Why the right team is so important for a successful ICO

There can be little doubt that initial coin offerings (ICOs) have made some significant waves in the world of investment and business funding over the last 18 months. And it can be quite lucrative too; a recent report from venture capital firm Mangrove Capital Partners revealed that blind investment in every ICO to date, including the failures, would have generated an average return of 1,320%.

Such astonishing figures show why so many institutional investors are turning to ICOs and cryptocurrency these days, but, in a world that has also seen plenty of failures, all that glitters is not gold. In many ways, ICOs are no different to raising funds from a VC. The investor looks at the product, the market opportunity and assesses whether they are going to make much return on investment (ROI). However, a significant difference is the fund distribution; in the ‘old’ world, funds will often be made available in smaller tranches, based on certain performance thresholds. In ICOs the funds are realised at the token sale event and are immediately made available to the team.

And the team needs to be able to manage these funds. The team as a whole needs to have a plan; a financial plan and a business plan. How are we going to build, roll-out and monetise our solution? What is it going to cost, how long will it take and what will be our income and outgoings? Teams not only need to be able to plan, they need to have the experience and the resolve to get through the tough times and have a thorough understanding how best to resolve issues; sometimes this is best done by using capital, sometimes it isn’t. Having a team with members that have seen it before, will certainly help.

But it’s not just financial knowledge and planning that is key. Knowledge of sales and marketing, knowledge and experience of building and managing global (technology) businesses, knowledge of blockchain technology, understanding the legal and tax implications of your solutions and business plans — all of these things will make any ICO more likely to succeed. And, often underestimated, a great team, will have a great network that can bring further knowledge, networks for growth and further creative thinking to the table.

For the management team at MobileBridge, assembling its Advisory team was a dedicated project on its own. We are proud to have assembled one of the strongest and most experienced teams possible for the launch of the MobileBridge Momentum platform.

Leading the pack is Ariel Luedi, our chairman, a sales veteran with experience at Oracle, Salesforce and CEO at hybris, before starting his investment vehicle Hammer Team.

Blue chip management experience comes from Shlomo Cohen, GM at Intel, and Wouter van Neerbos, formerly a Global MD at Shell. Omri Shabi and Brian Walker bring both strong marketing backgrounds, as well as experience of working with global disruptors such as Amazon and Google. Between Jonas Karlberg and Jack Sinclair, there is many years of practical blockchain experience gained at some of the largest blockchain and Fortune 50 companies globally. Piero Crivellaro adds his insights into the legal and regulatory matters from his experience at Mastercard, where Professor Youngsook Park and John Clippinger contribute with their future vision of how the role of blockchain may evolve in the world.

They are all passionate about ground-breaking technology and even more so, passionate about the disruptive nature of the Momentum project and the disruption it may bring to the Marketing and Loyalty market. They all contribute to the delivery of a successful product launch. From product leaders and technologists, to legal and organisational management specialists and from proven visionaries, to those that sell and implement. And, it’s a team; many of our advisory board members have known each other for many years. For example, four of the team were part of the executive team at hybris Software, which was successfully sold for $1.5Bn to SAP.

For us, people make a successful business and with a team like this on board, to support us, inspire us and help us when things may not all be going smoothly. Wwe are looking forward to an incredible journey ahead!

If you want to learn more about our Advisory board members; visit our website https://momentumtoken.io and download our whitepaper.