2019: Introducing …
Despite the fact that there are already brilliant writers and pioneers in the blockchain space, and that starting a new blog on this topic on Medium isn’t easy — we’re going to do it anyway! We’ve closely followed news relating to DLT and crypto on Medium over the years — applauded many blockchain writers on their contributions — and also shared quite a few stories while working for the NEM Blockchain through this account. We’re sure we can add plenty of value to this community by providing in-depth insights about use cases, deep dives into blockchain concepts and tech, as well as blockchain-specific strategy because we’ve consulted projects, and worked on the protocol side for years.
Likewise for blockchain businesses: starting a new blockchain consultancy isn’t easy, either. It’s extremely difficult for an entity to filter the good from the not so good, and understanding the different value propositions of consultancies. Businesses entering the market need to differentiate themselves from other consultancies, provide real value to companies, and be able to communicate this properly to potential clients. We can provide significant value to almost any blockchain project through our blockchain tech expertise, DLT/Web3 market understanding, blockchain-specific strategy knowhow, and hands-on project development.
Turning our knowledge into our client’s knowledge is our goal — great, but what does that mean? Most protocols need to identify a specific niche in the DLT ecosystem, ie: specific use cases which make more sense to build on them rather than on other technologies. On the protocol and application layer, projects need very good, sustainable blockchain solutions architecture and input on required core functionalities and tooling. Almost all blockchain projects aim to be adopted by developers, users, startups, corporates, and/or investors and need clear objectives and strategies to achieve this. At different development stages introductions to various target segments are needed; as well as contacts to issuance and exchange platforms, white-label solutions, compliance and liquidity providers among others.
Our History — How it Began
Our team met through working together at NEM Europe, and largely, we educated people about the NEM Blockchain, developed tools and strategies to scale the project. One of our co-founders, Kristof Van de Reck, assembled the team while he was head of NEM Europe. Kristof is a founding member, former Head of Europe and Interim President of NEM.io Foundation, and is currently chairman of the Board at Blockchain for Europe. He has extensive business experience in aviation, multiple other industries, and has great expertise in blockchain use cases, and tokenomics.
Gary has over 20 years of business experience in various industries in management and ownership positions. Largely, internet service, media/ marketing/ advertising, capital investment, AWS, Google, Azure Cloud MSP, and became head of sales/partner networks with a strong focus on setting up and building a NEM service partner network with system integrators in Europe — a world-first for blockchain.
Istvan and Joris were the only solutions architects/trainers globally for training system integrators in NEM 2.0 Catapult, giving developer workshops, providing consulting to many projects building on blockchain, creating use cases and developer courses, and of course, they also gave feedback and input to the core developers of NEM Blockchain. Prior to this, Istvan was the founder and CTO of a high-tech company — including development and business roles, while Joris brought in years of experience working for a range of systems integration firms.
Julian worked for multiple top tech startups such as FlixBus and HelloFresh in operations, online marketing & BI before joining NEM Europe as Head of Partnerships. He created & executed strategies to onboard more companies, devs & strategic partners such as consultancies, learning platforms, unis, hubs, incubators or associations among others. He also provided industry workshops for different verticals, and led an STO working group with 30+ ecosystem members to define requirements for issuing, holding and trading security tokens, to analyze the current state of platforms and token standards and to connect with major STO players.
Our team performed all kinds of tasks to improve the tech and adoption including; protocol input, strategic plans, connected with exchanges and wallet providers, trained businesses to use and understand blockchain, and trained companies in blockchain development…
At the end of 2018, we created a thorough business plan for a very much needed new tech entity outside the foundation for the NEM ecosystem, with a focus on rolling out successful EU initiatives globally, and scaling up the tech department with a variety of obvious needs in mind. Our proposal received overwhelmingly positive community feedback but wasn’t successful.
At that point in time — April 2019 — we realized the extensive experience we had built up over the years, and the value we can bring to multiple protocols and especially companies through in-depth workshops, technical training and consultancy — which we had actually been doing for a long time anyway.
Since the inception of our expert blockchain company, we’ve seen blockchain consultancies and “standard management consultants” compete for doing introductory workshops and understood that we are coming from a very different angle into this blockchain consulting. We realized that we are blockchain insiders and have unequalled blockchain tech abilities and market expertise to provide unique value to most blockchain projects through tech assessment, strategies on market positioning and growth. We’ve already started working with carefully selected protocols and projects such as Waves, Happiness.com and on a large project with a European national bank.
We have blockchain insider knowhow and skills through years of working directly for protocols and with projects and companies — beyond “just” consultants.
What is FullBlock Solutions?
FullBlock Solutions is becoming a go-to point for blockchain projects which need support in building a protocol or application, making it accessible, taking it to market, or scaling it up. FullBlock provides its blockchain insider knowledge also to (traditional) companies interested in assessing this new technology, and in identifying value-adding use cases and the right protocol.
Blockchain Foundations are highly incentivized by their cryptocurrency to push their technology for whatever use case. The market needs experts that understand technologies in-depth and can objectively consult on projects.
We have a good overview of the Web3 Tech Stack and different DLT protocols and projects. Our team members screened protocols on a tech-level in the past to remain at the forefront of innovations, and to know the advantages and disadvantages of using NEM for specific use cases compared to other platforms. Our solutions architects had already worked with multiple protocols, and started working with Waves and Tezos from May, and they’re always on the lookout for more great tech. It’s important to assess a technology in-depth by digging deep into core tech, tooling, existing applications, and also getting our hands dirty by engaging in actual project development. From scratching the surface you don’t become a domain expert!
We have followed numerous blockchain protocols on a project-level as well, collected a large number of blockchain growth approaches and derived best practices in scaling blockchain projects. Note: Not all approaches can simply be translated to other blockchains — it highly depends on the tech offering and preferred market positioning. There aren’t many surprises when we evaluate blockchain ecosystems from the project side, except, many repeat the same mistakes, while others grow significantly faster because they have clearly formulated goals and execute well-structured initiatives.
Based on an evaluation of a project, tech, tokens and tooling, we support blockchain projects directly with solutions architecture, tech input, quality content creation, and further with strategy on the positioning of a project, and hands-on support to grow its target community, for example: corporate adoption through setting up a partner network with system integrators, and startup onboarding through a well-structured bounty, grant or incubation program.
Many corporates are now engaged with blockchain and are at least trying to develop use cases. We are happy to support from discovery and introductory workshops for one or more companies, right through to technical deep dives and the deployment of enterprise-grade applications. A great result is also to have business owners and managers understand when TO use blockchain, and when to NOT use blockchain.
You can’t buy experience, but you can hire people who have it.
Collaboration, perhaps? No one ever had too many friends, right?
Through years of working with some of the leading technologies in blockchain and DLT, we’ve established an extensive network in the blockchain space. As most blockchain projects need expertise in tech, business, finance and legal, no single person or company can have all at the same time, and be knowledgable in all fields. It’s important to have the right connections, so we engage actively in matchmaking for our partners and look for win-win-win situations.
There’s an easy fit with investors, accelerators and incubators. They have finance expertise and want their projects to scale up and we have the blockchain-specific expertise to evaluate projects and support startups. We are also complementary to legal companies and to software development companies that we can train and co-develop projects with.
We know very well the needs of blockchain projects at different stages, so we’re also actively seeking and cooperating with infrastructure projects such as; issuance platforms and exchanges, associations, liquidity providers, system integrators, consultancies and legal partners, as well as companies and governments interested in use cases.
We’ll share more insights into blockchain, use cases, the ICO/STO/IEO market and blockchain strategies in the coming weeks. Thanks for taking the time to get all the way here, please feel free to sign up as a “co-conspirator” of ours, or for our newsletter on the homepage, and you won’t miss any updates — lucky you!
