The Scorum team is hard at work, improving the community many of us have grown to love. Well over a year of work has gone into what is now a functional sports blog and sports betting platform.

While we can see what's been delivered and we've been told that a lot more is still to come, we often don't know what is going on behind the scenes. Last year, I decided to see if Scorum CEO Vlad Artemyev would be open to a written interview. He was, and at the suggestion of Team Italia, we both agreed to make it an ongoing series.

I recently chatted with Vlad, asking questions that both you and I had about Scorum, the team, and more. Here is my Q1 2019 interview with Vlad Artemyev. I'd like to thank everyone who asked questions and Vlad for participating.

Please keep this conversation going by making a comment at the end of this post.

How are you doing personally? How do you balance your work and personal life?

Thanks for asking! I’m doing just fine.
I really enjoy working and can work a lot without feeling rundown or burned out. I work around 80-100 hours per week and I feel that I still have enough time for a personal life as well. I’m driven by lots of energy.

What's your favorite sport and player?

My favorite sport is poker and chess, but I don’t have any favorite players I follow. I like my own style 😊.

@Mikey Response: Vlad, come and play with us on Scorum Poker! What are you waiting for?

I was playing for 10 years, just took some time to relax and participate in offline tournaments.

What changes can we expect over the next three months here on Scorum?

The mobile version of the blogging platform and some improvements in explorer, like the voting tool, are coming soon. We appreciate your patience and you can rest assured that the team is working very hard on improving Scorum.

Question from @raamesa: “What’s what value of sports bloggers if the primary purpose is to promote betting?” “Is there a place for fans who bet less (or not at all) and enjoy the interaction in this community?”

As bloggers on Scorum, you are valued by the Scorum team and you are bringing value to the platform. Bettors and supporters of betting are also very valuable to our platform. There is a place for every sports fan here on Scorum, whether you are involved or interested in betting or not.
Betting is synonymous with sports. Bettors like to read sports content, and posts attract traffic off of search engines, which is the most efficient form of marketing. I see the blogging platform as an important and welcome place for sport fans and betting fans both. Why not?

Question from @ancapbarbie: “When can we see delegate voting directly from the Scorum site?”

Soon, it’s currently being tested. We want to make sure it works perfectly before releasing to the community and we’re close.

What is your take on arguments happening within the community and even among the witnesses (flag wars, voting circles, etc.)? Are they good or bad for the platform and why?

We have a social platform with social problems for sure. From my point of view, there are not huge problems. I don’t think the disagreements and intense discussions that have happened here are any different than what would happen in other communities. That being said, we can always, and should, work to improve our community together instead of wasting time and energy fighting.

Questions from @cayelispor53: “When will Scorum Draft be operational?”

We do not have a specific timeframe for Scorum Draft to be released. We are heavily focused on making improvements to betscorum first.

We now can see that a small percentage of post payouts are in liquid SCR, just as you said we would see. How is revenue generation coming along in your opinion? Are there additional solutions being discussed or tested at this time?

We are on the verge of running additional betscorum ads on the blogging platform, which will increase liquid SCR payouts. No other tests have been made and there is no purpose for them at the moment. Traffic is inexpensive in the cryptocurrency market, meaning ad revenue is minimal. Our best conversions are and will be on betscorum.com.

Have you been pleased with how Scorum Bet has grown so far? Did you expect it to be more or less popular than it is, and why?

I am not pleased with how betscorum.com has grown so far, but I have very high standards and high hopes for Scorum and betscorum.

Question inspired by @ambler and @mauryis: What are the current marketing efforts/plan for Betscorum? When will we see it be marketed to the world?

We have made lots of tests, and all of the marketing campaigns have lacked effectiveness. The average person doesn’t have much interest in cryptocurrency at the moment. Conversion rates are very low. We are now focusing on search engine traffic.

What do you believe is needed for Scorum to gain interest from investors? What do you think will interest new bloggers? What will interest new bettors?

Investors will be interested when the token price is rising. Growing the community more and more and increasing the volume of SCR being bought and sold will help encourage that.
Right now we are attracting crypto bloggers who are sports fans, and crypto bettors. By getting them involved now, we can continue to build the community which should positively impact the price and interest in Scorum.
Also, we will increase the volume bet on betscorum.com, which will attract more bettors.

Question from @itharagaian: “If SCR value is calculated, then why not echo that in our wallets (currently locked in at 1 SCR = $1 USD)?”

This was carried over from the beginning, and it looks like the platform does not need this function at all. We will remove it soon.

What is one question you would like to ask us -- the community?

What are you going to do with all your crypto assets (not only SCR) during this bad period for all crypto projects?

Suggestions from community members

@Tuck-Fheman asked to be able to see more information in his wallet, including transactions to/from BetScorum. Vlad responded, "I think yes, we can do it this year."

What did you take from this interview? What's your response to Vlad's question: "What are you going to do with all your crypto assets (not only SCR) during this bad period for all crypto projects?"