IntroductionBazista is an exchange platform for B2C and C2C that uses new technologies of settlement of transactions between users.
It enables users to easily exchange necessary goods and services for cryptocurrency by interacting with other platform users.
Today I interviewed Vakhtang Abuladze, the CEO of Bazista. This is the third interview in my series and I am doing this to help my readers learn more about selected ICO’s.
In this interview you will learn more about Vakhtang Abuladze and the cryptocurrency project Bazista.
1. What is your position in Bazista and what are your tasks?My name is Vakhtang and I am CEO of Bazista. I am in charge of general management and financial planning in the company.
During our preparations for the ICO I was developing the financial model and business plan for the first 3 years.
I have also composed the Terms & Conditions and key documents for our investors.
Besides, I was presenting Bazista on various industry events and negotiated with potential strategic partners and large investors.
2. How did you get the idea of Bazista?The moment when I really got into the whole blockchain and crypto thing was in early spring of 2017.
Realizing that most cryptocurrencies were supported by speculative operations me and the rest of the team have started thinking about an infrastructural solution, which would bring real value for decentralized money.
The concept of Bazista - a new type of e-commerce platform came soon after that.
We decided to create a solution that is equally intuitive and efficient to use versus solutions that were available on the market at the moment.
Idea of an online marketplace came way before Bazista with part of the team had been involved in the development and maintenance of a small local online marketplace in Russia.
This accumulated experienced has enabled us to develop the beta version of the platform and design the financial model and consumer launch strategy in less than 12 month.
Integration of cryptocurrencies has always seemed to be extremely relevant for the e-commerce, especially when there are obvious barriers that can be easily overcome thanks to decentralized money.
I think we are hitting the spot with Bazista, as other e-com players now start considering integration of cryptocurrencies as well.
3. What other positions have you had before you got this job?So, I was born in Russia in 1991. I has a degree in Accounting, analysis and audit of the Tver State University (Russia).
In 2013 I moved to Georgia and entered to ESM Business School of Free University of Tbilisi.
In 2015 I Obtained a master’s degree (MBA) in Operation Management. During the studies, I worked at the financial Department in one of the largest retail chain of Georgia - Nugeshi.
From September 2015, until 2017 I worked as an Audit consultant in PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) - Big Four Moscow office.
4. Bazista has some ambitious plans. Where do you see Bazista in year 2020?Our priority market for consumer launch and further expansion during the first years is India.
India is an amazing market, it presents great ecommerce potential soon destined to become the 2nd largest online market in the world.
But at the same time India has the highest number of unbanked people in the world accounting for about 20% of the India itself.
These are hundreds of millions Indian citizens and thousands of small and micro businesses, who can’t actually get online with and start trading without access to traditional banking services.
Actually, this problem creates additional potential for the growing penetration of cryptocurrencies, as people are searching for reliable financial alternatives.
According to Nielsen registrated number of cryptocurrency wallets in India is around 400 000 and is increasing by 30 000 each month.
This means that Bazista is looking to utilize India’s growth potential and expand it’s business in line with the market dynamics.
According to our own research and financial modeling, we will reach our first profitable year by 2020 and will reach the EBITDA parameter of 1,045 million US dollars, recruiting over 361 000 users to the platform.
We have ambitious plan to quickly conger our share of Indian market at it’s early days and India is fastest growing e-commerce market in world, soon to take 2nd place after China.
But at the same time India has over 20% of world’s unbanked population with most of them being cut off from the global e-commerce trading.
However with the use of decentralized money Bazista will be able to get millions of India’s unbanked businesses online, allowing them to start trading for crypto.
After 2020 we are planning to start expansion to the neighboring markets including Indonesia, Malaysia and even Philippines.
5. How will your knowledge and experience make an impact on this project?As I have mentioned before, I have received financial education which was added by practical experiece of working in a large retail company first and then moving into a big fore company – PwC.
I brought a world of financial and strategic planning to Bazista. Working with large amount of data and learning various methods of financial research and audition I have managed to develop a solid investor proposal, which with distributed to our private investors and constantly used from since then at the investors’ meeting, making it easy and quick to provide a first impression about Bazista.
6. The competition in the blockchain market is getting bigger every day. How will you separate yourself from the rest?2017 became the year of blockchain and ICO. The hype got so big that you could here people talking about making money on cryptocurrencies anywhere in the world, would it be a discussion in a bar, announcement on federal TV or a dialog with your UBER driver. Even oldest generations were ever that something really big was going on.
Those who come to crypto game often turn to ICO investments and junior coins expecting great profits in a relatively short time period.
From my point of view this is the very reason of growing interest towards infrastructural blockchain projects, which are looking to provide simple and handy solutions for everyday life just made better with blockchain. Bazista is an infrastructural project – both in terms of integrating other blockchain projects and in terms of providing channels for the usage of cryptocurrencies in the real economy, contributing to the real value of decentralized money.
7. What do you think is Bazista’s biggest advantages?Below you will find our key advantages:
The maximum operational commission will be 4%, which is at least two times lower than competitors
Transactions on Blockchain technology are significantly safer than simple electronic or bank transactions.
Bazista is the first blockchain empowered company to allow purchasing of goods and services
Cryptocurrency gives global e-commerce access to more than 2,5 billion unbanked people and millions of businesses around the world.
Integration of cryptocurrencies will also reduce expenses of traditional banking service and conversion fees for international payments. Buyers will save an average of 3-5% when trading overseas.
Bazista ambassadors – up to 10 000 well trained high skill professionals will work in the fields selecting the best offline businesses, checking their assortment and quality of goods and finally connecting them online through Bazista.
8. What are Bazista’s main challenges right now?We think that the biggest challenge may come from e-com giants like Amazon, Ebay or Alibaba, who are definitely considering integration of cryptocurrencies as payment instrument, which will make them direct competitors for Bazista. However, giving the fact that current law base around cryptocurrency is far from being finalized and differs from country to country, we understand that our key advantage will be flexibility and while the industry leaders are only looking into Bitcoin opportunities, we will integrate at least 5 different currencies during the first operational year.
9. Something else you want to add?We see Bazista as being both commerce and humanitarian project. Decentralized money can become a real solution for over 2 billion unbanked people around the world, but giving the fact that crypto industry itself is at its early stages of development, we should start thinking about infrastructural solutions like banks or marketplaces today! By utilizing the power of blockchain we will provide unlimited access to e-commerce for any person in the world!
Enjoy Bazista!
Thanks to Vakhtang Abuladze for this great interview.If you liked this post, I would appreciate if you gave me Merit 
Earlier posted on my Medium blog:
https://medium.com/@Mikeey89/bazista-ico-interview-with-vakhtang-abuladze-the-ceo-of-bazista-7dbab235fa5b
