BitcoinX: Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today. So, tell us who you are and what your position is at OPPORTY?
OPPORTY: Hi! My name is Sergey Grybniak. I am a serial entrepreneur, digital marketing expert, and a blockchain enthusiast. Mostly, I am interested in Ethereum, but I try to keep track of Bitcoin as well. I own several businesses, including a digital marketing agency, Clever Solution Inc., and a service-focused, blockchain-powered marketplace, Opporty.com, among others.
I have been providing digital marketing and development services for over 10 years and have successfully completed more than 500 projects. I have experience in launching and promoting websites, applications, and big e-commerce platforms, here and overseas. I received the Bronze Stevie award as Executive of the Year in the category “Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations” in 2017.
BitcoinX: Tell us – what is OPPORTY? What is the main idea behind the project and why did you decide to start it?
OPPORTY: Opporty is a service marketplace on Ethereum blockchain. It binds blockchain technology to the on-demand business model, which allows small and medium businesses to efficiently compete with corporations. Utilizing a mix of strong smart contracts, decentralized Escrow, lead-generation, and knowledge-sharing, Opporty kills two birds with one stone:
- It solves the problem of marketing a small business in the digital space. As a rule, small businesses suffer from lack of exposure. They have loyal clients, but cannot bring in new ones through traditional marketing channels because these channels are pretty much non-existent. Digital marketing — SEO, PPC, SMM, content — is pretty complex and very expensive. Opporty assists businesses in sidestepping this problem through its knowledge-sharing system. Users can easily contribute their knowledge and expertise to the Opporty community, which allows for increased awareness, better exposure, and more leads. Moreover, users get awarded in Opporty cryptocurrency for contributing content.
- It solves the problem of standards. Standardized rules and regulations are integral to success of big corporate players. Standards allow them to increase productivity because they spend less time on decision-making and make fewer mistakes as their business processes are polished and up to snuff. Theoretically speaking, small businesses can establish their own rules and regulations. However, they often lack expertise and resources to ensure that all parties follow the established rules. Opporty helps small businesses by incorporating smart contracts and decentralized Escrow into its marketplace. By default, users cannot breach the terms of an agreement once they have signed a strong smart contract. The implementation is automated and regulated by oracles; and, should a conflict arise, it is quickly resolved by independent Escrow arbitrators.
In short, Opporty is a perfect platform for small and medium companies. It actually has the potential to make America’s middle class more competitive and help it stand its ground against corporations. Basically, this was my thinking when I started the marketplace in the first place and then I incorporated cutting-edge blockchain technology into it.
BitcoinX: Blockchain technology is expected to alter the landscape and/or create efficiencies in almost every industry. In what ways does your technology address these?
OPPORTY: I believe that blockchain has the potential to become the greatest technological advance since the Internet. It can disrupt not just industries, but entire economies, and even governments. I think that we should be ready. This is exactly why, when I learned about blockchain, I started thinking about utilizing its power at Opporty.com.
When I delved into Ethereum, I quickly learned about DAO, oracles, and smart contracts. Actually, I quickly found several startups that had already done something with all of those technologies in the real world. Obviously, I did not want to copy their ideas, so I spent many hours trying to come up with new ideas about how I and my team could implement blockchain.
Now, when Opporty is getting ready to launch the world’s first decentralized Escrow for small companies, I am adamant that my brainstorming sessions were not a bad idea.
Decentralized Escrow is fundamentally different from centralized. It is not controlled by any party and is regulated by a self-governed community of experts at the Opporty marketplace. This is possible due to smart contracts, oracles, and Opporty’s knowledge-sharing system.
As I mentioned earlier, users can contribute content to the Opporty community to increase awareness, build trust, and find new clients. Content is rated by Opporty users, which earns them rewards in cryptocurrency and higher rating among users in their corresponding industry. They demonstrate their expertise , which allows them to participate in establishing rules of doing business within the industry, and in drawing up of smart contracts. Eventually, they join Escrow to become Opporty Arbitrators.
In other words, Opporty does not hire Escrow experts. They are selected by their community. It is the community that establishes rules, votes on these rules, and solves arising conflicts on the blockchain. This adds a layer of trust and security to the platform, and allows small business owners to not only do business without recourse to the courts if conflicts arise, but also to become trusted experts to promote their brands. Decentralized Escrow creates fair field conditions for businesses, service providers, and customers, as the Opporty administration does not participate in conflict resolution in any way.
BitcoinX: When and why did you first decide to do an ICO?
OPPORTY: To tell the truth, I have been actively working on Opporty for over two years. Although the project is still in beta, we already have registered businesses and service providers who submit requests and post offers. So far, we have prioritized the legal industry.
As to the Initial Coin Offering, I decided to go through with it at the beginning of August, 2017. I realize that we are quite short on time, but I believe in my team. I have done my best to hire professional project managers, developers, QA engineers, and digital marketers to get this project going. Also, I have built up a team of advisors and experts who assist the Opporty team in the process.
As to the actual reasons why I made a resolution to launch the ICO… Well, I think that it is a huge step forward for the project in the sense that it is important to get support from the blockchain community. Opporty is a promising project, but now I need to make sure that others think so, too.
BitcoinX: Tell us about what preparation was required to get the project to this point?
OPPORTY: Technically speaking, Opporty is a service marketplace, and, at this stage, it features basic functionality of offers, requests, responses, and a knowledge-sharing system. We will start putting the first blockchain elements into play after the token generation event.
If we zoom in on the ICO, we have done a lot there, too. Our developers programmed smart contracts and created Opporty’s OPP token. The team of digital marketers did a nice job of creating content and setting up profiles on multiple listings and blockchain-focused forums. We have launched a Bounty campaign to raise interest to the Opporty ICO.
You can learn more about the Opporty ICO and all the updates at our Medium blog as well.
BitcoinX: What makes this project especially exciting for ICO participants? What makes them want to join?
OPPORTY: The Opporty ICO will be a huge event. I personally think that every ICO enthusiast should at least consider investing in OPP tokens — Opporty’s Ethereum-based cryptocurrency. This is so because:
- Opporty is a life-long project that already solves real-world problems. You can check out Opporty’s website right now to get a better feel of the platform. Businesses already use Opporty to find the best deals and order required services at flexible prices.
- Opporty helps small and medium businesses solve the problem of marketing and setting standards. Users promote not only themselves but also Opporty. The platform will inevitably attract more and more users, which increases the value of OPP tokens.
- The Opporty team is dedicated to protecting OPP tokens against volatility and devaluation. For one thing, the value of OPP tokens is protected by the cost of services provided at the Opporty marketplace. Then, we intend to initiate regular buybacks of cryptocurrency to reward users with fiat.
- Opporty offers bonuses to early investors. For instance, you will get a 20% bonus if you purchase tokens within the first 24 hours.
Moreover, I am sure that Opporty will expand pretty quickly. This is so because:
- Opporty provides valuable services that solve real-world problems.
- Opporty is developed, promoted and supported by a professional team with relevant experience.
- Opporty is guided through by a team of experienced advisors — experts in cryptocurrency, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analysis, etc.
- Opporty is a working project, with real users and real services. We talk the talk and walk the walk.
As Opporty grows, the amount of users relying on our OPP token will grow as well. Users will purchase services using OPP tokens; pay Escrow and service commissions. Again: tokens and their users are protected by regular buybacks.
BitcoinX: Where are you in the actual development phase of the project?
OPPORTY: The ICO is going to run from October 18 to November 8, so we are pretty much doing everything we can to polish the platform now. Of course, this primarily has to do with development tasks.
The basic functionality is already up and running. If you register right now, you can publish requests and offers, leave responses, and post content to our knowledge-sharing system. As to the ICO, the developers have created several smart contract templates to encode to the platform as soon as we add blockchain elements. OPP tokens are now in the testing stage, but they will be up soon.
BitcoinX: After a successful ICO, what is the timeline for coming to market?
OPPORTY: Opporty is already on the market. However, most of its blockchain-related updates will be added later. For instance, we plan to support token-based gamification beginning December 2017. Decentralized Escrow will be running beginning in June 2018, and so on.
Of course, we will not focus only on blockchain. For example, multi-language localization will be available in February 2018.
Altogether, we are going to run eight massive updates until November 2018. We plan to launch Phase II of the Opporty ICO then.
BitcoinX: Are you focused in any specific geographic areas?
OPPORTY: Opporty is a Delaware-based company, so it is quite natural that we begin our operations in the United States. After that, we plan to cover other English-speaking countries. China and the CIS will be our next targets.
Technically speaking, Opporty is not attached to one single market. It can be used in any country on Earth.
BitcoinX: For those who have read your whitepaper and other info, is there anything else you want to add to convince them to participate?
OPPORTY: The whitepaper pretty well describes what Opporty is, so I encourage everyone interested to read it. I would just like to sum it up a bit.
Opporty is a promising project at the pinnacle of technology. I strongly believe that smart contracts, decentralized Escrow, innovative lead-generation, and free marketing tools that Opporty features can revolutionize the way small and medium companies do business. No longer do they need to invest massive budgets into marketing or pay through the nose to adapt their businesses to complex technologies. Opporty is ready to do the heavy lifting for them, assisting users in creating self-governed communities, and establishing rules and regulations for these communities. We do not interfere, but foster a productive climate for doing business. I hope that this helps. Thank you for the interview.
