Lampix was started in 2015 with the goal of transforming any flat surface into an augmented reality smart surface. Today we sit down with the Founder, George Popescu to talk about the challenges his company is facing, and how they’re using blockchain to out-innovate their competitors.
Sam Safahi: What’s your vision for Lampix?
George Popescu: Hi, we want to see a Lampix in every room, office, house, shop , factory,etc. That will revolutionize how we work , how we play. It will not replace smart phones or computers, it will be a 3rd class of devices that use other surfaces un-used at this time.
Sam: If you could change one thing magically, what would it be?
George: Great question, I would like to make more “time”.
Sam: What are some problems you’ve faced or encountered?
George: Oh, as an entrepreneur I am problem solver in chief. If somebody in the company can’t solve a problem, it ends up in my hands. Some Usual problems: not enough money, unhappy customers, technology problems, communications problems. As CEO I am in charge of building an organization and company that creates great products and makes happy customers, so that’s a lot of thinking how to organize things. Then there are many issues that we can’t control and still end up in our hands : a key vendor changing price by 10x with 1 month notice, or a government passing a law that makes your product illegal. Name a problem, I probably already had it, twice! I built quite a few companies.
Sam: What’s unique or special about Lampix?
George: About the product : it’s approach. It is very simple hardware that uses a smart phone camera and a simple computer/projector. Nothing specialized. This makes the software do all the difficult part. But this also allows us to make it very cost effective. And this also allows us to manufacture it easily.
About the company: how we use both blockchain to do image mining for data to train computer vision and hardware . To my knowledge there are not many , if any, blockchain and hardware companies, who have revenue and such a nice customer list already.
Sam: Does Lampix plan to fund community-based development groups?
George: We don’t have plans to directly fund them but we do have plans to encourage them in many other ways : we will have open APIs and source code examples for free to help them get started. We are also going to build them a base of customer to help them get revenue.
Sam: How has news from China affected Lampix?
George: Well in fact the ICO news have been very good for us because it cancelled/ removed many potential competitors or projects who were competing with Lampix for customer attention. However the closing of the exchanges is not good news because our Chinese customers were looking forward to seeing our PIX token on Chinese exchanges which are much easier for them to work on. We were told that new regulation will come for exchanges and they will open new ones with licenses.
Sam: Where do you think blockchain technology will be in 5 years?
George: I think it will be the tech that enables certain large companies with revenues in the 100s of millions to be much more competitive than traditional internet based companies. I think it will have billions of dollars in revenue, (in total as a market) and I think it will be mainstream where existing large companies will all start using blockchain for some of their needs.
Sam: What should we expect coming in the next couple of months?
George: That is hard to say. I think people and government will keep taking sides on blockchain, ICOs, Crypto Exchanges… Some will fight it. Some will embrace it. And the majority will still stay on the side. I think that until 1 large company fails because they couldn’t compete with a blockchain driven company, crypto will still be not widely adopted. There is also a chance of a large recession coming soon (it’s past due) which will be a great test for crypto. There is a good chance that in the next recession crypto will really impose itself as an alternative to the existing global economic system.
Sam: Will Lampix expand to other markets? If so, which ones?
George: We think ourselves as a global entity from day one. We don’t need to expand in other markets as everything we do we try to do world wide. For example: anybody can buy a Lampix , once it is ready for retail sales, from anywhere around the world.
Sam: Do you have a comment on the price? Do you keep an eye on it or do you not care?
George: I don’t check it often. The only thing I can effect is long term price, based on fundamental efforts. I can’t affect the intra day price , that’s done by speculators who have a lot of money, nor do I want to affect that. Our strategy is to ignore the price, keep doing our work. Promote and show what we do. To build a large community. It’s the community that will drive the price.
Sam: Do you plan to port over to NEO, for example, in the future?
George: Yes, we are planning to be on multiple networks depending on popularity.
Sam: What’s your opinion of Ethereum?
George: I think that unlike BTC having a clear charismatic leader, who can make the community take decisions is a strength. I Also think that this will allow the ETH network to evolve ( hard fork) as needed. The main crypto use cases right now are funded by ICOs, so they (ICO’s) are here to stay. These are enabled by ETH, which creates ETH demand. So I have high expectations from ETH, and it’s is not just speculation. It presently has useful functions and abilities.
Sam: Do you support Segwit2x?
George: I don’t understand it enough to have an opinion. But I like that different versions exist which are competing with each other to let the market and usage decide which one is better instead of a small number of individuals making a choice for everybody.
Sam: Will Lampix eventually have its own blockchain or will it stay on other platforms?
George: We will stay on other networks. No need to have own blockchain.
Sam: Is there anything you’d like people to know about Lampix?
George: Yes, I would like them to watch our video of what Lam pix does: Video It’s the best way to understand Lampix and its potential.
