207: What Makes a Great Web3 Team

0:10 Hey there, I'm Pete, Townsend in this is money, never sleeps. We look inside the minds of entrepreneurs and at crossover of startups, Enterprise Finance, technology and Life. As we know it, I am literally on my way out the door, to the airport, to get to London for our techstars web 3 Builders night. I thought the time was right to look back at some of the most helpful insights, the went 3 l have Shared with us over the past year and a half. The Common Thread you'll hear from all of these voices. Is that the things that make a great web three project or start up focus? A heck of a lot more on Humanity than technology. So we're featuring web three investors advisors and Founders, including Joey Krug from Pantera Capital, Matthew Graham from Sino glow of capital, Tina Baker, Taylor from Circle, Sam Williams from our, we've John, Woo, from aval, ABS Clarissa, guess from defense, Sean Lee from Odyssey Tim boss from Bring it down expert, Michelle Singh.

1:02 Also, one of the takeaways from all of these insights is that they ring true across all kinds of startups and economic Cycles. The first voice you'll hear is Tina Baker. Taylor from Circle recorded this and late 2021, which was before she joined Circle and words are definitely time-tested. So, here we go again. With money. Never sleeps. So, the best founder Stories, the ones that have moved me, which, you know, create an emotional story that I think moves customers and you know, gets people excited about a project are when a Founder solves, the problem that they've experienced themselves and said, when you, you know, hear these stories about people that kind of, you know, didn't have access to this, or couldn't get that.

1:52 And they thought, you know, What? Screw it? I'm going to go and build it myself and or people who have you know maybe worked in an industry kind of doing things the old way and thought you know what? There's gotta be a better way to do this and these people aren't going to let me do it. So I'm going to go and build my own thing and try and fix this from the inside. I think those stories are really powerful. So from a Founder perspective, I think what I would be looking for are people that are really passionate about the problem there. To solve not necessarily the thing that they're trying to build and sometimes they think that people get their messaging a bit conflated, right? So you know, my advice for Founder's is, you know, tell me why this is important to you.

2:40 Don't tell me about the widget. Like I actually don't care about the things that you're building. Tell me about the problem. You're trying to solve, who is this a problem for, you know, why is it been like this for this, you know, length of time? Like what is this? Problem exists. And you know what's the upside of solving this problem? And that's how you get people to like really emotionally care about your project and then once that happens then you kind of engender passion whether that's from your team or your feces or your co-founders. And I think that's the Catalyst that propels startups in to you know potentially unicorns it's the passion piece. Do you think there is a And Chip between How Deeply experienced someone is with a problem.

3:28 They're solving. And their level of humility as a Founder 100%. Yeah. So I think the, the other key quality that I've seen with Founders, that succeed is self-awareness. So, you know, is that always being humble. I think we kind of throw that word around a lot. Why will I go on, you know, I'm so humble or it's important that we hire people that are humble and and, and yes, humility is is absolutely a virtue. But being self-aware, an understanding that maybe you're not always, you know, feeling benevolent or or humility and being able to internally managed for that and develop empathy and really kind of lean into being empathetic. Having that tool in your tool chest around. Yeah, self-awareness, who are you? How are you showing up in the world? How do other people experience you and then being able to, you know, basically, tailor your message to your audience, that's super critical.

4:41 And I think that a lot of Founders. And so maybe this is where humility becomes kind of the the nomenclature that we go to is if you kind of show up and you are who you are and every situation. With every audience, you're not going to reach as many people as you might, if you can take a step back and and kind of look at it, from a position of I'm here to solve a problem, I'm here to be of service is not of interest to you as opposed to here. I'm solving this problem, it's this cool thing and you should learn about it. Yeah, yeah, no. This this was the Clincher for me, Tina of this chat and that This understanding that being humbled by a problem so much so that you really want to solve it, you need that knowledge.

5:28 You need that experience. But if you're solving for x, there's, you know, solving for y, they're solving for Z and ABCDE, and F and knowing, which ones you can actually solve. And those that you can't takes a huge amount of self-awareness. I'd love that. Next up is John Woo to president of Apple apps, who lead the development of the Avalanche ecosystem who featured on an episode 164 in November of twenty. Twenty-One speaking is some of these qualities of Founders and of wet three projects in general. What do you think?

6:08 Some of the qualities are at that will make a great wet 3 project and eventually a great web three business. Start up this question. Ian is constantly asked of leave from traditional Venture capitalists, because a lot of traditional Venture capitalists now, getting into the blockchain and crypto space and trying to figure out how to invest. It's also asked of me and my former hedge fund friends and technology or trying to invest in the space. The Experience ultimately is becoming more and more important in the space. Just like the example, I use where I think three or four years ago, you can get away with just being a crypto native. Grieco door and just like, throw something out there and let's give it a shot. See if it sticks. The bar is being raised.

6:51 So, back to that example you can't just do that anymore because great you got super smart and we were young you know nothing about business or the domain expertise. But suddenly, I will go over here. I have this team. That's has your talent and they have business experience and they have domain expertise. So if you're a venture capitalist now in the Personal Silicon Valley sense. You're looking at the latter, not the former Now, let's move on and she'll sing web, 3 advisor, and DOW expert. Chi featured on episode 161 in October of 2021. Michelle.

7:36 You have one thing that you would absolutely look for as a leading indicator of a fantastic founder in the web three space. What would that be? I think the number one thing I'm looking for, in, in a fantastic founder, is whether they're humble or not. And that's important for me as a mentor and adviser. But, you know, also for my experience at PayPal. Great, I, you know, negotiated transactions with a number. Of really well known companies that are no longer here. And when negotiating with them I always sensed a lot of Pride, you know. And there are, you know, people you know that say that, you know, like the number one reason that you will fail is because you don't listen it being because really powerful.

8:27 And so when working with Sounders, the people who wanted to learn, you know, who listens, you know, they don't have to Execute your advice. And I mean you just want them to think about it and make a very informed decision after seeking advice from different people and seeking mentorship that if they're not humble that it's kind of hard to work with them and they may not see on Monday, I mean, and there's people founders of come and get away with that. I kind of love Founders who are humble and who are good evening. they don't give up and they just keep on going, you know, and that's really really important is to see in to do well Next up is Matthew. Graham the CEO of sign of global Capital who featured on episode 165 in November 20 21.

9:26 The one thing about talking to Maddie is that you want to get him when he's expressing himself passionately and with that passion comes a handful of f-bombs. So we've left those in just where he dropped them. So that you are listener gets a full experience of Maddie Graham. What do you say to a Founder when they're thinking about? What's the best way to start getting people behind their project? I what do you say to them internally? We refer to them as super fans. So I didn't buy like this so most projects never get even one or two super fans. They get, you know, some users but they never get people that are like, holy shit, fucking love this. I need it. And I want to tell people about it. You never really get even once a perfect But where I say is really true in empirically, it's true. Is that if you get even one or two, there's a pretty good chance you can get 10 or 20.

10:23 And if you get 10 or 20, there's a pretty good chance you can get 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 but it's really hard to get even one or two like legitimate die. Like your mom or whatever. Like will generate people that know you from your product. Fucking love it. So you need to think about, don't think when you start don't think about how to get a million super fans. Think about how to get one or two. If you get one or two, I really believe you're going to get dozens and then you're going to be on your way. Most people never get any that far but but starts just thinking how am I going to get a couple people that just fucking love my product and want to tell everyone about it? I would I would reframe it and think about it from that standpoint rather Other than starting with, how can I get millions of users?

11:19 Next up, is Joey Krug from Pantera Capital. We recorded this one with Joey and December 20 21 and he featured on episode 166. Stick it about where you kind of focus when you're looking at projects, right? What do you think are some of the leading indicators if you're really early on something? What Think of it, some of the leading indicators. What makes a high-quality web three project? Yeah, I think, for me, I think it's like, you know, shipping velocity. You know, I remember like, like practice, I've talked to who ship product quickly, you know. They they tend to be higher quality teams in like you like soften it very early project like you're not always an amateur team.

12:02 Some like massive pedigree if you only invest in pedigreed teams like you're going to miss out on a lot of The Upside like if I think back to like the kind of Like you're 75 to 100 x reference. I've made the very few of them, almost none of them. How about the classic like, oh, you know, two people went to Stanford, previously launched the startup installed it and, and, you know, it was great kind of thing. Like they're people who acted backgrounds like it who seems smart but like you didn't really know for certain how well they're going to execute it. So I think to me the high signal is just like how fast is someone like say you me a Founder. It's really early, you know, you taught you. Months later and a couple months ago, they told you they're going to build something abydos it next time they come back you know like or like are they like 0 axis mu6 and I were months. Yeah, that's a good question since like. Well how well calibrated are they in turn Leaf like when they can like ship product or actually do what they claim, they're not set out to do.

12:57 And then I think also like time to getting a product into the market is also a hugely strong indicator like me have this one company invested in recently and it sees these cars, these two guys who like their income, College and we bastard. You're like 18 or something and it's a decided you know tries to find transport a cop and I talked to them and like between like the medians of like between me, having the first call me given the term sheet at that a signed deal. Like they built a huge amount of product in that time window. And then like, by the time he had are, you know, second or third, reinforce weekly sync, they actually launched the product on maenette. Yeah, I guess what?

13:37 Then? Within a couple months, yeah. Me too for my feet. Total time frame from? When I first met them and then invested and then they launched year earlier summer, something like that. And that's like really strong signal. Yeah. And he got even have traction date on that point, but you know that like they can ship product fast. It's like that's my number one thing that I look for From Joey Krug. We're going to move on to Tim Boss, the founder and CEO of sharing who featured on episode 169 that we recorded in December of 2021. What do you think is a leading indicator for an early stage company in early-stage project of what makes a great, what three project while I mean II think taint a need to be well so it's not just about the teams history. He and the other that it's about, is this a team that has the ability to put together, the great idea to come up with another indicator is, does society have real-world use for, we will benefit.

14:44 And then obviously, look at what are the, what are the barriers? So, barriers might be, not the right time or things like that and then and then the uniqueness of the idea doesn't have to be super unique, but if they're sort of coming up with an idea, you've seen 20 other pictures for in the last week or what makes you think that they are going to be able to do it that the other 20, I don't know. We'll do it as well. And then and then their approach. I think it's really important to look all their approaches, how they're going to scale and then, you know how we're going to do, you got marketing and PR as well? That you look at it said, if it go if I'm right, what are they raising? Are they raising and up like some, some of these projects are looking looking at raising? Very, very small out and there's absolutely no up, no way, they'll be able to do what you got to do with the amount that they're raising. But then you look at maybe some of their token model and it's obvious that they're raising a small one over there, hoping to get more money out of the token itself later on. Steve do that.

15:33 But yeah. II think, I think team barriers to entry the ability to scale their PR marketing player and what a, how are they going to do? Better than the other ten companies that are inevitably going to supply doing it as well. Clarissa gauge is up next and she's the co-founder and CEO of Defense Clarice featured on episode 202. That we recorded in December of 2022. But there's some pretty harsh headwinds that are going up against folks right now. And I think a strategy around enabling those that are building in web do to actually get their feet into web, three with some sound developer tools is good way to do this. And but, you know, even with these headwinds on right now, Builders are still building.

16:23 I just talked to two Founders. Today were like, it's discouraging what? It's like, we're just going to keep going. So what is it, like, on the inside? Of Defense. When when thinking about these headwinds out there right now. Yeah. So some say it took to True base to a to answer this question first, my point of view being a builder in the in the blockchain industry, I was obviously you know when first we started eating a bear market then the FTX a fiasco I Was Myself the questioning. All right, are we going to the market? You know? Is it, is it? Yeah, we are. We entering a Witcher that will be that will keep being killing us for her for the next, you know, a year and We're going to survive that I wasn't.

17:05 These are questions that that you wander, but the beauty and and I think what we position, we actually see people from actually Inception to the day. They have an ID of the same word a while to rethink the infrastructure because they gun moments you're so we do see kind of, they're all from the starting point to the skater point and it's amazing. No one. The one is no one has really stepped building or push by their product. We have maybe she just gave that are much more heavy Opto investing Focus where they delayed a bit DD integration but mostly you know, we have we serve 60 percent use case on crypto 40% on on entities and everyone that keep on building.

17:45 I think you know we're here in a bear markets you should start building and I think this is true of in oil industry or forever and and this is usually the time where you get to the best Solutions, right? Because your focus to because you no longer trying to get shocked with a market that is that is growing very fast and not looking at Your own priority, you're focused on building, good product for people that are actually building you skates on blockchain and no longer for the height part. I think there was a very interesting analysis showing that basically barricades after bear markets. The, the core level of, you know, numbers of people building on blockchain investing in blockchain in crypto.

18:25 Sorry is actually increasing. So, yes, we're still going for this vacation but the base is increasing, increasing slowly and I think the Beavers are increasing as well. And now it's, it's it's it has every year come across. So, basically, all industry all size of company people that I've invested in, in, in decisions in managers, to actually figure out a strategy around. Okay, what's our military strategy once or NFC strategy? How do we monetize? How can that Harbors for creating a better user experience for our clients? Right? Well, they're studied this project and so they don't really care about consequences of afraid. And Zack, some inner inner in a specific industry. They don't care at all. They are here to build their here for the shooter and I think now we've reached a mess that is big enough. That's we all know the big picture is, you know. Yeah.

19:13 There is a big picture and we'll all know that. This is really just early stage on these markets and and the world, we're basically building for the next 10 years to come Next up is Sean Lee former CEO of Al Gore. And now co-founder of Odyssey Network, who featured on episode 201 in December of 2022. And speaking of the youth, right? And those that are at the beginning of their Journey now in the early early stage Founders, I mean I know you do some mentorship of Founders, what direction? You pointing them in. With this one thing that's I remind them all that.

19:58 It is the pace of technical. Innovation continues to celebrate know, where do we see that faster than here? I mean, when I was in the cloud computing stage, you know, we used to say, oh my God, cloud is moving so much faster than everything else, right? And then now that we're in crypto and blockchain, I mean my God, cloud cloud was a closeted a long time ago, right? As far as I'm concerned. So, if you think about that, one thing that I know, I'm not saying this to Young Founders to scare them, I actually, Wants to encourage some. That's the fact that it is moving so quickly, that just means that they need to keep their eyes open. They need to learn as much as they can, and they need to have the audacity or the courage to Pivot and any moment in time, right?

20:46 Who would have you, you know, two, three weeks ago, we have this massive debacle happen in crypto, right? I mean, we fully, right, what about legal mind, talking about what I mean? You think about it, we knew those of us that have come through the financial crisis, you know, one wave doesn't just get covered up right. Right off the bat, there is another way there's another wave and I would argue we're not done with it yet but the reality is that shouldn't deter you from getting into the space. If you truly believe in the potential of the technology and this digitization of assets by this phase. If it's not something that you truly believe in, maybe this is not the Wait, that go to the police together into at this moment in time. However, if you truly believe it, I think many people would have said, bear markets are the best time to build and if you've got the ability to raise some funds, find, you know, like-minded team members where you put your heads down and build and find the problem that you are solving, which will take us the entire industry to the next phase. Then I would encourage some with both of my hands up, right? And I would ask my friends to go support them as well. I think it's important for all of us to continue the band together and look at the look at the potential and look at the reality of where we are and then trying to navigate accordingly rather than just having cold feet or you know, looking at this industry purely because of the ridiculous speculations that has happened the last two or

22:18 three years and say hey this is a get-rich-quick the industry. I'm going to come in and come out. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. That is not what Innovation is all about. And Especially in this space. That's that is the wrong mentality to pick. I know, I know and it's one of the things we look for in Founders. One of the big things we look for in Founders. John is deep, first-hand experience the problem. You're solving. And we're finishing up with Sam Williams, co-founder and CEO of our we've who I interviewed in December of twenty twenty-two on the techstars, give first podcast and we featured in Episode 205 of money never sleeps. It's great to finish up this episode with Sam. As this was one of the most inspirational episodes that I've recorded in my six years of podcasting. Take it away Sam.

23:11 But the message I try and give you found as if they're thinking about going through. This is like, but just be resilient, just keep doing your thing. No matter whether it's raining, or shining outside, it really shouldn't matter to you. Because to be honest, the market is going to have crazy crazy things happen. It's not a sane seem to be around him in my experience, detecting Critters. So, so volatile, a My Hope Is that over time it comes, this was hard, but for what it is right now, you got to be realistic, it's going to be over. Excited sometimes in super under excited other times. And so the best kind of wisdom I picked up along the way is just be robust. The resilient just focus on the things that you actually think will matter in five years, not things that people shouting about pump the token price or whatever.

23:59 Just just focus on the long term and it only does pay off at the beginning of 2020, you must have been pushing about 500 to a thousand transactions to Arby's day in a transactions. His data stored by the end of 2020. One that was up to about 5 million. Wow, and our approach has not changed one iota from day one, you just got to be resilient. You got to focus on blocking out the noise. I would say that's a big one. If you're operating in crypto or croteau adjacent space, that does it for this week, folks. Thanks to all the guess we featured in this episode for sharing their insights. We've linked all of the original episodes in the show notes on our website money, never sleeps, that IE.

24:43 So dive back in and give them a listen. As there are a lot more valuable nuggets in each of those episodes. Thanks to Cone Brophy from create sound for helping me, pull this together as well. He's an excellent medium and to get in touch with when you're thinking about launching your own podcast. As for me, I'm an early stage startup Ambassador focused on where fintech meets crypto and crypto meets web three that I lead. Ha web through accelerator. There are plenty of links in the show notes on money, never sleeps die on how to get in touch. So don't hesitate to reach out finally till next time, thanks for listening. See you Ha web through accelerator. There are plenty of links in the show notes on money, never sleeps die on how to get in touch. So don't hesitate to reach out finally till next time, thanks for listening. See you