Dataeum is proud to collaborate with top blockchain industry expert Simon Cocking, who is #1 ICO expert at ICObench.com. Simon is the co-founder and chief editor at Irish Tech News and CryptoCoin.News, Advisor of dozens of successful ICOs and named Twitter’s top 10 world’s blockchain influencers. Simon is a writer, journalist, content creator, digital marketing director and TedX speaker.

— How did you become Advisor for the first time? Why have you decided to Proceed with this activity?

— I got asked a few times before I said yes. I wanted to make sure I had something to offer, and that it was good use of my time. That said, once you’ve done a few it gets easier too, because you can leverage the insights, wins, and smart tips from the previous ones you have worked on.

— What do you enjoy most in advising?

— Helping good projects differentiate themselves, and attract the funding they need to achieve the cool blockchain based innovations they have developed. It’s also exciting, useful and informative to be at the bleeding edge of blockchain innovation and crypto initiatives. It’s also inspiring to work with smart, dynamic people too, you never lose by interacting with game changers and innovators.

— You have been part of several successful ICOs. How do you estimate your personal contribution into their success?

— My role is to help good people achieve success. You can look at the softcap and hardcap targets, but it should really be about the bigger picture. Did we work on something good, did we achieve something cool, will it help other people, is it innovate, did we follow the 80/20 rule, and get it over the line, rather than obsess about being perfect. These are the targets I try to help my ICOs achieve.

— Do you have any criteria how you choose projects to participate?

— My job is to advise good people to develop good idea, not to rescue bad projects that shouldn’t be pursued, or are too early stage. The ICO / crowdfunding / startup world is quite Darwinian — the fittest will survive. This is a good way to filter out bad ideas, and bad managers. An entrepreneur has to be good at spinning many different plates, and this includes their marketing and their people skills. ‘Don’t be a dick’ is super important in this business, and not working with people who have poor people skills is an important consideration for me too.

— What was your most strange experience or case on the blockchain market?

— These are the ideas that don’t need to be tokenised, and should not be an ICO. Ideally I try to avoid working with these types of ideas — there is no point, and they won’t succeed.

— You are a journalist, CEO, Advisor, PR&Marketing consultant. What is your favourite role and why?

— The variety is fun, and each role also cross fertilises the other elements too. When you are involved in many areas, it enables you to bring a bigger perspective, and ability to cross reference — which helps to then bring more value to my ICOs.

— What is your opinion, in what spheres will blockchain be mostly used in 5 years?

— Anything where micro transfers of value are useful to people / businesses / services. If you can conceive it, then it can be built. This doesn’t mean everything needs to be on the blockchain, but if it involves a database, security, and many users, then it is a prime candidate for a blockchain related solution.

— As a fintech expert, what problems and challenges of the data market would you name as the most important ones? Is blockchain able to solve them?

— KYC, AML, security, better quality user experience for us as humans. No blockchain may not be able to solve them all, but it may well be able to deliver better solutions than those we are currently using.

— Dataeum addresses the problem of inaccuracy of geolocated data. The project aims to solve it with the help of crowdsourcing. What is your opinion on that?

— If executed well, it could be a really strong, positive solution. It still needs to do all the business elements right, communicate well, perform strongly in the ICO, and then execute of building out the platform and the technology. So, as you can see, there is no sure thing in this business, but fingers crossed they have a great team and they can make it happen.

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