Building Your Crypto Empire with Akshat Vaidya

Transcript

I find I'm sure you find the same thing that there's your bullishness is often a function of your vintage often times it's not even about how good you are at playing the game it's about actually choosing the right game to play you know while the mem coin stuff is happening there are opportunities in defi for example that are not as sexy and people aren't really paying attention to you've got the money you've got the bags you need the distribution welcome back to the rollup your home for technical talks and open conversations that shape the modular future nothing on today's show to be construed as Financial advice you can see our full disclosures list at the roll up.co Ventures sit back relax and enjoy today's episode after a quick word from some of our awesome Partners innovating Finance Global institutional and onchain deep liquidity

to drive Capital efficiency now maximize yields on institutional grade liquid staking with M unlock trillion dollars of capital via m Bitcoin all of this secured by mantle treasury of billions in stables and E Capital Pools this entire ecosystem is coordinated by a vast network of season fecs that are aiming to create the next generation of Banking and Financial technology this is mantle all right we're live in Hong Kong aot great to finally meet you in person good to meet you in person I know that we had Arthur on the Pod I think uh with m talking

about the memec coin super cycle which is now like the subject of of all the hate on crypto Twitter yeah that's right yeah um but we're definitely still in a bull market so The Vibes up are up here and things are good I agree yeah even though it's sometimes different parts of the bull market don't feel like a bull market it's still a bull market yeah is this your third crypto cycle or your fourth so I I originally bought into Bitcoin in 2013 okay um so you could kind of consider that to be a cycle it was a shli cycle that one in particular what was that first actually if if you don't mind how did you find that um that was surreal so my my buddy um who now works at Fidel's VC focused on crypto um he sent me an article on Salon or slate I don't

remember which one it was that was like this new crazy encrypted currency called Bitcoin it was like summer of 2013 we just graduated from undergrad and um you know I thought this pretty crazy and then I I read about Silk Road and you know I'm from Austin and Ross was from Austin and they kind of in my eyes I was like this is one of the most successful startups out of Boston there's like Dell there's a couple other names and then there's there's Silk Road yeah so I was pretty inspired and um I had some friends who were you know buying um substances and things using the the platform and then I was like you know what I'm just going to figure it out I'm just going I'm going to test it out so I downloaded um a few different types of ways of accessing crypto and they all

sucked and I used coinbase uh bought Bitcoin at the end of 2013 and um I bought it at like close to the peak it was like something like $1,000 $900 and I started buying more and then it crashed right and then it kind of lasted maybe two years it was hovering around $200 $300 per Bitcoin at that point in time I just wrote it off I just thought Bitcoin is okay you know I learned something it's probably a cool experiment I'm sure someone will iterate it in the future and make a better version um but then when smart contracts became a thing in 2016 17 that was the first cycle where I felt like okay wait I'm they're on to something that that I didn't really understand the full scope of that's when I really started buying in and I entered the industry full-time in 2019 so I've been through you could

say like four and a half Cycles depending on how you define a cycle yeah yeah I think for me the 2017 one was dorm room for me and my current co-founder of the rollup Robbie we were at the University of Florida that one didn't feel real to me that one was still my first iteration where it was like I don't think this is going to come back uh whereas after 2020 and 2021 I was like okay like we're definitely not going anywhere now yeah because of Defi and onchain and all all all the happenings there so yeah I think you're you're I find I'm sure you find the same thing that there's your bullishness is often a function of your vintage so when you start you know the first cycle you get you're like ah okay this is done I got scammed second cycle third

cycle you really start to realize okay it comes in waves so has your has your thesis whether it be personal or with M storm how how has that evolved from buying Bitcoin seeing it as kind of this new technology smart contracts seeing this as enabling the future of potentially like a plan B of Finance into now I know you guys are quite heavily involved in defi stable coins rwas tons of of different kind of sectors what has been your personal Evolution and also for maelstorm on aista side for how you guys see the crypto World evolving yeah uh each cycle has its meta yeah right so like before let's say 2013 14 it was does Bitcoin even work you know does this can you transact with it can you send it

around do thees the you know validation mechanisms actually function the way that they're described and we kind of found yes and then in 2016 17 18 it was about smart contracts do these even work all the applications on those during the white paper scams you know that's at that point in time I was like uh halfway into my private Equity job and I put a lot of my money into that and I lost majority of my net worth um in that cycle um but same kind of thing you know one thing like stuck and that was um smart contracts and then defi summer happened in 2020 2021 um that was kind of the first real applications of smart contracts something that people actually use we saw defi worked and a number of those projects also went to but a few survived and then now in this cycle

you could kind of argue that one of the biggest metas was uh staking infrastructure in the beginning right then it kind of evolved to okay now how do we combine that with defi it's like Pendle Athena are kind of like a combination of these two worlds Defi and staking um and then at some point you know this cycle became a little crazy with the meme coin stuff and AI as well yeah AI yeah uh what we call AI at least yeah yes right mem coins that act that are named AI projects there definitely some of that um I got ried into a weird meme coin thing in the last 72 hours that I can tell you about later that really yeah um okay but uh yeah from from here it feels like the real story is going to be um go the institutional kind of adoption right and so that's

where real world assets comes into play but that's not going to happen until regulations are in place and that's we're looking at like a two-year cycle for that so I don't think we're going to get the benefits of uh the regulatory changes that were expecting to see until probably the next cycle any uh any particular uh liquid Market ideas that you have currently um any uh any anything that you're that you're seeing that looks imbalanced or inefficient uh from the from the fun side or from your personal side that you're excited about yeah so for context so melstrom we found a Maelstrom in 2022 kind of in stealth mode and originally we were just kind of like feeling this out I was doing a few other

things at the same time Arthur was um doing his house arrest at that time in Miami and um we're just ideating on things we one of the first deals we did was obal which is like a distributed staking um validator technology thing and um that was when we got uh basically into the whole world of of staking related infrastructure staking infrastructure was the first category we got into and uh from there we um started getting a that's when we found Athena um ethery you know some of those companies that that again as I mentioned Pendle as well that intersect those two worlds U but we remain focused on Venture um we only launched a liquid Arm about three

months ago okay so we onboarded Nick who is um partner of uh melstrom liquid and um he used to be Arthur's boss okay nice which is funny that is funny Arthur having a boss is funny yeah exactly back in the day is like as that Deutsche Bank Nick was head of exotic derivatives for Deutsche Bank Asia and Arthur used to sit on a little stool he told me the story sit on a stool next to Nick and just kind of like watch him do trades and learn yeah and uh yeah now now we've brought Nick on board to help us build out uh liquid strategy so so far we've been taking mostly thesis driven like Venture like bets uh in the liquid markets so one example being you know this is kind of like I think um reflective of the kind of work that we

like to do our analyst Lucas he's a research analyst over Christmas while all the rest of us were hanging out with family and partying and stuff he was uh deep in the in in the weeds looking at dii projects and learning about them and he noticed something weird that a lot of the D projects were uh entitled to a bio um airdrop and the size of the bio airdrop for some of these projects and most of them exceeded their entire market cap y so that was the kind of thing that you know we like to identify on cover we made the trade and we wrote about it we published it and you know it was one of those like 3x Within 12 hours kind of projects for us and um I think there are more similar opportunities

where there's very mispriced assets uh that you can only really uncover through deep research uh while everyone's distracted with other stuff so you know while the mem coin stuff is happening um there are opportunities in defi for example that are not as sexy and people aren't really paying attention to I'll give you alphone one this project we were negotiating with and I think they' be okay with me saying this um we didn't close a deal because they were so bullish on their token that um they wouldn't accept our price and we always like to negotiate we never pay the full price uh and they wouldn't accept it and so I just bought it with my own personal allocation um fluid I think that that's cool decks yeah they've been crushing they have yeah under the radar they're like the under the radar defi kind of

Dark Horse of this cycle so far um yeah yeah and and it's also like a new token good token type of thing or or they did that token swap or something right or yeah they had some they were exploited a while back exactly yeah they just swap to kind of to reboot with the business yeah yeah uh so yeah so I've been pushing this idea on Twitter I mean as of the last I guess 72 hours which is like return to fundamentals I mean mem coins have gotten destroyed like people have been harping on this for I don't know the last six months I think like oh we need to return to this idea of actually valuing these things and having uh models and meme coins have just continued to outperform yeah uh do you think that that trend has shifted now after the Libra Trump Melania kind of

craze and like just what's your view of all that uh and how does that affect salana as well yeah there's so many tracks within crypto it's hard to encapsulate them all into one bucket right yeah so meme coins like proper meme coins for example the milania the Libra all that kind of stuff those are uh invest attainment kind of casinos right it's fanal dominis it's like a dominis of or domination from the person who's launching it on you yeah pretty much very weird like thing yeah it kind of is and everybody gets in thinking they'll be the first out yeah but they're never and then they all get they all get dominated by the Creator right exactly whoever Snipes it but what's funny is that they're pretty open at least you would think people by

now in crypto would understand that look if this getting launched the last one out gets right yeah so they're pretty I feel like they're implicitly quite open about them being basically a Ponzi it's like weirdly honest it it kind of is yeah so that's one category within crypto that'll always exist because there's always people who want to basically get rich quick um and that includes the retail guys who buy it it's not like the the first guys who buy it are innocent or the second guys or third guys everyone wants to just not be the last uh so if you just got then then you you know you can kind of claim you're a victim but right you knew what you were doing um that's the meme coin side of things but I think all to to your point about return to fundamentals yeah all venture okay all assets have

mimetic value okay every kind of asset uh even in Trad stocks homes they're not actually valued at what um their intrinsic value is some the future cash flows yeah uh the earlier stage you go the more the greater the percentage of the total valuation um that is mimetic in nature okay crypto just happens to have a lot of really early stage projects so even more of it is mimetic value um so if you were to run a discounted cash flow um on the average company in uh the stock market a lot of them will be like okay why are these overvalued for reasons clearly that are not just about intrinsic value you go to crypto you do the same thing you see they're all overvalued if you use that basis almost um so everything has mcoin aspects to it um and I think a return to

fundamentals doesn't necessarily mean uh you know evicting all mimic valuation methods but more just being aware of it and just knowing that okay part of this is hopium part of this is actual cash flows and the more we see tokens start to implement fee structures like ethery Athena you know there's a long list of them that just straight up pay out uh you know kind of like Securities sort of um uh then you can you can actually calculate the the DCF on on the valuation of those and then add those to the the hopium that is there will be growth right yeah and that's kind of what people investing in those ideas C and the the those who invest in the pure mtic side are almost just like we don't

even care about any of that because this is all overvalued anyway there's no value that can be set on you know uh Dogecoin right it's just it's it's it's a dog with with a hat or it's it's a it's a do so um kind of Shifting towards your personal mental models though and view towards the space how are you for so for our audience a lot of Builders investors VCS um sophisticated retail if you will those some with size some with some who are kind of more getting started like what is the mental model that you take day in and day out to the space to invest from kind of a personal Financial level like what when you're when you're allocating into crypto um

and you're pulling money out cycle over cycle like how do you maintain a level of financial Financial insulation um or how or how would you kind of uh advise Somebody To You Know think about their crypto Holdings as a part of a broader uh portfolio strategy from like a financial lens yeah I think for me personally only about a third of my net worth is in crypto uh if you exclude you know the valuation of stuff in Maelstrom my own personal portfolio um and within that uh maybe half is in alts you know what we call alts uh Bitcoin ultimately is in my view one of the safest assets to hold it's the first thing I got into

in crypto it's been a consistent performer it's digital gold you know I don't need to pitch the same um there's there not that many shenanigans that you can play with it it's not as dependent on you know you brought up the point of Solana's uh the fact that it's n it's tied to this mcoin narrative Bitcoin doesn't have the same kind of associations to to ride one thing and then when that one thing gets it gets right um so I think it's good to have uh a staple like that you know in your food pyramid um as far as melstrom goes we were a little bit more active uh so you know I personally am more of a Buy and Hold type of person okay I hold Blue Chips I hold projects that I think will become Blue Chips uh with melstrom it's very cycle dependent

so what part of the cycle we're in uh dictates how we play so in the in the bare Market uh that's when we were deploying like crazy we're excited and it blew my mind that we would talk to some funds and this was like end of 22 early 23 we' talk to other funds and we'd hear yeah we're not really deploying right now in my mind like on the Venture side right yeah I like are you crazy yeah this is the time it's insane yeah like that's exactly when you should be deploying whereas they would want to deploy perhaps like now or the last couple months last 6 months instead right yeah exactly which is ass backwards the same thing's going to happen so I I guess part of it is if you uh if you get blown up okay maybe I get it then you don't have money to

deploy that's one thing but when there was dry powder and people weren't deploying bra markets it blew my mind so that's when we deploy the most and I think even as a personal investor um you should have a list of beaten down stocks not stocks tokens that uh you want to invest in when valuations come down it's going to happen it's cyclical so you know at some point this year um we're going to get things will probably get a little bit worse before they get better and um I I think will be deploying we we kind of timed some of the market Cycles pretty well in the last three to four months uh we sold a lot of stuff in December January prior to Trump um coming to office because we thought there'd be a trump dump and there was and um now we're sitting a lot of cash

we're waiting a little bit for more people to freak out and then that's when we go right back in I think people should do the same thing people are freaking out but not like deathly freaking out right now they're like capitulating in a lot of things especially onchain uh tokens those that don't don't if if it doesn't have a ized exchange listing or any sort of like Market making happening the they're speed running to Zero right now which is it's it's a sight to see for sure yeah um true okay so let's kind of zoom out to the Venture side then um before we talk to about some of the actual kind of investing I want to understand because so we have a ventures arm we've done like 50 deals we also were going heavy in like late 22 early 23 mid all the way

through 23 into early 24 we were going really really heavy M last six months eight months we've kind of just like we're basically on like a okay this is a project that I don't really care it's a good valuation it's a really good founder big check or no check we're not really doing the like you know kind of midsized okay it's early in the cycle low valuation checks anymore yeah our thesis in 2022 23 24 was that the mistake here is not picking the wrong bet it's just not allocating right that's the mistake to be had here is like let the sentiment get to your head don't allocate in the time and Miss what is going to be this Cycle's Runners you know sure we we could have probably picked better or sized better but we were just happy to kind of spray there and do the prey right but you know

there's a method to to the madness that we've learned just in the last 18 months or so Robbie and I um and so I'm curious from a Founder perspective let's start here what are the traits of the successful Founders that you've backed in hindsight that you've seen and then you know how has that led you to them look for those traits in future Founders and like is there a is there a specific archetype you can explain to us and to Future Founders or to investors who are watching that this is what they that that they should look for based on your previous success and obviously we can't you know repeat history here and it's not a guarantee but there are often signs yeah yeah so I've been an investor since 2016 in private companies and uh before

it was Private Equity it was you know stuff like um Veterinary rollups and local distribution manufacturing stuff in the midwest uh then I transitioned to crypto in 2019 started doing investments in mostly CI and Sexes and things like that while I was at bitx ventures I was head of Corp Dev there and then from 2022 onwards in more like dgen crypto uh on chain stuff and across all of that past almost decade of investing the number one trait and quality um that I found to be um the biggest indicator of success is integrity of the founder so um I mean I think especially in crypto but but even outside of crypto there's not that much you can do to control Bad

actors and bad behavior it's not that much governance and in crypto there's even less sometimes arguably depending on you know what aspects of the business um and uh I think it's hard to sus out but you just see little ways they respond to small things like do they get kind of indignant when they just if you just bring up someone in the industry to them who has sort of a questionable reputation see how they react if they're just like yeah okay whatever it's fine or if they say something like this guy represents everything that's that's wrong with crypto you can just kind of pick up okay this is how this person thinks he cares about ethics uh reputation long-term relationships Etc um and I think we found that in some of our most successful projects think of like Mike from ethery or uh guy from

Athena these are some of the traits that people know that they high integrity um it's number one number two is Extreme humility um if you look at Arthur right he's like a self-made billionaire Young when he started bitm he was in his 20s uh but he's also a very humble guy I think anyone in this industry who's met him at a party you say hello he's going to say hello back right he's not like there are some people in this industry who are like worth a hundredth of what he's worth who act more dickish than you do but in in various settings and I think um the same thing uh plays out in BD it plays out and how you hire right so a more humble person is probably going to attract better quality Talent um to to the company probably going to have

better time relating to customers to uh potential Partners Etc so uh that's what made bit mix successful largely and that's what we've also seen with some of these Investments that we made um the the kind of orientation of I I'll work with anyone who can teach me something um and then that kind of Segways into the last piece is Partnerships the ability to uh bring together a wide variety of different people who can help the project so you know for example with Athena they um brought together all the key basically every major sex and custodian and um Market maker and and all the tier one um investment firms all together in one place and a bunch of K's they're kind of the first ones in that

cycle in this current cycle I guess you could say to do that um and that was integral it wasn't just like oh let's uh let's create a logo Splash that's that bedazzle everyone it wasn't about that everyone they brought in the cap table was a key component of their business model and um you see Founders who have that mindset will bring everyone along um also tend to be pretty successful I think those are probably the three biggest things beyond that um you know just like is this person smart I mean that's kind of like probably the fourth thing I'd say yeah but those first three are more important than the last yeah I I I I appreciate the thorough answer I I I tend to also think that there's a level of of like this like uh chip on

their shoulder that I found um such that they've you know either they've gone through something in the past um or they're they can be even insecure about certain things that has happened to them or they have something to like prove right like something that you can't teach uh also um if you come from a rough background you also that's all you that you know so your level of Drive is just extreme compared to somebody who grew up in like middle class America or something right true you you like there's no like that the lack of a plan B I found is has also been something that's very like I want to work with people that are similar like that they they can also be very Cutthroat if they are your enemy so you know you don't really want to make enemies with the

people that have that kind of chip chip on their shoulder but they have a certain drive to win that I think it's hard to like replicate in in that sense and that's true I mean also timing and luck right like timing and luck it are you are you willing like are you a man in the or a man or woman in the arena be willing to put yourself in the butterfly effect of life yeah right I think that's like a personal success thing like I mean just I think even just sitting here being in Hong Kong is an example of of this right the people here you know you took a you take a a chance with some money and some time and you go and you try to make something happen I think I mean that's that's just capitalism at its finest but frankly I think that

there's something to be said about that um yeah for sure yeah the the only other thing I'd say is Tam is also huge that's one thing I found with this so this is the first time I invested in projects of this variety right these kind of onchain businesses we don't even give a about the equity for most of these companies we invested in it's the first time I've done this yeah and the mistakes that I made were investing in fantastic teams projects whatever but tiny Tams so like what's an example or like what what's a what's a sector that sector so like me for example right like I was bullish on the concept and thought there was a lot of uh value to capture back in like early it's like late 22 early 23 and I thought you know we need to have an allocation in at least a

couple of those types of compan invested in them they did well they're great companies Great Founders respect them a lot um but ultimately they're capped if if the size of the industry you're Target grow right it's like yeah that's a really good really good point and and I've I've had that like constantly reminded to me in crypto and I've tweeted this so a bunch of times which is often times it's not even about how good you are at playing the game it's about actually choosing the right game to play yeah and that's that's very applicable here in the it's like it's not like do you pick I mean it the there are winners in categories like for example ethery disclosure with like the RO of Ventures invested mestor invested but this is they're like the clear reaking LRT winner like but you know as

long as that category grows large enough you know if you spread your bets out a bit there's still some winning to be had but if you didn't but if you just pick the wrong game entirely then if you know you pick the wrong category to invest in then doesn't matter if you pick the winner of the losing category right it's like we're playing the wrong game here Redstone is def's modular Oracle supporting over 100 clients on over 50 chains offering 1,000 assets Redstone is the leader for Bitcoin staking and yield bearing assets they offer the most robust customizable price feeds available in any model join the Redstone exhibition [Music]

today yeah true true and then I guess the the the other point that's related to that is that it's also about the ability to Pivot to the right category e is a great example right the staking thing wasn't enough they went to reaking and one basically the first ones to do it and now even further and now they're yeah exactly they're constantly pivoting because restak had it time in the sun yeah and then it's kind of it's It's still an important technical concept yeah but it's not exactly like the points meta is is clearly over yeah oh yeah for sure yeah but like those M bets I made it's kind of hard to Pivot those m to much we'll see maybe but that's part of the humility as a Founder though isn't it it's like okay you know my idea wasn't exactly right my original thought

I'm going to go and I'm going to do something else that but that's just such a hard Choice like this is the difference between being a founder and a Speculator right Speculator right we can have as many bets as we want theoretically we can get in and out of different things we can change our mind and change our thesis and change our portfolio as a founder and like we we experienced this on the rollup like we just stuck stuck to to the plan day in and day out for three and a half four years the last 6 months we've made more Revenue than the first three and a half years right we didn't pivot though we didn't change but like you know it wasn't working that great yeah so like as as as a Founder you have this tough kind of dichotomy or Divergent path

where it's like do we play the game of the scurve where it kind of takes a while and then you pop which happens to a lot of these crypto companies as well or do you pivot and risk brand reputational thing and then pivot again because that pivot didn't work then you end up like some of the brands that I think a lot of people know we don't that we don't need need to say that are pivoting for each cycle right right and so like you're like you're playing this game of like steadiness wins the race and like steadfastness is important but also you need to be humble enough to realize that if you're playing the wrong game pivoting to playing the right game could end up doing much better for everybody involved yeah so it's kind of this like and yeah navigating that Divergence is uh is tough being a

Founder is not easy it is yeah I mean as you point right even being a founder of like a fund structure what you guys are doing it's it's similar it's maybe maybe a little bit easier than founding a a a crypto startup but yeah it's still difficult and striking that balance is hard yeah so we're kind of going through something like that right now we've got our I mentioned our Venture book and we've got our liquid book y now we're exploring a buyou SL private Equity strategy as well okay and we brought on board someone so I have a background of private Equity um we brought on a partner of maelstrom buyouts okay uh to help us out um as we SC out opportunities and he has a background in in SAS PE for the last decade he worked at um a spin-off fund of Vista Equity

Partners in Austin and um we he and I have been hunting for deals and we made a an offer to buy a a somewhat prominent Media company in the crypto space uh negotiated pretty hard you know it's it's a very different Dynamic than crypto investing it's not an onchain business model it's not a scalable I see you guys need the distribution don't you every musk has his Twitter you've got the money you've got the bags you need the distribution yeah yeah it's part of the full scope you know if you're family office you need everything right it is like that is our value that is our value at for Investing For teams that that that we work with it's and the crypto is so Niche it's like crypto Twitter and it's some media and Telegram and it's

not like you go run Facebook ads it's not like you have a I mean SEO and things work but it's a very Niche media style it's tough yeah anyway trying to acquire these companies is also very challenging yeah so what's that look like yeah so I mean that's a pivot it's not a pivot it's a it's a a revenue line expansion it's a horizontal expansion right yeah there's lots of synergies with the rest of the stuff we're doing um but the the concept is we we buy companies um and you know process for that is a lot slower yeah and also the education process is slower some of these Founders they're like oh but it's a crypto company therefore the valuation metric should be whatever I want you know no I know but it's hard to teach them like no actually you're not running crypto companies this is actually not on

chain you're a traditional business that's a service provider to the crypto industry correct and so your valuation metrics are quite different okay so let's talk about this because Robbie and I have been thinking about this a lot like is it even possible for us to exit right because we are so much the face of what we're doing and you know we're kind of expanding horizontally and we have enough systemization in place to allow uh you know like me and Hong Kong and the business is running fully behind the scenes Robbie's handling it we're both out it's still running but like it's very much us but you know are we're not launching a token anytime soon yeah but we are making a significant amount of real bottom line post tax profit yeah over three years we've shown you know multiples of growth it's looking like

this year will be the biggest ever it's amazing so like I I'm not going to talk about the numbers on the recording here but like like if I was to approach you with with like okay what would buying out the rollup look like or you know insert media company here what like what would you want to see and like what would what would your what would your valuation look like uh or like your evaluation process of the the numbers and maybe we can use an example here um because it's way different than like oh you know I'm signing a Saft at $100 million valuation because you know a similar comp is trading at two bill so it makes sense you know my media company is not worth 100 million because I don't have a $2 billion token to give you right right I just have equity and I have profits and

I have numbers that you know so maybe I'm super curious yeah yeah so there's two types of businesses that we've been looking at and we we're in Deal processes with a few um one is what you described right just like it's a pure Equity play and it happens to be in crypto yeah two are crypto companies that should have a token have been planning a token but haven't done it yet and maybe the founders want to take some chips off the table and we bring in a team to launch the token for them and as part of the deal structure we pay them back with a portion of the the token once we launch it for them so there two different strategies the the latter it speaks for itself right it's just kind of like an earlier stage project that is a crypto company is on chain we'll have

token ET L token yeah but the former that is where a lot of opportunities are so right now there's a lot of uh crypto companies doing the same thing how many data providers are there too many right they all do the same how many um uh you know like forensics uh onchain forensics companies are there like six or seven doing the exact same thing um there's just a number of categories like that media there's like 12 all doing the same thing um so I think for us when we look at evaluating these we look at one is there a chance for inorganic growth as in a rollup strategy um to buy multiple of these combine them together and uh find synergies then that's that's enticing that's more exciting um we look at if it's a a very founder Le project

or company rather not project um then we want to see has there been a handing of the Baton before or is this the first time because that that changes the wrist Dynamic our first time for sure right so then for you guys be like okay we got to see aot as my boss I don't know if I can do it man I don't know if I can do it OT yeah well we probably hire someone to come in in the middle right so okay yeah so that's better or worse depending on how you look at it um but that's key and if if it hasn't happened then probably have to do like an earnout structure right where there's like a two-year handoff period correct yeah and then we see if if the company can survive without you guys so it also impacts the the deal structuring right yeah there's

certain like keyman risks and things there so so would you say that then like if if if my goal isn't to launch a token here like from a friend to a friend like is is seeking is building my business in a way that is structured around ability to be purchased in the future like purchasability a good strategy then yeah I think it's the only strategy because the way that I see us getting Venture like returns in the space effectively or an exit like return this is why we started our Ventures arm like two years ago is like okay we're just going to deploy our Capital into the deal FL access that we get yeah because that's like that's the only way that we're going to get this kind of like 100x right now I I can't sell myself I can't

sell Robbie and I's podcast because it's just us I mean sure there's a model where we could and kind of go under some holding company or something but but like would you say optimizing for purchasability for crypto entrepreneurs that aren't launching a token is the better strategy and then if so like I I know that we talked about it what is like what are some ways to build out a more exit business in in general yeah so for you guys it it sort of depends right if you're a media company with a fund or what you probably are is more of a fund with a media company yeah then it's sort of a lost leader product right I mean it still might be profitable but it's not as profitable as your fund I assume um it's hard to to untether those two

things right because if you if you want to keep doing the fund part of what made you successful in the fund is that you had the media arm correct and sort of Vice Versa maybe correct um so if you want to sell off just the media company then the buyer has to be aware that okay we're not really getting the best part of this correct uh but if you do want to sell that um then I think uh and and it's not a lost leader product and let's say it's Z Independent Business line then the I think the only way to build a company is to prepare it for sale that's like the only reason to do it correct you're not going to IPO this thing and well that that's been my like train of thought like I've been just like ideating the last two years like I'm not

I'm we are making a good impact and educating and we're doing a lot good in the space yeah but like I'm building something that I'm building equity in that I'm not sure how to how to like get the end result that like some of my friends who are doing e-commerce work right have have gotten already yeah or have or or or will again in the future so you got to reduce the dependency on just YouTube right uh diversify Revenue sources and then make those look more recurring right if you do those three things it'll be salable and that goes for all types of businesses that are not launching a token yeah systemization diversify Revenue yeah and and make it recurring make it a recurring product yeah which some of which we have and we have some like ad free podcast models but it's very it's very it's very just

like getting that off the ground because that's not where the money is man yeah the money is with the projects the money is with the investing the money is with the getting the allegations getting the opportunity to invest early as you said like the fund is kind of what drives the outperformance here long like long term right yeah for sure and are you guys going to do an outside fund with outside LPS or stick to I think just stick to ourselves okay we're very anti- Authority you know we're very anti boss like we don't we've tried stuff in the past Robbie and I and we just it's we we go head-to-head enough like we don't we we don't need to go up against anybody else yeah yeah I think we're kind of the same way yeah you know what I mean it's just it's um okay well let's talk a

little bit about your personal journey and then we'll kind of wrap here um I'm just gonna just gonna uh break the break the seal you you mentioned that you did a micro doing phase prior to the podcast yeah uh what what was the stage of life there you know would you recommend it what did you do yeah tell us yeah I mean I would recommend all sorts of experimentation um I have uh experimented with most major healthy psychedelics yeah and um there's a period in from 2016 to 2019 so before I was in crypto I was working at the private Equity Fund in Chicago and um had a lot of time in my hands outside of work uh because Chicago wasn't you know it's not a place I was from I didn't

have a deep Network there um I grew up in Texas I went to college in Philadelphia lived in New York after that so when I came to Chicago I was basically just working you know maybe like 12 14 hours a day and then sleeping at night and then I had a lot of time in the middle to to just kind of do stuff so um I experimented with a few things one of the things I tried was uh micro doing LSD uh on a daily basis for almost a month okay that didn't go well and then the other one I tried was that sounds nuts it's a little too much yeah the other one I tried was micro doing shrooms um that went well but at some every day as well that was every day yeah like a tiny amount um that I had a

Portland based therapist who uh would basically mail me the stuff and I think back then I don't I don't know what the legality of the was I don't does matter yeah I I really don't remember but um she was mail it to me and um yeah it so you just do a little bit every day in the morning yeah just part of your morning routine yeah and I think when combined with therapy yoga breath work m a mission in your life then it's useful if you're just doing this it's not going to solve anything so I remember one of the first times I won respect from my boss was about two weeks into the shrooms micro doing and um I had a Val let's see what did I have I had

something that made me uh it was it was therapy I had therapy so I was working on a deal a live deal and I had to leave the office early it was like 8:00 p.m. and um he went to go do something and I I emailed him them and said hey as I mentioned I've got therapy tonight so I got to go back uh and then he sent me this like kind of nasty message it's like you got to be dedicated to this deal you can't just walk away in the middle of stuff this is important blah and um because of the work I was doing and I was like maybe 24 25 years old um at the time I was like okay I don't want to with a partner whatever but the work I was doing plus the I think I think this room just helped me like ease

into myself and feel more comfortable with um sticking to my Truth uh I just I just told him your message is inappropriate therapy is very important to me I'll see you tomorrow yeah and I never would have done that before and I was kind of expecting I like oh I think I'm probably GNA get addressing down yeah he actually he sent me a message he said you know what I'm really sorry you're right I'll see you tomorrow have a great therapy session and that was the first time I realized okay human beings respond to other human beings yeah that it's not like this hyper hierarchical structure that you know sometimes maybe genz and younger people might see it differently but millennials yeah um a lot of us saw it as like it was a very hierarchical kind of world we lived in and that was a moment that

helped me break free and I think the shrooms uh micro doing played a a small role in that yeah all you to expand your mind a bit and and the LSD probably really uh threw you on a monthong of anti-authoritarianism and for sure yeah that's a good way to put it I know that that's been the effect in my experience um have you done the same I have not done it any sort of like month long or anything like that okay uh but just recreationally and I just it's it's very I think there's a reason why there it's very strongly banned in the space area in the in the states um so like any other kind of outcomes there from that month of of micos on the streams like was there did you did you stop and just feel any any sort of like key takeaways

or was there anything else that that you kind of experience or Lessons Learned From that or even just if somebody wants to do it now cuz it's much more I think it's either much more legal now much more people are open to it so what's the what is there any like like is there any just tips or takeaways or lessons as we kind of come to a close here yeah I think with all natural plant medicines uh there's no reason to be afraid of them you know I've done most of them there's some that are right for certain people at certain times in their life there's some that I did that I was not ready for um and there's some that I've done that that like changed my life and I think that again all combined with the whole curriculum cannot be it will not

solve your problems what will solve your problems is if that's part of a curriculum to change your life with small decisions every single day stick to your integrity and I think um that process that I embarked on at that time uh led me to open up my mind and heart to the possibilities that uh it's worth it to take big risks and honestly I wouldn't be in crypto right now without that eh it wouldn't yeah it would not be in Hong Kong I wouldn't have taken all those risks yeah um the job I applied for at bitmex it specifically said no one outside of Hong Kong can apply to this I did anyway just kind of like this this aggressive curiosity and bravery that um I didn't really have when I was more of a kind of like a underling and a hierarchical structure and system uhing help me open

up to that that's amazing yeah well congratulations on all on all the success appreciate your time today really great conversation as always and uh thanks for coming out thanks man yeah good to be on yeah cheers