SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 787: Crypto: With $163m Raised, He Launched the #1 ICO
Sep 19, 2017
23:09
Eyal Hertzog. He's been a venture-backed technology entrepreneur for over 20 years. He's the founder of Metacafe, Israel's fastest growing video sharing site which has reached over 15M uniques at its peak. Previously, he founded Contact Networks which was one of the first social networks in 1999. He's now at Bancor Network and has been an outspoken thought leader on cryptocurrency in Israel and is a talented piano and bass musician.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The Spider and the Starfish
- What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
- Favorite online tool? — Google Keep
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "You never stop evolving"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:49 – Nathan introduces Eyal to the show
- 02:40 – Bancor is a non-profit organization which is in a new model that has been rising recently
- 03:36 – Similarly to Etherium, Bancor is also a token that is solving the problem of liquidity
- 04:00 – Eyal talks about any kind of liquidity that works today with crypto tokens
- 04:14 – There is a token that represents gold and a token that represents a dollar which you can convert back to gold and dollars
- 04:24 – "Real assets from the real world are already represented in the blockchain"
- 04:47 – Bancor provides a different way that doesn't require traders to bid for an asset; it automatically finds a market trait according to a certain formula
- 05:09 – Nathan shares about his interview with Joe Zhou who is the founder of Firstblood
- 05:56 – The pricing of ether and other cryptocurrencies is always changing
- 06:25 – Bancor provides a much better solution than cryptocurrencies exchanges, like what Coinbase is doing, for liquidity
- 06:46 – Bancor is an alternative way to convert cryptocurrencies
- 06:52 – The exchanges that are based on smart contracts are automated so they won't require central services
- 07:14 – Bancor did their own ICO for their token which is BNT or banking network token that will be used in Bancor's network of token conversion
- 07:26 – Within three hours, Bancor raised $153M
- 07:44 – It was in June 12, 2017
- 08:03 – Bancor was very open during their ICO and told people that everyone who will invest in 2 hours will have an opportunity and they will get exactly the same rate
- 09:11 – There are currently 20 people involved in Bancor's operation
- 09:31 – Bancor liquidates as little as possible which is less than 10%
- 10:11 – Bancor currently has 12445 token holders
- 10:22 – Eyal has worked with VCs for a long time prior to Bancor
- 12:05 – People who hold a lot of cryptocurrencies are called "whales"
- 12:29 – The goal of people in the crypto world is to build a new financial ecosystem
- 13:14 – The foundation where the proceeds from the crowdsale go is called V Protocol
- 13:27 – The foundation sold 50% of the tokens and the other 50% went to different buckets
- 14:07 – Bancor runs on the ethereum blockchain so they already have miners and won't need miners for their own tokens
- 15:18 – Nathan summarizes Bancor's figures
- 16:40 – Eyal had a dream to build something that will have a cultural effect or something that will change how we do things
- 17:07 – When Eyal learned about bitcoin, he thought that it would be a huge, cultural evolution one day
- 17:55 – In terms of completed ICOs, Bancor ranks number one
- 18:28 – Eyal shares where the demand for Bancor came from
- 20:34 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- There are better ways to do cryptocurrency exchanges that benefit the token holder more.
- Be open to your investors, so you can earn their trust.
- You are always learning and evolving.
Resources Mentioned:
- Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives