Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
What it really means to be a founder in Web3 with Tommy Jamet, Founder of NeuraNode
34 Plays9 months ago
In this episode, I spoke with Tommy Jamet, the founder of NeuraNode.
Tommy talks about what it’s like to be a founder, and the key differences working in web3 compared to web2, he talks us through his new startup NeuraNode and shows us how passionate he is about solving problems using blockchain. If you're looking to build a successful career or launch a successful startup in Web3, then this is the episode for you.
Behind The Blockchain is a series of conversations with leaders who have built successful products, teams and careers in Web3. You will get a chance to discover how successful individuals were able to accomplish their career objectives, the skills they have acquired, the mistakes and difficulties they encountered, and the advice they can offer you to help you reach your own career aspirations.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Behind the Blockchain podcast. Today I'm joined by Tommy Jamey, founder of Neuronode. Tommy, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm great, I'm great. I'm directly in Paris this week for Paris Blockchain Week. I'm super happy to be on the show.
00:00:20
Speaker
Thanks for being here and taking the time whilst you've got all that going on around you.
Tommy's Career Transition: Accounting to Web3
00:00:27
Speaker
So for people who don't know who you are, could you introduce yourself please?
00:00:31
Speaker
Yes, of course. I'm an accountant initially. That was a lifetime ago. But then I moved into Web3 back in 2016, just before the first ICO craziness. And initially the reason I moved into Web3 was to look at the way that we could have case study and use cases of blockchain technology for the public sector.
00:00:57
Speaker
So I started a non-profit around the application of blockchain for public good.
00:01:04
Speaker
healthcare, taxation, land registration, and all of that. And very quickly, I shifted my career from finance, I was in banking before, from finance, directly into technology consulting. And then I moved from technology consulting, specifically around web three, into more into gaming, and then more into entrepreneurship and the project I'm working on today. Sounds great.
00:01:34
Speaker
So if we could go back to the start a little bit, could you talk us through your career journey so far in terms of the roles you've held, the businesses you've represented? Could you just kind of give us a bit of a run through? Yeah, sure. So I was before being in Web3, so when I was working in finance, I was working with HSBC as part of the head finance team. I was responsible for some very boring reporting stuff with the head office.
00:02:01
Speaker
working with the French entity because I'm French. And then I moved into, I transitioned because you can't really work in technology and Web3 specifically if you come from a very different background. So I started to think of a good way to shift away from finance without losing my competitive advantage. So I moved into finance transformation roles within Barclays.
00:02:30
Speaker
So that was a large transformation program that I ran of about 200 people reporting, not directly reporting to me, but a big program of about 200 people.
Blockchain Leadership at Repli
00:02:42
Speaker
That lasted for a couple of years. And then from there, I was in the background also working with this association that I mentioned.
00:02:50
Speaker
And I was recruited by a technology consulting firm called Repli. And I was recruited by them to lead their blockchain practice. So it was like a very big step for me, like partner responsibilities and leading this blockchain practice with full ownership on my P&L balance sheets. So very entrepreneurial role as well.
00:03:12
Speaker
whilst being in a publicly listed company. So quite a decent exposure as well to retail brands and large companies where my role was to sell them blockchain. And from there, I decided that I wanted to give a shot to an industry that, in my opinion, was very close to the ethos or to the mantra of what blockchain stands for, because it's an ecosystem-driven industry.
00:03:42
Speaker
I identified gaming as being very close to that ecosystem mindset. Because when you think about it, in a video game, you can have design, you will have art, you will have music, you have finance. You have a lot of different industries that pour into one product.
From Gaming to Entrepreneurship
00:03:59
Speaker
And also, I quite like the video games as well.
00:04:03
Speaker
So it doesn't help. But I moved into video games for that, and I was head of product for a large Web 2 game that moved into Web 3, called Boomland. So the company is called Boomland, made by Boombit a large Web 2 gaming studio. And from there, I ended up there a year ago and started my neural node journey that I guess we can talk about in more length.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. That's really interesting how you've made the move from working such large, I guess I'll call them old school places like HSBC and stuff to then working for very, very like cutting edge small startups and now finding your own startup. Are there any really big and serious differences that you'd love people to understand, like how you actually
00:04:58
Speaker
make the move from working in such massive institutions to coming across into more of a start-up-y kind of world.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think when you work in large institutions, whether it is consulting or banking or those kind of government-sized companies, everything is hyper-processed. And if you think about it, even if there's a lot of cons, it's far from perfect,
00:05:32
Speaker
But there's a lot of reason why things are structured this way. And when we look at hyper growth startups and agile stuff, like a small startup, especially Web3, there is
00:05:47
Speaker
there is a misconception of especially around centralization and the way that and the way that decision and we can talk about governance as well but the way that decisions are made and the way that the structure of this organization is designed if you don't structure it in a way that can scale to those kind of levels and those kind of
00:06:10
Speaker
large companies, you don't structure it from day one, it's very likely that your whole structure will crumble when you reach hyperbres.
00:06:22
Speaker
what I've learned and what I've taken away from working in those large institutions is trying to take away what worked in the structure and the way they operate and try to replicate that in a small startup in a way that when we hopefully do grow, this will allow us to thrive as opposed to crumble. It's like building those foundations early.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah, kind of. And again, not everything is perfect in those big companies. And there's a lot that Web3 disrupts in the right direction. But just like not everything should be tokenized, for example, well, not everything should be decentralized. And we can talk about decentralized governance and those kind of things.
00:07:16
Speaker
The way that you do scale a company, whether it is a Web3 company or a traditional startup, you should think of those fundamental layers of infrastructure and also corporate structure. Because otherwise, it doesn't matter if you're building a Web3 company, you're still building a company. And if you don't build it right, it's very likely that it's going to cause some issues at some point.
00:07:44
Speaker
Sure. And did you have to switch your mindset quite a lot from working in those big process driven places to working in kind of a lot more agile startup?
Lessons from Banking: Transparency and Disruption
00:07:56
Speaker
I think this comes more with the Web3 mindset. We know what Web3 mindset is with the kind of DGN approach and let's shift the table and remove the centralized way things work. So it's quite appealing when you start working with that.
00:08:21
Speaker
It's very attractive to see a movement that wants to shift the table and change the way things work.
00:08:30
Speaker
So initially, that's what drove me to it, because I was working in banking. And I saw from the inside looking at the work with HSBC at the time. And there's the financial statement and the published information. But for HSBC, you've got in the head office, you've got different financial statements for every year. And I was looking at the 2008 financial statements of HSBC.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I looked at all of the annexes that the 2008 is way thicker than the other years. And it's also the year where the Satoshi paper was published.
00:09:13
Speaker
And it kind of like, when I was working in banking, I kind of, it really struck me how, how this overall system was designed to create massive buyer to entry and created to kind of drive the overall economy in a specific way. And it felt like I couldn't put my finger on it, but it felt broken and then
00:09:39
Speaker
when I came across this Satoshi paper, it kind of resonated that maybe part of the solution of what I
00:09:48
Speaker
I kind of identified could be there. So that's why I kind of, I tried to explore a bit more and then I completely entered the rabbit hole. But it's kind of, for me, that was this kind of awakening process of there is something wrong in the way financial institution operates. And I've seen that from the inside. And then there is potentially a way to make it
00:10:14
Speaker
better, more transparent, and less centrally controlled. And maybe that's a good thing, and maybe I should try to apply my transferable skills to that direction. Nice, and that's why you got into Web3 and blockchain in the first place. Yeah, and because I looked at it from how can we apply those principles of decentralization to the public good? Nice.
00:10:42
Speaker
And then when you were making that transition, or even to be honest, when you started your career, did you always think one day I want to found a company or one day I want to be a director and kind of a partner in a big consulting firm or something like this? Was that always the plan, like the end goal? I don't think it was. I always was ambitious and I think it's the, there's two different things. You've got the,
00:11:11
Speaker
the title and the role that you have shouldn't be the endgame of anything you do, in my opinion anyway.
00:11:23
Speaker
Well, the way I look at things is I love solving problems, and I love solving problems that are complex from many different angles. And for example, when I was working in accounting, it took me a while to realize that the reason I didn't really enjoy being an accountant is because it was very single focus toward numbers and finance.
00:11:51
Speaker
whether when I started expanding that lens and look at that problem through the financial angle but also the societal angle and maybe the healthcare angle and government and security and identity and all of that. That's where I started to be able to connect a lot of dots that were very remotely connected and that maybe a very specialized person could less likely do.
00:12:20
Speaker
And then because I started with this mindset of how can I connect randomly related dots together, I started to realize that maybe my added value and where I could make a difference would be in a role or positions where I could be solving problems bigger than myself. And then because when you start,
00:12:46
Speaker
having a lot of different skills in a lot of different areas, it's less likely that you're gonna be hired or onboarded for a specific, very technical role. It's gonna be like much more managerial and much more like rotor covering roles. So I think that's where my career kind of naturally shifted toward leadership. And then I always also kept a very keen finger on technology because
00:13:15
Speaker
It's also very important to me to understand what I do when I work on any issues. So I kept very close to engineering and to the development teams whenever I joined the project to make sure that I understood the core foundation of what they were working on.
00:13:36
Speaker
That's fundamental to understand where things can go wrong from a race perspective, from a regulatory perspective, from a budgeting perspective. Because there's always many angles that you need to cover, if you don't understand what you're building, it's always very hard to solve.
00:13:57
Speaker
Nice. And throughout that journey, was there a point that you said, you know what, I need to stop working for other people now. I need to found my own company. I see a problem. I need to solve it.
Embracing Failure and Execution Strategies
00:14:11
Speaker
I need to do this for myself. Is there a point that kind of sticks out or is that just a bit of a natural? So aggression.
00:14:16
Speaker
I'm proud to say that I've failed at many businesses that have launched, and I've launched a lot. Specifically, and I think I see it as a good thing, because you can't, like initially when I, back in 2016, I think it was 2016 or 17 or something, I started a company called, I think it was called The Grave.
00:14:42
Speaker
because I saw it as like a grape of raisin and it's very similar to what blockchain is, it's like very decentralized bits of fruit. So the logo was really cool. And this company had like this was my first kind of web3 venture and this was a new diligence company to screen and
00:15:06
Speaker
suggest grading of web-through projects during the ICO craziness. And we approached insurance company law firms to offer them a reassurance rating of companies that they could work with to reduce the insurance premium or to just allow good ICOs to just have a lawyer.
00:15:31
Speaker
And at the time, it was very difficult for a good project to cut through the noise. And I thought, hey, I'm an auditor by training. Let's apply those transferable skills to that industry that is desperately needed.
00:15:47
Speaker
So I did like maybe five or six different ventures like that which failed for many different reasons. Some failed because of a go-to-market, bad go-to-market. Some failed because they were just bad ideas.
00:16:04
Speaker
something because the team was wrong, something like, but every step of the way, I think it's important to fail businesses because it makes you realize when you do a post-mortem of them, it makes you realize what you need to do better next time. And I always think when I think back of those time and I look at what I'm building now, which hopefully won't fail,
00:16:33
Speaker
I kind of reflect on, oh, this point is the reason why I failed last time. Let's do it right now. This point is another reason why I failed last time. So hey, I know better now. And I think now I'm at the point where I've never been so close to getting significant funding than before. We've got a team that I think is the highest quality team that I've had ever.
00:17:02
Speaker
And I think also I've got the calm and the ability to not rush into making decisions, but making the right ones. So I'm not sure that answer the questions too much, but yeah, I've done a few different ventures, but I think it all led me to where I am today.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool, and this might be putting you on the spot a little bit, but are there two or three key things that you've learned that you've brought with you? There's probably tons of stuff that you've learned along the way, but are there a couple of bits that really stand out to you that you'd advise any founder to look at? Yeah, I think it's, if there's two, I'd say first, don't, okay, two would be, the first one would be,
00:17:58
Speaker
Don't try to make it perfect on day one. The initial ID that you got for a company is very likely going to be super different from the product that actually goes to market. And it's OK. Because when you start with an ID, the quality of the ID is way less important than the way that you're going to execute on it.
00:18:25
Speaker
And as you go through execution, you're going to realize that maybe your market strategy is wrong, maybe your target and total reversible market is wrong. Maybe your overall competitor, when you do your competitor analysis, you're going to identify a sweet spot where no one is and kind of a blue ocean where you can go.
00:18:49
Speaker
As long as you start with your ID and drill down on it and drill, drill, drill on execution and try to make that ID happen, but also adjust when you realize that there are ways to make that ID better, and you kind of react in a very elastic way to what you find out, then you should be fine. But don't try to,
00:19:16
Speaker
to stick too much to your original ID. And the second point would be, don't forget that whatever project you build, you need to make it profitable. And try to think of, what's my business model? From day one, if you're building something that even if it's a sexy use of Web3 technology or whatever technology you're building on,
00:19:46
Speaker
If it's sexy, it's good, but eventually it needs to make money. And if you don't have this mindset of, what is my business model? How does this generate money in the long term? Then you don't really have a business.
00:19:59
Speaker
and you don't have a business plan, you don't have a company. And this goes from how do I acquire my first user down to how do I position myself to competition and how do I navigate the regulatory framework and how do I approach my risk strategy to all, especially if it's tech, how do I approach cyber, et cetera, et cetera.
00:20:26
Speaker
if you build a business model around your ID and then from there be as agile and elastic as possible. I like that.
00:20:37
Speaker
I like that, yeah. I think there's a lot of projects, especially in Web3, built on some brilliant technology, founded by some brilliant people that I think maybe struggle to find where's that revenue stream going to come from? How do we keep this going for the long run and this kind of stuff? I guess that's why a lot of Web3 projects really rely on funding, right? And VC funding and this kind of stuff. It's a really important thing to think about.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's one thing to be, and hopefully if Neuronode works well, obviously we're going to need some funding to get going, but eventually the overall business model does not rely on us going through an endless cycle of funding.
Neuronode and Tokenization
00:21:23
Speaker
And we may even be able to fund ourselves without VCs, which would be massively win.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, that'd be cool. So could you talk us through a day in the life of the founder at Neuronode? Yeah, sure. So it's very simple. It's trying to make things happen. So maybe I can present what the company does a little bit first, and then because what I do every day fits into that. Is that OK?
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. That'd be great. So basically, what the company does is that I realized a few months ago that when it takes between two to five years to build a quality video games, and during those two to five years,
00:22:21
Speaker
There's a lot of great software that get built. There's a lot of effort that is poured into that product. But in the meantime, there is over 80% to 90% of games that are created that just don't work. That there is more than 50% of the game that are built that generate less than $4,000 a year. And there's only, I think it's 14% of the game that generate more than $100,000.
00:22:50
Speaker
But even when you generate over $100,000, it doesn't make you profitable. So there's a very tiny portion of video games that actually makes money.
00:23:02
Speaker
And there's no magic wand that can predict the success of a video game. There's just none. There are good practices to create good, appealing gaming loop, to create appealing stories and everything. You can follow all the rules of the book. Nothing will predict the success of your game. You can't know.
00:23:26
Speaker
That being said, as I was discussing with founders in the gaming studios and various different profiles, I realized that even though there's a tiny portion of games that are successful, there's always a pattern of
00:23:43
Speaker
studios struggle to get funding and in the meantime there is for those failed game there's a lot of high very high quality software that gets developed along the way and most of the time those software will just sit on the shelf and not always be repurposed or reutilized and I thought to myself hmm
00:24:07
Speaker
Is there a way to create a place where those studio could repurpose and monetize what they've been working for for years?
00:24:18
Speaker
And that's where came the idea of Neuronode, where basically we're creating a marketplace that will allow Gaming Studio or Tooling Studio for the gaming industry to repurpose those pieces of code. So we've run ourselves as an API marketplace for Gaming Studio.
00:24:39
Speaker
Initially, we are targeting the gaming sector. Eventually, we're going to broaden that up to any kind of software. But we're starting with gaming because there's a very well-identified pain point.
00:24:53
Speaker
And what I do every day is basically trying to make that a reality. So from designing the wireframe for the entire marketplace, down to pitching that to different studios, to trying to get a few others on board. And down to at the moment, we are working to the funding program. So we are on the last stage of financing the whole program.
00:25:20
Speaker
which I don't want to jinx, so I don't want to talk too much about that if that's okay.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's fine. Don't do that. Yeah, it's a very fun journey because the way that we're going to enable those software to be monetized, no one else does it do it this way. And then we utilize web3 and tokenization as a way to make something possible that was very hardly and very difficult to do on a web2 way.
00:25:53
Speaker
And I can dive into that a little bit if you want. But we basically allow, so if you look at other marketplaces and asset marketplaces like the Unity Asset Store or like the Unreal Asset Store or even GitHub, they allow developers to monetize their code or their assets, but only for a fixed price.
00:26:17
Speaker
And it doesn't really work well for complex softwares because for complex software, you want to be able to monetize your, your work and your product on either a SAS model. So on the subscription model, like $20 per month, or even better on the paper API call a model.
00:26:37
Speaker
which is a little bit more technical, but basically it means that every time the client will interact with the software, which can be like maybe 500,000 times a month or something, you're going to have a micro transaction that will occur.
00:26:52
Speaker
And because those payments are very, very small, the use of crypto token makes a lot of sense. So there's a few different reasons why we're using a token in the background. But in the meantime, the platform is not a Web3 platform. Our audience are every single gaming studio at the moment. Whether they are Web3 studio or Web2 studio, the token will be invisible in the background.
00:27:21
Speaker
Nice. That sounds really cool and obviously a great way to...
00:27:27
Speaker
bring Web3 adoption without people outside of Web3 realizing that they're adopting the technology, right? It's a great use case. Because it's not what we are bringing. We are bringing value to people that have a very identified pain point.
Real-World Applications of Web3
00:27:43
Speaker
And we're bringing a product that actually solve their problem. And then the way we do it is we use a tool that allow us to do it much more efficiently than with another tool.
00:27:56
Speaker
And that's where you kind of bring adoption. It's when you solve issue in a way that other technology could not. Yeah, for sure. No, I like it. Sounds really cool. Have you got any thoughts on when you will be doing a launch or a soft launch or anything like this?
00:28:15
Speaker
Yes, I don't want to jinx in too much, but hopefully we're going to start development. So we've got a prototype at the moment. We've got like every single, all of the tech stack is lined up. We've got like a good version of the white paper. We're going to move to development right after the funding round is closed. So potentially during May, then we're going to need
00:28:44
Speaker
three to five months for a first like beta version of the platform. And then overall, we should be able to have a fully working platform
00:28:57
Speaker
within seven, 10 months. But that being said, we're going to do as well a token launch. And this token launch will be, we're going to sell to institutional investors. This token launch will be extremely compliant.
00:29:15
Speaker
So we're going to work with institutional investors for this token sale. And because of that, it may take a bit longer to close the token sale. And it's a very large one as well. So it's very likely that the marketplace will be launched with a better version of the token. And then we'll move to the
00:29:39
Speaker
we'll move to the native token after the ICO. So they're gonna be like a beta version, then full marketplace with beta token, and then ICO with public sale. And that may take you a year and a half to unfold the whole thing. Sounds great. Exciting and action-packed, 12, 18 months ahead for you. Yes, hopefully that should be there. It's always looked good on paper, right?
00:30:09
Speaker
Definitely, definitely. So what's it really like starting a Web3 blockchain-based project? It looks really glamorous. I guess from people outside looking in, they see this kind of really cool founder startup life and think, yeah, you know what? I want to get involved in that. What's it really like when you're on the ground in it? You know what? I think so. It's the hardest thing, especially in this space.
00:30:37
Speaker
is, so there's a few elements. The first half bit is to validate that the ID that you start having
00:30:47
Speaker
is an actually doable business model from an economic sense. And you start saying, OK, I've got an ID. Does it make sense economically? And then the second question that I challenge everyone I talk to that pitched me ID for their blockchain project is one of the first questions I ask them, why do you need blockchain?
00:31:11
Speaker
And then kind of validating that, yes, you do need token because eventually when we launch the token, because we are launching that in a very compliant way, we're gonna go through like a full legal opinion of the token. We're gonna need to make sure that it properly qualified to the right regulatory boxes that we need. And because of that, there's a lot of things that you need to think ahead.
00:31:37
Speaker
I don't see it different than working on a traditional startup. I guess the only difference would be that the way that you grow your community is very different because there's a lot of GMs involved.
00:31:56
Speaker
But apart from that and also the people that you meet along the way, I think that there's a lot of people that won't have this traditional kind of mindset of how to actually grow a business and won't have that business driven kind of mindset. And I think it was very important for me to to onboard people that have this not full corporate, but have the right balance between
00:32:23
Speaker
between corporate and DJEN work through. And because if you go full DJEN, I don't see the right level of execution and ownership.
00:32:36
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. So if someone is wanting to get into the Web3 space, but they don't necessarily want to found a company, maybe they've been listening to this and think, you know what, that sounds a bit intense for them, but they'd love to be a part of the industry. Is there any bits of advice you could share for how someone could be successful coming into Web3 in general? Yeah.
00:32:59
Speaker
Yes, and to be honest, when you talk about the Web3 space, we're talking about companies that leverage blockchain as a technology for all or part of their product. But to be honest, for Neuronode, for example,
00:33:18
Speaker
the blockchain element is a very small element of the platform. We also have a marketplace that will require front-end, back-end, full-stack developers. We're going to need artists to do the visuals and to do the art. We're going to need people to do the community growth and work on Twitter, on Discord, and all of that. But we're also going to work with, for example, once we do the ICO and the full token sale,
00:33:48
Speaker
Then we're going to work with treasury management, for example, to make sure that the money that we raise works for us, which is what a lot of successful projects do. Obviously, we're going to work with legal professionals, we're going to work with accountants, artists.
00:34:06
Speaker
So if you think about it, marketing as well, if you think about it, a Web3 project or Web3 company is not very different from a traditional Web2 company or traditional company. There are a few differences in the way that you engage with your community. There's a few differences in the way that maybe you're paid because maybe you'll be paid partially in token.
00:34:31
Speaker
But if you have strong skills, especially if you're a strong marketing person or if you're a strong designer or if you're even an accountant, just have a look at what skills you are, what you like doing, and if the technology appeals to you,
00:34:49
Speaker
just try to engage with a few different projects and pitch your core skills and try to apply those skills to the industry, to this industry. Because it's very likely that your skills are going to be relevant there too. For sure. Yeah, I like that. I think there's definitely a space in Web3 for everyone. I think people
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah, people maybe get a little bit put off or a little bit nervous about joining the industry because they think it's vastly different. But every project, as you said, needs marketing, needs HR, needs finance, needs all the roles that you would normally hire in a more, I'll say, traditional company. But then one thing I have noticed is
00:35:35
Speaker
The mindset of people in the Web3 space seems to be very different to people outside. And when I say the mindset, I mean, when they join a company, you find that most people can talk about the technology itself and understand it at quite a technical level.
Philosophy and Future of Web3
00:35:49
Speaker
Even people who in the more traditional Web2 world or companies that aren't utilizing blockchain don't necessarily know all the moving parts of the rest of the industry that support their business and this kind of stuff.
00:36:01
Speaker
By finding Web3, people are so into it that they actually go so deep down the rabbit hole, regardless of the job they did. That's quite a big difference, I've noticed. I'm not sure if you've... No, you're right. And I think it comes down to the fact of the... I think it's one of the technology that is the most philosophical. And because of the overall reason why Bitcoin was created on the back of the
00:36:32
Speaker
I think there's a fundamental philosophy behind this technology that drives people to be very passionate about it. It works for the technology as a whole.
00:36:46
Speaker
And then it also translates to every single blockchain will contain very hardcore fans of it. And even within each protocol, you're going to have a lot of... It's very siloed and it's one of the reasons why we have so much difficulty with interoperability and interchange.
00:37:12
Speaker
And you're going to have a maximalist in every single vertical and every single protocols. And also because of the way that if you look at marketing, for example, if you want to talk to your community, your community is going to be very tech as well. It's TLAB.
00:37:32
Speaker
is still a very takey industry. So if you want to communicate to your audience well, you also need to speak their language. So you need to have some kind of technical understanding. And if you are like you as a recruiter, you also want to have some understanding of the technology in order to find the right people. It works for legal as well. It works for finance.
00:37:59
Speaker
I've worked a bit in the Web3 accounting as well and I've sit down with a few big four auditors on how to properly integrate crypto in a balance sheet and how to like efficiently operate a business and try balance with crypto assets. And you kind of need to have those kind of understanding if you work in this space because
00:38:25
Speaker
because there's a few elements that are different from work too and the passion and the philosophy is one of them and the technical specificity is another one. Do you think the technical side of it will change over time as the technology gets a little bit more widespread and more companies start to experiment with it and this kind of stuff? Well, I think it's gonna
00:38:53
Speaker
it's gonna get more like just just like we've got HTTP hidden in the background now we just browsing the internet we don't go to a HTTP event anymore
00:39:03
Speaker
Hopefully, there won't be a blockchain event to attend in the future, but you're going to focus on what the case study that if you look at Web3 Gaming, the benefits of Web3 Gaming is the way that you can approach digital ownership of your in-game assets. That's a very powerful feature of this technology. When you look at the
00:39:32
Speaker
the technology for what it brings to the table as features, maybe that I'd love to see the day where we just look at the benefits and we don't focus so much on the technology and eventually it will fade out and we see a lot of projects like sequence for example or others that are working toward making the web3 element invisible in the background.
00:40:02
Speaker
Is there anything that you'd love people to be aware of? Maybe you might have mentioned it already, but is there anything you'd love people to be aware of about the industry before they become a part of it? Yeah, buckle up. Even though it's...
00:40:22
Speaker
Like, it's an industry that moves very, very quickly. And because of the nature of it, because it's very lightly regulated to say it politely.
Web3 Industry Dynamics and Leadership
00:40:33
Speaker
The, like, it's very likely that
00:40:37
Speaker
It's not like anything you've experienced in the traditional Web 2.0 world. It moves very quickly. Sometimes it moves very quickly for the wrong reasons. And people are, sometimes it moves too quickly. It's something I'm quite keen on. I'm very cautious of that with your node.
00:41:03
Speaker
But the nature of the industry, the pace at which the technology evolved requires a level of agility that you may not have experience elsewhere. So be ready for a space that is extremely fast-paced. That's really good to understand. And to go along with that, are there any other key attributes or key skills that you think people
00:41:32
Speaker
need to learn or should learn in order to be successful, either in Web3 or even as founder of a startup, to be honest. Based on your experience, any key attributes? I think if you want to start founding a startup or founding a project,
00:41:53
Speaker
I think the best way to do it, I'm reading a book called The Polymath at the moment, which is a really good book that says that basically every great leader in the history of the world has very few leaders that are just specialists in one area.
00:42:18
Speaker
the treasures of the world and the remaining treasure that have not been dig up are not gonna be ones that you can find if you have a one specialty. So don't try to be, like my advice would be, don't try to be specialist, hardcore specialist in one field, but try to have a really good understanding of a few different fields. And if you do that, there's a much higher chance. So take fields that are interest of you,
00:42:48
Speaker
and dig up in all of those fields a little bit and at some point you should be able to connect dots that a few others will be able to see and that's where you're going to be able to find a gem that potentially would be a good project or company. Yeah I like that, that's a good way of looking at it. Did there any key skills that you've learned along the way that you really think that have helped you achieve, you know, partner in a consulting practice for example or
00:43:18
Speaker
you know, these types of positions. Are there any key skills you think could be sales, communication, could be your accounting background? Is there anything that, if someone's looking and going, you know what, my career aspiration is to be a partner within a consulting firm, or I'd love to found or be a head of product today, a gaming company, for example. Are there any skills that you think have really played to your success? I think being an accountant gives me
00:43:48
Speaker
Give me the understanding that when, so I hated studying accounting and I realized later down the road that basically every single company have a balance sheet and a P&L and it's, once you understand how, how
00:44:07
Speaker
how financial statements are crafted, you can basically understand the way that every single company operates and the DNA of every single company just by reading their financial statements.
00:44:21
Speaker
So for me, that was, and also when I moved into gaming, being fairly proficient at building financial models was a really good transferable skills because in gaming, you've got basically 90% of it is math. Well, like 70, 80, you've got user behaviors and all that, but I think look at,
00:44:45
Speaker
look at what you train for and then look at what interests you and try to see how you can bridge those two. And then if you see big gaps, just like the internet is good enough nowadays that there's more likely going to be a course on that.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And knowing what you know now about business, leadership, all the other skills you've learned along the way, if you could go back at the start of your career and have some advice for your younger self, anything spring to mind? Yeah, don't try to make it perfect and just do stuff.
00:45:30
Speaker
And the thing I love to say as well is that it's only if you do nothing that nothing happens. And it's okay if it's not perfect.
00:45:43
Speaker
But it's better to do something that's not perfect than just not doing anything. Because you fear that it's not going to be good enough. And just do stuff and fail. Fail as much as you can. Because if you don't fail, you can't grow.
00:46:02
Speaker
And in French, there's a saying that says, pour poussé, pour se planté. It's like the trees. So to grow, you need to basically say that you need to
00:46:16
Speaker
to put the seed in the ground. So plantae is the act of burying a seed in the ground. And the crusade is the growth phenomenon. So you say in order to grow, you need to fail or get your seed. So plantae is also the same word than failing. So it says, yeah, to grow, you need to fail. And I genuinely believe in that. Yeah, I like that.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good way of looking at it. So, Tommy, you've shared some brilliant advice and some insight over the last 45 minutes or so. And to finish up, if you could summarize, what advice would you give to people who are looking to follow in your footsteps? So don't do that. Be your own person. But I think the
00:47:16
Speaker
I think that what I try to do as much as possible is... There's a few different things that I try to follow. The first thing is, who do I want to be five, ten years from now?
00:47:32
Speaker
And what are the best ways today? What can I do today to get a little bit closer to that? And what can I do today, next week, next month, and try to kind of build a mental roadmap that leads to that five years, 10 years plan? Because if you look at who you want to be in 10 years, it's going to be a mountain. Like, oh, I want to be that. I'm so far away from that. But it's OK because you have small steps to gravitate.
00:48:03
Speaker
So try to do that because it helps a lot in removing that fear of an achievable outcome. And also be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Personal Growth and Conclusion
00:48:22
Speaker
And don't, yeah, if you, I think,
00:48:29
Speaker
I think if you always try to remain within your comfort zone, you'll always be comfortable that it's gonna be very hard to achieve greatness because it's only when you're back against the wall that you're gonna really see who you are and push your boundaries. So try to put yourself into uncomfortable corners and see what comes from that. And then who knows, maybe you'll be surprised.
00:48:59
Speaker
Sounds great. Sounds great. Well, Tommy, thank you very much for taking the time to have a conversation today. Really enjoyed it. You shared some brilliant advice and some great insight into your career and into Neuronode, which I'll definitely be keeping a close eye on over the next 12, 18 months. If anyone wants to find out more information or maybe they're curious to understand a little bit more from your journey or say they'd love to get involved with Neuronode, for example,
00:49:28
Speaker
Is the best place to reach out to you on Twitter or LinkedIn? Anything like that? Yeah, LinkedIn is really good. You can find me on Twitter as well. There's a link to my Twitter on my LinkedIn account. You can also follow Neuronode on Twitter. It's got Neuronode underscore IO, I think. And yeah, every link is, if you go on LinkedIn, you'll find everything you need. Sounds great. Well, thank you. Thank you again. I'll speak to you soon. Thanks for having me, Jack. I really enjoyed the discussion.
00:49:59
Speaker
No problem. Take care. Take care.