fInterview with BDO of DAO ENVELOP A. Kuzin
Menaskop: Hi Alexander. Should we start our conversation?
Alexander Kuzin: Yes, hello. Of course, let’s get started!
Menaskop: OK. Tell us briefly about yourself.
A.K .: Kuzin Alexander Viktorovich. I am 37 years old, and I started my career 19 years ago. I’m specialized in product and business development.
Menaskop: Sounds impressive. How did you end up in the crypto industry?
А.К.: From 2006 to 2012, I worked in e-commerce (the “CTO Group”). Back in the time, e-commerce was only starting to emerge in Russia — everything was on desktops and within the framework of the tourism industry. We were selling rooms through the electronic sales channels IDS (Internet Distribution Systems) or, in other words, ADS (Alternative Distribution Systems).
They were called “alternative” concerning the earlier GDS (Global Distribution Systems — the Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport market) — only a few hotels knew how to work with it. At that time, companies such as Booking, Hotelbeds were much smaller within the IDS segment. They were entering the CIS market, while Expedia, Agoda, and others were just starting from scratch on the Russian market. By 2010 we worked with more than 30 IDS / ADS and maintained more than 20 hotels in them. Automation was inevitable.
Our department proposed implementing a “channel manager” to automate sales channels for hotel room reservations, similar to how the German IT company Rate Tiger did. Significant investments were required to implement such a product, while there were three other directions (travel agents, corporate segment, and congresses) to take care of too. In 2011 we already taught hotels to work with those alternative electronic sales channels. As a result, it was decided to develop in congress direction only; this is what the CTO Group is doing today 100%, excluding all other directions.
At the end of 2011, I decided that the IT industry was exactly where I wanted to develop my expertise.
Later, in 2013, the Travelline company was created, which today is a monopoly on the Russian market of electronic sales channels for hotels.
The payment market combined e-comm and IT, and in 2012 looked quite promising; therefore, I continued developing within the IPSP (Internet Payment Service Provider) in “AcquiroPay.” At that time, the real value in the payments market was technological, functional capabilities, and the availability of ready-made integrations with charge providers (rent, fines, etc.) — here, I began to immerse myself in IT and partially fulfilled the role of a product manager. AcquiroPay’s clients consisted of online stores and various organizations, from mobile operators (MegaFon) to electronic wallets (Yandex) and concert halls (MMDM).
One of the solutions that allowed us to get a constant influx of customers was an integration +10 CMS modules (1C-Bitrix, InSales, UMI.CMS, ABCP, Sletat.ru, WordPress, etc.). Within The framework of AcquiroPay, while studying new payment technologies, I first touched upon Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Without being a technical specialist, I went to the company’s developers with a request to clarify the value of Bitcoin and the possibilities of integration into IPSP. A couple of days later, I received the answer, “this is something like a Torrent, but more like a pyramid.” I still remember this moment.
In 2015, a friend of mine invited me to the Agora project. This B2B e-commerce platform integrated 1C / SAP databases with tailored conditions within the user’s interface and the ability to connect +200 different modules. The projects were very different: from small B2B portals to large B2B marketplaces.
The most memorable project was the B2B marketplace project for VTB Group’s legal entities. The initial idea of this service was to connect VTB Group clients (~ 500 thousand legal entities in Russia and the CIS) so that they, being in a single ecosystem, could trust each other to buy and sell goods and services, with the prospect of exporting Russian manufacturers outside the country. At the same time, as part of the growth plan, I proposed expanding the framework of the project and unloading supplier catalogs to international B2C marketplaces like AliExpress, eBay, Amazon — the same type of “channel manager,” but as physical goods.
It took about a month to convey the value of the channel manager to the bank’s management, but as a result, this direction was chosen as a strategic one. AliExpress then began to develop in the Russian market — our integration proposal turned out to be very on time. Integration was implemented, and the first suppliers were unloaded; however, there were other technical problems. AliExpress developers in China could change the API and forget to notify their regional divisions about it. As a result, AliExpress’s data simply stopped updating, and we learned about it from support.
In the fall of 2016, we discussed creating a national catalog of goods with REC, based on Agora, and the idea was born to combine the efforts of VTB and REC. After half a year, they entered into a partnership agreement. At the same time, I met guys fond of mining, and they explained to me the value of blockchain technology. Ever since then, I could not think of anything other than distributed ledgers — this is how the concept of a “channel manager” for blockchains or EVEN cross-chain networks was born.
In six months, we crystallized the concept, assembled a team, attracted angel investments, and moved on to development. We took the DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) technology as a basis focusing on network scaling.
At the same time, the team faced many complex cryptographic and mathematical tasks — to make a lightweight, decentralized and attack-resistant system. The R&D share of the project was ~ 80%, which had high risks — we accepted them and began to work.
In parallel, we managed to carry out CasDev, develop marketing, participate in conferences, and search product-market fit. In the process of technical implementation, the development approach was changed several times. By the summer of 2019, we had launched a test network in which several shortcomings were identified. Given the project’s duration at that time, the team had to figure out how to move on.
There were several options: to sacrifice centralization and make a second IOTA; switch to the blockchain, but then we weren’t much different from Cosmos, which was ahead of us in development and the development of the community; implement/find a new technology that has not yet been implemented on the market. In the summer of 2019, the IPFS protocol had existed for several years. However, the Filecoin team still needed a year before the main network was launched. It was decided to transfer the EVEN network to IPFS, sacrificing speed but acquiring new properties like decentralized content storage.
At the end of 2019, we launched a network based on a redesigned IPFS protocol, a decentralized DropBox. For the next three months, we held numerous meetings with the representatives of the financial sector in Russia. The result turned out to be quite conservative because the solution gave value to the B2B segment but at the same time required organizations to change several internal processes, for which they were not equipped at that moment. Then a lockdown came, which significantly reduced the size and the number of investments. The team ought to choose between either completely stopping the project or develop the ordered custom projects. Part of the team preferred to move into the development of custom software code. Still, I wanted to implement what I had started, and I continued to explore the capabilities/technologies of Web3.0 and interact with already well-known representatives of the market.
In the fall of 2020, we created a team where each participant came with their own experience (DAO, analytics, liquidity, development of smart contracts). I was the only one who had knowledge of the cross-chain / channel manager and “portfolio transactions”. Yet, this time I was working wih the technology of “collateralized NFT”. We were united by a goal to create a product that gives value to the Web3.0 market.
Menaskop: That’s one great and detailed story. Could you please outline when and what you learned? What are the most critical lessons from the market that you have learned?
A.K .: 2017–2020, they taught me that:
- I need to move quickly: the development cycle of the Web3.0 market is faster than Web2.0;
- It is not enough to calculate the market movement by 2–3 steps — you need to look at 4–6 steps forward;
- You need to deliver the product in parts on an ongoing basis;
- The strategy needs to be changed immediately if there is even a slight premise of slowing down;
- The hypothesis needs to be checked constantly before the product is developed;
- The community needs to be involved in product development as much as possible;
- The whole team must be passionate about the idea and focused on the result;
We are constantly expanding the list and testing hypotheses, identifying new cases, moving in small but valuable steps for the project (we delivered the MVP and the Alpha of the protocol). In September, we will launch the first implementation and then a beta. We try to involve the community in the process as much as possible, and it helps. Some representatives even work within the team full time.
Menaskop: Let me be more specific then. How did you end up with ENVELOP, and why did you become the CBDO?
A.K.: All team members were luckily within the same information field; each of us had enough resources to crystallize the project and finish an MVP by spring. We were also lucky that all team members who had some overlap in expertise (BD, product, marketing) brought their differences to a minimum. All decisions were made with a high level of trust in the team member whose area of expertise was involved.
About five years ago, when I touched upon the ideology of Web3.0, I finally defined for myself what a professional hobby means. You simply don’t dare to call it a job. This is a perfect junction of Business Development + Product competencies exclusively in the area of Web3.0. I have always liked to establish relationships with partners, find product values to move forward with, and develop partnerships exclusively in the Win-Win format.
Personally, there was no question in terms of participation in the project. The role of BDO was defined from the start.
Menaskop: Got it, thank you. Then, if you let me, I would like to finish off with the last details, such as asking you to outline the main tasks of yours?
А.К .: I distinguish three main tasks within the area of Business Development:
- To ensure product development even before the launch of Beta; Before the launch of Alpha in the mainet, we had a pipeline of 10+ confirmed projects in several segments with different outcome scenarios. These projects were marketplaces, launchpads, minting platforms, games, metauniverses, and even a project with an ecosystem of games built entirely on ENVELOP technology protocol.
- To meet the market’s needs when many players simultaneously understand that ENVELOP can provide an advantage through NFT and want to implement the protocol. To do this, we are actively working on cases with partners, crystallizing scenarios. Our potential partners find a significant part of that after immersion in the mechanisms and capabilities of the protocol.
- To identify and link hypothetical market needs with the actual or potential capabilities of the protocol to generate the maximum number of hypotheses to test them.
Until the end of this year, we will implement new scenarios and test hypotheses in terms of Oracle and Index, develop the protocol horizontally, and implement the possibility of placing ERC-1155 and other NFTs inside the “drive.”
Menaskop: What do you expect from the project and the market in general?
A.K .: I expect “fit to the market.” Meanwhile, I see many positive indicators confirming our hypotheses. Rarible gave us a grant at the hackathon. Binance is making the NFT protocol. 1inch also indicated an interest in moving into liquidity after our grant application.
Ethereum is considering the implementation of NFT for tokenization of payment channels / roll-ups as one of the architectural solutions for network scaling — these are the key indicators of the demand for the product in the future.
Menaskop: What is your life credo?
A.K .: Be sincere and open.
