Interview with Simon Cocking, Top Advisor & Senior Editor At Irish Tech News
Hey everyone! We have another great interview for you guys today. Today, we have interview with Simon Cocking. He is the №1 rated Expert on ICObench and Senior Editor at Irish Tech News among other works.
Vladimir Nikitin: Could you tell us briefly about your background please?
Simon Cocking: I have worked as an advisory board member for over 50 other successful ICO launches who have achieved their ICO targets, helping with marketing, media, PR and strategy. They have also leveraged my digital footprint of 118,000 followers on Twitter (31% in US) and 25,000 on LinkedIn, as well as being the top ranked member of the ‘People of Blockchain’ #1/1000. I’m also Senior Editor at Irish Tech News, Editor in Chief at CryptoCoinNews, and freelance for the Sunday Business Post, the Irish Times, IBM, and others. I have also been named on many global Twitter influencer lists and speak at many international events and organizations. I have been based in Ireland for over 22 years and has cofounded or founded six successful companies (and introduced one sport to the country — Ultimate Frisbee).
Vladimir Nikitin: Sounds like you have quite the background. What was your first ICO and what challenges you faced working on it?
Simon Cocking: My first ICOs were ClearPoll and Hydrominer and they were both very successful in their campaigns. However I think both have also illustrated that the challenges don’t end with the completion of your ICO campaign. That said, several other of my early ICOs also illustrated the challenges to even reach your ICO target. This is a very important fact to remember. While it may seem that money is falling off the trees when it comes to other ICO campaigns, if you don’t get everything lined up and do everything right then you will struggle to reach your targets.
Vladimir Nikitin: Which projects are you involved at the moment?
Simon Cocking: Whew, in total it is closer to 60 than 50 now. However, as David Drake describes it, they have a short time frame before graduation, so I am not working with that many at any one time. That said you tend to keep in touch with the successful ones, such as Covesting, Iungo and others. Currently among others I am working with Friendz, whom seem to have an insane level of interest on Telegram, last I looked they were heading towards 80,000 members in their group. Syncfab, Moonlite, and Omnitude are all going well among others. Each are doing things in their own ways, but there are some common elements among those who are successful such as a good team, good organization, a good product, good strategy, and a willingness to work hard to get it over the line.
Vladimir Nikitin: Why did you decide to continue build your career by getting involved in various ICOs as an advisor?
Simon Cocking: It wasn’t a deliberate choice. The first ICO that asked me, I said no to, because I couldn’t see how I could be an advocate for what they did and also maintain my reputation as an independent journalist. I then thought about their offer for a month or so and considered what I could offer to an ICO. I then realised the insights I can offer are around marketing, communication and media strategy, because I have been on the receiving end of so many press releases and good and bad media campaigns. Then, when another ICO asked me if I wanted to be an advisor I then had a clearer idea of how I could offer value and actually help them to achieve their goals.
Then someone told me I had risen to the top ten of the ICO advisor rankings. From here things snowballed a little and I began to get more offers, and, the higher you rise in lists like this, the more offers you receive. I have currently been at #1 for almost two months now, and so as you can imagine I get even more offers coming in. Not all are a good fit for me, and it’s nice to be in the fortunate position to be able to only work with ICOs that excite me and that I can offer value to.
Vladimir Nikitin: How do you help ICOs?
Simon Cocking: I help with promotion, endorsement, strategy, media advice and insights from 50+ other successful ICO campaigns I have worked on. The fortunate thing for me now is that, having worked with so many other ICOs I now have a mental checklist of things that I know are important to do well. This is why I have become in demand, and fortunately I can offer useful tips and insights to each new ICO I work with. Most good ICOs will have most elements covered, but as mentioned to really be successful you need to cover all the bases and this is where I can help and bring value.
Vladimir Nikitin: What makes a normal ICO successful these days?
Simon Cocking: Firstly there is probably no such thing as a normal ICO. I like the variety of ICOs I work with (Dermavir — HIV cure), Jolyy (Bulgarian based beauty care treatments) to Elpis (AI investing) to Quasa (shipping logistics). If you are using blockchain to fix a real, and specific problem then an ICO, tokenised solution could be the right approach for you. After that decision, it does then come down to how good you are at communicating, marketing, and managing your fund raising campaign. With hindsight it may seem very simple to review why your campaign was a success, but there are actually many points at which you can go down a potential rabbit hole. All of this means that there are no 100% guarantees of success, and if someone is promising you that, then you need to be very careful.
Vladimir Nikitin: Can you name some major tendencies of 2018 for the ICOs and crypto in general?
Simon Cocking: Yes, increased regulation, which is not a bad thing as more KYC and AML will help to reduce the possibilities for scams. There are also more and more wallets being opened and more people looking to trade in crypto, and institutional funds will move into this space once it becomes less risky. This will probably mean we see less speculative, fluffy ICOs — no bad thing, and more solid, well prepared ICO campaigns. For crypto in general, I imagine bitcoin will do its own special, volatile thing, but still, by year end be back up higher than it is now. Ether on the other hand, offers more functionality, and you would hope and imagine it will rise again, and mature as a currency, and hopefully become less tied to the fluctuations of Bitcoin.
Vladimir Nikitin: I am also eager to know if you’re planning to do any exciting partnership(s) in the near future?
Simon Cocking: This is the part of what I do that I love — every day you never know what interesting proposal might come through in your message box. I try not to be online 24/7, but at the same time I do aim to stay on top of the emails and messages that I receive because it is cool the offers coming in. With Nick Ayton, for example we are chatting about doing an ICO reality TV show, where the winner gets their ICO funded. With David Drake, he has already become a regular guest writer for our media outlets and we are now looking at other possible collaborations. There are other events I will be keynoting at, and also an event ambassador which is fun and also a great way to meet other interesting people, which invariably ends up creating new exciting partnerships, and so it continues.
Vladimir Nikitin: Please explain why some current ICOs are hyped and others are not?
Simon Cocking: From a general principles perspective, if the team have no digital footprint, if there is no history of previous products, or evidence of the current one, if the numbers look too good to be true, well these are all important factors in identifying if you are looking at a lot of hype. With all ICO investments, you must carry out your own research and not invest solely on FOMO (fear of missing out) or simply because everyone else is raving about it. Beetoken for example had a lot of hype and that didn’t end well.
Vladimir Nikitin: 1 Bitcoin will be cost over 100k USD?
Simon Cocking: Yes, eventually, and higher.
Vladimir Nikitin: Anything else you’d like to add?
Simon Cocking: Thanks, it’s been fun, and that’s probably long enough for our readers, but everyone is welcome to drop me a line via Linkedin or our media outlets and we will do our best to help.
Vladimir Nikitin: Last thing, How can people find out more about you & your work?
Simon Cocking: Twitter, Linkedin, Cryptocoin.News and IrishTech News is where I seem to spend most of my time these days! Thanks for having me.
Vladimir Nikitin: Thank you!
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