7 Questions with Peter Lipovyanov, part of 15toGO's Business Development Team

Peter comes from the banking sector and he is highly knowledgeable when it comes to transaction process management, financial modelling and valuation analysis, preparing and delivering presentations and client interaction. He has been an investor and advisor to early stage companies in the Blockchain / FinTech, Consumer / Retail, e-Commerce and EdTech space since 2015.

Check his LinkedIn profile

1.What is your background and why did you join 15toGO?

My professional background is in investment banking. I have worked in the mergers and acquisitions teams of Morgan Stanley and HSBC for about ten years in their London, Hong Kong and Italian offices. In that period, I have done a lot of cross-border transactions with parties from Europe, Asia, US, Australia and the Middle East across various industry sectors.

While working on deals with large corporations and financial institutions, I started developing interest in venture capital, start-ups and new technologies. I got fascinated with how new businesses and technologies can grow from scratch to create huge economic value and become industry leaders. In fact, this trend has defined the global economic landscape since the advent of the Internet in the 1990s and keeps driving the global economy now. Apple just became the first public trillion-dollar company in history and the tech sector comprises 25% of S&P 500, which makes it the largest industry sector in the US.

With a clear view that tech is the best place to invest your human and financial capital, I have been doing exactly this for a few years now. I have been investing in listed tech stocks and some start-up seed rounds. I also started getting involved more hands-on with start-ups on the business development side.

When I looked at various new technologies, the one that clearly stood out was blockchain. It provides a mission critical innovation, namely decentralized infrastructure, in the financial sector, which has been lagging behind in terms of innovation in the last several decades. It has the potential to provide financial and economic inclusion to billions of people, who are currently excluded from the global financial system. It also has many other applications beyond finance. Therefore, the potential global impact of blockchain technology is enormous. My research on the topic and practical experience as an investor and adviser to start-ups in the space led me to write an entire book about it — “Blockchain for Business: The New Industrial Revolution”, which will be published soon. Currently, it is a best seller video course on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/blockchain-for-business-the-new-industrial-revolution/

My journey in the start-up and blockchain ecosystem eventually led me to 15toGО, which I consider and excellent project with strong team and huge potential.

2. What is your role in the 15toGO team?

My role in 15toGO is business development focusing on international opportunities out of London.

3. What gets you most excited about the project?

There are several very strong points about 15toGO and I think this project ticks all the right boxes. I would describe the project briefly as a social network focusing on the travel sector using blockchain technology. As a huge supporter of blockchain technology, I believe this is a great use case for it, which can fully benefit from its crypto-economic and network effects aspects. Decentralized social network applications are the logical next evolutionary step in this industry, which has been dominated by Facebook so far. Blockchain technology provides all the necessary tools to create such DAPPs.

Then, focusing on the travel sector and on the segment with the highest growth potential within it, by targeting millennials, is a great idea! It can fill a substantial vacuum and market need due to the lack of any comparable products or services of high quality and scale, so far.

Of course, a great idea and exciting industry are not enough for a start-up to succeed. Probably, the most important asset for a start-up is its founding team. And this is an especially strong point for 15toGO. Its founders combine great vision, experience and execution skills! They are natural-born entrepreneurs with significant experience in the travel sector and in launching new successful ventures. They know very well how to take a project from scratch to international success story and have done it in the past. They have gathered a strong talent pool around them comprising exceptional tech, marketing and business skills. This completes the mix of vision and execution capabilities and provides all the right ingredients to launch a successful new venture.

Moreover, this is not only my personal view. Other exceptional entrepreneurs and investors have demonstrated they share similar views by joining the project and contributing their human and financial capital to it.

4. Where do you see the project in the next few years?

I see it shooting to the moon! 😉 Of course, that’s not going to be easy and an enormous amount of hard work will be required as a key success factor and catalyst. Any great idea is worth nothing without execution, which is the fuel that takes start-ups to where they want to go.

I believe 15toGO is developing a great product and has all the chances to gain scale and large user base in the next few years. The network effects can be especially strong for this project due to the right mix of business model, industry sector, team skillset and technology, and this can create a lot of value. As a popular movie character would say: “The Force is strong with this one…”

5. Which do you think are the main challenges that the project and the team will face?

The road to success is full of challenges. Creating value from scratch is never easy. Even if you start with all the right high-quality ingredients, you still need to fit them together and follow all the right steps to create a great dish or a great machine, if we can use this analogy. And most likely it will be an iterative trial and error learning process since you are creating a completely new business model. The usual set of challenges for all start-ups would probably apply also here. You need to get the business model up and running; you need to create effective and efficient team structure and dynamics with the right skills, processes and culture; you need to secure funding; you need to establish partnerships and initial customer base… Combining all this with a new experimental technology like blockchain, which is still in its infancy, can be especially challenging as nobody has ever done this kind of project before. In a sense, this is a pioneering project exploring unchartered territories. But hey, we are trying to go to the moon, after all! Nobody is expecting it to be easy…

6. How would you describe the atmosphere around 15toGO?

The atmosphere is great! The team is full of talented and fun people. Everybody is working towards the same goal and shares the same vision. We work hard but also play hard together! Team-building and brainstorming sessions and events at off-site locations, mostly in nature, are a regular feature. This definitely stimulates creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and great team spirits and dynamics. Everyone is very excited to be part of this project and works hard towards achieving great things together!

7. Tell us one interesting thing about yourself?

I have so many interests, it’s hard to pick just one! 😉 I’ve lived and worked around the world. I enjoy constantly learning new things and use every opportunity to do so. Currently, I try to read at least one new book every week. I also like to write articles, research papers and even books sometimes. Active lifestyle is essential for me, so I try to do some sports or outdoor activities every day. I’m a big fan of martial arts, yoga, snowboarding and hiking, among others. Of course, this is very challenging to combine with a busy working schedule. But again — I enjoy challenges as they make life interesting! And I find problem-solving especially stimulating and rewarding!