Surviving The Bear Market: An Exclusive Interview With ICODA CEO Vlad Pivnev

Staying strong in the crypto business is mostly about pursuing a long-term goal rather than having a short term focus. After all,  many crypto businesses have been crippled by the prevailing market crash occasioned by the recent FTX scandal. However, businesses that have stuck to their guns, despite the recent turn of events in the crypto world, can be said to have a huge risk tolerance level and better chances of succeeding in crypto bull runs.

For the CEO of ICODA, Vlad Pivnev, staying afloat in the crypto world is an uphill task that requires him to not only have a positive mindset but also to devote himself to the pursuit of success in his niche.

Vlad founded ICODA in 2017 as a crypto marketing agency that relies on data to generate leads for crypto businesses, and in 2020 a Hackernoon article by @TonyTorento rated ICODO as one of the top Defi marketing agencies to follow.

The desire to learn more about ICODA and its survival tips led me to Vlad Pivnev with whom I sat down in this interview.

Mr. Pivnev, how did your journey to blockchain and web3 begin?

I have been in marketing since 2010, for more than 13 years, before crypto, I was engaged in marketing for the position of CMO in various organizations, both corporations and startups. One of the latest startups specialized in fintech software solutions. We made an ICO, which made it possible to develop business at the international level. After this project, I realized that I needed to grow further and do something of my own, so the agency appeared.

I had a hand in the development of B2Broker, which during my work has grown from a small startup with one office to an international company with offices around the world.

What can you say about the current state of the crypto market? Is this the beginning of the end?

I believe that now is not the beginning of the end, but the beginning of a new round of web 3.0 development. And there are two scenarios: very good and very bad. The good one is the strong growth that we will see in 2024, after the next Bitcoin halving. Moreover, in my opinion, this option will most likely happen, because as far as we can see now, large brands are already actively working in web 3.0, and not only from the technology sector.

Traditional financial institutions such as PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and Revolut are implementing tools for working with cryptocurrencies. Fashion brands such as Gucci, Adidas, Nike and others already have entire departments dedicated to web 3.0. Popular lifestyle bloggers publicly say they are investing in bitcoin.

If everything continues to move in the same direction as now, then it’s definitely not worth calling it “the end”. If we look back at 2018-2019, the moods were similar, but time has dotted everything and we have seen rapid growth. From my point of view, we see a cycle repeating.

Although, of course, to exclude the option in which there will be strict regulation and the beneficiaries of the cryptocurrency will face strong pressure from this side, which will greatly reduce the market. But the development of this scenario, in my opinion, will be hindered by the “big fish”, who annually make billions of dollars on the crypt and have enough strength to prevent a strong regulation of the industry.

What was the situation when you entered the crypto world in 2017 with the founding of ICODA ?

If you look at the market from a marketing point of view, then the market was radically different. There was a strong hype, it was obvious that people had not had such easily accessible new financial instruments for a long time, and the audience of such users quickly turned into a fairly significant volume.

The number of projects grew in parallel with the recruitment of the audience, and from the point of view of marketing, the number of offers did not keep pace with the rapid growth of the market. If now, on average, there are about 5-6 agencies per project, then there was one agency for 100 projects that could cope with the tasks set.

It was a blue ocean and there were appropriate rules of the game. For the first time, I came across a development strategy in which you simply buy and test all the solutions that are on the market, and at any price.

Of course, now times have changed and you have to choose carefully to get a significant result.

Why was ICODA founded and was there a market gap to be filled?

It was obvious that there was a demand and it was strange not to take advantage of it. The company started its activity in a very simple way - we just started selling services and realized that everything is sold very easily. The transaction time then was less than one day.

With the crypto world tethering on the precipice, do you think a crypto renaissance is in the offing?

In my opinion, this is more than likely. Preliminary mass adoption over the past 5 years has taken place. Now, if you ask people whose activities are not related to web 3.0 about what bitcoin is, if they bought cryptocurrency at least once, you can often hear the answers yes. At a minimum, people have heard about it, have an idea of what it is, and even sent part of their investments into cryptocurrency.

What were the challenges that you faced in the early days of ICODA?

With the growth of the market, the main challenge is to keep up with it. Almost any of your actions always brings results, while your different decisions can significantly affect the business.

I can’t say that we were growing at the fastest possible pace and coped with all the challenges, but nevertheless, the development was significant.

The most significant challenge for us was the crypto winter of 2018, at the moment there were even thoughts about closing.

A very similar feeling to what's on the market now, but a little more depressing as we were going through winter for the first time and the number of marketing decisions was greatly reduced along with the shrinking of the market as a whole.

How do you stand in comparison to your competitors?

Our main USP is that for each client we always prepare a solution that is selected and adapted specifically for him. There are many projects that are similar to each other, but meanwhile, each always has its own characteristics. For example, we recently prepared a solution for a client who works at the intersection of ecology and blockchain - they are planting trees in the Amazonian forests, providing their activities with tokens.

It was necessary to think about how to attract an audience to such a project, interested in both crypto and reducing the carbon footprint, which was not a trivial task, and approaches and solutions are very different from classic banners and press releases.

What is the secret behind the survival of your brand at a time when many crypto businesses are calling it quits?

The people and the team that we managed to assemble, with sufficient flexibility. We are always looking for new solutions, we are determined to listen to each other, implement new solutions and test hypotheses in search of new growth points.

What do you plan to do in the future?

Now we are developing new business processes, improving and developing our products, working on their quality to be the best in the industry. At the moment, for example, we have one of the best solutions for interacting with bloggers, from whom we not only purchase advertising integrations, but also build a set of services, in which, in addition to one video, the client also receives placements and announcements in all social networks, a subscription and etc.