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Meet the Boss – Exclusive Interview with ICO Battle CEO Radu Balas

radu balas interview

This month we had the chance to sit down with the well-known author and publisher, Radu Balas and take a slice of his time to answer some specific questions we have about his new venture ICO Marketing project. So Radu, thanks for joining us today:

Firstly, can you tell me a little about how ICO Battle was initially conceived and taken through to implementation?

Well, my team and I had been watching blockchain and the cryptosphere grow & develop for a while. When we realized the potential that the technology has to innovate, up-end traditional industry-wide dogmas and revolutionize sectors, we decided it was time to get passionate and become involved.

I guess it took believing in it [blockchain] ourselves first before we became so impassioned and saw a niche opening up in front of us.
We already had clear, strategic marketing systems in-place and our key focus has always been directly connecting businesses and clients, in turn driving traffic and seeing increased revenues for them.

Combined with experience building businesses from the ground up, it made sense to move into ICO [Initial Coin Offering] marketing, drawing on our existing model of valuable key insights and clarity of approach while maximizing and exploiting automation tools.

And how does ICO Battle stand out from other ICO digital marketing platforms?

What sets us apart, I believe, is that we use our core values to drive everything we do. Our site states our aims clearly:

We like to keep things positive and optimistic over here at ICO Battle.
That translates into surrounding ourselves with individuals, companies and projects that we see real potential and promise in.

This goes for ICOs and everything else. It’s arguably even more relevant in the cryptospace since so many people outside this sphere are still skeptical and see only the negatives through phony ‘pump & dump’ scams that have taken investors’ capital in the past.

It’s up to us and other like-minded groups to keep things honest, open and transparent to realize the true innovative potential of blockchain technology and allow the real innovators gain the attention they need to see their project from inception all the way through to delivery.

To put this in a bit more of a perspective for you: when we work with ICOs, we must see the beta version and the MVP [minimum viable product].
Then, we negotiate to accept partial payment in their token sale (sometimes up to 30 – 40%).
We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t believe in these people’s ideas and their capacity to succeed. If we just accepted their money and marketed them anyway, it would just be another zero-sum transaction.
Our way it’s a win-win and we are creating something better by collaborating.

ico marketing

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency are still relatively ‘new’ industries, but they’re here to stay. States and Regulators are starting to catch on and they’re trying to get their hands around the Cryptosphere through regulation and legislation. Does this concern you?

Regulations and legislation are essential for security and clarity, but it’s those people behind the new laws I’m more concerned about.

A lot of people still don’t understand the blockchain concept and the benefits it offers. Firstly, it’s hard to create and implement rules for something poorly understood. And secondly, since time immemorial people have treated new unknown things with skepticism and hostility.

The future lies in decentralized exchanges, distributed ledgers and smart contracts, without the need for pointless middlemen and industry-stifling layers of bureaucracy dividing people and giving people more power and control over their direct interactions with one another.

Great! So, take me through a typical day at ICO Battle.

A typical day… well, we love coffee! Especially cappuccinos, and we drink copious amounts of them. We favor the stronger Italian Arabica-Robusta blends and drink our ‘cinos ‘skinny’ with fresh unhomogenized whole milk, or the milk alternatives for the eco-nuts at the office.
And that’s just the start of the day. We plan our day around breakfast and then go to our tasks. We dedicate a lot of time to client contact which we mostly do over the phone and via video calls to review content and design work.
We like to keep people in the loop with what we are doing and love continual feedback. It helps collaboration in our view.
The offer for partners to come and visit Transylvania is always open and team members (myself included) do make regular trips abroad as well.

Transylvania! Sounds like an interesting place. What exciting new developments are you currently working on and when can we see them?

ico battle

Right now, we are currently expanding our content to include some exciting features available soon, including:

  • News Feed with the latest cutting-edge crypto content straight from our dedicated team of writers
  • In-depth ICO reviews of the most interesting and innovative startups that we believe deserve attention
  • And select interviews with leading CEOs showing industry insights and fresh approaches
  • A private crypto consortium, with 10 members where we leverage each other’s experience

You can see it here – https://icobattle.com/go

Sounds like you are already well on your way! Looking ahead, where do you see ICO Battle heading: say by 2020, where do you envision you and your team being?

ICO Battle in 2020? It’s tough to see so far ahead in this rapidly expanding and ever-evolving environment. In two years I hope I we are doing what we are doing today but maybe the market cap will have reached a new all-time high. I believe that as soon as it hits 3-5 trillion we can talk about an early stage of mass adoption, one step closer for the all currency to become digital.
This is only the beginning…
I’m confident that we will be doing things better, more efficiently and extending our reach even more than we are now.

Finally, why “ICO Battle”?

What we really do is help ICOs deal with the problems they encounter and believe me there are many. If you think a start-up has challenges, ICOs are like startups on steroids: from regulations to working with new technologies to confronting advertising bans and closed accounts, scammers and much more.

If you mean why we settled on this name, well we wanted something punchy and with a bit of weight behind, it especially in this environment. ICOs are still relatively new in the wider world and we really feel that we are fighting the corner of the startups we are supporting: helping them to get their name out there and raise the funds they need to get their innovation off the ground so to speak.

Right now, we are a crypto-digital marketing agency with a vast and rapidly growing portfolio of over 200 million crypto enthusiasts, so if you want your ICO to succeed better give us an email.

[email protected]
www.icobattle.com
https://linkedin.com/in/radubalas