@tom to be honest I don’t yet understand if you favor or not the proposal made by @andrewstone , but I’m glad to know that central authority is not the problem. At some point along the thread it seemed that it could be interpreted another way. Hence my comment and personal opinion.
I see that we come from different backgrounds, and we probably understand business development from different perspectives. Therefore it won’t hurt a simple definition with the intention to find common ground.
I know that you like Wikipedia, so:
Business development entails tasks and processes to develop and implement growth opportunities within and between organizations. It is a subset of the fields of business, commerce, and organizational theory.
And I think the keyword here is growth.
Business development perse says nothing in terms of product maturity. And understanding Bitcoin Cash business as “customers that we have to research and create features for” is an oversimplification that I’m far from wanting to promote. We agree on that. But let’s point out that developing something without listening to the market’s needs in general, with very few exceptions, is a direct path to failure.
I get the impression that Bitcoin Cash is indeed understood by many as a product, and I don’t think such characterization removes value from it. And as with most of the available products, it is not “finished”. Not even MSOffice is finished but subjected to permanent evolution (whether I like it or not). Instead of “finished”, we probably can talk about different levels of readiness.
But the fact that Bitcoin Cash as a product is not finished and in permanent development doesn’t mean we don’t want it to grow. On the contrary, we want it to be the cornerstone of a decentralized economy on a global scale. Under that perspective, I find it interesting to have a plan that expresses the community’s direction best.
Now, for Bitcoin Cash to be that cornerstone, different fronts have to be considered. Undoubtedly, software development, upstream and downstream, is one of them. Still, another no less important is business development around the product itself, with one clear objective: growth (which can be measured by several indicators). If not, we can play all our lives sending a few coins to each other, mining 1MB blocks, and dreaming of the greatness we could have achieved. I hope not.
Some people spend their time in, for example, marketing and onboarding tasks, and they are an equally essential part of the ecosystem. They look from simple users who exchange a few satoshis to large corporations with their intricate operational processes.
In the first case, in general, the activity does not represent significant challenges. In a few words, a person with basic literacy can be explained how Bitcoin Cash works and its many benefits.
In the second case, when the sums involved and potential value rise, the challenge of convincing decision-makers increases exponentially. I don’t know if you have had the opportunity of trying to bring large capitals to the ecosystem, be it through individuals or companies. But I assure you, it’s not an easy task.
Funny enough, this challenge seems not to be tight to the maturity of Bitcoin Cash as a product but to the maturity of the community to resolve their different opinions. Or at least that’s my experience.
Bitcoin Cash, as hard as it is to admit, is known for its internal divergences, which can be wonderful from a romantic point of view, very cool. But when it comes to attracting new business, at minimum is strenuous. The last fork is a clear example of that, and people involved in contacting businesses, exchanges, and pools can attest to that.
From this point of view, which involves, but it’s not limited to, business development (keyword: growth), it seems that a document expressing the vision that unites us and the steps we plan to take in the future together has value. It passes a direction, a degree of the parties involved’ commitment and reliance. Although it’s not rigid, it’s a starting point and a tool to attract users and businesses, among many many things not necessarily related to business development. This tool it’s by no means the only one.
Another aspect I would like to mention is how companies perceive Bitcoin Cash. My understanding is that they know very well they won’t find a finished product in Bitcoin Cash for their arguably “unique use case”.
Companies, in general, have not that degree of innocence. Maybe among some startups with no future or some mid-size companies that lost their way. In general, companies are optimized and consolidated machines that know very well what to do with their money and labor force to obtain the most significant growth. They would be interested, yes, for a certain level of readiness and continuity but not in finished products.
If our vision is to become a decentralized economy on a planetary scale using our product, Bitcoin Cash, as a peer-to-peer value transfer protocol, don’t have any doubt at some point, we must sit down and have a chat with companies and businesses (if not already happening 
). The first thing they are going to ask is:
- The vision of Bitcoin Cash.
- How are we planning to do it (aka strategy, plan, roadmap, whatever…)
It’s up to us to be ready or not.
Beware that I didn’t mention or refer to Business Models. I just talked about the benefits of showing some direction upon consensus of involved parties.
) that someone attempts to do so, I don’t think the community would face significant challenges expressing out against it.