For the first edition of "Meet the Experts" we have decided to bring you a special story, we have decided to interview a company that started with Semoto as a client and it's now listed as one of our top providers.
Today we are sitting down with Greg Bock and Abe Polishchuk Founders of Fidesium.
Could you tell me a little bit about yourselves and your team?
Hello, I am Bock, originally from Detroit, moved to the UK 12 years ago with my first startup BookingBug later re-branded JRNI. We were a B2C booking and reservation system that later pivoted to a B2B enterprise solution servicing large scale retail, stores, banks and gyms. I have over 20 years of experience in venture-backed SaaS tech startups going after hard-to-reach SMEs and vertices. Had a successful exit a few years ago and decided I should do it again.
Hello, I am Abe, originally from DC, and moved to the UK 7 years ago with my English wife. I’ve been in tech for coming up on 15 years, and have been in Insurtechs for 6. I joined Flock - an insurtech doing real-time risk pricing and insurance quote and bind for drones, as the first nonfounding hire, and helped take them from whiteboard to product launch, growing their team, before eventually leaving them at Series A
We always like to start our interviews with this question, what got you in the Blockchain/Web3 rabbit hole in the first place?
[Bock] - I got into blockchain around 2018, and have a few friends who were very heavy into the space and their excitement and optimism was very infectious. The more I read about blockchain and what it could do, specifically the problems it could solve around trustless transactions I was hooked.
[Abe] - I’ve been in and out of the space since 2012 - when I started mining Bitcoins. I fell in love with the culture and love what the space is looking to achieve for the financial democratization of society. I started playing in DeFi land in earnest during the 2021 bull run and fell in love with the tech as well.
I'm really curious, what inspired you to start this company?
[Bock] both Abe and I have lost sums of money to various scams and frauds over the years, 4 and 5 figure sums respectively. We believe in the space and think the main hurdles to mass adoption are UI/UX and trust/safety. Fidesium was really born out of wanting to protect people's assets and thereby grow the ecosystem as a whole.
Was there a specific moment or event that made you say, "We have to do this"?
[Abe] Attempting to DYOR on assets during the bullrun I continually ran up against the thought of “this should not be this difficult”. I am a competent Software Engineer with 15 years experience, and if I’m finding it this difficult, what hope does my mother have?
So, what problem are you trying to solve, and why is it important?
$5.9 lost to frauds and scams a year and growing at 250% year on year. Not only is this a loss to the individuals personal assets, but this also represents a huge loss to the ecosystem as a whole in terms of money not making into real and needed projects in the space.
Could you walk me through your solution in layman's terms?
Our solution is 2 fold, first we simply help protect users assets from malicious or malformed contracts during any transaction. Longer term we would like to prevent loss incidents from a wider range of causes and even insure against them.
How are you different from what's already out there?
So we are trying to offer a larger more holistic level of protection. There are other players in the individual spaces we cover but no one who can help you navigate all the failure points with a consistent interface.
The relationship with Semoto
Starting a business is a rollercoaster! Have you faced any roadblocks or challenges?
Nothing too unusual on this front. Many know problems around legal and regulation, how to find the right level of support. These issues are large but not insurmountable, if you find the right expert to help you. The zero to one problem all startups face and the never ending quest for product market fit.
How do you generally find the right Service Providers?
In our early days, when we were just breaking into the blockchain space, we needed legal assistance and relied heavily on word of mouth from friends to find a lawyer. The one we ended up hiring was well-reviewed but came from a traditional legal background with no prior experience in blockchain technology. In hindsight, it would have been extremely beneficial to have compared multiple options and read feedback from various clients who had similar needs to ours. While our lawyer was competent in general legal matters, the intricacies of blockchain law were a steep learning curve for them, and that certainly impacted us. We realised the importance of domain-specific expertise too late. Had we looked into more comprehensive reviews or gotten a range of opinions, we might have found a more suitable match for our specific requirements.,
"it would have been extremely helpful to know about Semoto a year ago.”
How has Semoto helped you in your journey?
We initially crossed paths with the Semoto team at an industry event, and right from the get-go, the connection felt synergistic. Not only for the other service providers Semoto already had on platform but the increased reach to our target customers Semoto was able to provide.
When we reached out for assistance in looking for …..,
you went above and beyond our expectations. You not only helped us navigate through the labyrinth of selecting appropriate service providers, but you also took the time to analyse alongside us, identifying the options that were genuinely the best fit for our specific needs. Your in-depth assistance and guidelines were invaluable, demystifying the complexities we were facing. Perhaps what we appreciated the most was how you expedited the negotiation process. Startups like ours can't afford to lose time in lengthy negotiations, and your expertise significantly accelerated this critical phase for us. Honestly, your support has been a game-changer in our startup journey."
From Client to Provider?
"We've been on both sides of the table with you, starting off as a client and now becoming one of the early adopters of your innovative software platform. The journey has been incredibly fulfilling. We're beyond excited to make this transition because we believe in what you're doing. Your platform addresses the pain points we had been wrestling with, and now we get to integrate our services into this broader ecosystem you've built. It's a win-win for us: we get to benefit from your state-of-the-art solutions while also offering our services to an audience that appreciates quality and innovation. For a startup like ours, this is a golden opportunity to scale and evolve, and we couldn't be more thrilled to embark on this new chapter in our partnership with you."
Could you describe your ideal customer?
Anyone who trades or invests in crypto/NFTs. We really are on a mission to help everyone protect their assets and help the ecosystem mature on the whole.
How do you see the future of this space?
The next bull run will see another wave of adoption this time with more advanced tooling, better UI/UX and everything else to support it. Large players getting into the space will increase that even more and we should finally start seeing more projects achieve real decentralization.
,
Where do you see the company in, let's say, 5 years?
Being the #1 provider of transaction insurance in the space available on every major platform where people transact.
And what are you doing to support the all ecosystem?
Providing our security and research tool for free blocking the most prevalent of scams and frauds for all.
Is there anything that you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
That we should have launched a year earlier, JK. That the ecosystem is your connection to the market and the market decides, it is what makes Semoto so useful for smaller companies in the web3 space.
How can people get involved or support your mission?
Like any new project any feedback on what people would like to see in our tool would be massively appreciated.
Thanks a lot for sitting down with us today and for your time.
get in touch with Greg and Abraham at https://www.fidesium.xyz/
The Semoto team
Comentarios