NickFriend: Jumbo Jet Territory: Drones Will Fly

Unconventional lessons I learned after 5x startups, half a billion in revenue, 24 years building companies from scratch, and an exit.

Starting with the FOUNDATIONAL:

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

1. Start with the End -

When you are still considering starting a business, it is crucial to understand what the end game looks like for the specific business you plan to start.

Know what you’re getting into before you start and potentially waste years of your life.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Are you starting a software company? Currently, software companies command a 7-10x revenue multiple on the private market for an acquisition.

This means if you build a software company with $3mm in ARR, the valuation could be between $21-30mm.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

On the other hand, a marketing consulting firm with the same revenue would command approximately a 9x multiple on EBITDA.

Let’s say you are running this business well and have a 15% EBITDA on $3mm revenue, which is $450,000. $450,000 x 9 = $4mm.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Two businesses with the same revenue, - but vastly different valuations and potential outcomes.

This information alone will get you to think differently about the type of business you want to build, and how you might approach building it.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

2. You can and likely should bootstrap (raise no funding, at least for a long time) -

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

This is your strength. This is also your weakness.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

"One of the mistakes people make is they try to go out and find investors first. If you look at some of the biggest and best businesses, they were started when people's backs were against the wall and they had no capital." - @markcuban

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Mainstream startup dogma wants you to think you need to raise money.

VC’s and entrepreneurs constantly brag about their funding rounds on Twitter and in the media, and you think you need to raise money too, that raising money is some sort of “win”!

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

When you raise money, you are buying time. If you 100% rely on organic growth, you are, by definition, going to end up with a small market share.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

It’s important that you see through this bullshit.

Look, your business really might need to raise money but the vast majority of businesses absolutely do not.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Unless you are building a unicorn business with a winner-take-all market (i.e. Facebook) then you don’t need to raise money.

And if you don’t need to raise money, you should not raise money. You can grow organically.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

That's right. Your business model works for companies that are not going to 1B and beyond. But for a company that will go to 1B to 100B, I don't see how you skip raising money.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

This is your wisdom. This is so true. Even for those who raise money. You don't do this and you fail even if you raise money. I once met a dude in NYC who had raised his "seed round" based on connections and six months later still had no employee.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

It means taking one step at a time as the business requires it, and not spending beyond your current means.

You only spend on the marketing your business can afford and that it needs right now.

You only build the features the product needs right now to make more sales.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

And then you go generate the sales you expected.

More often than not, things will not work, and you will need to adjust. And that is the whole point.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

You should be adjusting your business rapidly to create deeper product-market fit before you spend a bunch of money trying to scale it.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

You are so very right about product/market fit. You are not so right about scaling. I feel like you are saying all the right things about jumbo jets. But you are shying away from rocket territory. And jumbos are great!

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

Hence, growing organically will get you closest to reality when building a startup.

The closer you are to reality, the faster the feedback loop will be, and the faster you will implement accurate decisions.

Which brings me to my next point.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

There's reality, and then there's imagination. Building products that the market does not even know it needs and will not tell you it needs in market research and customer surveys.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

3. There is an extremely low probability of building a unicorn - if you do your research, there are maybe 30 unicorns built in Silicon Valley a year.

That’s it. This means the numbers are tiny in other cities.

Do you really think you are building one of these businesses?

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

This is the gist of it. You are Mr. Jumbo Jet. You are not Mr. Rocket. And it is your integrity that you don't pretend otherwise.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

Do you understand what your life will be like if you really are building one of these?

Did you know that founders who take early VC money and go public most often only end up with ~ $30mm or so on average, after dilution? I didn’t know this either until I looked into it.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Building a company of that size and scale and only ending up with that outcome sounds like a disaster to me because I know I can meet or exceed that all on my own with a smaller company and 90% less the headache.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Yes, I’m trading off the possibility of becoming the next Facebook or AirBnb.

But I already knew that upfront because my business was not playing in the winner-take-all game anyways.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

It is crucial to understand that VC's business is to earn a high return on their fund.

They have an obligation to their investors, no different than you feel if you raise money.

Therefore, they will push you as hard as possible to go for broke to become a unicorn.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

They will push you to risk going out of business, at the expense of building a stable yet smaller, profitable business!

You need to know that this is the game.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

@jasonlemkin explained this in his post on "Why VC's need unicorns just to survive." https://t.co/CpEEgBQqY0

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

So - if you build the $5mm or $10mm business I have described above, it would be a losing situation for a VC.

They will never encourage you to take this path even though it is the high-probability-of-success path for your business.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

There are only a handful of 1T companies, more of 100B+, many more of 1B+, way, way more of 100M+, and waaaaay more in the 10M-100M range. Building and running a 10M company is a grand success. Don't get me wrong. In your case, maybe you need to be pushed into the 1B+ range.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

4. You must ignore the sensationalized stories from the media about fundraises and about founders becoming billionaires -

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

You don't have to be the next U2 (or YouTube). You can play your town and earn a living. That is the beauty of the new creator economy. You can build a small software operation. And that will be the vast segment of the ecosystem.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

I have friends whose companies were literally dead when they managed to raise a bit of money to keep the company alive, or they fire-sold it and the founders made no money on it.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

The next thing I know there is an article on TechCrunch sensationalizing the story as if it were a success! A big acquisition! A big fundraising round! Not quite.

The story isn’t always what you think it is. So ignore all of this bullshit to keep your head straight.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Instead, it’s the stories about founders who bootstrapped and built $15-50mm businesses and retain maximum ownership are the ones that should be told and sensationalized.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Now that is a blog idea right there. A blog focused on Founders who do that. That is a large ecosystem. Many are doing it.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

It’s the story that is achievable for a much wider range of people, and frankly it’s the right path for the vast majority of people.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

That is like saying to kids, very few will end up in the NBA, but if you learn to read and write and work hard, you will do well in life, and that is most of you. The overwhelming most of you. Great advice.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

But have you noticed these stories are few and far between?

A few folks on twitter like @sweatystartup will offer this alternative viewpoint.https://t.co/NeG6eT9e8Z

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

And while I am a huge fan of Peter Thiel, and I’ve listened to almost every public speech he has given, you also may need to ignore a lot of advice from his book “Zero to One” and other information sources like it.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

You should write a book, 100 To 110. You got the material.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

I’m just using him as an example but you will see info telling you to build a “monopoly business” and that “competition is for losers”.

— NickFriend.eth (@theNickFriend) January 12, 2022

Having said that, I think you should not take your own advice. You have plenty of cushion. Maybe you should shoot for the moon next. And be okay if you fail. But you should at least give it your best shot.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

Is that an ape NFT that @VitalikButerin makes fun of every other week in your profile picture!? LOL ("What has become of Ethereum!")

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

Or kick back and relax and angel invest in the next unicorn. I have one.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

NickFriend: Jumbo Jet Territory: Drones Will Fly https://t.co/k5IWGR9KZ4

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 19, 2022

Skiff Mail

Today, we're launching Skiff Mail: Privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted, open-source, Web3-native email. https://t.co/mX1NYk6xUf

Why is Skiff Mail such a game-changer? 🧵💌

— Skiff (@skiffprivacy) May 17, 2022

Since the mid 1990s, email has brought an unprecedented degree of collaboration to the world - allowing scientists to share research, families to stay in touch, and the professional world to function.

— Skiff (@skiffprivacy) May 17, 2022

Yet even as email has been adopted by billions of individuals, most large mail providers still have woeful privacy protections — allowing users’ messages to be read, processed, and stored by third parties.

— Skiff (@skiffprivacy) May 17, 2022

Skiff Mail shifts the paradigm with simple and intuitive privacy. Besides Skiff never stores unencrypted copies of any messages sent on Skiff Mail - and every Skiff-to-Skiff messages is end-to-end encrypted, what does that mean for you? 👇

— Skiff (@skiffprivacy) May 17, 2022

Open source mail client → https://t.co/WOErAaZWCe

Fast and free full-content search

10GB of free storage

iOS, Android, MacOS available from day one

— Skiff (@skiffprivacy) May 17, 2022

And on top of all of this, Skiff Mail lets you sign in, send, and receive mail using your crypto wallet. For the first time, send directly to an ENS address using Skiff.

— Skiff (@skiffprivacy) May 17, 2022

Skiff has lots of exciting new features on our roadmap. Sign up for Skiff Mail today → https://t.co/mX1NYk6xUf

— Skiff (@skiffprivacy) May 17, 2022

May 17: Li Jin, Paul Krugman

Web3 Is Our Chance to Make a Better Internet Web3 proponents envision an internet in which users can wrest back power from a small number of extractive, centralized institutions, and in which everyone with an internet connection can participate on a level playing field. ....... But Web2, the current era of the internet defined by companies built on proprietary data (such as Facebook and Google), started with a similar promise of empowering individual creators and removing intermediaries — a promise left unfulfilled. Now, standing at the precipice of a new era, we should ask ourselves: Is Web3 actually democratizing opportunity? And if not, how can we better design platforms and governance systems to promote fairness? ......... A just society is one “that if you knew everything about it, you’d be willing to enter it in a random place.” .......... Web3 presents the opportunity to build an entirely new internet — indeed, entire new economies — from scratch. .......... questions about impacts and externalities were left too late in the design of Web2, with consequences ranging from election manipulation to widespread vaccine misinformation. Some indicators show that early design choices in Web3 are replicating or compounding the inequalities of Web2 and the real world. ......... If we want Web3 to make good on the promise that it can materially improve the situations of everyone within the ecosystem, and not just a handful of people at the top, we need to design it according to principles that will make that happen. ........ it’s acceptable that doctors earn more than janitors, because that compensation differential incentivizes doctors to pursue their careers and ensures that janitors (and everyone else) will receive quality care if they fall ill. ......... Before the internet, access to participation in various industries was limited by a handful of gatekeepers, ranging from movie studios to music labels. The internet and social media platforms made it possible for anyone to participate in content creation and distribution, and therefore enabled more creators to succeed. ........ Gig economy platforms bring in billions of dollars in revenue, while the frontline workers who deliver their services earn poverty wages and are shut out of decisions that impact their lives. Social media companies and media platforms earn billions of dollars in ad revenue from algorithmic feeds that elevate misinformation and damage vulnerable communities. Platforms’ creator funds typically reward creators with the most views and engagement, leading to the concentration of income among those who already have ample sources of revenue while failing to broaden access for less-well-off aspiring creators. And we’ve written before about how the internet’s original sin of not enabling payments led to the extractive, advertising-based business models that define the Web2 economy today. ........ But it’s not just Web2 platforms that fail to reach Rawls’s standard of justice. Web3 in its current form is also exacerbating inequalities. Web3 projects commonly issue crypto tokens as digital representations of value. Early versions of token distributions have led to unsustainable dynamics wherein speculators are rewarded instead of those who are adding consistent value to networks through actual usage. ........ strong parallels between some current non-fungible token (NFT) projects and multi-level marketing schemes, in which later arrivals to the ecosystem are structurally unable to achieve the same level of success as early adopters due to system design. ............ We’ve seen how both the Web2 internet and early iterations of Web3 fall short of ensuring a free, fair playing field that benefits the least advantaged. ....... Unlike in Web2 platforms, with a cadre of founders, executives, and shareholders holding all the power, Web3 communities will be controlled by their members. ........ Early governance structures have largely instituted token-weighted voting, with the result being plutocracies that are not all that different from the boardrooms they’re meant to be a corrective to. ....... Web2 platforms coerce user loyalty through network effects and closed data, and exiting a platform leaves creators without access to their audiences or content. Web3 affords the opportunity to build systems that foster user agency and self-determination through true digital ownership, open data, and networks that are built atop open-source software. ......... A core philosophical tenet of Web3 is that there are more ways to provide value to an ecosystem than through capital — and furthermore, that value should be able to be earned, not just purchased. This is a radical departure from the existing structure, where those with capital earn more through investments than people can earn through work — resulting in a widening wealth gap over time.

gm Permissionless pic.twitter.com/58BVV3xQB3

— Li Jin (@ljin18) May 17, 2022

What a DAO Can — and Can’t — Do

it remains unclear whether, and how, DAOs might supplant traditional organizational structures.

..... In November 2021, a group of individuals formed a legal entity that bought 40 acres of land in Wyoming. ....... The purchasing group included approximately 6,000 people. They met via online discussion platforms such as Discord and bought the land not with dollars, yen, or any other fiat currency, but instead with cryptocurrency. ........ the strangest part of this deal is that no one runs the entity that purchased the land — it doesn’t have a CEO, a board of directors, managers, or other decision-makers ........ DAO (pronounced as “Dow,” like the Dow Jones Industrial Average) is the acronym for decentralized autonomous organization. A DAO is a new type of digital-first entity that shares similarities with a traditional company structure but has some additional features, such as the automatic enforcement of operating rules via smart contracts ......... No single person exerts control in the way a conventional CEO or senior management team would. ....... Like most other Web3 technologies, DAOs are currently in an experimental phase. The forms, structures, legalities, and use cases are all still emergent. While the United States has seen tens of millions of corporations registered over the past two centuries, there are fewer than 5,000 DAOs worldwide today ........ fewer than 100 have assets of more than $1 million ....... Once the DAO has established a core set of rules and embedded them into smart contracts, it needs to raise funds. DAOs typically raise funds by issuing tokens, a form of digital currency tied to the smart contract. Sales happen through public or private offerings, and the money raised goes to the DAO’s treasury. The tokens represent a form of ownership but are not the same as traditional equity and do not function as investment contracts; rather, they are akin to contributions that bestow governance rights but not ownership. Most DAOs are not directly owned by anyone in the traditional sense. ........... Information related to issues such as currency transactions and internal decisions is available for everyone to see on blockchain. This transparency forms the basis for trust among members. ......... An important feature of this process is that voting mechanisms are defined in advance and not easily modified. This differs from what happens in traditional organizations, where a CEO or CFO can ignore consensus when making a decision. In a DAO, the community votes on activities such as spending money. Although the scope of decisions that can be made this way is more limited than in a traditional organization, once everyone agrees to the rules, there’s no ambiguity or wiggle room in how they are applied. .........

The majority of existing DAOs are unregistered and have an uncertain legal status, and they are perhaps viewed as “alegal” rather than illegal.

........ Most jurisdictions around the world require a company to provide a unique name, a physical office address, and the name of at least one director in order for the company to receive its own identification number and be entered into the formal business register. .......... DAOs in Wyoming are considered a distinct form of limited liability company (LLC), which grants them a legal personality and confers a wide range of rights, such as limited liability for members. Without this protection, a DAO could be viewed as a general partnership, exposing its members to personal liability for any of the DAO’s obligations or actions. ......... CityDAO’s first investment (named Parcel 0) was the 40-acre plot of land in Wyoming. ........ It’s unlikely that DAOs will replace traditional organizations, or at least they won’t anytime soon. But their current shortcomings should be viewed through the lens of early-stage innovation: It’s not clear exactly what they will become and where they are most beneficial, but DAOs have obviously created a lot of interest and excitement in the Web3 community. Will DAOs take the place of traditional organizations for some types of group-level activity? Will we see hybrids form, where, for example, “normal” companies use smart contracts to make ironclad, irrevocable commitments to a constituency? Imagine using something like a DAO to let your employees vote on which philanthropies to support or users decide which features to incorporate in the next version of an offering. With Web3, there’s plenty to imagine.

https://upstreamapp.com

This is very well written and is an important conversation.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

joining a DAO in the 2020s equivalent of moving to SF, joining a startup, getting an iphone 15 years ago

— d.mirror.xyz 🪞 (@Iiterature) May 13, 2021

Landed a tech position for $156k as a senior consultant implementing two SaaS (Salesforce & HubSpot). When I got on this project we had major blockers that pushed our deployment date to the end of the summer. Well, we've successfully deployed today. #BlackTechTwitter

— ERICSEN🥀 (@wricecake) May 17, 2022

Just a scratch really

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022

Yep https://t.co/Low9BbdOda

— Brandon Brooks (@OfficialBBrooks) May 17, 2022

This transcription isn’t precise, but gets the gist of it

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022

We are hiring, aggressively.

Find where to apply yourself. It’s the first test/filter. 😂

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) May 17, 2022

Crashing Crypto: Is This Time Different? In any case, as we look forward, the value of cryptocurrencies will have to rest on their underlying economic uses, which are … Well, that’s just the thing. I’ve heard many discussions in which crypto supporters have been asked exactly what economic role crypto can play that isn’t more easily and cheaply achieved through other means — debit cards, Venmo, etc. Other than illegal transactions, in which crypto may sometimes offer anonymity, I have yet to hear a coherent answer.

May 17: News

Just your daily reminder if you're looking for jobs at startups you should bug your VC friends! I have way more visibility now than I did as a candidate across sectors / stages + it's one of the (IMO) few ways VCs can actually be helpful...

— "Leigh Marie" Braswell (@LM_Braswell) August 25, 2021

"what does being a PM at a 🚀 startup look like?" https://t.co/1V8lZKAzFA

— "Leigh Marie" Braswell (@LM_Braswell) April 28, 2022

You live and you learn.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

Startups are a game of endurance where founders usually work much harder, for much less, for years because they just love building.

— Andrew Gazdecki (@agazdecki) May 17, 2022

A life well lived .., pic.twitter.com/jQZByRoUHS

— Prabhakar Bagchand (@PBagchand) May 17, 2022

Elon Musk should just use one of those buy now pay later programs to acquire Twitter. Simply pay $1B/year for the next 44 years.

— Douglas A. Boneparth (@dougboneparth) May 17, 2022

Have you tried just calling them?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022

I’ve been thinking about this too. For all of us conditioned to think that economic growth was the top priority, that the Party’s legitimacy rested on that performance (hence the phrase “performance legitimacy”), is it time to re-examine our priors? I’m not sure yet, but maybe? https://t.co/lwymOuPcL7

— Neysun Mahboubi (@NeysunM) May 17, 2022

My biggest fear is that web3 will turn out like IoT in 2014

— jim (@0xJim) May 17, 2022

Always shipping. Congrats team!! https://t.co/whMSDEbA7T

— Aditi Shekar (@aditishekar) May 17, 2022

I'll be live on CNBC in 4 minutes. You have time to buy those put options before I tank the markets.

— Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) May 17, 2022

One-eighth of the world😅😅 https://t.co/b7Ow19TEbx

— Olivia (@Olivia07710) May 17, 2022

My personal angel portfolio is made of of startups that are predominantly women + POC led, and while the overall distribution of venture dollars is truly maddening, it means that many of these founders are already used to doing far more with less.

— Ashley Mayer (@ashleymayer) May 17, 2022

I am in. Email sent.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

Free game:

Email Chris with a screenshot of your favorite Chris Dixon tweet + why it resonates 🍃

Here's one of the best imohttps://t.co/91xI1w6l7Z

— Steve (@SteveGagz) May 17, 2022

Do you pay in pretend money and low quality jpegs or actual an actual salary?

— Grogu🐢 (@Cayotick) May 17, 2022

That is the trolling he is talking about. :)

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

do you want to hire my boss?

— cybervikian (@cybervikian) May 17, 2022

this link doesn't work

— pesola.eth 🌟 (@Gary_Pesola) May 17, 2022

it's an email address, not a link

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

O

— pesola.eth 🌟 (@Gary_Pesola) May 17, 2022

Twitter claims that >95% of daily active users are real, unique humans. Does anyone have that experience?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022

tired of airplanes.

— miten sampat (@miten) May 17, 2022

When I try to predict the market or make quick buck on a trade I always loose money.

When I believe in a stock and buy+hold for the long term I always make money.

I keep forgetting and relearning this lesson all the time.

— immad (@immad) May 17, 2022

Have a ton of friends using iTalki, affordable one on one lessons with a native. Honestly if your goal is to be conversational, you’re wasting your time by not doing live talk sessions

— Alex Milligan (@itsalexmilligan) May 17, 2022

Brian Armstrong: Coinbase Wallet

Our self custodial wallet, @CoinbaseWallet has come a long way.

It’s now the most downloaded mobile self-custody wallet in the US. And you don't have to migrate anything over to use it - the same seed phrase can be used across multiple wallets. Here’s some highlights 🧵

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

1/ Let’s start with trading. Live price charts, combined with seamless DEX trading powered by the @0xproject API make it easy to access thousands of tokens.

The DEX feature supports trading on Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, and Avalanche. pic.twitter.com/hlR95oLMw6

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

2/ Speaking of networks, Wallet has best-in-class multi-chain support. Wallet “just works” on the top EVM chains like Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Polygon etc. No need to manually enter token addresses, RPC codes, block explorers.

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

3/ Our unified asset view makes it easy to manage your crypto and NFTs across all supported networks.

In addition to Ethereum and EVM-compatible networks, Wallet also supports Solana & SPL tokens. Support for Solana dapps and NFTs coming soon. pic.twitter.com/oK8inyG7ik

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

4/ We now have one of the best NFT experiences on both mobile and extension - we built a dedicated NFT Indexer so your NFTs on Ethereum appear in your wallet in seconds, not hours or days. More networks coming soon. pic.twitter.com/AUA2gKys5j

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

5/ The new DeFi tab makes it easy for you to keep an eye on all of your assets that are in DeFi protocols. pic.twitter.com/pvlSOSCe2C

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

6/ It’s critical that we make Coinbase Wallet secure and easy to use.

We added support for @Ledger hardware wallets to make it easy to connect to dapps with the trust and security of a hardware wallet. pic.twitter.com/vYr2OWMt9y

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

7/ It’s also easy to fund Coinbase Wallet with a debit card or bank account.

We recently launched Coinbase Pay and built it right into Wallet extension, meaning 98M Coinbase customers are just a few clicks away from funding their wallet and exploring web3. pic.twitter.com/qy57bcBsqN

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

8/ Try out Coinbase Wallet for yourself - it’s easy to import your existing self-custody wallet with a seed phrase, or create a new one.https://t.co/ppIvaIcWWh

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

9/ And check out our recent interview on @BanklessHQ https://t.co/ozk9NPImCG

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) May 16, 2022

Vitalik Butarin: Contradictions In Thoughts And Values

Thread: some still open contradictions in my thoughts and my values, that I have been thinking about but still don't feel like I've fully resolved.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my desire to see Ethereum become a more Bitcoin-like system emphasizing long-term stability and stability, including culturally, and my realization that getting there requires quite a lot of active coordinated short-term change.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my preference for reducing reliance on individuals and trying to build fixed systems that can stand the test of time and my appreciation of "live players" and their role in helping the world move forward.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my desire to see Ethereum become an L1 that can survive truly extreme circumstances and my realization that many key apps on Ethereum already rely on far more fragile security assumptions than anything we consider acceptable in Ethereum protocol design.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my love for things like decentralization and democracy, and my realization that in practice I agree with intellectual elites more than "the people" on many (though definitely far from all) specific policy issues.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my desire to see more countries adopting radical policy experiments (eg. crypto countries!) and my realization that the governments most likely to go all the way on such things are more likely to be centralized and not friendly to diversity internally.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my desire to see more diversity in interesting *cultures* and my realization that maintaining a culture that's distinct from the mainstream seems to often require *some* kind of insanity or artificial barrier or similar thing that I ideologically dislike.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my dislike of many modern financial blockchain "applications" ($3M monkeys etc), and my grudging appreciation for the fact that that stuff is a big part of what keeps the crypto economy running and pays for all my favorite cool DAO/governance experiments.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my desire for crypto to grow beyond finance and my realization that finance (incl payments+SoV) is still by far the most successful category of crypto apps, *especially* among third-world residents, human rights activists and vulnerable people generally.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my desire to maximally simplify the L1 and my desire to maximally simplify the whole ecosystem (as a simple L1 often "exports" its complexity to higher layers of the stack that users have to adopt anyway)

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Contradiction between my desire to be a positive-sum mediator figure that can be everyone's friend and my desire to stand strongly with good against evil those times when true evil is what we face.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Questions that can be easily resolved in the spiritual domain can feel impossible to resolve when technology is your only tool. Hire me to work on corporate culture. https://t.co/pc27jtNc1m

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

Michelle Bailhe: Sequoia: Crypto Winter

Crypto founders: if you’re staring at a lot of red right now and wondering what to do about it, here are some thoughts from Sequoia's 50 years of experience, adapted for crypto 👇

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

First, embrace reality. We’ve never been here before. Crypto has survived plenty of winters, but it’s never been through a global macro storm yet. Bitcoin was launched in the last global financial crisis of 2008. Crypto has mostly existed in a ~0% US interest rate environment.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

Over the last 14 years, crypto has grown tremendously. In prior cycles, it didn’t have nearly the level of complexity or variety of market players (individual & institutional) we do today. We've never had so much attention from users, developers, or regulators as we do now.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

So the fact is: We have never been here before. Yes, crypto has survived many winters and bear markets. Yes, this bear market will be similar, but it will also be different in some important ways.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

Perhaps you're a founder with a token down 80% LTM, or a last round post you fear you can’t clear, or months of runway left, or you’re wondering what may happen to your customer base… More doom & gloom is not helpful. But neither is hopium. What should you do actually about it?

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

1: Don’t panic, but do plan. This is the time for diamond hands, not necessarily on your personal portfolio, but of your company/protocol/team. You need thoughtful, decisive action this month, not this minute. Stay the course, but plan for choppier waters.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

2: Recognize the funding environment has changed. VC funding is no longer on tap. Control expenses accordingly. Several big crypto funds were just raised, so it’s possible crypto does better than tech, but it's also possible it doesn't. It’s not your fault, but it is your problem

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

3: Talk to people who have actually made it through a trough and come out stronger on the other side. They may be boomers! :) Most crypto cap tables are utterly devoid of anyone with first-hand experience navigating this type of environment. Ignore the investors who get jumpy.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

4: Ask hard and painful questions: First, do we actually have product-market fit? Many founders are product people, so asking this question is particularly painful. Emission-incentivized usage or grant-incentivized development masks product-market fit.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

5: Second, ask: do we have a sustainable business? "Token go up" is not a business model. Native coins for L1s/L2s to secure a network are a different story. But if you're an application and you've only funded your business through VC $ and tokens, you have planning to do.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

This doesn't mean turning on fees overnight, especially for network effect businesses or if you have plenty of runway. But you need to look at your runway and have a plan. Crypto/web3 is about better aligning incentives & rewarding users/creators - not denying the laws of physics

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

6: Invest wisely. There is almost always 10-20% of spend in S&M and G&A that can be cut. When it is, you end up more, not less, efficient. Most crypto teams are lean, but there is still likely excess spend or initiatives. Focus precious calories on the most important things.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

7: Keep your foot on the accelerator in core R&D. This was one of Sequoia’s most important learnings from '08 - trim elsewhere but double down on product. Put distance between you and your competitors. When you reach the other side, be the strongest positioned.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

8: Hire a great CFO. CFO is perhaps the most under-appreciated role in crypto. Honestly, I don't know why. A good CFO does not sit around and tell you not to spend money, they help you invest wisely. Get a great CFO ASAP.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

9: Chart a path towards sustainability. You need a path to a sustainable business without VC infusions or retail propping up your token. Look honestly at the time you think it will take you to get there. It may be >2 years. If you only have 12 months of runway, you need to cut.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

10: Seize the opportunity. Times of turmoil separate the wheat from the chaff. The strongest companies get stronger. As the weak collapse around them, the strong poach their best people, win over their users and acquire their IP & licenses.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

This is a time to extend your advantage and cement market leadership, but you need to survive long enough to have that chance.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

These lessons are from people who actually have operated & invested through several market cycles @roelofbotha, @Alfred_Lin, @carl_eschenbach, @dougleone, & the wise advice of @shaunmmaguire, @GuptaRK22, @gradypb, (**corrected**), @andrew__reed & more. All credit goes to them.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

These lessons are from people who actually have operated & invested through several market cycles @roelofbotha, @Alfred_Lin, @carl_eschenbach, @dougleone, & the wise advice of @shaunmmaguire, @GuptaRK22, @gradypb, (**corrected**), @andrew__reed & more. All credit goes to them.

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

These lessons are specifically from people who actually have operated & invested through several market cycles @roelofbotha, @Alfred_Lin, @carl_eschenbach, @dougleone, and wise advice from @shaunmmaguire, @GuptaRK22, @patgrady, @andrew__reed & more

— Michelle Bailhe (@michellebailhe) May 17, 2022

https://t.co/IAJ7zAEDTh #cryptowinter

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

News: May 17

I’m a bot & so’s my wife

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2022

Make something people want. The easiest way to test this hypothesis is to see if ur friends or acquaintances will use ur product. Instead of building for stranger build something for yourself n ur friends cuz then u can easily get the first users and test the product #startups

— manish kumar (@manishk04730288) May 17, 2022

How do we get more women to invest in funds and angel deals?? ✨✨

— Gale Wilkinson @Vitalize (@galeforceVC) May 16, 2022

Fund raising tip: don’t start with your top targets

It usually takes at least 5 pitches to iterate based on feedback and get comfortable so talk to less likely/desirable investors 1st

Once you feel like you’re in the groove move onto the investors you feel would be the best fit

— Hadley (@Hadley) May 17, 2022

🥟 pic.twitter.com/iZFYVpU4Mb

— Varia Bo 🎪 (@variainayurt) May 17, 2022

Real progress!! https://t.co/IrqezqLf8J

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 17, 2022

The best startups thrive in any market. pic.twitter.com/PMRh15yICG

— Andrew Gazdecki (@agazdecki) May 17, 2022

President Biden will welcome the Prime Minister of Sweden and the President of Finland to the White House on Thursday in a show of support days after both countries announced they would seek to join NATO https://t.co/O57wl64Jw6

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 17, 2022

If @Twitter wants to embed safety, civility, utility, integrity and beauty into the bird app they should embrace #Bitcoin and #Lightning⚡️.

— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) May 17, 2022

When I read about the ‘algorithm’ of @terra_money it sounds just like a crypto version of a pyramid scheme. Investors were promised 20% returns backed by a token whose value is driven only by demand from new investors in the token. There is no fundamental underlying business.

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) May 17, 2022

Startup time management in three simple steps:

1. Write down your todo list
2. Trash it
3. Do the absolute most essential thing for the survival of the company

— Amjad Masad ⠕ (@amasad) May 17, 2022

Li Jin: Web 3 Content Creation

wait, what?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

Just as web3 networks can leverage tokens to bootstrap growth and overcome the cold start problem, a new playbook is arising for web3 creators to leverage tokens to bootstrap audiences in advance of actual content creation.

— Li Jin (@ljin18) May 16, 2022

Examples:
- @imdanielallan's crowdfund on Mirror, which raised $142K in ETH to fund his EP from 87 backers
- @madrealities's NFTs which allow holders to influence various aspects of the show
- NFT projects which raise $ via token mints in advance of bigger project roadmaps

— Li Jin (@ljin18) May 16, 2022

Using token incentives to bootstrap audiences & fund content creation is the opposite of the web2 creator playbook, in which creators had to slog through (often) years of free content creation to accumulate an audience before eventually monetizing it

— Li Jin (@ljin18) May 16, 2022

Now that creator lifecycle can be flipped to
1) monetize through tokens (fungible or NFTs)
2) thereby bootstrapping audience/evangelists
3) fund content creation
4) reach an even bigger audience & achieve content-market fit

— Li Jin (@ljin18) May 16, 2022

I invite you to be my first patron. https://t.co/Ibusw7YuC4

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

https://t.co/Ctw6f2ceQM Li Jin: Web 3 Content Creation

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

Li Jin: Web 3 Content Creation https://t.co/Ctw6f2ceQM @MishadaVinci @alexahirschfeld @thegothamgal @katie_haun @emiliemc @SherylCrow @reshmasaujani @JeniferRajkumar @aditishekar @KathrynParsons @Alicebentinck @CarleneJackson @hubmum @morganaside @belindaparmar

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2022

Shorts creator @itslisanguyen took a food journey to five of the most popular locally-owned Asian restaurants in New York. Follow along on Lisa's APAHM-inspired food tour and learn how she got her start on YouTube! https://t.co/no4dJpJ0eB

— Susan Wojcicki (@SusanWojcicki) May 16, 2022

Misha Da Vinci: 11 Web 3 Gems

Uber useful.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 15, 2022

How many of these founders do you know personally? You should join my team, if only as an Advisor.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 15, 2022

Web3 is an unstoppable movement that is changing how the world works.

Here are 11 web3 startups you need to know:

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

1. Eco App @eco

The traditional financial system is structured so that banks win and you lose. ❌

Eco is an alternative to that. It's one simple balance that lets you spend, send, save and make money at the same time. ✔️ https://t.co/JnUWzhas5y

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Eco is not a bank, a checking account or a credit card

It aims to replace them all. 👇
https://t.co/mVuvHIyWU5

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

2. Celo @CeloOrg

1.7 billion people do not have access to a bank account and are prevented from improving their lives. ❌

Celo is building a new and better kind of money that creates prosperity for everyone. ✔️ https://t.co/ETbPN7xB1S

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Celo: Building a Regenerative Economy by @packyM

'It’s about a new financial model that includes and regenerates people as individuals with unique talents, communities as economic hubs, and the health and biodiversity of global ecosystems.' https://t.co/K7cTO5mOgD

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

3. Goldfinch @goldfinch_fi

Current banking systems exclude vast numbers of people. ❌

Goldfinch is a decentralized credit platform that allows anyone to borrow or lend. ✔️ https://t.co/YEvDwukTnJ

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

The thinking behind Goldfinch from @sall

'Global economic activity will migrate to crypto, making every transaction programmable.'https://t.co/7ZoWukh1I3

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

4. Filecoin @Filecoin

The world's public and private data is controlled by a mere handful of corporations. ❌

Filecoin is a decentralized cloud storage network that makes a more efficient and secure web, free from corporate control. ✔️ https://t.co/TzU9NVCtFc

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

How Filecoin is the Airbnb of data storage 👇 https://t.co/rvNt9WmoHL

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

5. Nym @nymproject

Privacy was not built into the fabric of the internet and your online activity is exposed, even with encryption. ❌

Nym is a new privacy infrastructure that makes the web safe for you and your data. ✔️ https://t.co/F2Pswtr56l

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

How Nym tokens work 👇 https://t.co/RCqdJfRFmv

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

6. DeSo @desoprotocol

A handful of social media companies control and profit from the content you create. ❌

DeSo-based social apps give you full ownership of your identity and content, and the control of your value. ✔️ https://t.co/0qETQJU8ip

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Why DeSo will work better than ads-driven social networks 👇 https://t.co/JCO1kKuFRt

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

7. Diamond

Web2 social networks control your content. ❌

Built on DeSo, Diamond is a monetizable social network, where you have ownership of your content and identity. ✔️ https://t.co/O1IEdISaNb

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Apps like Diamond will be the new standard in social👇

Any post you create on Diamond can be minted as an NFT.

Instead of "Likes", you can send users real money with tips.

Your profile and social graph can be used across any DeSo app.

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

8. Syndicate @SyndicateDAO

Traditional investment models leave many out of what gets built in the world—by whom, for whom, and where. ❌

Syndicate democratizes investing, allowing everyone to raise and invest capital, and design the future. ✔️ https://t.co/5dAPl28Lye

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Syndicate in action 👇 https://t.co/OvqfxMBKSf

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

9. Union Finance @unionprotocol

Credit systems are often discriminatory and profit banks not borrowers. ❌

Union creates options for building and accessing credit—from friends, community and more. ✔️ https://t.co/DlICKceCrz

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Introducing Union. The global, permission-less credit… by @JacobShiach https://t.co/5Mpe0endi6

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

10. DAODAO @daodao_io

Raising funds for a new business idea has always been challenging. ❌

DAODAO is a new crypto investing platform that allows anyone to raise money for an idea from anyone in the world by setting up a DAO with a few clicks. ✔️

https://t.co/LmWyCSzbOT

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

A breakdown on how DAODAO will work 👇 https://t.co/JNRjImnCNN

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

11. Braintrust @usebraintrust

Traditionally, workers were tied to offices and jobs. ❌

Braintrust is the gig economy controlled by workers, where you're free to design your work and your life. ✔️ https://t.co/ldhCdH8mzl

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

More on how Braintrust takes the risk out of freelancing 👇

'You are empowered to work the way you want, with whomever you want, with new options to give you stability in your freelance career.'https://t.co/56vTvsKkEV

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

That's it, folks. I hope this was useful.

If you enjoyed it, please share by retweeting the first tweet.

I write about the ideas, trends and people shaping web3 and our future. You can follow me @MishadaVinci.

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Wow @MishadaVinci, thank you for mentioning @desoprotocol @daodao_io AND @UseDiamond!

That’s phenomenal :)

If you ever want to discuss what we’re doing with DeSo and the many different apps that are building on it, I’d love to chat!

DMs open, oh I’m also a big fan of @MavenHQ!

— Ed Moss (@mosstache) May 15, 2022

Appreciate you 🙏

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

Precisely! :)

— Misha (@MishadaVinci) May 15, 2022

I have no idea how you keep up with all this so effortlessly.

Thanks for helping the rest of us hone right in on what matters most.

— Dave Kline (@dklineii) May 15, 2022

Great list, thx a lot @MishadaVinci! Most I know, some I will research. 🙏 (My favs atm being Filecoin & Celo)

Sent you a dm with a few links bout what we currently do, maybe you like it.

🖖

— Cryptowally.eth (@CryptoWally2) May 15, 2022

Look forward to your content each week. Bookmarked!

— Marsden Kline (@marsdenkline) May 15, 2022

Misha Da Vinci: 11 Web 3 Gems https://t.co/D9kjX5jCvd

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 15, 2022