Muzz, welcome to Early Days.
Thanks, Carr.
I feel like it's long overdue, man.
It's good to hang out with you.
Thanks.
I spent my whole life chasing you
When will you come?
Come on to me
Yeah, so I'm just excited to get you on finally on early days.
You're the first venture capitalist in Bitcoin that we've had on the show.
so um thank you for being the first one to share all the alpha
first but not the last i'm sure but for the people at home who don't already know you because you're
like one of the most popular people i think in the space i think everybody knows you
you have a one you're like me you have a one name uh persona it's just muz so what uh who are you
was and yeah what have you been building in Bitcoin for the past I guess you've been like
in the space for like a decade right or over a decade or something like that yeah it sucks I
should be a billionaire you know it's a hard thing it's a hard thing to live with I know Marty Malmy
has the same problem actually probably a lot of people do but but yeah I've been in Bitcoin for
quite a while. Definitely, you know, following it and playing around with it. And I had a bar in
New York City. We had the second Bitcoin ATM at the time. That was a lot of fun. It was pretty
much a homemade unit. And yeah, that was that, you know, that late 2013 era, 2014, 2015. That was a
pretty fun time in Bitcoin. My biggest regret, I guess, is that I didn't work in Bitcoin back then.
I didn't just quit everything that I was doing and just dive in full time. That would have been
a wise move. But yeah, I discovered angel investing along the way. There weren't really a ton of
Bitcoin opportunities that I had a chance to invest in, but I invested in a lot of other things,
like way too many things and just learned as much as I could about early stage investing.
And in case you can't tell, I do not have that Cornell MBA.
So, you know, learned by experience and doing my own thing and a lot of small checks, a few larger ones.
And then eventually in 2021, I decided to just focus on the Bitcoin space.
So I was in a group of, I mean, I was in probably 400 syndicates, right? And a syndicate is just a group of investors. So one syndicate might be ex-Facebook people or ex-Doordash people or ex-alumnies from a network, ex-Googlers.
and they kind of present opportunities to the group.
And I was in a bunch of those and some friends kind of motivated me to start my own
and just focus on the Bitcoin space.
There really weren't too many, I can't think of any actually,
syndicates or group of investors that were just focused on Bitcoin.
So I put a lot of effort into that and I raised a pilot fund.
That was our first fund, just friends and family and a lot of small checks that we cut out of that.
And we built up the syndicate alongside of it to become the world's largest Bitcoin focused angel investing network and put a lot of effort into just getting awesome people in the group.
That's kind of the name of the game for the syndicate is it doesn't really matter how much people are investing or how often they're investing.
Yeah, we need investors, too. But just getting really awesome people in the fold and getting their eyes on deals and being able to help out when needed with companies.
That was always like the main goal in the beginning. So that was 2021. And I've been doing that full time ever since.
yeah i think that's one of the that's one of the coolest things i think being i guess running
plub lab must i don't think i've ever told you this but like there's like two there's like two
people that come up to me um around like whenever i go to conferences um around the world or
wherever wherever i'm at they either tell me two things they either say i'm invested through plub
lab through lightning through through um through the lightning syndicate or they say i know you
through snacker news life it's either one of those two things and it's and it's it never fails dude
and and i always feel like a sense of like uh-oh like a duty whenever they say that through the
syndicate it's like i'm like oh okay and um and yeah you're right it's it's a it's crazy how
popular or like how, um, almost like a sense of like, yeah, yeah. What do you, what do you think
that is? Like, what do you, what do you think? Why do you think there's so, why do you think you
have such a loyal base of like, just what do you call them? Like members, investors, like,
why do you think that base is so, um, just so loyal to, to yeah, to that? Yeah. I think a term
that most people that's appropriate is backers, right? You're a backer, even if you're not
investing. And of course, it doesn't cost any money to join. But we call them syndicate backers.
I guess technically, based on the actual legal structure, you would refer to them as LPs.
But it's not really the same as an LP, right? An LP maybe invests in a fund or invests a larger
amount in something like that. We just call them syndicate backers because you get to decide what
you want to invest in with your own money on a deal by deal basis. Right. So you might get two
deals. You might get a deal for, you know, name a company, right. Name a company that you don't
really like. They're not your favorite or for whatever reason you can't invest in. And you
might just decide not to. And then you get one for Stacker News or Pleb Lab or whatever. And then
you want to invest a small amount. And it's really just a great way for people to get started
dipping their toe into the, you know, kind of the angel investing world. And it goes both ways.
You know, I've had a lot of founders, like what you just said, where, you know, you meet people
and a lot of people come up to you and, oh, I invested in your deal or, you know, I'm an investor.
And you're dealing with a lot of small checks. You know, most likely you're not dealing with
somebody who invested 50 grand through the syndicate into Pleb Lab. You're dealing with a
lot of, you know, one to five thousand, maybe a couple of ten thousand dollar checks.
And and it's a good way for you to meet the people who are supporting you.
And also, you know, when you have something that you need or you have an investor update,
you know, maybe you're looking to roll out a new product or something.
You know, you can communicate with all those people and and kind of ask for some help, you
know, which is something that that I'm learning now that I'm in the operator seat more than
the VC seat, you know, it's easy for me as a VC to be like, car, you don't send enough investor
updates, man. And here I have to send them and I'm like way overdue. And I'm like the procrastination
king for like the past six weeks. I just been like every other day, it's like, okay, we're gonna get
this done. And, and I haven't. So it's, it's harder said than done, you know, especially when it's not
like, you know, you're playing whack-a-mole as a founder all day long. You know, you've got this
and that and this needs to be done right now you know i have to do this right now and those investor
updates can wait a little bit yeah i i apologize about that i don't send nearly enough um i'm
always waiting for teresa to send me over some deliverables and then she's like oh this week and
then i'm still waiting for teresa to send me some stuff um but anyway but i it's kind of like it's
kind of like one of those things like if it's if i have usually when i send an investor updates like
I'm sending over bad news.
I mean, I shouldn't do that.
But like, anyway, long story short to get off of that.
But yeah, I hear what you're saying.
I think ultimately, I think the syndicate model is a really interesting model.
Because yeah, like you said, it just shows that there's a lot of interested people in the ecosystem
that really do care about what you're building.
And I think that's what's so unique about our ecosystem
than other ecosystems.
What have you learned through,
just, I guess, just before we go into the other things
that you do, Muzz, but like just through the,
just through your time, like investing
and like working with founders and all that stuff.
Like what have you learned just from that, Muzz?
Like, is it as hard as it looks
compared to like some of the fiat investing models that are out there?
Is it harder?
Like, yeah, just can you share any kind of alpha that you've learned?
Yeah, so, you know, real quick on the founder sort of perspective
with the updates, and it is easier said than done.
You know, after people invest in your company,
they're only there to help, you know, especially at this early stage.
So by not updating them and by not asking for their help, not like you're calling them at work and bothering them, asking them for intros, but leveraging the people who've invested in your company is so important.
And it's hard to do, right?
Because there's a million other things to do and you don't think about it.
And if there's really no great news, do you really want to bother with an investor update?
And I know that the way that they teach it in YC, for example, is basically no matter what, you're sending something out once a month.
And it doesn't have to be a million charts and graphs and all this kind of, you know, you think about an investor update.
So I got to sit down and I got to make all these fancy metrics and KPIs.
And, you know, it can just be like stream of consciousness, couple paragraphs, you know, here's what's going well.
Here's what isn't. We'll be here. This is what's up.
We brought this person on. We let this person go. Hey, and by the way, we're rolling out an affiliate thing. If you think you might know of somebody who can help, whatever. Right. And that's it. You know, we always overthink these updates like it's just got to be this monumental thing. And I can give you two examples. I have to sing their praises. I have to call it out. But like, say, Thunder Games, Des, every month, an update every month.
And it doesn't have to be 50 pages and a Notion link and here's the expanded and whatever, just every month.
And, you know, Oscar from Fountain, he actually went through YC previously.
And I'm not sure if that's a habit that he picked up there, but he's very consistent on his updates.
You know, Geyser too.
Every, you know, every month nearly they kick something out.
So you and me, Carr, we can learn from these people.
All right.
We're going to get it together.
All right. You know what? I'm, you know what? You got me now.
Now I'm going to start doing it every month and you're going to be annoyed by it.
Okay. So it's kind of therapeutic too.
I'm going to start doing just two paragraphs.
You're unconscious. Here we go. All right. Setting the calendar now.
But your question was like, what was learned or, you know,
is it easier than it looks?
I can't remember exactly how you just phrased it a second ago.
Yeah. Just, just kind of like, what do you think?
because you have so much experience doing this and you've been through so many different
bear markets like like like yeah like what what like how is how harder how easier is it compared
to the fiat i mean i feel like i know it's probably that much more difficult to raise
and to even get off the ground doing a syndicate and now you're doing thunder thunder and that's a
whole nother beast because of the complexity with the sec and and then and then like yes dude just
talk about the pain points, the hassles, the complete bullshit and just like, yeah, that man.
So we, we, so we talked about this on stage somewhere. I can't remember where it was. I
think it was at your top builder event or somewhere, but it is definitely unique and
refreshing in the Bitcoin land that, uh, Bitcoin founders and companies, people like yourself or me,
or, you know, I mean, name it, name people, name people that are out there, right. Something like
Azteco or even Keon, like, you know, satsback.com, like they're in it. Like we are in it. We could
have no money and we're still going to find a way, you know, and that resilience of like not going to
die. I've never once seen that in the fiat world ever. And they are the first one. They're the first
ones to send out a letter. You know, it is with a heavy heart that this robotic lawnmower
startup that I worked so hard for, you know, just didn't make it. And there's no way that like the
runway goes and they are just so passionate about what they're doing that they're just going to find
a way. And that's definitely unique in the Bitcoin space. It's probably a lot easier for a non-Bitcoin
company to raise funds. I mean, the reality is, you know, anything AI, you know, get your trust
and will done with AI or examine your legal documents or AI for HVAC or who the hell knows
what's out there, you know, but any of those type of things, even the stuff that I really don't like
to invest in like biotech, you know, and we're in a stage two of caring God knows what and all this
kind of things. Man, they really raise a lot of money. And it's just tough for a Bitcoin company
to raise money. It's challenging. It's challenging. And you would think like, oh, Bitcoin, you know,
just hit an all time high and everything's great. And that's not the case. It is still very,
very hard for Bitcoin companies to raise money, I have to say. And hopefully that'll change and
even out. You know, it was all about the crypto, crypto everything, not much Bitcoin. And that
changed to where now there's more Bitcoin and a little less crypto. Some of those crypto people
have came over those VCs But man it is still really hard to raise money Conversely the one other thing that I say is fiat companies or should I say non startups are very good at dissolving their company
So that's like there's a process, right?
Like we have X amount of dollars.
We've decided this isn't going to work anymore.
We're not going to do this.
There's a process to unwinding that company or I'm sure to wind down the company.
And, you know, if somebody invested 100K, they might get $94 back, but they're getting $94 back and the company is being dissolved.
And the founder or CEO is writing some type of letter that basically says what happened.
And that to me is the most valuable part.
Like, it's okay if your company fails.
It's okay if you fail.
I mean, Travis Kalanick from Uber, like, that was his fourth startup.
Like, he was 0 for 3.
Like, blew millions and millions of other people's money, you know, before he started Uber.
So, people fail all the time.
It's just, like, failing in the right way and giving those learnings of, like, here's what we learned.
Here's what we thought we were going to, here's what we wanted to do.
Here's what we realized.
Here's where we tried to pivot.
It didn't work.
And now we're done.
And we hope to see you again.
And the fiat companies are really good at that.
Okay, they know how to fail.
And the Bitcoin companies are terrible.
Where there's like no update, no information.
Who knows if they actually wound down the LLC or what happened with the final accounting or anything.
And they're just like gone.
They just don't do that in the proper way.
So that's one observation that I've had from both sides of it.
Do you think it's hard because the baseline is Bitcoin's appreciation value?
Do you think maybe that's why it's so hard to raise?
Because we're just pit against that from the get?
Do you know what I mean?
Like we're just always valued against whether to invest in the Bitcoin company or to just buy Bitcoin instead.
The hurdle rate?
Yeah.
The Jack Mahler's 60% CAGR or whatever the number is.
I mean, it's always there.
I mean, we're teaching that in startup school right now.
Like, we're teaching that to early stage founders that are coming in.
We're saying, hey, this is the baseline.
Beat this.
Like, you've got to beat this as your revenue.
Like, when we're being upfront about it, we're not, like, bullshitting them.
We're just saying, hey, this is what you have to beat.
just because we want them to know the truth.
We don't want them to discover this, you know, a year, two years in,
like I had to, like, you know, like everybody else had to.
So do you think that's probably the,
do you think maybe that's why it's a little bit harder?
It definitely comes into play when you're thinking about where to invest,
that you don't really have it top of mind for people
who don't eat, sleep, and breathe Bitcoin all day long.
If you're the typical LATAM-focused investor,
I do SaaS deals, or I'm a fintech person,
or whatever they're doing,
they don't put everything they do
up against what Bitcoin is going to do.
They know this world, and that's why they're more likely,
you have much less resistance.
They're not answering the question of,
why would I invest in your...
widget company when I can just buy Bitcoin. They're like, what? Who's talking about Bitcoin?
This is something totally different. And we're dealing with people who put everything against
Bitcoin, whether I should go buy this hamburger with fiat dollars versus buying Bitcoin. The meme
that guy's got the card table and the TV with Sailor on it, and he's sleeping on the floor,
you know, that type of deal. So I definitely think that comes into play when you're dealing
with Bitcoin centric people because they put everything against it. Right. Why would I buy
the S&P? Why would I do this? I mean, everything they do. Why would I buy this car with cash when
I can finance it and buy Bitcoin? You know, everything comes down to acquiring more Bitcoin.
And I don't think that you run up against that in the traditional with traditional investors
from the other side.
So I think there's definitely a part of it with that.
But, you know, Bitcoin treasury company is kind of like the talk of the day and everything.
But if you think about it, you know, what we've been investing in, we're kind of like
the OG Bitcoin treasury companies because I don't know of a single Bitcoin company or
startup that doesn't have Bitcoin on their balance sheet.
So, you know, we're kind of like the pioneers of this world, you know, let the sats flow, as they say, you know, or whatever. So there's definitely indirect exposure to Bitcoin's appreciation that you get with these type of investments that you will not get, period, with something outside of this world, you know.
And I don't think that that is really talked about enough, you know, and and maybe not on a day like today, because, you know, the price is down and it's over and pack it up and, you know, life's over.
But, you know, but normally when Bitcoin is going up, your your runway is extending, you know, and yes, it goes both ways.
But we've had a couple of portfolio companies who raised during, you know, they put a sizable amount in Bitcoin and that has been single handedly the best thing that they have done.
Not only that they're they're doing well as a company. Right.
But it just kind of multiplies their success and likelihood of success because they've implemented a Bitcoin treasury.
So I think that's something that not everyone really thinks about is that when you invest in, you know, just off the top of my head, you know, like the orange pill app.
I mean, he's got five Bitcoin on his balance sheet or so, you know, I mean, that's great.
You know, he's not losing money every month.
He's running a little profitable company and he's got five Bitcoin, you know.
So there's definitely like something baked in there as far as the treasury aspect of it for for additional upside.
And by the way, you know, it goes the other way.
Absolutely. Yeah. I think, I think the other interesting thing is too, and I think this is where I think there's like, like two camps here. I think there's definitely this, like, there's this like bare metal camp where you're, you're kind of building on the Bitcoin protocol. And it probably takes a little bit more time to, to, to, to build on this aspect, kind of like more like the block stream side where you're like, you're actually building on the, on the tech itself.
and then there's this like kind of like what you said there's like this uh the the the which the
bitcoin app like what material is building right it's like uh it's building on top of it and it
has revenue and it's it's more of like a technology startup that that leverages bitcoin has a bitcoin
treasury all that kind of stuff um and i i kind of see these two camps right and and i think that's
what's the most interesting part about it is like there's that's where i think the the incentives
are when it comes to investing in Bitcoin companies is like some just take a little bit
longer to bake. And then there's these other ones that they are investable, right? They're just a
different sort of beast, I would say, right? And you're more investing in the founder, you're
investing in the idea and the business plan. And this one's going to take a little bit more time
to bake because it's actually investing in the protocol itself. Can you talk about that,
because I feel like you see a lot of decks, you see a lot of business plans, you see a lot of
founders. Talk about these different types of strategies and these different types of
founders that are out there. So in terms of a founder and pitching, and by the way,
everyone pitches, right? Even VCs pitch. It's not something that's often talked about,
But VCs have to go to people asking for money, you know, and nobody likes to ask for money.
Maybe Alex Svetsky, but he's the only one.
Is that a shot at Svetsky?
He's a friend, and I've never known somebody who's—
Why does everybody take shots at Svetsky all the time?
He's so damn good at fundraising.
I like Svetsky.
We all do.
It's just a joke.
He's very good at fundraising.
But, you know, who are you talking to?
So as a founder, you know people's flavor, right?
and you know what they like.
I don't particularly do much mining.
You know, mining is not really my favorite part of Bitcoin.
It's not the most interesting to me.
It's not the most investable.
You know, it's just, it's not my wheelhouse.
So, hey, we got stranded natural gas
in the middle of Nevada
and we got a shipping container.
Like, that's just not for me.
I don't know anything about that.
You know, hey, this is really cool.
It bridges fiat and Bitcoin and you can spin this wheel and you get sats back and here's how it works.
Like, I'm all about it.
You know, let's go.
Or something a little bit more fun, you know.
So there are certain people like Max Webster who would also be a great guest for you to have on.
You know, he purposefully wants to be the first check.
He wants to be the first check in as early as possible.
And he is like it's either going to a billion or zero.
he's like and he's totally cool with that that for me is a little scary you know i'm never the
the first check uh kind of person i i like this is pleb lab right unless it's pleb lab
we finally got a sponsor can you believe it vintech they're a legal firm out of dallas texas
who pleb lab uses we actually use jim who is this amazing gentleman central texas lawyer
Straight shooter.
And he does legal expertise, and he has this amazing thing called Vintech.
It's a place where you can get access to legal forms.
You don't have to use ChatGBT to spin up some kind of gibberish.
You can actually get these legal forms that are there already pre-built.
You get access to his consulting two times a month.
There's 25% off all his legal work that he applies to the network of attorneys that he knows.
There's no long-term commitment.
It's all for $199 a month.
He also has this other thing called Vintech Plus,
which is three hours of additional services per month,
which is contract review, drafting, LLC, corporate formation,
all that kind of stuff.
That's for $999 a month.
And it's affordable business legal stuff for startups, founders like yourself.
Use the code PLEBLAB at myvintech.com and get 10% off your subscription.
and a big thanks to Jim and the Vintech team
for backing the builder community
and helping us push things forward.
All right, let's get back to the show.
I'm not usually the first check, the first check in,
but that's what he likes to do.
He wants to be as early as possible.
So if you're in that position as that early
and you might think, oh no, it's too early.
Like who doesn't invest in this?
Maybe there's some people, maybe like myself,
who likes to see a little traction
and a little revenue and an MVP.
You can go to someone like Max,
who like will just admit that that he likes those type of deals.
You know, some funds have a mandate where they can only invest in later stuff, right?
Maybe series A and later.
So if you're not there, you're kind of wasting your time, you know, pitching to these people
because you kind of have to know everyone's flavor.
So, yeah, you can if you're building on, you know, the protocol level or something like Blockstream,
which Blockstream's businesses, there's so much going on there.
You know, they have Blockstream Capital Partners where they make investments and things.
You know, they just made an acquisition, I think, two weeks ago.
They had a mining unit.
I think that they spun it off or did something with it.
You know, they're kind of like the Cisco Systems conglomerate of the Bitcoin space.
So, I mean, there's just so much going on with Bitcoin.
You know, whether it's something like Scare City, you know, they're doing the Sotheby's, the art and their whole thing.
whether it's education and community, the accelerator sort of model, like what you're doing, a lot of events and a lot of value to people who need it.
There's things like that. You know, there's stuff like OpenNode, ZapRite, which came out of PlebLab.
You know, they're doing great, you know, as a as a payments company.
There's just, there's so much going on in Bitcoin.
There's so many different areas that if you are a founder,
you should find whose flavor you're looking at.
You know, something that's like incredibly technical.
You know, maybe Stillmark is a great person,
a great fund and great fit for you.
You know, if it's incredibly,
if it's an incredibly technical deal.
Because Vcash over there is incredibly technical
and they have the AI, ML background and all these other things.
So if you have that, you know, they invested in Amboss, for example.
You know, I love Amboss, but they saw everything they were doing.
Now the company is on fire with a bunch of different products, you know.
So I would say that that is kind of the most important thing
is knowing the flavor of who you're pitching
and whether it's something that might be for them.
where's the where's the best resource to get a lot of that um obviously we have these technical
conferences and and you know there's accelerators like wolf and blah blah but like where where else
can they get like you know vc help outside of just like going to to websites like lightning
ventures or like still mark or like some of these other ones well but like what do you but what do
you mean do you mean like like where can where can they find where can they find you guys like
where can they find like muz or like of the where can where can they find a list of vcs yeah um
boy um maybe the free version of crunchbase has some kind of filters where you can none of these
filters also have bitcoin by the way every one of these filters is like crypto so if you filter
it down to crypto and you filter it down in north america and you know and you flip it down to early
stage you'll probably get everyone in crypto and maybe you'll see us and 1031 and still mark and
all them in there too but they don't really separate it by bitcoin yeah yeah we have we have
a resource inside our notion um for for the people inside the lab that we use for like our list and
stuff but um yeah we i guess we should i guess we should open it up for everybody i guess that be helpful but i don know if people want their information out there though I always scared about that too Yeah You know what I mean So you talking about helping Pleb Lab companies
with their initial outreach and fundraising?
No, I guess Pleb Book kind of already does that that we have out there.
It kind of gives the websites and stuff.
So I guess we kind of already have that out there.
But, yeah, I guess that's enough.
Well, what I would love to see Pleb Lab do, if I get to be selfish here, is I would love to see you guys do something better or different than Bitcoin AI Startup Lab or Outlier Ventures do.
The Outlier Ventures cohort, their accelerator, it is, in my opinion, a terrible deal.
What is that?
Outlier Ventures.
I mean, they definitely have a Bitcoin focus too.
It's crypto, a lot of DeFi, a lot of things that we would never be interested in.
But sometimes if a decent company goes through there,
I actually think Joltz went through Outlier.
And it's a terrible deal.
It's like 100K for 10% of your business.
It's like the worst deal on the planet, something like that.
and you know they get a lot of submissions and they have a demo day and they invite the investors
and they do everything they do and they're stacking equity and you know it's a real program
you know I just don't think it's a very good deal for the founder I wouldn't be able to recommend it
nearly never and then you know you have the pre-accelerator bitcoin startup bitcoin AI
thing, startup lab or whatever.
And I think they rebranded and they added AI.
And they're very, like, there's a nice guy, like Albert or whatever.
I've done a bunch of.
Oh, I know Albert.
Yeah, he's super nice.
He's not in Austin.
He's in Asia somewhere, I think.
Unless maybe he splits his time.
Are you talking about startup labs?
Bitcoin AI startup lab.
It's like a pre-accelerator where they take.
Bitcoin startup labs?
BTC startup labs?
Tell me about that one.
That might be something else.
I have to look it up.
But this guy is based out of Asia somewhere.
And, you know, you can go in there as a builder with, like, no incorporation or anything.
And he runs a cohort.
And there's a lot of co-founder matching and some other good things that go on there.
And I don't know what the actual content is like.
I don't know how good it is or, you know, whatever it is.
But it's a really cool idea, you know.
And I got invited to all their demo days and, like, I tried to tune in for it or whatever.
And it would be cool if you did a quarterly sort of demo thing like that, you know, and invited all of us to it.
I mean, that would be fun.
Yeah, we just need capital to do it, Moss.
That's the thing.
Everyone needs capital.
That's the problem.
Yeah.
How do we get all that capital, Carr?
I don't know.
You tell me.
using no i mean right now we're doing so so right now we're doing a startup school and we're kind
of building this primer right now and so far we're in product right now we're about to finish
up that and then we're going to do revenue and uh and then that's going to be and then once we have
this like kind of primer built then we can do what you're saying is then we can start doing these
quarterly things and then see how that works because because i don't like doing things i don't
know what I'm doing. You know what I mean? So we got to do these. I mean, we're Bitcoiners. We got
to test this stuff out. We can't just, you know, we're not like these guys where we can just like,
we don't know how, we don't want, we don't have the, I don't have the experience to know how to
do this stuff. And I don't want to just guess, like, you know what I mean? I don't want to run
without knowing how to walk first. So we got to build these things out slowly. So I want to be
intentional about what we're doing. So once we go through this startup school, we'll at least have
like the primer of what to do.
And then we'll take out all the stuff that we knew that works
and then what doesn't work.
And then we'll do what you're talking about,
like the quarter thing.
And then we'll at least know exactly like what to optimize for it.
Yeah.
So can we talk about the startup school for a minute?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
What do you want to talk about?
How does it work?
How many weeks is it?
What are you thinking on the material?
What are some of the modules?
Yeah, so far I think it's going really well.
So we started off with product.
So month one, I'm looking over here
because we have the whiteboard.
So month one is product.
The second month is revenue.
The third month, hang on.
No, first month is foundation.
Second month is product.
Third month is revenue.
The fourth month is pitch.
And that's going to end with startup day.
Wow, four months.
Four months.
So that's why I'm saying we're going really broad, right?
It's like really long.
but um once once uh once we went through foundation that was all the the the basic stuff of like llc
equity uh c corp all that stuff like bitcoin narrative what we were just talking about earlier
about the baseline all that stuff like really the ethos about what it is to be a build a bitcoin
company especially a club lab like a club lab bitcoin company is a different type of bitcoin
company than like a you know no offense to other bitcoin companies that are listening to this but
It's different.
When you're building a PubLab company, it's different than, or Bitcoin project in PubLab
is different than a Bitcoin project outside of PubLab.
Like the way we look at each other, the way we look at companies in PubLab is different
than companies outside of PubLab or projects outside of PubLab.
We're like the Navy SEALs, basically.
Everybody else is the Navy out there.
We're the Navy SEALs.
I mean, we have a high bar for a reason.
I love it.
Well, it's just how we feel about each other.
How did you source the submissions?
We used, what's the name of the thing?
No, but I mean, how did you, I mean, did you get many builders?
No, not that many.
It's like 20, 20.
So we went through foundation and then we're doing product right now.
So we're going through that.
And then each one has a book that we're reading with it.
It's based off of the material that we're doing with it.
And, um, and then Keon's advising me, Teresa's advising me, and then we're just going through it.
And then next month we're doing revenue and then we're going to end with pitch.
Pitch will probably be the shortest.
Um, and then, um, yeah, we're just using the builders in the lab.
We're using our little network that we have club labians, I guess, that we have in our Slack.
And then we're just structuring all together.
It's just like a more hyper focused version of top builder.
The only difference was top builder is more of like an incubator, if you could say.
and and this is more intentional the school's more actually more of a type of accelerator if
you want to call it that it's just more focused and from what we've seen i mean you saw hustle
like hustle is just like dude you should see it now it's it's far far better now and it's it's in
test flight now it's sick so i'm i'm we're super we're super like it's it's going great and so
i love that you show me this because this could probably be the next thing that we get to
because if we can run that quarterly now,
maybe we can shrink this down from four months to a quarterly thing,
and then maybe we can get to that.
That's cool, man.
All right, so look, I know it's your interview.
I'll be quiet.
But listen, what in there has got you excited?
Can you talk about one of the projects that maybe stands out?
Is there one in particular that maybe comes to mind?
Because, I mean, if you want to talk about tip of the sphere
for Bitcoin builders, you're there.
okay well i would like i don't i don't think i don't think we're there i think i think austin's
there so i realize it's just the austin the the austin bitcoin scene is there i don't necessarily
think it's plub blub i think the austin bitcoin scene is there i think i think i think austin's
bitcoin scene is the leader when it comes to the tip of the spear um and and i think and i think
what we're seeing here in town is now that we have bitcoin park and that we have nifty down the street
with her Bitcoin Plus Plus studio.
And then we have,
so there's another hackerspace being built out
way out West now.
And these are like Web5 guys.
And we don't know what they're doing.
They could be CIA.
We don't know.
And then we have Capital Factory doing their thing.
And those guys always,
but they're not doing,
they're doing AI stuff now.
And then we have Antler down the street,
which are friends of the lab.
And then we even have Block here now.
they're doing like secret meetups now um and then we have um who else then we have some new ai guys
now and then i've been making friends with the react guys over here um so i've just realized that
like uh the bitcoin scene is just um it's just it's just and then we have unchained obviously
and then i think the bitcoin scene is just it's just where it's at here it's just now everybody's
just a lot more quieter now i think it's kind of what and then we have the round rock san antonio
and then all the other meetups that happen that are just offline now.
But it's a remote program, right?
Yeah, it's remote.
Yeah, everything's remote.
But I'm saying like the tip of the spear for Austin is like it's just a big Bitcoin scene now.
And PubLab Lab is the only one focused on startups.
And that's where our focus is.
I mean, we're doing community stuff, but it's not at the same level as we were four years ago or three years ago.
We're just doing startups.
That's all I want to work on now is just startups.
We're better at doing startups anyway.
Me and Keon like doing that kind of stuff.
Teresa likes doing that stuff.
Well, I can't wait to check it out and see what comes out of there.
Yeah, I mean, so you're doing the startup stuff too with Thunderfunder.
So let's talk about that.
Tell me how that's going.
I mean, I've been seeing some of the email updates,
But, dude, these are big names.
These aren't like small names.
You got OrangePail app.
You got EllenBits.
You got even SimplyBitcoin.
Niko coming.
That's huge.
Hopefully.
We'll see.
What's going on with this?
What is ThunderFunder and then like how is this going?
Well, ThunderFunder would complement PlebLab very well.
Well, ThunderFunder is an equity crowdfunding portal.
and this is not like donation.
This is not Geyser or Patreon,
but everyone would love those companies
for whatever they're doing,
but this is actually equity.
So it's kind of like the angel investing syndicate
in the same way that you can invest
and actually get equity in these companies.
So it's completely regulated
and that is a new experience is going through the regulations that we have to deal with.
You can raise up to $5 million as a company within a 12-month period.
So let's just say I'm just going to pick on Swan.
Let's just say Swan was going to go public in Q1 of next year
and they wanted to do a pleb round.
They wanted to give a pre-IPO chance for everyone to invest, right?
Thunderfunder would be the best spot for that to happen.
And they could raise $5 million from the plebs before they go public, right?
Now, conversely, you can do small deals too.
So say that there's a really cool company that's going through Top Builder or that wins Top Builder or something like that.
And, you know, we did a deal, but maybe it didn't quite, you know, have the oomph of something like a strike or a swan.
Maybe they only raised 30 or 40,000 bucks, you know, but it was still a successful transaction.
And they got 30 or 40 grand.
And those people who invested definitely have equity in that company.
And to kind of roll those out, it's harder to do the small deals, especially with like investor sentiment the way that it is.
we're actually rebuilding the entire platform right now.
It's going to be sick.
The Figma's look sick.
Actually, Austin, your buddy over there, PlebDev,
actually referred us a killer developer.
We actually just talked to him today.
Hopefully he's willing to work for the poverty line,
which is what we all get paid over here.
But, you know, it's going to look like a cool LinkedIn,
but for Bitcoiners, there's going to be a troll box.
There's going to be all this fun shit.
Like, it's going to be dope.
and we built the entire tech stack.
So no backend provider, no nothing.
We can do Bitcoin payments.
We don't have to deal with any bull crap.
And that's really what we're working on
because when the investor sentiment isn't there,
they say bear markets are for building.
It's not a bear market.
But for investing in Bitcoin startups,
it's definitely not a bull market, at least not yet.
It lags the price.
It lags everything else.
And now there's a lot of distractions.
You know, someone can just invest in one of these treasury companies, you know, and that's kind of stealing some of the show, you know, which is fine.
So we're heads down.
We're heads down just building on that.
So that's Thunder Funder.
And hopefully we get it to a point where we can have 10 deals that are there, you know, and maybe those are 10 companies that are all going through one of your cohorts.
You know, that's that would be the goal.
But right now we're taking it a little slow.
So, yeah, we did a deal for Jolts.
We did a deal for the Orange Pill app.
And that's kind of it for right now.
What are some of the learnings you guys have acquired from, you know,
seeing Orange Pill app and Jolts go through there?
They seem like they raised a lot of money, though.
Well, not that much.
You know, if they raised $120,000 or $150,000 each or so, maybe somewhere around there, you know, it's still not like a ton, right?
What are some of the learnings?
I actually can't remember the numbers off the top of my head.
Don't quote me, but somewhere around there.
I think it's online.
I think it's published.
Yeah, I see it right here.
It's like $102,000, $183,000.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a lot for a pleb raise for sure, right?
Yeah, why not?
You know, but when you think about if they're raising, you know, if they're out to raise one point three million and they get one hundred grand from our platform, that's fine.
We're still eight percent or whatever of the of the entire round.
You know, we can help fill those things out.
They also have a captive audience of people who love their company.
So when they do send out their updates and ask for help or, hey, we just released this product or, hey, sign up now or whatever they want to do.
So, you know, we want to do bigger deals, obviously.
You know we want to do deals that are going to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars like a few million dollars you know because that how we going to keep the lights on and keep things cruising over in Thunder Thunderland
But the reality is it's great for the builders.
It's great for the people that are in your cohort,
you know, that are going through your program
when they finish, you know.
And if we can do some cool media or something behind it,
you know, Tim Draper used to have a TV show.
It was called Meet the Drapers.
I've seen every episode.
And they would have maybe eight startups on there and they would film it and they're iterating and they're going and they're pitching and they're doing their thing.
And at the end of the show, he would say, if you like any of these startups, you can invest online.
And Republic was the name of the platform.
But they had the live deals there during the show.
So, you know, piloting something like that is really a fun idea, you know, that we're kind of working on.
What was something that got you to this idea, Muz, as far as like, I mean, obviously, I think we've been needing something like this, you know, since 2020, or at least since I came into the space. I mean, this would have been amazing to have way back when for a lot of Bitcoin companies. I feel like there's just so much more resources for builders now than there's ever been. Never been a better time to build on Bitcoin. But yeah, go ahead, Muz.
It came around in, I think, 2012 or 2013 with this as one of those, you see one of those government bills and it's like 8,000 pages.
Well, they crammed this little thing in there in that Jobs Act about the crowdfunding because private companies were not allowed to raise and investors weren't allowed to raise.
So they kind of created this new thing.
OK, but the large incumbents in the crowdfunding world like Republic, like WeFunder, like StartEngine, Mr. Wonderful is one of StartEngine's spokespeople there.
They kind of have all the dominance in market share.
But the problem is, is when you go on StartEngine or one of these platforms, there's like a thousand things.
And here's electric bicycles and here's a hot air balloon guy.
And this lady's got 10 juice shops in the Midwest.
And there's just so much stuff to sort through.
So to have one that's specifically focused on Bitcoin and open source companies, that's kind of it.
So I don't ever want somebody to go to Thunderfunder and see 40 deals or 30 deals.
You know what I mean?
There has to be a sweet spot with a time.
You know, so it's kind of the focus, but we're also really limiting what we could be doing, because if AI is the flavor of the day and we're not doing any AI deals or nothing that doesn't have something to do with Bitcoin, etc., then we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit, but we're sticking to the mission.
And for people that aren't comfortable with joining the Lightning Venture Syndicate, because as of right now, you have to be an accredited investor.
It's being put forth right now in Congress to amend the requirements for an accredited investor.
I hope that happens.
If that happens, it's going to kill the reg CF crowdfunding thing.
And then that would be fine with me.
Wait, wait, wait.
Say that again, Buzz.
So can you explain that a little slower?
Say that again.
Yeah, well, it's different in every country and it's different all over the world. But if you are domiciled in the U.S. and you want to join the Lightning Ventures Syndicate or invest in a fund or invest, you have to be an accredited investor. So you have to have a million dollars of net worth, excluding your primary residence.
If you have a Series 7 or 65 or a few other FINRA licenses, that exempts you and makes you an accredited investor.
That's actually another way.
If you really didn't want to click the button and say you were accredited, you could just go and actually get your 65.
I'm sure you can pass the test.
That's something that we're actually thinking about doing for people who aren't comfortable, like us helping them get through the process, get the 65.
and then you're automatically an accredited investor.
Or if you made, I think it's $200,000,
it might be $250,000, but I think it's $200,000 last year
and you expect to make $200,000 this year,
you can also click the button and say I'm accredited.
But that's the other thing is it's a self-accreditation process.
I like to joke everyone's accredited if you click the right button,
and that's actually true.
and you know right now in Congress they're trying to to change that they're trying to to make it
easier and less you know remove some of the gatekeeping to allow people to invest more
maybe does it come down they're talking about implementing a test they're talking about
implementing sort of a universal test it'll be like 30 questions I don't know if you take it
online or if you know in the UK if you're a Bitcoin exchange in the UK you have to administer
a test to everyone who signs up for your platform so I'm running a Bitcoin exchange in the UK
you want to buy some Bitcoin I have to give you a test that has been checked out by their
UK regulators you have to pass it before you can come on maybe they're going to do something like
that but either way i would love to see that happen i would love to see you pass a 30 question
test and then all of a sudden everyone's accredited the whole thing's a scam um but for thunder funder
and other reg cf portals you don't have to be accredited you know nearly anyone can sign up and
invest so that's kind of the rigmarole that they make you go through interesting i didn't know that
that's fascinating well i know a guy like you is accredited so no problems there
That's fascinating. I didn't know that. So do you think that's good? So it's going to help you, though, right? It's going to help Thunderfunder then.
If they if they make it easier to be an accredited investor, it actually doesn't help Thunderfunder at all.
But we'll just we'll be it'll be better for Lightning Ventures and we'll better be better for the syndicate and other larger deals over there because more people will be able to invest over there.
Oh, because you think people would just want to be LPs, I guess?
Well, I mean, there's pros and cons to Thunderfunder and Lightning Ventures, or let's just say Reg CF versus Reg D.
Reg D is your syndicate, your SPV, your special purpose vehicle that they spin up to invest in a private company.
So with crowdfunding, everything has to be public.
So, car at Pleb Lab, which I wish that you did, you call me up and you're like,
Muzz, I want to do a deal on Thunder Funder.
We're going to do a pleb round.
You know, it doesn't have to be huge, but we're going to raise $125,000.
Okay?
And we're going to do it fast and it's going to be awesome.
Okay?
And I'm like, yeah, car, that's a great idea.
Let's do it.
Okay?
You're going to have to basically make everything public for your company to some degree.
We're going to do it for you and help you through the process of filing what's called a Form C, right?
That could be 25 pages. It could be 35 pages.
That's going to have some financial paperwork in there, something for what you grossed last year,
something for revenue, some sort of numbers about this much on a third of one piece of paper in that 40-page stack
will give some sort of financial overview about Pleb Lab.
Now, you might be fine with that, but some companies aren't, and some companies don't want that stuff out there and some of those other questions.
And for those companies, it's much better to do a deal in the syndicate because in the syndicate, everything is private, and there's a zero-tolerance policy for leaks.
Thankfully, we haven't had any, and none of that stuff needs to be disclosed when you're dealing with the accredited investors.
So for some companies, they don't want to deal with all that.
So those are just deals that are going to land in the Reg D environment for the accredited investors only.
So it's kind of cool to have both of those levers to pull for what's best for the company.
But they're two different scenarios.
It's not one size fits all.
Yeah, that makes sense.
It makes a ton of sense.
Interesting.
Well, I'm excited to see what you're going to be building for this next iteration of it.
Me too.
Yeah.
Wait, so you guys had a recent hire there, right?
Didn't you guys hire Josh?
Yes.
Josh is now the CEO of Thunder Thunder.
How's that going?
So far, it's great.
Yeah.
Does it take, is he doing all the heavy lifting now for you?
Yeah.
That's good.
I mean, my goal right now, I'm focused on what we're going to be launching with this upcoming Lightning Ventures platform.
Okay.
That's 100% of my focus.
Right now, we still manage everything on AngelList.
We just closed a deal on AngelList.
We're closing it right now.
Congrats.
And my goal is to get off of AngelList.
AngelList is a great platform and all, and I'm the poster boy for them, and I've invested a million deals and everything that we've done there, and it's great and all.
But I want to have our own really sick investing portal, right?
A platform.
You know, the E-Trade meets Fidelity for the Bitcoiner and all the fun stuff.
So that is 100% my focus.
And I'm putting all the effort in that.
So Josh, yeah, he's CEO of Thunder Funder.
He's the one who answers the call when FINRA has something to say
and goes through that annual review that we're going through right now
and everything else.
I'm really just focused in Lightning Ventures land.
That's great.
Sounds like the place to be.
Well, I'm excited to have you at the Yucatan.
Startup Day is coming up here pretty soon.
You're going to be there with some kind of drink in your hand, I'm sure.
Chilling.
Okay, when is that?
Because I need to buy my ticket.
Give it a plug.
That's going to be October 10th, 9th, 10th, and 11th in the Yucatan.
Francisco will be there.
He's going to be launching some new cool stuff for Yopaki.
It's going to be at the new White Paper House.
There's going to be amazing builders.
We'd love to have Josh there if he wants to come speak.
I mean, I've only met him a couple of times, but that'd be great to get Thunder Thunder there.
Okay.
Are you an organizer of the Yucatan?
I hope so. It's Plob Lab's name all over it. I mean, Yopaki's doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but yeah, we're organizing too.
Okay, so it's a three-day event?
yeah it's three-day event so the the on on thursday uh the white paper house is putting
together some like community stuff that day and they're gonna they're gonna um roll out the the
house and it's gonna be like a whole kind of show the community stuff and they're supposed to be
people from all over mexico gathering uh i don't know what francisco has shared online yet but um
There's going to be some big news coverage there from all sorts of Latin America publicity.
I don't know.
They're just like some big news team are going to be there.
And we got Bitcoin news covering it too as well.
Yeah, it's going to be fun.
9, 10, and 11.
Nice.
9, 10, and 11.
But yeah, I think it's going to be really cool.
Yopaki's doing some really cool stuff.
They're going to unleash some really cool stuff from what I'm hearing.
I love Yopaki.
I've been trying to invest for a while.
I love them, man.
Great guys.
Yeah.
And then there's going to be some other launches there too as well.
I know Cascader is doing some stuff.
Really amazing news if it comes to fruition.
And then, yeah, it's going to be fun.
But we're hoping to see you out there.
Are you excited?
I'm going to be there, man.
I am going to be there
yes I'm excited
I'm excited to get more of a
overview for what you're doing because that's
three days
the third day will be a beach day
or a pyramid day we'll see
but Muzz thank you so much
for coming on the show was there anything else that
you wanted to talk about that we didn't cover
no man this is great I'm
looking forward to checking out the four
month program that you're putting together now
for this trial run I'd love
to be a fly on the wall. Maybe I'll pay you and I'll, and I'll, and I'll join. You can teach me
because now I'm the operator over here. Um, and it's, it's definitely different doing both sides
of it. Um, it's, it's, it's a wake up call, you know, it's really easy to, uh, to tell everyone
else what to do with their run and their burn, their runway and their burn rate and their marketing
and, you know, and then you're in that position yourself and you, you really, I've never, I haven't
been there with a with a with a tech startup right as an operator so um i just had the most respect
i have more respect now for for builders and founders after after jumping over and this side
of it um you do i will say i will say like uh since you started thunder funder i guess it was
probably like october of last year you seem more like a little bit more mild-mannered now
where you're you're more um i don't know you're just more kumbayamas now i don't know how to
explain it that's what it's all about man you got to be kumbaya you're like centered i guess it's
like you're full you're full rick rubin now i guess is that the easiest way to put it it's like
you see everything like you're like uh fully seeing everything from all angles which is good
because like not a lot of people have that vc experience plus the now you have the builder
experience now so
it's a good spot to be in
yeah
Thank you.