TeleX AI: Q & A with Can Soysal, MD of TeleX AI.

Firstly thank you for your time to answer some questions about your company, TeleX AI, and the upcoming Initial Coin Offering.

Q: Who is Can Soyal, could you give us a little insight into your background?

A: After my undergraduate education in physics, I got master’s degrees in business administration and philosophy. I am currently continuing my PhD, studying legal theory and jurisprudence. I’ve always been interested in technological development; studied quantum computers during my physics education. I learnt C++ in my high school years, and HTML/JS/CSS, R and Python during college. I worked as a freelance developer for small projects; this helped me get acquainted with the procedures and workflow of software development. After mastering technical and fundamental analysis, several years of applied studies in investment management helped me develop my own trading strategy for stock markets. I’ve been managing a small family & friends fund since 2011.

Q: How long have you been in crypto/blockchain/AI and what are your interests in this regard?

A: I heard of Bitcoin in the year 2011, but didn’t buy my first cryptocurrency until 2013. I was one of the handful of lucky people who watched how Litecoin broke $10 for the first time. Between 2013 -2016, I spent hundreds of hours on cryptocurrency forums, blogs, whitepapers, etc. It was the year of 2016 in which I thought I could do something for the benefit of the community, and started Bitkapital, which was originally planned to be the Turkish lira gateway for the Waves platform (then we had to move to Bitshares). Since then, I have been closely involved with many cryptocurrency circles, communities and projects.

Q: How was TeleX AI conceived, when did you start thinking about the TeleX AI concept, could you tell us more?

A: First of all, I love Telegram. But the thing I love more than Telegram is to think about business ideas and evaluate business plans. During the development of my investment strategy, I worked extensively on pre-IPO markets and product/market fit analysis, so I have a methodological approach to idea generation. Now let me explain how I reached the idea of a crypto chatbot.

Majority of my entrepreneurship experience and business contacts are from the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Also I have a firm belief in the technology, community and philosophy of cryptocurrencies, and it is a trending area of investment. So it had to be a crypto startup. The first step in idea generation should be to define the customers, even before the service to offer them. So I asked: Who constitute the majority of this ecosystem, and which type of people are gaining more percentage among all cryptocurrency users? The answer is simple: Newcomers, non-geeks. They are the reason why crypto market cap is setting all-time-highs over and over. We are in the public interest phase, and when it comes to complicated technologies like the one we’re dealing with, the public demands two things: 1) ease of use, 2) ease of access. This is why the largest revenue-generating bodies in the ecosystem are those which provide services that make crypto available for public use, e.g., exchanges.

I thought combining crypto with another trending area of interest. Artificial intelligence (AI) industry has already taken off the ground, and it is expected to continue growing in the coming decades. Chatbots are a relatively more recent novelty, but the expert opinions as well as the general customer tendency are quite promising. There were other trending industries that I thought combining with crypto, but an AI chatbot would offer the best service for the ever-growing section of the cryptocurrency users whose primary demand is to easily access and hold crypto.

There appeared the idea: an AI chatbot which brings crypto down to earth. Cryptocurrencies are no longer to be held in enigmatic software but in the very application which everyone uses every day. After setting up the ground for the business idea, it was more straightforward to determine the details such as which instant messaging app to use, etc.

Q: How did you form your team, who are your team members & why did you go the route of outsourcing development?

A: I know Nathan and Vaughn from the Waves community. Our business perspectives in general have mostly been in line with one another. I explained them the idea, and they liked it. As for Vitaliy, I had worked with him in another project and was already confident about his competence. Last but not the least, I contacted with Chad via Upwork, a freelancer platform — and indeed our contract is still continuing on Upwork. Chad is one of the greatest coders that I have ever known, and I have the intention to migrate our contract from Upwork to a direct contract between Telex AI Company Ltd and him for a long-term employment.

As for outsourcing development, I am not a developer, so I have to outsource the development.

Q: There are potential risks of outsourcing development, how have you mitigated them?

A: If you mean security risks, then we got this covered in this way: Even though I am not a developer, I am not alien to development, and I watch over the codebase with utmost diligence and with regular additional security checks by a professional. Also, the deployment of the code is always made by me with clear instructions given by the developers.

Actually, outsourcing development is all about whether the coder is an employee or a contractor. I don’t think this legal difference would affect the security concerns in the final analysis.

Q: Could you tell us more about TeleX AI and your vision in this regard?

A: I believe that chatbots bear a great potential in financial market operations. It somewhat brings back the original over-the-phone brokerage experience with as much power and capabilities as one would have with graphical user interfaces. With more number of banks creating Siri interfaces, the concept is validated.

Joining ICO’s by just talking to your AI-powered virtual assistant, creating tokens by messaging with the bot, escrow services, copy trading, etc. may all just be the precursors of what might happen in follow-on markets: A revolution in online retail brokerage; buy and sell not only crypto but also all kinds of financial instruments through an AI chatbot that understands you.

Q: What are the major benefits of TeleX AI over other competing products?

A: The greatest edges of TeleX AI are ease of use and convenience.

Q: You have a working product and plan on an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) starting 21st Nov ’17, why an ICO and what is planned with the raised funds?

A: The current prototype is just a trolley; we will build a space shuttle! The cost of development is just one thing among many, because we will not only develop but also operate TeleX AI, which means there will be general & administrative costs, licensing costs, marketing, etc. Developing and maintaining a positive cash flow business requires a lot more than what we currently have, which is why we have chosen the way to sell the product first, and then develop it. The raised funds will be utilized in creating and executing the ways to increase the value of the company while contributing to the ecosystem in general. Needless to say, the presale will be made by the company, and all the funds go to the company and not to its founders — it is thus an obligation for us to utilize the funds in realizing the goals of the company.

Q: Could you give us more details on the upcoming ICO and security measures catered-for in this regard?

A: The presale will be conducted through a web page. BTC and ETH will be accepted as payment methods. The value of tokens will be given in US dollars, which means the price in BTC and ETH will be updated live. The deposit addresses are generated offline prior to the presale event, where no private key is left from that offline device. The website backend is watched by OSSEC so that no one would be able to change the code. All entry points to the host will be secured with the maximum protection that the service provider offers, i.e., 2FA, SSL, etc.

Q: Coin listing on exchanges, could you give the investor insight into current discussions, plans & timelines in this regard?

A: The token distribution will take place as soon as the chatbot-token integration is done, which is scheduled to happen in December 2017. Right after that, we will approach to token-friendly exchanges such as Bittrex, Liqui, Binance and Ethfinex.

Q: The Crypto ICO’s are full of non-committal teams and scams, how can you re-assure the investor in this regard?

A: We have chosen United Kingdom to incorporate the company in, one of the reasons being its creditworthiness about these matters. Open a company in Cook Islands, scam everyone, and they can’t even sue you — now try to do the same thing in UK. Investor-friendliness is one of our essential tenets, and it is possible to see this merit of ours in every aspect of business, from contractual relations to the transparency of the team.

Web: telexai.com

Telegram Group: https://t.me/telexai

Telegram User: @csoysal

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/can-soysal

Email: cansoysal@telexai.com