Learnings made: Kees de Vos from Momentum
By: Stefan Perlebach
Tags: Startup, Interview, Ethereum, ICO, Blockchain

Interview with Kees de Vos — CEO & Founder of MobileBridge and Momentum Token.

“ […] blockchain solutions are not so much about blockchain , they are about the problems that they solve and business value they deliver.”

Kees de Vos is the CEO and Co-Founder of MobileBridge which was established in 2013 on Dutch ground and can refer brands such as Volkswagen and Burger King as its customers. Kees has 15 years’ global leadership experience in digital solutions and products, specialising in retail and digital commerce globally. With introducing Momentum Token he and his company MobileBridge joined the crypto world 1,5 years ago.

Can you give us an elevator pitch of your project?

De Vos: MobileBridge Momentum is both a platform and a crypto-currency that will revolutionise the marketing and loyalty landscape. We are a global loyalty infrastructure that enables companies to turn (existing) loyalty platforms into crypto-based incentive and reward schemes and use them to reward customers not only for their purchases, but for all the things they do that help their favourite brands, e.g. introducing their friends, writing a product review, or visiting the store. This allows consumers to earn more loyalty points and give companies the opportunity to market to consumers better and cheaper, as well as building a more engaged customer base. In addition, consumers can exchange their points between loyalty points and even into crypto, increasing the liquidity of their points dramatically.

How did you realize blockchain makes sense for your product?

De Vos: Following a successful implementation of our software with Burger King in Russia, it became clear that we had a great opportunity using loyalty points to encourage consumers to really engage with brands. However we wanted to look at the broader challenges for successful marketing solutions and we came to two main challenges, from a solution/technology perspective;

- Users in general are happy for brands to store their details, but it goes under the assumption that a. they get some value out of it (better discounts, better user experience) and b. their data is stored securely, they understand what and how their data is used, and they are in control of their data. If these conditions are not met, the user will lose trust — something that is crucial to have a strong customer/brand relationship.

Using the blockchain we can not only implement the security and transparency, we give the user the control over their data.

- In order to distribute loyalty points in a safe and secure manner, as part of a global infrastructure, we required technology that is scalable and secure and has solid ledger capability. Again, blockchain offered us the necessary functionality to solve the challenge.

Once we had arrived at the need for blockchain we started to re-think our proposition and modelled the Momentum approach based on the frustrations the end-consumers experienced; the fact that they can’t earn enough loyalty points and they are hard to redeem.

What was the hardest challenge during your blockchain journey so far?

De Vos: I think the hardest is working in a non-regulated, immature landscape. The levels of experience vary widely, “everyone is an expert” and there is no book on rolling out an ICO. You will have to find (almost) everything out yourself and the only way to do that is to immerse yourself completely. It turns out that all of the business principles that I have picked up over the years, still apply in blockchain, despite a lot of people trying to convince you that is not the case.

What was the biggest learning you made during the last year?

De Vos: There are only 24 hours in a day 😊

What’s the best advice you’ve recently received?

De Vos: It wasn’t so much advice received, but at the Blockchain Conference in Zug, a couple of weeks ago, we talked a lot about the fact that blockchain solutions are not so much about blockchain , they are about the problems that they solve and business value they deliver. That, in my opinion, is the right way to look at blockchain projects. We have been convinced of this from the start and have always been a bit bewildered by projects that purely talk about the technology.

What would you recommend others, who are planning to do an ICO?

De Vos:

Plan and prepare as well as you can. Expose yourself to as many people that have already done an ICO as possible and try to learn from them; what worked well for them, what didn’t? Who did they work with? A lot of ICOs worked last year, but market conditions change — make sure that you understand why you are executing the way you are, so you know what to change, should you have to adapt your strategy. Get a great team in place.

How do you attract token buyers for your project?

De Vos: We are focused on attracting token buyers and our strategies vary, depending on our target audience; our friends and family sale was done through our immediate network and a team of ‘ambassadors’, whilst our private sale is much more targeted at institutional crypto-funds and token buyers, who are best reached face-to-face. For our public sale, our online presence on the web and in social channels are our key focus.

Who is your favourite super or real-life hero?

De Vos: My family — they make all my day to day worries disappear and re-energise me every weekend!

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