11A – Idea Napkin No. 1

1) You. 

I am a senior in information systems in Singapore management university. I have a diploma in business informatics and that puts me at 7 years of IT education, knowledge and numerous projects. I have android and mobile cross-platform experiences as well as web and integrated application experiences under my belt. I have worked at a cryptocurrency exchange and learnt about different projects and blockchain. My experiences , passion and business concept have all aligned for me to push for this particular startup idea , particularly my passion and the drive behind my idea is very strong.

2) What are you offering to customers? 

I am providing a web and mobile application for businesses to accept alternative payments in the form of cryptocurrency. It is a payment service but also includes other add-on and premium services for businesses like creating visualizations of transactions to give businesses more insight. The service offers much better rates than credit card / debit card or other payment services. 

With cryptocurrency ,this means users can travel all around the world and pay with one currency without having to worry of running out of physical cash , having to convert currency at bad rates or having to pay ridiculous fees to banks for making overseas purchases.

3) Who are you offering it to? 

It will be initially offered to retailers that see high transaction amounts at their stores like furniture stores and electronic stores as well as retailers with high amounts of transactions. This is because they will be able to notice a significant amount of savings with the system.
However, the payment system relies on a network of merchants to make it more valuable as that means more users will adopt it. Therefore, our system even will allow street side vendors to adopt our system with no to little investment ( they would need a mobile device).

Although a great benefit goes to tourist end-users, we have to start locally to promote the use of the payment system and then when people travel , they will also start to notice the convenience of having our system. Therefore adoption of merchants around the world has to take place first before we can promote it as tourist-friendly, hence the focus on localization for the countries we wish to penetrate.

4) Why do they care? 

Businesses actually will start to realized great amounts of savings due to our business model. 

We intend to introduce a model where businesses can give back to end-users to promote the use of our system and hence an incentive for their customers to use our system. That means not only do businesses make more profit , but consumers save as well.

Such disruption in the financial/ payment system industry has not been done ever since credit cards and debit cards. The mobile payments trend has only been gradually rising but the acceleration of its adoption is primed in the recent years and it will replace credit cards soon with such innovations. 

5) What are your core competencies? 

I have a branding as a 7 year scholar from the Singapore's technology ministry IMDA and Singapore is reknowned for its financial services. I also have made connections within the blockchain industry and with the cryptocurrency community in Singapore. Also , I have avision and a strategy to make my idea stand out from others , enhanced by my curiosity to learn different skill sets/knowledge like consumer behavior , marketing and even a little bit of law which gives me the ability to have a big picture mindset to run such a company.

Such a payment system and model could be replicated but I believe building a network and relationships with merchants is key to becoming adopted. Take for example why facebook dominated myspace, they were both social media platforms and similar but one managed to build a stronger network by being more innovative.

I believe my passion , experiences and the opportunities presented to me all fall into place perfectly for me to finally pursue my dream of creating a startup. However , I feel consumers need to be more aware they merchants are getting charged by the card companies and that can affect the pricing of products.