A Guide for Startups Entering the Blockchain Industry

Published in

aelf

6 min readJan 25, 2019

Over the last few years, many companies have begun to realize the benefits offered by blockchain technology. Businesses are now making significant investments to incorporate blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies into their practice and business processes. This investment can take different forms. Some notable examples are:

· Global shipping giant Maersk has partnered with IBM to develop the Tradelens platform. The company has onboarded nearly a hundred partners, using permissioned ledgers to track global shipments in real time.

· The Australian Stock Exchange has implemented blockchain technology to replace its clearing and settling platform, speeding up settlements by reducing friction.

· De Beers uses blockchain technology in tracing the origins of diamonds, reducing the risk of blood diamonds entering the value chain.

· Industry-wide consortia such as the automotive Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative or the Blockchain in Transport Alliance have been formed. These consortia aim to investigate integrated, standardized solutions for the automotive sector, that aren’t specific to any one industry player.

There are over 200 banks and financial institutes around the world which are also involved in blockchain technology.

These are just a few examples that illustrate the scale and speed at which blockchain adoption is happening. However, these examples all include large, well-established companies and organizations.

If you’re a founder or CEO of a startup or smaller enterprise, navigating the waters of emerging technologies like blockchain can be tricky. After all, a startup founder already has a time-consuming job that may require wearing many different hats including operations, marketing, and business development, to name a few.

However, focusing on core business growth without taking steps to future proof the enterprise can be a risky approach. For a startup, it’s vital that the company is able to keep abreast of developments in new technologies to remain relevant and retain a competitive edge. While taking on new technologies can seem intimidating at first, there are plenty of ways to get into the growing blockchain space without losing focus on core business.

Education

Before taking any steps to implement blockchain, it’s important to understand the technology itself. Blockchain is still a relatively new technology. However, the field has developed very fast over recent years, and there are now many options for startups wanting to incorporate blockchain technology into their business.

Leaders should gain a fundamental understanding of blockchain technology, as well as understanding how cryptocurrencies and tokens feature in the ecosystem. It’s also important to differentiate between public and private (or permissioned) blockchains as they each have different benefits and considerations.

Many big companies such as in the examples listed above are using their own permissioned blockchain ledgers. However, public blockchains are a more realistic choice for smaller companies, given the costs involved in setting up a private customized blockchain.

There’s a wealth of online resources available free for anyone wanting to learn more about blockchain. IBM has an extensive library of information, as well as reputable online blockchain publications such as Blockgeeks or Bitcoin.com.

Here at aelf, we have launched the Innovation Alliance, which is open to leaders from businesses of any size. The Alliance is a group of established blockchain industry experts, who are open to sharing knowledge, experience and resources with any company considering incorporating blockchain technology. Alongside aelf, the Innovation Alliance boasts partnerships with leaders from Huobi Labs (an offshoot of the Huobi exchange), Singapore’s largest blockchain fund Signum Capital, and Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, among others.

In the words of Zhulung Chen, Co-founder of aelf, being part of the Innovation Alliance “aligns closely with aelf’s overarching focus on peer-to-peer learning and an open-source approach to blockchain more broadly.”

Planning and Implementation

For a startup looking to integrate blockchain into a business offering, the leaders must have a clear understanding of the value that blockchain will bring to their clients or end users. Using blockchain as a solution needs to solve a specific problem or provide a better solution than ones that already exist.

For example, in supply chains, blockchain allows real-time tracking of goods throughout different parties in the supply chain. It improves on existing systems by increasing visibility of product and reducing wastage and the risk of theft or fraud.

Once the specific use case is identified, leaders need to develop a clear plan and roadmap for implementing blockchain technology. The following points will help in creating an implementation plan:

1. Who is the target customer?

2. What legal or regulatory considerations may be involved in launching the new blockchain solution?

3. What kind of developers or other new team members will be required?

4. What is the timeline to the launch, including steps such as testing different versions?

5. What is the go-to-market approach?

6. Are there any competitors? If so, why is this solution better or different?

7. How will the project be funded? Will it seek venture investment, or run a token generation event?

This list is not exhaustive but covers some of the major points that a robust plan will address.

From here, a project will need to select the right technology to support them and run their application(s). It is important, regardless of which technology that is selected, for it to be future-proof and able to remain relevant in an ever-changing and innovative industry.

On the aelf ecosystem, an application will be able to run with similar performance that would be achieved from a traditional ‘centralized’ server. In addition, they will have the ability to interact with other dapps through cross-chain communication resulting in collective benefits for all parties involved, as well as enjoying the best tech updates based upon the structure of the aelf governance model. The ecosystem is designed in such a manner that flexibility, customizability and upgradability are always only a few steps away, while achieving all the privacy one could require.

Remain Relevant with an Understanding of Blockchain Technology

Navigating blockchain for a newcomer can be daunting. However, startups have to stay ahead of technology to remain relevant for customers and end users.

By taking early steps to incorporate blockchain into meaningful solutions for real-world problems, startup founders can ensure they are future-proofing their business while keeping a step ahead of the competition.

If you are a startup, or are looking to build an application upon the blockchain network. Feel free to contact us at aelf ‘contact@aelf.io’