About the Author: I'm Tim Dierckxsens, CEO of Venly, a blockchain technology provider. Before founding Venly, I spent years as a business consultant, helping executives innovate with digital solutions in industries like music, postal services, supply chain, and banking.

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My Experience with Blockchain in the Music Industry

In 2014, I was working as a business consultant in the music industry, tasked with digitizing paperback contracts. The company managed the rights of authors, composers, and publishers, and they had over 60 contracts for various occasions. Each required digitization, along with a tailored customer journey that allowed event organizers to select their event type and upload their playlist seamlessly. Based on the input parameters, the system needed to calculate the price to pay so that the company could pay out the rights holders.

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One of the issues was that the pricing calculation was a black-box operation. It worked for the company, so they didn't want to tamper with it. Every few releases, we updated the application with another contract, tested all contracts with the same input parameters, and discovered that the backend gave a different price for the same input. We all know this as software regression, and it happens constantly.

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It was during this time that I was researching a better way to solve this problem, and that's when Vitalik Buterin introduced the concept of smart contracts on blockchain technology.

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Here it was - a better way.

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It immediately clicked for me. Blockchain boasts immutability, proof of record, proof of transaction, and now even automatic execution of business logic when predetermined terms and conditions are met. From a theoretical perspective, this was going to disrupt everything.

Expanding Use Cases: Banking Industry

Fast forward two years. I was meeting up with friends from university, and one of them was working at a major bank in Belgium on a pilot project to simplify the management of payment receivables and factoring through smart contracts and blockchain.

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These were now relevant use cases in two very different industries.

Blockchain's Role in Postal Services

On my final assignment before becoming a founder, I was a consultant in the postal industry, managing software product development for various applications related to international distribution of letters and parcels. The software ranged from customer service and parcel notification tracking to statistical calculations of who owes what based on recorded transactions.

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The last experience just cemented my conviction that blockchain and smart contracts are indeed transformative. A letter or parcel's journey typically begins at the post office, moves to the sorting center, goes to the office of exchange, gets placed on a carrier, passes through customs, and finally reaches the sorting center of the destination country for last-mile delivery.

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Can you imagine that all these parties rely on their own databases as the source of truth? It's terribly inefficient and prone to errors. Instead, there's a better way to capture and log data through blockchain. Throughout the customer journey, every stakeholder could easily read and write data in the shared consortium. This data would then serve as the source of truth.

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With blockchain keeping an immaculate track of every transaction, there's no need for a statistical approach to determine who owes what, since every microtransaction is recorded and can be reported. Smart contracts could be applicable for the automatic execution of predetermined conditions.

The Transformative Power of Blockchain

After years of consulting across various industries, my conclusion remained the same: blockchain is a transformative technology.

I trusted my instincts and convinced my soon-to-be co-founders to build Venly—a company focused on providing scalable, decentralized blockchain solutions.

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Today, Venly is a leading blockchain technology provider delivering world-class APIs and integrated solutions to help you build your business with blockchain technology. We believe that delivering blockchain under a SaaS model simplifies development and takes away all the inherent risks of starting with the infrastructure.

The Cost of In-House Development vs. Venly's Solution

For companies that like to DIY, there's a 14-day free trial so you can experience our developer portal without paying anything. Then it starts at $99/month if you stay on.

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This is incredibly inexpensive considering the impact our SaaS solutions have had on our customers building their use cases.

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We've done the calculations with one of our customers that is building blockchain into their core application. They quickly understood the risks and costs of building on blockchain in-house rather than leveraging a SaaS solution like Venly.

In addition, if they chose to build on a chain directly and decided to migrate to another chain, chances are they would have to redo most of the work from scratch. While Ethereum-compatible chains make migrating blockchain solutions easier, it still requires technical expertise and time.

Why Companies Choose Venly

At Venly, we've seen companies save significant resources by opting for our SaaS blockchain solutions instead of building everything from the ground up. But beyond cost savings, there are several practical reasons why this approach works better for most businesses:

Security Without the Overhead

Security is a massive concern when working with blockchain infrastructure, and it's not just about setting it up once. Maintaining a secure environment requires continuous monitoring and updates. With Venly, you don't have to worry about security audits or the burden of maintaining certifications - we handle that.

Flexibility and Scalability

Blockchain is still evolving, and so are your business needs. With Venly's platform, you're not locked into a single blockchain network. Whether you start small or have large-scale needs, Venly's solutions scale as you grow. And if you ever need to integrate with different blockchains, our platform allows for smooth transitions without having to rebuild everything from scratch.

Efficiency and Speed

Building a blockchain solution in-house takes time - months, if not longer. With Venly, companies can get started faster. Our APIs are designed for quick integration, which means your team can focus on building the product or service rather than worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

Ongoing Support Tailored to Your Needs

Whether you're a hands-on company that likes to build on your own or you need more guidance, we offer multiple service models. From our DIY developer portal to done-with-you and done-for-you options, we ensure you're supported throughout the process without having to hire a team of blockchain developers internally.

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For companies that want more support and guidance, we also have additional service models such as a done-with-you model starting at $5,000 per month and a done-for-you model implementing blockchain at $25,000 per month. Reach out to our team if you want more information about our professional services.

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Ready to take the next step? Start your free 14-day trial today and experience how easy it is to build your blockchain solution with Venly.