Nov. 13, 2023

Bringing the Money Back!

The only constant in the world is change, so embrace it.

As most of our MoneyNeverSleeps podcast listeners are aware, my long-time co-host Eoin Fitzgerald took a new job this past summer which meant he had to step down from recording with me. But don’t worry! We’re still pals and I know we’ll find ways to collaborate going forward. After a summer break to recharge, I’ve taken the podcast forward on my own, as the podcast was the part of our shared enterprise that I enjoyed the most.

I have to admit though, this newsletter was Eoin’s idea. Producing a weekly podcast is hard enough, and the time commitment was not on my agenda for thoughtful creativity beyond interviews and the spoken word. But Eoin had a lot of thoughts he wanted to share outside of recording sessions, so he ran with it.

And, he was brilliant. During 2020 and 2021, he pushed out 32 editions of this newsletter fueled by the volume of content he consumed every week, combined with personal experiences remixed by his imaginative and associative mind.

But then, yet another joyful life event in 2021 meant that Eoin’s writing time took a back seat, and our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter has been quiet ever since.

I always say to startup founders that if you’re building your business without talking to customers to get their input, you might as well be building for yourself. Likewise, I’m always looking for new ways to reach more people with the podcast. If you have something helpful to share with the world but no one’s listening, it’s hard to get the feedback to keep pushing you in new directions with guests and content.

So, in the last couple of weeks, I have been thinking about a way to connect more with listeners to get that feedback to keep iterating on the weekly content I produce. I already put a certain amount of creativity into creating the shownotes on the podcast website each week, and with a little bit of help from the productivity tools I use like Descript, I could create a newsletter more efficiently than in the past.

As we already had the bones of a community spread across our MoneyNeverSleeps website opt-in form and here on Substack, I decided to bring it all together here. In our new newsletter, I’ll provide added insights and takeaways on each episode that you won’t be able to find anywhere else. I’ll also highlight more media and events that help to bring everything to life.

As the whole reason I’m doing this is to engage more with our listeners, please, do just that, and let me know what you think!

-Pete

This Week’s Podcast

238: Global Access | Sean Lee from the Crypto Council for Innovation

Sean Lee is the senior advisor at the Crypto Council for Innovation, which is a global alliance of crypto industry leaders advocating for responsible and healthy regulations in the digital asset industry.

Sean has conducted business in over 20+ countries and two continents across his career, and networked with extraordinary professionals across many industries. As a technology enthusiast, his career started in Internet 1.0 during the ’90s, spanning across eCommerce, cloud computing, and digitalization, with IBM, EMC, Pivotal, and Dell before moving into blockchain and crypto in the last few years. Through it all he has witnessed how technology combined with innovative business models can transform industries, and ultimately global economies as well.

Sean is also one of the fantastic mentors for the Techstars Web3 accelerator program that I run, he was first on the podcast with me in November 2023 in episode 201 - one of our four video episodes!

In this week’s episode, Sean and I dove into

How the current events in crypto (i.e., SBF conviction) point to an even greater opportunity for education, advocacy, and policy to accelerate the adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology.
How the Crypto Council for Innovation approaches policy frameworks to align the digital asset industry with regulators and vice-versa
How far the crypto industry and regulators have come with centralized finance (CeFi) already
An example of policy building through the lens of decentralized finance (DeFi) with a focus on placing the regulatory lens on appropriate layers of the DeFi stack.
How we approach the paraphrasing of the various definitions of web3 into terms that are accessible to non-crypto natives
A big change that Sean and I would both like to see in how most web3 founders think about fundraising.

KEY QUOTES:

Sean Lee on the pace of digital asset adoption:

“I like to think that mass adoption is already here, except it's very not visible, and I would argue maybe we don't want it to be very visible. If we wanted to use digital currency and everyone's going to have to manage private keys and think about all of these crazy things that only hardcore cryptographers truly understand, then we’ll never get to mass adoption.

“What if we're able to hide it behind the scenes but still have the security, transparency, and all of the benefits that the technology brings, but we don't even feel it, we just know that it’s there.”

Sean Lee on what he would like web3 founders to think about differently:

“Building a web3 business does not mean you have to launch a token. I don't know why there's this misconception that there has to be a token, because the token is going to drive community ownership, a community mentality, and all of that.

“But if you're building a blockchain network, it makes sense to have a token, because you are creating your own economy. Within your economy, you need a unit of transfer that allows you to facilitate value transfers. But that doesn't mean you need a token for every web3 project, and I think there's a misconception out there that you need to do so.”

Pete’s take:

I said this to Sean during the interview, but I was thrilled that he came right out and said that not all web3 businesses need tokens. Based on the 1,500+ web3 deals I’ve reviewed since 2021, I would argue that very few web3 projects need their own token.

As Sean said, unless you’re building a blockchain network/protocol where a token is required to operate the network, web3 founders should not launch a token.

There are no shortcuts to raising money, and you’ll save yourself a ton of headaches down the road by sticking to equity fundraising if you’re building a centralized business.

I’m also 100% on board that the adoption of blockchain, crypto, and other digital assets will only happen when we stop referring to blockchain, crypto, NFTs, tokens, and the like. How often do we talk about how surprised and delighted we were with the experience we had with a new fintech app because the servers running the app were cloud-based?

Yes, we’ve got a few years to go in the maturity cycle, but when web3 founders are talking about their business or project, I’d like to see references to blockchain and tokens slink away into the background. And BTW, I’m looking for a better word than “slink”, so come back to me with ideas!

LINKS:

Follow Sean Lee on LinkedIn and X/(Twitter)

Learn more about the Crypto Council for Innovation and their DeFi regulatory policy white paper

Watch Sean Lee’s weekly ‘This Week in Crypto: Sean’s Take on Asia’ videos on YouTube

Episode title inspired by Global Access by Young Thug (feat, Nate Ruess)

Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at info@norioventures.com

More Media & Events

Venture with Hesus

I recently did an episode of Venture with Hesus which is probably the deepest into my psyche that I’ve gone on any podcast - whether that’s a good or a bad thing, you tell me! In this episode, we get into the impact of my Irish-American upbringing, and a walk through my career with lessons learned at every stop along the way from traditional finance to crypto, blockchain, web3, venture capital and now running Techstars Web3.

Thanks to Hesus Inoma for crafting such an excellent production, and for his unique interview style that helped me to get everything off my chest!

Techstars Web3 virtual session with Alex Tapscott and Leading web3 investors

Join us for a virtual session hosted by Techstars Web3 with Alex Tapscott, author of Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier (Harper Collins). We'll also feature a group of leading Web3 VCs sharing their insights on what to expect next with Web3, and then finish with a crowd Q&A, so register here/below and get your questions ready!