Project Spotlight: TessaB- Blockchain for the Mobile Phone Industry

Hi NEARverse, we’d like to introduce you to the TessaB project solving a real world problem within the secondhand mobile phone industry with blockchain via the Glyde Marketplace.

Below is a Q&A with TessaB’s CEO, Flavio Mansi.

Background

Tell us a few things about your company.  What inspired you to start it?

PCS Wireless founded TessaB in 2018 to enable a new, innovative ecosystem for pre-owned mobile devices and related services backed by a blockchain technology platform. I was part of the PCS Wireless team and previously served as President of its subsidiary IGWT Block. Today, as CEO of TessaB Corp. my goal is to leverage the TessaB blockchain platform we have built, as well as PCS Wireless’s proven track record in the secondary wireless market, to develop a more transparent and secure ecosystem for new and pre-owned phones and related services starting with our newly launched platform: The Glyde Marketplace (Glyde).

Who is on your team?

We have a robust and multi-faceted team. Please check them out on our website: https://www.tessab.com/the-team/

Have you received outside funding from notable investors or advisors?

Up until this point we have self-funded this project but expect to attract external capital in the next quarter or two, once the business units we are building on top of our TessaB blockchain platform continue gaining traction.

The Blockchain Factor

Why did you decide to build your project with blockchain technology?

TessaB is using a blockchain technology stack to solve the issues of trust and transparency. Blockchain provides a more transparent, and secure ecosystem for new and pre-owned phones and related services. The biggest barrier to purchasing a used phone is lack of confidence in the condition of the phone the buyer will receive. That is why we have selected blockchain and other innovative technologies to create a more efficient and trustworthy marketplace for used phones.

Enter NEAR

Why did you choose to build on NEAR?

We teamed up with NEAR Protocol for layer one of the blockchain to provide the foundation for a fairer marketplace for both individual consumers and businesses, one in which transactions are more transparent and, as a result, prices more accurately reflect the quality and value of the device.

With Glyde, business rules programmed into smart contracts to guide dispute mediation when the condition of a phone a buyer receives does not match the condition the seller posted to a phone listing, minimizing the need for subjective decision-making.

How did NEAR help you solve some of your key challenges?

The two biggest challenges with any main chain protocols for blockchain eg. Bitcoin, Ethereum right now is scalability and cost to record transactions. NEAR protocol helps a lot in both of those problems via the sharding concept. NEAR is 100 times faster than Ethereum and more than 1000 times cheaper. 

There were a few more factors we were looking for such as: 

Popularity: Number of dApps on the platform and developers in their community

Contract Complexity: How robust is their development infrastructure?

WASM compatibility: Web-Assembly was another important factor for reuse and compatibility with other languages in future development. The wallet is mobile & web compatible, custodial & non-custodial options. Since we had plans for our own Token for our ecosystem, the protocol needed to be compatible with various wallet solutions.

Cost of creating a user account: Since we had to create an account for every user, the cost of creating an account was also very important.

 NEAR was at the top of our selection matrix.

On the Personal Side

What is your motto / favorite quote?

“Parco en la adulación y abundante en la crítica” which roughly translates to “limited on adulation and extensive on criticism”.

What is your current state of mind?

We are delighted with the official launch of The Glyde Marketplace this past November with a mission of solving issues within the used mobile phone market. Right now, there is an average of seven middlemen between a customer who trades in a phone and its next owner. Our goal is to eliminate these inefficiencies and also instill trust between buyers and sellers.

Looking to the Future

What are your plans for the future? What’s the next big milestone you want to achieve?

Our goal is for Glyde to usher in the future of buying and selling used phones. We do this by harnessing new technologies to provide buyers and sellers a higher level of transparency and security, thereby allowing consumers to cut out the many industry middlemen who needlessly drive up prices. TessaB is disrupting a massive industry. The global market for used phones is huge, forecast to be worth $67 billion by 2023 according to William Stofega, Program Director, Mobile Device Technology and Trends at IDC and we hope to be a part of that market as the industry for second hand phones grows.

What is it that excites you the most about blockchain and the Open Web?

I’m most excited about Blockchain’s ability to revolutionize industries, societies, and create new communities. Blockchain enables programmable digital agreements (eliminating the need for human intermediaries), provides verifiable data, and facilitates a new level of trust and transparency to various industry markets. 

With our new Glyde marketplace, we’re combining the power of Blockchain with mobile diagnostics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to revolutionize an industry plagued by lack of transparency and ambiguity. The fusion of these emerging technologies will cultivate a fully transparent, trustworthy peer-to-peer marketplace. Our diagnostics benefit consumers tremendously as we are harnessing the power of smart contracts to ensure transactions include verifiable data for both parties. This act of  good faith via the blockchain, will create a historical record of each device any time diagnostics are run. 

This will allow for us to assess and predict the value and lifespan of devices more accurately, providing cost-efficiency and more transparency around what devices should really be bought and sold. Overall, our goal is to provide more value for a phone you are selling and more insights for a second-hand phone you may be looking to purchase.

TessaB and NEAR

Keep up to date with TessaB and The Glyde Marketplace on our socials via  LinkedIn and don’t forget our Twitter.

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