We got to interview Matthias Mende, a visionary leader and entrepreneur who built the 1st Social Engagement Web3 Platform, Bonuz. This is an innovative platform that helps fans to connect with celebrities, creators, and brands leveraging their communities. Let’s see what else we learned about Matthias Mende and his revolutionary platform through our interview below.
Getting The Main Idea
We started by discussing the idea behind the company and Matthias’ professional career journey.
“What’s the idea behind your company?” We asked.
“I have been active on various social media platforms for over a decade and know the challenges many content creators face. With my in-depth experience of being in this space combined with the opportunities that blockchain technology enables to solve real-life problems in the creator and social engagement economy, I have founded Bonuz.
We want to open the gates for creators, communities, and brands in terms of engaging, communicating, and collaborating with their fans and followers to benefit both sides in a gamified way based on extended reality. My vision is a platform merging the physical and digital worlds as it was never witnessed before. We use functionalities such as ‘Proof of Attendance’ and ‘Proof of Ownership’ in the first phase because this will enhance all the real-life and digital communities that are urgently looking for. New types of NFTs which do not necessarily have a financial value, but are more of a social rating value, mainly for rewarding users for their actions that are transparent on the blockchain. This is what Bonuz does, something new and innovative. This all led me to name my start-up ‘Bonuz’ because it adds value to anyone who finds its place and engages within our ecosystem. Everyone likes a Bonus :)” Matthias replied.
Further, we also asked, “How did you begin your career journey? Do you have some advice for beginners?”
Matthias shared, “After reading Bitcoin’s White Paper in 2016, I got highly impressed by blockchain technology as well as convinced that this could be a real game-changer. I educated myself a lot by researching many things online, watching educational videos, and surrounding myself with like-minded people in the space and beyond. Later, I became the Chief Strategic Officer at the enterprise software house Block Gemini for two years, where I gained good hands-on experience. During this time, I became one of the founding members of the Dubai Blockchain Center, which was inaugurated by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. In this background, I never got any academic education, hence still managed to learn and study on my own to gain valuable skills. Therefore, my advice to any beginner is 1. Learning by doing, 2. Be brave and confident to enter new markets and 3. Knowledge is available for free on the internet – make use of it!”
Fulfilling Mission And Focusing on The Team
What’s the mission of your company?
“The mission of Bonuz is to become the biggest Social Engagement Platform that is built on blockchain technology as well as to be a significant entity that accelerates the onboarding of people from Web 2.0 into the Web 3.0 space,” says Matthias.
We further asked, “What makes the team successful, in your opinion?”
According to him, “A clear vision and mission statement are essential for any team’s success in terms of where we want to go and what milestones we want to achieve together as one entity. Furthermore, the leader plays a significant role in giving clear direction and supporting and supervising the team members. Listening to the needs of each individual to achieve common goals. At the same time, a good team is balanced and diverse, including people with different cultural and professional backgrounds and different entry levels.”
“How important are employees’ energy levels to your company’s success?”
“I do not want to call anyone my “employee” but more my “team.” I am a spiritual person and believe that I have to radiate that energy first and act as a role model. Based on that, anyone that surrounds me can reflect and add to that energy. This spirit and community feeling can leverage any business and is essential for the success of my company as well.” shares Matthais.
When talking about team energy, we also asked him, “How do you plan to motivate your team to go the extra mile?”
He said, “It is truly challenging in an environment that is this fast-moving. Additionally, there is endless work in start-ups, making it even harder to keep team members continuously motivated. I believe that anyone joining as a core member or on a serious note deserves more than just a competitive salary. At Bonuz, my top candidates can receive a good amount of tokens and eventually even equity shares, depending on their responsibility, performance, and results.”
Standing Out From The Crowd
We asked, “What keeps your company moving forward even during challenges?”
“Challenges are essential for any early-stage company and its growth. In most cases, they lead to lessons learned and identifying best practices that are important to optimize your processes, which, in turn, are mandatory for the business, its success, and sustainability. This being said, focusing on the overall goal and always keeping the big picture in mind is key in any situation.” he replied.
Further, we also asked Matthias if he uses innovative ideas. With that, he says:
“We are extremely innovative. We believe in gratifying the whole world ultimately with invisible functions of real-life actions. Such as an entrepreneurial World of Warcraft in real life based on a quest and mission – Learn to Earn. I feel that extended reality will change everything we know of, and I aim to be one of those people pioneering it with my team.”
“What problems does Bonuz solve, and what differentiates Bonuz from its competitors?”
“Celebrities, brands, communities, influencers, and other types of creators struggle to have genuine interaction, engagement, and personalized communication with their fans. Usually, most of these creators use social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter to showcase and monetize their skills and talents. Thus, these platforms restrict them in many ways as they take a cut from the revenue and make it almost impossible to know the loyal fan base. Furthermore, the content does not reach the target audience, and a close connection between the creator and fans is difficult to establish because of the increasing crowd on the platforms. These are a few of the many problems that creators need to face while establishing themselves in the market. To eliminate all these problems mentioned above, Bonuz is a turnkey solution for everything. Creators’ content will be seen by their biggest fans; on top, it comes as free NFT to them.” says Matthias.
Learning About The Secret Sauce
We wanted to know what makes Bonuz exceptional in the work they do. So, we asked them: “Why would celebrities or brands want to work with Bonuz – What is your secret sauce?”
“There are various reasons. To simplify it, we noted some bullet points below:
❖ They will tap into the future digital economy everyone is talking about.
❖ Bonuz is acting as the turnkey solution provider and technology enabler for them. So it will become safe as in low risk and easy for them.
❖ Usually, celebrities take advantage of their fans by promoting funny NFT projects in which, with Bonuz, actually both sides will benefit from each other.
❖ Bonuz helps them launch their tokens as well as market them to their community.
❖ With Bonuz, they can distribute free NFTs to their token holders.
❖ Fan and Celebrity tokens are so scarce that they will be sold out immediately. The fans owning them will be able to rent them out to other fans against payments (like in Axie Infinity). Therefore, the fan can also benefit and have an ROI.
❖ With Bonuz, their tokens will st ill be available on decentralized markets.
❖ Because Bonuz provides the interface platform where every brand/celebrity/creator fan token holder can use the tokens’ utilities.
❖ Any Celebrity or Brand will leverage their community with the token.
❖ Any Celebrity or Brand will get a better understanding of their audience.”
❖ Audiences will appreciate the new ways of interacting and feeling the love from their communities. Audiences will have a new value.
These were the words of Matthias on our question mentioned above.
“What are some of your biggest achievements of this year?”
“We have accomplished major milestones this year. On the product side, we finalized our MVP, which is ready for the testing phase. Otherwise, we have raised funds from reputable investors and venture capitalists, which is highly important considering the current market conditions. I.e. we received a grant from the Near Foundation and are in discussions with other big tech entities. Furthermore, we were honored with two awards for Best Upcoming Blockchain Innovation and Best Web3 Ecosystem. We now are looking forward to growing our community and onboarding users to the application. Education plays a big role and we are already working on content in which users can learn certain basics of Web3 and how to be safer in this world of blockchain, Crypto, Metaverse, and NFT” shares Matthias.
Lastly, we asked him, “How does the current bear market affect your company activities?”
He says, “Every bear market creates new opportunities, and the weak projects that are here for short-term gains will be filtered out. We are focusing on releasing our beta this year to ensure the growth of users and communities. Once we fulfill certain KPI’s we aim for a seamless token launch on a powerful Tier1 centralized exchange. We work around the clock to achieve this major milestone and bring this new revolutionary innovation into the market.”
Connect with Matthias Mende on LinkedIn.
Find Bonuz on all social media platforms: https://link.bar/bonuz
Visit the website www.bonuz.market and subscribe to the newsletter.
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