'Time is the Most Valuable Resource': Michael Skoblov, CEO of BITLEVEX

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.

My background is in Economics and Finance. I am a graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics.

I am an experienced professional in investments, financial markets, corporate finance, and finance in general.

What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

My startup is called Bitlevex, and we are revolutionizing investment platforms by offering leveraged options priced according to the traditional Black & Scholes mathematical model. Currently, we are offering options on some cryptos, as well as popular traditional stocks, but the asset range is about to widen month by month.

What is the origin story?

I started my entrepreneurship journey several years ago, and as a finance professional, I quickly realized that lots of traditional financial products and tools are missing in the crypto market. I decided to change that and take the niche.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

I love that my team consists of dedicated professionals who share my ideas and vision. We can achieve any goals and solve any problem because as a team, we are a strong force looking at it from any angle. We are strong in any aspect of the business - would it be development, marketing, risk management, or anything else.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

I would be building some other business. I am an entrepreneur by nature, and I love to materialize my ideas. I love to create value - take an idea that is worth nothing and make it something real that might be worth millions of dollars.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

Number of registered users, number of active users, amount of deposits, conversion rates, number of opened positions on the platform, lifetime value of every active user, ROI of each marketing action. The same metrics are brought down by countries, age, etc.

What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

We have been growing significantly since the beginning of this year, even though we have had a quite limited budget.

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

I am excited about biotechnologies (I have experience working in that field as an employee), nanotechnologies, future cities infrastructure, renewable energy.

I am mostly worried about Artificial Intelligence, as we as mankind do not know what this might bring to us.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

I like that HackerNoon has a dedicated community of young and smart people who care about the future and technologies.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

Don’t waste any time - time is the most valuable resource that you can not buy. And you never know how much time you have left. The measure of your effectiveness will be how you spend your time.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

That influencer marketing is the best marketing tool with the highest ROI.