Interview with Andrii Kotsur, CEO of WorkQuest

Last week we collected the questions from our audience, and Andrii Kotsur (CEO and Founder) answered all of them last Saturday. In the interview, he discovered the plans, unique features, and advantages of a decentralized platform.

Q.: “What exactly should we expect as regards marketing?”

Andrii Kotsur: “We are actively working on this. I can only say that soon you will be waiting for the long-awaited announcements, NFT draw, airdrop, and publication in the big media.

Be sure to follow our channels so as not to miss anything. 🙂”

Q.: “How will you deal with laws on salary payments and fiscality?”

Andrii Kotsur: “We will start with cryptocurrency-friendly countries and also work on developing a tax reporting system. In terms of technology, the blockchain is ideal for these purposes as all financial transactions are publicly available to all and are a much more transparent tool than the company’s accounting.

We also have established company and crypto exchange licenses in Estonia, which allows us to operate freely in the European market. Also, just to be clear, we do not depend on jurisdictions and governments as we will not need to open bank accounts in each country. Most card withdrawals will be done by local PSPs, acquiring companies, and payment providers.”

Q.: “Are you a global project or local project? At present, which market do you focus on?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Work Quest is a global decentralized labor market. Our platform will be available for use by all Internet users unless prohibited by the laws of their country. We start with the European market and aim to expand to the US, Asia, and other parts of the world.”

Q.: “Please tell us more about a retirement savings plan. How can employees get involved in this plan? Also, will they be able to leave whenever they want?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Users will be able to deposit their chosen amount to their pension account. Also, they can use the platform’s function where you can choose the desired percent of the amount of the quest that will be automatically credited to your pension wallet. Annual interest will be accrued on the accumulated amount. Each year, the user will be able to extend the saving plan for another year or withdraw to their main wallet.”

Q.: “That’s interesting 🤔 Thank you! Let’s move on to the next question. What kinds of employees are supported by Smart Hires?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Our goal is the global labor market. So we want to create a platform for all types of workers in the labor market. These can be:

Employees (short-term and long-term work), freelance audience, companies for finding qualified personnel, individuals for finding employees, HR companies, students for internships, and part-time jobs.”

Q.: “Tell us a little bit about security. Have you done an audit of the platform?”

Andrii Kotsur: “We have already passed an external audit from Node Factory. The platform is currently under development. Of course, we will audit each smart contract that will be used on the platform and take various necessary measures to identify weaknesses.”

Q.: “Security of the platform is always important. Thank you for your answer! How can we apply or send our resume? Is it a platform like Freelancer, anyone applies without knowledge in crypto?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Each user will be able to upload their resume to a profile or add a portfolio. You do not need to have cryptographic knowledge to use the Work Quest platform. Our goal is to build the easiest way for the user. The only difference is that you do not need to open a bank account. You can just use our stablecoin WUSD, which will provide you with fast, cheap, and reliable transactions.”

Q.: “Good to know that your project offers possibilities to various kinds of specialists! We have more interesting questions for you! How does Work Quest verify the veracity of employee diplomas or degrees? How do you assure employers that they are hiring qualified workers?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Thanks for the excellent question!

The company will apply a reasonable system of ratings and reviews, which will be based on all information collected from the registered user. Users must add information about themselves, social networks, portfolios, resumes, and more during the registration process. The more information the user provides, the higher the reliability rating he will receive.

If the user wants, he can go through the KYC procedure, which will, of course, increase his trust rating and raise him in search.

We will announce a partnership with a KYC provider also.

So short answer: data + KYC will make sure that workers will be reliable (also feedback stored in a blockchain and cannot be edited).”

Q.: “Users are sensitive to the Security of their personal data. WorkQuest will use a lot of personal data. So how will you ensure the security of this data?”

Andrii Kotsur: “First of all, we are fully decentralized. That means that we will not do any forks or data replacement if there will be malicious data. We will just mark that this is harmful data.

This is why we will be the first validators of the platform before the complete DAO transition. We will see patterns and learn how to detect bad actors. However, since most employers will look for the workers who passed KYC, the cost of risk playing malicious data game is considerable for the potential workers since we will ban them forever (We will quickly identify them since we will have their KYC profiles). Also, do not forget that we will manage the UI, so we can blacklist some users.

Safety is paramount nowadays. We have already passed an external audit from Node Factory. We will continue to announce various bag bounties and cooperate with many other companies to find possible weaknesses in the code. Major activities in this part will start once we finish the development of the Work Net blockchain.”

Q.: “Security of personal data is essential to our users. Good to know that you have a good solution! How do you attract investors to be interested in Your project?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Recently, the market has tended to invest in hype projects in which the absolute value looks very questionable. Our team focuses on developing natural products useful in their lives and have real cases to use. As you know, the hype passes, and the actual products remain.

Of course, we understand that marketing is essential, so now we are working on it with our new partner NinjaPromo.”

Q.: “How do you plan to encourage new users to continue growing on the platform?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Users will have access to various platform functionalities, which will encourage them to accumulate their rewards through various products. For example, after completing the quest, they will be able to issue a loan and receive a profit for it or use a savings product.”

Q.: “What did your project do and plans to do to achieve real-world adoption?”

Andrii Kotsur: “We are developing an aggressive referral program to increase the platform’s user base in the global market. The team also actively looking for new partners in various world markets. For me, globalization is about having more users, both workers and employers from different countries (Going to the USA market, for example, is acquiring more employers from the USA, which will bring more local workers). Therefore, our goal is also to be present in the European and Asian markets also and to develop an active community in these regions.”

Q.: “Very well! Thank you for your answer 👍 What are the special and unique characteristics of WQ that make it different from the others?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Work Quest is the online Marketplace and decentralized Payment Provider connecting employers with employees anywhere in the world powered by Smart Contracts governed by DAO.

The platform incentivizes employers and employees to deal honestly and prudently using its Rating System with all the feedback is stored in a blockchain. As platforms act as a facilitator of transactions between employer and the employee, different Defi products available for platform participants, such as Savings, Retirement & Disability Insurance.

The platform’s main features include running employment agreements on smart contracts, eliminating the middleman, running organizations using DAO principles, and allowing Defi features for all the participants on the platform (e.g., Insurance fund, retirement save the program, savings products).”

Q.: “This project has its own uniqueness ✨ That’s great, thank you! How do transaction fees work now?”

Andrii Kotsur: “If we are talking about high transaction fees on the Ethereum network, then we made a BSC bridge for the WQT token to solve this problem. You can now trade WQT on PancakeSwap. We are also working on listing on a centralized exchange to address this issue. However, in the future, we are not dependent on the Ethereum or Binance as we will need to develop our own blockchain (based on Cosmos SDK — you can read about it in our whitepaper).”

Q.: “I want to know about your DAO voting system. Will every token holder be able to vote? Or any special criteria for it? Can you explain it in detail?”

Andrii Kotsur: “What activities will be governed by the DAO?

Let’s list the main ones:

• Insurance to cover proof of execution of services as agreed upon by the employee and the employer in the smart contract, % of rewards to be sent out to the referee varies as per the governance and reward pool.
• Referral Program: change the amount of remuneration for inviting new users to register on the Work Quest platform.
• Pension Program: A voluntary option for employees, classified under the lending, to earn 3,5–6.5% interest.
• The amount of interest may change when changing the lending algorithm and interest in the smart contract.
• Savings Product: A voluntary option, classified under lending to earn a profit of 3–5% in a year.
• Depending upon the type of services being availed, there will be a template of DAOs to resolve disputes between all involved parties in the most amicable manner.
• Rewards for staking tokens or contributing to the liquidity pool on the platform will be governed by the DAO.
• Changes of insurance packages for p2p insurance funds. Proposals to change the logic of insurance funds and fund management managers (change their remuneration).

Anyone with 100 WQT can vote or delegate their vote.”

Q.: “Thanks! Our users are interested in a few more things 🤓 What are your top 3 things for priorities in 2021?”

Andrii Kotsur: “The main thing for us now is the work on the product. Work Quest DAO release, Work Net release, Work USDT Wallet release.

Regarding our goals for the short term and long term:

Short term: Proven PoC with all main features released enough to start testing pilots with recruiting agencies.

Long-term: Working platform with a lot of data points such as ratings, reviews, and agreements run on smart contracts.”

Q.: “Well, it seems like we have an interesting year ahead! Let’s move on to the next question: What are the ways that generate income/revenue to maintain your project, and what is its revenue model? also, how can it make benefit win-win to both investor and your project ?”

Andrii Kotsur: “The company will receive a profit in the form of a commission from the quests completed on the platform. There will also be paid advertising services for users on the platform, such as advertising a profile or a job offer.

Users, in turn, can receive rewards using the broad functionality of the platform, such as lending, deposit product, pension product, p2p insurance, liquidity mining, referral program, etc.

The main goal of the project was to build an ecosystem that would benefit all its participants.”

Q.: “So it will be truly a win-win for both sides! 🤝 That’s amazing! Do you have any plans to grow the team and new partnerships?”

Andrii Kotsur: “Yes, of course, we already have new advisors on the team who will help build new partnerships and achieve goals. We have also entered into a new strategic partnership between Work Quest and OPW Ventures. New partnerships will be announced soon, so stay tuned!”

Q.: “We’re finished with the questions! Thanks to all our users who submitted so many interesting questions! And thank you, Andrii Kotsur, that was a great interview!”

Andrii Kotsur: “Pleasure to be here. Thank you for moderating this interview.

And thanks to all users who support us!”