Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast
about innovators, both in business and real life.
Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona.
This podcast is sponsored by openexperts .com.
OpenExperts is a place to go if you're looking
to talk with top experts from around the world.
That is open -experts .com. This podcast is also
sponsored by startupnetworks .co .uk. Startup
Networks, it's an online forum where you can
find all the resources you need to learn your
startup. from grants to investors to tips and
tricks on how to be successful when you start.
This podcast is also sponsored by ODEV Tech.
ODEV Tech is your premier software development
partner. Make sure you check them out at odev
.tech. Today we are joined by the team from ODEV
Tech, one of our sponsors, Esteban, Keenan and
Rufus. Gentlemen, welcome. It's a pleasure having
you here on the podcast. I would love to start
the podcast, this episode of the podcast, by
hearing a bit more about how Olive Tech got started.
So I don't know which one of you would like to
go ahead and tell the story. I'm sure our audience
would love to hear it. Well, maybe I can kick
off and then Keenan, you can tell us more about
the history. He has been been there for a long
time. working with us. Odev started maybe 10
years ago. We found out that people were struggling
to find good development films. So we jumped
in and we tried to solve that issue. Many of
our clients are startups or companies looking
for trustworthy teams, senior development services.
So here we are. And Keenan and Rufus are big
partners on Odev and has been with us for a long
time. So I don't know, maybe Keenan. You can
tell more as an old client and now a partner
something more else. Yeah. Okay. So my side,
I think it actually goes back to 2008 for me,
which a long time ago, but so I had a startup.
Brilliant startup, by the way, it was destined
for greatness. But unfortunately, it didn't work.
Yeah, so that's 2008. I mean, the world was against
us at that time. You forget how depressing it
was. But we needless to say, we ran out of money.
And so I ended up working in a bank, which I
mean, I really had to kind of sacrifice my morals.
But sometimes you got to do those things. I had
to make some money somehow. This was a we actually,
it was quite an interesting project. for a bank,
it was quite innovative. We're building Twitter
inside a bank. And part of the reason they were
doing that was to try and cut down on on spend
on Bloomberg chat. So this was, you know, sort
of 2008 again, they even the banks were trying
to try to cut costs. And so it was quite innovative.
Well, if anyone remembers IE 8, you might remember
how difficult it is to build anything at all
for it on IE 8. I mean, absolutely horrendous.
So for that aside, We ended up getting, uh, I
think somebody from Upwork and kind of random.
Um, we were trying to build MVPs sort of outside
the bank just because it was faster. And then,
and then sort of show the product off, uh, internally,
but, um, it's always a bit random or it feels
random sometimes just going onto Upwork and,
and, uh, finding, you know, whoever. And Elliot,
long story short, it turns out the person that
I kind of started contracting with. When things
got difficult, he ended up subcontracting. I'm
not sure if you're still there because we stopped
hearing you. Shamanics. The problem with the
shamanics. Where did I stop? You were talking
about you built Twitter for a bank? Yeah. Oh
no, stop there. Okay. Did I talk about IE8? I
did, didn't I? Yes. And then you're saying about,
I got the, I, it was hard to build an IE8 and
that was it. Okay. So basically saying, so hired
some from Upwork and, uh, which is always a little
bit random. And it turned out the guy I hired
from Upwork was, was subcontracting the difficult
work to Esteban. So obviously that didn't last
long. Once I found that out, it went straight
to Esteban and then, uh, the other. other guy
unfortunately got fired and Esteban and I started
off building this product inside HSBC. And so
for me, that was the starting point of our sort
of working relationship. And then we've been
through a number of startups, sort of my own
startups and you've had some of your own as well.
And then some of my other friends startups and
sort of the patchwork of kind of startups, particularly
in the UK. kind of sort of London, you know,
your friends and that sort of thing. It's what
once you for us, it was more about just having
some confidence in in the resources that we were
using. And obviously, for a startup, you're always
cost conscious. And so remote working works well,
I mean, I'm sure like many, right, we've been
all remote working and offshore for for that
1015 years. I mean, it's been standard for a
long, long time. So and the cost benefits of
that obviously are enormous. So, so yeah, so
that's my starting point. Yeah. Long time. And
then, and then Rufus, when did you join? I joined
a year ago and I come from, from essentially
the amoral banking side that Keenan spoke of
a few minutes ago. I was managing money for,
for hedge funds and stuff. So the real dark,
the real dark side of, of, no, I'm joking. I
had a great, I love that job, but I loved crypto
even more. And I got the opportunity to lead
a crypto startup listed on the TSX -V and jumped
at it with both hands. And I ended up representing
or leading a UK based service driven crypto broker
set up by some UK traditional finance entrepreneurs
in wealth management stuff. And none of us had
any experience building software. all good at
the business side and revenue generation and
that kind of stuff and risk, but no one had built
any software. We were really, I think if someone
could write a macro on Excel, that was about
as far as we could go. So we went through two
CTOs quite quickly to get what we needed for
the brokerage. We needed an app, a cell phone
app. We needed a backend to help store all the
data. And we also needed to integrate somehow
into TradFi to get an audit done because we were
a publicly limited company. So there were lots
of pressures. And after two CTOs, we came across
Keenan and Esteban and they got the job done
on time with all that public company pressure
behind us. I didn't have to crack the whip too
much. They just responded, got on, solved problems,
found solutions. and did it at reasonable cost.
What I discovered is that when you go through
a business career, I'm actually in my third decade
of business, I know that's hard to believe, but
when you come across people who are keepers,
you want to hold on to them, people who actually
deliver. Nowadays, Tons of people have startup
ideas or software ideas, but there's tons of
those people who haven't got a clue how to write
any code. And if when you come across the right
people who can help you realize your dream, then
it's extremely valuable. And so when I left crypto
brokerage and Esteban asked me if I'd like to
join them, it was a no brainer really. So that's
how I came to it. I think we undercharged Esteban.
As you can see, Ricardo, now we have the good
guys, the bad guys all together. We are very
good now with all. with Keenan, with Rufus, you
know, we are working now on many fintech projects
and we are becoming really cool at that, you
know? So, I mean, it's great to have such team
and it's great for other startups and companies
be able to have the team we have, you know? Thinking
about something, because you've all mentioned
that you've had many previous projects before.
and that actually gave you a lot of experience,
which when you're building something for a startup,
you bring that to the table, right? You're just
not just developing something based on someone's
request, you're actually giving your input on
what should be built and the way it should be
built, right? So what do you, you know, what's
your advice for someone starting a business right
now? Because you have tons of businesses under
your belt in different regions of the world.
So what are like the top three tips that you
always say, you know, do this first and do that?
We have many ideas. Many, many, many, many, many
of them. But I don't know. Take care of your
budget. Take care of your budget. That should
be one of the first. I don't know. Kin and Rufus.
MVP iterate test. Yeah. No, even before then,
for me. So one, even as a developer, I think
Figma is the best product. that's ever existed.
I think it's amazing. I think one of my experiences,
particularly of say early stage investing, is
that hardly anyone actually uses your product.
I mean, you're lucky if they do. If you get big
numbers and you've got sort of your viral a bit,
or you get some traction, you know, I mean, that's
awesome. But most people don't. It's the default,
really. So you can end up putting huge amounts
of work into stuff that doesn't. get used at
that early stage. And I'm guilty of that more
than anyone, I think. But the point I was going
to make is I think between doing stuff in Figma,
because design is cheaper than development, because
you can change it so fast. And you can have so
many variations. And most of the time, you're
just trying to convey the idea. So you're trying
to pitch to people, trying to refine the idea,
trying to try to get across what it looks like.
So I think that stage should actually last much,
much longer. Once you get into development, you're
going down a path which you're committed, or
it's just harder. Despite all the tools, it's
still harder to be fast, or as fast as the design
kind of Figma stage. And the other thing that
I always think is, is that book, I'll forget
the name of it now. What is it? Think, someone
will have to repost me. Think fast? think slow.
What's that book called? Oh, I've got it here.
That one thing fast and slow. Yeah, fast and
slow. That's that's the book I had in my mind.
Like actually the I find and this is what a lot
of accelerators basically do the whole purpose
of an accelerator almost is to is to basically
make you think like all the big thoughts you
have in there like a distillation kind of process
to be able to get do all the thinking required
to get down to real sort of precision about what
your business or startup kind of does. So I think
because that's free, and because doing work in
Figma and the design and all that kind of stuff
is, it's not free, but it's cheaper. Like the
more you can do in that side, the better. So
that's the first thing. And then the second,
particular third thing as well, I always think
of think like if you've got like a barbell you've
got like sell the dream versus build the dream
and it's like the the more you can sell the dream
that the better sales skills you have right then
the less you have to develop and I always struggle
with this like I mean I build far too much I
think everyone builds far too much all these
startups build far far too much in a way and
I certainly think that the more you can sell,
the better your selling skills, the less cash
you have to spend and the less you have to build
early on to get your business going. Sorry to
interrupt you. Where would you put product market
fit into all that then? Finding that essentially
first. You've done that before you get to the
stigma stage, hopefully. Don't you think? No,
no, no, no, I don't think that will even be close
then. I mean, you're, I mean, maybe in an ideal
world to get lucky, but most don't, right? So
I think you have to sort of get to the point
to you convey that idea to people. And at some
point, it takes ages, it takes so much longer
than people realize, I think, to get to the idea
bit where you say it to somebody, you're like,
Okay, I get it. That's a really good idea. Right?
Most people never get there. Most people take,
take paragraphs, right? So tell me about your
idea. Well, like, like it's a, everyone talks
about elevator pitch and so on, but like trying
to get the business down to like two or three
words or something to convey it all, like it's
super, super hard for most, most people. So I
think you still have to go through that stage.
You still have to develop, you still have to
do MVPs. You still have to get it to market and
you still have to find product market fit. I'm
not saying that those, you know, you don't have
to get there. It's simply that the more thinking
you can do, earlier on, the cheaper the whole
process will be. And when you come to developers
as well, the more thick you can be, the more
it will help your developers and the more likely
you are to get what you actually want as well.
There is an example in my mind. With Rufus, we
went one month ago over startup. marketing platform,
actually. They actually build too much for the
traction they have, you know? I mean, they only
have few users. They didn't have the right pitch,
but they have built this huge platform and spend
a lot of money, you know? And they are getting
maybe 10, 20 users per month, you know? It doesn't
make sense. When they try to pitch, they actually
don't know how to give you just a single phrase
of what this platform does. Rufus, I'm sure you
remember. It's an example, actually. What I think
happens is everyone who has the staff, who has
the business, thinks they're pitching it the
right way and thinks they're being like super
precise. Like you think you've got it, but everybody
else thinks you probably don't. Because when
you run the business, you put so much effort
into it and you slug away, you work so hard and
it's super clear to you. It's so clear what you're
trying to do, but it's never as clear to anybody
else whose heads are full of all sorts of other
things. But to be able to explain a complicated
subject in simple matters, it's an art form.
And not everyone can do that. Right. That's,
that's a whole different. Yeah. I mean, you're
saying communications, one of the biggest skills,
communication and selling. I mean, if you get
that right, I mean, I'm assuming that any, anyone
hoping to do a startup has tried to pitch their
friends and family first and managed to sell
them. Cause I think that, okay, maybe that half
the time they're not interested. And I know,
you know, I've had my ex wife, if I talk about
finance, she gets used to get very disinterested
quite quickly, financial startups. But anyway,
that's no, I'm joking. I think if you can't pitch
your friends and family on your idea, then then
you are going to go somewhere else with with
the idea. But I'm assuming we've all done that.
Friends and family are nice to have mostly. Yes.
Maybe not ex -wives, but generally friends and
family are nice to you. If your ex -wife tells
you it's a good idea, it should be a good idea.
And if you have five ex -wives, well, you have
a small team to proof your ideas. I would hope
that my best friend tells me, no Rufus, that
is not going to make it out the door, forget
it. But yeah, I guess. I suppose the key is to
run it by your friends and family before you
become too involved in it, before too much work
has gone in. What do you say would be the main
challenges of building an MVP? From your perspective.
We talked about how hard it is to actually be
able to clarify what you want in the beginning.
We also talked about making sure they have validation
from your friends and family first, and also
some good product market. So what do you think,
from building an MVP, What are the main challenges
that you see every day? Scoping, scope creep,
big ideas, big dreams, big dreams that aren't
matched by the budget. Yes. Flip it. Non -technical
people. Like, I don't know. Let's build a crypto
brokerage. Right. I want to do a demo next week.
Is that okay? Yeah. I mean, how many times has
some non -technical person kind of said that
to a very small team? I feel there's a story
there. I want to find out more about that story.
Well, yeah, I've said that loads, found a non
-technical person here. Why not? I want it yesterday.
Well, I think it's definitely... I was going
to say, I mean, definitely, I mean, if you're
not technical, it's very hard to appreciate technical
challenge. I mean, you look at AI, right? Okay,
the buzzword of the moment. I mean, if you look
how hard... real AI is, I mean, if you're really,
really at that low level of trying to build out
kind of AI models, you know, not just trying
to build something on top of chat GBT or something,
but I mean, it's so damn hardcore. Like, I don't
know. I'm a Kenyan. Go ahead. But I have some
examples. Seems like I'm the guy with examples,
but go ahead and then I will bring a couple of
examples. Everybody wants to hear your examples
now, go for it. Yes. You want to build an MVP.
One example is if you are a non -technical guy.
Something I find very often is that when you
are a non -technical founder, usually the software
firm that you choose, will not communicate to
you things in the right way. Some teams will
just don't hear your ideas because you are non
-technical and other companies maybe will not
explain. technical terms in the right way. I
have a ton of examples of non -technical founders
about the communication or how they treat them
companies. They have this great idea, they don't
understand the technical challenges, but these
teams don't take the time to explain the challenges
or they take their hands and guide them through
the journey. I mean, there are a lot of examples,
you know, and so if you are a non -technical
founder, be careful. I would say if you are a
non -technical founder, get on the standups with
your tech team every day. I think that was very
helpful for me to do that with Keenan at Crypto
Brokerage to realize all the steps that go into
everything and then... quiz Keenan if I didn't
understand anything or quiz the tech team on
that. I mean if you're non -technical take the
pain and go on a stand -up whenever the stand
-up is, should be daily I guess, well that's
what it was with us, daily stand -up song obviously
because they're called stand -ups. and you get
a sense of all the planning and issues that arise
and what can go wrong and how the problems are
solved and stuff like that. Anyway, that was
one of my best experiences, actually. When you're
building a team, what should you look for? What
are the key elements when you're building a team,
long term? I think one of the main keys for a
long -term team is find senior or use senior
developers. You can use junior, you can use middle
level developers, but your core team, when you
start to build your MVP, should be senior developers.
That is one of the ways to guarantee that you
can have a long -term team and you have good
foundations in your MVP. Also, people who are
committed with your project. If they don't on
a daily basis, if they are slow on your request,
if they share their time with other projects,
that is going to be a big problem for you. You
should get people who are involved. It's better
to have a smaller team, but fully committed.
with the build of your product than a large team
who is not committed to your product. Also, the
team should have the right skill sets. That is
really important. If your product needs a good
UX UI interface or should be visually appealing,
get a good UX designer. Guy should be part of
your team. If your platform requires strong backend
skills, get a good backend developer who are
fully committed. It's not a currency that you
can exchange. You should find very good, just
a few people that will be involved in your project.
I think also that to add though, I think you've
got to say what kind of business is it as in
like, is it a startup or is it a, is it say an
existing business with, with, and the difference,
difference I'm going for is like, like, what
are you trying to achieve really? Like, do you
just, do you want someone, is this, is this like
a guaranteed year long, you know, forever kind
of gig where you're offering stability to a developer?
and maybe an existing product, or you try to
get something off the ground. And so I kind of
take, I mean, most of, certainly my world anyway,
it's startups. It's like, if you're, if that
business is there in a year's time, everyone's
going to be happy, right? So, so I think two
things. One, generalist is good. Like it's, it's
the smaller you are, the harder it is to afford
truly specialist sources. So it's, it's okay
to be uh to get generalist and generalist just
means you can you can get somebody to do the
back end and the front end and you don't need
and as long as they can deploy somewhere you
know sometimes you just need to get it out that's
the only thing so being generalist is fine yeah
that's it really i i think you've both nailed
it i think you've both nailed it from the perspective
of um what you need in the team which which involves
software development. Of course, all businesses
now are basically software businesses. Pretty
much whatever you're doing, you need some software.
From a less technical view here, I'd say the
bare minimum in a startup team is you need a
salesman and someone who can get things done.
Which equates to, you know, communication and
the generalist that Keenan was just talking about,
I think, basically, you need. Because those skills
are not all, you can't find that in one person.
It's very rare. Someone who can sell and get
stuff done with two very different skill sets,
two very different personalities. So at the very
minimum, I think you need in the smallest startup
teams, that's what you need. And the salesman
has already sold the dream to the generalist
and they're both in it together. The fight, the
good fight. There is some quote by someone famous
who said if you can code or if you can build
and you can sell, the future is yours. Yeah,
it's quite hard. It is hard to do both. Do you
find any difference between obviously your...
you live in different countries, you operate
in different markets, defining the key differences
between all these markets. So you can just tell,
you know, indicate people do business this way
in France, it's the other way in Uruguay, it's
completely different way. And if so, which which
differences are there? Yes, we don't really operate
in our markets, do we? I mean, yeah. Potentially,
yes. Interesting, nevertheless. What I'm trying
to find out is Because everyone in the UK, a
lot of startups say, you know, it'll be easier
just to build something for the US market and
operate there because they have, you know, deeper
pockets, investors have deeper pockets, or it's
a bigger market, you know, and all the companies
you deal with. Do you find that they operate
in a different way based on where they're based?
Or actually, they should all be the same way
regardless of where they're based? I think maybe
UK based companies or startups are more carefully
how to spend their budget, you know. Maybe in
US if they have the budget they just spend it,
you know, more quickly. Sometimes that could
be a problem for US starters, you know. Usually
they try to start with bigger teams, they start
to burn the budget quicker, you know. In UK I
think that don't happen, you know. Startups are
more carefully on how to spend their money and
the kind of team they want to build. But at the
end, in the US, UK, they want to do the same,
to build a great product. In Uruguay, it's totally
different. For example, in South America, there
are no development firms. Working for startups,
usually the startups are built by their own founders.
They don't hire other companies to build these
startups. They might hire a developer, for example,
but it's different in that sense. In South America,
basically, you build your own startup. You're
saying something. Well, I think that seems very
reflective of the of the VC environments in all
those countries, right? It's much easier, apparently,
to raise money in the US. So money flows more,
people spend it more, they are more aggressive
in the US. In the UK, we have less developed
VC ecosystem than the Americans, but still probably
the best one in Europe, as far as I'm aware,
and the biggest one in Europe. Um, and, but it's
still not as dynamic as the U S one. And so it's
more risk averse and therefore budget spend and
the attitude to budgets and startups is perhaps
a little more conservative. And sometimes you
need to be aggressive, but I can't speak for
South America, but yeah, that would be the character
of money. We were talking about a web tree and
I know you guys are building something very cool
on the tree. Can you tell us more about like.
How exactly does it work? Can a company that
wants to build something on Web3 approach you
and ask for some software development there?
How does that work? For sure, they can reach
us and I'm sure we have a great expertise on
Web3. I'm sure Keenan will tell us about the
lead protocol and all these cool technologies.
Alpha Captcha. There are projects we can name
yet. Remember that, Rufus. I love Web3. I'm the
hole in the rabbit hole. I'm excited about Web3
in a way that I'm not excited about Web2 development.
Web2 development has been the same for 10, 15
years. It gets pretty vanilla. But Web3 is as
exciting as it was in sort of like 2000 through
sort of .com boom, like doing genuinely exciting
things that that are genuinely changing how things
are done in the world. So I think Web3 is amazing.
And I mean, I've been in Web3 for two years.
And that's, you know, so it's still quite, you
know, I'm still a bit green. But it and it is
a different way of working. I think the The difference
is like in web 2 and even the stuff that we've
talked about like the rapid iteration of stuff
I think that's much much harder in web 3. Once
you've got smart contracts, it's so much harder
to It's a much slower development and I think
it's harder to develop. It's slower to develop
you've got to get it right or closer to right
first time round and the risks associated with
money and smart contracts are quite substantial.
So I think Web3 is intellectually challenging,
because you have to genuinely do things in a
really different way. And that's the real challenge.
As a side note, I think on Web3 and in IA, you
should be really careful, because there are a
lot of experts in the field. But when you scratch
the surface, you find out they are not experts
on any of the technologies, you know? They might
talk about smart contracts, you know, protocols
so far. But again, it's like any buzzword, you
know? Is there anything like, would you advise
people to build? Because there's a lot of buzz
around AI, a lot of buzz obviously around WebTree
as well. Would you advise people to build something
on these? for these things for AI or for WebTree
and build them based on these technologies, or
quite the contrary, just... Honestly, why would
you build anything else? Like, why would you,
if you're gonna start a business now, why would
you start building something that's already old?
I mean, it has to be... Gillian IA, right? You
see some people pop up with... I've seen a few
on the investing side of things, which we're
involved with. The moment you've put your head
into AI or into Web3 and you have a certain way
of doing things and see what's possible, and
then you look back at Web2 and you're like, it
looks archaic. Honestly, why would anyone want
to invest into a Web2 business now? Why would
you want to dedicate the next five, 10 years
of your life trying to build a Web2 business?
I mean, why? It's just not technically interesting.
It's not where the world's going. It's not where
people want to invest in. It's not the future
of tech. It's not the way to disrupt things.
So honestly, you shouldn't do anything else other
than AI and Web3. But obviously, there are still
some businesses that could use Web2 for multiple
things, right? I don't know, food delivery service
or something like that. Yes. I think what happens
is that you can use web 2, web 3, any technology,
but the niche start to get smaller and smaller.
The niches you can tackle are... getting smaller
each time. For example, in the past you can have
your delivery food app and you can make it great
and now you should think on a delivery food app
using drones. You should tackle every time smaller
or think more in depth of... what you are going
to offer in your startup. You know, it's like
getting harder to get good ideas, I think. No
way. No, that's the opposite. Okay. What's that?
What's that? Another famous quote. I don't know
who said it. It was the guy in the late 1800s
who said he should close the government patent
office in the U .S. or something because all
the good ideas had been had. I mean, what a load
of nonsense. AI and Web3 provide more opportunity
for new ideas and new ways of doing things more
than ever before, more than faster to market
than ever before. Take it back. No, no, no. I
mean, I got your point, but each time you should
be more innovative. You should bring more innovation
and before you bring innovation, you shouldn't
understand what is innovation. That is another
problem with many founders. They don't understand
what is innovation. What I liked about what you
said was that you need to focus the niche a bit
more nowadays. So you have to be a bit more specialized.
Yeah, the example of a food delivery app now
being drones and then perhaps then someone needing
to make specific software for drones that manages
deliveries and then that kind of stuff. Your
startups probably need to be more niche and more
focused nowadays given the proliferation of AI
and Web3. I think that's a very valid point.
And I wonder how much Web3 reduces or makes the
investment side of it harder because Web3 is
more about protocols empowering individuals rather
than empowering specific businesses or sectors.
Is that too broad? Is that too broad a generalization?
I get the point you're making. Like to to but
this is a good thing because now it is about
communities and particularly kind of token based
rewards is looks to reward the community built
around those protocols, but it also therefore
disrupts all the Traditional businesses that
we that we know and it may not love It is There
you go. More innovation, more ideas than have
ever existed. We can disrupt the entire system
now. This is why it's exciting. And it's never
actually been more important. It's never been
more important because we run the risk as a society
of being dominated by Google, Amazon, Facebook,
Open AI, Microsoft, right? And the more they
get ahead in AI, the more they're going to steal
the future on everything, right? They'll own
businesses that, you know, create nuclear fission
at some point or solve cancer or whatever, because
they've got this first mover advantage into large
language models and stuff. And that means they
control everything. So Web3 has never been more
important about empowering startups and the individual.
And you tie in crypto with that to make sure
that it's authentic. Because the dark side of
all this you get. Yeah. I don't think it's just
first mover either. I mean, you look at, okay,
LLM specific maybe. And if you kind of dumb it
down, the amount of compute that you have for
these models improves the model. Therefore, sort
of the biggest companies who have access to the
greatest compute have the greatest models. Yeah.
And, and so how do you compete against that?
Like you end up and you look at what's driving
the markets at the moment, but obviously in video,
But Microsoft is also at 52 -week record highs.
It's all the big ones. So the Google, Microsoft,
we all know that. But how do you then take on
these big companies? They just get bigger and
bigger and own more and more. And the reward
is shared with only a relatively small number
of people. And that's the exciting bit about
Web3, whereas you can, rather than rewarding
only shareholders, you could reward all the users
of, say, an AI model, for example. Do you think
that crypto is still a scary word for some people,
for some investors? Quite on the contrary, it's
actually being seen as something that they can
see straight away as functional and there's money
to be had and they can see the returns straight
away. We have been raising for a protocol and
we definitely find that there is like a line,
sort of Web2 and Web3. If you have to convince
somebody about Web3, or you have to in any idea
explain the value of a token, just general terms
like crypto, token, Web3, if you're having to
convince anybody at all about any aspect of just
generally why it's a good thing, then it just
ain't gonna happen. So people have to buy into
it by themselves and all their experience. So
I mean, we wouldn't ever, I think any more pitch
to a non Web3 investor. For example, it's just
not worth it. But all the investors should come
over. I mean, it is genuinely exciting. They've
got to make that jump into Web3. At least understand
it. I mean, it's going to be a big part of the
world. Yeah, they'll have to or they'll die basically.
Yeah. In the long run. It's all going that way.
It's a bit like what's happening in the... It's
the same thing that happened with the dot com
bubble, isn't it? It just, there was a big explosion.
Then he had some, some, some companies that just
went bust. And then after a while it was like,
okay, what are we doing now? And then he had
web to show up and then, oh, this is what we're
doing. Okay. Let's build here. It actually makes
a lot more sense this way than what we had before.
So it's just the way of, you know, things progressing,
I guess, starting times ahead. So I think what,
what does change is that you get a, you get two
waves, you get a geomorphic wave. So, and we
see this in web three as well, where you have
a you basically have a business that's really
a web two business, but you change it by 10 %
and suddenly it's a web three business. It's
like you just kind of add a twist to it. But
then at some point, you end up with a genuinely
like a native web three solution. And there are
lots of examples coming, but the difference between
skeuomorphic web two business and a native web
three business is quite substantial. So that
way, if you talk about like the dot com sort
of, you almost got rid of all the old stuff.
And then all these genuinely new, truly internet
native businesses really took hold. And then
that that's the driver for the the next wave
of adoption. But you're gonna lose the old stuff.
I guess everyone's excited about the future.
I'm imagining except for Esteban who's run out
of ideas. I have a lot of ideas. Yes, it's very
exciting, you know, the new vaccines with RNA,
all that stuff, you know, even in biology, in
medical healthcare, you know, I mean, how all
the domains are crossing over, you know, how
this large language model could be used in the
medical or biological sides, you know, I think
on the, I mean, All of us, I'm sure we think
on the next few years, we will see great truths
on every aspect of our life. I mean, when you
see now drones delivering packages, I see that
in South America, in Uruguay. You see now on
the private neighborhoods, you see drones delivering
all the packages. That is very cool. Yes, it's
crazy. is going very quickly, you know? I have
a very technical question, which is I use ChatGPT
every day, which is awesome for me for a lot
of stuff I do. And I also know that, and I've
tried a couple of times, it's very easy to get
ChatGPT to write code. I'm not saying it's good
code, but it is code. Now from a software development
point of view, is that something that you feel
people in software development should feel threatened
by, or on the other hand, you actually embrace
the fact that you can actually get a lot of work
done much, much quicker and you can build a lot
quicker. Embrace it. I think, yes, I mean, if
you are like us, an innovative development firm,
you will embrace it. If you are a more classical
development firm, that could be a problem for
you. But I mean, in our case, you should embrace
it. It's great. You can have more of your mental
energy focused on build what is innovative and
not worry about how to code the smallest stuff.
So I think it's great. Simple economics. You
pay a developer $5 ,000, $10 ,000 a month and
you pay what? If you remember now, $30 for Copilot.
Right. I mean, it needs to help you once a month.
We had a developer start recently on a project
and he didn't have Copilot. He wasn't using Copilot.
It becomes ridiculous. You have to use it because
it can improve your output by, even if you say
10%, suddenly $30 versus $1 ,000 kind of output.
I think it's essential. It should be demanded
by essentially the employer. You must use it.
We have done a small test in our team. We tried
to find out how much faster you are using Copilot.
And I think we find out your development speed
goes by 20 or 25 % faster. Something like that.
That's a big, big jump. The work you've done
in the past with one developer, maybe you can
do it now with a part -time developer. Here's
a little tip for you, Ricardo. I just switched
from ChatGVT to Venice .ai, which uses a whole...
uses all the big models and that servers are
decentralized and can never be shut down and
it doesn't track your data. And it's 50 bucks
per pro for a year. A year? A year. Okay, that's
very good. Yeah. And it's set up by a guy who
developed the Ordinal protocol on Bitcoin. So
he's a real believer in self sovereignty and
kind of Anti -big government and censorship because
every time you're using chat GPT for you're enabling
a beast that you know, no one's short never be
controlled and it's controlled by Those big companies.
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist,
but you know, I'm very pleased with Venice But
we work in tech right we we see it happen. So
I mean, I think when you're close to when you're
too close to the stove, you get burnt. They do
get a lot of information from us and it does
get a bit scary because even medical questions
that... some people ask for to check tpt and
then that can actually be used to create multiple
models about yourself and your personality how
you think how you're gonna act and then in the
future we don't know how impactful that's going
to be in your day -to -day life someone can say
this person because they once had i don't know
a problem with their left foot they might be
more prone to do something crazy and they're
like how because the computer set so right it's
just it gets a bit crazy and start thinking about
that so isn't that good we have your records
of 10 years ago on chat gpt you know that is
the reason why they know that so isn't this a
good thing i would say it's a good thing i've
asked a lot of really bizarre questions to Chachi
Petit. The latest one being, write or please
add more to the song from Billy Idle, Start the
Fire from the 80s. I don't know if you guys know
that song. He kind of goes about all the major
historical events in the US and said, just continue
doing it from the 1980s onwards. And he did a
very good job to be honest. So I don't want to
be because of copyright or anything like that.
I mean, data is a good thing, good or bad, as
long as the person analyzing the data can work
out the difference, but also who custodies that
data is extremely important because data in the
wrong hands is lethal. I guess we'd all prefer
whatever data we had to be owned by Microsoft,
the Chinese Communist Party probably, but I don't
think there's much in that. Given that we don't
live in China, but I've heard some frightening
tales of lives being ruined by data being misappropriated
and attributed to the wrong people. And careers
ruined for that because someone made a mistake
about a human made a mistake attributing data
on a database to one person when it should have
been somewhere else. So it's a risk that we...
who run by trusting wrong people. Speaking of
trusting not wrong people with right people,
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