EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The emerging digitalization trend has increasingly started to conquer the financial service sector all around the world and is more important than ever before. The current system of credit reporting in the United States is old and outdated. Furthermore, the data of clients around the country is stored on centralized systems which are vulnerable to hackers - only two years ago over 140 million U.S. citizens became targets of such an attack. Additionally, the current system takes painfully long and is very expensive, both for the banks and their customers. After becoming a victim of the system himself, one of the founders of Traun felt like there has to be a way to improve the system fundamentally. That's how Traun was born - a blockchain based software that is designed to fundamentally improve the lives of millions of people around our globe.

Challenge

At the beginning of the project, the team, consisting of the founder of the technology, who currently is enrolled in his Ph.D. at the Institute of Science and Technology, and four business students from Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, faced various challenges. Firstly, the business students had to become familiar with the idea and understand the ingenious technology behind it. In a next step, it was of the highest importance to find the right customers and business model. After a few weeks, a lot of brainstorming, as well as the conduction of various interviews, the team realized that a B2C approach was not the right way to introduce a feasible business model. Thus, the plan had to be radically revamped and the present concept has been called into the world: a B2B software which perfectly suits our target customers such as the three major credit rating agencies currently controlling the U.S. market, namely TransUnion, Experian and Equifax as well as governments and banks around the world in a next step.

Method

In the initial phase of the project, the team became familiar with the market, the potential customers and the existing competition through 16 interviews as well as profound research of secondary literature. The interviews were conducted with potential customers from the U.S. aged between 18 and 56 years regarding a B2C solution. The goal was to deeply understand the pain which is suffered with the current underlying system to figure out where to start. Through the interviews, the team was able to find out that the pain exists, but that the business model is substantially more viable from a B2B point of view. Subsequently, profound market and competition analyses were carried out which allowed the team behind Traun to understand the market and to examine its competition in depth, including their strengths and weaknesses. In a final step, it was of utmost importance to develop a lucrative market entry strategy. The plan is to start consulting firms regarding the implementation of the software in the fourth quarter of this year and continue doing so until the third quarter of 2020 when the software will be fully functional and implementable for the target customers.

Results/Implication

The outcome of the project is a marketable blockchain based business model in the B2B area. In a next step, the team behind Traun is eager to apply for various fundings in order to receive the needed investment to fully enter the market in the final quarter of 2019 in the course of the first consulting services. Another crucial point for the success of the startup is going to be the acquisition of additional one or two team members with a tech/blockchain background in order to guarantee services at the highest level.

Cooperation Partner

• Amir Goharshady

Contact Person

• Jürgen Ulbrich
  mail@juergen.co

Student team

• Paul Nösslböck

• Nicolaus Norden

• Jürgen Ulbrich

• David Zbroja

Project-Manager

• Assoz. Prof. Dr. Peter Keinz

• Barbara Mehner, MSc.