface with phrases like, "Give me a calculator that can add and subtract, and looks like..." though I am being anal here (and perhaps unfair). My point is that you may not need coding skills to use the platform, but you do need to think and build in a logical "algorithmic" fashion. You need to think like a programmer.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. In a way, that's the platform's biggest strength. I think Sparkster have found a happy medium where the customer has full control over what they want, whereas you could imagine arguing back and forth with my imaginary "Alexa" - "No, not like that, I didn't mean that, etc. etc." That's no different than Sparkster's argument about not getting what you asked for. On reflection, the platform strikes a great balance, plain English or not.

The platform itself looks nice, though it could use some aesthetic refinement, which is not a big issue as they are in the development phase. While I'm not sure if it can do the most intricate and complex programming, I'm guessing that's not what it's hoping for.

I also think the education sector, a space that has been largely ignored by the crypto world, could tap into it. Imagine young Johnny coming home from school boasting to his parents that he made a calculator. "No Dad, we didn't use a soldering iron!" Being able to think algorithmically is a language of its own, and should be taught in schools. But I digress.

The platform does feel like a reasonably creative and somewhat open-ended tool that could become akin to a social platform within (and between) organisations so that software and apps can be shared. Think facebook crossed with an SDK. Criticisms that it's just a suped-up Excel or Access are frankly ignorant.

While we are on the subject of criticisms, I would like to address frequent complaints about Sparkster by so-called reviewers…

Sparkster used to be Symphoni, yet there is no mention of Symphoni on LinkedIn profiles. So what? Sparkster have spent 4 years (and $8 million I believe) evolving themselves to where they are now. It started with the platform, but now it’s much more. They obviously decided to rebrand. That happens all the time. You don’t hear people complaining that “Snickers” don’t mention “Marathon” any more. It’s confusing and pointless.

Another complaint is that Sparkster’s social media channels are relatively new. So what? Social media channels are high maintenance, if you want to do them well. Many channels in this space are frankly boring.

Let me get to the heart of my own issue with Sparkster. Frankly, they are too pushy on the hype-building. I understand that in this bear market. Hype is essential, but it should not take from the focus of the message. I'll give you some examples:

On page 33 of the whitepaper it has a throw-away paragraph about the user being able to build smart contracts for Ethereum through the platform. That's massive!!! What the hell is it doing on page 33 while we're having "10 million TPS" and "plain English" shoved at us. I'm being a little flippant here, because Sajjad has mentioned it in a couple of videos, but it's not enough.

Another big feature of Sparkster is that it looks to be GDPR compliant from the ground up, which is one of the foundational requirements of GDPR. That's massive!!!

The encryption in transit between nodes within cells, and no-one knowing what data/node/cell they are storing for who... that's massive!!! It answers all the negativity about centralisation and attacks. Along with the way the incentives are set up, it looks to me like it attacks would be massively expensive, untargeted, and would benefit no-one. But Sajjad claiming, "There is no incentive in stealing customer data" without painting the complete picture could be misunderstood.

The online marketing needs more focus and balance. Sajjad is a superb presenter in the sense that his delivery skills (body language and vocal tonality) are excellent. His skills even scared off a Youtube reviewer from accepting an AMA with him.

For Sajjad, I would say the content (i.e. what he is saying) needs just a little more polish and less spontaneity. It's a difficult balance to get right, and most ICOs are the opposite - too many stolid technical statements, wilful arrogance, and not enough honest engagement with the community. Take a look at Holochain's whitepaper. It's fascinating, but I felt like I was back in college (I have a Masters degree in Mathematics). Disclaimer: I like Holochain.

If Sparkster’s whitepaper could use anything it would be to include more technical detail. It would also be nice to see some github code, however they are going the route of patent protection. Fair enough.

On the plus side, Sparkster are very engaging. You will likely receive some answers to your questions on the Sparkster telegram group from Sajjad himself. Too many ICO channels leave "admins" to plug communication gaps. As an executive, or a technical engineer, it's easy to hide behind your desk. Unfortunately, insecurity breeds arrogance. Sparkster are always available, and they are always ready to offer demos. How many other ICOs can claim that?
Also, be kind to Sparkster because they are running at 1000 miles per hour since the hype exploded. But hey, they did ask for it!

I've waffled enough, so here are my two satoshis to Sparkster...

Present yourselves in a more polished and rounded way. Stop playing the TPS war. The TPS claim can be in there, but beef up the other elements (Ethereum/IOTA coding for non-developers, GDPR compliance, more prominent use cases, a partnership testimonial, etc.)

Though the tagline on the whitepaper is excellent, and there are pictorials on the website, I should be able to understand Sparkster with one visual glance. Then trust it all to sell itself, because over-hype without balance can have a notoriously short life span.

And do something about that website. It looks like a stationary retailer.

After the ICO is done, let Sparkster’s exposure grow organically by letting community participation, partnerships and developments (testnet, etc.) take a more active role in the story. Having Arm as a partner is fantastic. Any chance of a testimonial? Consider adding another advisor (the existing ones are fine, but a behemoth from the blockchain space will shut the nay-sayers up).

Will I invest? I don't know until I see the token price. I don't like to purchase something if I don't know the price - I'm old fashioned like that. But I do want Sparkster to succeed. There is nothing wrong with being divisive - it worked for Stanley Kubrick. Just give us that little tweak of polish, and stop overselling.

As Zig Ziglar once said, “Selling is something we do for our clients – not to our clients.”

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice as I am not a financial adviser. All of the above is my opinion only. Do your own research.

Author: Eddie O'Hanlon
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1453319
www.twitter.com/eddieohanlon

Sparkster Link: http://sparkster.me
Sparkster 50,000 TPS Demo: