[Music]
afternoon everyone thank you very much
for coming I know you have plenty of
options and you are very appreciated for
being here and for listening what I'm
going to present this is my sixth Devcon
I think I didn't miss anyone in SE and
it's the first time I speak so it feels
pretty great um the content I have
prepared I prepared very carefully so
let's get into
it um when I was thinking what's the
best content I can bring to Devcon I
thought well my work at poop for the
past five years has been pretty intense
and has exposed me to lots of
experiences that unless you live through
them it's somewhat impossible to learn
of it's like in in startups you learn my
doing so I was like Yeah I'm I'm going
to I'm going to share what I've done so
these are some little ballot
points um one of my personality traits
is that I'm um extremely UPF front about
how I think so this is why the first
type item is offering a filter firstand
information of how to fils when a web
startup um especially the painful Parts
um I'm not here to sell you yeah I run a
startup and things are going to be fine
more like the opposite
then um as part of our experience um I
want to make clear what's different on
the web3 ecosystem that the two than the
web two ecosystems running a startup is
extremely painful in all ecosystems but
web 3 has several specific types of pain
so I want to cover some of them
and after all
that pretty frightening information I
want to present I want to still make
clear that for for
certain uh type of people not only it is
worth trying it is what makes sense
doing so we you will see
why um a quick intro about me although I
am
seeing most of those that I'm seeing I
know you and you know me but you may get
some tidbits that you didn't know um I
am 37 I live most of my life in Buenos
ciris being in Buenos has shaped my
personality pretty specifically so so
it's a major piece of information
Argentina has a very deep crypto
tradition and that has given me a
privilege view specifically for what
crypto is useful for what's not useful
for um so so that's that's a key part of
how I got to work with where I am um up
until 2015 um I had a pretty average
Shob as a computer repair person I was a
computer technician um in
2015 um I was pretty fed up with my
lifestyle I wasn't happy how I was doing
so I was seeking for a change um I was
already somewhat into Bitcoin and I was
like yeah I'm going to go fulltime on
this so I went full-time into ethereum
ethereum was an emerging technology that
it was really hard to understand way
harder than it is today and I spent the
next three years 2015 16 17 18 um
learning about ethereum um and and again
it was a pretty steep learning c um I'm
a high school dropout so I'm not a
computer technician or any of those
super
fancy um educated uh ethereum people and
by
2018 um not only I have achieved
diminishing
returns in um what I could learn but
also the ecosystem was in a pretty
unpleasant situation 2018 was right
after the Ico Bubble Burst and and
ethereum was in a very ugly bottom um
prices were coming down DBS weren't
working the road map wasn't coming
together so that takes us to our next
slide on which I plan on explaining
quickly why in 2018 I I studed ethereum
um in 2018 I gathered a couple friends
and I convinced them on building an
application on ethereum that can do
something that you couldn't do with any
other technology that was for me a way
to show that ethereum wasn't just the
technology for speculating with
financial assets or for gambling or for
criminal activities there could be
things that you could build with
programmable block chains that really
solve problems that people have better
than any other technology and one
obvious problem back then and still
today is that these days in our digital
lifestyle we don't know nothing um all
the information in your iPhones or
Android devices and in many computers
it's stored on the cloud and you're
subject to certain policies and you
don't have ownership of that information
and it's very common
that if it's no longer a business for
your provider to uh serve it or host it
they will shut it down or they will
change the terms or or they will start
churching you and one platform that's
been subject to these issues was for
sare for square was a a web CH app that
you had in your phone and when you went
to a bar or a restaurant you checked in
and you got a little collectible now the
little collectible wasn't on a
blockchain it wasn't yours and when
Forks Square decided to change Serv
buiness model people that had thousands
of Collectibles were left in the dark so
I was like why don't we build an
ethereum application on which these
little Collectibles are nfts and because
they mined on a blockchain they IM
mutable and you have them forever and
they have all the qualities that nfts
have like like authenticity and um
provenance and several other things that
don't really come to mind so we start
building this and it goes pretty well um
we launch in
2019 well I have explained this already
I messed up the um the order of the
slid um so that that's the little intro
of pup by the way there's going to be a
pup at the end of the talk so you better
get your apps ready and some other house
piing stuff that's pretty fun now this
um this way of coming up with the idea
of pup out of wanted
to show that ethereum was useful
technology that makes sense brings us
what it's the most obvious early organs
of a company which is the idea and how
to finance it if if we were analyzing
major companies companies has plenty of
organs like legal and H and revenue
sales purchasing Etc but in an early
startup you pretty much have someone the
founder or the group of Founders that
have an ideas and ideas are extremely
cheap like like they are time do so
ideas are pretty much worth nothing but
when you match an idea um with a little
source of financing at least enough for
the founder to come by then you start
having the
embryony situation of an early startup
and this is mostly what I want to what I
want to call to cover today because um
we could talk about the whole the whole
day start about the startups but in the
web three space we've been seeing and we
continue to see extremely exotic ways of
financing because of tokens and the
possibility of creating crazy
speculative
mechanisms and although some of these
mechanism for fin financing companies
are fascinating and
awesome they are
at the same time what
make a starting a web tree company
pretty much a suicidal Mission um
there's only a handful of cases of
successful startups that had completed
the cycle that started with an idea with
some little financing and that
eventually completed a cycle and have
become successful sustainable profitable
buiness business most of the crypto
companies these days big and small are
running on either extremely handwavy
models or they have launched tokens and
they are still somewhat holding up or
maybe they are holding up really well
but normal business that check the boxes
of a business that makes sense I'm not
sure I can count to 10
so I was talking about the different
models of financing and of course we are
going to talk about uh tokens but let's
get um first to the easier ones to
explain um bootstrapping web three a
startup um it's a model of financing
that I recommend a lot this is pretty
much the founder of the founding teams
running it with their own money not
taking external capital and seeing how
they could do it and this is a very
valid model um many Founders um work
full-time at something else and then the
render start up on the side and only
after validating whatever ideaa they had
or finding enough traction they decide
to transition to something else that's
not bootstrapping so bu trapping um it's
really easy to explain is pretty much
not taking external funding the founder
Carise the burden of figuring out how to
pay the bills and the bills in web3
startup are extremely expensive for a
bunch of reasons that we don't have time
to cover then um there's another
alternative for financing and we going
to talk much about them because I don't
think in this day and age it makes sense
but it's traditional VC um traditional
VC it's an extremely developed uh
model it's been running for more than 20
years there's thousands of VC companies
but in
practice and and this is an unpopular
opinion but traditional VC has nothing
to do with crypto um crypto startups
have a degree of uncertainty that just
doesn't fit the model of traditional
Venture Capital traditional Venture
Capital has some um formulas and and um
some models and time frames
and many companies have
applied in crypto I don't think it has
ever worked I don't think it will ever
work the only crypto companies that are
financed by traditional ventor Capital
are pretty much not Crypton native
companies like the could be
custodian um custodians or financing
services or compliance or legal or KC
that kind of is maybe could qualify by
traditional BC um but in my personal
opinion um if you are building a
business that qualifies for traditional
Venture Capital uh go for it the content
I'm presenting here might not be too
useful for you um but surely the point I
want to make clear if you are a crypt
native company building a crypto native
business model it's highly unlikely the
traditional Venture Capital works for
you and traditional BC may want to
believe that it could work you are going
to waste your time and now I'm going to
skip for a second uh crypto Venture
Capital because that's the
hardest um the hardest one to grow and
explain and I'm going to explain the
grants and exotic financing um because
that's underexplored and it's a very
viable model for aspiring Founders these
days as sping Founders these days when
they have an idea um they have pretty
much the three options I mentioned
bootstrapping which is probably not
viable unless they have lots of money or
some money um crypto Venture Capital
which I don't recommend unless they're
extremely sure what they are doing and
then there's this grants and exotic
financing grants and exotic financing
means there's plenty of organizations in
crypto that have more more money than
what they know how to spend this can be
Doos they can be foundations they can be
individuals and there are plenty of
individuals there are plenty of whales
that you may meet at a conference or in
a hallway or in a local Meetup and you
present an idea and you're like yeah if
I had $50,000 I could build this this
and this and this happens more often
than not there are even some success
stories of companies that is staring out
of Grants or this kind of financing and
have grown to eventually raising
Millions from BC so Grant and resting
financing it's a very valid and very
honorable um way of raising capital for
an early web3 startup that I absolutely
recommend and then and I left it for the
last um item on the four models that I
presented it's traditional Crypt BC
unfortunately traditional Crypt
BC has evolved naturally I don't think
anyone specifically wanted to go that
way
in a perverted
model of um greater
fools there are plenty of highly skilled
with plenty of social skills and
abilities investors that are meeting
founders with ideas in need of financing
and they will convince them or they will
promote them and help them do a token
Finance comp company and that's pretty
much a dead
sentence
it's a minimal chance of long-term
sustainable success that a Founder uh
gets
when they sign a deal with a VC that
expects a token there are so many highly
computed mechanisms that start to play
that even if the business makes sense
and it grows and it checks all the boxes
they typically burn the founder out um
Founders burn out it's a a pretty
pervasive um condition in this industry
and tokens make everything 100 times
harder so
um my recommendation is that first time
Founders avoid BC even if you believe
your idea is crypto BC even if you
believe your idea is great um only Puro
Crypt VC if you have a solid plan that
really checks the boxes and doesn't have
the classical hand
wavy um um models like yeah we are going
to race here and we are going to ship
this and eventually we are going to
launch a token and the token price will
pump enough that we are going to have uh
so much money to continue Building
without worrying about Runway that's a
success stories for vs and I don't blame
them but it's this thing that I call it
a suicidal model and a Deb centers for
Founders um eventually the
model um of Crypt BC when the regulatory
landscape gets better may have a second
shot and it would work but in this
context on which tokens can't do profit
sharing or any kind of Revenue sharing
or tokenized
Equity
um everything token govern whatever or
utility token or all those things they
are ill fate they are not worth pursuing
and it breaks my heart I met some uh
some Founders this week I I I've done in
my career over 200 Investments so I must
have I must have talked with a thousand
Founders it breaks my heart when I meet
a Founder with a good idea full of
enthusiasm that is about to sign a term
sheet and do pretty much this Devil's
pack that's going to drain that energy
um so again my recommendation is unless
you are extremely sure and well advised
and well contained on what you what you
are signing up for just
chill and continue your crypto Journey
because right now the EOS system and
everything around is such a mindfield
that your chances of survival are so
little that the trade off the the risk
reward ratio is not worth it um now I
don't have have much time so I will come
up with a couple before the questions
with a couple housekeeping items um I
plan on doubling down on the contents of
this talk in an upcoming conference I
don't know which one is going to be um
but hopefully what comes next after this
we will cover sometime in
2025 um of course I'm I'm very keen on
answering questions but I also want you
to know that because you came and listen
to all this rant that I had prepared
um you're going to be part of a pup that
we will all share and that pup can be
minted um using two mechanisms one it's
a secret word that you just Ty in the PO
up and that secret word is Collectibles
the other one if you don't have the PO
app is that QR code which I'm going to
try to scan now if you don't mind
this poab can only be minted while we
are here it looks like mine is minting
um but then there's going to be another
po uh for those that are watching the
live stream or the recording which is
going to be for sale for 01 e or
something with the proceeds going to the
nonprofit Foundation it's taker so I'm
going to get to the other slide and I'll
leave it for a few
seconds um this is called an Airship uh
and it Plains where to set the funds and
the PO that you will get and some other
fun stuff this is not particularly for
you to read it's mostly so it is on
video and the last housekeeping item
which is a fun New Lounge that we are
doing uh
today it's a shps minting um this is a
way for minting a power bound to a
geographical location this one is
configured um for anyone that's on the
range of 7 kilom from this venue so I
encourage everyone to do the scan
location button in the PowerUp get that
really fun PowerUp and hopefully one of
the all the MS randomly picked um is
going to win one e um so with that I
think we can move up to the
questions all right awesome awesome
let's go to the Q&A you guys we have the
QR code on the on your right side and
send him the question whatever you have
question question for him are you ready
for the question I am all right let's
go so we can have so many question here
and if you already have some question
that people ask for that you can just
upboard
it anyone I mean he did really great
presentation right there's no question
for him at
all all right don't be shy yeah and and
you guys have have the p app apps don't
forget to use the scan the location and
you can get the p app like from Bangkok
here right yeah and of course I'm
planning on being around the venue um so
if whatever you want to talk send a
question can you send a question to this
one so people can can see the question
too so you can use the camera to scan
this and you send the question through
the
screen is that working
all right one second maybe we can get oh
my okay his microphone's right
here oh who want to ask a question see
that guy okay uh just a logistical thing
how do you choose um like how do you do
the randomness of the function to pick
the winner of the one if like is it
chain link is it onchain are you using
any hand I love this question
uh you know why I love it because we
have worked really hard for the system
to be probably verifiable um we didn't
want this to be like yeah he has one so
we use a product called uh po. fun po.
fun is an open source software it's not
set yet you can check it out but it's an
open source software um on which um the
system gets all the poops ID and those
IDs are tickets for a raffle and at a
given time there is a little super basic
formula um that uses the gas usage of a
series of log and when the number of the
gas usage matches the hash or the number
of whatever the ticket was uh that's how
it makes a leaderboard and I think it it
does like knockdown system so it's it
goes knocking down people and the last
standing winner gets a priz um we
specifically wanted the system to be
probably verifiable and credibly neutral
because otherwise why could we do it at
all
all right we have like a lot of question
so we have about two minute a little bit
so let's pick a few question you can see
down here yeah how to ask to the VIS
that ask for token I think if you don't
have a very good answer for why your
product needs a token you have nothing
to do with tokens and you just have to
accept that you shouldn't take funding
from that BC and this is extremely
painful but I am uh pretty
straightforward you don't need to work
with BCS that uh want the token even if
that means that you cannot run your
startup if your startup cannot be run
without a token if you cannot get
financing without a token you probably
shouldn't push you it um tokens are
useless not at all tokens are a
fascinating cordination instrument I
expect tokens to create a revolution in
human cord
scale it's just that in this day and age
with the regulatory constraints you
cannot use tokens as means of
financing um what are the best and
conventional ways a Founder can
fundraise for an idea or an MVP they
have um the easy ones it's a larger L
the larger THS of el like carbure mon
optimism and there are many more mantel
it's another good one they have huge am
of money they aren't afraid of spending
if you have an idea you just need to
come up with a minimal expression of it
something that can be built with 50,000
100,000 200,000 and if the idea is good
they will love funding it uh you didn't
tell the story of how po was funded oh
this is not a secret I funding it myself
uh po when po raised money for the first
time I was already several million
dollars down in in uh in spending and
even after we raise VC money I continue
sing more and more money it's impossible
to run a company that doesn't have a
token and and goes at the speed of web
tree without a really deep pocket uh so
so again this is something that needs to
be known for an aspiring founder we have
one more EXT expensive we have one more
extrait for you so you have a lot of
questions so we have one more minute
extra for you guys thank you um when po
talken we have no plans for a token um
if the regory landscape changes a lot
maybe one day we reconsider it but it
doesn't look like it's
changing
um what's the business model of poab
poab has two sources of revenue um one
it's Enterprise Partnerships uh we have
plenty of companies uh that hire us for
helping them do preious visal
Collectibles this company services is
like mercedesbenz American Express
Porsche Goldman Sachs Swift and hundreds
others and similarly uh we also make
money by individuals that buy their
mindlinks and they pay
$25 per 100 pups and that's working
pretty well the market is really small
there's like 10,000 people in crypto
that can appreciate PowerUp well so we
don't make that much money with that um
but we expect this model to scale very
nice once the market picks up um AR a
good option yes definitely ancient
investors are in the category of exotic
funding so I certainly like that um
follow me on Twitter to see where