Starting a new business is adventurous and exhilarating, especially when you are venturing into a disruptive industry. A lot of possibilities awaits, though every terrain comes with its challenges. You could attain incredible success or catastrophic failure.
I spoke to Nicolas Katan, CEO of Bitit, France’s digital currency platform. Here are some insights I learned from the conversation about starting your own business and gaining success in an exciting and innovative industry.
Be willing to experiment
Founders of Bitit were willing to experiment with bitcoin mining while studying in Paris and in no time, they found out they could use their knowledge as an edge since many people are less tech savvy and would need help navigating the complex platforms of certain bitcoin exchanges.
In business and in life, gaining an edge over your peers may mean that you seek knowledge in new and emerging spaces. Such knowledge could help you find solutions and grow something huge.
Have a mission
You don’t go into business without a reason. You go into business because you understand you can add value or make an impact. At the end of the day, this could be what drives business success.
We saw that the exchanges failed to provide a mainstream solution for buying and selling digital currency,” said Katan, Bitit’s CEO. “Know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) procedures were too intricate, and there was little consideration paid to user experience. Integration with relevant local payment methods was also spotty. All of those can be quite complex — and it makes it very difficult for people to access crypto.”
“That’s why we created Bitit,” Katan said. “We’re on a mission to make digital currency purchases frictionless for everyone.”
Understand what your customer wants
The customer should be treated considerately. Most times when a customer comes to your platform it is because they have a pain that needs to be healed. Your customer is king. And this is why great businesses build great relationships with their customers. For Nicolas Katan, building great relationships not only with the customer but also with banks, over the counter providers, payment institutions and regulators has created a unique and special model of doing business with every party.
“On Bitit, we want customers to understand all these things in minutes — so we built a clear user experience,” Katan said. “If your goal is to democratize Bitcoin for everyone, you’re not going to get there with an unfriendly product