Meetup Reviews: Beyond Blocks Tokyo and De/Centralize 2018 Singapore (Q&A included)
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Last week, Cosmochain participated in two blockchain conferences in Tokyo and Singapore. We would like to share what kinds of events they were and what questions we received during the panel discussions.
- Beyond Blocks Summit Tokyo
Beyond Blocks is the online and offline platform for blockchain enthusiasts to network, gather information and share insights with the purpose of moving the industry forward to greater heights. At Beyond Blocks Summit Tokyo, many of the industry leaders and community builders around the world discussed about the future of blockchain. In particular, Valentino Oh, Head of Investment from Cosmochain, participated in a panel discussion and shared his views on “The Next Generation of ICOs.”
2. De/Centralize 2018 Singapore
Cosmochain also participated in De/Centralize 2018 event in Singapore. De/Centralize is Singapore’s premier blockchain conference examining the thematic interplay of decentralization and centralization in technology, economics, and law. During the event, many of key opinion leaders of the blockchain industry discussed how is blockchain changing the world and what opportunities exist for investors and entrepreneurs.
Here is a list of questions and answers for those that wonder what Cosmochain presented and shared in the meetups in Tokyo and Singapore.
Q: What does it mean for existing businesses to do ICOs?
A: They have succeeded already with their existing business (for Cosmochain, it’s Huiseoul), and have a clear goal of growing and developing the current business onto the next stage. For Cosmochain specifically, we also have a mission of transferring the “female” customers of the beauty industry into this new ecosystem as well as attracting completely new customers through ICO — which will accelerate the growth of our existing business.
Q: Leading giants like Amazon and eBay sell a lot beauty on their platform. How do you plan on competing if they choose to compete in this space? Do you feel threatened at all?
A: No, we do not feel threatened at all. One category that Amazon and eBay are not dominating is cosmetics. Cosmetics inherently requires high involvement of customers. Step into any department store, you will see cosmetics is a completely different category. Cosmetics is on the first floor of department stores and companies promote their products with makeup artists performing demonstrations on models. Also, Cosmochain will decentralize information and offer an ecosystem that is beneficial to both companies and customers. Amazon and eBay would not share their purchase data which has been accumulated for years. Sellers on Amazon already have complaints about accessing their own data, because Amazon does not share them all.
Q: Does Cosmochain’s offering of such platform have a chance of jeopardizing Huiseoul’s business? This platform could be beneficial to Huiseoul’s competitors.
A: No, we believe otherwise. Cosmochain’s goal is to increase the size of the overall market by optimizing the entire value chain of the industry. Huiseoul may have a decreased market share as competitors take advantage of this platform, but considering the overall increase in market size, it will be a win-win platform for all at the end of the day.
Q: If you see recent projects, you see projects with 3 or 4 people who take 30% of the entire token distribution. Cosmochain, however, has a much larger team (12 people) and much less token distribution (10%). We won’t be asking the details, but we believe you have lock-ups. How can you motivate the team with such scheme?
A: If making monetary benefits from tokens were our goal, we would not be doing a mid/long-term project like this where we integrate social network, media, commerce, ads, data sharing etc. We may sound idealistic, but we are executing this project to change the fundamentals of the beauty industry, and the process of doing so itself is a source of motivation for us. Due to the nature of this business and project, we will consistently big positives in driving the value of our tokens, and monetary benefits are not really a priority for our team at this point.
Q: How is your team working at this moment? How far have you gotten with development?
A: We have a two-tier approach in making this business. First is establishment of the business model, and the second is development of the platform including blockchain development. The first part is progressing very fast including partnerships with companies, and the second part is right on schedule with alpha version being developed. After ICO, we will reinforce the tech. team with focus in data analytics, to strengthen business solutions part by forming a dedicated organization.
Q: What is your plan to attract users in the early phase of this platform business?
A: We will put efforts in converting customers from existing beauty communities into the Cosmochain platform. To do this, we are discussing partnership opportunities with beauty communities with large customer base as well as influencers (also known as Key Opinion Leaders). Especially for cosmetics, there is a strong bond between influencers and their followers — so recruiting influencers will bring their followers to our platform. Since our platform rewards followers for their activities, we believe we can motivate them effectively enough to join the Cosmochain platform.
Q: What are the roles of Huiseoul’s beauty consultants in the Cosmochain platform?
A: At this point, we are not considering Huiseoul’s beauty consultants’ direct, full-time participation in our platform; however, we are still discussing how their expertise could contribute in initial stage of platform operations. Huiseoul and Cosmochain are two separate entities. While data migration and sharing of customer base may take place between the two, I would like to stress once again that Huiseoul is not transforming into Cosmochain. They are two different businesses, and Huiseoul will be one of many partners of Cosmochain.
Q. Why are you stating that current methodologies of marketing cannot accurately estimate the return on marketing investment?
A: Customers’ information gathering channel and sales/commerce channel are different and there is no data sharing between the two channels. For example, if a customer clicks a marketing ad of a cosmetics product on social media, visits the cosmetics company’s website and makes purchase all on the same website, then it is possible to track the efficiency of marketing done on that social media. But the reality is not as simple as it may seem. Personally, I gather information from different channels such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Sephora, and then search Google to visit the official website and purchase the item. However, all these activities yield one result in current system: purchase conversion from Google search. We believe that on the Cosmochain platform, we can minimize today’s inefficiency in advertisements by gathering beauty companies and integrate the marketing channel into one platform.
Q. What does “Ecosystem Activation” in Cosmochain’s token distribution mean?
A: This means tokens that will be distributed to the partner companies on the platform. Companies throughout the entire value chain are Cosmochain’s potential partners — such as R&D companies, manufacturers, brand companies, marketers, and even data analytics companies. To motivate their participation, we have allocated a sufficient amount for ecosystem activation.
