Introducing the Sweetbridge Joint Venture — our Route to MarketThe Sweetbridge Network is our answer to a difficult economic question — how can we incentivize businesses to build a better network economy instead of competing in a traditional, extractive, zero-sum game? Having a solution to this challenging economic question isn’t enough. In order for the Sweetbridge Network to work, we need it to be adopted by a wide range of companies working together towards a common goal. The Sweetbridge Joint Venture is our solution to the problem of adoption.We’ve taken some of our inspiration from the launch of the Visa network.Visa: A case study for successful adoption and network growthToday, when we look into our purses and wallets there is one brand that exists across cultures, countries and economic classes: Visa. However, before the Visa network and its branded cards Visa (then known as BankAmericard), originated from a single bank in Fresno, California, known as Bank of America.In the late 1960s, one of the groups licensing Americard suggested that the banks create an association that would act as a joint venture. This enabled members to gain the advantages of a universal payment system while also competing fairly for their own benefit. This joint venture model also allowed the association, known today as Visa, to quickly spread, span borders and allow many different banking systems to integrate with Visa.By 2006, Visa’s private membership association was jointly owned by over 20,000 financial institutions worldwide and had issued 1.46 billion Visa cards generating in excess of $4.3 trillion in sales. Today, Visa cards are accepted in over 160 countries and provide nearly universal reach and popularity. This all started with a new forward-looking collaborative outlook adopted by Bank of America to share the BankAmericard program with dozens of other banks in an independent, non-stock venture that was jointly controlled by its members.The Visa Network may not have succeeded without the creation of a separate entity that no one company controlled. If the Visa Network had been entirely controlled by Bank of America, no competitor would have trusted it to play fair. If it had traditional equity ownership, the participants would have squabbled over apportionment of the equity. Instead, Visa’s visionary founder, Dee Hock, believed a better payments network could only be birthed into the world by a company with non-traditional incentives.At Sweetbridge, we believe a better economic network requires the same thing.If the Sweetbridge financial system is to be adopted by a large network, it needs to first be adopted by a small network. This small network must be jointly controlled by its members, who can experience the benefits of the Sweetbridge financial system for themselves, and work together towards a common benefit. It was out of this realization that the Sweetbridge JV was born.The structure and goal of the Sweetbridge JVThe current go-to-market strategy for the Sweetbridge Network is the Sweetbridge JV: a joint venture with multiple corporations from non-competing industries. These medium-to-large enterprises will convert a portion of their existing discounts or rewards programs to assets in order to jump start the network. In this way, they will use their business activity to grow the value of the Sweetbridge network.To be self-sustaining, the Sweetbridge Network only needs $25M of discounts, incentives, rebates, sales or rewards to be converted to SWC (our cryptographic rewards token). This $25M represents a small fraction of the amount many organisations spend on these programs today.The Sweetbridge Network and the Sweetbridge JV are engineered to make SWC rare with an intrinsic value based on the NPV (Net Present Value) of the future cash flows (cashback) it affords an owner. SWC is therefore like real estate with two values to ownership; use and resale. It is designed to be hyper-scarce, like privately-owned real estate on the island of Singapore. The JV will make 100% of its value by growing the value of the network.The Sweetbridge JV is intended to run for 7 years, after which it will then be dissolved, and the SWC in the treasury will be distributed to partners based on their percentage of ownership in the capital account.Building a network: driving adoption of all Sweetbridge protocolsThe JV is a way we can build a fully-functioning network in one sweep. We can bring in a group of customers who will use our protocols all at once. Integrating them with current enterprise finance systems will provide a platform for the Sweetbridge Network to enhance supply chain finance, and activate our liquidity and reward systems.Figuratively speaking, we have have been laying the wiring to this fully integrated financial system. And with the JV we can now allow significant current to flow into the system from established power grids.As with the business association adoption method applied by Visa, the JV exposes the Sweetbridge Network to global business flows where its impact can fully materialise while making it universally available. The JV will be a place for us to exercise our platform for tokenizing real world assets, where we can enhance it with our other interconnected services towards a functioning network of improved liquidity.Ultimately the Sweetbridge JV is a stepping stone. It is not an end goal. It is the best strategy to develop and bring scale to the network Sweetbridge is building, but it is not the destination.As with the creation of Visa’s association which platformed its international expansion, the Sweetbridge Joint Venture represents the next strategic phase towards our core goal of building a larger and self-sustaining network for both businesses and individuals.On November 15 2018 we will be closing the individual phase of the public sale of Sweetcoin and moving towards our next stage — launching the Sweetbridge Network. The first step of this next stage is the development of the JV for corporations and enterprises. We hope one day we can make you proud by turning this vision into a reality like Visa. Akin to building a city, we really believe we have dug deep on the foundations. Now the fun begins.If you have specific questions about the Sweetbridge JV please contact us at [email protected] the Sweetbridge Joint Venture — our Route to Market was originally published in Sweetbridge on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.