ICO Start-ups: Meet the founders of Chozun
MLG Blockchain Consulting is committed to supporting unique and upcoming ICOs on their journey towards successfully integrating their blockchain technology. And we know many of you are curious to dive deep in the minds behind these novel blockchain projects.
That’s why we decided to kickstart ICO Start-ups — Meet the Founders Series. In this series, we aim to support your learning progression of upcoming and current ICOs by asking insightful questions to the founders themselves! In today’s edition, meet Zia and Teresa, the two tech entrepreneurs and travel lovers behind Chozun.
- How did you first get involved with the blockchain century?
Zia: I have been in the tech industry for over 12 years now, and being a massive geek I’ve always kept up with emerging and frontier technologies such as blockchain. Teresa, a co-founder as well, has also been in the tech space for over 10 years. Over the years we’ve accumulated a lot of joint experience. I personally got involved with blockchain and with crypto in early 2013, a few years after Bitcoin was first launched, when I purchased a small amount of coins. That’s when I really started looking into and learning about blockchain and its intricacies. In the years that followed, I also dug deep into other cryptocurrencies. From there, I closely monitored the technology and became actively involved in the community. Wil, our CTO, was also an early purchaser and user of Bitcoin before beginning to learn about blockchain. So, he got involved pretty early with blockchain as well.
2. What inspired the idea of your ICO, was it spontaneous? Was it an idea you had for a long time?
Zia: Teresa, Wil and I had all been following the development of blockchain as a technology for a while and we realised there could be a real benefit to applying the advantages that blockchain facilitates, especially in terms of authentication and speed of transactions. In early 2016, I realised that if we started to implement this technology it would put us way ahead of the game. So, we started using blockchain and moving our provider inventory onto the blockchain — which evolved into creating our cryptocurrency, and from there we began growing our community and tooling up for the next evolution of the product. We also quickly realized that the best way for us to create real value for CZN would be to launch an ICO, which is where we’re at now!
3. What did you do before starting Chozun? Did you demonstrate prior expertise in blockchain?
Teresa: Before starting chozun as a team, we hadn’t directly built a company using blockchain. But, each of the core members had worked with blockchain before. As part of the consultancy that Zia and I previously ran, we frequently advised on blockchain technologies. Through our consultancy firm, we definitely developed knowledge and expertise in the blockchain. Wil had played around with blockchain on a personal level, and Louis began building blockchain technology at Nimbus Embedded Systems. As a team we have also been involved in two exits.
4. Who is the team behind Chozun and why are they awesome?
Zia: The chozun team is made up of a diverse, talented, and experienced bunch from all around the world. Teresa and I, as co-founders, are regularly asked to speak at events, to provide workshops and to educate on crypto and blockchain as Crypto Queens. We already have two successful businesses behind us, having sold our e-commerce shoe store in 2015. I was also a part of a music startup in the UK that sold to Sony. Wil, Teresa and I and have known each other for over 7 years. We’ve lived together, worked together, and played together in various iterations over those years — going through the highs and the lows of building a startup. This is one of the things that makes our team so special, we know how to work together and how to bring out the best in each of us.
So, a bit about the our other half: Wil and Louis. Wil, our CTO, has been involved in bitcoin since the beginning spending a disproportionate amount of time of the deep web in the early days and playing computer games. He is passionate about building great products and new technologies. Louis is our Imperial College London alumni and a Data Scientist, Machine Learning and Blockchain Engineer has spent the last two years immersed in the blockchain and crypto scene while learning from the best mentors out there.
We are supported by a great team of business development, Chinese market specialist and blockchain talent, including Darren Camus who is from Cardano, which is one of the top ten cryptocurrencies. Having managed startups in the blockchain space for over 5 years, his experience in both blockchain and crypto is extensive and his knowledge integral.
5. How did you bring this idea to life? Did you launch an ICO?
Teresa: We bootstrapped a clunky prototype ourselves, and from there, we were invited to take part in Asia’s most prominent accelerator called ‘Chinaccelerator’. We participated and ended up receiving a small amount of seed-investment. That’s when things really took off. We have since built the product and the customer base and we are now ready to take the company to the next level with our ICO.
6. What problem does your ICO plan to solve?
Teresa: Our business came out as response to a totally archaic travel industry. More and more, travellers are looking for personalized and unique experiences, but the only places where information kept and bookings are made are on platforms such as TripAdvisor. With chozun, we are using AI and Data Science to create a platform on which travellers can connect with contextualised and personalized experiences and services across their travels.
We decided to do an ICO for a few reasons. From a business perspective, our ICO will allow us to really drive the company to the next level. Already running and building a sustainable business with only a small initial seed investment, we realised that opening our token up to the passionate cryptokids and travel communities would be the best and most efficient way to raise the capital needed to stick to our roadmap.
Secondly, and this is the important one: using cryptocurrency as a driver for our ecosystem as a whole made complete sense. It allows us to create and build a passionate community, to turn our customers into advocates, and to create a truly valuable global asset for that growing community. It also allows us to open up one of the most important features of our product, which is travel loyalty. We’re reinventing travel loyalty for travellers by putting the power back into their hands by decentralising it through our crypto.
7. Please walk us through the user experience of someone who would use Chozun.
Zia: Travellers can use our platform to discover, book, and pay for unique experiences in destinations across the globe. Our platform will match travellers to experiences that are tailored to their individual tastes, which will be paid for using CZN tokens on the ecosystem. Peers will be able to interact on the platform, and will receive rewards in the form of CZN tokens for participating on the platform. For example, users will be able to create travel challenges with their peers and interact directly with influencers in their travel squads using crypto. All providers on the platform are on the blockchain meaning the transactions happen seamlessly in the backend and that genuine rating systems are applied across the platform.
8. How big is the market you are addressing?
Teresa: Our main focus is outbound Chinese travellers. The market is massive and is growing rapidly. According to Ctrip and to the Chinese Tourism Academy (CTA), 2017 saw record numbers of Chinese citizens going abroad. Travellers made over 130 million trips abroad, resulting in $115.29 billion in spending. In 2017, the number of trips taken grew by 7%, and an overseas spending increased by 5% when compared with 2016 levels. Our second focus is on Millennial travellers who are set to be the biggest spenders on travel by 2020. As a group, they spend over $250 billion a year on travel alone.
9. Who are the major investors behind Chozun? (for cross-promotions and endorsements)
Teresa: Our main investor is SOSV, which is a venture capital firm for startups.
10. Why do you think that there was an ICO ban in China?
Zia: China moves quickly on new technologies especially when they are protecting their citizens. Unfortunately, it’s a reality that there have been a number of cowboys in this space and people have been taken advantage of. As a legitimate company in the space, we welcome moves like this as it helps weed out the bad actors in the space, allowing those who are building legitimate companies with real use to grow and to shine through. We also think China itself will begin to implement blockchain and crypto into its future plans. We are already seeing that trend with state-owned companies like Bank of China.
11. Do you believe ICOs will bounce back in China anytime soon?
Zia: We believe that the Chinese government are closely monitoring the space and will probably implement new regulations rather than a total ban in the future. These regulations may mean that companies who wish to do ICOs in the future will have to jump through more traditional hoops as they would when trying to raise VC capital. But, since we already have experience with securing institutional investments, these regulation implementations don’t really faze us.
12. How will the ICO ban in China affect chozun?
Teresa: We think it’s a great opportunity for those outside of the Chinese market to see the massive potential and for growth that comes with investing in a company who is in the Chinese market. We’re actually uniquely placed in that we have the crossover between the Western and the Chinese market, whilst governing our ICO entirely outside of the Chinese regulations.
13. Do you think other countries will impose a ban on ICOs?
Zia: It’s a possibility. But, we really believe that regulations are much more likely to surface rather than bans. We welcome regulations because they will protect investors and create more security in the space. We also think there will be countries that will embrace crypto and blockchain, rather than banning it. Take Estonia, for example, they’ve really embraced the crypto universe and they’ll start to see immense benefits in the near future as a result. And then, you will see things similar to what is happening in France whereby the company chooses whether to go through regulations or not, which allows investors to decide where they invest their money. Since it’s all still fairly new, we think we’ll see a lot of chopping and changing while people work out what works and what doesn’t. One-size certainly does not fit-all so it requires a lot of case-by-case work.
14. Where is your ICO registered? Which country?
Teresa: It’s registered in Australia.
15. What is your favourite blockchain that was created and why? Do you use it yourself?
Zia: We both have a couple of favourites… One has to be Ethereum simply because of their evolution of smart contracts. Personally, I think Factom is quietly building a monster of a blockchain company. They’re a company I greatly respect. We also have to give a shoutout to Cardano who are building what Teresa and I both believe could be the next Ethereum. Except Cardano’s version has worked out all of Ethereum’s kinks in addition to having added some killer features. We are also lucky enough to be advised by some their team, so that also tips the scales in their favour
16. If you had the opportunity to meet the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, what is the one thing you would want to ask him?
Teresa: Sorry! We cheated, we have two… As much as we’d really like the idea that Satoshi is just one person but we don’t believe that we can attribute it all to one person. Our first question is what they plan to do with all the Bitcoin they are believed to be sitting on, and whether they thought about using it for good, for example, like what they did with the Pineapple Fund? Or maybe they are Pineapple Fund! Secondly, did any of them predict anything close to what’s happening with blockchain and crypto (outside of the initial white paper proposal they wrote)?
If you are curious about the next travel ecosystem Chozun is building, make sure to read their whitepaper and to follow them on social media!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bechozun
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bechozun
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bechozun/
Weibo: https://weibo.com/login.php
