Ignacio Palomera - Co-Founder and CEO of Bondex

Hello Community,

We’ve got some brilliant projects in our portfolio and want to tell you more about the founders and teams behind them. You will have the opportunity to learn more about specific projects through our interviews on a regular basis. Feel free to post any questions you may have further down in the comments section.

In today’s interview, we have Ignacio Palomera - Co-Founder and CEO of Bondex. Let’s go!

Hi Ignacio, to kick off, please share a bit about yourself and how you entered the Web3 space.

I started my career in investment banking, focusing on M&A for financial institutions in London with HSBC. While covering fintech, I discovered blockchain, Web3, and crypto, initially investing in Ethereum. This experience turned me into a strong advocate for the technology.

I left banking to join an HR-focused blockchain startup, which pivoted to using AI for resume and candidate filtering, deepening my understanding of the HR industry. Following the post-pandemic bull run of 2020-2021, I launched Bondex, re-entering the Web3 space with a fresh perspective.

Throughout my journey, I've observed how social media platforms have often left users behind, monetizing their data without fair compensation. I'm a true believer in democratizing this space and ensuring users partake in the economic value they create.

At Bondex, we are building the next SocialFi platform for Web3, empowering users to benefit from their contributions.

You co-founded Bondex with Martin in 2021. What inspired you to create a decentralized professional network? How does it compare to LinkedIn, and what are the benefits of integrating Web3?

We started with the vision of creating a Web 2.5 platform because we believe that transitioning to Web3 requires an intermediate step to bridge the gap. Our go-to-market strategy is based on the idea that users of Web2 social and professional networks need a familiar and user-friendly experience to drive mass adoption.

We were inspired by the realization that the talent vertical in social networks is ripe for disruption by Web3 principles. LinkedIn, our biggest competitor, possesses a vast amount of valuable user data and monetizes it, yet it suffers from low engagement due to misaligned incentives. LinkedIn tends to prioritize advertisers, recruiters, and companies over the regular users who bring the most value to the network.

At Bondex, our approach shifts the focus from the demand side (advertisers and recruiters) to the supply side (talent). By doing this, we increase engagement and create a more dynamic and rewarding professional networking model. We apply Web3 technology and principles to create a platform where users benefit from their contributions.

Key Web3 features we're integrating include on-chain professional identities, transforming static resumes into dynamic professional profiles, native wallets, and a token economy. This economy will redistribute value from the traditional ad network model to the users. In Web2, users' data is the product, monetized to generate billions for the platform. In our Web3 model, we aim to use tokenization and gamification to ensure users are fairly compensated for the value they create.

Overall, Bondex offers a more engaging, equitable, and innovative professional networking experience. We leverage the best of Web3 to empower users and democratize the economic value generated by the network.

What impact has Bondex had on recruitment? And how do you think it will continue to transform the industry?

Bondex has introduced a disruptive model to recruitment, which we call decentralized hiring. Our decentralized hiring protocol enables companies to hire faster and cheaper by enabling the Bondex community and professional recruiters to monetize their networks and claim bounties of up to $15,000 USD for successful job referrals.

Here's how it works: Companies post a bounty or reward that incentivizes recruiters and users worldwide to refer candidates. These referrers use their reputation, putting their credibility on the line to recommend candidates. Our AI system then filters these candidates, automating rejection and shortlisting. This shortlist undergoes a quality assurance and security check by a talent operations team of experienced recruiters. This process ensures that companies receive highly engaged and qualified candidates, significantly improving the chances of successful hires and saving time and money.

Bondex empowers everyone to monetize their network, not just professional recruiters. This includes individuals with strong networks in relevant fields. We will continue implementing innovative solutions aimed at disintermediation and democratization, further disrupting the $400 billion recruitment industry. Our focus is on removing middlemen who exploit inefficiencies and misaligned incentives in the talent exchange process.

How many companies, users, and actual successful recruitments have taken place?

We started by bootstrapping the supply side of the market, focusing on users. Through gamification and viral loops, we built a strong base of talent. Our professional and social network aims to reach millions of users to achieve critical mass and network effect.

To date, we have achieved almost 5 million downloads, 4.7 million app downloads, over 1.5 million active users, and nearly half a million daily active users. Additionally, we have around 2 million fully completed profiles, including work history, preferences, education, and resumes.

On the company side, we are currently in a closed beta phase. We have over 80 companies registered and are actively working with 20 to 25 companies with active jobs and bounties. This closed beta allows us to rigorously test and iterate on our platform to ensure it is robust and scalable for enterprise use. In our four months of operation, we have collaborated with notable companies like Binance, Chainlink, CoinMarketCap, and ANKR.

So far, we have achieved over 10 successful placements. However, our key metric is interview requests, which reflect the engagement and quality of the candidates we provide. We have facilitated over 300 interview requests to date. We started with around $20,000 worth of bounties and have now surpassed $200,000 with over 90 jobs on the platform. This trajectory demonstrates significant growth and traction across all sides of our marketplace.

AI has become a game-changer. Could you elaborate on how you strategically integrated this technology into Bondex and what specific benefits or features it brings to your users?

We’ve strategically integrated AI into Bondex to streamline various aspects of the talent marketplace, enhancing efficiency and user experience. AI is particularly well-suited for handling high-volume, low-value tasks such as resume filtering. Our initial use case leverages natural language processing models and large language models (LLMs) built on top of OpenAI to automate the rejection and matching of candidates to job opportunities. This technology ranks candidates from one to five stars, effectively creating a shortlist of the best candidates for each job. This saves internal recruiters significant time, allowing them to focus more on assessing soft skills, cultural fit, and other crucial aspects.

Looking ahead, we have several exciting AI-driven tools in the pipeline. Candidates will soon be able to upload their resumes and receive ranked lists of job opportunities where they have the highest chances of securing an interview. Additionally, we are developing a virtual career coach and a full AI recruiter to further assist users in their job search and career development. These innovations will bring remarkable efficiency to the talent exchange process, empowering users to make more informed decisions and helping recruiters find the best talent more quickly.

We’re extremely excited about these upcoming features and believe they will significantly enhance our platform's short-term and long-term value.

Congrats on raising $4M in funds from Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, Angel Capital, Chainink, and others. How have you used the funds to enhance your gamified Mobile App and Job Portal?

First, let me clarify. We raised $4 million from VCs and our personal network during the pre-seed and seed rounds. While we are part of Chainlink’s Build accelerator, they have not directly invested in the company. Additionally, we raised $6.5 million through the Coinlist Launchpad, bringing our total funds raised to nearly $10 million, including a KOL round led by Morningstar Ventures. So far, we’ve utilized less than a third of these funds to improve the product, launch it to market, and begin scaling. Our plans for the remaining funds include:

- Scaling Operations and Technology: We will continue to scale our operations and technology to ensure our products and services evolve into a robust enterprise job marketplace.

- AI Tools and Social Networking Features: We are developing and launching advanced AI tools and new social networking features for our mobile app, enhancing user experience and engagement.

- TGE Financing: A significant portion will finance our Token Generation Event (TGE), covering marketing budgets, listing fees, and other associated costs.

- Team Expansion: We are expanding our team in operations and technology to deliver on Bondex’s full vision and mission.

These investments will ensure we continue to innovate and provide a superior gamified mobile app and job portal, driving value for our users and stakeholders.

You also conducted a successful public sale on CoinList in March this year, which generated over $6.5M. What are some key learnings and insights you have seen from the sale?

We conducted a successful public sale on CoinList in March, generating over $6.5 million. One achievement I'm particularly proud of is breaking the participation record on the platform since 2022, with over 20,000 participants in our sale. Initially, we aimed to raise $4 million, but due to overwhelming demand and the round being oversubscribed, we executed a greenshoe option for an additional $2.5 million. Here are some key learnings and insights from the sale:

- Launchpad Effectiveness: A launchpad is an excellent way to position yourself for future exchange listings. It signals to exchanges the strong demand and potential trading volume for your token.

- Bootstrapping and Traction: Before considering a launchpad, it's crucial to bootstrap your project, release your product to the market, and gain actual traction. This foundation increases your chances of being accepted on reputable launchpads.

- Market Reception: Conducting a launchpad sale provides valuable insights into the reception from a Web3 audience of retail investors. This feedback is crucial for understanding market demand and can significantly aid discussions with exchanges and VCs.

- Strategic Conversations: Successful launchpad performance helps in strategic conversations, whether with exchanges about listings or VCs for further investments. The demonstrated demand and support can make these discussions more favorable.

These insights highlight the importance of strategic planning and community engagement in the successful execution of a public sale.

You have secured partnerships with major exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and Gate.IO, as well as popular crypto projects such as Blockchain.com, Ankr, and Chainlink. What are your goals for these collaborations?

Our partnerships with exchanges have been primarily marketing-driven. Exchanges are where the majority of crypto users are active, as they solve the main use cases of making, sending, and storing money. These platforms hold the largest number of daily and monthly active users. By partnering with them, we’ve been able to onboard a significant number of users into the Bondex ecosystem.

Moving forward, our plan is to list our tokens on these exchanges. While we haven't confirmed specific exchanges yet, we will announce them as we finalize these agreements. Listing our tokens will provide the necessary liquidity, volume, and retail demand, enabling price discovery and allowing the public to determine Bondex's value. Our goal is to continually enhance and increase that value as we deliver on our milestones and execute our vision.

For other partnerships, such as those with Blockchain.com, Ankr, and Chainlink, these companies are clients of the Bondex jobs portal. Our portal, which I like to call the "Uber of recruitment," uses crowdsourcing and AI filtering to create a disruptive model for talent acquisition. This model reduces costs and time to hire for companies while democratizing hiring fees, allowing everyone to monetize their network and enabling recruiters to become independent.

These collaborations, while often involving co-marketing efforts, primarily serve as client relationships. We consider them partners because we are not yet open to everyone. We are working with a select group of clients to perfect our enterprise tool. Enterprise SaaS solutions must be robust enough to handle large-scale opportunities and go through the legal and security due diligence required by large enterprises. These partnerships allow us to battle-test, iterate, and improve our model before opening it up for commercial release.

You’ve confirmed your TGE for next September. What campaigns and initiatives will you run to ensure awareness and its success?

Yes, we originally planned for the TGE in the summer, but due to market conditions, the launch of our new tap game, and advice from exchanges, we decided to postpone it until September. Our campaigns and initiatives will focus on sustainable token distribution to the community and users, aiming to increase retention and product-market fit. Unlike previous airdrops that often led to sell pressure and low retention, we are designing consistent airdrops and various reward mechanisms to attract diverse audiences and build a robust ecosystem. Here's what we have planned:

- Sustainable Reward Mechanisms: We believe in distributing tokens through sustainable methods to create a balance between platform success and token value. This involves consistent airdrops and targeted reward distributions to different audiences, ensuring engagement and adoption.

- OKEx Cryptopedia Campaign: We ran a highly successful campaign on OKEx Cryptopedia, which saw over 600,000 participants, making it one of their top campaigns.

- Ton Ecosystem Grant: We received a grant from the Ton ecosystem and recently launched a tapping game on Bunny Blitz with a $1 million BDXN reward. This reward will grow with the value of BDXN post-launch and will be distributed on National Bunny Day in September.

- Collaborations with Large Ecosystems: We will continue to collaborate with ecosystems that have large audiences and communities aligned with our mission. These partnerships will involve sustainable reward distributions to maximize visibility and engagement.

Our goal is to attract attention and participants who resonate with our vision and mission, ensuring a successful TGE and a thriving community.

Anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Absolutely. The Bondex mission and vision are essential for disrupting the current models of social networks, Web2 social networks, and professional talent platforms. These existing models are unfair to users, neglecting their experience and incentives. They create the illusion of value in free products, but in reality, if a product is free, the user and their data are the products.

At Bondex, we aim to create more powerful social networking systems and ecosystems by redistributing the value of advertising, data monetization, and ad networks back to users. Our tokenized and gamified system underpins all our services, starting with a job marketplace and a mobile professional network. As we evolve, we will continue to incentivize meaningful interactions and reduce the spam and noise prevalent on traditional platforms. Through gamification, we track and reward positive user behaviors, whether they are recruiters, advertisers, talent users, or social networkers. Users will earn rewards for their contributions and enjoy the benefits of the ecosystem’s success.

In essence, we need to disrupt the current business models of social and professional networks, and Bondex will be a catalyst for the mass adoption of Web3 principles and technology to achieve this transformation.

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Thanks a lot for your time Ignacio. Good luck with your projects!

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The Morningstar Ventures Team