Freela AMA
To help celebrate the auction and listing of Freela, AscendEX’s Mary Zheng sat down for an AMA with Freela’s CMO Mahadev Vasireddy to gain more insight into the project’s success and strategy for the future.
Mary Zheng | AscendEX
For those not familiar with the project, can you briefly describe Freela, the team, history, and what problems you are aiming to solve?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
There has always been a gap between employers and employees, and there have been multiple systems developed over time to bridge the gap. These have included consultancies and freelance companies for the last couple of decades. We feel freelancing is the best approach because it doesn’t require many layers that make sure that the people working will get paid “almost” the total amount. The “almost” had to be said because, at the end of the day, even freelancing companies act as middlemen by charging around 20–25% for each task. So we decided to see if it’s possible to re-visualize a model where the employee gets paid in full by using all the new tech like Blockchain, Defi pools, and DAO (patent is filed for the whole model). Think about Fiverr, Upwork, Toptal, ZBJ.com but hosted on the Blockchain with all the features from a centralized platform, adding all the features and benefits from Blockchain.
As it relates to our team, our CEO is Mahadev Vasireddy. He pursued Computer Science from Penn State University and joined with an entrepreneurial background and training. He is the Vice-Chairman of the elite educational institutions, Vasireddy Venkatadri Institute of Technology (VVIT) and VIVA school. In the last couple of years, he also executed responsibilities as Global Ambassador of both VVIT and VIVA, playing a crucial role in establishing partnerships with Governments and various MNCs, including Google, Siemens, and Coursera.
From our website:
Mr. Mahadev’s innovative thinking and knowledge about industry 4.0 led to the idea and inception of Freela, a Defi-powered, commission-free, P2P, and self-governing DAO. He envisions Freela to be a game-changing blockchain unicorn. Freela facilitates a win-win platform for both employers & employees, ensuring “the right person on the right job for the right pay at no extra cost.”
And for people who are not familiar with Indian Institutions, VVIT is the 3rd biggest college for engineering in the state of AP. It is rated among the top 25 most innovative colleges in the entire country by the government of India.
Mary Zheng | AscendEX
Great, let’s transition a bit towards the native token — FREL. How does the FREL token function within the platform, and why is it needed?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
Regarding the token, we are one of the few projects in this space where the platform’s value proposition cannot be eaten by the team or the company itself. For example, even the so-called decentralized options platforms disproportionally profit the firms and use a little to buy back or burn the token. Whereas with Freela, The entire model is designed so that none of the platform gains can leave the token’s value proposition. The Freela token will be the standard currency of the platform. And the Freela platform is 100% free when people use the token as the payment in the deal between employer and employee. Whereas if someone wants to use Eth or USDT as a payment currency, 0.5% of the transaction value will automatically buy the Freela token from the market because they are using the Freela platform with a different currency.
In the simplest terms, if users are using the Freela token to pay or get paid, they are providing demand for the token. If they use other tokens, the platform automatically purchases freela tokens with the 0.5% of the transaction value as a fee. As long as people use the platform, the token value will keep going up.
In terms of the DAO aspects, when people obtain 0.1% of the supply, they will be a governor on the platform, having a say in every decision and % changes. This model is an alternative to a governance token model. Also, when users stake their tokens on the platform, they will be rewarded with reputation points on the platform, which helps them gain access to better projects and work with better employers.
As with any country and token economics, when people/users earn and save what they have made, they indirectly help the respective economy by affecting the supply-demand equations of its currency. So when users stake their tokens on the Freela platform in various available staking pools, they contribute to the Freela economy and the Freela token value. In return, the platform provides them with reputation points that can be pivotal in contributing to their success
Mary Zheng | AscendEX
Great. Who will the users/clients be on your platform, and what are some examples of use cases for them?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
We aim to be a one-stop solution for projects and teams. The plan is to make sure users will be able to find developers, designers, writers, animation specialists, website specialists, community managers, and more. It’s like a one-stop solution for projects that don’t want to be wasting their time with the unimportant stuff.
Mary Zheng | AscendEX
What unique experience does your team bring that puts Freela in a position to be successful?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
Just by introducing some key members from our team and our incubator (VVIT) will be enough for people to make their own opinion about who is behind this incredible project and what our resources are.
Vasireddy Venkatadri Institute of Technology (VVIT) is the incubator of FREELA. VVIT is a premier educational institution of Andhra Pradesh, India as the Technology Business Incubator for Freela. It provides its enormous resources and services to Freela, including but not limited to its infrastructure, working space, offices, and technical expertise, research doctorates, management mentors, assistance in compiling an effective business plan, shared administrative services, technical support, business networking, advice on intellectual property, sources of financing, markets, and human resource management procedures.
Our COO Dr. Lakshmi Tripirneni, has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and is a renowned influencer in Information Technology, Education, Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Sectors. She was awarded with CSI — Nihilent e-Governance award, Woman of the Year 2006 by India today for her IT contributions to rural India. With over 28 years of experience, Dr. Lakshmi is a pioneer in Digital Transformation at Scale. She played a vital role in launching First Internet Village in India in 2004. Later, Dr. Lakshmi was instrumental in designing & delivering deduplication solutions for Aadhaar — the National ID of India (World’s Largest Biometric Exercise), thereby touching the lives of 1.3 billion Indians.
She worked with International organizations like United Nations World Food Program, VFS, Reliance to deliver high-end Security & e-Governance solutions.
Dr. Lakshmi worked as Chief Consultant to Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation, performing many collaborations with Industry, International Organizations / Universities to the State of Andhra Pradesh from 2014 to 2019. Dr. Lakshmi in recent years has been the Managing Director of L4G, and is closely working with Google, Amazon, Wolfram, Quanser, Mathworks, Stanford University, MIT, IUCEE, Northeastern University, Purdue University, Coursera and Udacity to reach out to the student community in the States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Our CTO Siva Prasad Pinnamaneni holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from JNTUK and has been in the Tech World for 15 years. Excited by Blockchain Technology, he published two research papers and is currently pursuing a Ph.D on it. He is interested in applying Deep Learning Algorithms to the area of Blockchain. He joined Freela in 2020 as the Chief Technical Officer to help turn the company’s vision into a reality.
Mary Zheng | AscendEX
What is your strategy in regards to attracting more users to your platform?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
We could say the problem starts initially, with existing platforms charging huge amounts of fees to freelancers and individuals for micro-tasks (20/25%). I always found it funny how it was always called “freelancing” but never free. So I felt if there is a company/service that can be called freelancing, it’s us! It would be difficult to be competitive here if we wanted to launch a regular business, but we decided to see if it was possible to re-visualize a model where the employee gets paid in full by using all the new tech like Blockchain, Defi pools and Dao (a patent is filed for the whole model).
In simpler terms, it’s the only model/platform that provides every feature that centralized companies like Upwork or Fiverr provide and still charge nothing literally. It doesn’t seem easy to provide a better platform and solution to freelancers than Freela. It is not restricted to Freelance platforms. There are a lot of existing applications and platforms in different fields but really, who wants to provide a feeless service these days anyway?
We do.🙂
Mary Zheng | AscendEX
Can you please elaborate on the goals you are aiming to achieve in 2021?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
Sure, our main goal is to launch the platform and to start onboarding freelancers and projects who need them. Once the platform is ready in a few weeks (before the end of June), it will be a matter of marketing. Also, we will start to onboard clients in July. If you believe in our idea as much as us and our partners, and you think that the world needs a platform like ours, join us.
Follow FREELA on our social media for any updates and announcements because there is more to come.
Twitter : https://bit.ly/34m5axM
TG Official : https://bit.ly/2RTxvJc
TG Announcement : https://bit.ly/3hUHBUP
Mary Zheng | AscendEX
Last question from my end before we switch over to the community q&a session — as a non-project-related question, which sector of crypto markets excites you the most?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
I would say DeFi. Opening traditional financial services to everyone is something everyone is excited about.
Community Questions:
Bé Trang
Collaboration and partnerships are some of the cornerstones of making DeFi more widespread. Can you share some of the partnerships you have formed with existing blockchain foundations recently?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela]
Yes, of course, we partnered with Polygon Matic recently. They will assist us in every part of the project’s development. 👍 https://bit.ly/3uqtKIF
herly | blessed $$$ #AshArmy
What are Freela’s sources of revenue? How is Freela’s revenue distributed for mutual benefit?
Valentin Donstetter
Freela doesn’t generate revenue. Freela is just the platform, the bridge between employers and employees. Freela doesn’t actually need to generate any revenue.
Vouture NOVA
What are the killer features of your project?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
On Freela, we have:
- No commission
- Professional Mediation
- Intuitive UI
- Traditional Payments
- Self Governance
- Complex reputation system and more features that makes Freela better than every other Freelancing Platform
Charlie (Won’t DM you first)
Many things can make a project strong, like the community, its quality, and its investors. What makes Freela strong? What will you do to make it stronger?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
We’ve got an experienced team and resources from one of the biggest universities in India that is hosting Google CodeLabs, Siemens center of excellence, etc. We’ve got an awesome project that is in demand, with a new business model, and above all, we’ve designed exceptional metrics.
VU TIEN VIET viet80yb
Where can we buy $FREL? Do you have plans to list on more exchanges? If yes, when & where?
Valentin Donstetter | Freela
$FREL will be available on Uniswap and PancakeSwap today at 2 pm UTC and on AscendEX at 3 pm UTC. I can’t comment on more exchanges, but this is something we are constantly working on.
