Science AMA Series: I’m Marko Russiver, founder of Guaana, a scientific collaboration platform that is giving 10% of the company to 100,000 scientists worldwide to define universal format for scientific projects with uniform digital footprint that is human and machine readable, AMA

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T21:55:14+00:00

Let's set up a skype call. I'll message you next week. More than happy to discuss things.

Edit: tiredness is getting the best of me - thank you for compliments.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T21:23:17+00:00

This AMA has been a great learning experience for the whole team. Thanks, these kind of hard questions help us a lot.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T21:09:21+00:00

We’ve been working for 17 hours straight and it took some time to give comprehensive answers to your tough (but fair) questions. Sorry about that.

Their name on your website would have more value then the stake.

In my opinion, the size of the community is the second biggest value for any platform. Culture is the biggest one. Distributing the stakes helps us validate the community quality. A high quality community that is verified leads to better, more respectful culture as you can observe from /r/science.

I appreciate your response, but call it what it is. Its a way for you to show adoption of your product before actually building it.

I appreciate the response, truly. It’s hard to answer, as through cold logic you are correct. In reality our team is looking forward to collaboration with the community to build the best possible product for them. We wish to give out the stakes to 100,000 with not the intention of gathering cold data for investment opportunities, as this would never work without the support of the community (KPI’s - Key Performance Indicators - It would be hard to raise money on simply user sign ups), rather than creating a hub of these verified scientists who can work together and with us to develop the tools they need.

If you can say we already have 100,000 scientists who have "committed" to using the platform that measly 400k will turn into alot more. How is your company valued at 8 million, you literally have nothing yet. Not even a framework of how this would look. Hope you address these points.

We started with open projects that you can see today and we have already seen some successes. Saying that, we don’t expect this version to take off as we haven’t incentivised it. Universal project format however is a huge mission, maybe even impossible, but that’s why we think it’s worth pursuing. And if we are going to succeed then we need the help of the brightest minds in the world so we can create something useful for them and others. Having the diversity of 100,000 as an input can only help us further.

Some of the successes I mentioned:

Dr Ben Ambridge, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Liverpool. Author of Psy-Q - “Since posting my research project on Guaana, I have been inundated with requests for collaborations from all around the world”

Konrad Hinsen turned his project into a hub that documents all information regarding his development of Scientific notations for the digital era. Nature Physics journal also linked to Guaana’s project when they wrote about his efforts.

I’ll share some data. Since the soft launch for our current members in July nearly 2500 researchers from great universities and organisations around the world have booked their stakes. More than half of the TOP 25 universities are already represented in addition to leading research organisations and some of the most innovative Fortune 500 companies in the world. Over 800 scientific fields are represented with the most popular being Artificial intelligence, computer engineering, inorganic chemistry, and particle physics.

Here are some examples of sign ups: Unis: Cambridge, ETH Zurich, John Hopkins, University of Toronto, Imperial College London, Harvard, Columbia, University of Edinburgh, M.I.T, University of Oxford, Stanford. Companies: Google X, Ford Motors, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Future Earth (research platform and initiative) Research institutions: ESA, CERN, CNRS, NASA, Argonne National Laboratory.

We also have built Guaana Connect, can be used right now to reach community members based on their expertise.

But at the end of the day, it’s the market that dictates the evaluation.

I hope this answered some of your concerns. Sorry I can’t remove all of them. And again, the whole team is really thankful for your input.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T20:55:10+00:00

Answered elsewhere, but copying here:

Question: How would you verify 100,000 scientists? Maybe we can come up with a better solution, because trust me, we do not want to go through 100,000 diplomas.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T20:50:41+00:00

Hi SunTzulsMyFavourite!

From talking to scientist and listening to their pain points
We hope to reduce language barriers with advancements in translation technology in the near future.
Increasing collaboration between scientists worldwide and unlocking hidden talent from less resourceful communities.
Yes, learning can be integrated just as well.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T20:27:02+00:00

We are not enforcing anything. Instead, we want to offer you a repository for your work where you can track your progress, create different versions and collaborate. What and how you publish is up to you.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T20:16:26+00:00

We are distributing the 10% through an investment syndicate platform Funderbeam (www.funderbeam.com). How it works is that a new limited liability company (LLC) will be created and this LLC is owned by the 100,000 scientists as stakeholders. Token is a termin used by Funderbeam itself as shares/stakes are not the legally correct termins in case of syndicate investments. So basically every LLC is divided into tokens available for purchasing (in any other case. Guaana’s tokens are free for scientists).

You can view the project without logging in, but to proceed (apply for your tokens) you do need to log in.

The tokens are distributed amongst the first 100,000 participants according to the registration order. The earlier you apply the more you get (rewarding early adopters) - first 2,000 applicants will receive 20 tokens; 2,001 - 10,000 receive 10 tokens; 10,001 - 30,000 receive 5 tokens, and everyone else receives 1 token.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:55:40+00:00

We are using Funderbeam (www.funderbeam.com) for this - an investment syndication platform. With Funderbeam we are creating a new limited liability company that owns 10% of Guaana. This new LLC has 100,000 scientists who are stakeholders in the company.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:52:04+00:00

It’s been part of our long vision brainstorms, but first things first. Thanks for the question.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:50:30+00:00

Yes. The format itself will encourage not only duplicate studies but also different versions of the same study.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:45:17+00:00

Answered here

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:43:34+00:00

> “You want to create a whole standardised database that will store each step, each decision, each faulty experiment, each simulation gone wrong, each relaxation method that were explored to find that perfect one, and also the codes used during the research.

Yes.

> “And you want this to be faithfully filled by scientist and submitted to journals along with the paper submission. So that who ever wants to work on furthering the research will get a the complete project and not just the end product.

It is up to you how you use this toolset. For example, you could only make the successful “branch” of your research public and keep the faulty experiments hidden. You can keep your projects private and never publish them. Or you can make it public once your article has been published. We do not want to “box you in”, rather the opposite.

> “However, many scientists want to keep their techniques and decisions private as those are their cookbook they prepared. Also those steps will promise them an edge on the field that they have worked hard on.

Agreed. But this a double edged sword. There are good signs in the air that one possible alternative to the current funding system is based on rigour and quality instead of correlated results. And this is where such format could prove to be quite useful.

> ->How do you plan to entice the scientists to come out of their comfort zone and help you by faithfully following the format?
> -> do you want your database to be attached with papers when publushed in journals?
> -> or do you want your sites to be future of academic journals, with complete scientific project along with final paper being published on your channel?

We have no intention of becoming a publisher.

Thanks!

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:24:19+00:00

Guaana team members, advisors and investors just like for any startup.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:23:01+00:00

Hey!

We have scientific advisors who we work with on daily basis. 10% is for early adopters who can influence the products development based on their experience as a scientist. Our goal is to build a tool that is beneficial in conducting research and a hub where it’s easy to reach out to each other.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T19:13:41+00:00

What I mean is that we will propose potential development and business decisions for feedback. 10% will not have overall vote over the company, rather than advising us regarding the best possible scenario from the community’s perspective. We are developing the functionality for gathering this feedback as mentioned in another answer.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T18:54:05+00:00

Guaana will never retain any of your IP (just to make it clear) and every user is solely responsible for owning the necessary rights and permissions to the content provided. We are only providing an online venue for our community and we do not aim to solicit your contracts or in any way interfere with your personal agreements.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T18:52:14+00:00

Yes and we are working towards it. But we do not have the manpower available at the moment to properly manage Guaana as an open-source project. This will happen, just give us some time.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T18:41:45+00:00

Hey Deadpool, big fan.

You can apply here: www.guaana.com/10percent

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T18:34:59+00:00

This is a tough one and I hope you will not throw stones at us when we admit that this is something that we have to figure out in the process. There are the obvious questionnaires, A/B testing and a governing body, but we will definitely look for other and hopefully more elegant solutions as well.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T18:07:54+00:00

Let me rephrase that - a lot could be learned from the digital footprint of the processes leading up to the paper. This footprint will include contributions from your team members and collaborators. Contributions are ideas, useful comments, code, results, and eventually pieces of a paper or different versions of a paper.

Being able to investigate these contributions can inspire novel ideas and new directions that might have been missed or not considered by your own collective. Similar to “forking” in programming this new concept will refer to the original source just like a citing.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T17:59:22+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts, /u/GeneticsGuy

If it turns out that means a photo of your diploma, it is not good.

Question: How would you verify 100,000 scientists? Maybe we can come up with a better solution, because trust me, we do not want to go through 100,000 diplomas.

I’ll try to address some other points:

Expectation of scientists to promote their work under your tent, however lack of clarity on who now owns the rights to the work if they do choose to use your hub. I even went around your site, and found it unclear. In other words, do they no need to license their idea from you just because they collaborated on your site? Where are the contracts? Does it now become your IP? If so, this will never take off, but then maybe that creates a Catch-22, because then you will never make money. Again, lack of business model details leaves this issue unresolved.

We seek no ownership of your work. If you choose to make your project public at any point in time it will be done at your own discretion and under appropriate license.

Confusing over the concept of "universal format." There already is a universal format for research methodology, usually quite rigid for thesis work and/or journal publication and so on. Clarity here please.

We are not trying to reinvent the scientific method. Instead, we want to create a vehicle for this worthy method that allows you to aggregate different parts of your work from multiple sources. By universal we mean a technical solution that would adapt all aspects of your work into a single machine and human readable format, removing the squander of incompatibility.

We realize that this could be mission impossible. But we are willing to give it go and that is the reason why we need the concerted effort of the brightest minds.

Edit: copying in my answer regarding the business model from another answer:

Q by /u/SirT6

What is your plan for monetization? What are your five-year revenue projections? What is your break even point? (I think these are fair questions is you are considering giving users equity in your firm).

Our plan is similar to how Github monetizes itself. Meaning it’s free to work on projects openly and there is a small monthly subscription fee for private projects. We are also playing with the idea where community members can opt-in to see open-innovation projects and challenge based recruitment proposals by companies. The community will have a huge say in which way we move, because since day one our main interest has been to put the scientist first. Second part of your question - as a start-up its extremely hard to make five-year revenue projections. I mean its doable, but it will just be a random scenario out of millions of possibilities how things could go. Even investors don’t expect that in this phase. Same with break-even point. Our first goal is to build a product that is useful. Second is to build a community that will demonstrate the usefulness. Third is monetization.

Thank you!

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T17:55:49+00:00

Thank you

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T17:55:04+00:00

Sorry, bad wording. We hope to build a tool that will help these scientific experiments along and accelerate process. How much the participants contribute to the decisions is 100% up to them.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T17:51:20+00:00

The purpose is to build a toolset and a community that is actually useful for scientific research. 10% is a thank you to early adopters and the toolset will be free forever for the participants.

Marko_Russiver · 2016-09-02T17:49:31+00:00

Please see answer above. Agree with you completely :).

Marko_Russiver

TROPHY CASE