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Sandy Khaund.\\xa0 He\\u2019s the CEO of Upgraded, a platform for tickets using blockchain technologies. Previously, he was the CTO at InStadium, a sports venue ad network and senior director at Turner Broadcasting along with CEO of Iryrnsoft, a video-based learning for mobile devices. He was also the COO of teen social network at Piczo and director at Microsoft.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 The World is Flat
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Reed Hastings and Mark Zuckerberg
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 OneNote
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 4.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cThe secret of life is doing what you do for free and getting someone to pay you for it\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:02 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Sandy to the show
• 02:37 \\u2013 Upgraded has a solution widget that addresses the problem of event tickets
  • 02:52 \\u2013 Alot of the tickets are fake and being sold on Craigslist
• 03:31 \\u2013 The Cryptography has worked so well that there\\u2019s only one bitcoin
• 03:54 \\u2013 Upgraded has a tokenization aspect which converts tickets into a blockchain ticket
  • 04:02 \\u2013 Another revenue model as an alternative to Stubhub
• 05:04 \\u2013 Upgraded has already made less than $50K in revenue
• 05:11 \\u2013 Sandy started Upgraded last March
• 05:30 \\u2013 There are 4 full-time people on the team
• 05:45 \\u2013 The cofounder was initially a consultant and Sandy has more in equity
• 06:07 \\u2013 The initial fund was from Sandy\\u2019s personal savings
• 06:14 \\u2013 Sandy took an Angel investment of $300K on a convertible note
  • 06:33 \\u2013 With 4% interest and $7M cap
• 07:11 \\u2013 Sandy and the team are still talking about the ICO
• 09:00 \\u2013 Right now, cryptocurrency relates to the currency valuation
• 09:12 \\u2013 For Sandy, he\\u2019s more about the technology rather than the currency
• 11:10 \\u2013 Sandy wants to make sure that what he will do what is right for the business
• 11:50 \\u2013 Nathan talks about the regulations in ICOs
• 12:11 \\u2013 Sandy had a talk with his attorney about ICOs and blockchain
• 12:40 \\u2013 As of the moment, anything can happen
• 13:30 \\u2013 There was also some acquisition talks with Upgraded but Sandy turned it down
• 14:03 \\u2013 Sandy didn\\u2019t build Upgraded for the money
  • 14:20 \\u2013 \\u201cI just want to keep creating\\u201d
• 15:16 \\u2013 Sandy thinks it is still too early for the company to do ICOs
• 15:45 \\u2013 Nathan talks about the issue DAO had
• 17:41 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. While ICO is one of the hottest topics in blockchains, some companies would rather not delve into it at this time.
2. Create a utility that can solve one of the most taken for granted problems.
3. Do the work that you would do for free and then get someone to pay you for it.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero \\u2013 The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• The Top Inbox \\u2013 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 \\u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar \\u2013 Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you\\u2019re 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 \\u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives