For businesses which are completely in the traditional world, there is a prescribed process for thinking through projections on whether indeed, their business can profit more when conducting transactions on the blockchain. A business is deemed suitable if it has the properties that are right for a specific purpose, which in this case, is utilizing the blockchain as part of its business process, or being integrated into it.
A word of caution - the transition WON’T be easy. Not every business is going to make sense on the blockchain as every business has a specific purpose, intention, and direction. Businesses that do not fit (read as “do not gain any significant advantage”) on the blockchain can very well just run normally. There's nothing wrong in that.
It's just like the store on the corner of your street which is run by an old lady doesn't need a website and the internet because her clients are regional. People on the street buy chocolates and daily essentials from her store, and she doesn't need to market her goods “online”. If that is the case, trying to push or upset her operations doesn't make sense.
The same thing goes for the blockchain five years down the line. Maybe 20 to 30 percent of businesses will continue to happily run in the normal world. So we will have to evaluate if a business makes sense for the blockchain in the first place and if it does make sense, we can then think about its application and what it’s actually going to do.
Can blockchain extend or expand the business advantage?
We'll have to plan and think about how the blockchain is going to be integrated into the business, or which business processes are going to be replaced or enhanced with the help of the blockchain. The big question is, how will it extend or expand the business’s advantage?
Sometimes, a business is thinking of moving its reward program to the blockchain which is a very lame excuse to make a move. It’s like using a supercomputer to do simple math which a calculator can perform. If a business already has a normal reward system, going to the blockchain doesn't make it too different unless a beautiful token structure is brought in which rises in value or which benefits the user in some way or another over time. For instance, a dynamic cross-platform redemption opportunity.
Build credibility every step of the way
Once we analyze and figure out the best way to integrate the blockchain in the ideation phase, we need to document what makes sense as the direction/vision and enumerate action steps of how and when each succeeding phase is going to be deployed, the cost, and so on and so forth.
The major concern is about how to use that expansion as a reason for the business to get into the blockchain world and initiate an ICO that makes sense, and one that’s truly beneficial for both the business and the consumers/investors.
In terms of gaining the trust and marketing the ICO, this is formalized by using the existing business as a strong brand. Showcasing operations is a strong point of reference that the ICO founders are not going to run away as they have been a successful business and will continue to do so.
A regular clientele is used as a base premise, a good argument that a whole respectable company cannot disappear, further citing offline offices, business life, faces and personalities which know the business and from whom they cannot run away from.
All standard ICO kick-start and marketing processes apply, but the messaging strategy and communication quality are at a whole new level. Think about creative ways of making the ICO more appealing as with a video of the office, team, people, existing business, growth, and all assets that the business currently owns to show experience in running a business. That's credibility built every step of the way.
Don't just jump in and try to get some ratings as the end to bringing credibility, but build it in every step of the way. Here is my personal belief: It is our duty to onboard as many quality, promising, and “real deals” into the space to make it a strong, reliable, sustainable business opportunity for all. This is a means to an end, an end where this space is clean and scams are hardly seen.
The real work starts when the ICO ends
Once the ICO is over, the momentum has to be maintained because it's a strong existing business and cannot create a lull of silence. ICO founders cannot spoil their existing businesses for a future one.
Un tien vaut mieux que deux tu l'auras
Make sure that the token distribution takes place, and everything that must happen is done properly. Focusing just on the ICO and then running away after it doesn't make sense. From my perspective, the campaign and business should at least exist for three years.
Once the ICO is ended, that's when the real work starts. Start building the product, start marketing the product, both the blockchain product and the existing business. The real marketing to grow the top line begins now.
This is more like the simplified end to end process of bringing a non-blockchain business into the blockchain world.
The bottom line is, you need to be a successful business with real assets before you can really make it big in the blockchain world, as trying the blockchain when you don’t have the necessary skills and experience to run a business is utter folly.
Original Publication: https://www.cointelligence.com/content/business-on-blockchain