811: Crypto: After $2m ICO, He's Building the Bloomberg Terminal for Crypto

Published: Oct. 13, 2017, 9 a.m.

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Maksim Balashevich. He\\u2019s a former IBM software engineer and co-founder of a successful, hosting business in Belarus. He now manages the overall product and leads the Santiment team. He\\u2019s a veteran leader, having spent more than a decade trading successfully using Santiment and Elliot Wave as analysis. He\\u2019s also a guru in yoga and meditation.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? \\u2013 N/A
  • What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Nick Szabo
  • Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Blockchain and Reddit
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 6
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 Move faster to the same goal

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:53 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Maksim to the show
  • 02:30 \\u2013 Santiment builds information for the emerging cryptocurrency token economy
  • 03:30 \\u2013 When Santiment had their ICO, they\\u2019ve established a token for their platform
  • 03:36 \\u2013 To get access to Santiment, you can buy the monthly subscription by paying in dollars or by depositing your tokens into the platform
    • 04:12 \\u2013 There\\u2019s no revenue on the SaaS side yet
  • 04:33 \\u2013 Santiment has raised $500K in July 2017
    • 05:03 \\u2013 Santiment has sold 45K tokens
  • 05:17 \\u2013 Santiment\\u2019s token name is San
  • 05:44 \\u2013 Santiment got 720 participants on their token sale
  • 06:14 \\u2013 Santiment has 8 full-time people and a few contractors
  • 06:29 \\u2013 Santiment hasn\\u2019t liquidated their funds yet
  • 06:43 \\u2013 Santiment got 12K ethereum from their presell, which they used to fund the development of the business
  • 07:44 \\u2013 Maksim is hoping to start charging in 3 months, but it seems like it will take 6 months
  • 08:10 \\u2013 From the community\\u2019s response, Maksim can\\u2019t charge for Santiment yet and people are asking for specific kinds of data
    • 09:34 \\u2013 It\\u2019s not that they will not charge, but they can\\u2019t charge just yet
  • 10:00 \\u2013 Maksim shares how Santiment works in the crypto economy
  • 11:15 \\u2013 Prior to ICO, Santiment didn\\u2019t take additional capital and just used the presell
  • 11:46 \\u2013 Maksim shares how they came up with the number of tokens to issue
    • 11:49 \\u2013 For crowdsale participants, it is 54% of their outstanding
    • 12:04 \\u2013 For presell participants, for every 12K ether contributed, Santiment will issue them 50M tokens
    • 12:21 \\u2013 The rest will be part of the team\\u2019s tokens, which is currently locked
  • 13:55 \\u2013 Maksim hasn\\u2019t seen any active competitors yet
  • 14:34 \\u2013 Iconomi is one of Santiment\\u2019s partners and is also in the same space
  • 16:16 \\u2013 Maksim\\u2019s prediction for the next blockchain that will do well
    • 16:48 \\u2013 Maksim personally likes Polkadot which connects blockchains
    • 17:10 \\u2013 There are also projects that introduce the token economy
    • 17:24 \\u2013 There\\u2019s a growing number of blockchain companies providing decentralized storage solutions
  • 18:17 \\u2013 Maksim shares the latest issue on hacking in cryptocurrency where $7M was stolen
  • 21:00 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

  1. When to charge for your service isn\\u2019t an easy to decision to make\\u2014you have to consider the community and the value that they want to get from the company.
  2. In recent hacking events with ICO, security issues are being called into question.
  3. If possible, start working towards your goals as EARLY as possible.

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
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