Hey there,

In case you missed it, here's where you can catch our first subscriber update message on "The Problem we are Solving".

This update is to tell you about 2 things:

1) The Alpha Team

2) The question of micropayments

- They represent companies such as Forbes Middle East (81k visits per month) and Webedia Arabia (100M monthly views across multiple leading Arabic language magazines and sites and part of the larger French-owned Webedia empire), as well as regional publishing houses.

- Their role will be to guide us as we develop the alpha protoype, so that we iterate with their input and build a product that is understandable and valuable to them. This puts us squarely within the "Build It" and "Feedback" phase of the Lean Startup's value-proposition/market-fit stage loop.

- We are continuing to reach out to businesses to gain their insights and guidance (~20 so far) and recruit more people to the Alpha Team. If you have any suggestions, please do let us know!

- Micropayments take large static payments, like a monthly subscription, and break it down into smaller parts, hoping people will be more likely to pay bit by bit. But these are still static payments, just smaller. There are a host of problems with this...

- For one, it's super inconvenient for the user to have to consider every small transaction and make regular financial decisions about pennies. And that isn't good for content businesses who now have to convert many more times on smaller denominations.

- What we do is less static and more dynamic by tracking consumption of value across all StreemPay enabled sites and charging you later, so you don't have to worry about every tiny payment but can still keep track of overall spending. Let's try an analogy...

- A monthly subscription is like getting a round at a bar. You only have to pay once but you take all your drinks with you and you have to get through them before the night is over. Convenient, but getting the value back is now a bit of a burden and maybe you over-ordered...

- Micropayments is like paying drink by drink. You get exactly what you want for the moment, but have to keep going back to pay every time you want another... Easier on the purse strings, but paying off the check each time is a hassle and deters you from wanting to get more...

- StreemPay is like opening one tab that works at EVERY BAR ON THE STREET and grabbing what you want when you want as you hop from place to place. You pay up at the end of the night with one transaction that covers all locations. Convenient and easy.

- Useful features to know about this (if we carry on with the analogy):

a) You can put a cap on your tab, either for the whole night or just for particular locations, so you can keep control of your spending

b) The bars can put a cap too, after which you drink for free or get bonus features (extra bar nuts!)

c) You only get charged for the drinks you actually drink. So if you buy two and drink 1.5 and leave half of one on the table, you get charged for the 1.5 only (another reason these are dynamic and not static payments)

- So StreemPay isn't micropayments. It's streaming payments. A whole new category of payments platform.

Thanks for sticking it out in this update. Let us know if you have any comments or thoughts!

StreemDreemTeem