Navigating Crypto Cycles as a Builder - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2023

all right thanks for uh spending some time here a lot of things going on so many stages uh and I think uh also another great thing to point out is like super good to see new faces in the bear Market um and hence the topic today how do you survive uh building uh through the bear and the bull because crypto is very cyclical uh a bit about uh what this panel is for what this keynot is for right so this keynote is really for anyone who are either building you know in different functions or even leaders or founders of different protocols or projects or even investors right because investors also need to understand how you know companies are run to really advise and and see what to invest in um yeah so pretty much you know a quick background about myself before we dive into all of this uh studied economics at UC Berkeley uh went into track five before dining the the rabbit hole of crypto um so after track five I spent some years at tencent doing product management I was gonna go to MBA uh but then dropped out of Harvard Business School and then started Alpha Finance um which also is in D5 and now we're also building Stella which is also in D5 so we've been building in DFI since 2020 and continuing to build so we've been through the bull and the bear and now I'm gonna share you know some tips and tricks of surviving all those Cycles um yeah a bit about Alpha finance and Stella we built our leveraged products in DFI so back in you know the good old days of bull market the peak usage of our product was around two billion dollars uh we built on a lot of evm chains um and also invested by our investors globally so building in web3 right it's very very different from web2 and I'm sure you all know if you're already like in web3 um because it's very cyclical and the cycle is very fast so if you're in web 2 you know let's say a tourism industry right like it goes through cycle too but not as quick as like two years so which means that you have to be very very you know adaptive of when and how you build in the bull market and also in the bear so this is not only just for Founders but also let's say if you're in BD in Tech in marketing you have to really understand how you know cyclical or how Cycles actually impact uh building in in crypto so building in Bull right I'm gonna first start from what do you focus on um and then go into like hey like what does that actually mean what do you do right but as a focus you really have to drive value capture value because there's going to be a lot of usage in both and there's like very minimal and Bear right so you don't have to focus too much on you know the back office the culture leave that on the MVP side right so everything that's related to driving product usage capturing the value whether it's treasury management uh tokenomics so all of those are should be like the main focus um and just keep repeating it's going to be really really tiring uh for like two years but then it's Gonna Save A Lot of you know time and a lot of uh runway for you in in the bear so what that actually means let's say if you're a leader whether you're leading a team or leading a company uh what that means is that you have to move really really really fast in the ball so when you move really fast it's not that you're like doing tons of things that may not you know matter but you have to really understand what are the things that really drive the needle move the needle in your team in your company and spread yourself thin in a sense that you may not have to you may not you know just work on the Partnerships let's say with you know one partner right you have to spray yourself in doing a lot of Partnerships uh capturing that Partnerships through let's say for example tokenomics or doing different uh campaigns with the marketing so they're going to be a lot of things that you have to really focus on um and as a leader final thing that's really really important is because they're going to be a lot of things that you have to work on because they're going to be a lot of usages right so you have to be really good at painting pictures and connecting the dots because they're going to be a lot of uh your informations overload in the bull market so you have as a leader you really have to communicate to your team communicate to your community how it all you know really combines to the bigger picture um and in the end uh after let's say bull market kind of slows down you actually see how all those pictures were really kind of combined uh last Point here on building in bold is how do you grow the team how do you maintain the team because it's very the key part I've seen a lot of the projects or company that you know have uh have to close down or have to really significantly pivot because they manage the team very differently and and I would say wrong uh wrong strategy to manage team in the bowl so you should not scale to your team too quickly because in the bull market there are going to be a lot of opportunities right and those opportunities should actually be more of you as a leader leading it and your team you know helping you to execute it the reason I say that is because a lot of times you know it's really hard to have a new Joiner like let's say people who have you know not haven't gone through the last book or last player to actually know and evaluate and drive the strategy right so which means that you have to try a lot of the strategies even though it's different areas you as a leader but your team itself they have to be really agile versatile and executing a lot of things for example in business team they need to know growth marketing product you should not have you know three different teams in in the non-tech so that's you know an example right now shifting gears to the bear which is like what uh we're here uh in this market and maybe more uh relevant so three main things uh to focus on one is surviving which means that a lot of the let's say cleaning up thing that you kind of postpone in the bowl this is now the best time to clean up whether it's back office team Finance accounting so you know do that first and then second is stay relevant which is really really important uh I've seen quite a number of companies or projects and they think that oh in Bear Market we have time they're gonna take some time to build which is good but they also need to you know continue to stay relevant whether it's engaging with the community continue to show that there's a long-term Vision continue to be here networking uh and pretty much you know once you continue to stay relevant once you're in the bull market you're gonna come back a lot stronger and finally prepare for the ball this is more of like on the product and on the on the you know project side which is you have to really build for the future because the current has minimal Demand right like let's say right now there's quite minimal demand for on-chain usages for gaming usages or even you know trading in general so you cannot build for the current market but you have to kind of Envision how the market is going to be Envision how the demand is going to be uh and then kind of apply that to your product and imagine okay let's say for example in view file right like personally I think the new wave of demand is going to come through rdb ways the real world assets so as a Stella as an alpha Finance how do we actually link that to the product that we're building and make it such that we can also benefit from that growth of you know the new demand that we envision uh as a leader in the bear really really tough uh there's gonna be a face of restriction you have to go through because you might refocus on a certain thing there might be you might let's say over higher um but I think it's something that you really really have to uh another thing that's also great is also that you can have a lot of time to like up skill yourself and your team because in the bowl you're going to be focusing so much on driving value you may not you know get trained or even like aware on how you actually manage Finance team or treasury management so this is a very good time to really up your skill on all things and finally really to grow the network because a lot of the builders were still you know building in the bear or even investors investing in the bear these are the ones who you have to you know kind of time and and evaluate who you should hang out and like network with but a lot of these people will be very very influential and driving over of the key things in the board because a lot of the times it's coming through experience investing and building in the bow and bear to actually combine and build a lot better in the next pool so I would say networking and the connections we have in the Bear right now is going to be a lot more important than a lot of the connections that you get in the next pool uh finally uh Beauty and the bear on the team side so this is the good time to actually weed out not the right fit because I'm pretty sure every team every company will have people with not the right fit they might come to crypto uh having different you know expectations or alignments um this is the time that you need you know the people who really believe in your company and your team because Vermont is really tough and it's a really long you know time as well so hire the right people uh fire the wrong people restructure and the training part becomes really important uh in the bear because as you recall in the bull market right I said that the team mainly becomes more of the Executioner like helping you as a leader uh to to execute a lot of things because you don't have time to to to train them how to strategize you know different areas but this is actually in the bear Market the good time that they can get trained for example if you know in the bull market someone in the BD team was executing now this is a good time for them to you know connect to other D5 protocols other projects and actually come up with a new BD strategy because a lot of things in the bear Market move a lot slower so very good environment to actually train your team um finally morale and culture so all the things that you kind of ignore in the bowl on the team side is actually going to be a lot more important in the bear um so which means that you have to really keep the team keep the company together uh a lot of the thoughts outside will also impact your company so as a leader you really have to importantly have the right people but also at the same time making sure the culture and the morale is very good and yeah I actually want to leave some time for questions because I'm pretty sure a lot of the content there maybe just general generic I want to customize a lot of the things to the audience as well so if you have any questions um not related to this or maybe even related to the D5 Market or what My Views are on you know when the next Bull is going to be also you know not Financial advice feel free to ask it's a very open uh panel anyways um but yeah I think that's pretty much all for now and and please open the floor for any questions um I've been wondering like what um is the main uh distinction between xrp and xlm for a while now so yeah I mean I think a lot of it becomes uh well actually especially in crypto right there are two main things uh one is the tech itself but one is the narrative um and I think a lot of the projects they have uh different strengths right for example if you look at you know Ada or even you know polka dot they make good they may be better at on the narrative side and I think that's the same for for ripple as well I mean they're very good at narrative and so their check is really strong targeting more on the institutional adoption cross-border payments so yeah and I think especially if you saw the recent news on on SEC case in which report is now you know getting more uh actually freed up from from the legal case so I think a lot of the adoption is actually going through Ripple and their Network in Asia is really really large yeah hi just wanted to ask especially from your experience with Alpha you went from fourth quarter 2020 not much going on to billions in the next six eight months how does that affect your psych your psyche you know you you probably never had to deal with you know from zero to billions in half a year how does that affect your morale you know you wake up every morning watch that thought process like it's a Founder yeah I think one key thing that that I learned and really important and luckily I have like good um Network around me so I learned from them as as I grow as well is that you never like let's say like once you succeed you never always be successful especially in crypto because things change very quickly like news Cycles you have to continue to maintain you have to continue to rebuild there are a lot of new protocols all the time so we never think that we're you know successful we never think that we're big because we need to make sure that we continue to build for the future whatever achievements we have in the past is is great but we don't anchor to it so I think that mindset really helps a lot and by having that mindset like it also doesn't pressure yourself too because you don't always think that okay you know this is what you have and then and then how do you you know um build even more yeah foreign then if that's the case then thank you so much for being here uh good luck with whatever you're building um thanks for spending the time thank you [Applause]