Will Li, the Co-Founder and Technology Lead. Claire Zhou, Co-Founder and Product Lead.

ApolloX is the solution to the rogue behaviour that many centralized marketplaces take part in. It is for people, both buyers and sellers, who understand how important it is to have a fair and open e-commerce ecosystem. The decentralized platform uses blockchain technology to regulate the market, allowing for a trustworthy environment to thrive. The platform is designed to respect buyers, sellers, and relevant third parties.

To truly understand and appreciate the ApolloX decentralized marketplace, you need to get acquainted with the two Co-Founders of the project: Will Li, and Claire Zhou. These are brains behind the entire project, and it is their vision that is currently being enacted.

Will Li

Will Li is the Co-Founder and Technology Lead at ApolloX. His inspiration in starting ApolloX stemmed from his frustration at seeing struggling sellers. While their products and services may be of the utmost quality, they were being punished by high costs and unfair competition. Sellers who were using centralized marketplaces were not getting the remuneration or rewards they deserved. Their hard work was going to waste. Once Will and the team recognised that around one third of the price consumers pay on Amazon actually goes to Amazon itself, they knew they had to do something about it. That was when the idea of using blockchain technology in the e-commerce industry became appealing. “Historically, humans have shown to work more efficiently if there are a set of disciplinary rules and an effective system to enforce them,” Will states. “This is also how centralized marketplaces run”. While this may be a satisfactory system, it also allows for corrupt behaviour; however the blockchain can change this. “With blockchain technology, the new rule is the consensus of everyone. It also means that many of the rules can be enforced by the system itself, rather than by humans”. This is Will’s vision of ApolloX.

During his career, Will has worked at both Oracle and MIT Media Labs. This greatly helped to prepare him for creating and running ApolloX. They helped him to deepen his vision of the business and the technology. In 2009, Will participated in two projects for MIT Media Lab. “In one study,” he notes, “we used smartphones to learn how the common cold virus got spread on campus”. The second study regarded the use of a built-in artificial intelligence credit card that could impact on people’s consumption. “Imagine, when you take out your credit card in Starbucks, the card will show you an expression saying you have drank too much coffee during this week. It was fun to work on, and also taught me the impact new technology can have in the future”.

In terms of education, Will studied at MIT. “As you might expect, MIT has a lot of homework, a lot of lab work. It was hard to get an A. I made it, and now I think it was one of the best times in my life”.

Claire Zhou

Claire is the Co-Founder and Product Lead. She became a part of the e-commerce business in 2015. Before the ApolloX platform was launched in early 2016, she was selling goods on both Amazon and eBay. While the platform was growing, Claire noticed “many pain points in ecommerce industry, especially when dealing with cross-boarding vendors”. The team was looking for solutions to these types of issues in the e-commerce industry, but they couldn’t find one until they ran into the concept of blockchain technology. “I am thrilled by the innovation of blockchain and believe it will bring revolution to numerous industries, including e-commerce. It gives the possibility to solve the questions in my mind for years,” Claire stated. She also pointed out how blockchain technology provides a “brand new business model” that has the capability to entirely disrupt the current model for e-commerce. This will be “an upgrade to the whole industry”.

Before ApolloX, Claire worked at both Google and Newell, in the Rubbermaid division. These prepared her to become a great and highly skilled marketer. “I gained a deeper understanding of branding and marketing, which is definitely a critical skill for starting my own business”. Claire also studied at SUNY University, located up in New York State. “It was peaceful,” she said, “I got to know many amazing people there”. Claire spent two and a half years at the university, which gave her the time and resources to discover what her interests were and in what ways she wanted to pursue her career.

Clearly, both Claire and Will have huge plans for ApolloX. They both understand the intricacies of blockchain technology and the e-commerce industry, and know how to marry the two industries together. They have designed a platform which operates in a way centralized marketplaces could never do. They have also managed to create an ecosystem which promotes fairness and unity. These are attributes that the current centralized marketplaces often ignore.