⚡️ Interview with redfox CEO - Ben Fairbank ⚡️
Following my RedFox post, I had an exclusive interview with the CEO of RedFox, who also happens to be the General Manager of Komodo also! We asked him the questions we consider to be the most important, enjoy:
- "In my understanding you also have had an active role in the development/growth of Komodo, can you briefly explain to us what exactly you did/do at Komodo?"
Yes, I am the General Manager. I look after the business side of things as far as set up and structure is concerned and less on the technical side. Its been about raising awareness, getting under the nose of corporate entities and trying to spread the Komodo word through Asia where we have a growing footprint now.
- "Is 5.6mil (the hard cap) enough for you to achieve everything on your roadmap?"
It's enough to get us to the next phase. We have a development fund for Komodo which helps the technical side of things and we also plan to raise for the companies that we build. We believe its a decent amount for us to use the amazing foundation tech layer Komodo has built and combine that with our expertise in running businesses. So we think its the perfect amount to prove our point and to give people confidence that its a fire that deserves more fuel.
- "What was the reasoning behind choosing your team members and advisors? What type of talents where you looking for and why?"
Great question. As we are a venture builder, we use different teams for each project we build. So the core competencies we needed were strategy, development, operations, scaling and general entrepreneurship. You touched on a great question. If you look at our advisors they tell a very simple story about where we are headed. JL777 - Tech, A start-up god in the region Brian Cu who heads Grab Philippines (unicorn) and co-founded Go Jek (unicorn) and Zalora. - Start-up expert in the region, Tim -CLO as we are setting up a lot of businesses and John - Securities and trading expert, as we will be delving heavily into this field. Arclegger - Needs no intro as a gaming legend and we have just partnered with Komodore64 on the gaming side. Our moves are fairly telegraphed for the astute. We will spend months planning all of these moves.
We need experts for each project and the requirements will change as we build differing companies. Many conversations I am having with people today, I am working out how I can work with them tomorrow.
- "What exactly did Red Hat do for Linux, and how will RedFox replicate the same effect?"
Yes, its the comparison that I once used and has stuck. Think of Komodo as the opensource project and RedFOX Labs as the company that can build on top of it as well as offering subscription-based support for the products and services. RedFOX Labs can bring governance and assurance to the enterprise level. It works in unison and allows Komodo opensource to continue its marvellous and groundbreaking work and encourages the decentralised and contribution approach that makes Komodo what it is. If they work well together, it also strengthens them as individual offerings.
- "Do you have any companies already lined up to be "serviced" by RedFox? Can you disclose any at this time?"
We have a JV with a Middle Eastern based consulting company and we were just there to meet with both government brokers and also potential partners. We have a number of things on the table and they will be revealed once they progress and are given the green light to reveal. The issue with blockchain is there are so many moving parts. So we need to be mindful of going out with announcements too early.
- "Do you have any other partnerships with well know companies or well-known crypto companies that you can disclose as of this moment?"
Again this is the same for the previous question but yes. There are two partnerships that will be revealed in time that are with well-known bodies in the space that are under NDA at this time. However, our focus will be to partner with a lot of traditional businesses too and that's what we are actively working on. We will require this to be successful in building out our projects.
- **"I guess that with your experience at Komodo and from being in the crypto industry the last few years, when you look around you, you see opportunities for disruption through DLT's on a daily basis, am I correct? Is this in essence what redfox will be doing? Either partnering up with those that are open to it, or copying competitors and making better versions of them?" **
Yes, I see opportunities in the DLT space all the time. However, coming from traditional corporate for 2 decades I can’t help but think about what I can do to disrupt traditional and legacy models with this tech. We are open to partnering with many businesses and we will have to, but it will be more on a contract basis as we build and replicate other models lacking presence but highly demanded in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia.
We want to work with experts who help us piece together the puzzles that will radically change the way unicorns operate in this part of the world.
- "Where are your headquarters located and will that be your base of operations? Why did you choose that location?"
Vietnam and yes it will be our base. However, our addressable market is the entire Southeast Asia. Its a very deep well and we feel the emerging markets here are big enough for us to be very occupied. However, as is the case without Middle Eastern partners, we are happy to work with like-minded companies to extend our reach globally.
We chose Vietnam for a few reasons. It has a fast growing economy and GDP, a young population thirsty for data and content and it is strategically located in the heart of the region. We believe this coupled with the fact it is one of the top three tech hubs on the planet, means we are on the right track and in the right place at the right time.
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Write up by @paddycrypto