Foreword

An Somewhat Lenghty Introduction

Hello there.

Hello there.

With today (April 25) being my birthday and subsequently having completed 27 rotations around the sun, This is a good time as any to launch this.
This is going to be the beginning of something new that I’m starting up and to explain what going on, this is an introductory post.

Starting from the next post, you will begin to read my prewritten posts. There are quite a few posts written already and the goal of which is going to be documenting my journey into a new domain. Why am I doing this? Simply put, It’s a form of being accountable, while also being transparent in the process of doing this.

What is ‘this’ that I’m referring to?

Becoming a “1 man Indie Business” in the space.

What experience do I have or what makes me an authoritative person to not only talk but actually build? To put it succinctly, nothing much. I’m not even a programmer or developer by trade. That’s not the entire story, however.

I consider myself an advocate for the crypto space and have made a short career here having worked as a PM for a company worth over $1b. At this point, however, I also need to explain most of the events that have happened up until now.

Turbulent Beginnings

I graduated from University at age 24 with a Masters's Degree in Behavioural Economics in December 2019, with job offers lined up from one of the “Big Four” (Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG, and PwC), a boutique investment firm and a hot fintech based in London to start in the Summer of 2020. This would give me some time to think about which job I ultimately went for, travel and generally unwind before starting my professional career. As you may have figured out with the timing & dates, Covid was just around the corner and when it did hit, it didn’t have plans of going away anytime soon. Every single one of those companies ultimately pulled their offers and I now had no certain future. If you’re from the UK, you will most likely have heard of the “Fast Stream”. If you aren’t though, it’s the UK Government’s way of hiring civil servants very early on in their careers or directly from University.

I applied to this program in September/October of 2019 as a potential “safety net”. The way this process works essentially takes 9-12 months between multiple aptitude tests, interviews, assessments centres and a final selection board interview along with security clearance also needing to be done. It was always supposed to be something I drop for a career in the private sector.

Well, with the other options falling this became the only option which I needed to get. One thing to also note, the fast stream is a very popular scheme that people apply to and each year there are only around 1,000 roles that open up. I think the year I applied the total number of applicants was between 65,000 - 75,000. To stack the opportunities even more not in my favour, I picked one of the most competitive programs to enter; Diplomatic & Development Economics. Traditionally, they only open up 20-30 places a year and they have the highest number of applicants for the role. If I remember correctly, the success rate for getting this is 0.3%.

Anyways, each task was completed and I keep on getting further until I reach the Final Selection Board. As I chose economics, there is one extra assessment centre to test specialised knowledge and how you would tackle real problems. This can range anywhere from de-escalating political instability in a third-world country to making a framework to approve sustainable housing projects in an underserviced part of the country. This came and went and I didn’t hear back from them for months. Usually, you get a yes or no response in 2 weeks, but I heard nothing for 3 months. This had turned into another failure and having put nearly a year into this now, to say I was dejected would be an understatement.

Or so I thought.

To my surprise (which I found out only after I was hired), there were headhunters from various governmental departments at that assessment centre to assess specific candidates for their needs and there is a system in the backend to choose them for their team. I was apparently wanted by 3 institutions and that’s where this delay came from. While I can’t say which ones they were or which I ended up joining, I ended up choosing the newest of them and was one of the first members to join this new team. In doing so, I was also one of the youngest people in the entire department with the seniority I had. For context, the person who was closest to me in age for the same rank was 15 years older. Anyways, whoo! My first big boi job secured! (I’ve had part-time jobs before and have continuously held one since when I was 17/18)

Start of my professional Career

It was through this role initially that I heard about the HM Treasury (UK’s finance ministry) was putting together a team or was in the very early stages of some sort of digital currency; this is what the UK CBDC turned out to be and was only revealed a few months back with their research. At the time though, it was an early project and I requested (successfully) to help that team with this.

Yup. The CBDC monstrosity which all the governments are pushing and everyone knows is bad, I was part of it very early on.

Ultimately, my naivety & ideals were shattered and it became obvious that this “currency” wasn’t going to be something that I could be a part of. Unlike what they were stating (which was to help normal people and bring them to a digital world), there was also a lot of power in controlling the “digital money printer”. The major stakeholders (Bank of England (Central Bank) among others) with sway didn’t want that. Any and all proposals that I had put forward for a pure zero-knowledge system & full transparency were dropped in favour of “being semi-transparent for spotting potential fraudulent activity”. Again, we all know what that’s code for (Transparent for them, not for the public)

I got the offer to join the CBDC team full-time at a much higher ranking than my current role, and while that would’ve been a great career-defining moment which I could leverage into something with real power down the line, I ultimately wasn’t going to be an architect of that much control & oppression for the everyday person. To put an actual example to this, Why would a DIGITAL currency need to have limits in their “digital wallets”? You can track all the sources of where it’s coming from in this system anyways. That’s the entire point.

I decided to go back full-time to my original role and ended up being promoted to an “Economic Advisor” rather quickly (within 6 months) until I sold my startup.

Taking a little step back, while I’ve known about crypto since 2013 ( I even had an Mt Gox account), I never actively participated in it ( I did mine dogecoin from my PC in 2013 the week of its launch and traded game codes for DOGE) and was more of a background lurker until 2020. I witnessed the tail-end of DeFi summer while I was awaiting the response for my government job, it’s how I found out about NFTs (through Axie Infinity). Wanting to be more involved than I had been prior, I joined a bunch of servers and just started talking about my background and what I think of this technology sector as a whole and whatnot. Enough people took notice and after one thing lead to another, that’s how I ultimately ended up meeting my start-up cofounders.

Beginning of my entrepreneurial journey

Anyways, wanting to not risk this failing as most startups do and be left out to strung, I decided to work on this full-time without pay when I wasn’t busy with my day job. To cover my bases fully, I also did ask my boss(es) at the time if I would be in the all-clear to work on this after work as the blockchain industry may be a problem, but I got the all-clear from them. I operated as the head of Product & Strategy and acted as the COO of the startup; The link between technical (CTO) and commercial (CEO). We actually ended up meeting in person months after we finalised the sale and had built this thing entirely remotely between the UK and US members.

While I can’t go into too much detail on what it was, we essentially created an on-chain storage solution which would split up the image into multiple smaller images across multiple EVM chains and then used a validation system similar to Hamming code to figure out if a) any pieces were missing from the image and b) which was missing, so it could be easily fixed. This would make image hosting became a lot cheaper while being compatible with the ever-growing space. ETH blockchain space might be expensive but it’s a lot cheaper on other underutilised chains. Once deployed on a chain, it would always exist and if that chain became expensive to host, we deploy it on any other support EVM chain.

It was our take on NFT infra which would be decentralised and always exist without any centralised servers. Mind you, It’s still not out *yet* and as you read further, it might never ever be released.

We wanted to be the builders of the NFT infrastructure and try to standardise this messy space (which it still needs 2 years down the line).

This is what a normal day looked like for nearly a year:

• Wakeup - 7:30 am

• Workday Starts - 8:15 am

• Workday Finish - 16:30 pm

• Startup Hours Start - 17:30 pm

• Startup Hours Finish - 00:00 am

• Extra Research into Crypto/Startup - Until 3:30/4:00 am

• Then Sleep

Side Note: Don’t do this.

We developed, bootstrapped, tested, validated, improved & iterated and all the other things that come with the domain. When it became evident that we needed more funding to scale, hire engineers and give this an actual shot, We put our pitch deck together and approached a lot of VCs/Institutions and whoever else would hear us. These went somewhat well and we got commitment letters signed by a fair few too however they would only help us in the sense that they give us money and take a backseat for it all. No support in any admin trial manner, legal, advice or anything.

To put it plainly, we were the latest shitcoin they wanted to get in on early before others did and were ok with us going to 0 as they were that hands-off.

The acquisition was accidental too. One of the teams we pitched to liked our product a lot and made us an offer. Rather than investing in this in the form of a seed round, they would much rather acquire us and we build this out under their banner using all their resources while being with this team. This also meant I could focus fully on the startup and I could leave the government on a higher salary with more “freedom” to build what I want.

This wasn’t something we expected or prepared for, however. But we also ran into issues and one of the biggest ones was legal. We were having issues building what we wanted in the way we wanted and launching it in all countries (namely the US) because

a) the regulations/law for it don’t exist and
b) the majority of the so-called blockchain lawyers were also useless

The ones that did agree wanted to be on retainer for multiple 6 figures and this is prior to launch; post-launch was going to be its own separate beast. We talked to around 35 firms around the world and we deemed only 2 that not only understood what we were trying to do but also actually offer some good & useful initial counsel. So when this company made us that offer to be acquired, this was automatically solved for us.

We nearly closed the deal with Fenwick prior to the acquisition (Who to the best of my knowledge represents SuperRare, FLOW, Yuga Labs and a few others)

You would think this is a dream scenario, right? You made a startup and now you have a very hefty offer to be acquired by a big player in the space.

For full transparency, the final USD value of the deal was $13 million; We managed to secure an eight-figure exit. I did this when I’m 25 years old and this was my first startup too (which everyone says is doomed to fail). I had hit the actual jackpot. While in any other scenario, this is a dream come true, hold onto your horses.

I joined the acquiring company as the head of innovation; in the capacity of a Product Manager. The role had a relatively simple task. Create new services & products so the company would maintain its lead against both web2 and web3 companies. While I would spend a few months in an already established team to get my bearings, I would later move to essentially do what I did best, which was to innovate. For the time I was there, it was fantastic. The team, culture, colleagues & atmosphere was infectious however it wasn’t meant to last.

The way the deal was structured is supposedly “standard” in the tech space. That sweet $13 million we were offered, was going to be via their own company’s stock. This was going to vest relatively fast in 3 years (when the tech industry standard vesting is around 5-7 years), with a cliff of 25% being given at the end of the first year we worked there. They also would pay us salaries and in addition, we would get normal employee stock aside from our acquisition (which had the typical 7-year vesting). In addition to this, prior to joining, we added “protections” into our contracts which would stop them from any wrongful terminations of any of us; in our eyes, we were fully protected.

or so we thought at the time.

Beginning of the bad shit

For starters, being as young as I am and having only had one proper job, my leverage for the starting salary was low. The salary I ultimately managed to get was around $67k a year (Post Acquisition). For context, other PMs in the team were all above 6 figs a year. I didn’t have a lot of leverage because the UK traditionally has low salaries (compared to the normal Tech Salaries in the States) and as I was in the government, I was earning around $35k a year. Mind you, I am the head honcho for what I do, only reporting to my line manager for the beginning few months and afterwards directly to the CPO (Chief Product Officer).

I would get raises as I hit my targets in the role and the next raise would put me at just over 6 figures, and that was only a year away. The equity deal however when vested would give me just under mid-7 figures (pre-tax) when it went through, so in my mind for that payout + promotions throughout my time here and a stable salary regardless of market conditions, this was an excellent trade for me for the low starting salary.

What ended up happening next was what I can describe as a kick in the teeth from a rusty & pointed metal toe-capped boot by prime-time Ronaldo, repeatedly.

We finalised the sale of the company at the tail end of 2021 and with my job being what it was, the notice period was 3 months. I ultimately ended up joining the company in January 2022. The bull was ending, and we all know how chaotic 2022 turned out to be as a whole with a lot of CeFi players going bankrupt. The company where I was ended up doing multiple rounds of layoffs due to “unstable macroeconomic conditions to survive” (same old excuses), and they ended up firing 90% of the product team along with all my team members (who joined engineering & design). They also fired many other teams of different products that they had also acquired for different segments.

While you would think our contract’s inbuilt protection would come into play here, right? It never did as this wasn’t a “wrongful termination”. This had nothing to do with our performance as they put it and the contracts protections would not cover this. Taking this to several lawyers outside, they all echoed the same thing; We were royally fucked.

As the team had essentially joined around the same time as me (give or take 1 month prior to me), no one hit their 1-year cliff date as well (and the employer wouldn’t give us accelerated vesting as this wasn’t in the “employee pot” but rather the “Acquisition pot” which had different rules altogether). It wasn’t limited to just our acquisition as well, a lot of the other acquired teams had the same thing done to them and they were screwed over as well.

That sexy 8 figure acquisition ultimately turned into less than a year of underpaid (taxed) salary. To help us “transition into our new situation” they ‘generously’ gave us 3 months of severance pay (which was taxed too btw). No considerations, no talking to leadership or anyone to present our case and no warning. I actually found out that I was laid off via Twitter and Discord where my friends were pinging me asking if I was affected by these layoffs when the news went live. I went to my laptop and it had been remotely locked; The same laptop I signed off from work 2 hours prior.

It’s just as messed up as you think it is. The bear market was (and still is) in full effect and this being my first cycle in the crypto space as a participant, while I took some profits, I took nowhere near enough as I would’ve liked due to mistakes which you can only learn by making them.

I’m also not gonna tell you which company I joined. I was feeling very blue after the entire ordeal. Here is a picture of my Lawyer Ok-ing this post for public sharing making sure I don’t say anything for overzealous legal teams to come back at me for sharing their shitty behaviour.

“You Good, bro”

This is something which you don’t ever get used to but you need to come to terms with it. While they laid me off in the crypto space, other big tech companies are also mass-laying people off and job search is going exactly as well as you would expect.

The thing which surprised me the most was that it doesn’t matter what you achieve or how fast you do it. If the job description says you need “3 years of experience”, you do not offset that building, scaling and selling a company for 8 figures in under 2 years. I had done something that very few people achieve and it lead me to a point where I’m now unemployable because of exactly what I’ve achieved so far; They all deem me a “flight risk because of what I’d achieved and in that time period.

I applied everywhere & anywhere and after 2 months of constant rejections, I’ve essentially hit my limit. If employers don’t see the value that I can bring to them, then I’m going to make my own value and do it in a way that helps as many people as I can. I’ve built & sold a startup once, I’m now going to do it again. I’m sick and tired of this situation and am changing this bullshit scenario.

God really has a wicked sense of humour and this is just me speaking out loud, but I think this has gone a lil bit overboard.

Back to the beginning

This brings us back to the first point, of me becoming an “Indie Business” in this space.

As you’ve read so far, more than a fair share of shit did hit the fan, but this also leads to something which I don’t see people talking about or doing at all. The crypto world is enamoured with sexy VC raises, buzzwords startups burning cash to acquire customers and everyone that isn’t a part of these engineering teams, is building their own influencer brand, being a writer, or in the case of web3, even artists. Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t fit in any of those boxes and neither do I want to. For as small and not as developed as this space is, the overarching “indie” scene is hidden and not prioritised because that’s not where the eyes are.

I would like to change that. Not being able to program/code I feel has held me back and it’s gotten to the point where it’s hindering my ability to be self-sufficient. Ideas are worth nothing in relation to what their execution on them is. Having worked with really talented devs in the past, I can’t always rely on them as they have other projects of their own and are in demand for their skills, which is fair enough to them. I would like to transform into a “Digital Renaissance Man” as Dan Koe (and many others before & after) explains it here

This blog/substack will act as that journey of 0-to-1 but in a new manner. I develop my skills in public while also learning what I need to learn to be successful. While I have some ideas, I need the means to create them and that’s how this series will start. The good, the bad & the really bad and you can view my journey throughout. I can’t say who has had the same experiences as me, but I can certainly shed light on them in the hopes that it helps others out there.

The goal here is simple. Documenting my journey from building to learn to then building to earn. There is a lot of secrecy and a lack of information about the start-up/tech world, and I want to try and change that, one post at a time. I have no idea how it’ll turn out, where I end up or even if I even succeed, but there is no giving up.

Another thing which I think will be new here is that I want to build this publically in a pseudo-anonymous manner. It’s why I haven’t named the names of those I sold to, which VCs were ready to invest or anything from my IRL identity like where I studied. I built the Boffin Identity from scratch, and whatever I achieve here, I want to do it in a manner that is not related to my “IRL” efforts. What you see is what you get; A perfectly clean & public slate.

This is a risk & potentially a big one at that but the one thing that I can guarantee you is that while the risks I previously took didn’t pan out the way I wanted them to, I’m glad I took them. I wouldn’t be who I am without having taken them.

Hopefully, you join me in the journey, but even if you don’t, I’ll be here slowly building & writing away :)

There will be more stories & experiences shared as we progress, but for now, this concludes the foreword.

See you soon and welcome to the journey.

-Boffin