Bloc’s New Mission Statement – The Why, the How and the What
Mission statement, written by Joshua Wood, CEO and founder of Bloc.
Foreword
Every morning I read a new Blinkist to start my day.
And recently I read ‘Start with Why’ by Simon Sinek that left an impression on me.
Bloc has always had a mission statement, but it’s not been defined in detail nor followed religiously.
As this book suggests, a company’s “why“ is crucial and a big indicator for its success.
The biggest companies in the world, like Apple, Disney and Amazon all have very transparent mission statements or ‘why’s’.
Ths is Apple’s mission statement: ‘Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user-friendly.’
Due to its importance I also want to be transparent with Bloc’s, which is why I want to make this publicly available via our blog.
I think by putting it public myself and all of Bloc’s employees and stakeholders will all be more accountable for making it happen, which will hopefully help us achieve what we want to achieve.
So without further ado, here’s Bloc’s new mission statement. Our why, how and what.
Why Bloc?
At Bloc we want to help create incredible and unforgettable experiences.
We genuinely believe a good life, a full life, comes down to an individuals experiences within that life.
This may sound a bit cheesy but when you look back 5, 10, or 15 years, you don’t remember the Monday you went to work or the Friday night in watching TV.
You remember the holidays, the festivals, a first kiss, the dates and other big experiences that are incredible and unforgettable.
It’s common when you ask someone who’s at the end of their lives what they regret. A high percentage of people say they regret the things they didn’t do, not what they did.
Experiences in life at the end of the day, is what it’s all about.
That’s Bloc’s ‘Why’.
Now how we do that and how we do that differently from other companies can be discovered below.
How will Bloc will help achieve this?
1. By helping people connect online and offline
Bloc started as an app that connects people before events.
In a world that is increasingly becoming disconnected in terms of meeting physically, we’re using technology to help people connect but making sure they meet physically.
Meeting a new friend, a new potential love interest or a new investor for a business can help make any event incredible and unforgettable.
As we know it’s the people that make an event special, not necessarily the event itself.
2. By incentivising people to attend more events
When we first started Bloc it was difficult getting people to check-in to events and it was the start of a cultural shift where people started to go to events less.
Various factors are contributing to this shift, whether it’s inflation, Netflix or better video games, people are spending less time at events and more time online, on screens.
This is why Bloc Rewards was born.
By rewarding our users for attending venues and events, it made a world of difference in terms of event attendance and check-ins.
If you’re essentially getting paid or rewarded to visit a bar or restaurant it’s a pretty powerful incentive.
We want to continue adding more rewards to Bloc to help get people out there, so that they can experience incredible and unforgettable life events.
3. To make it easier to find the best venues and events worth going to
Understandably people now have so many options on how to spend their time.
Long gone are the days of ‘boredom’.
This is why, in recent times, it’s become difficult for venues, events and the hospitality industry in general.
These businesses have to work really hard and be incredibly persuasive that their venue or event is worth going to over staying in and watching a new series or scrolling TikTok.
With a wide range of Bloc products (and more to come in the future), we’re helping people find venues and events that are incredible and unforgettable.
Places and events that are worth spending their time at.
4. By removing the stress that comes with event planning
Event planning can be stressful.
Communicating with and inviting friends, reservations, transport and tickets are all factors that can contribute to whether an experience is stressful or not.
At Bloc we plan on helping remove some of the stress by creating simple and seamless technological products that help with event management.
We are planning to launch our own reservation tool and ticketing product very soon.
5. By creating our own events and venues
There’s only one way to guarantee a venue or event is as good as we can help it, and that is to be in full control by having our own.
In the very near future we plan on throwing our own events and even plan on having our own venues.
We want to launch events and host people at venues for unforgettable and truly incredible experiences.
What products does Bloc have?
1. Bloc – the app
Bloc is our social events app that rewards people for attending venues and connects people before events.
How do people get rewards?
We incentivise people for attending venues by awarding those who check-in and attend venues and events our in-app currency, stars.
Once someone has collected enough stars they can exchange them for cash or $BLOC.
$BLOC can be spent on Bloc Rewards on a wide range of exciting products.
Stars can be earned in a number of different ways but checking in is the best and fastest way.
How do people connect before events?
When someone checks into a venue on a specific date, they can see all the other people who have also checked in there.
Users can add each other and connect if both parties mutually connect.
Once a connection has been made they can chat inside the app, knowing they will probably meet as they will both be at the same event on the same date.
This part of the app isn’t just for dating, but great for making friends and can also be used in business environments.
2. Bloc Rewards
Bloc Rewards is Bloc’s marketplace.
Bloc’s marketplace is powered by $BLOC, our cryptocurrency.
This is a stable coin that can only be earned and spent on Bloc Rewards.
To receive $BLOC, users need to earn stars within Bloc. Once they have collected a certain milestones of stars they can swap them for $BLOC.
Bloc Rewards have products that are related to events.
Think fashion, tickets and experiences.
3. Bloc Advertising
Venues and experiences aren’t great if there’s no one there.
Bloc Advertising helps venues market themselves to reach more people and to get more people through the door.
Ads are pushed to every Bloc user within a 10 mile radius of the venue being advertised and the venue is only charged if someone actually attends (tracked via geo-location).
We want venues to thrive so better experiences can be curated.
4. Bloc Social
Bloc Social is a place where Bloc users can hang out to discuss all things Bloc, events and experiences.
It’s free to join and there are amazing prizes to be won for those who engage the most.
With Bloc Social and Bloc the app, we want to create a community of like minded individuals who love incredible and unforgettable experiences.
5. Bloc Nearby
Bloc Nearby is a search engine and website for finding the best venues and events in the location you want.
Bloc Nearby is helping people find venues and events that are incredible, unforgettable and worth spending their time in.
How?
We showcase the best venues chosen by our team and these venues all compete for the top spots with a simple ‘like’ system voted for by our users.
Simply put, the most liked, and best venues appear in order within articles and in top placements.
What does the future look like?
How will we achieve our mission statement in the future?
We have so many plans in the future to help achieve our mission statement that I feel the journey of Bloc has only just begun.
Bloc Events
Bloc Events will be launched soon where we will create our own unique, unforgettable and incredible events based on what our users are looking for.
We will invite Bloc users to become official members, for free, where they can tell us what events they’ll be interested in.
If there is appetite for a foodie related event for example, we will create an unforgettable foodie event.
We’ll listen to our users and only throw events that they’re looking for.
Bloc Venues
In the future we want to own and run our own event spaces and venues so we can make sure all events hosted there are unforgettable and incredible.
We want to open our own food markets that show sport.
We want to create quirky cocktail bars where people can try cocktails they’ve never tried before.
We want to create spaces and pop-ups that create unforgettable experiences.
Bloc Experiences
Bloc Experiences will help connect people to different experiences around the world.
We want to be selective and give people access to unforgettable experiences worth going to.
These experiences will be able to be bought directly or earned for free via Bloc Rewards.
How can you help?
Like most tech products, you can help by benefiting from the different products we have.
Like social media apps some of our products work better when more people use them.
Try and check-in, treat yourself to a free reward and share your story on social media.
Telling your friends about Bloc will also help! You can even earn stars for inviting your friends on Bloc.
Thanks for reading!
Any questions you can email me directly at josh@getonbloc.com.
