Entrepreneurs are visionaries, they dream and think of changing the world, and they share one important attribute of constantly working and pushing their limits. One such highly driven entrepreneur is Lasha Antadze.
Passion for Emerging Technologies
Lasha Antadze is the Founder at Shelf.Network. Lasha is an Entrepreneur and Founder of Distributed auctioning network: “market making protocol” connecting online marketplaces P2P and allowing sellers (manufacturers) to run the same trade synchronously across all platforms, increasing their market range around the globe. He is Passionate about the crypto economics, e-commerce and distributed (Blockchain) governance models.
It was in late 2015 that Lasha and a part of the reformers team, decided to experiment with the latest technology of Blockchain, and build the first distributed governance model for the state. Auction 3.0 was called the first trade protocol that served as the most transparent and effective price discovery system for state property privatization and was a game changer from the perspective that state agencies were outsourcing the privatization process, by enabling private marketplaces from any part of the world to share the inventory re-marketing and conduct synchronized auctioning for privatized assets. It was in mid-2017 the Shelf.Network was formed.
Shelf.Network Inc. is a US company currently operating in used car trade. The Company after its formation quickly gained momentum and in a year’s time, became one of the best real world use cases of the Blockchain Technology and managed to win several awards consecutively both in Automotive and Blockchain industry.
Awards won by Shelf.Network:
- Winner of Frontier Innovation Awards as the Best Real World application of Blockchain Technology
- Winner of Blockshow Europe(2018)
- Y-combinator – startup school
- Techstars 2018 – Graduate
- Winner of Automechanika Innovation Award (Largest automotive fair)
Creating an Ecosystem of Business
Shelf.Network is a distributed network of independent online marketplaces, where sellers can run the same asset trade plus auctions synchronously across multiple platforms. Shelf.Network builds the best price discovery system that ever existed in the e-commerce world and facilitates cross border online trades. Shelf serves as a technology platform, creating an ecosystem of business that is involved in trade process and enables network participant to cooperate and streamline entire experience from inventory discovery to its delivery at any part of the world for the final buyer.
Unique Offerings
Lasha’s idea to focus on a specific industry, while everyone is still building blockchain solutions for galactic scales, proves to be right. Another offering that is not common within the industry’s startups is that company dropped the word: “Blockchain” from its value proposition, and found a market fit based on a real automotive trade’s problems. The technology that enhances the network effect of trades, and basically drives every startup’s fundraising or offering, Lasha shifted it as the third priority thing, as an effective enabler that solves the problems.
Embracing the Change
According to Lasha, an Entrepreneur should be able to perceive an external world and should be curious and open minded. He is of the opinion that an entrepreneur should steer and adjust in a free market and a constantly changing world. He says an entrepreneur should be able to cope and enjoy the constant ride of ups and downs. Lasha says challenging oneself to accept things that a university degree is not in line with, is very important. According to him understanding the basic blocks needed to get there and prioritizing is crucial in transforming oneself. He says that ability to focus and stay open for learning, keeps one in a constantly improving stage. The valuable lesson he learned is prioritizing and focusing on one task is very important.
Thriving in a Competitive Market
Lasha says that one needs to work on different segments, with different offerings without losing one’s unified product identity to compete in the market. Lasha has a clear vision that Shelf as a network (platform) is competing with current practice of used car trades especially on a cross border level. The strategy Lasha uses to thrive in a competitive market is first to empower those who are in a closed circle on an individual level so that they can dominate their local market and then use this as a platform to extend services globally. Lasha says Shelf’s strategy is to be equipped with all the resources to compete in the market. Lasha also emphasizes on customer satisfaction.
Envisioning the Future
Lasha is fascinated with the industry he is in, and upcoming days for new governance models, that will emerge out of Blockchain Technology. He is pretty sure that today’s initiatives and experiments are the predecessors of a true global collaboration and he sees himself with his great team and co-founders supporting and contributing to that future. He never sets specific goals for long term, as at this stage of industry everything is dynamic and constantly changing, so he prefers to have a broad but formed image of where Shelf wants to be in the future, but he also leaves a space to remain flexible in achieving that horizon.
Lasha advises young entrepreneurs to stay open for changing one’s mind and understand what triggered those changes over the course of action.
URL: shelf.network
Source: The 30 Most Influential Entrepreneurs to Watch 2018
