Revolutionizing
Ecommerce.
Empowering You.

The XKU is an experience keeping unit. Runs.com is into the ecommerce of experiences. Fine experiences are the products that trade on our platform. Since experiences are “intangible”, we use the following example to illustrate an XKU accurately. Fig 1, is a conventional theatre that showcases movies for audiences. Fig 2, represents an exceptional experience from Runs.com. While Story, Source and Sustainability qualify the tangible aspects of an XKU, the experience dimension is best represented by visual aids as demonstrated above. It is about structuring, packaging and presenting a product, in a manner that delivers a memorable experience for the buyer.

We will not touch the UPC provided by the GS1 organization, as the representation is illustrative. While executing it, there will be an SKU with its UPC. Post the UPC, there will be a RUNS generated 3S key and taken together with the SKU, we call this the XKU

From a code perspective, UPC + 3S = XKU

In the white paper we have outlined 3 phases of technology evolution. Initially we will be curating experiences. Hence there is no need to touch the international standards. By the time we come to phase 3, we would have filed the final patent and transfer it to the governing council of the Runs platform, which will be decentralized, and will administer the XKU coding mechanism. We will release the appropriate XKU-Generators, which we are still working on.

Decentralization on the blockchain is accomplished by storing records of consumer information along with the blockchain and not in a company’s database. Besides, this information is owned by the consumer. The blockchain returns control gives the ownership of consumer data back to them and it's the consumer who gets to decide which brands can use such data. This directly impacts the monopolies which currently require consumers to enter their data while setting up an account and tag all transactions to such an account. Such information is stored in centralized databases, or to articulate it differently, in storage that is owned by the ecommerce company. It is the ownership that drives centralized monopolies which will be challenged by the blockchain.

Verification of XKU means, a “super node” or Spartan which will take the role of administrators.

Administrators, commonly known as Spartans, are Runs.com editors who have been granted the technical ability to perform certain special actions on the Runs.com platform. These include the ability to block/delete/unblock user accounts, IP addresses, and IP ranges from editing, edit XKU pages with Story/Source/Sustainability identifiers. Also, these administrators will be able to approve or disapprove an XKU.

Administrators assume these responsibilities as volunteers after undergoing a community election/selection process. They are NOT employees of  Runs.com.

The 75 million for the platform will remain in the reserve of Runs.com to be used for various platform activities like creation of content, connecting new members and participating in commerce.

This asset will not expire.

Relevant evidence for the emergence of the experience economy is provided by the US Bureau of Economic analysis as indicated below.

We would like to maintain that our competitors are traditional ecommerce platforms that include Amazon, ebay, Alibaba amidst others. In addition, there are a lot of blockchain enabled ecommerce platforms that are coming up, Example Storiqa etc. However, we do not see them as competition as our value proposition is the XKU. The blockchain enables us to compete with traditional players and the XKU enables us to compete with the entire market that includes both the traditional and blockchain enabled ecommerce platforms

• Alpha version of the product will be ready by early August 2018.
• Alpha version will be released by 15th of Aug
• Product video is being built
• Demo version is being tested
• XKU onboarding process is on

The Entry Strategy for RUNS is to capitalize on building a large online community in a very short period of time and to commence substantive ecommerce across the community. To this effect, the Target Market to begin with, will be Cricket, Cinema and Coffee, a clear case of Niche and Targeted Ecommerce. In this phase, the RUNS platform would curate and sell premium products/experiences that are listed as “XKUS” (Experience Keeping Units) to members of the community. The sections below explain the reasons for choosing the Niche around Cricket, Cinema and Coffee as an entry strategy.

Large Communities, Large Markets, Significant White Spaces

As per the table 1 above, the Cricket, Cinema and Coffee community is extremely large with the number of members and the subsequent commercial transactions in which they are involved, exceeding the billion count. While Cinema and Coffee have a large market size and are hence attractive, Cricket presents a very interesting opportunity, wherein the market size is constrained, but the money involved in the cricket economy is extremely large. The philosophy of “Runs” is to create new markets across Cricket, Cinema and Coffee. The size of a newly created or realigned market space would be extremely large as it would integrate the communities into one large community and cross sell offerings.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) was a disruptive innovation that created a new market which is currently worth US $5 bn. Similarly, the T20 concept of playing twenty over cricket matches created a new market. Cinema meanwhile, generates its own set of aspirational desires that translates into emotional commerce. About 355,000 Indians travelled to “Cinema Favourite” locations in Switzerland in the year 2016 alone. The advent of socially conscious coffee consumers has led to the creation of specialized coffee experiences across the coffee chain with visits of baristas, roasters and coffee buyers to the farm.

Well Understood Community Buying Behavior

Cricket, Cinema and Coffee are “Emotions”. When cricket fans witness a cricket match, they feel it, when cinema fans visit a cinema, they feel it and finally, when coffee admirers drink coffee, they feel it. Cricket, Cinema and Coffee are embedded into our daily lives, be it as individuals or as a community/society. They represent a certain “culture” in a community setting. While the styles of cricket, genres of cinema and flavours of coffee might be varied across communities, they all deliver an “emotional experience” for the consumers of these products. These experiences are both individual as well as collective, in nature. Consumers of Cricket, Cinema and Coffee buy these experiences. We at Runs have a very good understanding of these products as well as the communities that consume them, by virtue of ourselves having been raised in such communities. At the core of our proposition, is our clarity in understanding the buying needs, wants and underlying buying behaviour of community members across cultural contexts, with respect to Cricket, Cinema and Coffee. It is this understanding that is being “codified” and “commercified” into Runs.com. Table 2 presents a representation of the same.