“We’re simply digitizing the world on blockchain” – Head of OTON

The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic and the spread of digitization have shown that having the ability to work from any place at any time has not only become popular but necessary. OTON provides this ability.

The majority of professions involve working with people. Salespeople need customers. Service providers seek clients. Bloggers live off their followers. Creative people communicate with their viewers, listeners, and readers. But it’s not enough to obtain an audience, it’s necessary to know how to earn a profit from it. OTON makes this possible.

If you are an entrepreneur, a manufacturer, or a service provider, you need a webpage that is able to process payments, provide reports, and analyze business processes. Ideally, this portal should be your advertising channel, your accounting team, and your legal counsel, all in one. OTON takes on the task of providing these functions for your webpage.

OTON is all that has been mentioned above – and much much more. OTON is a system for monetizing an audience based on blockchain and an identity platform.

We’d like to call your attention to an interview with the head and mastermind of the project, Anatoli Ille.

— Anatoli, could you please elaborate on what the OTON project means to you personally? How much of your life does it occupy?

— Currently, the project takes up most of my time, probably 90%. The rest I devote to my family. I wake up thinking about it, I live with it, and I go to sleep thinking about it. However, I never feel like I’m at work. I’m just in a kind of magical state, where I really enjoy all these processes. I like these solutions, these difficulties, these joys. I am inspired when I see people grasp and understand what we are doing. I enjoy their feedback and suggestions for improvement…

I feel that I am exactly where I should be. This is the first time in my life when I’ve had this feeling of certainty.

I’ve been working on OTON for four and a half years, and I’m still like a little kid who can’t stop playing before going to bed. I understand I need to get some sleep, but I’m too excited, so I try to finish my work. Same thing in the morning. I wake up thinking: “You can still do this, you can still do that.” That’s the state I’m in.

— Thank you for your answer. The next question: what can OTON offer people? 

— This project is suitable for nearly all people and organizations. The whole point is that we help people digitize their audience and, moreover, make it their own audience.

Currently, people are digitized in social networks, on some portals, and with companies they work with under partner programs. But the fact is that none of this belongs to them. They have access as long as they are granted it. As soon as access is closed or the account is blocked, the audience is lost and leaves.

We believe we can give people the ability to securely store and maintain their social connections. Moreover, they are not just preserved, but you also have access to analytics (they see gender, location, purchasing power, preferences – we have many different kinds of metrics there). We not only help people digitize and analyze their audience, but also offer them a range of interesting products, be they creative, educational, or physical. These can be services or subscriptions. We already offer more than 600 different products. And this is just the beginning, we have not gone public yet.

In addition, we have electronic and software products, financial markets, and exchange points. The platform is well suited for the gaming industry, especially for those who want attract users in modern ways. This key thing about this method is that the money is paid after sales have been made, and not in order to make them. You can see the difference, right?

Usually, when you conduct a promotional campaign, you first need to pay for advertising, and then convert the additional traffic into customers. In our system, the entrepreneur pays only when their product or service has already been sold. That’s the point. This is really very cool and convenient.

— Does it usually work differently?

— Sure. Let’s say you and I have produced some kind of product, let’s say glasses. And in order to get people to start buying them, we need to promote them. We spend, let’s say, €100,000 on advertising…

… 

— But you don’t know if it will work!

— That’s right. And how does our model work? Let’s say I buy the glasses, I like them, and one of my neighbors says: “Wow, cool, where did you get them?” I give my neighbor a link, he pays, and only after that does the manufacturer pay for advertising. So, the intermediary receives payment after the manufacturer has received money for the product. That’s our principle. We provide protection for young entrepreneurs.

Because it’s a very big problem when young entrepreneurs invest in production, do everything possible to make a good product, and then go to an advertising agency, where their money is often just pocketed. As a result, the world will never find out about their product. This often happens.

With us, entrepreneurs can test how much demand there is for their products. They register on the trading platform, display their goods, conduct a couple of webinars, attract interest by pointing out some unique selling points, set up a sales funnel, and look at whether people buy or not. Everything’s much easier.

When entrepreneurs go to Amazon, they are on their own there. But with our system, there are actually people and producers and middlemen communicating with each other. Why does this happen? Because we are all interested in each other. We all complement each other.

And by complementing each other, we reach profitability.

What do I mean by ‘complement’? A customer needs to find the right product but doesn’t know what to look for. To help, we have an intermediary who understands the goods and answers the customer’s questions. The intermediary helps the product’s manufacturer close the deal, after which the manufacturer pays a fee for this. The customer is satisfied, as he got what he needed. The product is of high-quality and an excellent fit – we monitor this. And the manufacturer is happy, as they don’t have to deal with the operational matters regarding the sale and can concentrate on what they do best – producing and providing quality goods.

So, our system is convenient and beneficial for all.

— In other words, it’s not so much about digitalizing the audience as about monetizing it. Am I correct?

— The first task is to digitize, and the second is to monetize. We tackle both aspects. Here is an example of digitization – a real-life case.

I talk with a blogger. She’s well-versed in her area, understands her business, knows how to do it all. She asks: “Do I tell my girls, ‘Let me digitize you, go register at this link’? That’s not going to work!” I say, “Of course not, that would be a very crude approach. Look at how it’s done.” And I explain that we already have more than 600 different products, and the list grows by 10, 20, 30 products every week. Among these 600 products, she finds ones that are suitable for her target audience. For example, let’s say she’s a psychologist who works with people whose problems are usually solved by money and personal growth and development. An info product might be well suited in this case. 

— What is an info product?

— This would be products like ОneDollarBaby, a financial chatbot on Telegram that provides information about money and is able to test for acquired knowledge.

Here’s what I’d advise the blogger: “You get your audience together, stir up some interest, then invite in some financial expert… you can invite me. I will tell you what I do, what markets I move in, what I believe in… and, at the end, I’ll note that I personally use the OneDollarBaby platform.

 The blogger will confirm that she also uses it and really likes it. After that, I’ll suggest that, since there are a lot of people watching us there today, let’s make it so that everyone who installs it today or tomorrow will get three lessons for free.

As a result, the audience will click on the link and end up at the Telegram bot. And as soon as the user clicks the ‘start’ button, the blockchain creates a ledger entry based on the user’s account. That’s how we digitize.

What does this ultimately lead to? In fact, the blogger has not just digitized her audience but also secretly activated it so that it brings in new people. But now she sees reports on this new audience not in Instagram, but in her personal OTON account.

— How did the blogger activate her audience?

— She spurred her audience to action.

For example, she prepares them and then says: “And now you can tell your close friends about it and get something in return.” So, without the blogger, we’ve turned interested people into buyers.

What’s the point? Some of her audience did not go to the financial bot because they’re not interested in finance. But the blogger hosts another webinar where a beauty expert shares tips on skincare. She shares a new link, and now the portion of her audience that has not yet been digitized is digitized through the market. They want to buy something in the market, but to buy, they need to register, open an account. This is how we create the second wave and help digitize it.

Later, we offer a third product. We use different areas. For example, some people are interested in investment products. At the end of June, we plan to launch farms on the PancakeSwap exchange. We’ll explain what cryptocurrency is, how interesting it is, what decentralized markets are, and explain how any person with $50 can enter a decentralized market. 

“Want to try it?” They agree, and the Telegram bot shares a ‘click here’ link. You take your bank card, upload it on that exchange, exchange money for tokens, and launch a contract.

— Well, you’ve explained very clearly how digitization and monetization works. Do I understand correctly that you can conduct business inside OTON and that there’s an interface for this, a TASQ software shell. How does that work?

TASQ… There are several functions there. Function number one is to attract an audience, function number two is to convert that audience into clients, and function number three is a support function to convert clients to partners and to educate partners. These are TASQ’s main functions. Plus, there is a tool for analyzing the audience. The audience is divided into leads, contacts, and partners.

— Leads are like warm contacts? 

Yes. For example, let’s go back to our example with the blogger. She shared a link to the bot. Some people followed it and clicked the ‘start’ button but didn’t buy anything. They are leads. And you need to convert leads.

We have all the tracking stages to see what stage a person is at now. We also have scripts showing how to call them and close the deal. There’s training in TASQ as well. If someone wants to change their profession by learning ‘how to properly work with leads and close deals,’ they can do that within the system

— That is, as a middleman or a facilitator

Yes. A lot of people are looking for new professions now, and this is a very modern one. No matter where you live on the planet, you just need the internet or at least a phone. That’s all. From this moment on, you can run your own business. No matter who you are – a man, a woman, old, young, sick, healthy. It doesn’t matter at all if you have the time, and you have something to share with a person who’s left a request.

— How would you characterize info products? They’re learning platforms, aren’t they?

Yes, among other things. We have faced a specific challenge. We have been observing multi-level marketing for many years. So, what are the two key sore points? Well, of course, there are a lot of them… apart from the fact that it lacks reliability and transparency, which we have solved with blockchain… there are still two key ones.

— And are these problems solvable?

— Yes, they’re solvable.

What are these sore points exactly? The first is that people don’t know what to say. Why don’t they know what to say? A person has completed nine years of education and comes to talk about some medical drugs. What can they express except emotions? Nothing. Because they don’t know what to say.

The second major problem or pain is that people don’t know who to talk to. They are not trained as communicators who know how to meet people, how to initiate relationships and sustain them, how to win people over, how to get them to ask the questions you want them to ask… they don’t know how to do this. So, first they will rush to their close friends and relatives. And because they don’t know how to speak, they will talk all sorts of nonsense. Their near and dear will scratch their heads and say: “You’re a fanatic, don’t ever come near me again!”

This is what most people face. Incidentally, this is precisely what gives the multi-level marketing industry a bad reputation – some idiots accosting you at bus stops. It might seem like this industry is like that too, but this is not the case.

Since people do not know what to say or who to say it to, they build unjustified expectations. Unjustified in what way? Today, someone starts a business and tomorrow they already expect to be a rich millionaire. But one month, then two months go by, and it doesn’t happen, so they think that means there’s something wrong with their business. They don’t even know where to start looking. That’s the problem.

That’s why we offer a mini three-month MBA. This is a separate product that anyone can take advantage of. We pay for the traffic and give students leads, and they practice. And when a person closes deals while practicing, they also earn money.

— Could you please tell us more about the trading platform. What is it exactly? Is it a regular internet shop? Or is there something innovative about it? 

—  There are innovative things here. We’ve made it possible for manufacturers to create their own sales department on OTON’s market platform. They can also use existing sales departments by getting our sales representatives interested in their product. So, there’s no need to start from scratch. Even if someone doesn’t have an understanding of how to create their own sales department, they can contact our department, talk to our sales reps, and inspire them with their product. This is the first thing.

The second concerns how our sales departments are formed. Let’s say a person sees a particular product and buys it. As a rule, what happens next? After they buy it, they begin to tell their friends about it: “Look at these glasses!” or “Check out this lighter,” or “Isn’t this book cool, I like it so much!” If these comments spark interest, the friend will ask where they got it? How does this usually happen? “On Amazon, I’ll send you a link.” The person sends the link, and their friend saves time doing research and makes the purchase. That’s it. Amazon makes money, the manufacturer makes money, but the person who made the recommendation gets nothing. We think it should work differently.

After all, the one who made the recommendation really closed the sale, and this is what sellers usually pay the most for. Therefore, we say: you’ve bought this product from us, so you can now create an individual link to it or link directly to the market. In this case, when a friend asks: “Where did you buy this?” you send them the individual link, and you are rewarded after they buy it. This reward can be spent on other products.

Thus, you can maintain quite a good turnover this way. We have seen cases when it’s amounted to half a million a month. 

— Half a million what?

— Euro. That’s turnover. 

— Ok. Could you briefly explain the technical aspects? Why blockchain? What role does the OTON token play?

— Why blockchain? What we’ve been discussing is an operating business. We are entrepreneurs who run a business.

Now, we want to make it more trustworthy for our users. What do we mean by trustworthy? We want our users to be absolutely sure that if their accounts create profits, they will be rewarded. This is guaranteed by blockchain, smart contracts, and transparency.

So, what do we guarantee, and why do we need blockchain? So that businesspeople who begin engaging in online activities on the OTON platform can be sure they are building their own businesses. So, how do we achieve this?

How does the Bitcoin blockchain work? If I want to have my own bank, I enter the Bitcoin blockchain, get a private key, a seed phrase, and then I become my own bank. I can now receive, send, and store Bitcoin. This is a decentralized environment. It’s mine.

What do we do with OTON? It’s the same principle. There is a wallet, a multi-wallet, deposits and withdrawals, all the same functions. Everything is much more eco-friendly than in the bitcoin blockchain. Everything is modern, fast, and cool. But this is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that when I get the private key and the seed phrase, I get not only a wallet: I get a business. That is, a smart contract that clearly describes what will happen as a result various forms of transactions.

For example, one of my users on the fifth level purchases toothpaste on the market. It is clear to me, transparent – I see the transaction was completed, and I receive a reward. In 3-5 years, this becomes a powerful business, and it’s my business. No one can take it from me. I can’t be fired. The only thing that could happen is that I could lose the key or allow it to be stolen due to my own negligence. But if everything is functioning normally, then this is my own business, which I can even sell.

In principle, no one in multi-level marketing can sell their business. If someone does manage to, it means the buyer was very inexperienced. Because any contract with a multi-level marketing company stipulates that a person can be excluded from the reward chain at any time, with or without reason. That’s how companies mitigate risks. What does this mean? It means that if I, as an investor, buy a working account that has a turnover of five million, and I net a profit of 150-200 thousand euros, then the company can say: “The person who created this turnover is gone. Now someone who’s done nothing comes along and wants to extract 200K from us.” As a result, I’ll be excluded, and that’s it.

We protect people from this. If you run your own business on OTON, it’s your own business. And you may be the first blogger in the world to become an independent entrepreneur, because bloggers always depend on third parties. On OTON, bloggers run their own businesses. That’s why we need blockchain.

— And what about the token?

— In fact, we needed technology that guarantees transparency and anonymity. And that’s clearly blockchain.

But we also needed a payment unit. This is why the OTON token appeared. Its main function is to act as a unit of payment that the smart contracts use to conduct transactions. All this happens automatically.

The token is needed as a guarantor of the transparency and trustworthiness that I spoke of earlier. It is clear that the quantity of this token is limited, that this token can be freely traded on the exchange, and that it can be accumulated. Because it is a new area with great potential for growth, it will be of interest to many people for a long time. I think many people may also use it as a speculative instrument.

One unique feature is that this unit of payment is always at a deficit. I can only pay a commission or a fee transparently and securely with OTON tokens. I can’t put bitcoin or dollars in my blockchain. It’s impossible. That’s why I have my own unit of payment. And it is this that is used to complete transactions. If this is all I can use to complete transactions, that means any sale begins with the purchase of tokens on the exchange. This happens automatically via the API. The greater the turnover, the greater the demand for the token. And the greater the demand, the more expensive OTON will become.

Speculative aspects can also be taken into account, particularly trading tokens on exchanges.

Tokens are also needed for liquidity because there aren’t just intermediaries and customers in the system, but also manufacturers who may need higher volumes. For example, a manufacturer may need to exchange $100,000 once a week. To do this, there must be liquidity so that they can buy tokens and not lose too much on the exchange rate.

We also provide for interaction with the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain protocols in order to use decentralized financial products.

— I see. And the last question: in your opinion, what are OTON’s prospects? Is it really possible to connect anything to it?

— Creative things that are for people – yes. We are absolutely confident that this can become one of the largest global ecosystems.

The whole point is that we have created something new. This is not just a social network. It’s a social business in which suppliers, sellers, manufacturers, intermediaries, facilitators, and customers are all united in one network. We’re all in the same place. And we are all connected to each other by the fact that we all have OTON tokens, and we are interested in helping each other. Because the more a particular manufacturer sells, the more tokens are paid out in rewards. Our assets are constantly growing in value.

We are directly interested in supporting and helping each other.

This is why the project is special, and I think that, in the next 10-15 years, we can become one of the largest ecosystems in the world.

— On the level of what kind of companies?

— There are no companies like this yet. We will be the biggest.

Why do I say this? This isn’t some kind of ambition. It’s just logic. Take Apple, for example. The biggest giant. They have both physical and non-physical products. Sooner or later, our audience will reach 150-200-300 million. At that point, why wouldn’t Apple want to offer its products through our network. Accordingly, Apple will become one of our customers. That’s how I see it.

— Sounds inspiring. 

— Yes, I see it that way. I believe that, in this modern world, the most valuable and expensive asset a business can accumulate is people’s attention. That’s what we’re doing. We’re simply digitizing the whole world on blockchain.