BMJ Score: 3.6
Market
Transparency
Team
Token
Adoption
Quick Summary
125 crypto investors read thisCommentary
While technology continues to innovate, the way people buy has not changed since ancient bazaars in the sense that buyers always choose from what is proposed, not from what they want. WeBuy introduces the power of choice through geolocation and blockchain technology to empower and redefine the relationship between buyers and sellers. We like that WeBuy empowers buyers to no longer be passive by compensating them for their attention, time, and effort. Despite a heavily saturated market space, WeBuy has differentiators from the competition. Their team is very strong with a successful track record and has worked hard to get the word out on their initiatives. The main concern we have is that the transparency of the project is not great. They share that there is a working beta app, but do not indicate how many users are leveraging it. The final release data is scheduled for Q1 2019. We eagerly await this launch to see if the project can successfully take off.
Investment Information:
- How to invest: First you need to get whitelisted. For this, you need to click on the top right of the menu on the button “Join Whitelist” on the website. Then the WeBuy team will contact you.
- Discount: A discount is available but must be inquired about once whitelisted.
- Eligibility: Citizens of the US and Singapore are prohibited from participating unless accredited.
- Token Price: $0.25 USD = 1 WBY
- Jurisdiction: United Kingdom
- Currency accepted: FIAT and Cryptocurrencies are accepted.
Market: 3.5
- Problem addressed/solved: Online ads continue to stunt the growth of the ecommerce market by delivering non-targeted, ineffective ads to passive audiences who continue to revolt against these intrusive marketing strategies. Potential buyers get overlooked, opportunities get wasted, and businesses find that customer acquisition and transaction costs are high, leaving ad platforms as the only winners in this situation.
- Target customers/customer/ segments/verticals: Over 400 million small and medium businesses worldwide offer products and services that could be marketed and delivered online. Unfortunately, less than half of those businesses advertise online, thereby missing out on a huge market of people. On the consumer side of things, WeBuy wants all online shoppers (especially those sick of unwanted advertisements) to experience a new, streamlined way of shopping online.
- Value creation: Sellers pay to communicate with buyers who express interest in specific products, and buyers receive a share of the ad fees paid by sellers. Sellers are invited to join by buyers who can vet them, and when the seller pays for ads, that initial buyer receives a portion of the cost. The sellers on the platform experience lower customer acquisition and transaction costs. Advertising is targeted and more effective. The buyers get a portion of the advertising fee and essentially hold the power as to who tries to sell to them. Buyers find the products they want, at the best price.
- Competition: WeBuy will definitely find it difficult to break into this market space as it’s already oversaturated with major players like Amazon, Ebay, and Walmart, not to mention other blockchain projects like Vanig that want to revolutionize ecommerce as well. WeBuy’s advantages include their advertisement model for businesses that help those businesses lower their overall customer acquisition costs, and the consumer’s experience of only seeing the ads they want and then eventually getting a cut of the money spent on the advertisement.
- Market size/potential: The market for all those small businesses missing out on online sales is absolutely massive. Many companies just don’t see the advantage of going online due to extra costs and uninterested customers, but WeBuy might be able to fix that with their platform.
- Regulatory risks: WeBuy has some definite regulatory risks to consider, including the fact that every country and state has different tax laws and regulations, there are shipping restrictions on specific goods, there is also the matter of business insurance and product liability insurance, there are licensing and permits required for selling products, and there are ever-present obligations specific to PCI compliance.
Transparency: 3
- Investor value: Investors could see the value of their WBY tokens increase as more sellers and buyers join the platform. Those who own WBY tokens will also receive a share of the advertising fees paid by sellers when they see an ad on the site, a true win-win situation.
- Disclosures: The WeBuy whitepaper is clear and concise but lacks the depth that investors want to see (only 29 pages). Their lite paper and “growth strategy” both simplify and explain the overarching details/goals of the project. The only item that definitely needs work is their roadmap. It features some helpful images but doesn’t really provide much information.
- Token distribution: 53% Joining Grant, 30% Token Sales, 12% Team, and 5% Advisors.
- Use of proceeds: 14.37% of the funds raised will be allocated for expanding the development of WeBuy Blockchain technology and the platform to be able to cater for the rapid growth of WeBuy, 39.87% will be spent on the marketing of the platform to create awareness and the adoption of WeBuy among consumers and SMEs, operations tasks will use 32.53% of the funds dealing with legal, manpower and IT issues, and 12.63% of the funds will be used to manage the operation from a pure administrative point of view.
- Caps: Soft cap: $5 million USD; Hard cap: $25 million USD
Team: 4.5
- Track record: The management team of WeBuy is an absolute powerhouse. They have decades of experience in management, finance, software engineering, and blockchain development. Beni Issembert (Co-Founder) is a blockchain enthusiast who’s been involved with Stellar since the early stages. He’s had prior roles as a CEO, CMO, Co-Founder, and VP of marketing. Much like Issembert, many other founding members have had high management positions, especially CEO Emil Guberman. He co-founded Geomage in 2003 and continued with much success in the company until 2014.
- Integrity: The upper management team has tons of entrepreneurial experience, which bodes well for a startup in the blockchain field. The rest of the team lack LinkedIn accounts and any sort of descriptions, but they each have very specific roles that, hopefully, cater well to their skills.
- Emil Guberman, CEO (LinkedIn)
- Victor Nemirovsky, CPO (LinkedIn)
- Yuri Voschinsky, CTO (LinkedIn)
- Beni Issembert, Co-Founder (LinkedIn)
Team Members
Token Mechanics: 3
- MVP: The first version of the WeBuy platform will not be available until Q3 of 2018. They’re currently testing the alpha version in-house.
- Token use case: WBY Token will fuel the WeBuy network which will support the increasing volumes of e-commerce. It will be used: a) by sellers to purchase advertising, b) by WeBuy to pay buyers their compensation from sellers’ advertising spend, and c) by consumers to purchase products and services from sellers. WeBuy will be a cross-border system, working in a similar way everywhere, and therefore demands a payment system based on single tokens.
- Value-added: Use of WBY token will facilitate savings in transaction costs. It’s the only option as a means of transaction on the platform, helping WeBuy services run seamlessly without any waiting periods or interruption. Plus, it’s used as a reward token for buyers on the platform whenever they see an ad.
- Decentralization: WeBuy is an innovative, decentralized, and sharing economy- oriented platform. Within three years, WeBuy wants to become a pure Decentralized Autonomous Corporation (DAC) marketplace.
- Token Supply: Max supply of 1 billion WBY.
User Adoption: 3.5
- Technical difficulty/investment expertise needed: WeBuy offers a simplistic ecommerce platform that any small business or potential consumer will find useful. WeBuy wants to offer a user-friendly ecommerce option that doesn’t intimidate small business like Amazon or Ebay.
- Halo effect: WeBuy has not listed partners to date. It’s likely they have some sort of partnerships with legal/advisory firms, but those aren’t exactly the ones investors want to see.
- Buzz: The amount of buzz generated by WeBuy, considering they’re still in the pre-ICO phase, appears to be pretty significant. Their largest following is on Telegram with over 33,000 members. Their Facebook and Twitter accounts each have an additional 11,000 followers to add to the mix.
