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Corey Wilton, Co-Founder of Mirai Labs - Take the risk and send it
36 Plays23 days ago
In this episode, we dive into the inspiring journey of Corey Wilton, co-founder of Mirai Labs, as he shares insights into his career, entrepreneurial mindset, and the world of Web3.
The discussion kicks off with Corey’s career journey and explores whether he always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. Corey gives us a glimpse into a typical day in the life of a co-founder and an introduction to Mirai Labs. Corey reflects on their initial goals when launching Mirai and offers practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own projects.
The conversation shifts to the importance of community and collaboration, including how Corey found the right circles through NFTs and the unexpected challenges that surprised him most. He emphasises the value of having a co-founder for success and shares tips on how to find the right co-founder. Corey also encourages taking risks and giving things a shot while providing strategies for managing the many responsibilities of a co-founder.
For those interested in Web3, Corey breaks down what you need to understand before diving in and highlights the key attributes for building a successful career in this space. The episode wraps up with a look at the future of Mirai Labs and Corey’s aspirations, along with heartfelt advice he would give to his younger self.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, Web3, and the journey of building a startup from the ground up.
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Transcript
Introduction to Corey and Mariah Labs
00:00:00
Speaker
Corey, welcome to the show. How are you? so I'm good, I'm good. Thank you so much for having me, bro. I'm quite excited, ready to do this. Good stuff. ah Corey, for people who don't know who you are, could you introduce yourself, please?
00:00:11
Speaker
Of course. One of the co-founders, current CEO at Mariah Labs, we're mobile consumer app builder ah based out of Vietnam.
00:00:21
Speaker
A team of about 120 out there now with offices in Hanoi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh, and started back in 2021.
Career Beginnings in Crypto and E-commerce
00:00:30
Speaker
Nice. Big operation. 120 people.
00:00:33
Speaker
Now we are for sure. I mean, it started obviously just as the two of us bootstrapping, getting getting our hands dirty, but um scaled over time. That's cool, man. ah So could you ah take us back to before Mirai Labs?
00:00:47
Speaker
Could you talk us through your career journey that's led you to this point so far? For sure. I guess... so the The big push, the the momentum ah started back in 2017 when I first got into crypto.
00:01:05
Speaker
I actually started a customer support company. Right then, around that time, ICOs were quite popular. Actually, they were enormous.
00:01:16
Speaker
And what would happen is that someone would raise $20 million dollars or something like this from the community. ah they wouldn't even have community managers or anything like this. And everybody's talking to each other, really good vibes, but no one's replying to their questions or answering their questions. So yeah I was like, all right, well, they've got a lot of money.
00:01:32
Speaker
They have a lot of community, but no one's answering it. How about I be their community manager? So I would just go and ask them, ah Do you need community management? And that's what we would we would go ahead and do. So that kind of kicked off the momentum. like I dove deep into the industry. I really had to understand the products to be able to answer the questions.
00:01:50
Speaker
And i built a small team of, I think it ended up being around 27 people based out of the Philippines. managing all the projects, ah made plenty of mistakes. It wasn't a token project or anything like that. was like a traditional business, but we accepted tokens as payment for some of the partners.
00:02:05
Speaker
Half of them didn't even launch their token. And then the bear market came and destroyed everything else. So that died pretty quickly through the 2018, 2019 market.
Building Australia's Largest Airsoft Company
00:02:15
Speaker
But I was very blessed around that time period.
00:02:17
Speaker
I actually started a, like back then it was like a, I guess a side hustle, um which then became Australia's largest airsoft company. um That one's still operational today. that Actually my wife works there with our other co-founder who operates that one.
00:02:33
Speaker
And um still to this day, it's growing, getting bigger and bigger. So that one is really like my foundation of operating a real company for two years after that point was getting,
00:02:45
Speaker
a lot of employees here in Australia, obviously the payrolls, ah account management, everything like this. ah That was like, i guess my real training after I went through that that redneck period of the ICO i
Foundation and Growth of Mariah Labs
00:02:59
Speaker
craze back in the day. And then finally, that's where Mariah came in.
00:03:02
Speaker
um I was getting a little bit bored with e-commerce. this There is like typically a ceiling at which you you reach when the company is is number one in the country. and i wanted something more so i took a step back and just dove into crypto as a consumer once again started actually playing some nft games very early in like 2020 and um one of them was f one delta time by anamoker i played that i made a video my co-founder saw the video that i made and messaged me said you want to build a game i was like firstly who are you and no i don't know how to build a game but
00:03:38
Speaker
but Turns out I did. I wanted to build a game after he convinced me and the rest is history. ah We built the largest game in history on Polygon, had about 27 million users, reached the first billion dollar gaming token there.
00:03:53
Speaker
And since then, for the last three, almost four years, we've been ah scaling up. Nice. So I've got quite a few questions on that in just a sec.
Corey's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:04:02
Speaker
um it some Did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
00:04:08
Speaker
Was that always the plan? Definitely not. in In high school, I studied like ah chemistry, physics, aerospace, math, because I wanted to be ah an Air Force pilot, like a fighter pilot. And um that was like actually 100% my mission. I didn't provide myself with any alternatives.
00:04:26
Speaker
I was very, very clear on that. And I needed to actually get into the military college. And I had a weird experience in high school. Long story short, I recognized that the teachers were biased because I actually cheated on one of my my exams.
00:04:39
Speaker
i There was a girl who was in front of us ah one year and she
Daily Life of a Co-founder
00:04:44
Speaker
got an A plus on her, on her, well, I would call a report. And I asked her for it so I could learn and make one.
00:04:50
Speaker
But I actually just changed the name and submitted it to the same teacher a year later. And I got like a B minus. And at that point I realized I was like, I don't know if this is, and that feels weird.
00:05:03
Speaker
And that kind of disheartened me towards the end. And um Anyway, I didn't even get into university at that stage. So I haven't even been to university. I just straight out out of high school.
00:05:15
Speaker
For some reason, I applied for sales jobs and I wanted to do telemarketing. I think the reason I wanted it because I had like an internal goal of just getting $1,000 a week in salary. And I knew that if it's performance based, I would have like a higher step up.
00:05:30
Speaker
Like if I could do good, I might get better. yeah, it's on me. And that's kind of where I think this has led is that I've always just taken the path where my performance is or my results are based on my performance and entrepreneurship kind of is the next stage. Once you outgrow that initial sales job, I guess you could say like, you feel like you can do more, but you're not in control of that operation. Right. And in my head, I'm like, God damn it. I've I was actually door knocking. I accidentally applied for a door knocking job instead of a call center job. So I did that anyway for a year and a half. It was very good for rejection.
00:06:06
Speaker
And then um I went into telemarketing. And then after that, I was like, screw it. I'm going to try something myself. that was Yeah, that's nice. That's cool. but So now, obviously, day must look very different from ah door-to-door sales knocking.
00:06:19
Speaker
um a show Could you talk us through what a day in the life of a co-founder looks like? I know that's a super broad question, and the short answer is it varies, but... know out at this stage right i feel like you go through you through transitions when i first started i felt busy because i had a lot of just mental pressure like i but i believe that things were going crazy and they really did go crazy but i wasn't um
00:06:52
Speaker
I would say I wasn't really operating. Like my calendar was not actually that full. I was speaking to some people, but I was pushing most people away. And I was just focused on like product only. And I directly dictated the product at that stage. We were smaller. I was like a product manager. So I was basically a hundred percent dependent on me, not doing a lot of stuff. But once we began to scale and we reached like the 50 people, I recognized that my, my job had definitely changed to,
00:07:19
Speaker
me needing to really care about how things operate in the company, like systems and so on. So that brought me away from direct product management and trying to make sure that the system flows
Evolving Role at Mariah Labs
00:07:32
Speaker
well. And eventually to where we are today with, yeah, i like I said, around 120 Honestly, my calendar um honestly my calendar is like 9am to right now it's 1230am.
00:07:46
Speaker
I'm still sitting on my butt doing calls, right? So it's outside the company, it's internal calls. We have something like eight ah synchronous products, all different, but sprinting, they work on like weekly and fortnightly sprints.
00:08:03
Speaker
I need to be present upon all of these calls and yeah, you've got recruitment, you've got so many things, you know what I mean, that that come into this. So ah honestly, the larger we get, sure, the more opportunities that we have, but it just continuously gets more and more insane.
00:08:24
Speaker
And I couldn't do it without, like I have ah an executive assistant now, I could not function without an executive assistant. last Did you think it was going to be like this when you started?
00:08:37
Speaker
No, I mean, to be completely honest, I don't know what to expect, right? This is the largest personally I've ever scaled. So ah now when you say you're busy, a you you realize you look back in like six months period and you're like, bro, I was not busy.
00:08:55
Speaker
I'm busy now. And it just keeps happening for the last three years. And I'm like, oh what is next? So I don't even look forward in that case. I'm just like, all right, something is going to happen. Things are going to change. I just focus on what's happening right now and and execute as best as possible and and react in that situation. Try to predict, but in most instances, there's it's impossible to know what the hell is going to happen.
00:09:16
Speaker
yeah that's fair you have favorite part of the role?
00:09:21
Speaker
my My personal... Happiness comes from seeing people in our team grow and succeed. um i think there's something around operating a large company that is extremely attractive to me.
00:09:40
Speaker
which I maybe when I was younger, I thought it was the money, but actually I found a lot of satisfaction in seeing someone who came into the company, maybe a little bit nervous or extremely ambitious, but had never been given the opportunity to showcase their ability and then enabling them to showcase that and seeing them transform, like literally transform into almost a different person.
00:10:06
Speaker
It's, Maybe maybe i don't have children, so um maybe um'm I'm wondering if this is what it feels like to see like progression in a human and being. But yeah i think I think obviously progression is a directly attached to happiness.
00:10:20
Speaker
And I get happiness from seeing other people's progression at the same time. And it's it's quite addicting. Yeah. Well, I'll put your brains about that in...
Transition to Consumer Applications and DeFi
00:10:30
Speaker
and just a sec and uh yeah if you've got any advice for for people um but could you introduce us uh to mirror labs in a little bit more detail sure i guess when i summarize consumer application builder originally we started as a game studio which is probably like the most raw form of a consumer application we just want people to play our games and spend money
00:10:55
Speaker
But to be completely honest with you, that's probably like the hardest route to go. a game studio is ridiculously difficult. Actually the... The lot don't make money, right? Yeah, they the financials do not make any sense at all.
00:11:09
Speaker
Like it's extremely, extremely risky. and and And in many cases, this is why ah venture capital and... and VCs in general don't invest in in game studios because it's such high risk.
00:11:23
Speaker
and But Mariah started as that because we sometimes ignorance is bliss. And we went in the direction where we we found something that we are, of course, good at. And over time,
00:11:37
Speaker
We've actually turned more into what I would call, some people watching this may know them, they're called Supercell. They operate very similar to potentially what other people are familiar with, which is like a venture studio.
00:11:50
Speaker
In this case, we overarching, focus on consumer applications that's including games but also within our direct region which is obviously blockchain right. So we have consumer facing applications and and products on both sides and the company is basically split in two. So we have like a 60 staff members on the games team and 60 staff members on the infrastructure and defy consumer defy because we have this core thesis that um honestly, the next stage of our and our industry in general is going to allow us to build companies that are ah extremely, extremely profitable by abstracting the complexities and providing users access to things like
00:12:34
Speaker
this might sound crazy, but RWA's and ah very complex yield and like a super simple ah user interface. it like this kind of Like no code type stuff for people to build their own projects or? Not not even that side, like literally just like a your mom downloads the application and it says,
00:12:58
Speaker
get get 8% yield on your money and so she'll deposit some money and she doesn't actually directly know ah what she's investing in because it's so simple. However, we provide explanations and full transparency of where it is going, but we understand that and consumers typically don't, they ask questions second.
00:13:20
Speaker
So we focus on the UI first, making it very smooth and simple, but what What blockchain or or DeFi at this stage provides is a lot of insanely unique opportunities for earning that isn't actually extremely high risk.
00:13:36
Speaker
We typically will avoid that, of course. um It's just complicated because it's borderline new or no one's cared about abstracting the complexity. Our job or our goal on the infrastructure side is to abstract all of that and just give it to you in a it make it feel like a savings account, um but a little bit more complex, a little bit more optionality and, yeah, new experiences for for the consumers.
00:14:03
Speaker
That's cool. Because, yeah, I think as an industry of of blockchain, the the web through industry, I think we we definitely overcomplicate the user experience quite a lot.
00:14:15
Speaker
um And we talk about the technology quite a lot as well. like people don't necessarily care what technology it's being built with. They just want an app that works, right? Like when everyone started moving to the cloud 10 years ago, however long, 20 years, whenever it was that everyone started moving to the cloud, no one said, oh, we're ah ah we're building on the cloud. The cloud does this, the cloud does that.
00:14:37
Speaker
They just were building apps and no one cares where their data is stored as long as it's stored, right? um So yeah, I guess we see similar sorts of things. I believe in that philosophy. i Like in our credit cards, for example, when we tap it, we don't go like, did that shit work?
00:14:52
Speaker
I was just like, wow, that is absolutely extremely convenient. I love that. And that's always our focus. We just want to give them that that feeling where it's like, how the hell did I just make $10?
00:15:04
Speaker
I don't know, but that was pretty cool. I want to make hundred. And we will take a small fee on that. And that's it. So we don't try to build like all of the, all of the DeFi protocols and stuff like that, that they, these are already being built by some extremely incredible minds.
00:15:21
Speaker
ah We look at the industry as if it's a barbell, there's like a lot of insanely deep tech, I would call it, which is like really complex, these crazy DeFi protocols. And on the other end, you have extremely abstracted consumer applications, which includes gaming, but also just abstracted DeFi.
00:15:39
Speaker
And in between, there's a lot of companies in between that are floating around. And this is sometimes they get a lot of attention, right? For example, I would say one sitting in between is MetaMask. They just not haven't figured out the UI. I don't know why. They could just copy Rabi or something like this or Phantom, but they haven't figured it out.
00:15:56
Speaker
And we want to make sure that we sit very clearly on one end of the barbell and we're not a deep tech company. So we want we won't sit down here. We won't sit in the middle. We'll very clearly distinguish ourselves as this side of the the barbell and try to remain there because we feel like that's the highest opportunity, at least for us in our skillset.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
Unexpected Path into DeFi
00:16:17
Speaker
was Was getting into the DeFi space, like, was the goal when you started, Mirai? Or did you... What what were the goals when you started the company? Sometimes you don't think about it. Like, you just see that there's an opportunity, right? Like, i when I was with my co-founder, we were like, all right, well...
00:16:40
Speaker
looking around, there's clearly opportunity in the space. I can see a solution to a problem. Can you build that? And he comes back to me with, yes. I'm like, all right. So now how do I get it in the eyes of a lot of people?
00:16:52
Speaker
I will then solve that problem. So I went and built a ah media company that I could then indirectly promote our products, right? um I didn't think that that media company would be getting 10 million monthly impressions and I didn't think that the solution that we provided would bring $200 million dollars to the game, but it did.
00:17:11
Speaker
And I mean, like you just don't wait. I didn't, I didn't wake up one morning. I'm going to build a game that is 2d horse racing game. It brings $200 million. dollars No one ever would say that in their life.
00:17:23
Speaker
This is not normal. but So it just happened. But yeah, but I would say the the goal overall was to be a large company. And what we are great at is is recognizing opportunity, I would say. And we have been blessed enough to get to the point where I would would say we're a medium-sized company in the industry and um consistently have found our foot in the in the trends in an early stage. Nice.
00:17:56
Speaker
I would even say, hundred i mean, 120 people ah for Web3 company is fairly big on by Web3 standards. I'd say you're probably there with almost large companies in Web3. I would say so, yeah. I guess my ambition is is clouding my my judgment here. I just don't pay attention to many other companies either. I don't i don't have a clue on their size. You don't have time by the sound of it.
00:18:18
Speaker
No, unfortunately not. It would would be nice nice to network with them. but Honestly, it might be that I'm a little bit jaded because I try to work with a lot of new founders and and like just provide some advice. And they you know they're only sitting around 10 or 20 people typically at best.
00:18:32
Speaker
But if you look at other companies ah in Vietnam, like Kyber, for example, you know these guys are sitting 200, 300. To me, that just sounds, how do you manage 300 people? I don't know.
00:18:43
Speaker
I guess I'll figure it out when it comes Management structure, I guess, hiring all sorts of mid management and yeah, slightly different way of of
Advice for New Founders
00:18:52
Speaker
doing it. Um, mic sure and, uh, obviously web three is a super entrepreneurial industry, right? You said that like you speak to loads of different founders and advise like early stage founders and stuff.
00:19:02
Speaker
Um, I think you touched on a few points already, but is there anything that, uh, you really think people need to be aware of before launching their own projects? I know you could probably be here for hours talking about advice, but are there any key things that jump out to you that you really think people need to know?
00:19:24
Speaker
Probably one of the most important, I would say is that they need to be ready for how quickly narrative or energy shifts in our industry, right? to to To remain in the forefront, uh,
00:19:42
Speaker
Or how would I say this to to remain in the conversation for a long period of time in our industry is extremely, extremely difficult. Like, no kidding. We were a thousand percent hyped on some companies that we cannot remember 30 days ago.
00:20:00
Speaker
Like we were convinced that they were going to be unicorns as an industry. And now we cannot remember their name. That is insane. And ah it takes a lot of time to get used to because you're your internal pivots, your company direction ah gets very quickly dictated by this.
00:20:18
Speaker
And your ability to recognize real or long term from short term or real opportunity from like Maybe this is just like an early signal of discovery and it's probably not going to work out.
00:20:33
Speaker
These type of things is just something that you can't develop without being in the trenches for it ah longer period of time. um All I would say is that the best way to prepare yourself is just be in the trenches.
00:20:45
Speaker
ah You have to have to be on Twitter. I know that sounds crazy. I think I said it to you before, i roll Like, I think Twitter is... hypercritical to your ability to see real from fake, but also learn from other people's mistakes. You can see people who will pivot quickly or miss the boat or take specific actions that is frowned upon within the industry, or people fumble the bag or whatever.
00:21:13
Speaker
There's so many instances where you can observe and ingest and you're like, all right, I don't need to do that. I don't need to have that lesson. uh because i just watched someone else do it so my two pieces set of of advice is like recognize how quickly it moves ah maybe three pieces secondly is be emotionally intelligent this is not not fun especially being a founder it is not fun uh um third is whatever i just said i cannot remember um but yes being on twitter yes be on twitter uh for sure i think it's extremely critical um and if there was one
00:21:51
Speaker
runner up, get exposure and second opinions in the early stages. And if you're trapped in your own little bubble and in your own interpretations, um unfortunately, it's like it's like a ah glass box.
00:22:08
Speaker
Anything that's happening in there is is is true, very hard to recognize, ah true from false. So yeah, find your circle. That can sometimes start as like an NFT, like just buy an NFT and get involved in it, right? and Maybe you'll find some people I don't know. um That's what I did.
00:22:23
Speaker
I bought an ARK, ARK Stellar. It's Southeast Asian, Singaporean like founder community slash just more like a a very expensive community. It's three ETH to mint it. um Quite expensive. But it also was a very big shortcut for me because there's a lot of founders there.
00:22:40
Speaker
And if I needed help, I would just ask them. That's cool. Where did you find ah NFTs to join founders networking groups and stuff? That was actually from one of my, I call him my dad of Web3. So Loy Lu, who is the founder of Kyber, like two years ago, he told me to mint this NFT because it's,
00:23:00
Speaker
like, you know, founders or whatever. And I was like, are you kidding? him Like, why would I spend $10,000 on this? There's a zero chance I would do that. And then I forgot about it. And then it was happening once again, they were closing because they only allowed 888 people in there.
00:23:16
Speaker
And it was they were closing the Mint. And then Lloyd messaged me. He was like, it's now or never. So i I would just like FOMO'd. I was like, okay, I'll do it. And then I realized I was missing out. And that's kind of like the lesson here was that like,
00:23:29
Speaker
I broke free of that of that yeah small circle very quickly, like my echo chamber, I guess you could say. And I'm i'm still in an echo chamber, absolutely. it's very hard to escape, but it just became larger with different opinions and provided a lot more opportunity.
00:23:47
Speaker
That's cool. were there Were there any challenges throughout this journey that have really surprised you?
Personal Sacrifices of Foundership
00:23:56
Speaker
Hmm.
00:23:58
Speaker
I think it always is just like my my mental health is is the largest challenge here.
00:24:07
Speaker
As a being a founder and like traveling, I know that sounds weird, but then some people from the outside think that traveling is great when you're founder, but you don't travel for fun.
00:24:18
Speaker
You don't see the sites, right? ah You can go to the events and we don't see nothing. You're just talking to probably the same people you saw in the last country trying to develop the relationship more.
00:24:29
Speaker
um the The mental health part is really difficult because I just spent four months away from almost everyone. I hadn't seen my wife for over a month straight. My nephew is four months old. I have never met him.
00:24:43
Speaker
a My mom is not well, to say the least. And it's just like those types of things, are just not what I expected to sign up for when when i when I started something like this.
00:24:57
Speaker
And I think it's just really not spoken about too much where it's like you've got, you still have a personal life, right? But you also have now over 100 people and families that depend on you to show up every day.
00:25:13
Speaker
What one are you weighing heavily ah heavier on this scale? And I think All of those families, their kids, like I see their kids, they go to school, they have all of these bills.
00:25:25
Speaker
If I just stop showing up,
00:25:29
Speaker
they're in trouble and they they don't all live in Australia, right? They don't have free government support. It's just not the reality of of this situation. So that pull is just not something that I think any of us can prepare for. And then there's always curve balls and stuff like that, but you've got to be just, maybe it's sacrifice is the word that I'm looking for. That is considerably hard.
00:25:55
Speaker
yeah that's that's good to understand do you have a routine that keeps you ah like keeps you on the straight and narrow if you like you say like i have to do these things or i'm just all over the place i i think about this sometimes like how did i end up like this um i'm not sure if i have some sort of like wrong wiring or something like this or trauma or whatever but my my typical reaction to anxiety or or concern or something is to work.
00:26:33
Speaker
That's why I just, I work so much. It's like, I'm sitting there, I'm bored. All I'm thinking about is coming back here and making sure I solve problems. I'm like a firefighter in the company, right? There's always chaos and I must extinguish these fires. And I know sitting there, if I feel relaxed, there's a fire somewhere that I'm not extinguishing.
00:26:53
Speaker
um So, and and it's always been like that. It's it's like and earlier on when I didn't have large companies, it was, I'm sitting there, what can I do? What can I start? What can I build?
00:27:05
Speaker
a So it's always just come back to that. And ah initially I thought like, all right, I need to find balance, but I just think that maybe I'm just, maybe I'm just wide this way. And unfortunately, or unfortunately, I'm not sure it does keep me on track because I spend,
00:27:23
Speaker
ah ridiculous amount of time in front of ah screen seven days a week executing and uh i i actually this is only like a recent realization after i saw like discussions from about elon musk how elon musk is like he seems like an ultra genius which definitely he absolutely is but also like there could just be a factor here where he is the perfect storm of like uh childhood trauma and ah
00:27:54
Speaker
slightly mentally deranged and it just has created like this insanely perfect entrepreneur you know what I mean like somehow he just completed a full circle and he operates in a manner that just accelerates everything and I thought about that and I was like maybe some maybe some people are just it's just circumstantial and and honestly that's what it feels like keeps me on the the straight now That's fair enough. So you don't have a routine of saying, right, like I have to get to the gym every day or I have to do some form of really bad at that meditation, like all that kind of stuff.
00:28:30
Speaker
Unfortunately not. I mean, i I, am a hundred percent a true believer that everything should be based. Your ambition should be based on your personal progression. And I, and I like, for example, I i think I just bought 20 something books for some of our core leaders in the team because I'm, I'm,
00:28:48
Speaker
of a believer that you should not repeat the mistakes and you should read ah personal development but and learn from other people. But ah there's not like an exact routine. Like the gym, um I weigh basically nothing. I'm as light as a feather, skinny as ever.
00:29:03
Speaker
um Every time I see see other people from around the world that I haven't seen for six months, they're like, oh, you you're getting thinner. So I think I should probably go to the gym. oh But yeah, ah nothing like that. Unfortunately, that I can give advice. It'll be game changing.
00:29:17
Speaker
I'm really boring. Maybe being boring is the one.
00:29:21
Speaker
Nice.
The Need for Co-founders
00:29:22
Speaker
Well, based on what you've learned ah so far over your career, is there anything that you think ah projects need to have in place to be successful in Web3? I'm going to say it's like 100% on the founders. Yeah. Okay.
00:29:39
Speaker
um You just need a great ah great dynamic. um
00:29:46
Speaker
having a co-founder extremely, extremely important, important I believe. so I was going to ask that, like how important co-founders are and in someone's journey, really.
00:29:59
Speaker
Like i've done I've decided to launch the recruitment agency, what, like two and a half years ago, just just me, no co-founder. And then I watch ah other people that I know who've launched businesses with co-founders and stuff and they've got someone else there to like bounce off and and and this kind of stuff. and I sometimes think, should i should I have done it with a co-founder?
00:30:20
Speaker
um Yeah. Yeah. I ask myself this question all the time, probably at least once week. but Yeah, I mean, you can't go back, right? Like there is something such as late stage co-founders and we we have experience in that. So we started as it was just me and actually there was three of us at the start.
00:30:38
Speaker
ah One was removed very early on. um So then it was just me and Steve and I was operations and go to market and he was everything technical. And it was very clear divide. I cannot, impossible for me to build the infrastructure and the products that we have. I have no clue on technical.
00:30:56
Speaker
So did I even have a choice? Obviously not. I need a technical co-founder that I can trust. And then it got to the stage where we're so big that i I fell into less go to market and just ops, right? Like we need someone who loves operations. And I just naturally fell into that.
00:31:12
Speaker
And we've got a late stage co-founder who's our third co-founder. He only joined like six months ago, but we just have to build out a specific dynamic to to make sure that they're invested. And anyway, my I'm a believer in that if you have a well-balanced ah well-balanced to founding team, that you are far more capable and it doesn't really matter which direction you begin in.
00:31:40
Speaker
Eventually, if you're a good dynamic, you will find something. You will find gold. um But unfortunately, dynamics have developed over time. and So it's a hard it's a hard balance. And like I said, we've been through both, right? We had to remove one of our founders. He was just not good enough.
00:31:57
Speaker
yeah Painful, scary, but no regret. Absolutely not a great experience for us and showed us what we actually want.
00:32:09
Speaker
How'd you find co-founders? Because that's like, that's so tough, like so tough, because you've got to you basically have to ah pick the person who's going to be a member of your family is basically what you're doing.
00:32:23
Speaker
Picking someone to marry, essentially, you're then going to make sure your skills rely on. You've also got to both then really, really believe in the product that you're building. And say if you're ah joining someone who's already launching a product who's already got an idea you've got to really get behind someone else's idea right like that's quite a difficult thing to really get that mix and that combination yeah you asked a really tough question there um my my co-founder found me the first one right because i was just
00:32:57
Speaker
like I made videos for my previous company, the gun company, I was the face of that company. So I needed to make the the ads and whatever else. And the reason I made a video for that video game F1 Delta time back in the day was because they didn't have any tutorials.
00:33:13
Speaker
And I was like, um it's so annoying to explain this to everybody, how to, because there was no good on ramps back in the day you were using metamask you had to connect your wallet you couldn't play the game unless you bought an nft but the nft had so much complex stuff and i was like i'm not going to write this out i'll just make a video and give it to my friends but that one clearly helped a lot of people who had like 50 000 views or whatever and he was just one of the viewers and then he messaged me do you want to build a game And then I was open to the opportunity.
00:33:42
Speaker
I think as the I was 50% open because I didn't know who that was. um But I kept speaking to him and and I guess poking to figure out what he is talking about.
00:33:54
Speaker
And then I just thought, screw it, I will go for it. And i this is probably a the the part that people find or say is difficult to find co-founders is because there's going to be people who just...
00:34:08
Speaker
they do suggest to be a co-founder or ah come up with an idea, but you don't take the leap and you're not willing to fail. Like it may not actually work out.
00:34:20
Speaker
um But I was just in a position to where the gun company is running by itself. And I was like, well, let's see what happens. And ah the second co-founder,
00:34:32
Speaker
um the late stage one garrison, we actually just met him while we were building. So he was previously like the VP of marketing at Avalanche and we were building a subnet at the time. Like it's just a fork of the chain basically.
00:34:49
Speaker
And, um They were a little bit impressed with the rate at which we ship and all of the stuff. Like we built the product without speaking to them. And they were like, why don't you speak to us so we can help you? And I was like, okay, let's do it. And he just happened to be one of those people.
00:35:04
Speaker
Anyway, I actually just went to him for some advice on go to market. We were going to release some products and Then he pitched me this big idea, and this is kind of what you were talking about. He pitched me this big idea around what we could actually do with a far better narrative with all of our products and our product suite and how we could go to market.
00:35:21
Speaker
And I was like, I love it. too Clearly, you're better at go to market than me. His background is Facebook and Ionet and all these things. And I was like, all right, well, you get it and I just want to be clear that I'm not going to build this unless you're in the company because you're changing absolutely everything here.
00:35:39
Speaker
And it was pretty quick decision. I didn't, I didn't expect el late stage co-founder, right? But it's impossible for me to build off of someone else's vision without them leading the vision.
00:35:52
Speaker
So I was just like, you join us as a co-founder or I can, I cannot build that. And was like, okay. I was like, oh, so So you're a co-founder now.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, that was it. I just planted a seed and and it happened. He could have said no and would be still in the same position, but I think it's just taking a shot. It sounds like that's a really ah ah really key attribute, just being willing just to go for it just take a shot give it a try just go all in on it and just see what happens that seems like it's the worst like i always think about this like what actually could go wrong uh you're not out there trying to commit fraud you're not trying to do anything illegal like you're genuinely trying to build a real business and be great founders and build a business of value if you're all aligned on that
00:36:47
Speaker
what's actually the worst that can go wrong you can fail companies fail everybody knows companies fail like that's kind of part of the game your first company is not going to succeed maybe it will i don't but uh with that in mind if you throw all of that concern away where do you end up you end up with a just let's hurry up yeah just get it done we'll try it least yeah let's go That's cool,
Involvement in Company Operations
00:37:13
Speaker
man.
00:37:13
Speaker
at this the How do you keep all of the plates spinning as a co-founder? Because as you said, like your time's got busier and busier, more full as the business grows and that kind of stuff. You just hired an executive assistant like fairly recently to ah to help.
00:37:30
Speaker
But there's a lot of context switching still, I would bet. And like there's a lot of things that you, ah yeah, all sorts of different meetings you probably have to go into and and attend and add your points to and add value to and that kind of stuff. um Does it just come with practice? Like, is it just literally over time you just get better at doing that type of stuff?
00:37:48
Speaker
Or is there a certain framework, a certain place that you learn or podcasts you listen to anything like this that gave you that idea?
00:37:59
Speaker
I think you come in and out. So ah in this case, let's say we have we have six products. And the the one person I always look up to is Elon Musk. I know it's cliche, everybody says it, but like he has he is the founder and leader and CEO of so many companies.
00:38:16
Speaker
Like it's ridiculous. And all of them are like, there is no blueprint to follow. he is by far the leader. And for that to happen, He has to be in the trenches of each one.
00:38:29
Speaker
Like he, he, he knows the products extremely well. And i went through a phase in, in the middle of our scale where I thought that I could focus on systems and, and leaving the company and allow a product manager to lead the vision. And, I fell out of sync.
00:38:49
Speaker
Uh, the product definitely failed big time. it was not good, complete waste of money. And, At that point was when I realized it's like, it always comes back to the founder. And if I want to keep everything spinning, I have to be in everything.
00:39:07
Speaker
have to be in the trenches. I need to know exactly what the hell is happening. So I have to be on the sprint kickoff calls. I have to be on the sprint reviews. i have to look at the products. i have to look at the documentation. I have to understand the direction. I need to ask questions. I need to ask why.
00:39:21
Speaker
Like asking why is sometimes probably one of the most important questions that People who are not in your position as a founder or even a senior manager, ah they don't ever ask why, they just do it.
00:39:34
Speaker
And then they're like, well, just do that and see what happens. But there's no justification behind it. And I think that's something that being involved allows you to do and it prevents a lot of mistakes. So keeping everything rolling,
00:39:49
Speaker
ah especially with ah such a diverse range of products, uh, it's probably why I'm so busy. Um, yeah, I would say that's it. Uh, there's inability to relax.
00:40:02
Speaker
if If I took time off, um, sure. I can take, I could probably take a week off and we won't die. I might die, but, uh, I think would be okay. But overall, uh,
00:40:14
Speaker
it would have a and impact on the company's next sprint or a couple of sprints ahead in in and my thought process. And now my job as ah as a founder is to get out of that loop because it is not sustainable for a decade where a company is 100% dependent on you, in my opinion.
00:40:32
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose that then makes it trickier. I'm not sure what the plan is for for the future, but say if you guys were ever to sell, obviously, the company can't be reliant on the founder if eventually you get acquired stuff, right? Like that makes it quite unattractive, I guess, to yeah investors.
00:40:47
Speaker
um mic sure So I guess you kind of have to, if that is part of the plan as a founder, you kind of have to plan that into your business as well, right? um For sure. I think... And give give up ownership of certain things, which I guess is like the hardest thing, is like trusting the the ah the person you're giving up ownership to.
00:41:07
Speaker
um Yeah, I mean, this is like where i can see that naturally I'm leaning towards that direction, bringing in the late stage co-founder like Garrison, because I was able to relinquish the thought process of everything go to market um because I was underserving and i could tell that it was underserving the company ah broadly. So I feel like i understand that I have the natural tendency to go in that direction. It's just ah potentially a matter of time and more more personal development. So I believe I'm leading the the company in generally the right direction. The rate at which I can do that is going to dictate our success.
00:41:43
Speaker
And i have a ah mental focus in the background to ensure that we do that. Nice, man. Nice. Say if someone ah he's coming into the industry for the first time,
00:41:58
Speaker
Is there anything that you'd really love them to understand about the space? Anything you think iss really important for them to get? Other than maybe you might have touched on already, to be honest, like keeping in touch with the different narratives and being on Twitter and that kind of stuff. But anything that you think is really key, maybe even if they're not necessarily looking to be a founder, but they're looking to just work in the industry, for example. um if if you're just If you're not a founder, I would say that being an employee, it's not super different. I'll take our accountant as an example. Actually, he ah he's a family member of mine and he was just a traditional accountant.
00:42:38
Speaker
um And he came into the into the space, like he had played around with crypto on Coinbase, for example. That's about all he knew. And the big shock for him after I just spoke to him and a couple of days ago, the big shock for him was just how different the systems are.
00:42:57
Speaker
because you're doing a lot of on-chain stuff, things, different lingo, new lingo, like all these weird words. It takes a little while to pick up, but over time, I believe the reality of the situation is that it is not really that different to the to the real world.
00:43:16
Speaker
It's just different systems, different functions, different technology. But six months in, I mean, it's a job, so you'll be totally fine if you are very good at what you do. You'll be totally fine. and Even further, I would probably say you have more opportunities here. If you are good, let's for example, let's say you're a great accountant or you're a great crypto accountant, I think you're probably for one, going to get paid more being a crypto accountant.
00:43:45
Speaker
ah Secondly, there's a lot of companies here in the crypto space that ah want an accountant, but not many people have experience with crypto. So you have a much larger potential upside in my opinion, and but that's just like a ah matter of time until that is is balanced out probably over the next five, 10 years.
00:44:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair enough. um I always say to people as well, like if they're looking to join the industry, there's space here for everyone. like Companies are still being built with the same types of staff members, like regardless of if everyone has this idea of need to be super technical to come into the Web3 space.
00:44:20
Speaker
um But everyone still needs operations managers. They still need project managers, product managers. they need have finance, they need recruitment, for example, um HR, like all sorts of stuff.
00:44:33
Speaker
So I would say to people, like don't necessarily be put off, um but it's definitely an industry where people care a lot more in this industry, I think, than others. Like some people will be in fintech, for example, but they're not all in on challenger banks or, you know what i mean? Whereas I think when you work for a DeFi protocol, for example, people are all in on DeFi. Like most people who work for these protocols live eat breathe crypto or say they work for a gaming project they love everything to do like web3 gaming regardless of what their job role is they do keep an eye on in the industry and what's happening and they use the products and that kind of stuff um maybe that's the difference coming from the outside the space to inside um don't know if you have any thoughts on that yeah i think you the nail on the head there i would just summarize it as
00:45:25
Speaker
initially different, but in the macro, if you're great, you'll be totally fine. Uh, there's actually nothing to worry about while we are as a company, technically heavy.
00:45:41
Speaker
Uh, it doesn't mean that we don't need the rest of a company to function. We have a lot of developers, maybe bias on the amount of developers versus another e-commerce company, obviously, uh,
00:45:53
Speaker
You still need HR. You need everything else still. So there's an abundance of opportunity here for sure. And I think diving in now is definitely going to broaden your horizons in the future for for, I mean, it's like joining an AI company right now. Obviously it would be extremely fruitful over the next 10 years, and looking at job opportunities. If you've got 10 years at an AI company under your belt, it'll look pretty nice on your resume.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah. And you might even be retired at that point. Probably. For sure, you've got stock options, right? For sure. Nice. and And what about, ah but but say, if someone is looking to build a really successful career for themselves ah in Web3?
Ambition and Career Success
00:46:36
Speaker
um Any real, like, key attributes ah you think they need to have? or any advice you can give to someone who's just looking to build a good career?
00:46:48
Speaker
Yeah, i guess this is, like,
00:46:52
Speaker
I can use an almost direct example of when I encountered someone that had what I think is the most important attribute, raw ambition.
00:47:04
Speaker
So when I was hiring for the executive assistant role, I think it was like six months ago or something like this. I had two two main ones. First one, oh, balloons.
00:47:16
Speaker
um a The first one was Selena, who we did end up hiring. And she came on and ah it's extremely bubbly, ah very happy, happy to do anything, just ready to go and happy to learn as as the job comes along.
00:47:35
Speaker
I thought, okay, ah clearly can do the role, has experience. I like the vibes. It'll work. And then ah literally the call after that one, had another girl come on who was 100% the opposite energy, extremely, extremely focused. Like she was like, I was like, what about personal life? will you Like if I need to book a flight or something, she was like, no.
00:47:57
Speaker
I was like, okay, well, she's interesting. And then I was like, what is your actual ambition here? What do you want to do? She's like, I want to be CEO. And I was like, what is going on right now?
00:48:10
Speaker
And it was like 30 minutes of like, great, really suits the EA role. This one's applying for EA, but has the ambition to be a CEO. And I understand why she's being in EA because she wants to shadow exactly what a CEO does to gain the experience because she doesn't have any entry into management because she doesn't have it on her resume.
00:48:31
Speaker
And I was like, holy, how... do i choose here because ah love ambition, but it doesn't align with an EA role because I can't provide her with, she would just have to just help me.
00:48:47
Speaker
She can't lead. Uh, and what I did was just take a bet. Basically I hired both of them and I was like, all right, Selena, you are definitely the EA.
00:49:00
Speaker
Uh, you do that Phoebe. you're shadowing me for the next three months and our actual mission is for you to be chief of staff which is ah new role that i personally hadn't even looked into until I met her a new role for me I should say and I learned over time that the chief of staff is basically just a copy paste of me, someone that can lead the company, uh, when potentially I'm not available. Uh, but anybody can go to knowing that they would make the exact same decision that I would in any situation.
00:49:35
Speaker
So i just told her, I was like, all right, uh, you want to be CEO. I love the ambition. i have absolutely no idea how we're going to get there.
00:49:49
Speaker
But if you're down, this isn't going to be fun. i was honestly trying to push her away because I know that the path that she's deciding is not good. Like, yeah, it's good. Of course. very new You talked us through it right over the last 50 minutes or so.
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah. And it's very hard. And I was like, listen, I don't know if you know what you're signing up for. She just snaps back. She's like, I'm ready. i was like, oh, my God. All right, let's do this. Anyway, turns out she's great.
00:50:18
Speaker
She joined and she was shadowing. um Then she was ah executing some things for me. And it's only been six months. She's now a product manager for one of our core products in the entire company, managing probably 15 to 20 people.
00:50:34
Speaker
She is extremely good. And the reason this is full circle back to your original question is ambition. Like you just have to be like extremely, extremely ambitious and opportunity will arise for you. She was hell bent.
00:50:49
Speaker
She applied for EA and said that she wants to be the CEO and she's talking to the CEO. I'm like, what? This is insane. It caught me off guard so much. I was like, what is this energy?
00:50:59
Speaker
And now she's in a position where her path is directly leading towards being basically two IC of the company in like a three-year period. And that wouldn't have happened if she didn't have that ambition, just that clear ambition.
00:51:13
Speaker
And if someone else wants to do that, wants to be in a role like that, I would say you need to make your ambition very clear because you're going to eventually find someone that loves that ambition and wants to enable that ambition.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah, nice. And I suppose to go along with that as well, like that goes hand in hand with the networking thing, right? Like you have to chat to enough CEOs try and build a network with enough CEOs where someone will take that chance. She wasn't even trying to be in crypto to be clear. She had no clue about crypto.
00:51:43
Speaker
like i didn't even know she knew about the company i can't remember the interview uh fully but i just remember the the emotion where i was like oh my god she's pretty intense i even told her on the call i was like i'm gonna be honest you're pretty intense and i don't know what to think right now so i'm gonna need some time to to come back to you probably a week to to sleep on this but um again the do the point here is that Her background didn't matter to me.
00:52:09
Speaker
Her degree, I have no idea what her degree is. ah The fact that she wasn't in crypto and you and I know that crypto is not easy to pick up, it takes time, ah was not an issue for me because she had this raw vision that nothing will stand in her way. Eventually, she's going to lead something significant.
00:52:28
Speaker
And I was like, well, I will bet on you. Let's go for it. And she's in a position that i I'm certain that other people would really wish for, um but they just haven't expressed it.
00:52:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. ah Yeah, I mean, fair play for giving her the opportunity ah to be able to to do that. um That's like a brave, brave decision sir ah to make for sure.
00:52:52
Speaker
It's scary. Yeah, like really hope it it works out. I think, I mean, by the sound of it, ah she's doing really well. So yeah, hopefully. like We worked on like a three month trial, right? So I was like, you got three months to make some some crazy shit happen, something, and show me that you really do want it.
00:53:08
Speaker
aye That was not an issue. I'm pretty sure I knew in the first 30 days, I was like, yeah, she's probably staying. She'll make it. Yeah. Love that. That's cool. I think as well, that's one of the great things that people need to understand about the industry of Web3 as well. It's like, it's not,
00:53:24
Speaker
It's not like a typical web two space where you start as a junior, then you go to like an exec and then you might become a manager and then you go like middle management and then you kind of work your way up in web three, you can literally come in and as long as you can prove yourself, people don't necessarily care about your background too much. It's like, what can you actually deliver?
00:53:40
Speaker
And if you can deliver what i need you to do, I don't care if you've got 20 years of experience behind you or if you've got six months or none. you know Like as long as you can actually get stuff done in in this industry, then there's,
00:53:52
Speaker
ah there's always people that give you that that opportunity, which, um yeah, I like. It's like quite ah it's quite inclusive in that way. And that's what I like about the industry. It's cool. Yeah. Degrees matter less, I think.
00:54:04
Speaker
I think just naturally over a time, degrees seem to be mattering less. I'm not sure. I didn't go to university. Okay. with they We're the same, bro. I mean, that never has held me back.
00:54:15
Speaker
And I must admit, like i I interview most staff if they speak English. I can't remember last time I checked the degree. Like, i don't know if that's a bad thing.
00:54:25
Speaker
I just, I look at their resume. I look at how long they've been there and I judge them based on their ah general resume. However, it's a hundred percent me trying to get to know them on, on the interview call. Right. And if I vibe with them, ah like I vibed with both of the girls, Selena and Phoebe, but they were just like polar opposites at,
00:54:48
Speaker
I would just take a bet on you and what's the worst that can happen. You might learn something, I'll learn something, you'll go and get another job.
00:54:57
Speaker
That's cool. Take risks as a founder. A lot of risks for sure. and So what does ah what does the future hold then for Mirai Labs and for you?
Future Focus for Mariah Labs
00:55:12
Speaker
A lot.
00:55:15
Speaker
For sure. we're in We're in the stage of fundraising and and whatever else. I mean, it' basically done. um I'm not sure we want to scale from where we are now. I like where we are, if anything, a little bit leaner without reducing output.
00:55:30
Speaker
I like to go through those cycles. So just just push a lot harder, lean up a little bit. And then a in this case, this this might be a a little bit more founder focus, but I think over time,
00:55:47
Speaker
you do need to have these cycles where where you would quote unquote trim the fat ah because people just get comfortable in their personal life and maybe lose love for the industry and stuff like this. So like to keep that typically quite fresh in the company and and we will continue to do that in the future as well.
00:56:04
Speaker
So I'm not sure about scaling after this stage. Like I think that we can compete with the world's best at this current level, at least world's best in Web3 with the industry that we're in. And, um,
00:56:15
Speaker
And 100%, we need to, as a company, we need to focus heavily on just raw revenue. And that means shipping products and bringing them to a mature stage.
00:56:29
Speaker
We are great at going from like zero to one. We execute extremely, extremely quickly. um We just have not had the, like... ah enough time in the trenches to build a foundation to where we can monetize them for years.
00:56:43
Speaker
We're in that position now to where we've spent the last three years building the infrastructure that monetizes them after they've come through our top of funnel products. So the core focus right now is obviously optimizations of staff and operations and revenue as a company should.
00:57:01
Speaker
And for me personally, of course, just be better operator. That's fun. It's going be an exciting, exciting few years. um one One last question to finish up. and This is something I always like to understand really. um Knowing what you know now about leadership, entrepreneurship, ah operations, running companies, shipping products.
00:57:25
Speaker
ah If you could go back a few years to the start, what advice could you share for your younger self or what advice would you share?
00:57:40
Speaker
I really don't think I've made that many mistakes. I mean, that that were not... Like, I think anyone would make the same mistakes as me in my position.
00:57:51
Speaker
i I consistently am blessed, no doubt.
00:57:57
Speaker
For example, with the gun company. the first company like I wouldn't have met the gun company founder if I wasn't young and dumb and bought a really nice car and met him at a car club I wouldn't have that wouldn't have happened so yeah it was really dumb to get a car loan when I was 19 but I wouldn't have met him and if I didn't meet him I wouldn't build a gun store and then that wouldn't give me the free time to come back into crypto at that time so
00:58:25
Speaker
I would mostly probably just like pat myself on the back for just sending it. I'm not sure that I would say specifically do something that would change the outcome.
00:58:36
Speaker
And I think probably is because I'm very happy with the current outcome. i'm I'm grateful for what it is. Yeah. So unfortunately, I... Maybe that's the advice.
00:58:48
Speaker
Take risks and send it. Yeah. Just maybe that yeah you're doing okay. That's all I would say. Yeah. All right. Cool.
00:58:59
Speaker
Well, Macquarie, thank you very, very much for taking the time to have a chat. Appreciate it's late where you are. 120. But yes, right. Nice. But knowing your knowing your schedule, what you just talked me through, you've probably got another two or three meetings after this that you need to go to. I'm good i'm done for the night, but we've got a 9 a.m. once, so I should probably sleep.
00:59:19
Speaker
Nice. Well, um yeah, well, thank you very much for taking the time. It's great to chat to you and understand your journey. I've definitely learned a lot ah from from you talking today. ah So thank you for for sharing your advice.
00:59:30
Speaker
um And yeah, if anyone wants to reach out, if they're super interested in in what you guys are building or, um you know, they want to get involved, say if they've got, again, super high ambitions and looking for new roles and that kind of stuff, um is the best place to reach out to you guys on on Twitter, ah Telegram, do you have Discord servers and stuff? What's...
00:59:49
Speaker
Yeah, obviously just reach out to me directly and I would do it on Twitter or Telegram. So if you're in the trenches, you can try to find me. ah Just at RealCoryWilton on Twitter or at CoreyWilton on Telegram.
01:00:00
Speaker
I will respond to you. So yeah, if you don't have Twitter or a Telegram and you're trying to get into the crypto space, you better get on there quickly. Because that's where everyone is. Nice.
01:00:13
Speaker
Well, yeah, thanks again, Corey. ah I'll chat to you soon. Thanks, Jack. Cheers. man.