My name is Arran Stewart and I’m the Co-Founder of Job.com here in the US. I was born in the UK, however, in a working-class town called Luton — about 20 miles north of London. I’m married and we have five children. There are a number of things that I am passionate about — the first one being that my life’s work is to help as many people as I can feed their families and pay their bills. The second is technology — I love emerging tech and the potential it has for good and to improve the quality of all of our lives. Third and final, I am a huge car guy and have had a deep love of cars for the last 30 years.
I have known and dabbled in cryptocurrency since 2012. However, at the time, if I’m honest, I thought that it was more of a gimmick, rather than something I thought would actually take off. Several close friends starting to collect Bitcoin eventually brought it more onto my radar. Then, in 2017, I truly jumped onboard and became very excited about all the possibilities of crypto including all of the various benefits that its underlying technology blockchain could offer to various industry silos as well as the practical applications.
My current business partner, Co-Founder of Job.com, Paul Sloyan. I was fortunate that I had some decent success at a young age in my career, but when I joined Paul in 2011 to build a business that would transform the recruitment industry, he had significantly more experience and wisdom than I did. Over the years he has helped craft my abilities as a businessperson, a father, and a husband — not to mention my general development. All of which has given me a “success” gene — I believe success only happens if you manage your entire life with balance and control, which is something that Paul taught me.
After I finished college, I went to work for a publicly traded recruitment company in central London called SThree. That company owned a job board called The IT Job Board. I worked there for only a very short period of time since I quickly realized how much money they were making and with my decent level of technical knowledge thought I could replicate what they were doing, but better.
I handed in my notice and left the company to set up my own job board, called Jobsfromblue. I took out business loans, personal loans, money from friends and family. All in all, at a very young age, I was in hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt from getting this business off the ground — and it failed miserably. At the time, it was very scary and was a huge financial as well as emotional set back. My own arrogance and naivety though were the reason I kept going and worked my way out of the mess I had put myself into. Today, I look back at that mess fondly — it was a baptism of fire in lessons learned — and I’m glad I went through it since it helped shape who I am today.
Attempt to make products and services that make blockchain technology accessible and less foreign to the masses. We need true mass adoption of this technology and cryptocurrency if it’s to have a hope of becoming household prominent. Accessibility is the key to success here and currently it sometimes feels like certain blockchain services are simply not user friendly enough and too complex for the majority of people (or anyone really who is not extremely tech literate).
1. Focus more on stable coins. We need to bring a level of stability to the volatility that current crypto has. Its instability has been an incredible way of raising awareness for the crypto market and has been instrumental in attracting the few early adopters who are looking to chase the goldrush. But to truly unlock the power of DeFi and take the full global advantage of this technology, we must make it stable enough that someone could buy a Big Mac with it.
2. The carbon footprint of crypto is a problem. This is especially true with Bitcoin and is something that I personally believe puts an eventual shelf life on Bitcoin — it’s impractical for day to day purchases. There needs to be a new master coin that is built with a “green” protocol that is scalable, stable, and doesn’t cost the planet.
3. Regulating coin raises. I can almost hear the booing now from the community for this, but we simply cannot allow this method of fundraising to continue. Especially with so many grey areas that allow others to quite literally steal another person’s digital assets. The most famous regulator intervention of a coin raise must have been for Telegram, where they were forced to pay back $1.2 billion of their raise along with an $18.5 million fine. I agree with this, if there is illegal activity, it should be stopped and it should be punished.
4. A greater regulation over exchanges. There have been many times where exchanges have literally gone down when there has been a volatility rush towards buying certain coins — Binance is a great example of this. It feels like there could be foul play at hand and offshore entities like exchanges should be held accountable. Again, I understand that many will state this is defeating the purpose of decentralization, but there have to be some rules at play as well as consequences if those are not followed. Otherwise, the general masses will never adopt it out of the fear of being ripped off.
5. Make the explanation of how crypto works and the technology behind it, far more accessible. This will help those who are not from that world, to understand, embrace, and adopt it. At the moment, the industry is so tech led that it feels far away from the average consumer, which is a real problem — especially since people naturally fear what they don’t understand.
As mentioned earlier, my job is to create technology and platforms that make it easier for people to find employment and opportunity. I have been doing this my whole career and I pride myself on helping as many people as I can both feed their families and pay their bills. As the Chief Visionary Officer of Job.com, that is always my vision and goal.
“He who dares.” I have always dared to be different and try new things — despite the naysayers, those that wish to criticize and relish in hoping you fail. But I’m grateful to them as it provides me with further motivation. My intentions have always been pure, and I look to provide a good life for my family while also monetizing from a business that actually helps people, like Job.com does.
You can follow me on Nasdaq, the Job.com Blog, or Twitter.
Interviewer: Tyler Gallagher
Interviewee: Arran Stewart, CVO and Co-founder of Job.com
Original article found here