Billion Moonshots

Evan Chen is an advisor at DropoutDAO and a former Project Lead at Google. We discuss DAOs, protocols, opportunities in Web 3, communities, the future of Web 3, and interesting conversations on Twitter.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM Prashant on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr.fm: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

OUTLINE

(0:00) What are DAOs

(11:27) Successful examples of DAOs

(14:07) What are protocols

(15:07) Opportunities in Web 3

(24:42) Earning initial money in Web 3

(31:22) Communities

(42:30) Future of Web 3

(53:25) Interesting things on Twitter

(58:45) Big Tech companies adopting Web 3

Christopher is the founder of meTokens - allowing individuals to issue their own personal tokens. Personal tokens can be used to pay builders & creators for their work or to gain special access to their inboxes and calendar.  

We talk about the history of Personal Tokens, setting up a personal DAO, experiments in this space, token-gated experiences, future of Chris's token, and more.

SPONSORS

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CBobRobison

MeTokens: https://metokens.com/profile/0xa64fc17b157aaa50ac9a8341bab72d4647d0f1a7

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(00:00) - Origin story of meTokens  

(7:08) - Personal Tokens will lead to a better society  

(14:50) - Personal DAOs ?!? 

(18:16) - Live Discord concerts 

(19:54) - Experiments with Personal Tokens 

(25:20) - Token-gated experiences 

(27:32) - "Separation of Money and State" - E.C. Riegal  

(34:26) - Aligning incentives for issuer and holder 

(43:15) - Payment with meTokens    

(48:05) - User Adoption 

(51:34) - Future of $CBOB token 

(53:26) - Revisiting Payment with meTokens

TOP EPISODES

87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Arman and Parker are the founders of Peaze - allowing you to use any dapp with just an email and credit card. A lot of cool things are being built in web3 - but most of the new users who come in are unable to use them.   Users have to download a wallet, manage the private keys, on-ramp the correct crypto, swap it into the correct asset, bridge, transfer over from Coinbase, etc. Web3 user onboarding is a real problem. What if you could just sign in with your email.

SPONSORS

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArmanVaziri || https://twitter.com/Peaze

Medium: https://medium.com/@Peaze

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/arman-vaziri/ || https://www.linkedin.com/company/76595591

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(00:00) - Leaving big tech job for build in web3 

(03:30) - Origin story of Peaze 

(5:59) - How Peaze lowers the barrier to entry for dapps 

(08:30) - What happens behind the scenes when a user signs in with Google on Peaze? 

(10:00) - How Peaze secures the private keys of a user? 

(11:23) - Narrowing down on the user onboarding problem 

(13:49) - Is Peaze Stripe for web3? 

(17:25) - User education around web3 concepts 

(21:10) - North Star Metric of Peaze 

(24:19) - The one-click experience 

(30:53) - Helping users become self-custodian 

(32:35) - DeFi is the use case for crypto 

(35:12) - Market Adoption 

(37:44) - The Peaze Logo 

(38:40) - Raising $2m during a crypto downturn 

(51:02) - Other Web3 Trends

TOP EPISODES

87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi]  

75: Kyla Scanlon  

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast  

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tristen Larsen is the founder and CEO of Blockem AI, an advanced anti-scam detection software for Ethereum wallets. 

We talked about how trust percentages are calculated, losing $20K in a crypto scam, origin story of Blockem, why web3 UX sucks, how their team flagged FTX wallets 2 months before the whole fiasco and much more.

SPONSORS

XMTP: https://xmtp.org/

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Suited_ETH

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suited/

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristen-larsen-%F0%9F%93%B2-1a953a114/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(00:00) - How is the Trust Percentage calculated?

(02:50) - Scams in Crypto

(4:24) - Losing $20,000 in a scam

(9:47) - Origin story of Blockem

(14:31) - Product Insights

(20:07) - Web3 UX sucks

(23:04) - What does the Trust Percentage mean?

(27:10) - Red flags in Smart Contracts

(31:39) - Ideal user experience of Blockem

(36:33) - Creative new scams in the industry

(39:00) - Flagged FTX 2 months before the whole fiasco !!

(42:54) - Story of coming up with the name

(47:11) - Remote culture

(52:31) - Reading 15 books per month

TOP EPISODES

87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Ayush Ranjan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Huddle01 - enabling open and decentralized video meetings. We talked about building Huddle01 at a hackathon, what happens behind the scenes during a video call, decentralization efforts, finding product market fit, and green crypto.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ranjan3118

Farcaster: @ranjan3118

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ranjan_3018/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjan18/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjan18/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Why web3 Zoom? 

(3:53) - Meeting Co-Founder  

(5:46) - Building Huddle01 at a hackathon 

(09:50) - Architecture Overview 

(13:22) - Decentralization efforts & tradeoffs 

(29:20) - Finding Product Market Fit 

(37:23) - Quality vs Speed 

(38:32) - Green Crypto 

(40:51) - Longevity, Space & Quantum

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Pei Li is currently the co-founder of Venue, was previously the founder of CodeMode, a small development agency specializing in building MVPs. Studied at University of Toronto after that he has worked as a software engineer at Wealthsimple.

We talked about growing in an unprivileged family, taking internships at companies like IBM, raising funds, building consultation firm and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Website: https://www.venue.live/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peicodes/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Growing up in a financially poor background 

(4:23) - Landing internship at IBM, Shopify & Wealthsimple 

(11:41) - First shot at building startup 

(15:42) - Travelling & consulting 

(24:05) - Joining Venue 

(26:25) - Replacing in-person conferences 

(30:00) - Venue's value proposition 

(37:30) - Raising $4M

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Delian Asparouhov is a principal at the Founders Fund and co-founder of Varda Space Industries, a space manufacturing startup.   

We talked about juggling between a VC and founder role, the science of space manufacturing, future plans, life of a space factory worker, creating zero-gravity on Earth, hiring from SpaceX, superpower of Peter Thiel, and more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/zebulgar?s=20&t=pfJTZ4FToEOJ2NY7gjAt2g

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delian-asparouhov-87447742/

Website: https://varda.com/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Juggling between VC and founder role 

(5:18) - Science of space manufacturing  

(12:45) - Putting Factories in Space 

(18:30) - Life of a space factory worker 

(21:09) - Is zero-gravity manufacturing on Earth possible? 

(27:28) - Hiring from SpaceX's Dragon team 

(33:29) - Role of NASA in the space economy  

(37:32) - Economic incentives in the space industry

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Sukhman & his co-founder both worked as data consultants where they helped companies understand their customers. This included analyzing consumer behavior, habits, and demographics. While in these roles they started to see the blatant disregard for consumer privacy to prioritize marketing and profits. The work they did exploited customer data and directly provided millions of dollars in value to these companies. They felt like villains at work.  

This is when they started researching ways to protect their own online privacy and realized how difficult this task was. The onus was continuously on the average person to follow best practices, which often required tons of conscious effort and ruined the user experience.   

This is why they came up with Cyder. Cyder is a browser extension that makes privacy, and data ownership simple, free, and accessible to everyone. Their mission has always been to create an internet where users own and get compensated for their data.   

We talk about building Cyder, disregard for consumer privacy, expectation vs reality of being a founder, going viral with YC application video, and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sukhmandulay/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cyder/

Cyder: https://www.getcyder.com/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Data consulting after graduation  

(4:00) - Feeling like villains at work  

(13:33) - Decentralized blockchain for data security  

(17:56) - Data Ethics 

(22:59) - Ad desensitization 

(28:35) - Origin story of Cyder 

(37:08) - Expectation vs Reality of being a founder 

(41:30) - Importance of having a co-founder 

(44:10) - Going viral with YC application video 

(46:20) - Do you still feel like a villain at work?

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Shane Mac is building a crypto-native communication protocol for web3. Similar to SMTP for email, XMTP will enable communication between existing crypto wallets via its own independent protocol and decentralized network. They have raised a $20M Series A from a16z Crypto, with participation from other popular funds and strategic angels.    

We talk about the origin story of XMTP, learnings from interviewing Gary Vee, being young and lucky, writing book at 23, entrepreneurship and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shanemac

Blog: https://blog.shanemac.com/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Young and Lucky  

(12:22) - Getting calmer 

(18:31) - Gary Vee  

(25:37) - Hosting Podcast 

(30:57) - Great podcast episode 

(32:08) - Heavy Conversations 

(40:33) - Culture 

(42:50) - Writing Book 

(52:00) - Entrepreneurship  

(59:06) - XMTP  

(01:04:25) - Meaning of Life

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tyler Denk led product & growth at Morning Brew, did product stint at Google and then last year, launched beehiiv - a newsletter platform empowering creators to monetize and grow like never before.   

We talked about building startup in college, dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew, scaling newsletter to 3M subcribers, product management lessons from Google, launching beehiiv, why email newsletter is a great business and more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerdenk_/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/denk_tweets

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Building startup in college 

(4:57) - Dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew 

(9:05) - Early success of Morning Brew 

(10:40) - Sending newsletter from bars & games 

(14:31) - Lessons from growing newsletter to 3M subs 

(17:42) - Economics of newsletter  

(20:38) - The Hustle & competition 

(22:28) - Morning Brew's world-class Referral Program 

(27:25) - Product Management lessons from Google  

(36:10) - Origin story of beehiiv 

(41:28) - Why email newsletter is a great business? 

(50:37) - Growth channels  

(53:28) - Taking ad-share away from Facebook and Google 

(56:05) - Homegrown Success Story: Milkroad.com 

(58:01) - Fundraising 

(58:55) - Web3

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.