By David Devils

Back in 2011 I first came into contact with Bitcoin. I’m not sure of the source of the information, but I’d read an article about Bitcoin and the philosophy around it. At that time, I was living outside the city with an ISDN 128 kbps connection. I remember installing a wallet and trying to download the blockchain, but something went sideways and I didn’t go through with it. My return to blockchain, however, seems to have been inevitable. The experience gained over the years since 2011 puts me in a unique position of understanding marketing, business and technology. Today I’m helping my clients bring their ideas to life, tell their story, develop their business and push blockchain tech forward. This year Bitcoin turns 10 years old, and I think it’s time to tell the world my story.

My Father’s Son

Everything I’ve learned is a result of self-education, work experience and, last but not least, my curiosity and desire to try new things. I’m a two-time university dropout with a firm belief that the greatest value one receives from a business management education is in the connections you acquire, rather than from the superficial information delivered in countless lectures. Marketing, in particular, is an area that has changed so dramatically over the last decade that if one was to rely solely on the information one studied one would quickly find oneself serving fries at McDonald’s, or reading a lecture in a university ;).

My first lessons in business, marketing and sales were acquired at the family firm, which my father, who incidentally remains one of the biggest role models for me, established in the early 90’s, and managed to grow into a very successful business. Sure, being in the right place at the right time gave him an edge, but it was his relentless desire to grow, that made the company what it was.

What I’ve learned from him:

1. Hard work pays off.
2. Only have the best people working with you, and make sure they never want to leave.

Career Building Blocks: Failure & Success

For as long as I could remember I always thought my future would be tied to the shipping business my father established. Imagine my state when he decided to sell the company. I was effectively left without a job on a path which no longer existed. I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to work for someone else, and had this burning desire within to build a business of my own.

My first attempt was nothing but struggles and failure, but it was also the cheapest and best life/business lesson I can imagine. For roughly a year I tried to create a loyalty program tied to one card. The idea was that a cardholder could use it everywhere in Latvia to get discounts, benefits and exclusive access. In hindsight, I realised the business model wasn’t thought through. The company was positioned as a marketing tool but its revenue was B2C sales, I created a vicious circle where lack of cardholders was a barrier to attract new partners, and lack of partners made it impossible to acquire new cardholders. About a year in I decided to shut it down and went to seek out new opportunities.

A couple of months later, my friend and I began work on another idea. It was an online affiliate marketing course. The idea was to create a free course for making money online for a Russian speaking audience. The content was free, but it was populated with affiliate links selling — hostings, domains, themes, graphics etc. Within a couple of months after launch, we reached a critical number of 3000 subscribers and went on to create new products: turnkey solutions for websites on WordPress, plugins for SEO-optimisation and pop-up ad plugins, and step by step installation guides. There were similar products on the market, but most of them were too complicated, requiring specific skills, and a good knowledge of English. The project had success, and we gained a user base of 6,000 in half a year, mostly through e-mail marketing. With an initial “investment” of around $2000, we managed to make an x100 profit and become very familiar with the field we were working in.

With a team of three, we decided to re-invest and develop something bigger. For 1.5 years, we worked on a platform combining managed hosting, affiliate marketing tools and a WordPress website builder. We invested in the type of advertising that brought success to our previous project, but the area had changed dramatically over the time we’d spent in development. It appeared e-mail marketing was no longer working. We lost the previous product’s user base as we didn’t engage with it for over a year. With our funds depleted there was no way of going to market. A painful failure after great success.

Having gained some experience in doing everything from writing tutorials to designing websites and managing a team of freelancers, I landed a job at BankersLab. Which turned out to be one of the most valuable experiences in my career to date. I joined the team as Product Manager but quickly found myself contributing to marketing, sales, client relations and generally being in the same position as before — that is, doing anything needed to be done. The value, however, came from seeing how the company’s founders worked. Tireless, ambitious, driven and extremely meticulous. Working alongside them was nothing less than inspiring, serving as a reminder of my fathers’ success.

A Completely New Tale Has Begun

After leaving BankersLab, I joined AXIOMA, an established web development outsourcing company. The company had extensive expertise and a very talented team but didn’t have a clear customer portrait or particular specialization. At first, we decided to go for the “startup market” but about a year in, the management of the company decided it was finally time to take on a certain market niche. At the time, we had three possible alternatives: AR/VR, big data, and blockchain. A blockchain conference in Prague, we decided to attend, made up our mind completely and placed blockchain top of the list.

Our first client wanted us to fork Bitcoin and improve his existing cryptocurrency exchange, the second one asked for a Vertcoin fork and an exchange, too. Acknowledging the immense potential of both the technology and the market, AXIOMA quickly transitioned to become a blockchain development company. The transition was swift and easy, as all the developers were mid/senior and had a lot of experience working on large scale projects. Being as I’d quite a bit of experience in marketing, September 2017, AXIOMA’s founders, planning to establish a marketing agency for ICOs and cryptocurrency exchanges, proposed equity for my participation.

The agency was named ToTheMoon Lab. We signed our first client almost instantly. It was PROOF OF TOSS, a blockchain-based betting ecosystem. The client reached out to us with an idea, and for two months we worked hard on defining the protocols philosophy and strategic objectives. We were then outsourced for two more enticing projects, Naga and Bankex.

Once the concept of PROOF OF TOSS was finalised, we hired more people to the team and focused all our efforts on making PROOF OF TOSS a success. As the crypto market turned for the worst, going public became much harder than we’d anticipated, therefore the project’s focus was shifted to building out the technology (MVP) and carrying the message to select individuals and institutions. The process is ongoing but we’re confident our targets will be achieved and development of PROOF OF TOSS will continue.

“Your company can be great at only a few things. For the other things, hire those who can do these things better” — Philip Kotler says in his Marketing Insights from A to Z, and this is the direction I want to lead the ToTheMoon Lab. My vision for ToTheMoon Lab is to become a kind of boutique business consultancy and marketing agency providing a wide range of services through our partners, but managing the whole process internally and defining our client’s vision. We find ourselves in a unique position of being a “one-stop shop” for blockchain related projects, combining experience in business development with sales and marketing while having a fantastic development team on board.

The Crypto Future Is Waiting For Us

That’s all about me for now, but let me say a couple things about blockchain. I’ve no doubt this technology is going to evolve and eventually acquire mass adaptation. Perhaps, everyday people will use blockchain-based systems and services but won’t understand how they work or even know they’re using them. With the market at it’s low for the year the hype has died down, but I believe it’s temporary.

Concerning ICOs, the market is volatile now, and we can expect that micro investments and public sales will not be as popular nor effective in the nearest future. Big companies, hedge and crypto funds, private offices and institutional investors will participate in private rounds of token sales. And I must say, this is good for the market because such organizations demand much more accountability from projects. The industry is going to become similar to the startups’ area with angel investors, etc. What that means is, projects in the crypto industry will become more sophisticated, with strong teams, well-developed business models and much more reason behind them, then just “It’s popular, let’s develop it on a blockchain”.

I see my goal for the near future in developing ToTheMoon Lab and growing my personal knowledge and experience in the blockchain industry. Less than 1% of the world population use the technology today. In the next 5–10 years, we can expect this number to grow exponentially. Undoubtedly, those who work with blockchain today will have competitive advantages in the future.