We’re all hearing about Bitcoin, Crypto Currency, Block Chain, Coin, Litecoin (LTC) Ethereum (ETH), Zcash (ZEC), Dash, Ripple (XRP), Monero (XMR) and more.
BUT what does this all mean? Is it hype? Is it fake news? Should I buy, hold, sell?
Thankfully I was able to tap a legitimate expert in PK from Blue Chilli.
On todays vlog we get sensible & simple about it all. No hype, no headlines just the fundamentals which in true transparency gave me a whole new outlook on it all and I hope it does the same for you.
If you want to dive deeper, PK recommends The Business Blockchain book, you can also reach him on Twitter or LinkedIn
Enjoy the vlog 🙂
Transcript
Tobi Skovron: Hey guys. Welcome back. To my right, your left, we have PK.
PK: Hey guys.
Tobi Skovron: In from BlueChilli.
PK: Yep.
Tobi Skovron: It’s great to have you, I firstly want to apologise for my voice. It’s the Australian Open right now, combined with my third … My daughter’s third birthday and a day at the tennis landed me … And a lot of meetings yesterday, but landed me in a bit of hot water with my throat. So I apologise for the audio.
Tobi Skovron: So PK, entrepreneur residence.
PK: Yes.
Tobi Skovron: At BlueChilli.
PK: Yep.
Tobi Skovron: Okay so, BlueChilli’s got a great name out there. Originally from Sydney?
PK: Yep.
Tobi Skovron: Do you wanna just take us through a little bit about what BlueChilli is, who they are, what they do, how do you do it?
PK: Sure.
Tobi Skovron: And then I’d really like to dive into crypto currency, web 3.0 all that type of stuff which I think there’s a lot of buzz about right now.
PK: Yeah.
Tobi Skovron: And there’s a lot of mixed messages and perhaps you can clear some of that up.
PK: Okay.
Tobi Skovron: Very lightly, I don’t think we need to dive deep.
PK: Sure.
Tobi Skovron: And if the viewers comment that they want a little bit more and hear more and see more, we’ll get back at it.
PK: Absolutely.
Tobi Skovron: So BlueChilli.
PK: Yeah. So we’re a startup ourselves, so we’ve been around for a while. It started in Sydney out of a vision that Seb had, our CEO. Being a founder himself he wanted to help other founders. So we do four things and we do it really well. So one was we help our [inaudible 00:01:30] founders build their products here, so the non-technical founders that come in, we help them build their product. We help them secure their first investment, you know, we help them secure their first pilot. Because if a product is not commercially viable, it’s not gonna make any money.
PK: And the last but not the least we also help them formalise their first team. Whether it’s the first hire, the first CTO, first you know, CFO, whoever it is.
Tobi Skovron: Yep.
PK: And we have an engineering team, design team, you know, pretty much we wrap the entire team around the founder so they don’t feel like they’re walking this part by themselves. And originally we used to take founders as a revolving door [crosstalk 00:02:07], so anyone can come in. But now we’re doing more category or team based.
Tobi Skovron: Good.
PK: So last year we launched She Starts, which was women in tech.
Tobi Skovron: Love it.
PK: So second corporate is coming in this year. We also launched a program around smart cities called City Connect. And we’re working on something your you … Couple more programs this year, so you’ll hear about.
Tobi Skovron: So you’re hyper focused on specific categories which then dictate the intake?
PK: Yeah.
Tobi Skovron: And then from the intake you are wrapping yourselves around the founder to give them the best chance of success?
PK: Yep.
Tobi Skovron: What’s the sort of … And off the cuff like, what’s the sort of success rate that you guys are seeing? Are you seeing … I mean, like, I’ll take that back. Startups notoriously are sort of like, in the high 90 fail rate.
PK: Yep. So I think our intake process is pretty tough to get in. So what I mean by that is like, so that process eliminates a lot of the non-commercially viable products, or founders who are not fit for a startup, you know.
Tobi Skovron: Yep.
PK: So I’ll give you a stat. So the top one percent normally gets in. And then we wrap them with a curriculum called 156. It’s … Essentially we have a 156 step that a founder has to go through. That’s gone up to 300 plus now.
Tobi Skovron: I was gonna say, 156. I wish.
PK: So the founder’s going through a ringer every week, right? So we’re saying you’ve got to do this, you know it’s a financial model, or a business model or you swap metrics, you know.
Tobi Skovron: Yep.
PK: Or you know, having your sales call, all of that stuff. So by the time they graduate, or by the time they go through out bootcamp, they know for sure either they’re in it or not. So the ones who get in, all of them you know, either land [inaudible 00:03:52] secure investment or have their first startup within the first three months or six months.
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: So the success rate has been really high after we calibrated our program.
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: Versus saying, you know, someone had an idea, just come in and then we’ll take it [crosstalk 00:04:05].
Tobi Skovron: Yeah.
PK: We’re not an incubator, if you know what I mean.
Tobi Skovron: Yeah no, totally get it.
PK: So we’re totally accelerating their speed to market, you know.
Tobi Skovron: Yeah, it’s critical you know here at Creative Cubes we see a lot of people that have got really cool ideas. And I think that the idea … I guess no different to you know, fitness and exercise like trying to lose weight, it’s 90% food, 10% exercise, right? In the startup world, or in the business world, it’s all about the execution. It’s not about the hey, I’ve got this idea, write me a check and sit back. There’s a lot of hustle involved.
Tobi Skovron: And I think that’s underestimated. So those that watch on the regular, I highly encourage you to firstly check out BlueChilli, I’ll link all the details to bluechilli.com. I’m also gonna link your Twitter.
PK: Yep.
Tobi Skovron: And what captivated me and why I wanted to talk a little bit more is your Twitter avatar. I don’t know if it’s an avatar, but your …
PK: Background.
Tobi Skovron: Description. Web 3.0, crypto currency, and …
PK: Machine learning and AI.
Tobi Skovron: Machine learning, AI. So I’d love to talk about AI but not today, because I think there’s something there. In fact someone messaged our Facebook page the other day and said, “Hello?” And I went … And I actually was online at the time, I wrote back, “Hi, how can I help you?” “Oh this isn’t a robot?” “No, no, no this is a real person.” But I understand that there’s a lot of bots out there.
Tobi Skovron: So crypto currency is obviously maybe a month ago was like you’re an idiot if you don’t get involved, this thing’s blowing up. I see my friends out of Silicone Valley and Santa Monica going, “This is amazing.” But in the last sort of like two weeks, maybe ten days, it’s really started to tank.
PK: Yep.
Tobi Skovron: What’s going on, what do people need to know? A lot of people that I speak to are trying to get rich quick. I have no idea, I’ve completely stayed away from it because I personally can’t get behind something I’m not educated on. And there’s so many conflicting things out there, I just don’t know what to … And then there’s a whole fake news thing that’s on like … So I’m like, I’ve stayed away. What do I need to know? What do our viewers need to know?
PK: I think the basic … I mean I have a computer science background and 20 years of business background, so anything that I do I’m paying my due diligence.
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: Before I get in. So I think depending on which camp you’re in, whether you’re coming in and you’re interested in the crypto currency because of it’s mathematical nature, or the computer science nature, that’s an engineering mind, right? So I can take it apart. Where if you’re coming in for as an investor or someone who wants to just kind of play and learn, and know the space because this is the next new paradigm where internet is gonna involve, right. So that’s why in my Twitter handle you’ll see I live in web 3.0.
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: Because what we are used to today is all web 2.0 products.
Tobi Skovron: Yep.
PK: What’s coming next in the pipe is web 3.0. And there’s a good article that I’ll ask you to read called Fat Protocols, so that distinguish … We’ll put the link in the video. It distinguishes how some of the big companies like Airbnb, Uber, Facebook have been built, and now the new companies are gonna flip that paradigm on it’s head.
Tobi Skovron: Yeah.
PK: So if you’re coming in for a get rich quick scheme, don’t do it, because you’re gonna lose everything you’ve got. And you’re gonna disappoint yourself. This is a long horizon, so it’ll be another 5, 10, 15 years. And so it’s almost like come in to learn about this whole new paradigm, if you’re gonna put some money in do it as an experiment to see what you know, how this whole thing works. And once you master it then you know, you can go full blown. So that’s all I did, so I do crypto full time.
Tobi Skovron: Yep.
PK: I do machine learning.
Tobi Skovron: You do no trade, are you just acquiring-
PK: I am a trader as well.
Tobi Skovron: You are trading?
PK: Yes, I do trading, so I’m a different breed, right?
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: I can read protocols, I can still write code. So it’s a different … If you’ve got my background or if you’re inclined to get into it, you want to learn programming all that stuff, absolutely, get in right. And I’ll take you through that part, there’s lots of stuff you can learn. It’s never too late. It’s so early, so it’s like coming in laying the roads. We need people to come and draw the lines, you know, people to come build the street signs. There’s all stuff, all different types of skills are required in this space. So you don’t have to be a computer science engineer to come in.
Tobi Skovron: Yeah.
PK: In terms of the value of the crypto currency, if that’s what you’re asking, like anything else, like stocks if you’re getting into it you wouldn’t buy a stock because you haven’t read about PNL of the company, or if you don’t know who the CEO of the company was, or what the product is like. Unfortunately or fortunately, what’s happening is crypto currency has had so much press media. So people just go with what they read in the morning, and then probably make decisions in the afternoon because what they heard on the news or on a podcast, right. That’s not how you do a long term investment.
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: So you want to get into it, if you protocol let’s say, Stellar or any of these, you know, you want to understand what this protocol does. What is the business they’re in, which market they’re after, what industries they’re gonna affect or influence. And then what’s the addressable community. That’s more important. Who’s building on this stuff, right?
PK: And then, you know, if you’re interested at that point say okay, here’s my hundred bucks, you know, here’s my twenty bucks or whatever. I’ll give you an example, Shanny my coworker, she took me out for lunch a couple months ago. At dinner was really loud, she didn’t know much about crypto, and she said oh … I asked, “How do you want to get paid,” you know, for the lunch. You can get it in cash or I can give it to you in Ethereum. She’s like, “What’s Ethereum?” I’m like “Okay, so I’ll just give it in Ethereum. If for some value, the face value goes down, you know … Come back and you get the cash back, your 25 bucks. If it goes up, it’s yours.”
PK: And it’s gone up like crazy, right? She’s like, “How do I learn more about it?” So I did that as … Not because I want her to go buy more you know, the crypto, but I wanted her … That was an on-ramp or a way for her to understand how this new world is operating.
Tobi Skovron: Yeah, sure.
PK: And that actually triggered her ethicacy and her learning curiosity to go learn about it.
Tobi Skovron: So it’s very interesting, you know, my mum and dad in the early 80s bought a house. And they paid a couple hundred thousand for it. The house was … Gone up in significant value, into the multi millions.
PK: Congratulations.
Tobi Skovron: Well no, no. This isn’t a bragging position, this is more like … I said to my mum when I was probably, I don’t know, late 20s, “Mum, why didn’t you buy the whole street?” And she was like, “Are you crazy?” She goes, “That two hundred thousand dollars that we paid for that house is the equivalent of you know, a five, ten, whatever millions of dollars it is now.” And so she goes, “It’s relative.” So I think what you’re saying PK is if people want to dabble, understand that it’s not an overnight thing. Maybe that 20 dollars in 10 years might be worth 20 thousand dollars, which will be way … I don’t really know, don’t challenge my maths on it but it may be better than putting that 20 dollars in you know, Westpac or CommBank or whoever, and just leaving it in the bank account for 20 years.
Tobi Skovron: But let’s not get carried away here guys. I have a better appreciation just superficially from what you’ve said versus the banter that goes on, and my friends know about this banter, where they’re like, “Quickly buy, quickly sell,” like no. No. Buy with what you can afford to lose, and hold. And hopefully over time you’re saying 10, 15 years, it’ll go up. Because what gave us the 2.0 boom or the dot com boom is you’re saying now is, now at a 3.0 level, and we’re at such an infancy of that new generation that it does make sense to try and buy something to hold onto a little longer than 48 hours guys.
PK: Let me give you another vocabulary if I may. Because people use the word buy, hold, sell, invest, you know, [inaudible 00:12:57] all that stuff. So I’m gonna date myself, I’ve got gray hair so it’s okay.
Tobi Skovron: I’m getting there.
PK: If I came to you in 1990 and said, “Tobi you know, do you want to get involved in Cisco?” Or, “We’re building this protocol called SMPT and Pop3, do you want to get involved?” And you’re like, if you’re not an engineer and if you didn’t know what we could build on top of it, you probably would not be able to comprehend and you know, get involved in it. Whether as an engineer or even like a business owner person or a VP of sales or a CEO, whatever their role is, right?
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: So back in the days, even if you were a smart alec, if you had tens of millions of dollars, only a select few invest it where, it might grow certain rooms where they could invest in Intel, Cisco, you know, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber. Whereas what’s happening today is you know, these protocols, what we call web 3.0 protocols, or crypto protocols, are available and it’s open source. Anyone can go read the white paper, anyone can go and read the source code which is available on GitHub, and then understand I reckon that particular protocol is gonna take off, or it’s got enough, you know, of a use cases surrounding it. I want to get involved. So you can get involved as simple as in writing documentation at GitHub.
Tobi Skovron: Sure
PK: Or say I want to run a node. By running a technical node, you get rewarded in the underlying protocols. So what just happens is because you’re in there playing the game, it’s like, I’ll give you this analogy. If you’re … You can watch the game two ways, you can be on the court and play it or you can actually be in the … You know, as a spectator, right? So [inaudible 00:14:39] inviting you know, everyone to come and play the game of web 3.0, and then one of those things will just get your interest really high and you’ll find it all for yourself. And then you’ll get rewarded, you know, whether … Because you’re learning so much, you’re gonna launch your own startup in that space.
Tobi Skovron: Sure.
PK: Or you might get involved in a high growth startup. And the probability and propensity of you being successful is really high, because you’re actually playing the game.
Tobi Skovron: So that brings, for me, and I’m hoping it does for you, that brings a lot of sense and structure to crypto currency and the new flavour, and the peaks and the troughs of all that. So I’m really glad we had a conversation, we can go on for days. I’m conscious that after eight minutes you guys aren’t interested in hearing us talk any more. So I really want to kind of round it out there. I’ve got to be honest, walking into this conversation I was … I don’t want to say I was anti, because I wasn’t educated and all this information that’s getting thrown at me on my Twitter feed and LinkedIn and in iMessage conversations, WhatsApp et cetera, was just very overwhelming. But I think that you’ve created a very sensible logical path. And I hope that you guys feel that way too.
Tobi Skovron: I’m gonna link PK’s details, you can reach him on Twitter, I’ll get you on LinkedIn as well.
PK: I’m on GitHub, so pretty much all the channels.
Tobi Skovron: Yeah. So I’ll link all of that, you’ll have to send me an email with all your details, in the description below. And you know, guys, just go forward just with those basic points that PK brought up today. And that is that we are eventually gonna be going into a 3.0 web. The websites and sort of like the tools and apps and all that stuff that we’re used to today is built on like a 2.0 …
PK: 2.0, yeah.
Tobi Skovron: Framework. And this thing is progressing. Progressing to AI, autonomous driving, there’s a whole bunch of things that are gonna happen. And so if you can afford to lose something, take a bet, or invest. I wouldn’t go and bet the whole house because I think it’s a little volatile right now. And I think as well it’s hard because people don’t really understand it and they’re just trading like crazy and trying to get rich quick. But I trust PK, I think he’s … I think his knowledge is pretty sound and I hope you guys got value out of it today. Thank you so much.
PK: Thank you, thanks a lot.
Tobi Skovron: Let’s continue to circle back. I’m sure there’ll be a ton of comments and questions, so perhaps we can do another vlog in a couple month’s time to sort of …
PK: The audience can tell us what they wanna hear in the crypto world, and we’ll drop something then.
Tobi Skovron: You heard it. Thanks guys, this is PK and Tobi, we’re out.
PK: Bye.
