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Building a Tech Empire, Startup Challenges & Entrepreneurial Wisdom | Ockert Loubser | WT3 009
13 Plays11 months ago
“Every Tech Startup Faces a Mountain. Are You Ready to Climb?” Join us for the latest episode of What The 3, the no-bs podcast for emerging tech startups.
In this episode, we sit down with Ockert Loubser, a seasoned tech entrepreneur who has ventured through the highs and lows of the tech industry, from humble beginnings to groundbreaking innovations. Hear firsthand about his journey of overcoming early challenges, leveraging advanced technology from blockchain to digital solutions, and navigating the complexities of the startup ecosystem.
Ockert delves into the pivotal experiences that have defined his entrepreneurial path, from capitalizing on emerging market opportunities to mastering the art of the pivot based on real-time market feedback. Gain invaluable insights into the strategies that drive startup success and learn the critical role of resilience and visionary partnerships in sustaining business growth.
Join us as we unpack the essentials of building a resilient tech enterprise, touching on everything from essential strategies for early-stage startups to the evolving dynamics of the tech landscape. This episode is a treasure trove of unfiltered wisdom and actionable advice, ideal for anyone involved in or interested in the future of tech startups.
Be sure to tune in this Thursday to catch all the insights on YouTube & Spotify. Don't miss this deep dive into the world of tech entrepreneurship with Ockert Loubser!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'What The Three' Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
oh Welcome to the next episode of What The Three, the podcast where we tell you emerging technology founders how to get from zero to one. Today, we are talking about running an emerging technology business.
Interview with Oker Lubster, CEO of Core Decentralized Technology
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm joined today by Thomas and Oker Lubster, the chief executive officer at Core Decentralized Technology.
Oker's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:00:22
Speaker
Started as one of the main, what a one-man design agency focused on graphic design in 2002, became a self-taught developer at the age of 17, founded a full-time company in 2003 whilst in full-time studies. He expanded the company into advertising, digital programming, interactive media, print media, notable clients including McDonald's, South African breweries, SAP, Biden Tires, Peace Foundation, and remains a CEO of that company.
00:00:50
Speaker
developed a closed loop accountability system, pay your premium, PYP, for the funeral and underwriters industry in 2003, which processed over 1 billion transactions, including the use of distributed ledger technology and tokenization, and then sold the company in 2006. Advancements in digital imaging and connectivity. Ockert invented a proprietary graphics card in 2003 that converted analog signals to digital formats and pioneered the IP camera industry, installing a record 367 cameras with over 50 kilometers of blown fiber cables and sold that to venture in 2005.
Slovakia and Core Blockchain Development
00:01:31
Speaker
These are all at the same time, by the way.
00:01:34
Speaker
ah International expansion and blockchain innovation moved to Slovakia in 2012 with his father to develop TV mall for Samsung Smart TVs on the Tizen OS, integrated Microsoft's Xbox camera systems for interactive clothing applications on TV, and established Core Blockchain with Ulem smart contract language and code tech ecosystem, later expanding to ARAX. Okay, I mean, what else is there to say? I think i we should all just give up and go home at this point. feel I feel like I'm wasting my weekend watching TV, man. like ah ah Pleasure to have you with us. It's very nice to be with you guys. Thank you very much for offering me the opportunity to have a conversation. you like Our pleasure, our pleasure. So, I mean, it seems like you did a lot of this stuff at the same time. out How did you get started?
00:02:26
Speaker
Well, it was it was quite interesting. I was always into tech and advertising and I don't know for some other reason, I loved reading about law. My dad was always scared that I was going to be a lawyer. ah Because I was always like stating my cases and doing the things ah with him. But um I always had a love for programming, understanding how things are working behind it. And um my programming love actually started with hacking. but As any good story would start, right? And then FBI came. No, i wasn't i I wasn't that proficient. So um so yeah, i was I was always trying to find ways of doing things. And one of the things that was like, for me, I would say probably fascinating was the Torrance network itself, um how it works, you know, how the distributed
00:03:29
Speaker
files and packets and everything's working and networking itself. um and um yeah I just started learning how to program. I was at a younger age and when I had nothing else to do, if I didn't have a girl to kiss or ah a beer to drink without my parents knowing. you know so so um So yeah, so I was doing this many times and um then ah I went into, I did a course with advertising at a college. It was just like a summer's course for two weeks and I fell absolutely in love with advertising. ah Primarily like this is also why I'm a Deadpool fan and well actually a Ryan Reynolds fan.
00:04:13
Speaker
that dry sense of humor and that little hidden message and the subliminal message behind these things. it's always for For me, I used to watch TV to watch the adverts, not too but not to watch the actual you know show or things. Because for me, if you had a good advert, you know back in the day in in the 2000s, adverts was it you know It was like a very powerful message. If you have a look at you know the chicken, um Mercedes-Benz advert that they had with the suspension, these types of things, the creative stuff behind it. And this was sort of like what I fell in love with.
00:04:47
Speaker
And I did this graphic design thing and I loved being artistic. I always used to paint also and and stuff like this. It was one of my subjects at school. And um yeah then I started the agency. I got my first client a little bit in 2002. I was still going to school. It was actually a nail parlor. It was one of it was my mom's nail lady and she needed a new logo. and so I made the logo, I made a few things, she loved it. I liked actually what got me into it and what got me hooked was it wasn't the money or anything, it was actually her face. When she saw it, when she was like happy with it and she was excited, I actually got excited myself and it kind of like gave me a different feeling. And ever since then, I got kind of like hooked on it. And you know, when you start something small and then when I was going into two studies in 2003, I graduated from school
00:05:37
Speaker
um at the end of the year because South Africa is the end yeah end of the year, but I was already running my business sort of like in 2013 when I was, well, 2003 when I was 18 years old. And, um you know, I was doing advertising and these types of things. And then when I went to to go and study full-time, I was running the business like fully. it was like It was really like a full-time job. but um And I made a deal with my dad that I'll pay my own studies. I i don't want him to pay for my studies. So um this is why I worked full-time and I studied full-time to make sure that I could
00:06:16
Speaker
you know, do the things. And you very, very quickly start learning that graphic design can go much further, you know, into UI, UX design, into websites. and And this was when, this is like when emerging tech, the internet became amazing, you know, like websites and you got to have a website, you got to have a landing page. It was like the big thing, like we're gonna have a landing page with sub pages and then micros. Oh yes, the sexy thing was microsites back in those days. That's OG emerging tech what we're talking about here, right? like that's that's really like We're all talking about emerging tech or AI. and no It's like old school emerging tech websites, microsites. This is kind of like the things. and what What was really cool was you know when we went into into other developments, um you know communication. because
00:07:06
Speaker
You know, being in ah in South Africa and being in rural areas, there's there's there's multiple places where you don't have connectivity. And GPRS was like the connectivity. And, you know, to start learning to communicate over that and these types of things, this is kind of like what prompted me. And of course, my dad would come up with like, he would he would say, hey, listen, check this out. And then, of course, I would start reading it. And my brother at that time he was working with us also. he was also reading about things he's also um actually i would say my brother is a genius um lazy but a genius but know he's like he's he's he's a lot smarter than me ah but he knows how to do certain things um which i can say is really cool he's uh he's amazing with his uh
00:07:52
Speaker
with his selling abilities and his way to connect with people. So he was like the main sales guy. He was also in the program a little bit. And, um you know, we would sit together, myself, my brother and my father, and we would work together on a project or he would bring something. He would like just throw it on the table and say, learn how to use this. And this might be your future. This is what he did with the PAX device, by the way, when we built the POS system. ah And, you know, we said, OK, well, what can we do with it? And then funeral parlors came out, you know. ah so what What happened? like Why funeral politics? Yeah, exactly. like that That connectivity is super interesting because that is not a business that I would say, or an industry so like oh yeah that benefit immensely of technology.
00:08:35
Speaker
but actually what you know It's a really interesting story. so My dad was going to get the chips for the for the graphics card that we developed and that we designed um you know for ah processing um analog to digital. Because back in those days, kids, we didn't have that. So so um so basically what we did is is you know we we we designed this card. I mean, the the card was the size of your table. I mean, it was gigantic. And um we actually got these specific chips and and he actually flew to Asia. and
00:09:09
Speaker
And he he had a stopover on one of the places and he had to make a payment ah because he bought something. I think it was like a chocolate or a sandwich or something. I don't know. And he saw this device standing on the table. It wasn't connected to anything. And it was just this. And they said, here, you use this to pay. And he was like, how the hell is this working? And he picked it up and he just turned around. And he saw the the thing and he's like, ah can I write down the information of this? And then when he got um ah into Asia, he looked up the company and made an appointment with them. And yeah he he got one of the devices, came back, threw it on the table and he said, this is the future, gentlemen.
00:09:52
Speaker
He said, learn how to use it. The SDK was in Chinese. By the way, I had to um to be in a sort of relationship with a um Chinese girl to get the translation for about three months. Lovely girl, by the way, I really, really enjoyed her. She was she was really, really sweet, really nice girl. I used to work at our favorite favorite Chinese restaurant, which we used to get takeout on a Friday. But um yeah, so we took this ah this this pause device and you know got the SDK translated and we started working on it.
00:10:26
Speaker
And um the interesting part was, you know, looking at the connectivity. So you had to answer to some cards. So then we like went on board, prepaid some cards and like shoved them in and got got the data. So so so used to used to there have data packages and then used to have like air time. You know, this is what we used to call it. So so your air time that you would buy would be the air time that you can send an SMS or you can ah basically make a phone call. Or you have data, which is GPRS network. That was fast. Wow, it was like super duper but the message is that you can send over a GPRS network, which was when MMS came out
00:11:03
Speaker
um was like 32 characters or it was just before at MMS. So so you you had to create sub menus and all kinds of things. And the reason why we did it for the funeral parlor was one day we sat and we were actually busy talking you know about this device and there was a gentleman who owned a funeral parlor and he said, you know this would be cool if we can have an accountability system you know or something. Because our biggest problem is is you know we're we're out in receipt books. so we sat down and we had a look at the challenges and we kind of like brainstormed a little bit and then this accountability actually came into place where we said okay right well how can we do it with distributed technology and things and actually secure that the data is you know decentralized so that it's not on the local device or that it's not on
00:11:48
Speaker
you know just on a singular server, but that it's distributed because they have branches all over and it's got to be connected and it's got to find the fastest route because GPRS is not the strongest signal. You don't have a lot of ah you know connectivity that you can actually, you know or ah or a constant connectivity that you can actually send it across. So you got to actually sort of like spread the packets and do these types of things. So came up with a whole principle in the design of it. And then that day it was like sort of like a form of tokenization, which you know we can call it tokenization now, but it didn't have a name back then. So um ah This was the important part because when you go into rural areas, there's no connectivity But if you take one step to the right then all of a sudden have like one or two bars for GPRS and you can actually do the connectivity or do the do the transaction and it was primarily about the Accountability of who paid their policies because there were some people that didn't pay the policies and some people that did pay the policies but they would you know, the collectors would take the books which is manual written receipts throw the book away and Half the money goes in this pocket, the other half goes in the other pocket, and then in the end, you know, they come there and they say, oh, this is what I collected, but they have no idea actually who paid the policy or anything. When we when we put it into the first guy, which was a, I would still call him a a dear friend of mine, um when we put it into the first funeral parlor, we upped his income with more than 45% of his collections that he was getting.
00:13:15
Speaker
It put his business and into such a position that he could expand and he became the biggest in the whole region. All the other funeral parlors, of course, started following and then the underwriters started seeing what we're doing. So the underwriters started calling us and started saying, hey, listen, we want to start understanding. And of course, we then wanted to make it into a closed loop banking system and the banks actually kept us on a thread for two years, two to three years. And I mean, we knew some really up there people. um And you know we were trying to to get them to to give us a treasury account to allow you know for closed-loop banking systems to withdraw there and you know to distribute the cash there so that they don't have to deposit it into the banks and things like this. But in the end, yeah, they didn't want to do that. But we found other ways of doing certain things. And then, of course, we sold that off. So yeah, that that's kind of like the reason why. That's awesome.
00:14:09
Speaker
But i would also I would argue that like most likely there's there will be no one else to, and I mean, unless you're local, you you're able to see that problem and then implement it as well. Because ah we've seen ahve seen very often when our users, our clients, generally tech people, they're like, oh yeah, we're going to do this really crazy thing in Africa. I'm like, OK, do you have local connections there? Do you know where to go? Yeah, no, but we know we'll just roll out and it's like, no, you don't just roll out in Africa where there's no connectivity. Have you thought about the the the Android, ah you know which Android system they're currently at, this kind of stuff? I'm saying this because I want to under like you know and underscore like how important it is that you are there, that you understand the market because otherwise you won't.
00:14:55
Speaker
but The idea is great, but you won't be able to yeah to make it as big and and make it as valuable for people as you did, right? Yeah. Well, you see, there there was like this really cool bank, which was Wizard Bank, which was actually also one of our customers. um I did a lot of things for them and in advertising also. um And Wizard Bank was actually rolling out. They were doing KYC via MMS. which was like unheard of. and This was before Mpeza and all the other banks, which are in you know in Africa and things.
00:15:26
Speaker
And we we kind of like did a lot of work with them um and integrated in certain parts with them. But what I can say is is they actually have more knowledge and the way they use ah ah a smartphone or a phone compared to how we do, it's entirely different. And I can tell you, most of them have two phones or three phones. that they carry with them because they they do certain things. So they they run their entire like local small crop farming off of the mobile and they utilize like different types of tools to actually do this. it's it's It's incredible how creative they are by not having a computer, but their phone is their computer. And this is the whole thing. like You have to understand how that how a rural community works and that if you want to enter into a community,
00:16:18
Speaker
it's It's not about you making money. Actually, it's about uplifting the community. If the project is not about uplifting the community, then you're not going to get anywhere because every single person is actually contributing towards the community. And this is how most rural communities are working together. They have their own kind of like, I want to say even own justice system. They they have their own um ah communication system. They have their own ah possibilities and trading systems that they're actually doing. I mean, barter trading there is insane. I'll give you a dozen eggs for two potatoes or whatever, and they do different types of barter trading. I mean, there you buy live chickens and things. Yeah, you do see cash and stuff like this. Cash is king there, of course, because the closest
00:17:05
Speaker
ah infrastructure that you have is like 60 to 100 kilometers away from the little rural area that you're in. there's There's no bank, there's no nothing. So how do you survive and how do you do certain things? You do it through service. I mean, I know of kids that would go 10 kilometers, 20 kilometers a day walking to school. you know and And they don't wear shoes barefoot. And trust me, like those gravel roads and the thorns and stuff and the bush felt, hee thank you you basically have leather leather sole feet that you've got to walk on. you know it's it's It's insane. um But these are the amazing things that you actually learn when you're working working in the rural areas itself.
00:17:48
Speaker
um these you get You get very creative I guess as well, for that matter, right? Yeah, it it it makes you actually question the tech of how you can apply it that it will be uplifting for the community. um And the interesting part was the service that we helped is actually an upliftment in the community because also the funeral parlors support the communities quite a lot. They invest into the community, they help the community and also it's their tradition. um ah so So very important is is to understand the cultures of the rural communities that you want to provide a service to. It's not just like, oh, it'll work here in the first world. It doesn't mean it's going to work in the third world. This is 100%.
00:18:32
Speaker
So, and, and I think that's, that's a very, very strong point. And I think people tend to forget that I want, I want to touch on a piece that that you mentioned earlier. You said like, you know, you encounter challenges with, with banks and payment divisions, like, you know, and that kind of led you to, to, to blockchain. how How did that work out? Was it at that same moment that you were working with, with pay your premium and and the parlors that you were like hitting against, like kind of that yeah banks in the state, the school of the banks or well, you know,
00:19:04
Speaker
Babert has always been an issue, right? anywhere. It doesn't matter if you're in the first world or third world fair. But what I can say is is um we weren't so much focused on the payment system back then ah because it was more like a cash transaction that you just you pay your premium, you you tap your or swipe your smart ah your your magnetic strip card or later on we could actually put in the chip um when when the chip cards came out. um the The biggest problem or the biggest challenge was the or to take the step to the next stage was basically to make it into a closed-loop banking system, which it already was. We already built all the tech. It was just connecting basically what we call a treasury account or a settlement account or ah a holding account, a custodial account, where the funds can be in and then you know it can be withdrawn and things like this. but
00:19:59
Speaker
the banks didn't want to do that. And of course, then the banks started rolling out with their own post terminals and things like this. um I'm not saying that we we showcased it, but I gave a lot of tech and a lot of ideas to a few banks in South Africa ah when they were like talking to us about it. But this was I would say this was already one of the first triggers for us about payments, because from there on, you know like I did the IP cameras also, which which was also led from the from the Analog to digital when IP cameras came out and rolled that in um By the way, that was probably one of the most terrible jobs I had to crawl into spaces Which I never thought I would fit and my father would just say just go and do it I'd be like I won't fit. He's like do it You've got to pull, you've got to get that cable through. And I mean, having blown fiber at that stage, it was like the most high tech thing you could have is blown fiber with IP cameras and things like this. It was an insane job with like man traps and all kinds of stuff. It was actually for a, for ah one of the biggest electronic um sales companies in South Africa still today.
00:21:06
Speaker
um they moved from one side then they moved back to to that side there where we installed it and uh i'm not sure if the tech is still there but i think i think the the blown fiber is still there because there's so much so but how how do you go from all of this right like there's there's so many things you have done like over the last I don't know. What is it? 20, 30 years? like We talked about feeling insignificant. I'm just going to go out of the screen soon. um And then you're like, all right, core blockchain. I'm going to do this. like is that Is that just like you know the kind of roll up of all these experiences, all these perspectives you've found? yeah Well, when when when my dad and I decided, so so we sold some of the businesses off, some of the businesses we're still invested in and you know these types of things. and um
00:21:55
Speaker
When we moved to Slovakia, um ah it there was there was there was other reasoning behind it also. um it it it It had to do with with my health, but I don't really particularly want to share so much about that. um But then basically what happened was is we We got an opportunity here in Slovakia, so we came here. and ah yeah We started working in in in Slovakia, started doing certain things, a little bit in technology. My dad used to also have an import and export company of trading, um so we did a bit of that. and um
00:22:37
Speaker
Then I came up with the idea of um an e-commerce platform and I presented it to my father and it was basically like um interactive media. So so i was I was still busy running the advertising agency in South Africa. and I was heavily into interactive media, you know like using projectors and infrared um cameras where you could actually projectile a football and then it can actually calculate yeah your kick that you can do at the speed with the angle of how the ball should go. And you know it was also like biometrics and all kinds of things that were coming into play and you know all kinds of like really cool, interesting things.
00:23:16
Speaker
um you know and And we were still running the the the the valuation side of the of the um of the property in South Africa, which is actually a company called Road, R-O-D-E, and Associates. They're a really cool company. ah They do all the valuations for all the big banks. They're they're like the biggest property evaluators. world-renowned for his his his calculations and we actually built those types of calculations. So all of this interactive media and the development of these types of platforms kind of like got me into you know ledgers and and ah distributed technology and these types of things and basically
00:23:57
Speaker
You know, when i was when I was working in the interactive media and also in the advertising, I mean, we did SAB where we projectile an entire beer foam thing on one of their events that they had. um And yeah when you walked across the stage, the beer would foam around and move out of your way. So we yeah we had like eight projectors, which were like running simultaneously over the stage, which was really cool. And then I kind of like thought, well, you know, let's make an interactive newsletter for in-stores. So we made an interactive newsletter where we used the Xbox 360 and then ah Samsung actually called us in Samsung South Africa. And I i flew back to South Africa from Slovakia um and I went and had a meeting with them. And we were presenting this also to all the other agencies like Antle Skare, King James, Ogilvy, these types of agencies. we We actually delivered the coolest little package. By the way, if you ever want to present your product or a new product,
00:24:52
Speaker
Make sure that you do it in an old-school way, specifically if it's in interactive media. You remember this this this old red goggle with the with the thing that you had to... Oh, yes. With the different colouring? Yes. And I mean the yo-yo. And we used to have what is called chappies, which is like a little bubblegum and you unwrap it. And the most interesting part about it, it wasn't it wasn't the bubblegum because the bubblegum was terrible. But it was the, did you know facts that you had? I mean, it had everything in there. It was it was amazing. And this was like the type of interactive things that I said, well, we need to bring that type of experience into things. So we made like a little package which looked like a suit and a and ah ah or like ah a white collared shirt with a black tie, which is how we delivered the packages.
00:25:35
Speaker
to the agencies and inside was these it's like a ziplinured it was uh this this old thing that we custom made that actually like gave you a little story of the introduction of where it's going with interactive media uh we had the bubblegums we had a few other things in there which was like old school games And we basically gave an invite to all the agencies to come to a showcasing. Every single agency pitched up. They they wrote us, they even said, I love your packaging. I can't i can't say no to this. but so So then basically like we presented, we we had 3D transparent screens that you can stick on shop fronts that had a whole 3D car that you can move around for Skoda. There was, um even if you walk past the wall, there was like things that happened.
00:26:23
Speaker
um We had a bunch of things and then and then we built the application which had the Xbox 360 camera which you could actually scroll through a newsletter. And then I thought, well, let's take it one step further. And when Samsung saw us or Samsung told us, he said, I'll never forget the guy sat there and he said, you know, this is cool, but if you want to make it sexy, and you've got to use the camera and you shouldn't have anything else standing. It should just be the TV. So I took his advice. Thank you, by the way. And um I went and I built it with the guys directly, just the camera itself. And we made it into a fully fledged TV mall, which is for the Tizen platform, which you could then actually go and select your different products and brands and
00:27:11
Speaker
All kinds of things and then actually it was using your biometrics to actually measure Uh in your living room like your sizing and then it would also map the clothing on you So if you choose a jacket if you choose a hat if you choose and then you could share it on facebook And you could sort of like say should I buy the outfit? Should I do this all kinds of things that we were working on that? But the biggest challenge was the payment And this was the biggest challenge. Out was the challenge? The payment? Yeah. No, no, no. And I will explain to you why it was the challenge. What? The biggest challenge was the payment because I spoke to Skrull. I spoke to Authorize.net. I spoke to 2Checkout. I spoke to the banks. I spoke to every single person that can give me a damn merchant account. And I was like, can you split the payment so that it can go directly to the merchants but you just receive one? No.
00:28:02
Speaker
And I mean at one stage I was like, okay, so I got quite far with Skrull And I was like, okay, okay, okay. And then when I said split the payment, no. And I was like, damn it. And then I met Rastislav and I was like running through some challenges of some other things that I needed to build. And Rastislav walked in to to two to my dad's apartment and I interviewed him in my father's apartment. I was still working out of my apartment, which is opposite my dad's. And um we interviewed him and I said, this is the guy.
00:28:38
Speaker
and my dad said okay and hired him and he was listening to me fighting the whole time with them and he just came up to me and he said we could use blockchain and I said are you swearing at me or what are you telling me? He was like, you know, Bitcoin, I was like, oh, yeah, I heard about it. But, you know, and and he then explained to me how the ledger works and everything. And that was actually the thing that that attracted me, was the ledger. the and And the way that you could actually split it. And then we started talking about when Ethereum started coming out also, you know, and and we started looking at smart contracts and these types of things. It was really insane.
00:29:18
Speaker
um And I said to him, okay, right, well, let's go to my father. he He first said, we can do it with an exchange and we need to build an exchange and then we can do these things. And we were like, okay, fine. So I was before the smart contract. So then we went to my my dad, I explained it to my father with Rastislav. And my dad said, okay, well, give me some time to think about it. So, and then we went back and about two days later or three days later, my dad called me in and with Rasti. And we sat down and he said, well, I had a look at all these blockchains, you know, and and he said, ah I don't think this is going to work. He said, we're going to have to build our own. And i was as Rasto and I were like, do you have any idea how much work this is? Of course, I said it in a little bit different words there to him, but
00:30:14
Speaker
ah Yeah. And that's how it actually came about. And we started understanding like how you can split the payments, how you can do certain things. And today we have where you can buy multiple products from multiple merchants in multiple countries and multiple currencies with a single transaction, which is the nicest part. it's What but i but I really like about this is that your dad said, yeah, we need to build it. And you're like, yeah, that's insane. Let's do it. yeah Well, he first said, how much time? I said to him, six years. Well, Rastio and I first like communicated with each other a little. And then it was like, how long then? And we said, six years. He said, okay, let's do it. And I was like, are you sure? He's like, yeah. I'm like, okay, we'll do it.
00:30:59
Speaker
and um you know this is actually where every This is where CodeTek actually started. was It was because of the splitting of payments that we couldn't do. And we said, okay, right. And you know every add-on, every part of the ecosystem that we built was actually a derivative where you you run into a challenge and you need to solve the challenge. And then it actually it becomes such a big project that it becomes a derivative of its own. and This is sort of like the rigmarole effect that happens and ah sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it's a bad thing That's that's the one. thing Oh, yeah. I mean like there's there's definitely feature creep as co creep I think like India has choice you're like, oh I can't solve this like There's no tool in the market. I'll build it myself like yeah Well, I will tell you that's exactly the approach I i can't find a solution. I'm building it on my own
00:31:51
Speaker
i have a lot of developer friends they are literally the same not on the scope that you're doing but they're like wait there's nothing i need to pay for it is no i'll build it myself and it ends up yeah oh well so but i mean this is this is super interesting because i think for our next segment um
00:32:09
Speaker
I how much value that experience gives to that point where you're like, all right, we're going to build this, and then start building it. and then Because you when did you start building ah kote the Kotel ecosystem? 2013. So two thousand thirteen that's 11 years, and you're still going strong. Actually, I think you're going very, very strong at the moment. So that's like you know it's great. That's 11 years of developing and an insane idea. But I think 99% of the people would have said nine like 11 years ago, that isn't an insane idea. um I can tell you, I've had more people say to me, you're doing too much. ah You will fail. ah This will never work. You don't know what you're talking about. um ah You're wasting my time, this kind of stuff.
00:32:58
Speaker
And we just said, okay, we'll see. And the worst part is, is is like, if you say that to me, Rashid and my father, we kind of like to prove a point. ah You know, we're a little bit of hard headed for a couple of weeks. Well, you know, it's, it's, well, it's, it's not being hard headed. It's just, If you have a look today, if you say deepen, it's now like everything's deepen, everything's RWA. If you have a look at what we started off, this was exactly it. There was just, there there was not a name for it. And it's exactly decentralized storage, decentralized communication, ah decentralized ah assets that you actually have, which is real world assets that you can bring into a digital world. This is why we have a digital identity and all these types of things, because you,
00:33:51
Speaker
you start seeing as you're building these types of things, specifically when you're building like a whole new network, if you just build the network and you say, well, there it is, congratulations, and you have no use cases in today's day and age, what the hell are you going to use the use the the network for? What's what's what's the purpose? so And this is exactly the thing that we but that we did is is we said, okay, right, well, let's create the purpose for the network itself. so that it can create a natural supply and demand for the ah coin and the token itself. But we didn't build the blockchain for the coin. We built it for that, in my humble opinion, sexy immutable ledger.
00:34:31
Speaker
yeah And of course, the network itself being able to like, you know, build the smart contract platform, which allows you to execute anything. And then comes, you know, you've got you got to put you got to store data somewhere because this' it's all about data settlement, data transacting. Regardless if it is a financial transaction or whether you're trying to send a file or a picture or whatever, there's a settlement that needs to take place which is all data. And this is exactly the whole thing. This this is actually what MasterCard network is. MasterCard network is just an update on a ledger which is an IOU that gets settled seven days down the line and that's why some transactions, you know, sometimes you make a payment with a MasterCard network and
00:35:14
Speaker
It takes forever and a day for the transaction to actually be updated. But basically what it is in the banking system is just saying, this bank owes this bank now. Or, you know, update this ledger to that ledger. And there can be a corresponding bank that can say, okay, right, well, I'm holding the asset right now, or, you know, these types of things. So this is sort of like the the interesting part about it. And if you think about it, it's exactly what we built in our settlement network. It's just we can do a real tangible asset in 42 seconds. I also now see where that passion comes from and why this this has succeeded.
00:35:51
Speaker
ah but but and and I think this is great. and I want to a little bit expand on that like because we're hitting now. like you know like So much, so much experience, so much perspective, but always I think with the point, hey, something didn't work, so we made it work. ah We'd love to hear a little bit more because like a lot of our a lot of our public and of all of our viewers and and listeners, they're emerging tech founders of serial entrepreneurs. They come from web two space to web three space. um And I think like yeah getting advice from someone like you is extremely valuable because you have a, and i in my opinion, I think the right approach. A lot of people may say like, well, no, no. Yeah, he's crazy. Yeah, I know. But your utility first always, right? Like I think that's that's where you're like.
00:36:39
Speaker
You would have a tattoo that would probably get the tune on your head. um So, you know, I would love to go into the next segment. Charlie, ah maybe you can you can run that about the advice because I think there's there's a lot to pull from here. Oh, yeah. If you like the content so far, ah please like, subscribe, ah share. we'd We'd love to see our content. We share. We
Advice for Emerging Tech Founders
00:36:59
Speaker
love what we do. And we hope to to see our content back on other people's timelines. So ah thank you in advance. And please, please subscribe on any platform.
00:37:11
Speaker
I don't know. That's it. Love it. Okay. um So jumping into the sort of second portion of the pods where we're really looking for sort of quick fire advice for startup founders. I'm actually going to add one of my own given the how the introduction conversation. It was, I really want to know how you manage all of these things. There's that old adage, which is entrepreneurs fall into this trap all the time trying six or seven different things and not succeeding any of them because they dilute their efforts and their energy so much. It seems like you've done that successfully. How, how, how did you manage your time? Was it just you don't sleep or like, okay, here's a hell of a truck. Lots of Red Bull. Um, I've never been much of a sleeper.
00:38:03
Speaker
ah I do have my days that I crash and of course I have my dumb days. But what I can say is is there's one key secret. Get a team and then trust your team. The important thing is is to give them the chance to participate in certain decisions that you're making. because that's why you hire them is to advise you and because they're better than you. And you got to give your team that freedom. That freedom brings out a lot more creativity. And the most important thing is is it's all about passion. You got to live, breathe, eat, sleep, everything around it. And it's going to be the first thing that's on your mind when you wake up. It's going to be the last thing on your mind when you go to bed.
00:39:00
Speaker
um For me, you know I don't do this for money. ah Money is the last aspect. If you do something that you're so passionate about and that you that is you know that is actually making a real difference, money comes by itself. It comes naturally. um The most important thing for me is to make the difference, is to truly bring it to where it needs to be. And that's what drives me, that's what motivates me. And and I can say our team, which, again, I go back to them, they they are absolutely phenomenal. Lazdislav and I handpicked the first few hundred. And now lately we we don't know, but we we we've put in
00:39:46
Speaker
very specific team leads, project managers um and product owners and things like this. And we've given them the responsibility to be able to make very important decisions. Of course, they run certain decisions by us and you know just today we had a awesome meeting ah with the corpus team and with the with the team leads. And basically what I can say is, is we leave that up to them in certain aspects. And once you've, when when you start on your own and you're you're as a startup,
00:40:26
Speaker
Yes, don't think that sleep and family and personal life is much. It's not. there's And still today I don't i really have much of a personal life. I work seven days a week. um i e you know I work, for example, okay, last night I had a bit of sleep because I knew I had to do the the the podcast and I needed to not have bags under the eyes. mark But what I can say is is, on average, you'll find me online up until two, three in the mornings, and then you'll find me online again, anything from four to five in the mornings. um That's when I wake up and that's when my day starts. Sometimes I have one hour, sometimes I have three hours of sleep, but it is a lifestyle that I have. And the thing is, is having a startup, it's a lifestyle.
00:41:14
Speaker
This is something that I'm going to tell anyone that wants to start it. It's a lifestyle. There's nothing else. this is what you if you If you're going to go all in, and if you want to make it successful, that's got to be your heart. That's got to be everything. Forget about your personal life. Forget about anything else right now because that is the thing that if you want to really achieve it, you you got to be it. And it doesn't stop. And um I can say it is not for the faint-hearted and it is not for someone that thinks, okay, right, they're going to be the boss. You you work for your team. Your team is your boss. And if you don't make them,
00:41:58
Speaker
the most top priority, then I can tell you right now, you will not succeed in the culture of the team itself. That that is it is the most important thing is is that they need to know that they are the most important. They also need to know that they are appreciated for the work that they do. And the environment that you need to create is is exceptionally important. And that should be actually your morals in your company is creating an amazing environment that they want to be a part of. Someone wants to come and work here. It's actually an honor to come and work here. I can't tell you how many interviews I was in.
00:42:40
Speaker
where the team leads um first had, you know, we had the technical interview, then there is a team lead interview, then there is a, they do a psychological interview. I don't know why, but they do that. And then of course, once we get through those rounds, then sometimes when Rastislaf and I have some time, they meet Rastislaf and myself. And it's been so many times that I've had someone that, you know, they come into the meeting and they say, it's such an honor to work in your company, ah um you know, to have the opportunity to just, you know, think I'm going to have the opportunity to work here. And it is because of the environment that the team leads now have fallen into of exactly that is the principle of how the team should run.
00:43:25
Speaker
And that's the success actually to bringing a project to life like this is you've got to create that type of environment. If you don't have that environment, I can tell you now hostile environment saying, I'm the boss and that's it. And you'll do as I say, hell no, that's not how it works. How it works is is being able to listen. Being able to understand, of course, sometimes you have to make an executive decision. And of course, sometimes you you you do get in arguments or in disagreements with team leads or things like this. But at the end of the day, remain calm, professional, and understand the point of view. Sometimes you might change your mind on that point of view, because they might have very compelling arguments to say, this is why we need to go this route. And even if it sometimes takes longer,
00:44:14
Speaker
Understand the longer route is actually the lasting route because it's the harder route If you want if you think you're gonna take shortcuts also, that's not gonna happen shortcuts never they you know doing a quick fix and uh, you know stick it with some spit and there you go, that's not gonna help you that that might solve something now temporarily but It will for sure not last specifically when you need to scale or do something like that I think like I know that we're rapid firing this Charlie, but I just wanted to mention I think like for for people like who have been in management or like this is an actual example of situational leadership, right? Like you are there ah to inspire, and to motivate ah when it's needed and you're like when you're not needed, you're like.
00:45:05
Speaker
and you're You're there, you're just you're you're motivated, you're a coach and that's it. You let people, you let like professionals run their course because we always said, like you know if you push professionals, they're going to push back yeah because you don't need to push professionals. They're already good at their job. They already want to do the best thing, right? So you're going to push them harder, they're not going to work harder. They're going to push back like, oh, awkward. We're not going to do this. like Oh, I've had that many times. Yeah, I can imagine. It's it's been like, I mean, you do it for over a year. So there's there's ah an after journey for that. I think in and on itself, that could be an an an hour of discussion. So I don't want to spend too much on it. But, you know, for our for our viewers, this is a super important point. ah You know, read about this, because this
00:45:46
Speaker
as As I could say, it makes or breaks your organization and your product and everything around it. Exactly. this is and and And to have that culture, you you have to understand, you you actually build a culture in your own company. and I like to say that we are a rural community. We're not a sports team. we're not We're not running a damn race and we're not trying to win a damn race. What we're actually trying to do is is we're building a community or or we' we we're a rural community that works together that uplifts the business because the business takes care of all of us. And your team members are a part of this and you as the owner, your responsibilities to make sure
00:46:25
Speaker
that they're taken care of, your responsibilities to make sure that they have what they need, your responsibilities is to make sure that they're motivated, your your your responsibility is is basically to be there for them. because they're the ones that's gonna take, if you, you know, many times, I know a lot about tech, but you know, some of the tech I don't have all the knowledge of and they do. And that's where you got to take the back seat and you got to let them take the steering wheel and drive you to the end result. And if they, if you've built the culture,
00:47:03
Speaker
of the rural community that basically everyone believes in the product and believes in the end goal and lives the end goal and trusts the end goal. That's when you know you've succeeded. Then then you've already succeeded. And that is the most important part is having that exact type of culture in your company because then they take the best interest at heart of the company itself. They have a look at how they can save you money. They have a look at how they can do things better. They have a look and sometimes I think, you know, I've had to sit in meetings where guys say to me, you know, I don't know how to say this to you. And I say, just get it out and let's just talk about it. And it doesn't help that you get angry and it doesn't help that you shout or that you do something.
00:47:54
Speaker
you could understand the reasoning to it and and sometimes screw-ups happen. The only way to fix it is not to be angry about it. To say, okay, right, let's set up, let's test ourselves off. How are we going to solve it? How are we going to change it? And that's exactly the approach that you've got to take. You've got to take the positive approach. You've got to take the proactive approach. Never take the aggressive or the ah negative approach because it doesn't help because then actually you bring negativity into the team.
00:48:25
Speaker
I agree. um Moving on to the next topic, finding creative funding. yeah This is interesting because you've got a kind of, ah I suppose, an experience here looking beyond traditional financing. Can you just walk us through that and that? with fire fashion, if that's possible.
00:48:50
Speaker
Crowd funding accelerators, small investors. OK, so let me. Because because i've named there's this trend developing here, which is you kind of go against the grain of what traditional sort of startup advice is, which is why I think you're excellent for this particular episode. It's completely different than the YouTube zeitgeist. stuff Look what people reckon right now. If anyone's gonna say to you, there's a manual, ah I can tell you that's for sure not true. um Look, how my father and I did it in Rastislav, we put our money where our mouth is, but we were fortunate enough to have capital. We're also fortunate enough to have some, you know, some funds behind us. And we have some good friends.
00:49:43
Speaker
friends and and yeah but i would say friends and family. let's Let's put it that way. um The thing that I can say is is, if you have to go a capital raising route, the most important thing is is finding the right investor. um you know
00:50:04
Speaker
If you have to put like a pitch deck out there or you have to do these types of things, look, if an investor says to you, first of all, give me an elevator pitch. Number one, I'm going to be dead honest because I'm an investor myself and I am an entrepreneur myself. It's actually damn well disrespectful that you don't want to give the person the time to actually explain to you the project. Give them the fair chance. Because ah number one, most likely the guy that's telling you, give me the elevator pitch, I only have five minutes. And if I don't get your product in five minutes, I'm sorry, immersive tech and disruptive tech cannot have five minutes. Be respectful towards the guy that's actually come up with it or a girl or individual. I don't know how to name these people, but let's say at the end of the day,
00:50:52
Speaker
you know an individual that that's that's going to tell you, ah you know give me the elevator pitch is already looking at the exit strategy. And mean that's what you got to be careful of. um you know The real investor who wants to spend the time with you and wants to understand your technology is the individual that you actually want on board because this is kind of like smart money. And this is like the The type of investor that you want to get is that they they will grow with you. they will They will open up doors for you. They will um they they don't just bring money. And I'm going to tell you, in the investment industry, it's a unicorn. It's a unicorn to find them. It's hard to find smart money. um Personally, I can say very few
00:51:46
Speaker
people we sat with um have brought smart money. But we are very fortunate with the investors that we do have is that it is smart money. Are there are there certain competences that you would qualify or like a rule or something where you say, okay, this this this is for us smart money. This is how we Look, it's more money because I again, you know, our, our, our listeners, they will, they're probably first time founders or maybe not, but they're like, okay, bootstrap. Maybe now they're not gonna go race. Like what is smart money? What is, what, what does awkward think smart money is? Well, smart money.
00:52:25
Speaker
to be honest with you is someone that will bring something more than than just money. This means either a use case or open up a door or have certain connections or be able to contribute um contributing not just in money but maybe perhaps in experience or maybe perhaps in ah knowledge or in a specific use case or in a specific industry. um you know It's someone that comes with knowledge and someone that's willing to participate in helping the company grow. Smart money is basically about growth. It's about taking an investment and this this individual stipulates, listen,
00:53:01
Speaker
um I'm gonna help you. Not to control you, but to help you succeed in the goal. Buying into the goal and saying, I want to be part of it to make the difference of what you are doing and bringing it into the world. That is the important thing. That's that's actually smart money. Smart money is not someone that comes in and says, Well, you're doing your business wrong. We need to fire the CEO. We need to do this. We need to change that, this, that, blah, blah, blah. This team member is not good. you know No, that's not smart money because you know you as the founder know exactly what your business is and what the strengths are and what the weaknesses are. And smart money.
00:53:44
Speaker
can actually help you to strengthen the weaknesses and build further on the strong points that you already have. I hope that answered it. no yeah no that does that definitely got the definitely answer By the way, when it when it comes to like you know crowdfunding, um you know crowdfunding is awesome. But a word of advice to anyone that's doing crowdfunding, um make sure that the product or service that you're offering can basically, it can sustain and maintain its value. Because if you're offering something that cannot sustain itself and cannot maintain itself and cannot be lasting, and and it it will not bring any value. So you will have,
00:54:33
Speaker
a very bad experience in crowdfunding. It is a very, very difficult thing to do. And what I can say is, is um if you don't have enough supply and demand, or let's say enough demand to bring that value, then of course That's exactly where the failure will come in in
Making Technology Indispensable
00:54:52
Speaker
crowdfunding. So be very meticulous when you're doing crowdfunding to make sure that it's it's it's something that can, you know, if you're going to provide a service and there's a token for it, so let's say utility token, um which is the only way that I would say you can probably do crowdfunding, that you have enough services that they can utilize it, that you can actually exchange it for or do something with it.
00:55:16
Speaker
Because otherwise you don't really bring any value in crowdfunding. You're just taking the money to develop a product But you know, it doesn't have any utility or return for the individual that is participating in the crowdfunding Okay, moving on solving problems like a pro target real issues your customer face the goal and make your technology as indispensable as coffee on a Monday morning and I like this one a lot, by the way. And then I will tell i'll tell you why, okay? Because last time, less are was it our last episode that we shot, yeah Charlie? Where it was it was it was a great a great episode, ah but it was like, you know, product, least least important things on the wish list of this individual, which was, you know, and ah he just comes from a VC, and I think he's actually one of the better VC ah players out there, or at least the Bitcoin space.
00:56:08
Speaker
But my my product heart was bleeding a little bit. So you know reading this or hearing this, I'm like, oh, man, I'm so happy to sit here right now. And I will say it this out loud, Charlie. knowing was It was funny because Thomas visibly melted when he said, your product is the last thing you need to think about when you're raising money.
00:56:31
Speaker
Well, Yeah, it is the last thing but I would say it's also the first thing that comes into play. you know because What is the service offering that you're actually getting when you're doing crowdfunding? um Okay, well, solving problems like a pro.
00:56:52
Speaker
you know When you want to take on a challenge or when you want to start a business or when you want to do something, this is really, if you really want to be successful, you got to make people dependable on it. That's why I kind of like yeah said, you know, um as indispensable as coffee on a Monday morning, because that's the first thing that I really need on a Monday morning. But what I can say is, is if you create a natural
00:57:23
Speaker
need for the product itself. That is when you've successfully actually succeeded. And these are the types of things, you know, finding challenges in in the market, you know, sometimes there are challenges that you don't even know was a challenge or some people don't even think it was a challenge. And when you bring in new tech, which is immersive, disruptive, and these types of things, once they start getting used to it, it's extremely hard to bring it in in the beginning because it's something new. They got to get used to this new thing. It's got a new process. ah You know, I'll give you a simple example. So, you start off with two-factor authentication. Let's go down that route. is You know, the... the yeah
00:58:18
Speaker
with a terrible Google or Twilio application that you got to download and then you got to try and get it in time and you got to look at the number, remember it, okay, put it in and you know, or it's an email that comes in and now you first got to freaking open up another tab or your email or you got to check on your phone and you know, find the email, read it, okay, then put it in or the SMS, hate that. um But at the end of the day, when we brought in Core Pass, You have to create a wallet. You have to remember the seed phrase. You have a passkey that you need to put in, which is actually your 25th word of the seed phrase. ah It forms part of it, which is part of the encryption. um You know, it was a whole new process that you actually needed to go through, but you only need to do it once.
00:59:03
Speaker
So if it's a one-self experience, and if you make the experience okay, not too difficult, then it will actually start adopting. But now, once you've created it, a login is simply open up the phone, scan a QR code, and it bobs your uncle. You're done. You don't need to worry. You don't need to remember a username. You don't need to remember a password. You don't need to do anything. I mean, what was the worst part the about remembering a password? So you forget your password and then sometimes you don't even remember the damn username. So now you go in. So then you try and put in your password and then it's like, okay, no, this is not working. Okay. So forgot password, get the email link. Okay. Click on the email link. Then it opens up the new tab. Okay. Back into it. Then you put in the password and then it says,
00:59:48
Speaker
well you can't use the same password as before and it's like how What do you mean? i just did Just put that password in, you know, of course. and they And then you got to think of another password. And, you know, I like to look at sometimes of of these comedians. um I think it is ah michael Michael McIntyre, or I don't remember, or whatever what his surname is. He's a brilliant UK comedian. He was talking exactly about this, you know, about the password. And then it's like, ah you know, so everyone put in the number one. you know, when you had to add in an alpha or a numeric character. And then it was, okay, now you got to put in a special character. Exclamation mark, you know? So these are the kinds of things, you know, that you had to go through. But when that tech came in, everyone was like, now I got to download an app and I got to do this and I got to do that. But now they're used to it. And they said, well, I can't be without this because this secures my account. exactly But we've done exactly that. It's
01:00:46
Speaker
You only have one difficult part, which is the onboarding part. But once you're onboarded, everything else is seamless. It's just a scan of a QR code. You don't need to remember passwords or anything like this. And your account is entirely protected by blockchain. And these are the types of things you become so used to. For me, I wish every single login is now like that because I love it. I just literally open up the app, scan it, and i'm in I'm in my profile. I've got everything. I don't need to worry about nothing. And it's seamless. It's like instant. And these are the types of things and that I'm referring to here is that you actually you solve a problem without people knowing there was a problem, but actually understanding that it has made their life easier. This is the important thing is making the making their life actually easier.
01:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's like it's it's it's ah it's the best disruption, right? if If people are like, oh, yeah, this is great. like ah This is a good, easy service. like yeah I always say ah like this with streaming services. I have a lot of issues with streaming services, which we don't want to go in right now. But interestingly, you know Netflix, everybody's always like, oh, Netflix, this and that, blah, blah, blah, until you look at the other streaming services who are complete garbage. You're like, oh. Like, you know, they they solve problems like a pro. Like, you don't realize it until you stand next to something like, oh shit, this is garbage. Like, this is really, really bad. Looking at your Amazon video. um so but But that's the point, right? like you're if Like, they're so good at solving this that you're just like, oh my God, yeah. this is This is what it should be. This is what the standard should be. And then you can't really go back. That's a perfect adoption perspective.
01:02:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly it. And that's why I say solve the problem like a pro. Solve the problem like a pro. Alright, so when you're trying to solve that problem, you're trying to get product market fit, roll out the MVP. Yeah. you could but So um and MVP should be your your first product should be very simple. Get something out there. Prove it. Prove that you can do it. Anything from there on is new versions for the thing. So most important is because, you know, sometimes as entrepreneurs, we can get carried away with, oh, but this feature and we should add this feature and we should do this feature and we should do no. First, what you got to do, step back from the world, step back from all the, you know, I know features are sexy.
01:03:18
Speaker
they They are. they Really, look, they there's some features that just that sexiness or that sex appeal that that feature brings, I mean, it just makes it so much more attractive. and But then you got to actually think about it. Does it help the functionality or is it only a sales gimmick? And you you you got to start defining. So your first product has got to be your basic fundamental features. elaborate from there on because the rest are or but yeah the functions should be your basic functions and then features come on top of that. This is the important part. is Distinguish then which features is the most important and crucial that will help you in your first release if you have to have additional features.
01:04:11
Speaker
But proving the functionality, that's the most important. And then you can start working back with feedback and other things that you actually get. But yeah, don't go crazy with an overboard with all the features. I mean, I look at some of our mind maps of products that we roll out. If you have a look at the core parts right now, first thing that we started off, We started off with digital identity, being able to KYC your digital document, having a wallet and being able to ah um digitize your proof of address and your contact information. That's it. yeah And then being able to transmit this data. That's it. That's the first basic fundamental function that we have on a peer-to-peer basis. Now we've proven that this tech works and it works seamless with the login.
01:05:03
Speaker
And the login is the sexy part to it. That was an additional sexy feature. So, but that was the sales feature, which actually brought everything into play. And this is exactly the type of things that you need to look before you're delivering a product is don't try and put in too much. Yep. Don't go fancy on your login. Yeah. Just trying to prove that like we always say this in the happy path, right? Like if you're doing an MVP. your one one like USB right like that selling piece that is that you dream about your passion about you know is something different do it good do it right like the rest of the features makes they're great but I should say I love that like the sales gimmicky they're gimmicky you don't need them
01:05:48
Speaker
Yeah. um But to your point, like and in the case of ah the ID login, very important, right? like that that is Because that's the onboarding step um that won't go away. that That gives the digital identity a use case. Exactly. That's the important part. So this is if the if the feature doesn't give it a use case... Why implement it? Exactly. Not in your first release. Release something that just proves the point. Yep. 80% of the, what is it? Of 100% of the fees that we built, like 20% is actually being used. and Yeah. Keep that in mind. Yeah. yeah So staying lean and agile.
01:06:29
Speaker
You got to be flexible. So the most important thing is, is you shouldn't be to too solidly structured in your, or your foundation shouldn't be just, this is the foundation. You should be able to expand the foundation. You should be able to derive from a path when you first say, okay, right, this is the path that we're gonna go, but then be able to alter it a little bit and be flexible in what you're doing. Because the important part is is as emerging tech, I mean,
01:07:09
Speaker
Today is day and age when you have a look at technology. When we started 11 years back to where we are now, some of these products have changed entirely.
01:07:20
Speaker
180 degrees. And we've had to change a lot of architecture sometimes. Sometimes you're developing in architecture and you're You're stuck in this architecture and something new pops out or someone finds something new and it can change a lot in your architecture. Be open to be able to adapt yourself and be flexible enough to move it. This is the most important. Don't get attached to things. in this in In an entrepreneurial environment, you can't be attached. You've got to be able to
01:07:59
Speaker
move yourself in different directions. Steer yourself in the way of which will be a much better solution to what you currently have. ah Come back to your previous point, right? Don't fall in love with your product. Yeah. Rosie glasses. ros it rosy glass like Be passionate, but don't fall in love. I mean. Yeah, exactly. All right. So towards validating the products. Feedback is your new bestie. Yeah.
01:08:33
Speaker
I like how you're reading back this. Do you like personally call every person that's tried it out? Like what's the best way? So before we leave, okay, so you have two options. yeah
01:08:50
Speaker
So your first option is, is you know, you you can release a product without having done open testing and then get feedback from that. You know, you got to listen to the compliments, which are great, but then you get what is called tough love. yeah the the critiques. ah So ah ah sometimes I can say there's of course there's a lot of people that give you a lot of criticism because they think they know ah better how to do certain things. here But you've got to sift through those and you've got to make sure that you you know amicably
01:09:34
Speaker
um Kind of like, take take what is relevant towards the the criticism. My suggestion to product releases, we did, for example, with a company called Hacktrophy, um we did a one and a half year open testing, offered bounties, if you could find bugs, if you could hack the platform and offer generous bounties. There you actually often get a lot of feedback, a lot of ah interesting things that they find. Look, you can have the best Q and&A testers and you can test as much as you want and think that you know exactly how people are using it. Sometimes I wonder how people can get certain bugs that that you find in the application. I mean, it's like they have 20 fingers on one hand. um yeah ah Specifically in a mobile app.
01:10:24
Speaker
but If you think that you're going to find all the bugs, you're not going to do them. And if you do it in open testing where you're offering rewards and you offer things like, like for example, we did we did two things. We offered the bounty where if you found a bug, like spelling ah spelling mistakes wasn't really counted as a bug. ah Here and there we we we offered one when it was really bad. um But mostly it was like functionality bounties, which we gave. So if you came up with an issue of data transfer or if you came up with an issue of something,
01:10:55
Speaker
And no one was able in the one and a half years. And I mean, we had over 10,000 hackers that actually came in. we even ah Liam will tell you this. I mean, we even basically said it directly on his podcast. I said, well, come on then. Give it your best. that's cool. So yeah that was one of the things that he loved about us. I remember that very clearly. But this is basically, we we kind of like challenged the hacker community and we said, well, go on, try. See see if you can penetrate it. um
01:11:26
Speaker
The interesting thing that I can tell you is is that ah apart from from that specific thing, you should also offer something like we we we did the early adopter NFT where we offered a type of like an airdrop and you know an NFT that comes with it that of course will have a lot of meaning in the future um of actually participating because that's how you give thanks to your community that's actually participating in testing the application itself. no so you know feedback, getting this type of feedback is invaluable for your product. You have to get that feedback because that can only result in one thing.
01:12:06
Speaker
bettering the product and finding sometimes you find hidden gems in the feedback that actually says, hey, we didn't think of that. That might be a cool option and derive something on it and it can become a feature. o I mean, um I just want to continue on this line because I think it's it's really, really useful. When you have, so I think this is something that that's just massively important for any new product or any new founder.
01:12:37
Speaker
when you're let's Let's say you're you're thinking about launching a token, you've got a piece of technology, your you're saying offer bounties. How else can they start generating a buzzle in your experience? How else have you kind of gone from sort of zero to one in terms of launching it, getting in front of people? Well, that's one of the toughest challenges. i am That actually comes to, you know, networking.
01:13:11
Speaker
um trying to and and basically coming into social media play being on the right channels going to conferences doing certain things networking shaking hands you know meeting people create content like
01:13:30
Speaker
Like a good talk show, you know, so leaving them coming back for more like, like this talk show. So, um, so what is very important is, you know, when, when we started off. We had some friends. The friends then started spreading word of mouth. Those friends started spreading a little bit more and then we started seeing the need. Okay, right. We got to, we got to go to the internet. So we built the website and then we created a YouTube channel and we started creating YouTube videos. Um, you know, so like I said, right in the beginning, you know, uh, your first YouTube videos versus what they are now, I mean, can ah vastly different.
01:14:16
Speaker
But what I can say is, is get the message out there and put it everywhere where you possibly can. And regardless if someone's going to critique you on it or not, be proud of it. Because I tell you what, the person that's critiquing you, guys, you as the startup owners and as the founders, the guy that's critiquing you probably hasn't done it before. um And they might give you valuable critique. That's why I say s sift it. So don't push it to the side. Take it. And they are entitled to their opinion. And it's sometimes it's good opinions, sometimes it's bad opinions. But, you know, take it with grace, remain professional. And at the end of the day, continue on getting your word out. The more word that you spread, the more word of mouth comes in. Word of mouth is the best marketing actually for a project, which is, hey, listen, have you heard about this? You know, it's kind of like someone saying, I give my stamp of approval to it.
01:15:09
Speaker
and this is the important part for it. and um you know Try and get on podcasts, try and get on um on social you know get social social media influencers, but be careful of the social media influencers that you approach. Sometimes they might not be good for the project and they might not have the target market that you have. So make sure that you research those, get social media specialists that can actually understand how to investigate whether a channel is a real channel, whether they have real individuals, whether it's not bots and things like this. This is the biggest problem that you have with X and with YouTube and all these types of things is they have fake accounts which are following them and fake bots, you know, Instagram, all of them.
01:15:57
Speaker
Actually, by the way, this is what CorePass solves. Not that I'm trying to do a product placement there, but but what I can say is is these are the important aspects is is you know getting that word out there and it is damn well challenging.
Courage, Patience, and Perseverance
01:16:13
Speaker
I can tell you that's probably one of the hardest leaps that you have is is to get known in the market. um Get trusted people to be you know, following you or to promote you or not just to promote you, but also to participate. um And I'm not saying just do it on a paid version. The best version is is if you convince them because your tech is that great. That's the important part. Courage over caution.
01:16:43
Speaker
and I mean, I just feel like Iraq Iraq so quite nicely because you you kind of have to be bit balls out when you're when you're gonna talk about your product and be like, yeah Have me break it yeah are you were what happened You know, I'm gonna tell you um
01:17:03
Speaker
having a startup and um building something disruptive, you get a battering. You get beaten up sometimes. you know And and even even once you've released it and things like this, there are days that you just get home and it's like, Man, i feel like I feel like the dog that's wounded that got kicked even further. um but you know and Sometimes you've got to just sit down and just drink a whiskey and kind of like reflect on the day. There are some days that you just don't want to talk. um my My poor wife, I have to say, I love her dearly. She's absolutely fantastic. She picks me up when I'm down and she she brings me down when I'm high.
01:17:45
Speaker
nice balance yeah so and when i mean high i don't mean like high high i mean like ah when i'm When I'm on my peak, you know I'm excited about something. and um But the thing I can say is, is You really have to have courage. Courage is an extremely important thing when you're doing this. And that's why I say live, eat, and breathe the product. Because if you don't live, eat, and breathe it, you can't have the courage to actually do it because you've got to believe in it yourself. If you don't believe in your own product, you're not going to get anywhere. And to believe in something, it takes courage. And then to say, okay, right, well, I'm going to do this takes a hell of a lot of courage to say, I'm going to step out on my own and I'm going to do it. The thing is, is just do it.
01:18:31
Speaker
Don't think about all the reasons on why not to. If you believe in it and you say, I think this will work, go for it. Give it a shot. Don't let anything. That's how the best tech stories and tech companies come. Is to say, one day we sat, had a beer, three mates. And before you know it, voila, there you go. Something came from it and it's now conglomerates. You know, these are how these companies actually started. Underneath the garage light or in a bar where they sat and had a conversation. i Actually, I wanted just to hook in on what is great. You know, we had now ah quite some guests on the show. Almost every one of them says something similar.
01:19:12
Speaker
Like go do it. Go do it. Like don't don just, you know, yeah jar get your energy behind it. And I think what you're saying here, super important is like live and breathe it. Just. You gotta to be passionate. You can't, you can't, if you, if you come in this game with just like to, to make the money, uh, you're, you'll, you'll be out very quickly. And and like, you'll be kicked down. you You won't get up, but if you, if you breathe it, if you're you're passionate, it it will push you back up. Yeah, exactly. Now, to to flip the script on that ah patience is your secret weapon.
01:19:50
Speaker
Well, you know, um to build something that is
01:20:00
Speaker
you know You don't want to build something and it's just okay. You want to build something and it's great. It's fantastic. you know i I like to refer to someone like Elon Musk. you know he He says, if you want to bring a product into the market, which is similar to another product, it can't just be the same. It's going to be different. It's going to be better, but it can't just be a little bit better. It's got to be way better. It's got to be different. it's It's got to make a huge impact because then it will be successful. I don't tend to always agree with that because if you have a look at, for example, Netflix as the example that you made, Netflix and ah Amazon Prime.
01:20:46
Speaker
Then ah the thing that I can say, and the worst part is, is ah my favorite show is on there, you know, um The Grand Tour. I love that show. I really love that show. that That's my guilty pleasure when I ever get time to watch it. I still haven't watched the last one that was released and I'm like dying for it. But you know why they call it The Grand Tour? No, actually I don't. Because you got to push through to UIOX and it's a grand tour? No.
01:21:14
Speaker
No. No. TGT. Top Gear 2.
01:21:21
Speaker
That is so, yeah, that is so good. That is so good. They are clever. yeah Love them for that. Yeah, that is brilliant. Look, I love those guys, but this is exactly the the the thing is, is Netflix streaming isn't just better. It's amazing. But you don't really understand it until you've experienced it. And this is the type of thing that you you've got to you gotta to look at. It might be the same product that they're offering, but it's it's got a certain pizzazz to it. I think Netflix's UI is u guys better. I think their experience is better. um you know and And these are the things that actually make the difference.
01:22:04
Speaker
No advertisements in the shows? Yeah, exactly. and And this is the important thing that I can say. um To get to that position, it takes patience. You know, patience is really an important aspect when you're starting. You can't just say, I'm gonna release this right now. Okay, where we're gonna do a woman a cuff and that's it and we're gonna release it and that's it. And ah you know, well well we'll fight the battle ah if we if we have hiccups. No.
01:22:39
Speaker
No, because the worst part that you actually have is when you finish the development or ah you've come to a certain stage where the application is in a stable kind of like position, but there's still some development that needs to take place. Start testing. Testing is what's the patience, you know? one and a half years, we had to test corpus before we actually released it. And it was several updates that we did. And we were like, okay, we'll give you three months. And the team lead said, no, you're gonna give me six months minimum. And I said, no no, no, no, no, we'll do three months. I think we can do the testing at no six months. So this this was one of the arguments that we had. And in the end, he gave me the compelling answer.
01:23:27
Speaker
And I said, okay, right, six months it is. Now, of course you have to understand these types of delays have a cost effect. and A huge cost effect because you've got a huge team with other product projects that are still busy developing. And at the same time, you've got to fund that. So because your product is not out yet and doesn't bring any income or anything like this. so But you know what? That patience paid off. Because when we released the application, we had thousands of people already testing the application and they were constantly testing it because we kept on giving them new tasks and releasing new parts and little updates and things like this as it was ready for us to get into the testing environment. And that's actually where you build a community of trust.
01:24:10
Speaker
that's That's the important part of doing this because that patience actually built our community in trust because they actually felt part of it. And that is the most important thing is your community is what's going to utilize your application. And if they're partaking in. and the beginning early stages of it, they become part of it. they they They grow attached to it. And that's where word of mouth and spreading and all this type of you know things that you really want that of natural occurrences that happens with your product going viral. That's exactly the type of viralness that you want.
01:24:49
Speaker
And that patient, that that only happened because of patients, because we sat it through and after the six months of testing, we found bugs, we did. And we said, okay, right, we got to fix that. And then we fixed it. And then we got to do another two months of testing because they're not sitting there eagerly waiting to test it. It takes them two weeks, three weeks. Then it's like, okay, there's an update. Okay, I'll download the update. Then they have download the update and it's like, okay, I'm getting didn't feedback. That thing. Okay. You sit and wait. Oh, okay. Here comes the feedback. Then all of a sudden it just swarms in because the one guy posts on the social media. Oh, I just found this bug. Everyone's going to go and try and do it so that they can try and see if they can win the bounty.
01:25:29
Speaker
yeah you report for beautiful So yeah, that's the patience thing and you know ah Patience is key. It is um to finish this section off rainy days Like I said, when you ah when you get home and you're tired or something didn't go or you found out of a delay or an infrastructure problem or there was a huge bug or you just had a damn well difficult, difficult day.
01:26:05
Speaker
You know, ah sometimes it's even phases. It's not just one day. You can have downs where you gotta solve problems, you gotta do things, and and you don't know how to yet. Now, my favorite thing is is Tom Hanks. This is something that I will always take with me because ever since I saw that video, and ever since I learned about it, I wish I knew it even earlier. But it is, this too shall pass. So when you're high and you're on top of the world and everything's fantastic,
01:26:38
Speaker
that stage will pass. Where you're low and all the things, you know, that too shall pass because you'll get through it if you keep on pushing through with your perseverance because perseverance is what makes a startup work. You got to keep on keeping on. And that's where, you know, time is your ally. And in the end, just wait it out. Don't react emotionally. don't you know Even if you get a great email or if you're in a meeting, ah even with a VC or something like this, keeping yourself constrained and content will be better for you than to show your emotion.
01:27:31
Speaker
because you don't want to act emotionally. You don't want to you don't want to react or um or do anything that is emotional. And this is the most important thing is you have to wait that out and you have to you have to just remain calm, cool, and collected. And at the end of the day, that this too shall pass, that will take you much further than what you know, because you will sometimes need to to always remember that. Because, you know, it it is sometimes really difficult, guys. Sometimes its sometimes you you ask yourself the question, is this really damn well worth it? Am I really doing the right thing here? Yeah, we've been there. oh yeah he's just working yeah Is it worth it? But you know what? Then you have to always
01:28:28
Speaker
always reflect what has it taught you. Money can't buy the experiences that I've had, the fun I've had, the joy I've had, the downs I've had. And the and the downs is what what also builds character. It builds the business. It it makes you remember, it makes e steame a team stronger. If you're in downtime and you can stick together and stand together, Guys, that's what builds a team. that's what That's what brings the team character because there becomes a camaraderie, okay, sorry, for lack of a better word, we're in this shit together. And that's it. And you got to see it through. And I'm sorry if I offended anyone with my rude word, but this is really important. Like if you are stuck in the mud and you guys are tugging together to get out, it's better to be together than what you're one man alone.
01:29:22
Speaker
He used to run with a team a couple of years ago and always a couple of really tough projects in in the in the blockchain space. And they always said, Thomas, it doesn't matter what you do after this, you bled with us. so But that camaraderie, that that that piece, like as you said, like it builds character, right? like Yeah, the deeper the deeper you go, if you're able to stay together, build something out of it. And sometimes it means it's a pivot, right? Like you realize, ahha we need to do something different. Yeah. But very often, as you said, like it builds.
01:29:54
Speaker
more passion. It builds more camaraderie, more better teamwork, better management, better features, optimization, optimize it. Yeah. But you got to go through it. You got to push. You got to. Yeah. I mean, any tech startup that says to me that they haven't gone through difficult days. but You'll get there. The club. It's fine. You're sitting still like, you know, like the the the honeymoon. Okay, that's cool. You just raised money, you didn't have any issues yet. Great. Oh, and and and when you when when the investors come knocking, the yeah where are we on this? An update, please. you right ah What update? What are you talking to about? We're still busy. We just bought a Ferrari.
01:30:43
Speaker
um Oh, that's one thing. Never overspend, please. Don't spend things on unnecessary things. Optimize your cash flow. Frickin' hell, this is the most important thing. Don't buy tech that you don't need. don't Don't invest into smaller things with capital that you know you might be able to put away and store for later that could help you in the rainy days. That's that's like key to it. done If you raise capital, spend the capital of what it was raised for. Don't go and spend it on unnecessary things. Turn every dime twice. Make sure you turn it over and over and over before you spend it.
01:31:23
Speaker
I will say this, I think that me as CEO should definitely drive Ferrari. And I think it's important for the business.
01:31:30
Speaker
but no that's seriously This is like, you know, I'm joking about this, but I have had founders that I worked with that then posted on social media that they just bought a new Ferrari. And we were like, Wait, you wanted to have terms on your payment and you just bought a Ferrari. yeah Okay. Interesting. But this is i and never overspend. I think it's a general rule in life. Don't spend money you don't have. Yeah. Yeah. Just try Sorry. This is shocker coming from the Dutch guy.
Building Strong Company Culture and Team Cohesion
01:32:08
Speaker
I will tell you right now. and there's a lot of I'm shocked you jumped in on co on that piece. ah Me and the rest of the audience. I have probably, that and and I will tell you this, I'm the least Dutch guy, ah probably not in the world, but I'm a lot less Dutch than most of you people think. And trust me, fight fight me on this on in the comments, but I will tell you that I'm not using certain apps that we use in the Netherlands to they settle the bills, because I think it's bullshit. I too have issues with payment provider.
01:32:44
Speaker
Oh, by the way, I just want to tell you, I drive a Toyota Hilux, an old one. Hell I will say i I drive nothing because I don't have a car. yeah
01:32:55
Speaker
so But, okay, it's all expensive ah train, you know, but like the train is expensive, not the ticket, right? i' just I do. Again, this sparks an interesting question with respect to salaries and um let's see your bootstrapping. And like, I don't know, I mean, I've seen, we're we're all plugged into the ecosystem. There are senior devs asking for 150 grand plus salaries as, you know, there's there's some some serious money going around the blockchain space for established engineers, PR people, BD people,
01:33:36
Speaker
Everyone's tried like really commanding quite a high salary. you Do you think it's worth it? do do Do you work out some sort of token deal? how do you What would you advise to get top tier talent for people who are building that vision? Top tier talent isn't in the place where you think it is. Ooh. That's a good one. I'll tell you straight, I think No offense, guys. And this is my humble opinion. I think there's a lot of people that's overpaid for an ego. ah Versus the talent and versus the skills that they can bring. What I can say to you. We are extremely fortunate to have the team that we have.
01:34:30
Speaker
And we don't pay small salaries. But you got to make sure that you earn that salary. That's the important thing. And it's not us that does the measurement. It's the team leads that makes the measurement because they they basically know it's their budget that they're spending. And this is the important thing is is many people have come to join the team, took a pay cut, took less than what they they can get in the market.
01:35:06
Speaker
But that's because they don't they don't they don't just do it for a job and just for money. They do it because of the culture and because of the team and because of what they believe in. What I can say is is, offer your developers, once they've proven themselves, or your team, not just your developers, but your your entire team. Once they've proven themselves over a consecutive time, make sure that you put a plan in to make them more part of the company. Because that's the important thing. The more a part they become, the more at home they will feel. And I can tell you, I don't look in your normal places for developers. I look for developers in places and for team members in places where
01:36:01
Speaker
They understand the struggle. And you'll be kind of like amazed at the amount of talent which is untapped, which you can find in certain places. It's astonishing of how creative they can be in technology. And this is what makes it so fantastic that and makes it feasible for us to do it. And we don't care about your jurisdiction, we don't care about your ethnicity, we don't care about, we're a multicultural society. And if you've got the skills, we're willing to listen and we're willing to pay for them. And we'll pay what they're worth.
01:36:44
Speaker
And I don't mean I'm going to skimp on a payment. ah We are generous and bonuses are important, raises are important, milestones, set milestones. Those achievements can actually, you know,
01:37:03
Speaker
We're not the best at corporate events.
01:37:09
Speaker
we've We've tried to establish one, but it's really hard. And um with most of our team being remote. But what I can say is the team members that are close by, team leads have arranged their own get-togethers and things like this which we've paid for and we've done some of our own corporate events and things like this. We're still looking to do a whole full corporate event but everyone needs to go to one place so we're kind of like trying to see where the best place is. um But the most important part is is
01:37:43
Speaker
Have several milestones for yourself in the company, which is specifically aimed at your team. You as the founder. And, you know, I always say, I don't want to have everything of nothing. I'd rather have a little of something. So this is the important part. And, you know, I really am going to go back to this and I'm going to say,
01:38:13
Speaker
you cannot find the type of talent in the places that you think. again I can agree on that. um where are the places i'm actually curious if if your your places and my places are different well i won't say that but what i can say is is i won't say where it is or these types of things but we we probably have from everywhere in the world people but they come not from major cities or major places or things like this
01:38:52
Speaker
And it's really strange how we get to them. It it is really, sometimes it's like it's it's like a kind of story that you'll sit and you'll think, how the hell did we get this guy? I mean, he's absolutely brilliant. How did no one else find him or her? Sorry, I'm talking about a guy, but also her. I mean, we've we've got amazing girls in the team. Absolutely phenomenal of the things that they can do. And it's all because of their experience. It's all because of the things that they that they do. I would add something to that, actually. ah ah i'm I'm running with a lot of development teams here in Poland and central Europe, ah which is in and of itself a and super interesting culture, development culture. and Obviously, you know, it since we're living in in Slovakia a little bit.
01:39:38
Speaker
um I found that if you offer the right motivation, the right leadership, the right values. um Good becomes great. Yeah. And average becomes good. and And I think that is, and I always say this, like, Our teams are generally consisting of like I have a research team consisting of PhD. They're absolute ballers, like shameless plug, absolute ballers. Like they will, they have a very a similar perspective on technology as you you do yourself. But we mix those, those, those great senior talents with, you know, meteor engineers that in, in experience that, and then they go with the right leadership and you know, they're great leaders from, from.
01:40:27
Speaker
great, like to good, great. And I think that is actually how you find people. And it has a lot to do with what you know, show the world on on how you are, what kind of company you are and and why it works as it works. I think that's how sometimes, at least in my opinion, you'll find people, you'll find the right people for the right company that you are. And and I'll explain that really short, because like as you awkward, like I think if engineers are listening to this, I am an ex-project manager. I would say, well, okay, hey, you're looking for another project manager. Because it's a very compelling message, right? But I can imagine that somebody that is is an engineer for the money, and I know them, and they're great engineers, they'll probably say, yeah, that's too much work. I want to make i want to make a lot of money, and i i'll I'll make it worth it.
01:41:18
Speaker
But what Orkut says, I'm not so sure, because it it doesn't it's not necessarily the message that they're looking for. And I think when you look for talent, and that goes, I think, in every branch, but my my branch is development, um you look for people that that speak your language, your specific company, like your community language, your however you try, whatever you want to call it. like that's And that that's where you you they get leveled. They get passionate. And now that that good engineer is now a great engineer. right You see, the important thing that I want to say is, is like for example, um it depends on where your company is based. um When you have a look at certain salaries which are being paid in certain countries, I think it is absolutely exorbitant and I cannot believe how the hell they can actually pay such salaries. But I'm also saying in the regions where we are, we pay above standard, actually quite high above standard.
01:42:17
Speaker
But what i I agree with you 100%, you know, if I sometimes, you know, or not just me, but but but even our team leads, they sometimes rather look at the passion of the individual and the character of the individual. They might not have the skills, but skills you can learn. If you've got the right attitude, you can come in and you can learn and you can grow that individual into something spectacular. That is exactly 100% on par and cue. I could not have said that better. And what I can say is, is you know, there's
01:43:03
Speaker
Being mediocre in skills, but being creative in problem solving is also a very important thing. And you can be a top-notch developer, but I can tell you what you can sometimes learn from the mediocre. And I just wanted to mention that like being a rockstar engineer doesn't guarantee that you're like, well, being ah a rockstar developer doesn't mean you're a great engineer. Yeah. Uh, it actually means generally your mediocre engineer because there's a lot of ego involved. And yeah once it like throughout, I think that the red thread in this whole discussion has been what I find it's like, like also from you you personally, like the, the amount of ego.
01:43:44
Speaker
is is incredibly low. I mean, you need to I think if you want to be successful. um But that goes also for your team if you become like you hire people with with a big ego, like, and and in this case, work star engineers. Yeah. Um, massive issue, massive issue. You, you, you get mediocre teammates or you can, again, I'm not saying like for all the rockstar engineers out here, like I'm not trying. And some of them, and and maybe most of them are great, but there is also a good amount that doesn't have the the skills to be a great engineer.
01:44:18
Speaker
You know, ah hiring and these types of um activities that you have to do as a startup, it's sometimes really difficult. And sometimes it's really hard to find the right person. um But what I can say is, is, you know, we we have some real rock stars in the team and they they cost. But what I can say is, is they've earned it. And it's not about from what they did in the past.
01:44:52
Speaker
It's from what they've already achieved now, current. And that's why you get these individuals in. If you're going to keep on, keep on living off what you've accomplished in the past as a developer, and you're not focused on the future. That's when you should know you should probably change your attitude. Um, because it's not going to get you to where you want to be, because you can actually be a lot bigger and a lot greater. than trying to delve just on, okay, well, I was part of this team and I did this particular thing and it's successful. Okay. So what have you done now recent, you know, ah you're you're telling me that if I put X Google in my LinkedIn, uh, that's, that's not valuable. valuable Um,
01:45:37
Speaker
I don't look at a CV. I'll tell you straight. I look at what you can do. And I look at your character. Of course, our team leads look at the CVs and they look at certain other things. Me personally, when Rastislav and I were hiring, I used to tell our HR department, they they used to get the CVs, they used to go through the CVs and things like this. And they used to want to put the CV in front of me. Should we interview? Should we not? And I said, just interview. and we gave almost everyone a chance that came in it was only when it was like really not not where we think but we what i can say is is um i really don't actually care whether you have an education or what you've done in the past i care about what you can do right now i care about
01:46:27
Speaker
Also so your character and your ability to be able to work in a team and be able to understand the company culture. um These are the things that I think is more important because your skills, we can always teach you skills. You know, this is also one thing which is quite important to say to startups.
01:46:48
Speaker
In the beginning, it's easy to hire people.
01:46:54
Speaker
Once you get to a certain stage, it gets extremely difficult. And then you have to understand that it can take anything between three to six months before that individual is useful. or is profitable. When I mean useful, I don't mean useful, I mean like profitable. Because they need to learn, they need to understand the repositories, they need to go through all the code, they need to understand all the documentation, they need to understand how the projects put together, the architecture, they need to understand that the the deployment, the DevOps section, the all the things, how the communicators are working, all these types of different things that they got to look at. Once they've understood that, then they can actually start participating.
01:47:41
Speaker
But it depends on how big and what's the scale of your project and how far you are in the project. And you always need to keep that into account. So now it's like, you know, someone says, someone says, oh, well, we can do the project faster if we hire more people.
01:47:58
Speaker
It's going to take at least three months before we get the speed going. ah So this is the the nine months of our nine mothers, one month month baby baby discussion. Yeah, no, we had them. and and and And this is the important thing as ah as an entrepreneur and as ah as a business startup to understand as you progress, you're you're going to get through these challenges and you're going to get to these stages. And it's really interesting stages. Some people are extremely fast in understanding clicking and learning. But some people are not. And they are extremely valuable to have. But you've got to give them the time. And that's where patience comes in again. Because you've got to be patient with them to actually understand so that they can fully so that they can be fully optimized in the skill sets that they that they're going to bring to the team. And that's that's that's the important aspect to it. But everyone matters. It is it's just the important thing of that.
01:48:50
Speaker
um want I want to add one more thing, Charlie, because I know where you want to go with this. I think that's also the piece with overspending. Yeah. It's really easy to get when you're in that stage of startup, or well and scale up, you where you're you're you might feel very often, if I throw more money at the problem, it will solve the problem. I will guarantee you right now, and I think you can agree on this, it will never solve the problem. To the contrary, it creates so many problems that you might actually look back on that and saying like, oh shit, this has been a company defining moment or changing moment. And we've seen companies go bankrupt because of it. Because they were unable to go from that startup face to a scale of face.
01:49:37
Speaker
Um, because they figured, oh yeah, now we need to deliver 15 features. So we're going to build 15 future teams. It means 60 people and we're going to hire them all in on one month. and And this is all going to happen. Nope. Yeah. That's exactly. If you've made it as far through the podcast, we really appreciate you, uh, doing us a solid like subscribe, hit that notification button and share with anyone that you think you find this useful. um Moving on to the brainstorming session ah section of the podcasts, we want to talk about navigating funding and investment for tech startups. And I know we've covered part of this already with respect to finding smart money, which I thought was absolutely fantastic. Gotta have smart money. But are there any other pieces, any other sort of nuggets we can drop for the audience with respect to different vectors of of raising capital?
01:50:29
Speaker
Yeah. um Look, there's always the part where you got to decide whether you're going to do equity funding or debt finance or equity finance and debt finance. In my humble opinion, I think that debt finance and startups is extremely dangerous unless it is convertible, which means that the The debt that you're taking can be converted into either stocks or shares or ownership or equity.
01:51:02
Speaker
um Equity finance is always the better option, especially if it is smart money. um This brings the value to your business model. um If it is not smart money, it's better to take your time before just accepting it. Choose your investors carefully. It's really, really, really important. If the investors do not understand your business, there's only one motivation. That's their exit plan. And I would also say, you know, when you talk about
01:51:44
Speaker
a pitch that you need to make or, you know, a pitch deck itself. This is kind of like really interesting when you're pitching to investors. um We kind of like have a little bit of a standing joke. We usually say um two so two South Africans and a Slovak walk into whatever it is. You know, it sounds like three stooges walk into a bar. But um what I can say is is when you look at pitch decks and when you look at
01:52:18
Speaker
um at presenting to an investor. The important part about a pitch deck is the pitch deck is not going to get you the money. The pitch deck is not there to get the money. The pitch deck is there to open the door or the invite for you to explain it. and you know The most important components of a pitch deck is to define your challenge or problem. Then describe the detailed solution. Really go into depth of how you solve that. And I don't like to call it a problem. I'd like to call it a challenge because it is it's merely a challenge. It's not a problem.
01:52:58
Speaker
problem is something much worse. So rather focus on the way that you're doing your wording and talk about challenges and talk about how you can ah you can better the current state of it and get like really into it. The the other most important thing that ah that an investor is going to look at is the ask. So be very clear on what you're going to spend the money on. um Don't just give out a ballpark figure. Go and sit down and do proper calculations. Really take the cost of the timing that is going to take you, the amount of people it's going to be. Also include your marketing and these types of things. But don't overestimate and don't try and build in fat. Because it will catch you at a later stage. Because you'll sell off your equity too much in the beginning stages.
01:53:53
Speaker
which you will regret at a later stage. Try and finance or be creative in the ways that you're doing. Use freebies.
Pitching and Presentation Skills
01:54:00
Speaker
Freebies meaning Go look at open source projects, go look at um alternative ways of doing marketing, find new creative solutions of doing these types of things rather than spending exorbitant budgets on it. Because throwing budgets at marketing can eat up the entire budget and then you can't you won't have enough budget to actually build it of what you want to build. And this is the important part that you need to make sure that your ask is
01:54:31
Speaker
combed through with a fine comb and that you can exactly pinpoint the exact amounts and how you calculated it according to that because at the end, that's actually what's gonna define whether you're responsible or not for them to actually put the investment in. um So this is the most important thing is is make sure your pitch deck is good enough to get you the invitation for the meeting because the right investor will invest in you, not in your pitch deck.
01:55:04
Speaker
That's the most important thing to I mean you what you said, there's actually fantastic and expanding upon that would be for me one of the biggest question marks, especially in the web three spaces, you'll go to market. Everyone's always saying, i'm goingnna I'm going to launch a token and then I'm going to motivate the community with the token. I'm going to air drop. I'm going to, you know, we've all seen these decks, right? That's not a good business model.
01:55:37
Speaker
but on on the and we were talking about like being spent rift making sure that you're Actually deploying capital in a meaningful way and being intentional with the ask To dissuade the audience from doing the token motivation model go to market What is what what quantifies as goods in your book? look um
01:56:06
Speaker
You've already done the revolutionary thing by going on your own. ah that's that That's the first step that you took of doing the right thing. The second thing is is try and have a little bit of reserve from yourself or try and find a little bit of capital from yourself or do something to showcase your passion. The passion is actually what is the secret sauce. That's what truly will get you investment, will get your project somewhere. You know, there's there's no ABC or XYZ or whatever business model for the exact pitch deck. Every single company is different. Every single project is different. Every challenge is different. Every approach that you're doing is different. And this is the interesting thing around it is
01:56:58
Speaker
A pitch deck is still old school. It's still you know it' stole the legacy method of of getting funding, um specifically when it's either a VC or whether it's crowdfunding or bootstrapping or whatever. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is
01:57:25
Speaker
You have to, it's it's the way that you communicate it. You got to bring in the passion. You got to show your heart in it. If your heart's in it, they will know your faith, your trust, your belief, your everything's in it. If you're all in, then they know, okay, you are serious about it. If it is something that's just a predefined chat GPT text, it's not gonna get you where you want it to be. Yes, chat GPT can polish it and make it a little bit better and things like this, but don't ask chat GPT to write your pitch deck for you. You gotta write it with your heart, your passion, and then you can fix it a little bit ah with chat GPT, but then go and re-alter it and re-edit it again, because you gotta show your personality in there, because that's what's actually gonna really bring, that that's the pizzazz that you bring.
01:58:20
Speaker
it's not It's not defining it or saying this is the particular slide or this is the particular thing. It's you. You're the one that sells it because you're the one that founded it and you're the one that believes in it. That's the real relevance to a project. I had a ah while ago ah we invested in, we did some angel investing on the site. We had an and guy, creator economy, ex Hollywood, great, great guy to speak to, ah very articulate. But then his pitch deck was that was a four minute video of him presenting this to a large audience. And I i will say this, I was very skeptical, like, yeah, right whatever this is, but he he is was he's a ex photographer, I think, and a very, very good spot public speaker. So
01:59:15
Speaker
The way how he explained his product, um one, it was incredibly well explained, which is something that I always look for in founders, because being able to translate your your product into the market, you know it's important. But the passion that came from that guy, but both me and and and my partner were like, yep yeah, yeah, OK, we've got to do something that's over him. We've got to figure him out for it. But OK, this is 90% what he just did. right like yeah And that was for me, it was six minutes. um because personality of him was so strong and it was so clear that, okay, he is going to drive this. Then we met his team and we're like, okay, you know, like his, his team was like kind of the, they brought in a bunch of people and, and to the same point that we've talked about earlier, very,
02:00:01
Speaker
very good at you know delegating and and keeping giving people the right responsibilities. um But it was that six minute pitch of public speaking to actually and another group of people that that just pulled me in. ah And it was blew my mind. I was like, wow, is this to your point of traditionally like old school pitch deck? Why are we not seeing more video? Because like video kind of brings over that passionate perspective. And you're a I think you're able to better articulate what your product is, right? I mean, this is me kind of like thinking out loud. but But this is exactly it. and and and And I just want to tell you, if you're going to over design your pitch deck and it just looks absolutely magnificent, 99% of the time, you will clearly i understand that the marketing has gone or the money is going into the marketing and not into the technology.
02:00:55
Speaker
That's just something. Don't make your pitch deck look too too sexy. ah That's an interesting... but the but is that is that is ah Is that shared by the market as well? by Because, and I mean, you know, VCLite, we all know VCLite out there is... strange and weird and interesting and fascinating at the same time but i mean i i i think i know vcs that are like oh that's a great looking pitch like well the let me live martin yeah well have you ever seen how i met your mother uh i've never seen how you met my mother no yeah yeah i have seen the show yes yeah yeah
02:01:38
Speaker
Okay, well, that that particular show, if you have a look at the Barney resume, the video resume, that episode, this is what I'm talking about, over the top, crazy things, all kinds of stuff, don't do that. The guy's interested in understanding what's the challenge, understanding how you solve the challenge, what's the ask, and make and and and make sure that it's legitimate. And the thing that I can tell you is, is Video is awesome.
02:02:11
Speaker
um But you got to have a little bit of substance. I can tell you, I've sat in front of investors, many of them, some telling me, just give me a de-elevator pitch. And it's like, by the time that I'm three minutes in, you know, to explain this type of technology and the ecosystem that we've built, the guy you know When they say to you, give me an elevator pitch, you as an as a as a as a founder can sometimes be thrown off with these types of things and you stutter and you struggle to to find the words to put it together and it prolongs and in the end it can create doubt.
02:02:54
Speaker
so you know When you're making a video, make sure that you've gone over your video, over and over, pre-scripted. Make sure it's good. Make sure everything's ready, that you are prepared to actually deliver it. But what you say is true and what you say you mean. And having a pitch deck and having a video connected to that pitch deck that can actually either showcase, demonstrate, illustrate, or just showcase a bit of you that brings that that That says 10 times more than having a super-possessed, over-the-top type of pitch deck that you're actually throwing out there. Keep it simple. That is the most important thing, is keep it simple, keep it in layman's terms, and just all the other things that you're putting together of the technology and these types of things, that's waffle.
02:03:54
Speaker
The three sides that they look at is the challenge, solution, and your ask. That's it. that's that's really when it's The first thing that I go to is I first go and have a look at the ask, and then I go and have a look at the challenge. And then I say, OK, right, well, how can this challenge cost that much to actually produce? OK, now I want to look at how the solution works. And then I work my way backwards in a pitch deck before I will invest into a project. This is this is how I approach it. and um
02:04:25
Speaker
you know having an understanding of how much development costs or um you know how much it costs to actually roll out a certain project, what you got to look at. you know The other thing that is very important is is to make sure that your architecture is good. Because if you if you don't have a good architecture for your scale-up, ah you're going to have a failing domino effect. You want you want the perfect domino effect. And you've got to actually showcase that. of how do you in your solution it's important to showcase your scalability inside of it because that's gonna say okay right you've really thought of the rudimentaries which is the most important aspect is if I've rolled out and I need to scale up and this thing goes crazy
02:05:09
Speaker
You got to be ready for it. And if you're not ready for it in your infrastructure, how will you be able to cope? You can't let the product go down. No, and because it's got to maintain. you'll Then you'll lose trust in all these types of things. And most important, be honest. Be straight, honest, transparent, and real. That's the most important thing. I have nothing to add there. I would say, hell yeah, to the infrastructure piece. No, seriously. Once again, Charlie and I have just had this discussion of last year over and over again. People are not willing to spend what they should spend on the right things. And if infrastructure, in my opinion, like scaling up, having your architecture document documentation ready.
02:05:54
Speaker
knowing what's going to happen in the next 6 to 12 months and not building some low-code, no-code crap and not understanding that that can only get you till X, Y and Z. I mean, yeah. it's The worst thing for me is is when someone says, okay, give me your five-year plan. How the hell am I supposed to know what my five-year plan is? It's going to be a That's what it's gonna be. It's gonna be a thumbs up because I can't tell you how how how fast the users are gonna come on, how how quick the adoption will be. ah No one can tell you that. If you think in ah in the tech industry, in the blockchain industry that that you know that already, the only thing you can stick to is your hard facts. You can't say how fast your product will grow. And this is also one of the things, this is why I say, keep it real, don't overextend the amount of time
02:06:46
Speaker
Keep your cost calculations according to a specific time frame. You can always go back and go and collect more money once you've reached that time frame, but don't overestimate it and don't underestimate it. That's also the other thing. Don't sell yourself short. Cool. I've got nothing else to add. No, I mean, like I can... wait No, I just like, I'm gonna put this on the forefront of my company. It's just like, look, these five minutes, if if you if you go through this, and you still, you still want to do this, come talk to me.
02:07:22
Speaker
So whenever so I do a bit of mentorship as well, whenever I look at a deck, I want to see some something special in the in this is why I asked about go to market something that positioning is why I specialize it. And I want to see something that I want to see something unique. I want to see something special. I want to see a a reason why and a reason and like a ah some form of multiplier that's going to get you into the market quicker and faster and your product in front of people more than your standard sort of token motivation launch kind of thing. I feel you come from the school of
02:08:08
Speaker
If the problem's big enough and the tech's good enough and it solves a problem quick enough, is that a correct assumption? I mean, you're just asking, I'm curious. No, actually I come from the, in my humble opinion, um tech doesn't need to be big to actually solve a problem that we didn't know we have. Um, it can be the smallest little thing that could actually go viral. Silly little application that no one thought they ever needed. TikTok. I hate TikTok. I don't use TikTok at all. But if you look how that boomed.
02:08:56
Speaker
yeah Because of short reels. Because everyone just keeps on scrolling on the short reels. They don't... The attention span is less. They don't... They just want to get to the point, okay? That's it. In, out, in, out, in, out. That's it. That's why TikTok boomed. Only because of that, because it was short reels. Wasn't long, lengthy videos. If you want to watch more of the video, yes, then you can continue. But it's all short reels. And this is kind of like the thing now, I can tell you now, people are just like, do you have TikTok? you know And I personally, I don't have TikTok. i'm not it I'm not a fan of it. I don't want to have it.
02:09:34
Speaker
i i'm ah I'm an old school guy. I'm still ah Facebook, Instagram, and um LinkedIn. Actually, my favorite is LinkedIn. And and ah I loved Twitter. Elon, change it back to Twitter. I don't like X because I'm not going to give you an X post. I like to give a tweet. I still talk about tweet. That's the era where I came from. you know so so But um to tell you the honest truth, that yeah I really enjoy Twitter because you can do longer and shorter. You can rant or you can rave. you know These are the things that I love about these types of platforms. And I still enjoy Facebook because I can mess around with the algorithm. And I also enjoy it with Instagram because I can confuse it.
02:10:20
Speaker
ah So so my but my search sometimes, you know, can be entirely like the most arbitrary things that I've been watching. So this is the interesting part is, you know, i yeah I tend to agree with you that you want to see something special, that you want to give in something special. But what I say what is special is, That's defined by you as the founder. um Going to market, yes, it is important how you go to market these types of things. But I can tell you right now with how fast tech is growing and sometimes the best marketing strategies
02:11:03
Speaker
you know, can also fail. And you can throw money at it. I can't tell you how many times I've paid school money. Huge amounts of money. Like, you know, yeah and you got to pick up the pieces and you got to answer to it and you got to solve it and you got you gotta got to fix it. And that's it. And you got to do it in a cost effective manner because you've lost that money. That money's gone. Bye bye. Say goodbye. Don't delve in the past. Don't cry over the spilt milk. move forward. And these are the types of things, in my personal opinion, when I sat with investors, this was what they were interested in. How much school money have you paid? What what did you learn from that? so ah you know and and And that's the kind of thing, like, you've got to be open and honest about it. I mean, you go down a certain path and then you find out, like, at at like some ending stage, okay, this is not going to work.
02:11:55
Speaker
Okay, what do we do now? Okay, let's kind of like solve it and let's try and find the different routes and then you got to either refactor and Redevelop or you got to go back to the drawing board, you know Sometimes wrong decisions are made with your infrastructure and you've got okay We got a relook at certain ways about you doing things and that's that that's part and partial of being flexible by the way poke the bag on the other ah well but we couldn have done the whole podcast got just going beyond yeah
02:12:27
Speaker
All right, but let's move on to topic two. So topic two is quite interesting. It's advice for turning ideas into successful businesses. Now, we all know going to the conferences and going around the circuit that there are a lot of good ideas. Good ideas being created and turned into something that's actually feasible as a business idea is i I think part of the magic, frankly, like, as you said, you've done the magic thing, gone out on your own and and started something and you've built something, you started having those conversations, but you've actually gone and done something which is, I think, fantastic. Are there any common pitfalls you see emerging tech founders fall into or ah is there any sort of advice to advocate?
02:13:11
Speaker
okay yeah you want the You want the wife answer or you want the real answer? Oh, we're going for real, baby. ah rip Real old day.
02:13:25
Speaker
Number one is ego. I'm going to say straightforward. It doesn't help the chief be arrogant. It doesn't help that your, um, that you think you are the best, you're the next best things and sliced bread, buttered, toasted on either side, hey even with a bit of jam and cheese.
02:13:50
Speaker
What I can tell you is is rather take the humble approach. um The pitfall that I've seen with certain tech startups and with certain founders, and it's it's not all of them. This is just, you know,
02:14:05
Speaker
It is a doggy dog world and sometimes you have to have a little bit of an ego to get to a certain place because you've got to be cocky. Are you going to tell you make it? That's something I don't agree. No, no, it's more was more of a question. i'm not ah This is not a statement that I didn't necessarily think agree with. I'm just more like, are you going to tell me make it? is that No, no, yeah I will tell you honestly. um I don't believe in fake it till you make it. And the reason being why I don't believe in that is because if you're gonna fake it and you can't solve it then what the hell do you do? You're gonna make it and then you're gonna leave a lot of people disappointed. So you're gonna get some investment or you're gonna do a capital raise.
02:14:52
Speaker
Have a look at some of the projects of the ICOs. When the ICO world was booming, we'll take a voxel. For those of you who don't know, that's an opal or it could even be a Škoda. We're going to take that to the moon, you know ah slap a rocket on it and put some wings on it and that's it. you know And some people bought into it and they said, okay, well, all right. And and the founders were extremely arrogant about it. They said, we can't do this. Don't worry. You don't need to worry about it. That's exactly not the approach that you gotta take. You gotta take the humble approach and you gotta take the honest, truthful approach and transparent approach. You gotta say, okay, right, listen, you gotta be able for someone to be able to challenge you and don't attack the person. Let the person challenge you. If you really know how to do it, you'll give them the right answer.
02:15:43
Speaker
I always say, you know, sometimes and this is why I asked you, do you want me to give you the wife answer or the or the ah the real answer? and You know, I always say to the people, if you ask me the right question, I will give you the truthful answer. You might not like my answer, but it's subject to my opinion and it's also, you know, it's gonna be the honest truth of what I think or or ah or what I've done.
Leadership and Empowerment
02:16:11
Speaker
And this is the whole thing, is is ego is good in certain parts, cockiness is good in certain parts, but
02:16:22
Speaker
Always remember to be humble. Remember where you come from and remember why you're doing this. Because that that sometimes gets forgotten as a founder of what is the true the true reason and the true mission on why you're doing these things. And then I would say, you should trust your team. As you're growing and your team grows is the reason why you're employing them. Put your trust into them. They'll take you there. They'll get you there.
02:16:56
Speaker
This is very important. Don't try and be a control freak. Don't try and micromanage. Don't do delegate. Delegate where it's needed and allow them to subdelegate because that is exactly what you need because you need to free up your time so that you can focus on bringing the business further. This is a very important thing which I think a lot of founders fall in because they They're extremely concerned and it's a normal thing. it' you know it's like It's like when you start dating, you wanna make sure every word you say to the girl or to the guy is absolutely perfect. You wanna make sure that you keep on impressing them and you wanna wine and dine them and showcase them a great time. and you know But at some other point,
02:17:50
Speaker
They're going to have to know you and you're also going to have to let them be free and trust that they will like you for who you are. No need to show both or do anything any further. Because that's when you know that you're going on the right path. It's all about the growth of the business and being able to hand it over to other people to trust them, to make sure because that's why you employ them. don't Don't lose that part. And then You have to understand you as the founder is not necessarily the smartest person in the room. That is a very important thing to remember. Even though you thought of the technology, it doesn't mean that you know everything about it. And sometimes you just gotta to
02:18:39
Speaker
You got to be the quiet guy in the room and you got to listen and learn. And that is a very important thing that I see many founders sometimes fall into is falling into that habit of when they started it. It was all you, you were driving, you're driving the engine, you're doing everything, you're putting everything in and you can't understand. You know you have to also be understanding towards other people. You gotta understand that not everyone has the drive, the thrive and the willingness as much as you do to get it into that stage. you've got a You be patient and you gotta be understanding. And then listen, those are the things that I can say we as founders
02:19:20
Speaker
need to always remember. And sometimes I even need to be reminded of it. And sometimes my father, sometimes Rastislav, sometimes even our team meet team ah team leads need to be reminded of it. But it's normal that you get so passionate or fired up about something and you kind of like lose a little bit a sense of reality at that time. So, hence, this too shall pass.
02:19:50
Speaker
We've got an interesting point here, which is ah and this is something I preach all the time, which is validate the market needs before you start coding stuff. I almost advise i usually advise my clients to pre-sell it if you can. to ensure that people want to buy what it is you're selling or what it is you intend to spend a million dollars on building. Do you agree? Is that something that you you've taken the track towards? Is is research enough? Research is one thing. um We have an amazing research team when we want to do particular things, when we want to expand on particular ah use cases.
02:20:37
Speaker
I would, in some way I would agree with you and in some way I would say, you have to be careful. This was exactly what I was saying before. If you're gonna do crowdfunding or if you're gonna do pre-sales, make sure you can deliver the product. Make sure you can give a, or or that there's a demand for the service. There's many creative and unique ways in how you can do it. Being in the Web3 and being in the the blockchain industry, selling a token, which is a utility token, which can be exchanged for a service. Firstly, make sure that your token is a utility token, that it is a service that you're selling. Yes, the placement is that the individual is placing in there. It's not an investment.
02:21:31
Speaker
They're buying a utility or or a future of a utility of a service. That's what a utility token does. And if you have the means to do that and you know that you can deliver the service, apart from doing the research, start a little bit in dabbling with the development itself. Start the process already with a little bit of funding and elaborate in it. You'll see very fast whether you can or can't. And this is sometimes you are unlucky that at a later stage, I mean, I will tell you, there were there were a few times where we thought, okay, were right, we're going to be ready. And then we hit number 99. And just before we're going to release, we had, we had delays. We we had hell of a delays.
02:22:21
Speaker
And they're imminent to happen to you as a startup. yeah it it is Any startup that says to you that it will not happen, I don't care how good your team is, so it's going to happen. You're going to have delays and you're going to have ah things that you come up with and you say, I can't release the software like this because you always got ah you always got to remember and remind yourself that it is about your customers and not about the software itself. If the software cannot deliver it properly to the customers and the customer is not protected, don't release it. Rather fix the problem so that you make sure that you are 100% sure that your customers are protected. This is an important thing, specifically if you're building something like an exchange or building something like a swapping platform or a wallet or anything of that sort or a connector even.
02:23:10
Speaker
That is very, very important. And I tend to agree with you in certain aspects of it where, um you know, pre-sell if possible. But it's like I said, make sure you can deliver and make sure there is a demand for the service because otherwise what you've sold is going to be air. and And there is an interesting point to that, Charlie, because like i i generally I like that perspective a lot. um Since our market is like definitely in Web3, but also night now the AI market is just a crazy bull, right? like Even if you sometimes pre-sell,
02:23:50
Speaker
I am wondering that like once you've built it, let's say it you'd even though the MVP is three months and you know it it's the greatest single happy path that you've ever built for the client, i they might have maybe moved on because the market moves so fast. yes i and and ah I always joke, I'm very happy I'm not at a product company and i'm I'm not running a product company, not in this environment because the environment is super
Mentorship and Learning from Unexpected Sources
02:24:14
Speaker
competitive. so and i'm like i think if you are so and And the reason I'm saying this, Charlie, is because of AI. like If you look at how many LLM-based apps are coming out right now, I'm pretty sure every ah first move or advantage that you had in that market is gone within a month because somebody else built something different. Or the model took that and now is ah it does that natively. So your startup is gone.
02:24:45
Speaker
Yeah. um This is the risk that you take? It's the risk that you take. And I think that the blockchain is a little bit slower at the moment, luckily. But like if you look at LLM specifically, I think if you can pre-sell that and then retain your customers, that that is that's a really thin line, I think, to walk. um Yeah, this is that this is why I said exactly what I said. Make sure that you can maintain and sustain the service and that it will be a lasting service that you're actually putting out. You see, they and the interesting thing is is um we're extremely fortunate to have my father because my father is... I'd like to say that he's a visionary in many aspects. And he already foresaw problems.
02:25:35
Speaker
that we're gonna run into. Mica regulation. We saw that already like four or five years ago. He saw things like decentralized storage, um Deepen, RWA. We were talking about this four or five years ago. I can show you a board right at the beginning when we started this project in 2013. We actually have a drawing on a whiteboard, which he drew out. And we were talking about the circular economy. and how real-world assets need to enter into a digital environment. and We didn't have RWA or anything like this. We just spoke about decentralized digital attributes. you know that's That's what we spoke about. That's that that's what we called it.
02:26:17
Speaker
so um you know And yeah we actually refer to it as DAMP, Decentralized Attribute Management Platform. um And you know these are the things that we already spoke about you know and and also about stable tokens and things like this, the issues that they will run into certain parts of being decentralized with it, being transparent, open source, these types of things. you know It was very interesting Now, to to look at now versus when when we started the development, we were extremely fortunate with that. um And that's why we're yeah we're actually right on the cusp of the of the timing of releasing the Loona Mesh and releasing these platforms because now people are talking about it and they're trying to find a solution.
02:27:07
Speaker
But it's going to take you years to catch up because I can tell you it is a hell of a process to develop. it's You need an extraordinary team and it doesn't need to be a big team. It just needs to be a really clever team to know exactly how to do it. And you need you will understand that you need so many different components because There comes permission protocols and all kinds of things that actually needs to come with it because now you need to understand if you're going to put it into a decentralized environment and it is secure, trusted data that you want to actually distribute to over a public network. It's got to be wrapped, secured. It's got to have a new form of steganography. It's got to have a new form of encryption, decryption, these types of things. It's got to have a permission protocol that's got to come with it. which is actually utilizing the blockchain to verify that the data is correct to verify that you got the permission and you know all these it just adds on and adds on and adds on and adds on and by the time that you get to actually okay we're going to release it deeper and it's like
02:28:02
Speaker
shit but can get you its scope scope grief is a very very very important thing question sorry i went on a rant there but but no i i really again this this is relating to like one of the final pieces in this brainstorm which is you know your father we'd say a mentor a visionary How, if you're, I mean, part of our mine and Thomas' are sales pitch is we know stuff, we've been there, we've done it, we shorn your learning curve and accelerate the break the rate of growth of your business in essence at a high level. and Essentially part of that is mentorship. It's coaching people through their own shortcomings to the so understanding actually the answer is either right in front of them or taking a different direction.
02:29:02
Speaker
How do you go about finding mentors? What do you reckon is, what would you suggest is the best route forward for doing that?
02:29:12
Speaker
i'm i'm I'm again, ah I know what what what you do and probably you're not going to like my answer so much. That's fine. But it's it's subject to my opinion. Look, I believe that you don't find mentors, mentors find you. in my humble opinion. You can't go out looking for a mentor because a mentor is someone that starts understanding you and you have a click and a relationship with. And it's about being able to put your trust into that individual to go there. There are multiple different types of of mentors. You know, I would say
02:30:01
Speaker
I'm extremely fortunate to have my father, um to be as close. you know we ever We have a very unique relationship, which I'm exceptionally lucky to have. you know I work with my dad, he's one of my best friends. i um i I live right next door to him. you know we We're thick as thieves, but we can fight like crazy even. you know But there's always that form of respect that we both have for each other. And finding mentors and things like this, you know it's quite interesting.
02:30:40
Speaker
Along your path of where you're developing and where you go into social environments and when you when you are when you least expect it, you're going to meet someone that you're going to say, damn, that guy knows what he's talking about. and you know There's nothing wrong with giving someone a compliment. Don't crawl up their bum. but you know you know well well we We have a more crass way of saying it. you know Don't both smoke up their ass. But at the end of the day, what you want to do is is if you if you find someone like that,
02:31:25
Speaker
Stay in communication. Stay in touch. Ask them here and there a question. Don't bombard them. Start it slowly if you believe that this is someone that you think you can learn from. Because what else is mentorship? It is about being able to say, okay, I'm going to take the time to listen to this individual's opinion because I think his opinion matters. And that is very personal. That is very individual-like. It depends on whether you have a connection with the person or not. Maybe sometimes this person might say, damn, this guy keeps on asking me questions and I don't know why. so You can irritate the the living damn out of the guy. It's a one-sided street sometimes. Yeah. ah So my suggestion is don't go out looking for mentors, but rather let it happen naturally.
02:32:16
Speaker
You will find them. You will. I have my trusted people that I talk to, even if it's just to have a conversation. And and one thing I want to say is, is a mentor might not necessarily be older than you. can be someone younger because they have different life experience. This is something that you also need to remember. You can always also learn from a younger person with different types of experiences, different types of cultures, different types of things. That's very important to be open-minded about such things because
02:32:51
Speaker
Even if you are older and you think you have more experience, that individual might have different experience that you don't have that you could learn from. Specifically, if you want to enter into a market or if you want to do some something, they can give you advice on that. And that is the important thing that one has to to know is
02:33:13
Speaker
Be open and flexible to that and allow someone that you dont allow someone that even if you think that they're inexperienced, allow them to to give you sometimes some advice because it might change your perspective on something. You have an answer for everything, don't you? yeah but but no no no but without without but without i I think that's a beautiful take on mentorship. um Not in the last place because I've been, ah I used to work in healthcare care for for eight years before I actually went to the tech and I was always the the youngest in the room um and yeah definitely least experienced and
02:33:55
Speaker
I got at some point to a level because my youngest next colleague was 10 years older. I was 19, she was 29 and then you know that just went up to almost 63, only women. um what i What I found beautiful about that relationship that I, i they were all in a sense mentors to me. um But i at some point I got promoted and I you know became like coordinator counselor. um So that meant that that I was putting out the lines and vision and everything. And I think it was 22. They were still 10 years older. And it worked beautifully. And I'm not saying like, oh my god, I'm the smart scandal. Absolutely not. like i I love to be the dumb scandal. But that is one of those moments where looking back now, 10 years, like 10, 12 years later, looking back now, I'm like, wow. that
02:34:44
Speaker
They were so open-minded to listen to a guy who was 22 who came in and had some fucking crazy ideas, right? um And it worked. like It worked because they listened. um And I think from a mentor perspective, that is, if you open if you open your your mind a little bit for that, ah your mindset, then then you you can find ah interesting mentors in in unexpected places. I also want to say to some mentors, not that I'm saying I'm a mentor at all because I i don't i don't see myself in that position at all, but sometimes you are a mentor and you don't even think that you don't even know that you're a mentor to someone.
02:35:19
Speaker
um This is sort of like something that I that i have found, where some people didn't know that I'm using them as a mentor, um to listen to their advice and their and their life experience, um to understand certain things that I need answers to, because I'm trying to look at certain avenues. And they didn't even know that I'm using them as mentors. Some of them I still do.
02:35:48
Speaker
Shout out to the anonymous mentors. No, seriously, I think that like it's a very good point. like I think a lot of people don't dont say understand sometimes that the impact that they have on people's life just by being there and having that conversation. um Yeah, that's 100% true. i don't know Charles, I don't know what your take is on that, you know being a mentor. um Well, no, so mental for for different funds. So they basically send their startups to me. And um so so my specialisms in and business operations, I think, and my thesis is that you can pretty much my solve a lot of problems with process. yeah
02:36:32
Speaker
yeah And um even, I mean, so this this is why my my thesis is you have your strategy, then operations, then your marketing, right? That's that's the way I go about doing things. And ah usually most of the problems in marketing and and how do you get your clients, how do you give better customer service, all this other kind of stuff is process orientated. And people are always come on a mentorship call and they're like, so I've got this plethora of problems. Usually it surrounds the three areas of business, right? I need more clients. My clients are making me enough money. I'm not managing that money correctly. And I ask them the question, what's your unit economics? And they go, uh.
02:37:21
Speaker
What is that word? Yeah. And you're, and you're like, well, let's start there. I'll speak to you next week. but a go um yeah Pretty much. Yeah. And I think everything kind of spawns from that. And and that's why I find like our conversation really enlightening because. I think I've become a bit hardened after a while. You're just like, let's do the basic stuff. Because I think success comes between the basic stuff really, really, really well. yeah And and and i think i I think that's a popular opinion now, but it wasn't when I first started saying it. It was it was more like, where's your genius? You don't have any creativity. And I'm like, well, money's ones and zeros, dude.
02:38:07
Speaker
um And so and that's that's why I run aspect because I I want to work on the exciting problems So we're brains for hire in essence We we have a playbook that can run the basic stuff because it to us it's basic and and I think to Thomas's point earlier it's snow blindness from knowing yeah, and to to wrap in your point of you never know who's going to teach you something and But what gets me hyped is when you've got a large organization or a growing rapidly growing organization and you're like, okay, we need to put some guide rails in. We need to like you know draw the outline of the football pitch on this thing. that's And then you're starting to to get into like operations in terms of like service lines or are you going to have flat structure? and
02:38:59
Speaker
How's that going to work? That stuff I find academically sexy.
02:39:06
Speaker
but ah but But that's, you know, everyone's got a saying that mine is efficiency. How can we get this out quicker, cheaper, faster whilst I was keeping everybody happy and healthy. So um from the mentorship point of view to just square that circle. i think I think everyone's got one to three things that they they're oriented towards, whether it's exploration, whether it's building something quicker or faster or ah finding the vision. And I think you you you can have a few conversations with someone and theyll they'll be able to help you with that naturally. And I think it's it's on you to be awake enough to accept that when it's offered. yeah
02:39:52
Speaker
I would call it humble actually. Yeah. And and sometimes it's humble and right time, right place, but you because you can get great advice and get great mentorship, but your time is just not there. Yeah. Which is a really weird thing to say, but it it has a lot to do with where you then are, your time and experience and your career. And it's sometimes just, it doesn't land like give really, you can't really sound advice and then just say, no, this is incredibly stupid. ah but so i i'm saying from experience by the way yeah
02:40:24
Speaker
you know what to say this sweetest nicket that i ah this sounds very oddly familiar all right well there's there's one final point on the brainstorm which is there's only one way and i think that will be the final i was gonna say because we're running heavily I'm out of time yeah saving some yeah okay experience by the there is only one way. way there is literally only one way um
02:40:56
Speaker
Never lose hope. but and You gotta sit many many many hours in one room. Navigate through your differences. work work out the kinks, put everything together and just continue. Perseverance, that is the only way in how you can achieve anything in a startup industry. You know, I can tell you I think perseverance is probably the the most important thing because you're gonna hit stages in your startup
02:41:37
Speaker
where you're gonna be just before release. You're gonna be very thinly strapped on cash. You're gonna struggle to make ends meet. You're gonna, but just keep on keeping on. Because that's what's gonna see you through. If you can keep on keeping on, find the means, do the things, don't get attached to certain things. If you need to sell it, if you need to do something to keep it alive, do it. Because that's what's gonna see you through. That's what I mean with live, breathe and eat it. And that's the only way to do this is really the belief in it. This is this is the most important part.
02:42:19
Speaker
um you You cannot do it in any other way. I don't know of any other startup that hasn't had troubles, hasn't had difficulties. You know, I want to give one piece of advice if there is advice that I give. You know,
02:42:38
Speaker
i mean this has been a great podcast so far i think there's a lot of a lot of nuggets of advice here but you know but this is what i see as an advice to someone you know when you get to that point of number 99 you're strapped for cash, you haven't slept in a few days, you're absolutely exhausted, your team's exhausted, they're all just, everyone's demotivated. Everyone's just like, let's just let's just release it, okay, let's just do it. And then when you release it, when you think you've worked 100% to do it, once that thing's released, you're working 110%, don't think it's over. That's where the most, most challenging part comes.
02:43:23
Speaker
Be prepared when you are releasing because I can tell you right now certain things that we had just before the release. I mean, I can tell you one thing. Just before we released the blockchain. An hour before we released it. All the connectivity went down. Everything. We couldn't find out what the problem is. And it was certain infrastructures that went down that is infrastructure. not not Not our fault. And we couldn't find the problem. And we're checking and we're watching. We ended up moving certain parts out of it. And I mean, this is like five, 600 kilograms with four guys. It's got to carry this. It's got to move the things around. And...
02:44:13
Speaker
We made it, we put it in, and five minutes later, the infrastructure comes on. So things can happen that you don't foresee, you you can't even think of that it will happen. And it's the same as when you're released. The second you release, and you there can be a small little bug that you didn't pick up or something like this. So check, check, check, check. But you cannot do enough checks because you're gonna find it, but be prepared to fix it. Be prepared at all given moments because you're gonna work 110% after the release. That you gotta make sure that everything's running, everything's operational, everything maintains, everything's secured. This is the piece of advice that I can give you is, is
02:44:56
Speaker
Don't think you've hit the finishing line. You've only hit the starting line when you released it. Because that's when shit gets real. And that's when it gets really tough. You are actually in a rosy phase of when you're in development. You're in a comfortable phase. Because you don't have to deal with clients. You don't have to deal with issues that comes up. You don't have to deal with the unexpected or anything like this. It's once you've released. Make sure you have support. Make sure you have the plan. Make sure you've got your team on call. That they know that they've got to be there. They've got to fix it. They've got to help you. That is the most important. And you as the founder,
02:45:34
Speaker
Don't think it's not your job not to check it. It's your job. Make sure you continuously check it. And it's not to check on your team. It's to give yourself the reassurance that everything's okay. Sorry, that's my piece of advice. That's the only thing I think I can think i say. And now I'm going to kind of move us into the last section of the show. This is your design of the sensuals. This is a part of the show where if we were going to stick you at a time warp, row you on a raft to your your own startup design, you have no bags, you have no, ah no black book, no communication, no, you know, VC relationships or, or, you know, inheritance. Well, if you know you're starting your journey again, what would you
02:46:21
Speaker
What would you bring with you to give your younger self a ah leg up? You know, I thought about this for quite some time.
02:46:35
Speaker
I know because he said to me just like yesterday, can I do it tomorrow morning? And I said, yes, of course. But I was sitting on this for quite some time. Actually the first time that I saw it when you asked me, the first time when we had like just a brief little discussion about it, I've been thinking about this. And I know that you're expecting that I should say something physical like a course or go and study that. Or actually, you know, ah read this book or if I'm going to be really honest with you,
02:47:14
Speaker
The startup industry and being an entrepreneur is specifically in disruptive technology. There's nothing. There's nothing that you can actually go and study and things. if you're If you're developing something that has never been developed before, there's no Google that you can go and search. Yeah, you can search certain components of it, but out to put it together, good luck. It is extremely hard. So the five things that I would say that you take with you So you got to take your courage. You got to take an open-minded approach with a positive attitude. You know, you got to say, yes, we can. Yes, I can. And yes, we can. And the reason why I say yes, we can is because you got to make sure you got a team to do it because you can't do it just on your own. You can start on your own, but you got to, you got to get a team to bring it further. Perseverance because you just got to keep on keeping on.
02:48:15
Speaker
If you don't keep on keeping on, you will not get anywhere. Then I would say, read, learn, research and listen. Those are very important aspects. It's again, you're not the most cleverest in the room. You're not the smartest person in the room. At the same time, The more you read and the more you start understanding, the more research that you do to define certain things, the more knowledgeable you get. And when someone gives you an opinion, listen to the opinion. You know, my grandfather once said to me, I was very young and bless his soul, he's not with us anymore today. But he said to me, I asked him for a piece of advice.
02:49:05
Speaker
And he said to me, he he gave me the advice and then I started arguing with him about his advice. And he said to me, listen, I'm going to teach you a lesson today. And he said, if you ask me for my advice, it's my opinion. My opinion is not to be argued with. you You can discuss it if you like, but don't argue with me. It's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. Take the advice and do with it what you will. It's up to you how you apply how you apply it and how you approach it. And that's a valuable lesson that I learned at a very, very early stage. And this is where listening actually comes from, is is my father and him embedded it into me. And the last thing, the one thing that I would say that you take with you, and this is an important thing,
02:49:59
Speaker
It's my favorite thing and i I've said it a few times and I'm going to say it again. Tom Hanks, this too shall pass.
02:50:07
Speaker
ah Specifically for those rainy days. And also for your hype days. Remember, when you've achieved something and you feel on top of the world and you're absolutely, you you want to celebrate it. you're You're so damn proud of it. You're proud of your team. You're proud of it yourself. you You feel that no one can take anything away from you. That stage is gonna pass. And when you are down and out and tough and thunderclouds are above your head, the thunder and lightning is hitting, the rain is pouring and you fall into a depression.
02:50:49
Speaker
Don't fall into the depression. Keep the positive attitude, but just sit and wait it out. That is so important. Tom Hanks cannot say it better because definitely time is your ally. This is what he says in that. Listen to it over and over. I listened to it so many times. Whenever I need him, pick me up or a little, you know, go get him tiger kind of thing. um That sounds very corny. but But when I need sometimes that thing, that's exactly the thing that I listen to. Of course, my wife is, you know, she's my backbone. and she's she's She's the neck, she turns the head, you know? Nice, nice. But what I can say is is, you know, she's my support in infrastructure, and this is very important, is to have that support infrastructure. Make sure you have that. Because you really, sometimes you need that support.
02:51:44
Speaker
really, really you need it. And this you can get either through mentors or you can get it at home or you can get it in your team. But support each other and make sure you have a support infrastructure to do this because they'll help you and motivate you to get through the toughest of times.
Exploring Decentralized Digital Identity and Future Technologies
02:52:03
Speaker
Well, k I can't thank you enough ah for being on this marathon. Wow. I don't think we've ever shot four hour podcast before. It's been four hours. Oh my goodness. Wow. It is four hours. You've been sitting with us since five. To be fair, we've taken some breaks. We didn't start until half an hour in. um But yes, thank you for being with us. ah Do tell the audience where they can find you and what you'd like them to look at next and how they can get in touch.
02:52:31
Speaker
Okay, well, um I would say go and have a look at the codetech.cc website. um There you'll see the entire ecosystem. ah Go and have a look at corepass.net. That's our digital identity, a decentralized digital identity, which is privacy first. And also that I can say it puts you as the individual in control of your data because your data has value. And we believe that you should be able to monetize it, not the large platforms. The next thing, and and you should be able to trace it, by the way.
02:53:06
Speaker
um the next thing is is ping exchange if you're interested in our coin and our token you can go and have a look at ping exchange ping dot.exchange itself that's the website and lastly if you're interested to see what we're doing in our public listed company it's arax.cc And ah you can find me on Twitter anytime, or Matei, or on Kotec. All our platforms are on Twitter, so you're welcome to reach out to us there if you want to talk to us. We're here about interoperability, integrating, merging Web 2 to Web 3, as well as expanding on Web 3 into Web 4, because um some things in Web 3 didn't work that well out.
02:53:53
Speaker
but that's a wrap that's a rap all right charlie closes this out over All right. Well, if if you got as far as we got today, ah four hours in, or probably a little less. ah Thank you for listening. Okud, thank you for being here and discussing this with us. I personally loved it. I think it was an amazing, amazing discussion. I hope ah you enjoyed it too. For our listeners, you know like, subscribe. That was what you think. There were a lot of interesting pieces on on leadership, on building,
02:54:31
Speaker
I think some spicy takes too. ah So you know let us know what you think. ah we'll we'll We'd love to go first or fight you in the comments if we if we have to. um But we'll see you next week with ah with a brand new episode.
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
02:54:45
Speaker
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you for your time. And I'm sorry that I spoke so much. My mouth actually feels it. But thank you very much for the time. And definitely like and subscribe and follow.