Finblox.com - crypto adventure 🚀 TOP 10 things to know for crypto startupers 👩🚀👾🛸
During the last 1+ year, I was occupied with my new “baby”, which indeed takes 200% of my energy and time.
Before the dive go and signup for IDO spot to get upside on $FBX token launch (25.04.2023) — deal will never be better!
⚡️ finblox.com/fbx ⚡️ or 🚀 poolz.finance 🚀 (our official launchpad partner)
Like any baby, this one was born as a result of me meeting a partner 🖤. Partner in crime for this project became Peter Hoang, who reached out to me in June last year (2021) and asked to start an adventure through the joy and pain of a new startup. By that time, I had already quit the previous company coins.ph, where for about 3 years, I led the tech department.
So we settled on trying to make a prototype and present it to some VCs and angels (good think Peter was once in YC with his previous gig GoTrade and got some connections to 🦈 sharks in the tank). The idea was straightforward — to make a crypto application that could give access to retail customers (mainly in South-East Asia) to earn on their crypto assets.
Follow me on Telegram for more exciting stuff 💌 https://t.me/paunins 💌
☝️First things first ☝️
The first version/prototype of the mobile app was done by myself (mainly focused on API) and Andrey (who now is leading our mobile development team). We got that prototype Android app by late July.
The first check came from MSA Capital by mid-August 2021 (Tim Chen was one of the first who put trust in us 🙇♂️)
The rest of the 2021 year was pretty cool and intense for both product development and fundraising. We were laser-focused on a few things through the end of the year:
- to deliver ASAP high-quality, nice-looking(ui+ux), secure application
(alpha-version was delivered at the end of October 2021) - to raise from tier-1 VCs and angels that can be helpful and not just give us some capital
(…and most of them proved to be supportive in moments of need) - to build a strong team with a high level of culture and product quality demand
(hires mainly came from previous companies and personal networks)
We closed our round of 3.9M at the start of 2022, which was a great motivation for the team (and ourselves, of course)!
After the initial launch, we were on track to democratize wealth development and make instruments available for retail customers (mainly in SEA but saw traction across the globe).
- We held our Finblox Summit to promote the crypto culture
- Content on our Finblox University is on a mission to educate people
- FinBlog, managed by our Content Team, helped to build the bridge to our community
🎯 TOP 10 Product development challenges and solutions 🎯
There were several specific challenges that we had to address while developing our application from the ground up. Nothing in here can be more valuable than a robust and experienced team whose mood cracks all the obstacles… but let's look at some of them:
1. Initial design and product Vision 🌄
During a few iterations and long nights, PanicBear helped us to come to the initial concept of the desired crypto app design, which would be simple yet powerful/scalable enough to amaze the masses. We were desperate to start crafting our v0.0.2 (second after the prototype) application but had to work a few weeks on Figma designs together with designers and engineers.
Everyone was a Product Manager, everyone had an opinion, and everyone had to listen to teammates accepting reasonable suggestions and rejecting otherwise. That requires tremendous trust in each other and the ability to compromise.
2. Cross-platform (Android/iOS) delivery 📲
At the very start, we had only one mobile engineer. Could we afford to develop 2 versions of the same app on iOS and Android at the same time?… Of course not!
We have all heard about cross-platform solutions for the development of iOS/Android applications on one code base (PhoneGap, ReactNative, etc) After a quick research and based on the experience, we picked Flutter (developed by Google) to make the first and all the subsequent versions of our application. No regrets so far!
3. Internationalization and languages 🏳️🌈
Thousands of words, hundreds of keys(2858 to be exact), many services/applications, few languages, tons of files, and whatnot … that’s something we can’t easily manage in git by ourselves. We seriously were checking 2 services: Phrase and POEditor.
All considered(price, quality, support of flows, etc.) BUT mainly looking for good integration with the sources code/git, we decided to go with Phrase 💪 Managing all keys in JSON files of one mono-repository with the source code and simple .phrase.yaml config appeared to be quite a simple solution for all developers and translation managers in the company
4. DevOps Engineer VS DevOps culture ⚙️
Starting from scratch, we were putting together all bleeding edge technologies to allow rapid growth and scalability. In my opinion, the infrastructure systems you want to apply are something you either know already or you are quickly able to learn as progress with the product. We knew quite some technologies already; we learned more and acquired knowledge in others with new teammates: docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Cloudflare, Helm, GHActions, Terraform, argoCD, Identity Providers, Loki, Grafana, {and MANY more buzz words here} :)
We tried to have a dedicated DevOps engineer BUT ended up having everyone be one. ⚠️ DevOps is not a title but an aspect of the engineering culture.
5. Crypto Integration 💸
Starting a new crypto business, you don’t really want to connect to multiple blockchains…you instead implement business logic to provide service to your clients agnostic to any specific crypto asset. Attention was paid to 2 providers that work in the space of block-chain integration as services: BitGo and Fireblocks. Both are pretty stable and have a reasonably significant market share. Aspects to remember when picking:
- chains you need and flows (BitGo charges per ERC20 address generation while Fireblocks is yet to have better sweeping for omnibus accounts)
- the total cost of ownership and fees (percentage of assets flow)
- support quality and guarantees
- security protocols and permissions management VS simplicity of usage
We stick to Fireblocks due to them hitting more checkboxes in our list and reasonable commercials.
6. Compliance, Legal, and Security 🔒
Unfortunately, multiple solutions are required for products like ours to comply with different jurisdictions’ rules and laws.
We use leading technologies on the market for different concerns: SumSub for KYC(Know Your Customer), ComplyAdvantage for AML (anti-money laundering) screening. KYT (Know Your Transaction), Travel Rule, and many more things are incorporated into the core of our system to stay on the edge of the modern fintech market.
7. Marketing, Content, SEO 📐
WEB systems and Content management are crucial parts of our product ecosystem. We’ve experimented and keep experimenting with a number of platforms and frameworks designed to have impressive results on performance and UI/UX for desktop users and search engines. WIX, ghost.io, Strapi, Remix, Hubspot, Intercom, and many more tools that are serving our and our visitors' needs.
If you build a product but don’t measure conversions and metrics; if you don’t do A/B testing and don’t understand your funnels; if you can’t recognize gaps in flows and needs of the users… you are definitely running blind, and the sooner you fix it, the better! We rely on quite some systems to monitor our vital signs: Metabase for our own data analysis, Firebase for applications events and user behavior (conversions, dropouts, flow silos), Google Analitycs, Facebook pixel, and other tools.
8. Customer Support 🛟
What is worse than having a problem, even with a beautifully designed and perfectly working product? Right! Having support that sucks and can’t address your problem. This one was in our blood since the beginning. Both me and Peter have been through retail-facing customer projects. And the one thing you don’t mess with is angry customers that are losing their minds after a few tries and an absence of attention.
All of us were helping our customers and replying to tickets on Intercom. We were fixing and prioritizing issues to make sure the next iteration of the systems brings some more fun for the users that had to complain about something. Currently, I’m happy and proud that on most of the review platforms, we go as one of the most supportive and user-friendly systems! Kudos to the Product Development and Customer Support teams that we’ve built over time.
Just started using this Crypto app.. in less than 10 days, i enjoyed it and earned a lot. Customer support is wonderful, never encounter any problem!
— Solar / Trustpilot
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (user won in Pool Party by depositing a small amount)
I transferred my MATIC into Finblox and somehow it did not go through. As anyone new to crypto would be I was scared that it was lost. I contacted Finblox’s customer service and right away Kevin and Avee from their support team were able to locate the coins and have the funds go through to my new account. I love the app and this gave me more confidence in depositing more of my coins.
— dsnyder0922 / AppStore
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (user sent assets on a wrong chain to correct address…ooops )
9. Investment and Risk Management 🔬
With the relatively rapid growth of the user base and AUM, TPV signaled us to play carefully and dedicate particular attention to how, when, and why we invest our users’ capital. After a few hiccups (phew…we were too small to hit too big problems during the awful market conditions), we decided to make (unlike most of our competitors) transparency to be a part of our core values set. So we introduced the process of sharing data about investments and the treasury management. The monthly transparency reports are well appreciated by most of our customers as it brings comfort and peace of mind.
10. Focus, Mindfulness, and Priorities 🧘♀️
There will always be MYRIADS of things you could have done, there will always be MYRIADS of things you can do, and there will always be only ONE life! Quite a challenge, huh?… But that’s what defines you and, in this context, your product. Always be sure of what and when you need to build. Otherwise, you’d get dragged down by either procrastination or burnout. The next step should not be: too short, too big, too early, too soon, too fast, too slow, too reasonable, too blind, too considered, too spontaneous, too aggressive, too passive… it must be just right and balanced ☯️
Build your plans, and make sure you and the team stick to them. Aim big as it’s hard to miss a bigger target. As discussed before, measure and reflect on the results. Do 1 to 2 weeks-long iterations. Stay motivated and stick to people that can get your back during tough times (when everything crashes and burns around). Be humble during success — it’s not forever, and you must work to stay on top.
🥶 Crypto winter 2022 — what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger 🥶
Despite the madness on the market (not only the crypto market…) we were fighting our way through and could achieve significant results in our business niche.
Attracted more than 20k users and processed tens of millions in transactions ($TPV, Total Processed Volume) of more than 20 crypto assets across the globe.
After the mid-2022 year market crash and crypto prices went down, we saw a significant slowdown and braced ourselves for the next in the history of the crypto winter. We were relying on the top-notch core team that we hired and the ideas that they were generating to pivot the business in multiple directions. The bet played well, and the team was unstoppable. Our yield product became only one of the offerings. We transformed the system into a 🚀 Next-Generation Crypto Ecosystem 🚀
I’ll list below some exciting products we’ve released and the roadmap as of today (September 2022):
🛸 FinSwap for trading your tokens 🛸
Swap this, swap that, swap back and forth
👙 FinPool aka Pool Party by Finblox 👙
Inspired by the “PoolTogether” protocol but expanded to CeFi
🪙 FBX Token to tap on unlimited possibilities 🪙
We plan to grow, and we got all we need now! Coingeko🦎 — keep an eye!
🚀 Finblox Launchpad 🚀
Done it once for ourselves — do it for many others
🗺 More to come — check our Finblox Litepaper 🗺
We love what we do and have many ideas to implement…
🥵 Startup is never a job 🥵
One might think that a startup is a kind of a job that you hire yourself to do…and, to be honest, I was thinking this same way before diving into the venture.
But it appeared to be more like a lifestyle changer that affects all significant areas of the existence: relationships with friends and family, free time and hobbies, sports and activities, ways to relax and ways to stay sane and healthy. It reminds me of having a kid (I have 2 of them) — it flips the world you knew and opens possibilities together with problems to solve. You can’t sleep, eat and breathe without being part of that new world(similarly to a kid you just created all by yourself)…it consumes you entirely without a promise to success…but with the whole universe as your resource to make the most of it to WIN! Never stop, never give up! 🚀
PS
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PPS
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