September 25, 2025 • 30 mins
EPISODE 26
Bobby Evans goes inversion-first on startup failure modes—from overhiring and bonus wars to vanity metrics, misaligned influencers, and shipping the wrong features. We dig into crypto betting’s realities, why credibility and payouts matter more than hype, the cost of public financialization, and how to protect thinking time, delegate, and avoid perfectionism that delays MVPs. Evans closes with location and personal-brand lessons: build where the network is and productize the founder early.
CHAPTERS
00:00 – Think time over busy calendars
06:45 – Hard-earned lessons from crypto betting
12:01 – Growth tactics that backfire
18:43 – Red flags and credibility in the space
25:22 – Location, personal branding, and founder advice
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Allowing yourself the time to think and actually make yourself
better is more important than having a busy calendar.
You know, people probably look at the day and we want to act
about cause with like 6 different people.
And then you're talking to this guy from the UFC and this guy
from a sports agent and you know, what event can we do
realistically? You know, you definitely need to
(00:21):
have time to think is about it because ultimately the business
wouldn't be there without you. Welcome back to Founder Mode.
The show where we talk to peoplebuilding in the wild and share
(00:44):
the lessons you only learn the hard way.
Today's episode a little different.
We're not talking about what to do, we're going monger style and
learning through inversion. What breaks startup?
What kills momentum? What decisions seem smart but
aren't? That's what we're unpacking
today. What are your some of your
favorite mistakes as a founder, Kevin?
Yeah, I think a bunch. I think, I think just forgetting
to do stuff. And I think like in the early
(01:06):
days, you know, you forget to register something, you know, I
think contract or some sort of registration and then you're
like, oh, I should have registered the handle or the
brand or the name. Yeah.
I've also just, you know, in theearly days, we were signing
contracts. We didn't have end dates on them
and just a lot of things that atthe time, it just seemed
harmless. But the expense of like having
these little sort of lintings ofmistakes add up.
(01:26):
I think there was nothing more catalyzing than going through
that sort of the acquisitions, right?
You also you also have a ton of ton of history with our guest
today Bobby. Any crypto hard, hard won, hard
earned lessons in your in your days as as Kevin Degaans.
Yeah, I think in the crypto world, I think the lessons are
crazier. I think partly because
everything say or and sometimes even think is financialized.
(01:49):
And I think it's the idea of like in crypto, you sort of
you're sort of IT owing with every little tweet, every little
thought. And so that sort of, you know,
learning that lesson and sort ofseeing people create tokens and,
you know, bet on you or, you know, bet on the things you may
do right into the product features you're going to add or
the customers you're going to sign or whether you're going to
raise money or not. And like that became like a
(02:10):
pretty and still today, I think harms a lot of crypto founders
early on where they they struggle with this idea that you
do want to have a personality and a brand and sort of talk
publicly about everything you'redoing.
Because that's great to get attention and momentum.
But it comes at a cost of like understanding that people are
going to financialize that and over financialize.
They're literally betting on you.
(02:31):
And for as many people are betting on you to be successful,
there's a bunch of people that are betting on you, those people
to be wrong because they're going to make money on the
opposite side of the bet. And so yeah, is.
Crypto betting and like sports betting, one of the real use
cases like because there's always the fight over like
what's the real crypto blockchain use case.
Yeah, I think there's a bunch, right?
I think I mean the betting ones,one where it's like, and crypto
(02:53):
betting's allowed people to makebets just outside of
jurisdictions where it's legal. And so like there's all that and
crypto was similar, right, in this very Gray area for the
last, you know, 5 to 10 years. And more recently, this year,
it's become a lot more sort of like mainstream, you know, banks
are doing. It you just sent an e-mail
explaining stable coins to people, you know it's you know
it's mainstream. Yeah, it's, it's coming.
(03:14):
And so I think crypto allowed sort of gambling and a lot of
people that I've met that were early in Bitcoin and Etherium
and these sort of coins were like they discovered it through
crypto. And and even I like saw it early
in poker, like we were playing online poker and then that
became illegal to play online poker.
And crypto was the only way to move money in and out of these
sort of online casinos, right, in the early days.
(03:35):
And so that sort of has been a use case.
I think famously there's like Silk Road and sort of the like
underground eBay, there's a lot of those like that.
But I think the real use cases, you know, at the end of the day,
it's like what we do everyday. I buy stuff on my phone.
I, I, I purchase things like today, I pay anywhere from 2 to
3% credit card fees, depending on the merchant and the fees.
And you as a business, when you take a payment like that is the
(03:57):
real opportunity, which is like all of commerce is riding on
this two or three percent sort of float or fee.
And that's just not going to sustain in a market where the
cost of that goes to like fractions, you know, of a penny
or 0, right? It ends up being negative in.
Many cases because there happened 47365 instead of during
banking. Never closes, yeah, never
(04:18):
closes, always settles. So that is the, I think the real
use case. It just it's going to take time
for. You know, big entrenched players
in this, Yeah. But I mean, you know, Visa,
MasterCard and Amex would make good money on my phone, you
know, paying 3% for everything Itap, right?
And then, you know, all of the fees that are layered
underneath. So I think you know, that that
that's the ultimate sort of use case is just kind of all of
commerce. I think one other thing was
(04:40):
funny. Elon famously said to me once
the the idea that like crypto islike running Oracle on your
laptop. So like the idea that crypto can
handle that level of volume of transactions.
Like if you think of like what the credit card networks around
the world do and then what is, you know, what can a crypto
blockchain do at scale? And there's many of them now and
they're starting to scale, but like still the number of
(05:02):
transactions that happen in a lot of cases isn't there.
And I think, you know, some of the seven, Bobby, our guest
who's built on Solana is one of the faster blockchains.
And it's got a bunch of like kind of proof points of being
able to be the kind of the NASDAQ of crypto.
But I don't know enough about me.
Jason, what about you? What did?
What did you screw up? I've got one thing, I think the
number one thing that I'll tell people that is an easy mistake
to make as a first time or earlystage founder is choosing your
(05:24):
Co founders. That's where I, I didn't do
enough research. I didn't really know what I was
getting into starting my first startup and and Co founding at
the company that I that I started down here in Socal.
And, you know, we, I think we'llprobably talk to Bobby about the
right place to start up or to start up.
Yeah, I think if, if you can do one thing, it's kind of like
choosing a partner for life, like somebody that you want to
(05:48):
get married, like definitely do some dating, get engaged, have a
long engagement, like really getto know your Co founders.
I think I love it when you talk about your, your relationship
with your partner, JJ and how you guys have known each other
like 25 plus years. Like at a certain point you're
finishing each other sandwiches.You're you're kind of doing
everything, you know, what the other person's going to think
and say before they say it. So you can like skip a lot of
that stuff. And there's no, there's no
(06:09):
substitute for that. But in the, in the, you know,
like see of all the people you could start a business with,
there's good actors, there's badactors.
We'll talk to Bobby about like the bad actors in the crypto
betting world, I'm sure. And I think if you're going to
start a start up, not in crypto,making sure at least that you
start somebody that has high integrity, that does what they
say they're going to do, tells the truth, not, not 100% where I
(06:29):
landed and, and learn some hard,hard lessons that way.
And I'll, I'll leave it. I'll leave it there.
I love it. Yeah.
I mean, Jason, every founder hasa list of mistakes they'd never
repeat. And, you know, I think the real
pros, they, they show that list early and often and, you know,
kind of learn from it and scale.Yeah, today's guest is going to
do exactly that. He's seen the hype, he's scaled
through it, and he knows how to build without blowing it all.
(06:51):
Up yeah, Bobby's came through sports science, kind of broke
into crypto Co founded one of the most interesting sort of
wagering platforms in web. He worked with elite athletes,
he launched fast growth platforms and figured out how to
stay grounded while the space moved faster than ever.
Kevin, should we bring him on? Let's do it all right?
(07:18):
Bobby, welcome to founder mode. You don't one of the, you know,
in the one of the fastest movingspaces, I mean, super volatile,
right, crypto, sports, sports betting, blockchain.
And now you've, you know, kind of kept your head scaled fast
and and really kind of at the same time stayed grounded.
I mean, you know, looking back in some of our earlier
conversations, it's always incredible, like how much energy
stuff is going on in your space and then, you know, kind of the
way you guys pull through it. Yeah.
(07:39):
Welcome, Bobby. We're excited to have you here.
How's it going? Thanks.
Yeah, Thanks for having me here,guys.
Yeah, all good, all good. Like Kevin said then, this is a
fast moving space. You know, you've only got to
look at the stuff that's going on with prediction markets now
and it's looking like the sportsbutton casino business might be
going out the window. So we've always got to evolve.
Yeah, you got to. You got to keep moving.
(07:59):
Well, let's let's start broad. What's the fastest way to ruin a
startup before it even gets going?
I've been thinking about this a lot over the probably the past,
the past the past two weeks, I'dsay.
And I think the fastest way is to overhide it.
Definitely. I think it's, you know, I think
it's the easiest thing to do. And at the at the time it seems
(08:20):
like the right thing to do. But ultimately, you know, when
you look back, it's just an absolute disaster over hiring.
Yeah. And then when you guys have done
that in the past or you've seen that happen, like what sort of
the approach you take to sort ofrein that in and fix it?
Like, you know, any advice to founders out there that is sort
of like looking at that state, maybe too many butts in the
seats and you know, do you do itquickly?
Do you know, how do you kind of rationalize like what to do
(08:43):
next? No, yeah.
I mean, I think, I think the hardest thing to do once you
hire, hire a bunch of people is obviously fire them.
You know, you know, the same, you know, quick to hire, long to
fire, or should we say long to hire, quick to fire.
It should be really fun. So, yeah, you know, it's, it's,
it's, you know, once you get these people in, you know, it's
actually a nightmare to hire people on, you know, salaries as
(09:04):
well. I think, you know, I think as a
young startup, what you really want is, you know, maybe
contractors where you know, you're not having to pay, you
know, like taxes and pensions and holidays and HR and the
headache and buying equipment for people.
It's just, it's just an absolute.
Yeah. So you're deep into crypto
(09:24):
betting. What is a rookie move there that
that kills most people that are entering that space?
Well, I think, I think from traditional betting, say you
have a FanDuel account, so you'll put $100 on NFL game, you
know, probably lose and you know, you you're you're not kind
of blown up support saying, you know, give me give me 2030 30
bucks back in the crypto space. It's very much bonus driven,
(09:45):
which I think is kind of the wrong approach for to the
industry. It's not really good for
anybody. Players hop from casino to
casino bonus hunting. They're not sticky, they're not
loyal. But then you get kind of caught
up in that yourself and you kindof forget your own path and
forget why you probably started the business and you then end
up, you know, we were doing 50% cash back last month, which like
(10:09):
we didn't you plan on ever doingthat.
But you get caught up in a kind of a vicious cycle with all
these other casinos. And ultimately you can't compete
as well. State have got unlimited money,
Rubec have got unlimited money. We haven't.
So like, you know, we work hard all month and then we give 50%
back to players and then you've got to pay supplier fees and
wages. You know, it's, it's, it's like
(10:29):
a race to the bottom. What's, I mean, it's incredible
when you think about that and sort of deciding on what your
road map is and picking sort of what you want to go build, you
know, but what's maybe a productfeature that you, you know, once
thought was brilliant but then turned out to be a complete
waste of time or or worse, it sounds like bonuses is one of
them. Is there other things you guys
have run into that you're just like, wow, we we never should
(10:49):
have done that? Yeah.
Well. Well, there's two there's, you
know, we're quite a social project.
So we, we thought having a chat or decided the at the casino
would be good, but that's, that's been a disaster.
You know, you've got people saying all sorts of swear words,
racist comments, stuff about, you know, politics, but like,
not, not in a good way. And then you've also got people
(11:10):
saying, you know, where the my withdrawal?
You know, it's just it's like a it's like when you stream a
stream a fight or a game and you've got like this, you know,
the chat on the side and it's just popping off, but not not a
good way. So that that is not, you know,
some people like it. It's not so good for us.
But then another bad feature, which Kevin, I'll give you guys
credit to D gods, your user profiles was thick and pretty
(11:33):
slick. Whereas our user profiles, it's
up like 6 months to build by thetime we shipped it.
Nobody cared creating like a I'dsay a pro like a user profile in
crypto. Fast-paced.
Not really. Not really the one.
This is good. These are good tips, good
advice, notes out there, those that are listening.
So you scaled pretty fast. Bobby, what's a growth tactic
(11:53):
that looks, you know, smart maybe on paper, but backfires in
the real world? So you talked about bonuses, but
is there, is there something else that you guys have done or
seen You're like, don't do that?Yeah, I think you know, you
know, when you want to bring, you know, calls in keep, you
know, key opinion leaders, you know, not having them
incentivized with the platform. You know, if you're just giving
them, you know, 51020K to, you know to do XYZ, it just it never
(12:18):
works out. You know, you need a land
sensors with with with the with these guys and you see it in
casinos that you know, let big calls in on the seed round or in
on the equity round. And they are obviously just, you
know, pumping the bags from the start.
But you know, it's in their bestinterest.
The post naturally, the post in their own words.
It's not scripted. It feels real.
(12:39):
Whereas, you know, if you're paying 10 grand for the
influencer with OK, he might post a few or few bets or a few
thoughts on the project, but then the like mercenaries
aren't, you know, there with another casino next month.
So, yeah, so it you know, I think, you know, pay and not
having a land incentives with, you know, any, any cause is a is
(12:59):
a bad idea. I like it.
And then what's something that you guys probably spent too much
time on or over optimized too early and what should you have
done instead? Well, I think, you know, and you
said this a lot in, you know, 'cause we've had Private Kevin's
kind of life, you know, just like kind of ship it and, you
know, trying to fix it later. And I think timing is obviously
(13:21):
everything for, you know, for a product like look at, you know,
Fake Shuffle, Rubert and Robust.They launched at the perfect
time and they've just got a absolutely gigantic audience now
because of the time they launched.
Whereas, you know, if Robot would have maybe delayed it six
months, you know, because the front end didn't look nice.
And you know, you know, this product wasn't built at the
(13:43):
time, but it's kind of just like, you know, I think, I think
if you've got an idea, I think you should just, you know, get
it to its MVP, get a house, takethe feedback.
It's a race. And you know, these are all
obvious things, but they're veryhard to do because, you know, as
a founder, you know, you, you want the first impression of
your product to be the right impression.
But, and then, and then you think if it's bad, they're not
(14:03):
going to come back. But you know, they probably,
they probably will. So.
Yeah, if someone's trying to grow Bobby with crypto,
airdrops, partnerships, influencers, what's maybe the
wrong way to do it? I think I think you know, like
like vanity metrics in this faceand you know, a real example we
had was we had the freezer play game called block picks, which
(14:25):
was it came from the UK. So Sky better the biggest sports
but and casino in the UK, they're like the version of ESPN
in the States. So ESPN bets, so it's Sky and
Sky bets. So basically on a Saturday, they
have like the preview shows of all the football games and they
have a panel of X players and they all go through their picks
and then basically it's a freezer player and they put up
(14:47):
six games and you've got to guess the correct score, so 2111
etcetera. And at the end of the six picks,
you they've got a 60 just says add to bet slip and then they
take it over to Sky Bet and thenyou put the bet on this is also
free to enter. So that so every every week this
is £250,000 that that that you can win and it's base.
(15:08):
And then they do it based on points over a certain amount of
like game times and you can win prizes and all that.
So we basically made the crypto version of that.
And we, we ran it last year whenwe launched for the EUR and we
had 12,000 players every week, which from the outside looking
in was great. But they were all farmers from
(15:30):
Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, India.
And we thought it was, you know,you know, we were like, oh, my
players yesterday, 12,000 But inreality, how many came over to
the casino? Literally non Yeah, I'd say like
less less reliable. I like it.
And then just backing back into some kind of fundamentals 15
gears a little bit to kind of ofthe team and leading.
(15:51):
What's like something that startup leaders kind of get in
their own way once things start working Like we're, hey, you've
seen stuff working. And then you maybe, you know,
couldn't get rid of that foundersort of like creativity and
wanted to sort of meddle with something and really should have
stepped back and let your team run with it.
Yeah. I'd say, you know, founders have
a hard time delegating Dumpty. It's like, you know, at the
(16:13):
start, obviously I mentioned, you know, we over hired, but
then you still kind of want to get involved in every bit of the
business. But I think I think allowing
yourself the time to think and actually make yourself better is
more important than having a busy calendar.
You know, people probably look at the day and we want to
back-to-back course with like 6 different people.
(16:34):
And then you're talking to this guy from the UFC and this guy
from a sports agent and you know, you're talking to a, you
know, what event can we do? And like you're just being a
you're just being a busy fool. You know, realistically, you
know all those books everyone buys and you never read some
coming better taking takes, taking a bit of time to read one
of them and you never know what might come into your head.
So I think like keeping yourselfbusy enough so you're not
(16:56):
itching to get another course. But you know, you definitely
need to have time to think us about it because ultimately the
business wouldn't be there without you.
I love that Bobby, we talk aboutthat a lot on the show.
I just want everybody to actually hear what he just said,
Like, don't fill your calendar just because like do stuff that
actually matters. And I think that's a it's, it's,
it's rather sage advice that I hope, I hope some folks
(17:18):
listening will take. So you've built through a lot of
volatility. You're, you're in this
inherently volatile space. What's the worst way to handle
both internal pressure, externalpanic?
How do you, how do you ride the storm well?
And what? What do you do not do?
To be honest to a false, I'm probably I'm probably too calm,
but you know, when we started the business, you know, started
(17:39):
with my brother Paul and then a friend, Ryan and another friend
called Christian Paul. I don't even read the like the
the Bitcoin billionaires book about the Winklevoss wins.
And like they kind of say the perfect because they've got each
side of the brain like 1's, likeanalysts are calling them one's
kind of like creative. So like me and Paul are kind of
like that. You know, Paul's kind of like
(18:00):
the Paul's kind of like, you know, better on numbers and
probably like more of a leader with people, whereas I'm kind of
more observed and I'm like, right, Paul, take a chill pill.
You know, it's all good. So it's, it's, it's we've, you
know, we've been through many crises, you know, we've, we've
held Solana from $250 to $8. Then how to sell it because we
(18:21):
needed money for wages. You know, we, we've been through
it all. Another thing is kind of what
you've got to remember. And like, it's kind of treading
on the edge of like nihilism, but like, you know, we're all
going to die. Everything's going to be fine.
It's not that deep. You know, I think if you're
going to take a step back and just appreciate and like stop,
stop probably thinking that whatyou're doing so important,
right? And just kind of chill off.
(18:43):
I love it dude. Let's talk.
Let's talk red flags. So what's a red flag in crypto
or betting that people maybe ignore or don't pay attention to
but end up regretting later? Yeah.
I mean, I think a big one is that, you know, there's like
1001 casinos out there, but probably one of the biggest is
that people kind of don't go on the socials beforehand or the
Instagram and you don't check out whether, you know, so many
(19:04):
times people come to us after depositing an amount, winning
and they're not getting paid out.
So, you know, he's massive in the space.
So I think and you know, it's hard for like, you know,
customers because, you know, youmight see a sponsored post or
they might see a call who's beenpaid 20 grand, whose engagement
is fate and they think this casino looks legit.
(19:25):
And then the end up, you know, regretting it down the line
because, you know, they've had abig win and they can't get the
funds out. So think credibility is a big
one in the space. And what's I think customers are
it's, you know, to go do some into who they're playing with.
I think one of the, you know, things that attracted me in the
early days to sort of crypto andblockchain and Bitcoin and all
the sort of early was just the technology of like the idea of
(19:47):
this sort of like, right. Once, you know, read many times,
it was like this, you know, kindof permanence of the blockchain
as you guys look at, you know, that there's obviously benefits
to being there, but like what's 1 of the worst reasons?
You know, you see people, I'm sure like you've seen so many
people come after you guys have been around for a while, right,
in terms of the space and you see new people jumping into it.
What's 1 of the worst reasons people come to the blockchain
(20:09):
right? Are one of the worst reasons
that they sort of, you know, launch a product on the
blockchain today. I mean, it's probably the, you
know, the the reason you guys are thinking now is that, you
know, people just think that this space is just quick money
and easy money. And then they launch a product
and they don't realize how that actually is and how quick the
money doesn't come. So, you know, they launch
(20:29):
something for, you know, there'sno free lunch, right?
So, yeah, I think that's the number one reason is, you know,
they might not have the most passion for what they're
launching anyway, because they're launching it for the
wrong reasons. And then when you launch for the
money reason and. It doesn't come.
You've talked a lot about math and probability and we look at
like prediction markets. I saw a chart today, you know,
that one of these prediction markets like had more sort of
(20:51):
like volume and sort of like energy, you know, around it than
even the election, right? Which is crazy to think that
like NFL Week 1 can see that sort of spike.
Like, you know, what's the wrongway to sort of apply that
lesson? Like in a start up to say, look,
you know, you really don't know what the real sort of global top
is on some of this stuff. And like prediction markets
(21:11):
arguably were like illegal and nobody said that that was
another thing. And crypto has, you know, had it
sort of political on and off, especially here in the US.
Like, I'm curious how you guys kind of evolve what you're doing
around seeing the, you know, themarkets just move like this.
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I think it'd be interesting to to
get your guys take under prediction market as well
because obviously news are basedin the US.
(21:33):
But you know, when I was listening to Pao Somani on
Empire last night and obviously he's invested into Kaushi.
So he's kind of pushing that for, you know, I I feel like as
like a sports pure issue. Do we say, yeah, actually, this
is quite ridiculous. The fact that, you know, I own a
spot in casino, but when I'm going to a sport, an event or,
you know, watching on the telly,I actually kind of hate nothing
(21:53):
more than seeing odds like push towards me.
Like, you know, I think I think House Imani say last night he
was like, you know, you've been a group chat with the boys and
you know you'll have a best, youknow, Will Dryson, will Bryson
drive this screen and you know, it'll be coming up on your
screen. And I was thinking I'm watching
the masters on a Sunday. You know, Aragos that I don't
want to be seeing a best about Bryson the Shambo.
(22:16):
I want to just enjoy the sport as it is and both culturally, I
don't know if you guys are different towards English, but
like, you know, I know back at home, all my friends that love
football and go the match the lot, like if they're watching
the football, they're like engrossed in the football.
They're not I'm not betting on if, you know, Muhammad Sal is
going to score next. They're like, you know, I wanted
to score because I wanted to score.
I don't want to win money from it.
(22:37):
So it's like it's also a cultural thing.
It's like the UK is like the most sophisticated gambler
markets in the world. the US is obviously probably going to be
the largest very soon. But you guys, it's a nuts.
And it's like, so yeah, I'm interested to see what you guys
think about like prediction markets.
Would you want to be, you know, watching Bloomberg and having a
bet on if Jerome Powell is goingto do 50 bits tonight?
(22:58):
Like, I don't know, would you? It's interesting.
It is interesting, right, because I think like at some
level it's the most purest form of humanity.
Like you, everybody, you make decisions in life and you're
predicting, you know, should I cross the street?
Is the car doing 80 miles an hour or 20 miles an hour?
You're like, I don't know, like my daughter's 15 1/2.
She's learning to drive and like, like she, you know, we're
like, should we make the left turn?
(23:19):
And I'm like, I don't know, it'sat night.
The lights are getting big fast but like.
What would I'm? Going to do, I'm going to let
them go. No, but I mean, we got to learn
before FSD. You actually kind of.
You see, legally I learned you can use FSD to do all of your
driving practice. You just can't use it in the
test. Yeah, which is wild.
Which is wild. So it's like you can study for
the SAT and have it answer all your test questions but you
(23:40):
can't use chat DVT. In the real test.
So you're like, you better learnwithout it.
So my, my thing on this prediction thing's interesting
because I do think that like there's situations where you're
in games, you're you're with buddies and you're hanging out
and you're like, Hey, who do youthink's going to do this?
Or who do you think's going to win or you're curing for a team
and there's this like, would youwant to bet on it off 5 bucks?
You can't do this or, you know, $7.00, you can't drive the golf
(24:01):
cart around this trash can. Like all these dumb things that
sort of happened and prediction markets kind of like, you know,
provides a way to sort of like now, you know, make a bet on
anything. But I also think to your point,
like it is crazy. Like you can't load a show on
the weekends or any sporting event without seeing a banner of
like DraftKings or some kind of like betting odds sort of like
(24:21):
spiral running through it. And so I think that part of it
is is a little bit nauseating attimes to take away from the
pureness of it. Yeah, I, I agree.
And I also think that to your question about culturally, like
what's going on here in the states, Bobby, everyone I know
that does fantasy football, they're watching individual
players, you know, playing and trying to think about how that's
affecting the stats of their, their fantasy team.
(24:42):
So I think there's a similar obsession here culturally.
And I, I'm not sure, like, I'm not sure that there's the like
purity or purists anymore than anything.
Like, I think everybody's just like, you know, just trying to
to make a buck. And you made a comment earlier
about get rich quick, like, you know, there's no such thing,
right. And so I think, you know, does
it, does it suck the enjoyment maybe, or maybe I think there's
(25:04):
a large contingent of people nowthat that is their source of
enjoyment is just the, the, the kind of riskiness and, you know,
the edge of their seat. Am I going to win the bat this
week? So, so talking about kind of the
first couple of years building any, any kind of thoughts on
what you would not do again, youknow, taking yourself back to
when you first started. I think one of the key things is
(25:24):
kind of where where you're basedon where the startups based.
You know, we kind of we're from Liverpool and England, which is
kind of like in the Northwest and it's mainly a, it's like a
working class city. I think part of the Titanic was
built there. I should actually know that
crypto couldn't be more, more orless Liverpool probably.
You know, I think I think founders early on should kind of
(25:47):
prioritize where, where the building and, and, and, and, you
know, I think if they say it's about the product, I think the
best thing we can do honestly isjust obviously just move out to
the West Coast or, you know, maybe Miami now or, you know,
around that area. But you know, since since we've
been to like Singapore for conferences or, you know, Dubai,
for example, it's just night andday, the people that you meet
(26:08):
and you know, you know, on the journey, how much they're going
to help you as well. I just think staying in your
city or in a country that you know, isn't like a vibrant,
vibrant for the tech scene. I think that's like, that's like
the number one thing that peoplewould, you know?
Yeah, I think it makes sense. It's funny because you think of
all these, you know, being in San Francisco for 25 years,
right? I think every single you got to
(26:28):
come to San Francisco to do startups or, you know, you got
to come to here to do tech. And I think we've all, you know,
kind of had these like, you know, or LA of the Silicon
Beach, right? Like they start like naming
these little corridors of like, you know, or you Flatiron in New
York, you know, where you get these pockets of sort of
innovation. And I think it is interesting
because I've thought about this a lot, like now that I've been
doing this for a couple decades,like I kind of have my like, you
(26:49):
know, I'm for better, better or worse, like trained on how I'm
going to go do something. And the location matters
potentially less because I've, you know, how to network and
build folks. But I do think there's this this
idea that in the early days, it's important to sort of
understand, you know, are you around, you know, like minded
people that are thinking and doing and acting the same way.
And so I think that's interesting.
I think cool, man. Well, I want to ask one more
(27:11):
question. I think what's like one worse
piece of startup advice that you've ever followed, Like
something somebody's like, hey man, this is the way you do
startup. Or you read something and you're
like, we're going to try that. And you're like, wow, that was a
disaster. Well, I mean, it kind of comes
back to the the point about being like a perfectionist.
So like when we started the business, I was reading them
Steve Jobs as a biography by Walter Isaacson and like he's
(27:33):
Steve Jobs. And I'm like, I'm not Steve
Jobs, but like you read that after you read it, you really
believe that you are. So like, I think kind of not
listening to customers is obviously not a good thing.
But at the time I was like, I remember there's a quote in it
and it was basically like. Customer has no idea what they
want. Exactly, exactly.
But like, you know, so it's not the start.
(27:53):
I was like, they don't, they're all idiots.
They don't know what they're talking about.
What, you know, if it wasn't forus, there wouldn't be this
product and all this. So that then you look back and
you think, no, maybe maybe they were right about a lot of
things. So yeah, that's kind.
Of one of them, Bobby isn't awesome.
Where can people follow what you're building?
Read You know what you're up to and just quite thankfully follow
more on your journey. Yeah, just just just like one
more point for any, you know, young founders out there.
(28:15):
You know, I think, you know, when we kind of started the
business and, you know, I I justhad a little girl and then I
kind of had another little girl and I really wasn't interested
in making myself like a personality, like a, you know,
like a Frankie Gods, for example.
You know, I've been in this space for four years, but it
didn't interest me. But you know, looking back,
probably one of the biggest regrets is not product
productizing myself. You know, realistically I should
(28:37):
probably have, you know, 50K followers on Twitter and you
know, you know, if you look at every big business, the founder
basically is the business, right.
So I think that that impacts thesports book because and casino
now because there isn't like a base of the business, should we
say So yeah, if if you start an house, you know, advertise
yourself or go on podcasts, just, you know, do tick tocks,
(29:00):
you know, record your journey. So that's just one little bit of
ice. But yeah, you can find me on X
Bob the Wizard 23 and on X blockbet DG and then on Instagram
block bet GG as well. So yeah, anyone interested in a
bet, just drop me Adm and I can,you know, I can set a group chat
up with me and a couple couple of the boys and we can give you
a great service. So yeah, just drop me a DM.
(29:21):
We'll look after you. Yeah, we'll drop that in the
show notes. Please DM Bobby if you want to,
if you want to check out what he's building and, and and get
in there. This was exactly what we had
hoped it would be, Bobby Raw, real packed with hard earned
lessons. And we just appreciate you being
here, man. Thanks for that guys, Appreciate
it. See ya.
That was a bloom spent in reverse.
I mean, Bobby gave us a checklist of what not to do.
You know every founder should just print this out.
(29:42):
Yeah, agreed. What I loved was his honesty.
No chest beating, just clarity on what breaks when you don't
stay focused. Kevin, what were your top five?
Yeah, I think, you know, so overhiring bring backfires, you
know, keep the team lean, you know, higher slowly, I think,
you know, use contractors beforeyou shift into like a big W2 or
sort of permanent team. Bonus wars can create churn.
So you know, this kind of incentives could be a race to
(30:04):
the bottom. Ship an MVP pass and iterate.
You know, you want to get something out there that works
and then Polish it once it's going.
Ignore those vanity metrics, focus on conversion and like
what's the real ROI of the value?
Delegate and protect thinking time.
You, you know, can have a packedcalendar, but you need to have
time to think and relax and really understand strategy.
Nailed it. If this episode made you rethink
(30:26):
your road map or your mindset, send it to someone who's deep in
the build right now. That's a wrap, because sometimes
the best way to build is knowingexactly what not to do.
Allowing yourself the time to think and actually make yourself
better is more important than having a busy calendar.
You know, people probably look at the day and we want to act
about cause with like 6 different people.
And then you're talking to this guy from the UFC and this guy
from a sports agent and you know, what event can we do
realistically? You know, you definitely need to
(00:21):
have time to think is about it because ultimately the business
wouldn't be there without you. Welcome back to Founder Mode.
The show where we talk to peoplebuilding in the wild and share
(00:44):
the lessons you only learn the hard way.
Today's episode a little different.
We're not talking about what to do, we're going monger style and
learning through inversion. What breaks startup?
What kills momentum? What decisions seem smart but
aren't? That's what we're unpacking
today. What are your some of your
favorite mistakes as a founder, Kevin?
Yeah, I think a bunch. I think, I think just forgetting
to do stuff. And I think like in the early
(01:06):
days, you know, you forget to register something, you know, I
think contract or some sort of registration and then you're
like, oh, I should have registered the handle or the
brand or the name. Yeah.
I've also just, you know, in theearly days, we were signing
contracts. We didn't have end dates on them
and just a lot of things that atthe time, it just seemed
harmless. But the expense of like having
these little sort of lintings ofmistakes add up.
(01:26):
I think there was nothing more catalyzing than going through
that sort of the acquisitions, right?
You also you also have a ton of ton of history with our guest
today Bobby. Any crypto hard, hard won, hard
earned lessons in your in your days as as Kevin Degaans.
Yeah, I think in the crypto world, I think the lessons are
crazier. I think partly because
everything say or and sometimes even think is financialized.
(01:49):
And I think it's the idea of like in crypto, you sort of
you're sort of IT owing with every little tweet, every little
thought. And so that sort of, you know,
learning that lesson and sort ofseeing people create tokens and,
you know, bet on you or, you know, bet on the things you may
do right into the product features you're going to add or
the customers you're going to sign or whether you're going to
raise money or not. And like that became like a
(02:10):
pretty and still today, I think harms a lot of crypto founders
early on where they they struggle with this idea that you
do want to have a personality and a brand and sort of talk
publicly about everything you'redoing.
Because that's great to get attention and momentum.
But it comes at a cost of like understanding that people are
going to financialize that and over financialize.
They're literally betting on you.
(02:31):
And for as many people are betting on you to be successful,
there's a bunch of people that are betting on you, those people
to be wrong because they're going to make money on the
opposite side of the bet. And so yeah, is.
Crypto betting and like sports betting, one of the real use
cases like because there's always the fight over like
what's the real crypto blockchain use case.
Yeah, I think there's a bunch, right?
I think I mean the betting ones,one where it's like, and crypto
(02:53):
betting's allowed people to makebets just outside of
jurisdictions where it's legal. And so like there's all that and
crypto was similar, right, in this very Gray area for the
last, you know, 5 to 10 years. And more recently, this year,
it's become a lot more sort of like mainstream, you know, banks
are doing. It you just sent an e-mail
explaining stable coins to people, you know it's you know
it's mainstream. Yeah, it's, it's coming.
(03:14):
And so I think crypto allowed sort of gambling and a lot of
people that I've met that were early in Bitcoin and Etherium
and these sort of coins were like they discovered it through
crypto. And and even I like saw it early
in poker, like we were playing online poker and then that
became illegal to play online poker.
And crypto was the only way to move money in and out of these
sort of online casinos, right, in the early days.
(03:35):
And so that sort of has been a use case.
I think famously there's like Silk Road and sort of the like
underground eBay, there's a lot of those like that.
But I think the real use cases, you know, at the end of the day,
it's like what we do everyday. I buy stuff on my phone.
I, I, I purchase things like today, I pay anywhere from 2 to
3% credit card fees, depending on the merchant and the fees.
And you as a business, when you take a payment like that is the
(03:57):
real opportunity, which is like all of commerce is riding on
this two or three percent sort of float or fee.
And that's just not going to sustain in a market where the
cost of that goes to like fractions, you know, of a penny
or 0, right? It ends up being negative in.
Many cases because there happened 47365 instead of during
banking. Never closes, yeah, never
(04:18):
closes, always settles. So that is the, I think the real
use case. It just it's going to take time
for. You know, big entrenched players
in this, Yeah. But I mean, you know, Visa,
MasterCard and Amex would make good money on my phone, you
know, paying 3% for everything Itap, right?
And then, you know, all of the fees that are layered
underneath. So I think you know, that that
that's the ultimate sort of use case is just kind of all of
commerce. I think one other thing was
(04:40):
funny. Elon famously said to me once
the the idea that like crypto islike running Oracle on your
laptop. So like the idea that crypto can
handle that level of volume of transactions.
Like if you think of like what the credit card networks around
the world do and then what is, you know, what can a crypto
blockchain do at scale? And there's many of them now and
they're starting to scale, but like still the number of
(05:02):
transactions that happen in a lot of cases isn't there.
And I think, you know, some of the seven, Bobby, our guest
who's built on Solana is one of the faster blockchains.
And it's got a bunch of like kind of proof points of being
able to be the kind of the NASDAQ of crypto.
But I don't know enough about me.
Jason, what about you? What did?
What did you screw up? I've got one thing, I think the
number one thing that I'll tell people that is an easy mistake
to make as a first time or earlystage founder is choosing your
(05:24):
Co founders. That's where I, I didn't do
enough research. I didn't really know what I was
getting into starting my first startup and and Co founding at
the company that I that I started down here in Socal.
And, you know, we, I think we'llprobably talk to Bobby about the
right place to start up or to start up.
Yeah, I think if, if you can do one thing, it's kind of like
choosing a partner for life, like somebody that you want to
(05:48):
get married, like definitely do some dating, get engaged, have a
long engagement, like really getto know your Co founders.
I think I love it when you talk about your, your relationship
with your partner, JJ and how you guys have known each other
like 25 plus years. Like at a certain point you're
finishing each other sandwiches.You're you're kind of doing
everything, you know, what the other person's going to think
and say before they say it. So you can like skip a lot of
that stuff. And there's no, there's no
(06:09):
substitute for that. But in the, in the, you know,
like see of all the people you could start a business with,
there's good actors, there's badactors.
We'll talk to Bobby about like the bad actors in the crypto
betting world, I'm sure. And I think if you're going to
start a start up, not in crypto,making sure at least that you
start somebody that has high integrity, that does what they
say they're going to do, tells the truth, not, not 100% where I
(06:29):
landed and, and learn some hard,hard lessons that way.
And I'll, I'll leave it. I'll leave it there.
I love it. Yeah.
I mean, Jason, every founder hasa list of mistakes they'd never
repeat. And, you know, I think the real
pros, they, they show that list early and often and, you know,
kind of learn from it and scale.Yeah, today's guest is going to
do exactly that. He's seen the hype, he's scaled
through it, and he knows how to build without blowing it all.
(06:51):
Up yeah, Bobby's came through sports science, kind of broke
into crypto Co founded one of the most interesting sort of
wagering platforms in web. He worked with elite athletes,
he launched fast growth platforms and figured out how to
stay grounded while the space moved faster than ever.
Kevin, should we bring him on? Let's do it all right?
(07:18):
Bobby, welcome to founder mode. You don't one of the, you know,
in the one of the fastest movingspaces, I mean, super volatile,
right, crypto, sports, sports betting, blockchain.
And now you've, you know, kind of kept your head scaled fast
and and really kind of at the same time stayed grounded.
I mean, you know, looking back in some of our earlier
conversations, it's always incredible, like how much energy
stuff is going on in your space and then, you know, kind of the
way you guys pull through it. Yeah.
(07:39):
Welcome, Bobby. We're excited to have you here.
How's it going? Thanks.
Yeah, Thanks for having me here,guys.
Yeah, all good, all good. Like Kevin said then, this is a
fast moving space. You know, you've only got to
look at the stuff that's going on with prediction markets now
and it's looking like the sportsbutton casino business might be
going out the window. So we've always got to evolve.
Yeah, you got to. You got to keep moving.
(07:59):
Well, let's let's start broad. What's the fastest way to ruin a
startup before it even gets going?
I've been thinking about this a lot over the probably the past,
the past the past two weeks, I'dsay.
And I think the fastest way is to overhide it.
Definitely. I think it's, you know, I think
it's the easiest thing to do. And at the at the time it seems
(08:20):
like the right thing to do. But ultimately, you know, when
you look back, it's just an absolute disaster over hiring.
Yeah. And then when you guys have done
that in the past or you've seen that happen, like what sort of
the approach you take to sort ofrein that in and fix it?
Like, you know, any advice to founders out there that is sort
of like looking at that state, maybe too many butts in the
seats and you know, do you do itquickly?
Do you know, how do you kind of rationalize like what to do
(08:43):
next? No, yeah.
I mean, I think, I think the hardest thing to do once you
hire, hire a bunch of people is obviously fire them.
You know, you know, the same, you know, quick to hire, long to
fire, or should we say long to hire, quick to fire.
It should be really fun. So, yeah, you know, it's, it's,
it's, you know, once you get these people in, you know, it's
actually a nightmare to hire people on, you know, salaries as
(09:04):
well. I think, you know, I think as a
young startup, what you really want is, you know, maybe
contractors where you know, you're not having to pay, you
know, like taxes and pensions and holidays and HR and the
headache and buying equipment for people.
It's just, it's just an absolute.
Yeah. So you're deep into crypto
(09:24):
betting. What is a rookie move there that
that kills most people that are entering that space?
Well, I think, I think from traditional betting, say you
have a FanDuel account, so you'll put $100 on NFL game, you
know, probably lose and you know, you you're you're not kind
of blown up support saying, you know, give me give me 2030 30
bucks back in the crypto space. It's very much bonus driven,
(09:45):
which I think is kind of the wrong approach for to the
industry. It's not really good for
anybody. Players hop from casino to
casino bonus hunting. They're not sticky, they're not
loyal. But then you get kind of caught
up in that yourself and you kindof forget your own path and
forget why you probably started the business and you then end
up, you know, we were doing 50% cash back last month, which like
(10:09):
we didn't you plan on ever doingthat.
But you get caught up in a kind of a vicious cycle with all
these other casinos. And ultimately you can't compete
as well. State have got unlimited money,
Rubec have got unlimited money. We haven't.
So like, you know, we work hard all month and then we give 50%
back to players and then you've got to pay supplier fees and
wages. You know, it's, it's, it's like
(10:29):
a race to the bottom. What's, I mean, it's incredible
when you think about that and sort of deciding on what your
road map is and picking sort of what you want to go build, you
know, but what's maybe a productfeature that you, you know, once
thought was brilliant but then turned out to be a complete
waste of time or or worse, it sounds like bonuses is one of
them. Is there other things you guys
have run into that you're just like, wow, we we never should
(10:49):
have done that? Yeah.
Well. Well, there's two there's, you
know, we're quite a social project.
So we, we thought having a chat or decided the at the casino
would be good, but that's, that's been a disaster.
You know, you've got people saying all sorts of swear words,
racist comments, stuff about, you know, politics, but like,
not, not in a good way. And then you've also got people
(11:10):
saying, you know, where the my withdrawal?
You know, it's just it's like a it's like when you stream a
stream a fight or a game and you've got like this, you know,
the chat on the side and it's just popping off, but not not a
good way. So that that is not, you know,
some people like it. It's not so good for us.
But then another bad feature, which Kevin, I'll give you guys
credit to D gods, your user profiles was thick and pretty
(11:33):
slick. Whereas our user profiles, it's
up like 6 months to build by thetime we shipped it.
Nobody cared creating like a I'dsay a pro like a user profile in
crypto. Fast-paced.
Not really. Not really the one.
This is good. These are good tips, good
advice, notes out there, those that are listening.
So you scaled pretty fast. Bobby, what's a growth tactic
(11:53):
that looks, you know, smart maybe on paper, but backfires in
the real world? So you talked about bonuses, but
is there, is there something else that you guys have done or
seen You're like, don't do that?Yeah, I think you know, you
know, when you want to bring, you know, calls in keep, you
know, key opinion leaders, you know, not having them
incentivized with the platform. You know, if you're just giving
them, you know, 51020K to, you know to do XYZ, it just it never
(12:18):
works out. You know, you need a land
sensors with with with the with these guys and you see it in
casinos that you know, let big calls in on the seed round or in
on the equity round. And they are obviously just, you
know, pumping the bags from the start.
But you know, it's in their bestinterest.
The post naturally, the post in their own words.
It's not scripted. It feels real.
(12:39):
Whereas, you know, if you're paying 10 grand for the
influencer with OK, he might post a few or few bets or a few
thoughts on the project, but then the like mercenaries
aren't, you know, there with another casino next month.
So, yeah, so it you know, I think, you know, pay and not
having a land incentives with, you know, any, any cause is a is
(12:59):
a bad idea. I like it.
And then what's something that you guys probably spent too much
time on or over optimized too early and what should you have
done instead? Well, I think, you know, and you
said this a lot in, you know, 'cause we've had Private Kevin's
kind of life, you know, just like kind of ship it and, you
know, trying to fix it later. And I think timing is obviously
(13:21):
everything for, you know, for a product like look at, you know,
Fake Shuffle, Rubert and Robust.They launched at the perfect
time and they've just got a absolutely gigantic audience now
because of the time they launched.
Whereas, you know, if Robot would have maybe delayed it six
months, you know, because the front end didn't look nice.
And you know, you know, this product wasn't built at the
(13:43):
time, but it's kind of just like, you know, I think, I think
if you've got an idea, I think you should just, you know, get
it to its MVP, get a house, takethe feedback.
It's a race. And you know, these are all
obvious things, but they're veryhard to do because, you know, as
a founder, you know, you, you want the first impression of
your product to be the right impression.
But, and then, and then you think if it's bad, they're not
(14:03):
going to come back. But you know, they probably,
they probably will. So.
Yeah, if someone's trying to grow Bobby with crypto,
airdrops, partnerships, influencers, what's maybe the
wrong way to do it? I think I think you know, like
like vanity metrics in this faceand you know, a real example we
had was we had the freezer play game called block picks, which
(14:25):
was it came from the UK. So Sky better the biggest sports
but and casino in the UK, they're like the version of ESPN
in the States. So ESPN bets, so it's Sky and
Sky bets. So basically on a Saturday, they
have like the preview shows of all the football games and they
have a panel of X players and they all go through their picks
and then basically it's a freezer player and they put up
(14:47):
six games and you've got to guess the correct score, so 2111
etcetera. And at the end of the six picks,
you they've got a 60 just says add to bet slip and then they
take it over to Sky Bet and thenyou put the bet on this is also
free to enter. So that so every every week this
is £250,000 that that that you can win and it's base.
(15:08):
And then they do it based on points over a certain amount of
like game times and you can win prizes and all that.
So we basically made the crypto version of that.
And we, we ran it last year whenwe launched for the EUR and we
had 12,000 players every week, which from the outside looking
in was great. But they were all farmers from
(15:30):
Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, India.
And we thought it was, you know,you know, we were like, oh, my
players yesterday, 12,000 But inreality, how many came over to
the casino? Literally non Yeah, I'd say like
less less reliable. I like it.
And then just backing back into some kind of fundamentals 15
gears a little bit to kind of ofthe team and leading.
(15:51):
What's like something that startup leaders kind of get in
their own way once things start working Like we're, hey, you've
seen stuff working. And then you maybe, you know,
couldn't get rid of that foundersort of like creativity and
wanted to sort of meddle with something and really should have
stepped back and let your team run with it.
Yeah. I'd say, you know, founders have
a hard time delegating Dumpty. It's like, you know, at the
(16:13):
start, obviously I mentioned, you know, we over hired, but
then you still kind of want to get involved in every bit of the
business. But I think I think allowing
yourself the time to think and actually make yourself better is
more important than having a busy calendar.
You know, people probably look at the day and we want to
back-to-back course with like 6 different people.
(16:34):
And then you're talking to this guy from the UFC and this guy
from a sports agent and you know, you're talking to a, you
know, what event can we do? And like you're just being a
you're just being a busy fool. You know, realistically, you
know all those books everyone buys and you never read some
coming better taking takes, taking a bit of time to read one
of them and you never know what might come into your head.
So I think like keeping yourselfbusy enough so you're not
(16:56):
itching to get another course. But you know, you definitely
need to have time to think us about it because ultimately the
business wouldn't be there without you.
I love that Bobby, we talk aboutthat a lot on the show.
I just want everybody to actually hear what he just said,
Like, don't fill your calendar just because like do stuff that
actually matters. And I think that's a it's, it's,
it's rather sage advice that I hope, I hope some folks
(17:18):
listening will take. So you've built through a lot of
volatility. You're, you're in this
inherently volatile space. What's the worst way to handle
both internal pressure, externalpanic?
How do you, how do you ride the storm well?
And what? What do you do not do?
To be honest to a false, I'm probably I'm probably too calm,
but you know, when we started the business, you know, started
(17:39):
with my brother Paul and then a friend, Ryan and another friend
called Christian Paul. I don't even read the like the
the Bitcoin billionaires book about the Winklevoss wins.
And like they kind of say the perfect because they've got each
side of the brain like 1's, likeanalysts are calling them one's
kind of like creative. So like me and Paul are kind of
like that. You know, Paul's kind of like
(18:00):
the Paul's kind of like, you know, better on numbers and
probably like more of a leader with people, whereas I'm kind of
more observed and I'm like, right, Paul, take a chill pill.
You know, it's all good. So it's, it's, it's we've, you
know, we've been through many crises, you know, we've, we've
held Solana from $250 to $8. Then how to sell it because we
(18:21):
needed money for wages. You know, we, we've been through
it all. Another thing is kind of what
you've got to remember. And like, it's kind of treading
on the edge of like nihilism, but like, you know, we're all
going to die. Everything's going to be fine.
It's not that deep. You know, I think if you're
going to take a step back and just appreciate and like stop,
stop probably thinking that whatyou're doing so important,
right? And just kind of chill off.
(18:43):
I love it dude. Let's talk.
Let's talk red flags. So what's a red flag in crypto
or betting that people maybe ignore or don't pay attention to
but end up regretting later? Yeah.
I mean, I think a big one is that, you know, there's like
1001 casinos out there, but probably one of the biggest is
that people kind of don't go on the socials beforehand or the
Instagram and you don't check out whether, you know, so many
(19:04):
times people come to us after depositing an amount, winning
and they're not getting paid out.
So, you know, he's massive in the space.
So I think and you know, it's hard for like, you know,
customers because, you know, youmight see a sponsored post or
they might see a call who's beenpaid 20 grand, whose engagement
is fate and they think this casino looks legit.
(19:25):
And then the end up, you know, regretting it down the line
because, you know, they've had abig win and they can't get the
funds out. So think credibility is a big
one in the space. And what's I think customers are
it's, you know, to go do some into who they're playing with.
I think one of the, you know, things that attracted me in the
early days to sort of crypto andblockchain and Bitcoin and all
the sort of early was just the technology of like the idea of
(19:47):
this sort of like, right. Once, you know, read many times,
it was like this, you know, kindof permanence of the blockchain
as you guys look at, you know, that there's obviously benefits
to being there, but like what's 1 of the worst reasons?
You know, you see people, I'm sure like you've seen so many
people come after you guys have been around for a while, right,
in terms of the space and you see new people jumping into it.
What's 1 of the worst reasons people come to the blockchain
(20:09):
right? Are one of the worst reasons
that they sort of, you know, launch a product on the
blockchain today. I mean, it's probably the, you
know, the the reason you guys are thinking now is that, you
know, people just think that this space is just quick money
and easy money. And then they launch a product
and they don't realize how that actually is and how quick the
money doesn't come. So, you know, they launch
(20:29):
something for, you know, there'sno free lunch, right?
So, yeah, I think that's the number one reason is, you know,
they might not have the most passion for what they're
launching anyway, because they're launching it for the
wrong reasons. And then when you launch for the
money reason and. It doesn't come.
You've talked a lot about math and probability and we look at
like prediction markets. I saw a chart today, you know,
that one of these prediction markets like had more sort of
(20:51):
like volume and sort of like energy, you know, around it than
even the election, right? Which is crazy to think that
like NFL Week 1 can see that sort of spike.
Like, you know, what's the wrongway to sort of apply that
lesson? Like in a start up to say, look,
you know, you really don't know what the real sort of global top
is on some of this stuff. And like prediction markets
(21:11):
arguably were like illegal and nobody said that that was
another thing. And crypto has, you know, had it
sort of political on and off, especially here in the US.
Like, I'm curious how you guys kind of evolve what you're doing
around seeing the, you know, themarkets just move like this.
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I think it'd be interesting to to
get your guys take under prediction market as well
because obviously news are basedin the US.
(21:33):
But you know, when I was listening to Pao Somani on
Empire last night and obviously he's invested into Kaushi.
So he's kind of pushing that for, you know, I I feel like as
like a sports pure issue. Do we say, yeah, actually, this
is quite ridiculous. The fact that, you know, I own a
spot in casino, but when I'm going to a sport, an event or,
you know, watching on the telly,I actually kind of hate nothing
(21:53):
more than seeing odds like push towards me.
Like, you know, I think I think House Imani say last night he
was like, you know, you've been a group chat with the boys and
you know you'll have a best, youknow, Will Dryson, will Bryson
drive this screen and you know, it'll be coming up on your
screen. And I was thinking I'm watching
the masters on a Sunday. You know, Aragos that I don't
want to be seeing a best about Bryson the Shambo.
(22:16):
I want to just enjoy the sport as it is and both culturally, I
don't know if you guys are different towards English, but
like, you know, I know back at home, all my friends that love
football and go the match the lot, like if they're watching
the football, they're like engrossed in the football.
They're not I'm not betting on if, you know, Muhammad Sal is
going to score next. They're like, you know, I wanted
to score because I wanted to score.
I don't want to win money from it.
(22:37):
So it's like it's also a cultural thing.
It's like the UK is like the most sophisticated gambler
markets in the world. the US is obviously probably going to be
the largest very soon. But you guys, it's a nuts.
And it's like, so yeah, I'm interested to see what you guys
think about like prediction markets.
Would you want to be, you know, watching Bloomberg and having a
bet on if Jerome Powell is goingto do 50 bits tonight?
(22:58):
Like, I don't know, would you? It's interesting.
It is interesting, right, because I think like at some
level it's the most purest form of humanity.
Like you, everybody, you make decisions in life and you're
predicting, you know, should I cross the street?
Is the car doing 80 miles an hour or 20 miles an hour?
You're like, I don't know, like my daughter's 15 1/2.
She's learning to drive and like, like she, you know, we're
like, should we make the left turn?
(23:19):
And I'm like, I don't know, it'sat night.
The lights are getting big fast but like.
What would I'm? Going to do, I'm going to let
them go. No, but I mean, we got to learn
before FSD. You actually kind of.
You see, legally I learned you can use FSD to do all of your
driving practice. You just can't use it in the
test. Yeah, which is wild.
Which is wild. So it's like you can study for
the SAT and have it answer all your test questions but you
(23:40):
can't use chat DVT. In the real test.
So you're like, you better learnwithout it.
So my, my thing on this prediction thing's interesting
because I do think that like there's situations where you're
in games, you're you're with buddies and you're hanging out
and you're like, Hey, who do youthink's going to do this?
Or who do you think's going to win or you're curing for a team
and there's this like, would youwant to bet on it off 5 bucks?
You can't do this or, you know, $7.00, you can't drive the golf
(24:01):
cart around this trash can. Like all these dumb things that
sort of happened and prediction markets kind of like, you know,
provides a way to sort of like now, you know, make a bet on
anything. But I also think to your point,
like it is crazy. Like you can't load a show on
the weekends or any sporting event without seeing a banner of
like DraftKings or some kind of like betting odds sort of like
(24:21):
spiral running through it. And so I think that part of it
is is a little bit nauseating attimes to take away from the
pureness of it. Yeah, I, I agree.
And I also think that to your question about culturally, like
what's going on here in the states, Bobby, everyone I know
that does fantasy football, they're watching individual
players, you know, playing and trying to think about how that's
affecting the stats of their, their fantasy team.
(24:42):
So I think there's a similar obsession here culturally.
And I, I'm not sure, like, I'm not sure that there's the like
purity or purists anymore than anything.
Like, I think everybody's just like, you know, just trying to
to make a buck. And you made a comment earlier
about get rich quick, like, you know, there's no such thing,
right. And so I think, you know, does
it, does it suck the enjoyment maybe, or maybe I think there's
(25:04):
a large contingent of people nowthat that is their source of
enjoyment is just the, the, the kind of riskiness and, you know,
the edge of their seat. Am I going to win the bat this
week? So, so talking about kind of the
first couple of years building any, any kind of thoughts on
what you would not do again, youknow, taking yourself back to
when you first started. I think one of the key things is
(25:24):
kind of where where you're basedon where the startups based.
You know, we kind of we're from Liverpool and England, which is
kind of like in the Northwest and it's mainly a, it's like a
working class city. I think part of the Titanic was
built there. I should actually know that
crypto couldn't be more, more orless Liverpool probably.
You know, I think I think founders early on should kind of
(25:47):
prioritize where, where the building and, and, and, and, you
know, I think if they say it's about the product, I think the
best thing we can do honestly isjust obviously just move out to
the West Coast or, you know, maybe Miami now or, you know,
around that area. But you know, since since we've
been to like Singapore for conferences or, you know, Dubai,
for example, it's just night andday, the people that you meet
(26:08):
and you know, you know, on the journey, how much they're going
to help you as well. I just think staying in your
city or in a country that you know, isn't like a vibrant,
vibrant for the tech scene. I think that's like, that's like
the number one thing that peoplewould, you know?
Yeah, I think it makes sense. It's funny because you think of
all these, you know, being in San Francisco for 25 years,
right? I think every single you got to
(26:28):
come to San Francisco to do startups or, you know, you got
to come to here to do tech. And I think we've all, you know,
kind of had these like, you know, or LA of the Silicon
Beach, right? Like they start like naming
these little corridors of like, you know, or you Flatiron in New
York, you know, where you get these pockets of sort of
innovation. And I think it is interesting
because I've thought about this a lot, like now that I've been
doing this for a couple decades,like I kind of have my like, you
(26:49):
know, I'm for better, better or worse, like trained on how I'm
going to go do something. And the location matters
potentially less because I've, you know, how to network and
build folks. But I do think there's this this
idea that in the early days, it's important to sort of
understand, you know, are you around, you know, like minded
people that are thinking and doing and acting the same way.
And so I think that's interesting.
I think cool, man. Well, I want to ask one more
(27:11):
question. I think what's like one worse
piece of startup advice that you've ever followed, Like
something somebody's like, hey man, this is the way you do
startup. Or you read something and you're
like, we're going to try that. And you're like, wow, that was a
disaster. Well, I mean, it kind of comes
back to the the point about being like a perfectionist.
So like when we started the business, I was reading them
Steve Jobs as a biography by Walter Isaacson and like he's
(27:33):
Steve Jobs. And I'm like, I'm not Steve
Jobs, but like you read that after you read it, you really
believe that you are. So like, I think kind of not
listening to customers is obviously not a good thing.
But at the time I was like, I remember there's a quote in it
and it was basically like. Customer has no idea what they
want. Exactly, exactly.
But like, you know, so it's not the start.
(27:53):
I was like, they don't, they're all idiots.
They don't know what they're talking about.
What, you know, if it wasn't forus, there wouldn't be this
product and all this. So that then you look back and
you think, no, maybe maybe they were right about a lot of
things. So yeah, that's kind.
Of one of them, Bobby isn't awesome.
Where can people follow what you're building?
Read You know what you're up to and just quite thankfully follow
more on your journey. Yeah, just just just like one
more point for any, you know, young founders out there.
(28:15):
You know, I think, you know, when we kind of started the
business and, you know, I I justhad a little girl and then I
kind of had another little girl and I really wasn't interested
in making myself like a personality, like a, you know,
like a Frankie Gods, for example.
You know, I've been in this space for four years, but it
didn't interest me. But you know, looking back,
probably one of the biggest regrets is not product
productizing myself. You know, realistically I should
(28:37):
probably have, you know, 50K followers on Twitter and you
know, you know, if you look at every big business, the founder
basically is the business, right.
So I think that that impacts thesports book because and casino
now because there isn't like a base of the business, should we
say So yeah, if if you start an house, you know, advertise
yourself or go on podcasts, just, you know, do tick tocks,
(29:00):
you know, record your journey. So that's just one little bit of
ice. But yeah, you can find me on X
Bob the Wizard 23 and on X blockbet DG and then on Instagram
block bet GG as well. So yeah, anyone interested in a
bet, just drop me Adm and I can,you know, I can set a group chat
up with me and a couple couple of the boys and we can give you
a great service. So yeah, just drop me a DM.
(29:21):
We'll look after you. Yeah, we'll drop that in the
show notes. Please DM Bobby if you want to,
if you want to check out what he's building and, and and get
in there. This was exactly what we had
hoped it would be, Bobby Raw, real packed with hard earned
lessons. And we just appreciate you being
here, man. Thanks for that guys, Appreciate
it. See ya.
That was a bloom spent in reverse.
I mean, Bobby gave us a checklist of what not to do.
You know every founder should just print this out.
(29:42):
Yeah, agreed. What I loved was his honesty.
No chest beating, just clarity on what breaks when you don't
stay focused. Kevin, what were your top five?
Yeah, I think, you know, so overhiring bring backfires, you
know, keep the team lean, you know, higher slowly, I think,
you know, use contractors beforeyou shift into like a big W2 or
sort of permanent team. Bonus wars can create churn.
So you know, this kind of incentives could be a race to
(30:04):
the bottom. Ship an MVP pass and iterate.
You know, you want to get something out there that works
and then Polish it once it's going.
Ignore those vanity metrics, focus on conversion and like
what's the real ROI of the value?
Delegate and protect thinking time.
You, you know, can have a packedcalendar, but you need to have
time to think and relax and really understand strategy.
Nailed it. If this episode made you rethink
(30:26):
your road map or your mindset, send it to someone who's deep in
the build right now. That's a wrap, because sometimes
the best way to build is knowingexactly what not to do.
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