Latest / The Jasmine Star Show / Understanding What It Really Looks Like to be a Founder with Bec Jones

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Understanding What It Really Looks Like to be a Founder with Bec Jones · The Jasmine Star Show

• 0:13
  Hi there and welcome to another episode of the Jasmine Star Show. My guest today is Beck Jones.
• 0:18
  She is CEO and co-founder of Clutch Wallet.
• 0:21
  An intuitive and easy way to understand cryptocurrency wallet.
• 0:25
  Now here's the thing.
• 0:26
  Before people are like, whoa, whoa, wait, Jasmine, we know you've been getting in the web through crypto space.
• 0:30
  No, this is actually going to be the story of a founder, somebody who's building a business.
• 0:35
  Now, oftentimes there's been a friction point where I will talk about how business works in web three, how business it pertains to crypto, but we're actually gonna be focusing on the use.
• 0:47
  We're actually talking about the founder's story.
• 0:50
  We're gonna be talking about the pressure points, what she's faced, the trials, the tribulations, the choices that she's made, and really understand the business woman behind the business so that we then can identify in similar struggles, in similar decision makings and learn from what she's gone through to expedite our growth.
• 1:08
  I am so happy to introduce you.
• 1:10
  Now I have to tell you a little bit of Beck's backstory, which we're gonna get into, is that she previously worked with National Australia Bank.
• 1:15
  So if you hear a glorious accent, you know why?
• 1:18
  As well as a lot of other startups and working as a CMO be started creating social content, it took off like wildfire.
• 1:26
  It opened the door for her to start a business.
• 1:27
  But before I get too much ahead of myself, please help me welcome be Jones podcast.
• 1:32
  Beg, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:34
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:35
  What an introduction and you've done your homework, you know the whole backstory.
• 1:38
  I'm excited to bake.
• 1:39
  Oh Girl, I have been creeping on you.
• 1:42
  Now here's the thing, I was actually going to second guess the decision of the word I was gonna use, but I'm gonna come out and state it outright.
• 1:49
  I'm very protective of the podcast.
• 1:51
  I know that listeners time is the most valuable thing.
• 1:54
  And so a backstory of how and why I met and encountered back.
• 1:59
  So I drove to Los Angeles Pacific Palisades, so you can kinda just smell the salt, the sea air we're up tucked away in this hellish area just before you hit Malibu, just after Santa Monica, you're going up these really steep hills and you get into this really established neighborhood of older homes, all that have been redone, glorious, full grown, mature hedges.
• 2:20
  And there's just an address that says come to this event, but there's nothing on the outside to indicate that it's actually an event.
• 2:26
  And so I'm knocking on the door and nobody answers.
• 2:28
  So then I'm like, oh, okay, I guess I'm just gonna creep in through the backyard, which I do because you're girls from the hood.
• 2:34
  I'm just gonna walk into somebody's house.
• 2:36
  So I walk into this backyard and everything's beautiful and it's glorious and there's a bunch of women there talking about connections between web three and crypto.
• 2:44
  Now I don't know anybody and I can have a tendency to be socially awkward.
• 2:48
  So I get there and the first thing I do is like, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go over by like the food station.
• 2:53
  And so then shortly thereafter I'm having a conversation and somebody kind of like our circles kind of converge.
• 2:58
  And then I hear this really brilliant, understated, fabulous accent woman start explaining what she does.
• 3:06
  We start talking probably back, were we talking like 45 minutes?
• 3:09
  We were talking for a long time.
• 3:10
  We got, we got locked in.
• 3:11
  We were one of those two group and we just in And I was just like, I love your story.
• 3:18
  You have to come and share the story.
• 3:20
  Now I know it's gonna be very like web three crypto, but it's more of like the business of doing something in a really new industry.
• 3:29
  So Beck, before we actually get to where you are right now and all the adventures and all the things you're doing, give us a little bit of a backstory so that we become entrenched in who Beck is, what made her the way that she is, and then what caused her to take a really big risk and get into something really freaking cool.
• 3:43
  So take it away.
• 3:45
  It's so, it's such interesting timing of telling this story because I think something is like being a founder and lo to be one is figuring out what parts of your life have kind of brought you to where you are today.
• 3:55
  And it's so funny cuz the further I look back I'm like, oh, that actually makes sense now that I'm working in this.
• 4:00
  Because that was something that as a younger kid I was so passionate about.
• 4:03
  I was doing a lot of this at that time of my life.
• 4:06
  And I think now I take like my starting journey back to when I was at high school.
• 4:11
  I went and had my first internship and my dad's bank and I remember going into this big bank and there was like a whole floor of, of men working on in, in this kind area.
• 4:21
  And I remember questioning my dad and kind asking like, why aren't there any women like in this business?
• 4:26
  I'm kinda looking around and there aren't any really anywhere.
• 4:29
  He was like, oh, well that's like kinda finance.
• 4:30
  And, and I think I slowly started to catch on that finance and banking and financial empowerment, you know, gave you a lot of opportunity and choice in your life.
• 4:40
  And when you didn't have those things, you were kind of restricted.
• 4:42
  And so that was that beginning kind of momentum behind a mission around financial inclusion that I think built from that young age. I moved into university, I studied business, I did a master's in business leadership and I wrote a thesis while I was at university on women in the banking industry. And that was kind of that, that reference experience.
• 5:01
  Wow. And it was really to understand why there were so few women that weren't holding like senior executive positions and kind of recognizing that when you don't have women in those, those kind of tier leadership positions, you don't have people being brought through the ranks and, and kind of moving through that way.
• 5:18
  And, and that's kind of part of the system that is broken in the problem.
• 5:21
  And so part of that research paper was understanding, you know, the women that did manage to get there, how did they get there?
• 5:27
  What were the pain points that they went through?
• 5:29
  And then what were the strategies that they would suggest to other women that were looking to kind of enter into this world of finance and the economy.
• 5:36
  And, and that really paved the way then for me to move into the banking industry.
• 5:40
  After I, after I actually finished university, I did four years in the bank and that was when I came across cryptocurrencies.
• 5:47
  And I'd made no investments at this point, you know, I was kind of just getting my first first lick of some kind of a, a salary.
• 5:54
  And I think when I got introduced to the idea of cryptocurrencies, it was on the backdrop of the bank I was working for had actually just gone through what's called a role commission. And what was happening was they were getting brought before the courts for bad decisions that were made internally in, in the bank.
• 6:12
  And I was then introduced to this, this idea of cryptocurrencies and tokens that were a financial, I guess like a new economy that would operate without these kind of centralized systems.
• 6:23
  And I got to see, I guess the fault of the current system and the opportunity with this newly one that was being introduced to me.
• 6:28
  What year is this Beck?
• 6:29
  What Year?
• 6:30
  2017. Got it.
• 6:32
  Okay. Okay.
• 6:33
  Wow. You know, it's maybe four or five years into the industry itself.
• 6:36
  I think like a lot of it started on the dark web. A lot of it started with like very early adopters and kinda coders and developers.
• 6:43
  And then it slowly started trickling into like the traditional financial system and people in the banks were talking about it, but it was in this really like hush hush way.
• 6:51
  Like bankers would talk about it in their lunch breaks or at the par after work, but it wasn't really spoken about in the bank because there was this fear that was this new economy and blockchain technologies developing and there's a possibility it's gonna remove like our traditional systems and where we're working.
• 7:05
  So it wasn't mentioned in the bank.
• 7:09
  So fast forward, I, I made a couple of investments.
• 7:12
  I started getting like obsessive with it and honestly I hadn't really come across something that I deep dived into that much before. And I just remember reading blogs on my way to and from work listening to a podcast by a lady called Laura Shin.
• 7:25
  And she was like an icon as well, that it was one of the only females I could find at the time that was kind of speaking on the web three crypto space.
• 7:32
  It wasn't called three then it was called crypto.
• 7:34
  And I think the other thing I was doing was watching like YouTube videos, trying as much as I could to like research and figure out, you know, what was going on.
• 7:42
  And there wasn't the beautiful library of resources that we have today. And so, Beck, can I pause?
• 7:50
  Can I pause please.
• 7:51
  Okay, so somebody's listening right now and they're trying to find an identity within your story.
• 7:57
  This is what we all do as humans.
• 7:58
  When somebody else is communicating, we wanna put ourselves in the narrative.
• 8:02
  And even though there's somebody who's listening who may not have had a father who worked in a bank or wrote her, you know, master's thesis on limited representation of females in the financial and banking sector, and even if we can list all the reasons why we are different in nature than back, but what she's saying at the highest level is she became fully invested and interested and obsessed in learning more about a thing. Now, wherever you are right now on your journey, it doesn't necessarily have to take the form, but it's, this is something that Beck is not calling, it's calling to her.
• 8:35
  And so whatever time, and she didn't say, oh you know, I went on this lifelong sur you know, journey through the outback to figure it out.
• 8:41
  She's like, I'm on my way to work and I'm reading blog posts and I'm going out of my way to find out answers to questions that I'm not really sure I quite have.
• 8:49
  So as we listen to this, this is the beginning origin of somebody and I can't wait for her to share what she's been doing, doing okay, but I just wanna normalize the conversation of she just has more questions than answers.
• 9:00
  There's limited resources to what she's looking for.
• 9:03
  And yet on her commute time, she's just doing the work.
• 9:06
  Okay, Beck, take it Away.
• 9:07
  That's definitely it.
• 9:08
  That's definitely it.
• 9:09
  And then at night there's the commute, and then at night I would go to these meetups where there were developers that would come together, majority men, and they would talk about like building blockchains and staking and like stuff that was just so removed from like my skillset.
• 9:24
  And in the bank I was doing a lot of marketing and social work.
• 9:28
  So like all of this is just outside of the realms of, you know, what, what would naturally come to me as like, you know, a skill set.
• 9:35
  So I'm sitting in these rooms going, I'm like writing notes, I have no idea what these words are.
• 9:39
  And then on the way back home I'm researching like staking like minting, like what are these different terms that these people are using?
• 9:45
  And then it's just like very extensively developer heavy, like definitions or I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm more confused than I was.
• 9:54
  But that was the, that was the process for honestly a year, a year.
• 9:59
  And then all of a sudden I got an opportunity where a friend had started a consulting business and he was consulting to cryptocurrency companies that were just starting.
• 10:07
  And he was looking for a person in marketing and social that could help with this like community management side of, of crypto that was building.
• 10:14
  And that was new to me.
• 10:15
  It was like, hey, if you're gonna launch a token in this crypto space, you do that with an audience of people.
• 10:21
  You manage them in like a group chat scenario, you have to create content, you have to keep them updated, you have to educate them.
• 10:27
  There's a whole lot of marketing materials and community building that's a part of this.
• 10:30
  And hey Beck, you've been into social and you've been doing a lot of work on social media, different like social media sites and also around content creation.
• 10:39
  We think that you'd be really good at just like testing the waters here.
• 10:42
  And so I did.
• 10:43
  And then that company that I started working for just doing a bit of consulting was like, Hey, we're actually looking for a, like a cmo, do you bemo in la?
• 10:51
  And so that was the progression from Sydney in the bank.
• 10:56
  Basically said to the bank like, Hey, I'm, I'm gonna go and leave to work for a cryptocurrency company in la.
• 11:01
  It's a startup, You know, you sounded crazy.
• 11:05
  They're like, do you know what you're saying?
• 11:07
  Yes to My parents.
• 11:09
  My parents are like, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't, this wasn't the plan.
• 11:12
  You went to university, you got into the bank and now you're stable.
• 11:15
  Like you're covered.
• 11:16
  You're gonna have your kids, you're gonna get protected.
• 11:18
  Like you're gonna meet your husband in the bank.
• 11:20
  What? Don't leave the country work for a cryptocurrency.
• 11:24
  This wasn't the plan.
• 11:27
  And so I did.
• 11:28
  So I left, I left Australia, I moved to la I started working for cryptocurrency company.
• 11:34
  I did two years with them.
• 11:35
  They were acquired and then I worked for another defi company.
• 11:40
  And I think when I was working for this Defi company, I, I had this moment of like, okay, I've been in this industry now for three years.
• 11:48
  I'm getting a really, what's defi company?
• 11:50
  What's a defi?
• 11:50
  Right, good question.
• 11:51
  So I'm a decentralized finance company.
• 11:53
  And so there's a, there's like a sub-industry within crypto where you have centralized businesses like a Coinbase and then you have decentralized businesses.
• 12:01
  And the way that they're run often is that all of their products are set up in a way that the customer is like the owner of their assets and their experience.
• 12:10
  And so it's a, it's a new kind of area of, well it's a newer area of crypto that's been building out since around 20 19, 20 20.
• 12:20
  And it allows for the user to be empowered with their own assets and it, it relies on technology to remove the middleman.
• 12:25
  And so it's simply relied on technology to do the job of what we've relied on people to do.
• 12:31
  And so this is, this is, you know, tying in to kinda just like look back on the story I just told, it's really tying into this, this narrative that I had pushing in me, which was like inclusion and people having access and ownership.
• 12:44
  And one of the beautiful parts of decentralized finance businesses and services is that anyone with an standing connection in the world can access these products.
• 12:54
  And, and one of the biggest problems in the world still today is there's 1.8 billion people that are unbanked.
• 13:00
  And what I mean when I say unbanked is that they can't open a bank account because they either don't have a license or a passport or identification, which allows them to basically go through that process.
• 13:08
  They might have had some kind of bad history or they might just be in a relationship for a lot of women where they're not actually allowed to have financial autonomy.
• 13:17
  And so now enter a world where technologies are being built and you can actually interact and have your own financial products without needing anything.
• 13:27
  You just need an email address.
• 13:28
  And so I think, you know, starting to build into or starting to experience those kinds of, those workplaces really got me thinking like, okay, like what can I do now?
• 13:39
  Like I've now worked for two different companies and I'm seeing holes in some of the products that I'm using.
• 13:44
  While it's being one of them, I'm seeing holes and I'm getting frustrated because this thing doesn't feel that good or it's really clunky or I'm having to explain to my friend, my mom, my cousin, my auntie who all wanna open cryptocurrency wallets.
• 13:55
  I have to sit down with them for 30 minutes to explain it.
• 13:59
  And that's, that's not a good product experience.
• 14:01
  Like I shouldn't have to do that for a person.
• 14:03
  The product should be doing that for the person.
• 14:05
  There should be a wonderful product experience that is onboarding people into products like wallets.
• 14:10
  And so that was kind of the beginning of I guess wanting to, to solve problems in this space and then looking for a product in particular that I thought there was a lot of pain points around.
• 14:20
  And to me that was the wallet.
• 14:21
  And then I thought, okay, well there's a lot of wallets out there.
• 14:24
  How am I gonna be different?
• 14:26
  Like what, what am I gonna change?
• 14:27
  Okay, so before we get there that's like, I like that's like a perfect place to stop cause it's a cliff hanger.
• 14:32
  Lots of options.
• 14:33
  Like what am I then going to do?
• 14:35
  So as we're listening, the connection point between Beck's origin story is like things had been planted, she had been moving in the direction and it was in the process of doing now Beck never sat out and said, Hey, I really wanna take this big adventure.
• 14:50
  I really wanna wanna take a big risk.
• 14:52
  It was more of like, I'm doing something that's, you know, scratching an itch, I'm doing something that I'm interested in.
• 14:58
  And in the process of doing, in the process of the nitty gritty work, she realizes there's a gap.
• 15:04
  She's like, I'm actually doing one-on-one teaching on getting people who should have a wallet, women specifically leading in this space.
• 15:13
  And she's like, I have to sit down with my mom, my sister, my friends.
• 15:17
  Now as she's describing this, these are women of all different ages.
• 15:21
  So as you are listening to this podcast right now and you're thinking to yourself, I'm being called to something and you might not have a business vision yet or you might have an early business vision, but you're kind of like, I'm doing this one on one, what then is like the next thing for me to do?
• 15:34
  That's when like Beck, this is where the difference between so many entrepreneurs is that there's people who are like, I'm okay doing this one on one.
• 15:42
  I'm okay like being interested.
• 15:44
  But Beck had decided it wasn't enough.
• 15:47
  Like she decided that she's going to go in and fill the gaps that she saw and the gap that she saw was with a wallet.
• 15:55
  Now if you've been listening to any of our cryptocurrency podcast episodes here on the Jasmine Star show, the wallet is basically how you would use your physical wallet.
• 16:03
  You're gonna be putting things in and out of it.
• 16:07
  And this is the way that we make transactions on web three. So Beck is like, hey, there's like a big gap.
• 16:14
  I'm gonna dive in.
• 16:15
  How did we get there though?
• 16:16
  Like how do we get to the point of like, okay, I'm gonna build a wallet, which is crazy Beck.
• 16:21
  It's crazy, Right? Yeah, it is crazy.
• 16:23
  And I tell you what, it's crazy because it's a technical product and I am a marketer, I'm a salesperson, I'm a social content creator.
• 16:30
  Like, and, and that was, you know, that was the only pushback.
• 16:33
  Like cool idea beck, but what are you gonna build it?
• 16:37
  Where's your, where's your development team?
• 16:39
  And so, you know, that's I guess as well where I'm at a point or inflection point where I'm starting to try and listen to other founders business stories as well, honestly. And I'm hearing about non-technical founders and what people started with that with as their idea.
• 16:52
  And also that, you know, you, the person that's starting doesn't have to build everything.
• 16:57
  That's part of finding a team that's finding part of finding co-founders. And so I had a wonderful guy that I'd been working alongside of throughout, you know, throughout banking actually in Australia, his name's James Pina.
• 17:07
  And we'd done consulting gigs on the side throughout this kind of like whole time period of three years working in crypto.
• 17:13
  And we'd always had this idea of it'd be so cool to build a business together but never really landed on like an idea where we both went, this is it.
• 17:19
  And I remember calling him and telling him about the idea.
• 17:22
  I was in Nashville at the time and I was on a, a girls' weekend away and I was talking about cryptocurrencies at a table at a dinner on a Saturday night.
• 17:29
  And everyone at the table was like very well versed in their careers.
• 17:33
  They were very, you know, progressed in their careers.
• 17:35
  They were on really good salaries and I mentioned crypto and everyone went, no, please don't talk to me about, don't talk about cryptocurrencies, don't mention Bitcoin.
• 17:43
  And I went, you know, this is not good.
• 17:45
  This is like a, this is a newly developing asset class.
• 17:48
  It is is a new wave of the internet and everyone at the table here, it has this like really horrible reaction to it where it's, where it's nearly, you know, to the opposite effect of, no I'm not interested.
• 18:00
  It's like, don't talk to me about it.
• 18:01
  And so I thought that's an opportunity.
• 18:03
  Like this is a big opportunity and a gap if people are so turned off by the topic of this.
• 18:07
  And I think it's because of how it's positioned, how the products are and that people just don't understand it and it feels like a bit of a boys club.
• 18:15
  And so I called James and I said, James, I have an idea.
• 18:17
  I think we should start building a cryptocurrency wallet cuz it's one of the first products that you download because you need to like, invest and get your assets into something.
• 18:25
  That's what the wallet does.
• 18:27
  And I think that we can stop marketing it towards half of the population, you know, that haven't engaged in this world yet.
• 18:33
  And he said, yeah, I, I can see it.
• 18:35
  I think this is a really good idea.
• 18:37
  And so I come back from Nashville, I'm still working for this other company at the time and this is the balance, right? It's I'm getting my salary, I'm living overseas, I don't have like a lot of like resources around me other than that.
• 18:47
  So I need some consistency and stability while I start to test and, and really draw this out.
• 18:53
  But I'm also working for this company full time.
• 18:54
  So it's a lot you're having to, you know, pile on time before work after work to actually start making this happen.
• 19:01
  And so I remember I came across this podcast, it was a guy called Matt Sherman and he interviews founders that have ideas before they're even on a pitch deck, like just an idea in the head.
• 19:12
  And I jumped on this podcast with him, I told him the idea and then a week later a lady reached out and she said, I love your idea, I wanna in your company.
• 19:21
  And I'm thinking haven't set, I haven't set, I haven't.
• 19:26
  It's my, and that was the kicker to start actually like organizing ourselves.
• 19:34
  And we, we had the conversation with this wonderful woman, Cassandra and she said she wanted make the investment.
• 19:40
  We started putting together pitch deck materials cause we knew that was like the next thing to start fundraising.
• 19:46
  And then I started going hard onik.
• 19:47
  And that was the first time I really put like a lot of concerted effort with a good narrative behind this idea into my TikTok content.
• 19:55
  Before then it was just like silly dances and just having a bit of fun and the video that I created around coming up with the idea and what I wanted to build got so much traction that that was the video I started sending to VCs as a way of landing and talking about the idea, Get out, get out, okay, I'm gonna repeat the story back as I just heard it to make sure that I'm not going crazy.
• 20:22
  You reach out to a, a peer with an idea.
• 20:26
  Yes, after waiting for a while for the right idea to which he responds, Hey, I think that's a good idea, but at this point it's just an idea.
• 20:34
  So then you go on a podcast with just an idea.
• 20:38
  Yes. And the idea is standalone good that somebody wants to give you money based on your words Yes.
• 20:45
  To which that goes and insights a deep proof of concept to then you decide I'm gonna put together a pitch deck for people who don't know what a pitch deck.
• 20:53
  It's basically a proposal to go to venture capital firms to say give us money.
• 20:58
  And so in the meantime of pitching and waiting for these meetings, Beck does what's any hustling entrepreneur will do, you go to, ok, so TikTok is where Beck starts creating content strategically around a topic so she can build herself an authority before she has a single thing out for people to buy.
• 21:24
  She's basically saying there is an underserved market and instead of just using a pitch deck, she says, Hey, I think we should have a meeting.
• 21:32
  But her and quite honestly, thousands of other people are trying to get money.
• 21:36
  And so what she does is says, I'm gonna make a video to prove there's demand.
• 21:40
  She makes a TikTok as proof and then starts pitching.
• 21:45
  Yes. And the comment section was like beautiful.
• 21:49
  Honestly, I remember the moment that it happened, I posted the video, my housemate that I was living with had kind of helped me with like a bit of the, the narrative and getting the storytelling right.
• 21:57
  And I remember when I posted it, I thought that wasn't good, it's not gonna land.
• 22:01
  And I woke up and I had hundreds of comments and that was the first time any of my videos had landed.
• 22:06
  Like, you know, normally I'd get 20 likes on a little TikTok video.
• 22:09
  This all of a sudden has hundreds of comments and my followers are starting to increase.
• 22:12
  And I'm like, whoa. And then, you know, this virality comes to it and there are so many people commenting, we build out a quick little funnel where we can send people to sign up for a beta.
• 22:22
  So we created like a landing page.
• 22:24
  We said, people are saying where can I sign up?
• 22:25
  This is The, let's go to the timing.
• 22:28
  So you wake up and you see hundreds of comments, thousands of likes, you see your count going up and at this point in time you don't have a landing page.
• 22:35
  We had, we, sorry, we had a landing page, but we had no call to action.
• 22:38
  It was just like clutch and this is the idea, okay. There wasn't any like sign up to use the app or the wallet.
• 22:46
  Okay, So you guys quickly make that change and you quickly say the seat James, get a get a button on that website.
• 22:56
  Wow. And so you get the button on the website, but then what about, what about the pitching?
• 23:02
  Like let's talk about that.
• 23:02
  Like no, people are listening and being like, okay, so now you have proof of concept, you have people interested, you're building out a wait list, you start pitching and what's like the preliminary like feedback.
• 23:12
  So you like, this feels like everything's going well.
• 23:15
  And then we get to pitching and it's the same thing which is like, you're not technical, how are you gonna build this product?
• 23:21
  Like where is your technical person?
• 23:23
  James does website design and he's like very good with design.
• 23:27
  So that's where we've managed to do like these two assets of like me front facing talking and content, him with a bit of a website and he's helped with a pitch deck.
• 23:35
  So like there're two things that come up as costs kinda like early on sometimes or at least skill sets that you need. But then, you know, very fair question, who is gonna build the, the product?
• 23:45
  And we're saying we'll find the talent.
• 23:46
  Like trust us, we're resourceful, we'll go and find the talent.
• 23:49
  They're saying no, we, we wanna see that there's like a technical co-founder or person with you.
• 23:54
  And so here comes the second crazy hustle strategy.
• 23:58
  So this is going on for like four weeks and I'm getting lots of nos or lots of come back to when you have a technical co-founder and we're trying, I've, I've spent, you know, I'm now, you know, we're spending our personal money on ads on crypto podcasts to try and find a technical co-founder for a wallet.
• 24:15
  And this isn't super like, you know, there is so much being built in crypto on web three.
• 24:21
  Like, you know, who's gonna, who's who's, who's coming to join a startup ID off a pitch deck.
• 24:27
  You know, that's, that's being marketed towards women.
• 24:29
  It's not the compelling Who's, who's a non-technical co-founder who got famous on.
• 24:43
  So we get desperate and I'm trying to think creatively, where am I gonna find a person?
• 24:49
  So I go onto Hinge and I make a profile, wait for this, I said it to San Francisco, my profile is my professional pictures a picture of the, the logo and I say I'm looking for a technical co-founder.
• 25:04
  We need people with these skill sets.
• 25:05
  This is where the business is at.
• 25:06
  We're having conversations with VCs that will give us x amount of dollars if we can find a technical co-founder.
• 25:11
  Are you interested?
• 25:13
  Oh my God, shut up.
• 25:18
  What happens?
• 25:19
  I'm dying.
• 25:20
  Two interviews.
• 25:21
  Not successful.
• 25:23
  Okay. The, the final person that we ended up finding was from like an air table list that I got sent of people that were really interested in, I dunno how this lady got on this, this, this list, but people that were working in like their long term companies for a long time and looking to enter into a side hustle project and that list was like 50 people.
• 25:46
  So I went through all of them, contacted all of them that I could on LinkedIn or via email. We had a couple of bites.
• 25:52
  And then we had one lady that we saw that was working for Oracle that had built an Ethereum wallet before and that was who I wanted to speak to.
• 26:01
  And she came through, we had a conversation, we got on really well as a woman that had been building in software and tech.
• 26:09
  She resonated so much with the mission and the idea behind building technology solutions that actually spoke to a demographic and that was our third person.
• 26:20
  Wow. And it helps that like she comes with like the Oracle brand.
• 26:24
  Yeah. And it helps that she has experience building, Building wall.
• 26:28
  We, so that changed conversations, that changed conversations.
• 26:32
  All of a sudden we have a technical person to join our conversations with Venture.
• 26:37
  We've also demonstrated during this time to the venture capitalists we spoke to at the beginning.
• 26:42
  Hey, you said there was a problem, we went and solved it.
• 26:45
  Exactly. And, and you can see that we're actually, we're doing stuff, we're progressing.
• 26:50
  And during that whole time as well, I'm creating content on TikTok still around the idea.
• 26:54
  So the following is growing and we're starting to create educational content to support our community that's starting to build around the idea. So we're funnel people into Facebook groups and Discord channels and talking to them about cryptocurrencies and how you start and what a wallet is and what Clutch is all about.
• 27:11
  And so that was kind of like the work that was being done while we were trying to find the, the co-founder that was technical.
• 27:17
  And that's just to mention that, you know, you have to kind of still keep moving the wheel whilst you're trying to solve that problem.
• 27:23
  So you can come back to the people that you spoke to at the beginning and say, Hey, we've done a lot more than just this.
• 27:30
  So one thing that like strikes me very strongly, but of course I'm biased beck, everything, every, every soapbox I stand on is about creating content, right? Like, so one thing, it's like I want the audience to hear very, very clearly that Beck has not been creating content for Clutch her business, her co-founded business, she's creating educational content, period. She's creating educational content for her largest competitors.
• 28:01
  If you have ever heard the word meta mask, you are going to hands down know that Beck is creating content that would ultimately have the potential of supporting the structure for a competitive wallet in the space.
• 28:15
  But Beck is saying, I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna build authority in the space period.
• 28:21
  And once I build enough goodwill education onboarding on this brand, I'm gonna hope that when the time comes they choose clutch wallet than any other wallet in this space.
• 28:33
  Did I hear that correctly?
• 28:35
  That's correct.
• 28:36
  And my co-founder, my co-founder, I don't, please don't make content for Coinbase.
• 28:42
  And I'm like, yeah, but I want, I want our users and our community members to get started now. I don't want 'em to have to wait for products.
• 28:49
  Exactly. This builds trust, this builds reputation, this shows that we are an authority and I think this is how we actually build community and you know, it took us a couple of months after that to actually have a product live.
• 29:00
  So it was, I think one of the best things we could do to actually, you know, capture some audience and, and build that credibility early on.
• 29:06
  Mm. So now that you're here and you are, you have, you have pitched and you have successfully raised funds, where are you at in your, where are you at in your, in your journey?
• 29:20
  We are at the point of, we closed our rounds after like four months of pitching.
• 29:26
  We closed our round in April and then we have built out our first web application of our wallet in four months, which is a very short timeframe.
• 29:35
  Crazy. That's crazy.
• 29:37
  And we have our first 1100 beta testers using the products this last week and a half.
• 29:43
  And we are now Congratulations.
• 29:44
  Thank you.
• 29:45
  It's a big, it's a big feeling to get to this point and go.
• 29:48
  We have a working product that is a technical product, like a product that relies on smart contracts.
• 29:55
  These, this technical term that allows for transactions to happen where you don't need a bank.
• 29:59
  Like it was a big feat.
• 30:00
  And we've gotten to this point now and now we need to raise capital again to start building out more of the product. So, you know, up until this point it's just been a web application.
• 30:11
  We want this in everyone's hands, we want a mobile application and we want also what's called a browser extension, which lives on the web application as well.
• 30:18
  So there's a lot more that is to come.
• 30:21
  And I guess the idea here is that we've shown the progress and traction and now we wanna take that and expand even more.
• 30:28
  And I guess the early people that bet on us were saying like, you know, this is a bit, and there were a lot of people that we spoke to that said, look, we actually wanna see you build something.
• 30:36
  So now I'm at the point of going back to those people and saying, Hey, we've taken four months to build and I'd love for you to invest so we can take this to the next stage. That's incredible.
• 30:46
  So one thing that really strikes me in that journey is for all intents and purposes back, they said no, like, did they give you money?
• 30:53
  Yes or no?
• 30:53
  No. So many 60 people and what you're doing said no.
• 30:59
  Yes. But what you're doing is you're going back to the no and said again, are you gonna, are you gonna say no again?
• 31:07
  Yeah. I've now gone and done it.
• 31:09
  And that's, you know what, there's a part of me that's like, I, I kind of get it, you know, you don't know me, I haven't been able to show you that much traction yet.
• 31:15
  Maybe you're a fund that invests at the next stage.
• 31:18
  That's okay, let me come back to you, let show you what we can do, right? And this is what we're gonna to do.
• 31:24
  We're gonna go, we're gonna build a web application, we're gonna testers we're partnerships, we're gonna some kind of a brand with this little bit of money that we've raised and, and then hopefully that's enough to you that this is like the next big thing that you wanna Hmm.
• 31:40
  What, what do you think what, like when you lay, when you, when you lay in bed and you worry about, I don't know about you, but as like the founder, what do you think, what do you lay in bed and worry about?
• 31:49
  Not the specifics, but what's like the pullback version of what's, what's the worry as you're building this business?
• 31:55
  The worry is there are so many ideas that we have and there are so many like features that we could bring into the product that are we building the growth, the viral growth product that's going to get us to move in a competitive market as fast as we want.
• 32:14
  So there's ideas about what features I'd love to add in, but is that what's actually going to be best for the customer? Is that what they want?
• 32:23
  And then there is this other challenge which is people will tell you what they want.
• 32:26
  Yes. But sometimes they dunno what they want because they haven't seen it yet, right? And so that's another kind of balancing act.
• 32:34
  So there's some of the things that keep me up at night, which is like, we have so many ideas, we're going down this, this line of, of, of thinking with the product.
• 32:41
  Is that the thing that people really care about and will bring growth to this product?
• 32:48
  And what are the things that you find, like when you lay in bed at night and things that you're most hopeful for, what is that Most hopeful for?
• 32:55
  Is that this market has so much like buzz and energy around it, but there is such low adoption.
• 33:04
  There is, there is 3.9% of the world that actually have cryptocurrencies or tokens.
• 33:11
  This is a, this is an industry that was valued at over 2 trillion this year.
• 33:16
  And so the thought that it can grow to being so much bigger when we have adoption and people actually like coming in and, and, and making use of it is what I'm so hopeful for. Mm.
• 33:29
  That's beautiful to, and to stay and to stay tethered between the two.
• 33:33
  Not to focus in like the, in the worry or the fear, but to stay tethered to like the faith.
• 33:39
  The faith that you were gonna be right at the right place in time.
• 33:42
  And the biggest pullback version obviously, obviously is a win.
• 33:48
  For me, a win for me having you on the podcast would be to number one, normalize the founder's journey.
• 33:54
  Because I think on the outside, back when I first met you, I was like, this girl is like, she, you know, has the Midas touch, you know, you are like a walking goddess and like look at how amazing and look at this money they've raised and look at her co-founders and look all this stuff.
• 34:08
  And then what we hear is like I got on TikTok, like I went back to people who said no.
• 34:13
  I basically sat down with people to figure out what you need to create in order to not sell the product first but to build trust.
• 34:21
  And I see that story and I hear it and I just think, I think to myself, what a massive win for so many people who are listening who have to go through the same thing is like trusting the process and being relentless.
• 34:30
  The second big win would be to normalize what it means to give access specifically.
• 34:35
  Obviously I'm biased to women in this space.
• 34:38
  There is an opportunity that has not been, I mean for our, my parents, my great-grandparents, my grandparents beyond that, to actually have the opportunity to get in on the ground level of something that's gonna be transformative.
• 34:49
  And the only thing I want people to do, specifically women get educated.
• 34:54
  Just know your options.
• 34:56
  Don't when you're at a dinner table, turn away immediately or just say, if somebody tells me at a NFT project, I'm gonna throw my glass.
• 35:01
  Like actually just be open to the conversation because this will change your life and potentially your business.
• 35:08
  And then they're gonna have tools in the future like clutch wallet. And so I'm bringing back on to focus on the founder's journey but to also normalize the conversation in which I believe in less than 10 years is gonna be on the tip of everybody's tongue and we could say this is where the story began and we got to see that journey.
• 35:25
  So for all intents and purposes, Beck, for people who wanna follow your journey, where do they go to connect with you and then where do they go to connect more with Clutch and learn from your amazing content that you're putting out.
• 35:36
  Sure. Thank you for that highlight.
• 35:38
  I'd love for people to follow me along on TikTok.
• 35:41
  My name is Crypto Beck and there's an underscore after Beck and is BBC in Australia.
• 35:48
  We do BC we don't do, and then Clutch, you can visit www dot clutch wallet xyz.
• 35:58
  Our product is live for people to start testing.
• 36:00
  And so anyone that is interested, I would absolutely love for you to give the product a trial. What I will say is we've been thinking about building this product with a first time fresh to web three crypto user in mind.
• 36:12
  So if your audience and anyone in your audience and people that are like, I've never, I've never thought about going into this industry, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me or there's just too much or the, or you know, when I open a meta mask wallet that one time my friend showed me, it was really confusing.
• 36:26
  We've really tried to build like an onboarding experience where you can choose, I'm a first time user or I'm an expert, I've come through before, I don't need to go through an onboarding flow.
• 36:34
  And then when you are landing in our wallet, they're educational resources, there's modules, there's courses, there's guides that help you get started before you have to do anything.
• 36:44
  You don't have to spend a single cent, but at least you can land in the product, get a feel for it, have a look at I guess what the bells and whistles are and then go through a flow of educational content that's got video and resources and kind of means that makes it approachable and fun and, and hopefully something that resonates with people.
• 37:02
  I mean y'all, did you not hear what this woman just said?
• 37:04
  She said there are free courses, you are onboarded, we are making so, and here's the thing that I'm just like, I, I just, I feel like I'm belaboring this point, but y'all like pay special attention.
• 37:16
  She's not saying use the wallet.
• 37:18
  She's saying come in, look at all of these free resources to get you educated.
• 37:25
  And if at the end of that education you are just done, turned out by the product, by our offer, choose us.
• 37:32
  But beyond that, go through the education to get educated.
• 37:35
  This is like a bigger mission.
• 37:36
  This is a bigger movement.
• 37:37
  Beck, I can't say enough good things about you.
• 37:40
  I can't say enough good things about your mission.
• 37:41
  I am so, so happy to have met you.
• 37:44
  I am so happy to be in your sphere.
• 37:47
  I will always be an ally, I will always be counterpart.
• 37:50
  Please let me know whatever I can do to continue to extend the education that you're putting out.
• 37:54
  And then the offer at the end, that's like what all good education does is you provide value, value, value and then the option for somebody to invest thereafter.
• 38:02
  Beck, you are amazing.
• 38:04
  Thank you.
• 38:05
  A thousand times over y'all.
• 38:06
  Please do your girl a solid check out clutch wallet, get onboarded.
• 38:10
  Just do the learnings because knowledge is power.
• 38:12
  Thank you Beck.
• 38:13
  I appreciate you being here.
• 38:14
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 38:15
  Really appreciate it.