Interview with the Sharpay Team
Today, I have interviewed the Sharpay team on their ICO and future projects. Sharpay is developing the share button of the next generation, which allows for one-click distribution of the content on social media with targeting and reward for click-through. To reach their ambitious targets, they have just launched a token sale that will last from the 1st of March to the 31st of May.
1) What problem are you solving, why do you need the blockchain technology and what are the main pillars of Sharpay.io that differentiate you from your competitors?
There are 1 bln sites in the world and the number is growing by 5–7% annually. However, only 3% of them use share buttons — only 30 mln sites.
With over 3 bln people using social networks, of which 10% are active users, the social network advertising spending is expected to grow up to $50 billion in 2019. The most popular users in social networks, for example, top Instagram influencers, have been earning money using their popularity through social network advertising.
Sharpay will help all the social active users to monetize their popularity by earning cryptocurrency.
The blockchain technology has the ability to disrupt any traditional industry. Our Sharpay project not only has a tremendous potential to disrupt and refine the existing social media marketing, but also can popularize the use of cryptocurrency by the idea of sharing, and everyone can benefit in this blockchain era.
We have three new functions that our competitors don’t have.
a) Multi-sharing function, which allows users to share site’s content on different social networks at the same time by simply one-click.
b) Sharing with profit, now users can earn our Sharpay Token by sharing site’s content using our Sharpay button. It attracts and incentivizes users to promote website’s content and is a win-win for both websites and users.
c) Blockchain usage, it takes out the middleman in the traditional SMM and everything from the transaction (e.g. Buying tokens to reward users, transferring tokens) to the performance index (e.g. Site’s statistics, targeting, token playout) will be automated and clear, and creates a more effective and efficient marketing.
2) What value are you adding to your industry value chain and which are the main obstacles to the success of your solution?
We believe the marketing expenses especially the SMM expense of those companies who use our Sharpay button will be dramatically decreased. Also, as our Sharpay system is user-friendly, easy to use and control target audience, they can save a lot of time and money on choosing and learning new SMM tools with a better marketing result.
Compared to traditional SMM (Social Media Marketing), on which companies have to spend a lot of money for only one or a few marketers to promote their websites, and for the ultimate goal — to attract users to use/buy their services and products, Sharpay, however, multiplies the marketing results at an extremely low cost.
Since there is no middleman in the sharing and promoting process, and the end users who use Sharpay button to share site’s content will benefit by earning Sharpay Token. The more content the users share, the more the marketers will be helping the site to promote its services and products. It can rapidly increase the traffic of the site and its KPI, for example, number of active users, views, registrations and sales.
As far as we are concerned, the main issue that we have to tackle is to promote our Sharpay button worldwide and get a substantial share from the existing traditional market. However, we believe that with partnerships in different countries and the expansion of cryptocurrency will unquestionably break our obstacle.
3) Why did you decide to launch an ICO and why do you need a public Token Sale?
ICO is the most transparent and effective way to raise fund worldwide for our Sharpay project.
Doing the public Token Sale can promote Sharpay throughout the world, and everyone can participate our Token Sale and buy our tokens (as long as the local laws allow them to do so). Besides, Sharpay is a brand new SMM tool which uses blockchain technology, it’s a judicious strategy for early adaption.
For those who are interested in our project, but couldn’t participate our Token Sale, they can use our Sharpay button on our websites, share and get free tokens.
4) How does your token function within the platform and why is it needed? How did you decide the total supply and distribution among stakeholders?
“Sharing with blockchain profit”, our Sharpay tokens work as two different roles within the platform.
For users, it is an incentive to them to share and promote website’s content, and it monetizes their popularity on their social networks.
For websites, it is “a smart bullet” for them to use on social media marketing with our targeting system.
With the blockchain technology, the whole social media marketing ecosystem becomes middlemanless and streamlined; websites buy tokens to reward users, and users get the tokens from sharing and they can keep/sell them on exchanges.
Our total token emission is 4 billion, 37.5% for Token Sale and 31.05% for system functioning reserve, we considered the whole market capacity, global social network activities and other important factors, and we decided it is the best amount and ratio for our system.
5) Where do you see the value of your token in the medium to long term and the ultimate benefit for the token holders?
The social media marketing market is expected to grow up to US$ 50 billion in 2019 and there are 3 billion social media users in the world and the number is keep growing, these two factors will definitely bring value to our token in the long term and our token holders can also benefit from them.
6) Thinking about the future, what are your plans after ending the ICO? Are you afraid that the volatility of the cryptocurrency market might affect the economy of your project in any way?
After the end of our Token Sale, we will stick to our plans according to our Roadmap, for example, obtaining patents, promoting our project in different markets, developing our blockchain system.
The volatility of the cryptocurrency market is foreseeable and reasonable, as the blockchain technology is still new to the world. However, blockchain is the future, and social media is part of our lives. As we are developing a new ecosystem for social media marketing with blockchain technology, and through this, we are popularizing the blockchain and the cryptocurrency where everyone can get our tokens by sharing, we believe the impact will be diminished in the future.
“In sharing, we trust.” — Sharpay Team
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Disclaimer: This interview and the information contained herein is not intended to be a source of investment, financial, technical, tax, or legal advice. This interview cannot substitute for professional advice and independent factual verification.
