“…I saw a lot of the problems with the third world countries I worked in [and this] was, they just needed jobs(…), they needed businesses. So, it made me focus more on the direction of starting my own business and employing that way – which is what my application is currently doing-. We are allowing people to earn disposable income for their content on our application in crypto.” -Ethan Clime, CEO of Crowdholding, during an exclusive interview with Decentral Magazine at Blockshow Europe (2018).

Well, this is possible with the Crowdholding application. It is an application that lets businesses place tasks on its application. This is similar to Quora, where the business puts the question as a task. Questions can range from product validation, marketing advice, development advice and any other topic that the company wishes; There are absolutely no restrictions. Supporters simply comment with their feedback and vote for the best answer. Instead of your answer just being labeled as “Best answer” or “Top Answer”, you actually get paid for it. Amazing, right? A literal depiction of the saying, “Time IS money.”

Why would entrepreneurs or businesses need this service?

It is no secret that most startups fail due to the lack of market need. Moreover, according to HBR, C-level executives state that their companies suck at identifying problems. This makes them create products that no one really wants due to the lack of outside perspective.

The solution is none other than Crowdholding which offers a platform for co-creation. Imagine creating your product with someone who will most definitely buy it. Not only will they buy it, but they will also market it for you as they helped build it. It’s simply human nature. Moreover, the platform allows businesses to validate, iterate on and build awareness for products and services. The business rewards the contributors in YUPs- the application’s token, and other ERC-20 tokens, including Ethers. So, this is simple tit-for-tat.

Why would I want to be a user of this platform?

Well, the obvious reason is that one gets paid. However, if you are not motivated by money; which is truly the case for some people then there are other reasons. One reason is that a user gets to build their portfolio. The portfolio can show all the business that one has helped and honestly, nothing shows more productivity than helping make something more awesome. Another reason is early access to innovative products. Imagine if you were the first user of Instagram and had a say in it- that would be worth it.

How does it actually work?

Currently, businesses purchase YUPs from Crowdholding in order to put up a task. This is what increases the natural volume. So, by having businesses on the platform buy YUPs using other cryptocurrencies, the volume increases. The YUPs get distributed to users who can later liquidate them. Simply, if the platform gets more businesses and users, the number of tasks increases.

The whole concept is exciting, but you may wonder how their ICO went…

The team just completed their ICO in January 2018, where they raised roughly 2000 ether. It’s worth noting that after their pre-sale in August, they made a huge pivot of their product. Originally, their application was the same system, but they were trying to get business to share their future revenue with the public as a token. However, when they discovered the crypto scene, they realized that having a token in your own ecosystem is similar to security or equity in a way. This pushed them to follow Metcalfe’s law- the more people in your network, the more valuable your network is. This is probably what they mean when they say your network is your net worth. Being rewarded in someone’s token pushes users to help the business out. If the business succeeds, the users get money for their worth as they earn the tokens.

The big secret behind their growth: 18, 000 USERS!!!

One thing I can say- good products market themselves.

The platform has 18,000 users. The interesting aspect is that the growth is purely organic. When a business gets on the network, it usually brings its community members. This makes the platform market itself- so yes, they don’t spend a penny on advertising. Moreover, when users start earning their tokens, they usually share this opportunity with other people. I mean, it’s pretty fun and easy because you earn from your own content.

Any exciting news for the future? More crypto for everyone maybe?

The future looks exciting. They are looking to build a stake system. This will allow users to bet if a comment is truly the best one. More crypto for everyone!!!

Next stage: By the end of 2018, they will have a KYC process for withdrawing tokens. Currently, users just withdraw their tokens without KYC. Why would they do that? Well, this is to get rid of spammers. They do it so that one user cannot be multiple fake accounts. This will be done to support businesses as their tokens will be returned if given to fake users. Sorry people, you can’t mess around with Crowdholding.

They also want to implement a crowdfunding button within the application. This will allow users to reinvest their earned YUPs in companies they really like. Smart decisions.

Final stage: They aim to implement a marketplace. This will allow businesses to put their products and services on the application. Users can only buy using YUPs.

Who is behind this cool application?

The team has 25 people, all based in Prague. There is a lot of diversity as 15 members are from different nationalities. The team has people who have worked at Google and Oracle. This means they have a balance between young newcomers and old-school corporate.

Interesting fact- “We are definitely not a big fan of the hierarchy structure in our company. So, we are actually running it very differently. We are running it how millennials should run it.” Ethan

How awesome is that?

Business model

Currently, they have a very simple business model. They take 10% cuts of all the tokens that get reinvested in the YUP. Furthermore, they provide services to the businesses on their application. They do this by supporting bounty campaigns for their clients ICO’s.

If you’re in the crypto world, you’d probably want to know what Ethan predicts about the crypto business model in the future…

“The real future of this, and I believe the future of this industry and business models- I believe the ones who will win in the end will actually be the companies that don’t make revenue…If you look at ethereum right? We all know ethereum is probably the richest crypto company out there right? Well, they are nonprofit, and the reason why they can cover all their expenses is that they own a big chunk of ethereum. So, once you can create a business model where people really use the token- and it’s a utility, it’s a currency and there is a big adoption. That’s a very disruptive business model.” -Ethan, CEO of Crowdholding

In essence, the future belongs to companies that can hold on to their tokens, and then sell them back to users in the future to pay for their expenses. This is quite a smart approach and it’s a prediction we should keep an eye on. For now, it would be wise to also keep an eye on Crowdholding as they are working hard to shape their application for businesses and users. As they say, “instead of focusing on the hype, we are focusing on the product. Marketing comes later, but a good product comes first.” Ethan.

Useful links

Website

Whitepaper

This article is based on an exclusive interview between Decentral Magazine and Ethan Cime (CEO) during Blockshow Europe 2018. This event took place from 28th-29th May in Berlin. There were over 3000 attendees and over 150 blockchain projects.