What Makes a Good Business Partner

Yasi: Welcome to a Fast track podcast. We have Joe, Bear and Isaac.

And today we’re going to talk about entrepreneurship and tech startup. And to start with, maybe I will give the floor to you guys. You can tell us a little bit about yourself, let the audience to get familiarized with you. 

Issac: Sure. Jump right in there. My name is Isaac. My background is in multimedia, but first got involved in cryptocurrency back in 26, 20 16.

Bear: I’ve have a technical background in my education and work experiences, but the majority of my background is as an entrepreneur. And I’ve been involved in the crypto verse for about six years now, but this is actually the first company I’ve been a part of that is focused in this sector. So I’m really excited for this team and what we can accomplish here.

Joe: I’m Joe, nice to meet all of you. I have a daytime job and then I stopped at going into blockchain and startups about at three, four years. And this is this is one of the more concrete ones that I have yeah. Together with Isaac and Bear. Yeah. 

Yasi: Because all, we have people here who are very experienced with blockchain and in the crypto world, things let’s say even five, six years ago.

And compared to the majority’s, you guys are. How to, how do you call it? Like the gurus in the space? So that’s why I find it so exciting because even it’s let’s say Bitcoin 11 years or 12 years or so, but people who are in the blockchain space, even, it’s just a few years, you have already gained so much more experiences, things change all the time.

And, but today our main topic is. Your startup and also your experiences while starting this project. So my first question on behalf of our audience is why did you choose to become entrepreneur and to choose to start a blockchain project ?

Joe: Okay. Yeah maybe each of us have a bit of different why? So for me why I wanted to do something on let’s say on, on, on the site, in addition to my daytime job is yeah, because of my daytime job, actually I’m in product design is a physical product and because of that experience, you have a different ways of thinking different mindsets or different tools that we use compared to my previous marketing life.

And because of that, I think there was this. This need that that, that grew inside me where I really love the the idea and the act of creating things innovating and all that, and then I guess we were all very three of us, we were very much into blockchain and cryptocurrencies, like many others, of course.

And at least for my side, I thought that it would be nice. If I could combine, like I’m starting out something that is blockchain based. Yeah. So that’s a little bit more on my side. Yeah. 

Bear: For 

Issac: me, 

Bear: I’m not sure as much of a choice. My belief system and personality are heavily rooted in autonomy and I don’t believe there’s a better outlet there than running your own company.

So that’s where I fall as being 

Issac: an entrepreneur. Understood. Yeah. I’m with a bear there in and think that a lot of it has to do with freedom of, being an entrepreneur. So yeah, I’m with bear there and Joe as well. 

Yasi: And talking about freedom. There’s one sentence. I really like also as a result of being entrepreneur, is that you can work whenever you want, wherever you want with whomever you want on whatever project you want.

That’s like all the different.

Joe: Absolutely. 

Yasi: And how did you find each other as co-founders, since you guys are in the U S joining the Switzerland, what’s the story? 

Issac: Yeah, that’s a good question. So bear and I actually met through a popular Bitcoin forum and Joe and I connected through LinkedIn. We began meeting weekly and sharing ideas and we could quickly realize each other’s strengths and decided to work towards a common goal, which in this case was building up fun user-friendly product in a pretty complex.

Yasi: How long did you guys check it online before before you started this company before you started okay, let’s do this, let’s do this project together. 

Issac: I’m not sure of exact timelines, but I would say probably eight months or a year. Yeah.

Yasi: Oh, I like this story because I often times hear people say, oh, I cannot find a co-founders. It’s very difficult for me to meet the right people. But this is one of the many examples that co-founders actually found each other through the internet. With the power of internet, the world is actually quite flat.

And the coming back to your team, how did you manage to. Was different time zones and locations. Is there a system that you deploy?

Joe: I just wanted to mention about the weekly meetings that that we decided to do, barron, Isaac, they are in us. So on the Eastern time, And then I’m here in Switzerland, right? So of course it has to be afternoon for me. So it’s morning for four for the two of them.

Yeah, I’m in the, I just want to say that I think a lot of things happen for three of us rather naturally. It’s not by accident. I don’t mean that we knew that let’s say some things need to be in place before we embark on certain things, but it felt very natural that things came into place between the three of us.

So in layman’s terms, I guess you can call that chemistry, 

Bear: the stars aligned 

Yasi: with chemistry.

That’s actually a very good point. What do you think are the I’d say key elements to have a good co-founder relationship. 

Joe: maybe I can say something about this. Based on what three of us have experienced right together in this journey.

We believe that the really crucial elements are the co-founders need to have, let’s say a common belief or a common mindset. Yeah. Of course we can have a slightly different vision, but what is important is the founders who need to align a vision moving forward, right? Because you can’t really have too many different directions and worst case would be opposing directions.

So you need to align them if they are. And then it’s really about being very transparent upfront sharing, openly sharing. I think was it bear or Isaac really mentioned the respect for one another’s expertise experience, and underlying all of this is having trust in one another and being flexible.

Because it’s a startup at the end of the day, we can have an idea, we can have a plan, but we must be super flexible to adapt. If there’s a need to, yeah. This will be the elements we believe. Yeah. 

Yasi: What about bear? Isaac? Do you have anything to add on. 

Issac: yeah. I was just gonna say, I think when you share a common interest and a passion for something that is definitely what brought us together and what brought us to the point where we are very close and we speak on a daily basis. We all share the same love and passion for crypto in general.

Yasi: When you say passion and love, how do you know it is your passion love big. I asked this question because the loss of people, they’re working nine to five and they want to become entrepreneurs. They want to start a business, but they ask themselves, what is my passion? I don’t know what to do.

How would you answer that question, 

Issac: right? Yeah. I would say the interests that you have that’s outside of your day job. And that you can’t get enough of that would be considered. That’s what I would consider a passion, something that that you do on your off time, whether that’s photography or reading about new blockchain projects, I think having that interest beyond your daily life and just basically being absorbed by it, you will be able to tell your interests what interests you outside of, what you’re currently being paid for? What interests you outside of, your daily life. And if something consumes your daily life, then it’s probably a safe bet to say you’re passionate about it.

Yasi: That’s a very good answer. And early on bear, you mentioned that you have been, entrepreneur almost all your life and that you, you believe system that autonomy is a very important element. Where did you get that from? Did you always feel that way or is it because there were certain events triggered, you think like that?

Sure. I 

Bear: think it’s a combination of personality as well as the emotions and the. Working for an employer and seeing the transition of working for yourself and comparing to you can see the night and day difference there. 

Yasi: It’s very hard to go back anymore. And so now you, three of you come together, work on this project called the Düoverse.

Maybe you can, one of you, or all of you can tell the audience a little bit about what is Düoverse, how users can get involved and what are the benefits. From this project. 

Bear: Yes. I’ll take this one. So the Düoverse is a play to earn gaming platform or a members can play online games, interact with verse, earn often tokens as well as purchasing again, a few meet created in house and our first game is a V mining simulator, which takes users through the experience of actually mining a cryptocurrency without the need for any monetary investments nor technical knowledge.

Or how to set up a rig or the software in return users earn our off-chain token, Varna, which can then be converted into other cytocons or making stack it and save it for future use cases. The one aspect of the mining we hope to emulate with our other new game releases or future use cases is the actual integration that we’re doing with our physical products, which are.

And so with our next card release members can actually buy packs of cards and within the pack, get a car that specific TV mining, which can unlock new hardware or helps you with the mining operation. So right now anyone can jump in and start. You might have, 

Yasi: How did you come up with this idea? 

Bear: A lot of brainstorming, a lot of ideas.

I don’t know if there’s one bullet proof answer there. It was a evolved process over months. 

Yasi: And currently, how can people join this project you mentioned about they can play an earn. How does it work specifically? 

Bear: So you can go ahead and sign up. Anyone can sign up because the registration there, you don’t need a couple of forms to enter.

And then you go to our bubonic page and then there’ll be lists of different levels of rigs to mind from the first one’s unlocked for free for users to get the feel for it. As well as the user guide there, they can walk them through the process and then once they start accumulating more of on it, they can use that to unlock.

Yasi: Con people use burner for other purposes. What about like in real life? Is there anything down the road in roadmap? 

Bear: Sure. So right now VanEck can be saved or you can convert over to our utility token, which is then used for purchasing NFTs. And we do plan on offering more use cases which are still baking out.

And, one of our large goals, eventually the possibility of having this token be exchangeable for a native.

Yasi: And since it’s a blockchain project that involves in a team of token and three of you started this project how did you manage to develop so many, functions and the technical layer development within such a short period of time? Cause you met her like, we know each other for eight months and you started this project.

I think how long did it take you to develop.

Issac: Yeah. So the initial concept was built upon something that we’re all super familiar with, super familiar and comfortable with, which are physical trading cards, like Pokemon magic. And we were able to combine physical cards with non fungible assets as a means to attract collective.

And create a fun, simple game that anyone can participate in. So this was our initial concept that is about, we launched January 20, 21. And the dual verse is something that we are, they compliment each other. So they work together. And I guess to answer your question it was a process.

Probably about a year in the making, but yeah things actually happened much quicker than we anticipated. There were a lot of hurdles along the way, a lot of things that we, weren’t sure were possible and that we were able to achieve in a relatively short period of time considering where we are today.

I think it’s a lot of hard work. I know we’ve all spent and dedicated a lot of time. When I say a year, these are days where we could be working 15 hour days to get where we are. So I think the time span of a year, it could be a bit misleading because there was, so this was an active year of collaboration and Bouncing ideas around it and figuring out what made the most sense.

Yasi: Actually before I interviewed someone on my podcast and then how he did it is called Thomas is exactly what you said. So once a while in a year, he fast-track, whatever he’s working on. So for example, if average person works 40 hours per week, then you got 40. Output, if your productivity is 100% and he just tried one job a week and you, one month he did 400 hours.

And usually the other people, the output is 160 hours in a way you can like 500. Six times the output. And then if you maintain a high productivity, that’s how he did it. What you did is exactly the same, but it’s the whole year, not just one month.

Issac: Yeah. That’s interesting.

Yasi: Besides the hours you put into, what helps you to make this project that’s come to life in such a short period of time?

Joe: maybe I can add here. Yes. I think we were three of us agree quite from the earlier part of the journey when we would develop or even before we develop. That we are not going to overdo it. Yeah. We going to have yeah. The recording we had earlier, mVP. So we’re going to have something that we believe that we’ll entice enough early. Okay, keep them interested, keep them coming and we’ll create the account, come into our platform to play the MVP. So we agreed on that. And I think that helped really a lot, because if not, we might have spent a lot of time continuing to debate.

What about this feature? What about that feature? And in the end, if we want to do like a lot of features and obviously that’s going to take longer time. And actually to be really transparent and honest. Even though we said that at the. I think maybe halfway through the journey and I was the QP one, I forgot about that and started dreaming about let’s see a more ideal product, and it was it was Isaac.

They gave a a caution. Hey guys remember what we said, right? This is let’s have something that is a minimum at the start. That is good enough that we believe is good enough. And. So having that that, so deciding what is it you really want to do? Let’s say if it’s an MVP, then agree on all, find out what are the MVP features that is required in the MVP and and then you launch it, then develop it and launch it in the MVP.

That’s how we can do it faster as well.

Yasi: Does that’s actually a very valid point because lots of a profession perfectionist out there, if you listening and the people want to make it perfect before they start actually launch it or bring it to the market, sometimes it’s better just to do it. Take action. Bring into the market then waiting for the perfect moment, correct?

Joe: Correct. Especially so for digital product, right? So now Düoverse not that you are collectibles, which is a physical cut backed by NFT, but the will is this is literally a digital product, right? Companies that have a digital product, I think is really the best model to use is MVP. Right?

Have something decent out there. Get it out there. Let users come in, either pay for it or give us their personal data for it means you have commercialized it and then you can upgrade along the way, because since it’s a digital product, the upgrade is seamless, rather than a physical product.

Yasi: Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. And the four you guys individually what is the biggest challenge for you being an entrepreneur?

Issac: Thinking this one through here, 

Bear: the biggest challenge we an entrepreneur that’s,

Issac: I guess it’s 

Bear: a double edged sword with the whole autonomy thing. So at the same time, we would have this freedom to do what you want when you want and work. When you need to it’s. In the other side of the point, there is you just to make sure you’re getting what needs to be done. Do you think Jonathan even wants more, but that’s just trying to find something here that overall, 

Issac: The lifestyles because right.

Yeah. And to be, to piggyback off of that, I would say for me, the most challenging is that, when I worked a job that was nine to five when I left at five o’clock, I didn’t care what happened to the project. And this is a 2014. Ordeal here. If a user has issues at four o’clock in the morning, my time I will gladly, assist them through the process.

But, I think that’s the biggest thing is when you work a nine to five job when you’re done at five o’clock, you’re done and there’s nothing else to worry about. Whereas this is a 24 7. 

Bear: Yeah, that’s a great point. I changed my answer to that one to get one.

Joe: Yeah, do to piggyback off that. And so for me it’s also about time management cause, cause I had my daytime job and then then is to find and the daytime job is actually pretty tiring actually. So I kinda, I really find a lot of time on the weekdays because I have a newborn baby.

 It’s literally trying to find a spare time. You really need to be flexible. There are certain enjoyment things like watching TV or this you have to give up, if you want your startup to work and and actually linking back to what Isaac said earlier about the passion, right?

If you really start. If you start up something that is truly our passion, then it’s easier to let’s say, make some sacrifices along the way or even more sacrifices on that week so that you can hopefully succeed. Yeah. 

Yasi: If you are, if you choose it voluntarily. Maybe it’s not a sacrifice, right?

If you look at it watching TV versus working on your own project and coming back to what I said, this is like 24 7 thing, which is so true. But do you feel more energetic and passionate? Even those 24 7 versus is like a nine to five job? If you do it early yeah. 

Issac: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Like I would much prefer working 24 hours on a project that, we built as a team and that we’re super passionate about then working for some job that I don’t really, I don’t th I guess to be yeah, like I don’t care what happens to the company when I leave at five o’clock like, I don’t care, and this is the opposite.

I. I am passionate and yeah, I wouldn’t choose any other route, then what we’re doing now, like I am content working 24 hours a day, it’s much preferred compared to a nine to five. Yeah. 

Yasi: I told her, don’t understand it’s much more fulfilling. It’s your own project. And then you care about all the details you care about all the users you care about.

If there’s a bug you want to fix it. And yesterday I was listening to one of this podcast is the employee number 30 or Facebook. And he said back then, when he was working at Facebook, he would receive email from mark Zuckerberg at 3:00 AM telling him there’s a typo in the youth of man.

I think only when you have your own project, you are an entrepreneur, you would do that kind of thing. Because this is intrinsically you’re motivated. And then coming back to about this entrepreneurship the journey, your experience so far, what would you say is your biggest learning that you have not thought about before starting out being.

Bear: I don’t know if that pertains 

to not being on shore, but for this project, the most important thing I’ve learned is the immense value of having a solid team in place for a startup. The collaboration here, and ability to bounce ideas off invested partners is game changing for anyone trying to take our content on their own, which is all my previous endeavors have been solo led.

So it’s a huge benefit that somebody hadn’t seen before. And. Thankfully, this wasn’t a lesson learned the hard way. But it certainly helped put things into perspective with 

Issac: those previous endeavors

Yasi: and the I second, Joe, what would you think is the biggest learnings that you take out from your entrepreneurial journey? 

Issac: Yeah, I would say

I think if you. Start a project or you’re involved in a project with a group of people. If it’s a team project, you have to be very comfortable and respectful of each other. And I just, I guess I would say that, a team that you connect with and you have that chemistry.

To me the most important aspect of working on a project like this, 

Joe: correct. I’m going to build off what Isaac said because it’s the same point for us. That’s why I said we are like-minded, really I think what Isaac said is really the key.

Why is the key? Because we are building something new, right? That means that. If so on the flip side, if we cannot, if we do not have the chemistry to openly share ideas or even challenging each other’s ideas, we might not be able to let’s say derive a better product. It could have ended up as a slightly more inferior product inferior in the sense where it’s not what the user wants.

100%, that, that, that’s my definition of if you’re already. But then it’s not easy to, it doesn’t happen everywhere every time. That you can very comfortably say what you want to say and what you’re saying, people listen to it. And then when it’s time for you to listen, you listen to it, so yeah, chemistry, I think that’s the, what. Maybe the key point here is this is not just for startups, right? Even established companies a team, can only start to deliver. I think when they have this element of chemistry that is probably built upon trust, I think. Yeah. And then they can really go and deliver.

Yeah. 

Yasi: This is very well said. So then coming back to the project. So now we have seen, you have very good chemistry, a very strong co-founding team. Each of you have different backgrounds and the complementing skills how you want to take your project To the next level and what’s coming next?

Joe: Maybe I can take this one. So let us answer in a, let’s say a more holistic answer because actually what you have is more than you over. So before I answer your questions we just take a step back on the journey. So in January, this year we launched the duo collectivist, which is the physical collectable cuts based on blockchain events, crypto pioneers, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth.

So that’s the concept. And we had a week one and then followed by a wave two because we want to leverage. Then what we decided to do this platform, the digital platform called that a bear was explaining, what is it all about? To compliment the collective or cuts. So what we have now and buck the release, it’s like an ecosystem for the three of us.

And specifically for do overs are upgrades plan along the way until next year. Okay. So is improvement in the box and we going to introduce them. A new in game utility token as well. Yeah. So all these people can check out on our website, but the bigger picture here is like that.

So we decided to actually to launch products first, before we go for our native Pocan cryptocurrency. Also known as funding, right? Yeah. Because yeah, we probably, a lot of companies do it the other way. A lot of companies launch a currency, get the funds in and then they start development.

So I dunno, I think three of us taught less. Maybe we tried differently because it will be probably more credible. If we are able to have a base of a solid base of users, That we collected from our two games, and then we go for our currency launch. So the bigger picture is like that. So towards the end of this year, or maybe early next year, we are planning to launch our technical white.

That will include details on the blockchain idea that we want to do. Yeah. In the near future, that will be end of the year or early next year. And then sometime in April, may next year, 2022, that’s the time we are planning to launch our native cryptocurrency, our native. And then of course we have some other products in the pipeline that is line up after the native currency launch.

But unfortunately, because is is a bit sensitive. So today we are, we’re actually not ready to share it yet. Yeah. But there are things coming up in the roadmap. And once our white paper is released end of this year that will be the time where we will update our roadmap to reveal more of what is really coming after the native token currency.

And the roommate can be found on the duo versa website that will update regularly. 

Yasi: I really like this approach. If you start to build a community, they actually are giving the committee member much more confidence because you deliver the product first, introduced the token, but many other projects introduced the token with a promise.

Then they deliver the product. If they deliver the production later.

One last question, just out of curiosity, what do you think about AFT nowadays everywhere. Everybody is talking about AFT

Issac: who would like to take that one? Yeah, I can take a shot if yeah. Okay. Yeah, so I think the technology that. Non fungible tokens is very powerful and it can be used in a lot of different, in a lot of different future use cases that I think a lot of people are not really considering at this point.

Absolutely. There are some people working on projects that are going to bring NFTs to a point where they’re actually providing use and value. Whereas now it’s it’s art and art is a weird market, my opinion on NFTs. I would say that I’m uncertain of the future in regards to the art used to create these NFTs, but I do believe that the underlying technology can be used to power some very revolutionary projects in the future.

Yes.

Joe: Yeah. It’s is probably the same thoughts that three of us have because so our current two products are a piece of NFD, right? I think as of today you can See us as a, let’s say in NFT. Yeah. And we like, like what Isaac said we believe that whatever that is happening now, we went to Ft.

Yeah. Or the Jews and images and all that then into ad and all that. This is really just the stuff. Yeah. This is the tip of the iceberg. The underlying technology can really do much more. Is not only NFT, right? I would say that blockchain as a whole, this decentralized ledger technology as a whole, of course, the fungible site has already expanded more into more real world use cases like defy or whatever, and NFTs is still rather beginning.

But yeah we, three of us really believe strongly that NFP can do much more to to let’s say, make the world more efficient and more effective. Yeah. And the use cases. 

Issac: Absolutely. Yeah. I agree with 

Yasi: Joe there.

Bear: one of the thing that we’re doing here, which is great is bridging the gap between the digital aspect and the. So with these cards, with the entities tie to them, you can get a physical card in your hand, as well as how the codes are redeemed on the back that had the NFE digital version, which I think is a great aspect, especially for users who are still trying to enter the NFP space and get a grasp on how it works.

Yasi: Very interesting. So I hope sound of the audience, if they’re interest in NFTs and genuinely interested in knowing or understanding more about do overs. I really liked the fact that you deliver products and then you introduce the token, the fundraising later. And then there was a real utility built into the whole ecosystem.

If you’re interested check out the website, I will live in the show notes. And if you’re into entrepreneurship and want to start your tech startup and want to learn more about those guys, you can follow them on linked in. And is there any other place they can reach out to you and in Twitter accounts or any, Instagram.

Yeah, 

Issac: Yes. You can follow us on Instagram at the digital they do overs. Yeah. And the best place to actually keep up with the project would probably be the site itself. We’re constantly making updates. And making slight changes to the roadmap.

Yeah I think that’s the best place to find us. 

Yasi: Okay, then I will leave them in the show notes and then they can check it out. And thank you guys so much for being here with us. And today I like, I just feel like today we have this interview and let’s see one year later, maybe it’s even harder to get you guys on the interview because you won’t be so big.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. 

Issac: Thank you.

Bear: Thank you.