In this interview, we have a chance to ask Mr. Sergey Zubkov about his idea for starting SaveToFuture, what is the value and importance of owning an exact brand match domain name, and why protecting a client’s personal data is so important to their business.
What is the story behind SaveToFuture?
About 2 years ago or so, I had a life situation when I needed to send some private information, an electronic file, to another person, but in the future, not at the moment. What is more important, I wanted this file to be sent in the future automatically, without my intervention. At that time, sadly, I couldn’t find such a service on the internet.
One year later, again, I had a need of similar nature. I wanted to transfer my whole crypto portfolio to my relatives. Not transfer just now, but make it happen in the future, in case something happens to me. A quick search on the Internet did not return any good results again.
Sometime later, I entered into a bet with my good friend. We bet for real money. The result of the bet was to become known in a year. Sometimes the very next day you can forget what you were talking about. And here – a whole year. I again remembered that it would be nice to have a service that will help seal the condition of the bet into a secure capsule, and automatically open it upon reaching a certain date or on some other event.
These three cases, plus surveys among potential users of such service, pushed me and my partner to kick-off the project, to build a strong software development team, and, finally, to make it happen. Now we have SaveToFuture.com service live.
When did you start thinking about your brand name and how did you settle on SaveToFuture?
My partner and I brainstormed the name and generated a list of name candidates. The main idea was that the name should somehow represent secure long-term storage of client’s files and delivery of these client’s files into the future.
We launched a survey on social media, asking people to choose the best name from the list of candidates. In total, we did 3 rounds of surveys. On each next round, we improved the name candidates and also removed fewer voted options.
Finally, we end up with the SaveToFuture for product and the domain name SaveToFuture.com.
How did you get the domain name SaveToFuture.com for your brand? Why did you select that one exactly?
We decided to keep only one name for the internet domain and the product itself. I bought the domain by myself.
How has owning SaveToFuture.com affected your business? Do you own any other domain names?
We think that the right internet domain name is a very important point to lead the business to success. It should be easy to remember, it should not be too long, and should not allow many variations that could confuse the customer when he is trying to recall it.
“We think that the right internet domain name is a very important point to lead the business to success. It should be easy to remember, it should not be too long, and should not allow many variations that could confuse the customer when he is trying to recall it.”
Sergey Zubkov
Besides SaveToFuture.com we also registered several satellite domain names. One of the main satellite domains is OpenToFuture.com. When a customer creates a secure capsule in the SaveToFuture service and wants to give saved files publicity in the future, he can configure posting those files on the OpenToFuture.com website. We choose the OpenToFuture website name to be connected to the SaveToFuture project, and at the same time representing its nature of showing files opened to publicity.
We also own a few other domains that are used by the SaveToFuture project, however, they have more technical use and are not intended for public access.
Who are your ideal customers? What do they value already, and what should they value in your brand?
I suppose that the profiles of SaveToFuture customers are:
a. Man (80%), Age range 30-65, educated, middle or high income, has a family (70%)
b. Age range 25-50, holder of cryptocurrencies of other secrets
c. Age range 30-65, a business owner, or an investigative journalist, a political or financial blogger, or a trader.
What our clients have in common is that they are concerned about their future, the future of their loved ones, or their business. The most important thing for our clients is to be sure that files stored in secure capsules cannot be decrypted and ever read by anyone in the world. It is very important for our customers that the SaveToFuture service follows their instructions for opening secure capsules and performing actions on files exactly as they have configured.
How do you keep your brand consistent across different channels online and offline?
We have just started developing our own social media presence. Currently following social media accounts are owned by SaveToFuture:
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Telegram, Telegram Channel, and YouTube.
Now we need to promote the SaveToFuture service on all those social media. I am thinking of outsourcing this task to someone, who is professional in that area.
What is unique about your product/business?
We have developed and launched a unique service. It has no exact analogs. It serves exactly and perfectly for what it is developed. The pricing model is very straight and adequate.
Has the pandemic affected your company in any way? What has changed since?
Due to the pandemic, the whole out team is working 100% remotely. Thanks to the nature of business, IT-internet business, remote work has no negative effect on our plans. I should say, it even made our teamwork in a certain way more effective. Thanks to MS Teams, Zoom, Telegram, and other communication tools, it seems we are connected more, than sitting together in the same office space.
What do you do to make sure your marketing is effective?
I believe that now we need to focus on advertising. Specifically, advertising is a social media channel and targeted segments of customers. We are great managers, architects, developers, and security experts – it is all that is important for the SaveToFuture product. However, we are not marketing guys. That is why for the marketing and promotion we will outsource to other professionals in its domain.
What would your advice be to entrepreneurs who are just starting out, in general, and when it comes to branding and naming?
If you want to do something – then just do it. Do not underestimate the importance of brand name and internet domain. Moreover, if your main business relates to the Internet. Any startup requires a lot of personal hard work. Only the founders driving the project forward, no one else.
Where do you see your business in the future and how does your brand name fit into that vision?
We will be focused on promoting the SaveToFuture project in any possible way. We have our targets in the number of registered customers, in sales made, that we are going to achieve.
Our team is also working on another service for people’s personal data security, that will be launched under the same SaveToFuture brand.
We hope the above information will help you in making informed decisions about your brand. If you want to say hi or have any questions about naming, branding, and domain names get in touch, we’re always happy to hear from you.
Find out more about SaveToFuture
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