Raj Pathak & Tony Wiese, Founders, Qoin Australia Pty Ltd
Being a business leader means more than just managing a team and making sound decisions. Along with the knack of inspiring and influencing people to achieve a common objective, business leaders must have the distinctive ability to go beyond the normal thought process and see a bigger picture to create a better future. Acquiring such attributes, two exemplary entrepreneurs, Raj Pathak and Tony Wiese are making a difference in the digital currency space with their evolutionary perspective.
Born in Africa, the entrepreneur duo comes from a distinct professional background. While Raj started his professional journey in the travel sector, Tony commenced his career as a chartered accountant. But driven by the common interest in the alternate currency space, they eventually became a part of Bartercard, the largest centralized private B2B merchant ecosystem in the world.
The Journey that led to Qoin Australia
In December 1992, Raj immigrated to Australia where he got involved with Bartercard. At that time, the recession was at a peak in the country. But acknowledging what the Australian economy and the businesses were actually looking for during the recession, he was able to achieve huge success. He introduced around 1200 business owners into Bartercard within the first three years and over time climbed up the corporate ladder to become a Senior Executive of Bartercard.
Meanwhile, Tony spent 10 years as the Executive Director of Super Group Limited, Africa’s second largest Transport and Logistics Company. He also founded One Logix Limited, a publicly listed logistics company that owned 226 Postnet retail outlets. In 2002, he migrated to Australia where he came across Bartercard. He was quite intrigued by the concept and potential of the alternate currency space. Thus, he decided to invest in the company and then joined the Board of Directors of Bartercard in 2007.
In 2018, Raj and Tony mutually acquired the company and privatized Bartercard. Looking at the exciting change in the crypto industry, they set about leveraging the private trade dollar currency with the strength of the Bartercard systems, and headed down the road to creating the Qoin Digital Currency. Today, as the torchbearer of Qoin, the entrepreneur duo is propelling its wheels towards growth and success.
Qoin: A Revolutionary Medium of Exchange for Goods and Services
“Qoin is a global digital currency that you can use to trade, buy, and sell everyday goods or services through your Qoin wallet on your mobile device. Built in-house based on a world-class blockchain, it has all the benefits of other cryptocurrencies along with the ability to be used for everyday purchases,” elucidates Tony.
While merchants can earn Qoin by selling goods and services, consumers on the other hand can purchase and earn Qoin and then participate with merchants to avail various special offers and deals. Consumers can also earn Qoin by selling their private assets including cars, caravans, and gym equipment through the Qoin online marketplace just like eBay and other marketplaces.
Qoin provides small business owners the opportunity to create and earn digital assets from the spare and available capacity in their businesses. And as Qoin can also be traded, they can also grow that asset or cash it out in the future through exchanges. The best part is it eliminates the limitation of onerous transaction fees associated with Bartercard whilst making the process faster and cost-effective. Looking at the immense potential of Qoin, Raj and Tony are working towards an ambitious goal of making this universal digital currency the most powerful medium of exchange between merchants and consumers globally.
“The goal is ambitious, but I believe if we create this large shopping community for the local entrepreneurs, then it will be achievable. As corporates, like Amazon, are a big threat to the future of small business existence, it is very important that we offer a universal global currency that drives new customers to small business,” asserts Tony.
According to Raj, Qoin has the properties to complement gold as the most trusted medium of exchange. Now, with Qoin becoming the next generation of currency, he is confident that Qoin has the ability to surpass every currency before it.
Creating Opportunity for Small Businesses
Attracting and retaining customers is one of the major challenges faced by merchants. Especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become difficult for merchants to bring new customers to their doors. This is when accepting Qoin, which has consistently grown in value, gives merchants the security of accepting more than one currency and more than one sales funnel which gives more security into the future. Qoin gives more fulfilment in their business, based on the current cash economy with the COVID pandemic which will continue to have an impact on the business for the months to come.
“It is today costing them more and more and every economy is being challenged. Every government, every leader is being challenged. So, we want to basically come out as a solution for the governments, merchants, and for everyone to consider this option,” asserts Raj.
Building Trust through Organizational Values
According to Tony, the values and principles that are very important for a currency to be successful are trust and confidence. So, the company ensures that Qoin remains pure and always backed by goods and services. Keeping ethical values as the cornerstone, the highly motivated team at Qoin always strives to do the right thing by the currency.
“The more the Qoin community come together and embrace the ecosystem and its benefits, the closer we are to the true belief in the value of Qoin. The result will be that our Qoin community will value Qoin more than they value cash,” says Tony.
While creating the structure for the new Qoin currency, the entrepreneurs had a goal to run it on an independent and ownerless blockchain with no shareholders. Thus, it was structured in a way that no one party could ever acquire or own it. Staying true to this goal, the competent and highly motivated team at Qoin is working together to propel the organization towards the ultimate goal of trust, adoption and belief in the Qoin Movement.
Poised for the Next Part of the Journey with Global Expansion
Since its inception, the focus of the organization has been to build the Qoin merchant eco-system in Australia and it has done that primarily through a team of independent agents throughout the country. After gaining great progress and success in a short span of 6 months, today, the company is poised to begin the next part of the Qoin Journey with over 7000 merchants already part of the Qoin eco-system. Apart from this, it is also set to expand its footprint to New Zealand followed by Asia, Europe, South and North America, Africa, and the Middle East.
“Because Qoin is just our six-month-old baby, designed for a thousand years, we have worked the initial growth plan for the merchant ecosystem for the next 25 years. Hence, this is an expansion plan not just for the current generation but for generations to come. And with this belief, our merchants and consumers will see and have that vision with us,” states Raj.
As a part of the strategic growth plan, the visionary leaders are planning to commence digital marketing strategies into the consumer space in Australia from September 2020 and then combine this with the merchant adoption phase in other countries from October.
“Our main driver will be digital marketing supported by online events and educational sessions to prospective merchants and consumers. It is extremely important to us that every merchant and every consumer understand what the Qoin community is about, and what value they bring to the ecosystem before they get involved,” concludes Tony. On behalf of Raj and myself, we welcome all merchants and consumers to join us in our exciting journey. — Tony