Everyone has heard of horror stories about online second-hand transactions gone wrong. You’d buy a product via online, pay for it, only to receive a knock-off or not get a package at all. The seller is gone, nowhere to be found, and your money is gone too. There’s no trust anymore. But what if there is? Blockmedia met with the CEO of HashBrand, Mr. Hwang, who is developing a platform for luxury handbag transactions.

– Could you introduce yourself briefly?
“I am the CEO and the engineer of HashBrand. Originally, I began in the IT industry for hacking and security, and have been growing through various projects such as big data, cloud, and artificial intelligence. At the moment, I’m working on an exchange platform where you can use blockchain to prove the authenticity of the product and to sell and buy them.”

– What do you mean by ‘prove the authenticity?’
“Right now, people determine the authenticity through a hologram stickers or QR codes. The camera on the server will recognize it and indicate whether the product is real or fake. However, we are working with a trustworthy database blockchain in order to store and retrieve the information, instead of using a single server.”

– Could you explain more about your business?
“We have one solution and one service. The solution is, literally, the HashBrand solution. This is the authenticity-verification technology based on the blockchain. Within this system, you can store not only the proof of authenticity, but also the ownership. In other words, it is a system that can verify a simple authentication through a smartphone by issuing an identification card such as an official certificate or identification card to a specific product.”

“The Resell Ground is basically the exchange platform itself. However, we are focusing on the aspect of improved user-interface that allows more convenient transaction process. Many people have many products but it was hard to buy or sell them online as it takes too much time and effort to search for the right product. Resell Ground will change that; you can make a detailed page for a product, sell and buy that product, within all on one page. The prices are different too, whether they are second-hand or new, etc. So Resell Ground helps with finding the right price for the product too.

“Whenever we make a transaction with someone else, the most important thing is trust. We need to know whether the product is real or a knockoff. The buyer can request to have the product double-checked by a professional who will determine its authenticity before the product is shipped to the buyer. This is when HashBrand Solution comes in. Once it’s checked by the professional, it gets registered to our system with the information on ownership. This ownership list is open to the public so that you can choose the right product.”

– Do you need a collaboration with brands to get the new products?
“There are other ways, purchasing partner agents or parallel importation. Brands either have rooms for these partnerships or they don’t. Since we are still a small startup, we are working with brands that are open to these types of partnerships.”

– What’s the reason for using blockchain in Resell Ground?
“The problem is the data reliability. Too many things ask for money in return, under the name of ‘trust’ that they take as a hostage. This is exactly why we are working on the solution and the service. Imagine there’s a bag on Resell Ground where you can buy and also check the authenticity via blockchain. If you were to sell it again later, you can simply do it using your smartphone, and the next buyer can check the authenticity again, so easily. This creates a circle of trust. A circle of trust can influence the cost of trust. For example, for the products that are already registered and verified, Resell Ground does not charge any transaction fee. Ultimately what we are looking for, is to minimize the cost of trust so that anyone can trade assets easily. This is why we used blockchain technology.”

– Will it be like JoongGoNara with blockchain?
“I don’t think we have a competition here, it’s just different. What we are looking into is to exchange assets in cost-effective ways. Peter Tree once wrote ‘if you are trying to challenge an existing thing with a new skills and logic, you should at least exceed the success by 10 times.’ If we are just creating a second-hand commerce platform, we cannot compete with JoongGoNara. So,we are going through some success cases, system techniques and so on. Learning how to simplify transactions. Therefore, I don’t think we are just another JoongGoNara with blockchain.”

– What’s the motive behind starting this business?
“The short answer would be ‘I found a problem and wanted to solve it.’ Some time ago, I developed an application service where you could recommend restaurants to other people. We did analysis using portal data, trends big data based on Europe and USA, but I started wondering if we could trust this data. Right at that time, we had voting fraud issues that were being publicly condemned, so it made me wonder too. Big Data is important because of AI. Depending on how accurate and defined the big data is, the AI performance differs. But then when I looked at my big data, I couldn’t trust it. I started pondering about how to solve this issue, and thought of blockchain. Ultimately, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that I started this company to solve the issue of data reliability.”

– What will happen with blockchain technology?
“I think all of these ongoing challenges will be combined into one standard. Think of the internet bubble. The bubble kind of died down because many companies jumped into it, but the development efforts for the internet protocol is still there. Different scenarios and cases will eventually lead to one standard, the most efficient one, but it will be continuously worked on nonetheless. I think that’s what will happen with blockchain.”

– What’s the business goal?
“The word ‘success’ comes to mind. At the beginning, it was all about data reliability. So I started with blockchain cloud system. Almost all systems in the world is in a cloud-based form and they contain the majority of data, so I approached the issue with a goal to create a blockchain-based cloud. I targeted overseas investments but eventually it didn’t work out. Meanwhile the business had scaled up, which was hard to maintain. Then I saw a line in a book that went ‘entrepreneurs should think about the phrase “fail until it succeeds” when the challenge is broken and you want to give up. The outcome is set, and whether you believe it or not will change your moment.” This rang the bell in my head. So when you asked what’s my goal, I thought of success. I want to succeed; more specifically, I want my HashBrand Solution and Resell Ground Services to succeed.”

– Anything else to add?
“Unrealistic goals and too much greed are not good for the company. What seems important right now is a good design, and a heart that believes what future will be and how to achieve it. It’s easier being said than done. So if I were to hope for a smaller wish, it is to have a solid user base and an investor who can truly connect with our mission and vision, and to have more institution and partners that can positively spread this to the society.”