Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine Transcript
Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
Today I’m talking to Vinne Riley. He is one of the co founders of Gosh, Time magazine out of New York. Vinnie, how are you today, sir?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
I’m doing well, man. I’m doing well. It’s, you know, it’s kind of a rainy day here in New York. But you know, it’s it’s a beautiful day, man in crypto always.
Rob McNealy
Yeah, I think people that bought two years ago might disagree with that.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
I honestly, I was one of the people that bought two years ago. And the guy you’re the guy, I’m one of the guys Honestly, I’m one of the guys that bought two years ago and I’m still here. You know, tail between the legs a little bit, you know, for not selling at the peak. But, you know, that’s, that’s part of its part of my experience man. And you know, I think it’s it’s made me a better overall trader but overall gained so much experience over the last two years as far as when the next bull market comes because inevitably it will come and when it does, I’ll be better prepared for it. At least for me, you know, I’m excited, you know, I bought then I continue to buy and you know, I just dcaa on a weekly basis and you know, I’m just ready for for takeoff man.
Rob McNealy
Well, I I think that’s a really good attitude to have because I know a lot of people just cried and in their milk and laughed and got depressed and started doing a lot of drugs. So hey, you got a really good attitude about it, and it’s good. And you know, I’ll be honest, I don’t consider myself a trader and The only reason I did not like cut my wrists you know and get all depressed is because I actually got some dumb Lux trades at close to the peak and made it all the difference for us. So, you know, I’m not going to be too miserable but I don’t consider myself a trader. I don’t know the first thing about trading.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
Gotcha. Yeah, I’m not big into it either. Honestly, I have a few close friends and stuff I really listened to as far as their advice, but the end of the day it comes down to like my decision. So I like to compare a few people and if both of them have a similar analysis, you know, I tend to run with it. Um, what I noticed too is well what I like to look at to like for me is I like to look at the percentage versus Long’s versus shorts. And like me, my friend was talking about it earlier today and I think it was like 5% people short game or something and like the rest were all Long’s and we’re like, you know, it’s gonna dumb. It’s gonna dump and, you know, hopefully we could be wrong. We could be wrong, but it’s just, you know, History at least from what I’ve noticed over the last, you know, two three years is it you know, big money always makes money
Rob McNealy
Well, it’s certainly easier to make money if you already have money,
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
you know, any Rob I need some?
Rob McNealy
What do I have money? You know, I I’m just I’m just a middle class guy man. So, you know I’m just kind of out there hustling trying to do my day to day you know if I was some big money guy in crypto I wouldn’t have a still have a day job right. But But the thing is like with our project anyways, everybody’s got a day job. There is no employees of task and there’s no full time developers and you know, we all are truly you know, the personification of what a community project is because we all have day jobs and we all haven’t scrubbed our LinkedIn. Right. So. So tell me a little bit about gosta magazine.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
It’s a project me and David. You know, we started about a little over a year ago, um, you know, previously, I was working on a different magazine previously to, you know, the creation of Ghajini magazine. And, you know, everything was going great. We had a great product and, you know, majority of the team that, you know, I was working with then we did bring over to gashi magazine. And, you know, our previous experience, you know, the CEO as far as who we were working with it, just it just wasn’t going anywhere. It just wasn’t going anywhere. The CEO was just non existent non around. And, you know, me David been friends for a long time. We’ve been friends for, you know, over three years now. And I was like, yo, hey, D, listen, you know, I got an amazing staff. You know, I’ve been doing this for x amount of time. And I think we can really do something special with this. And he was like, oh, cool, man. He’s like, yeah, I checked you guys out before and he’s like, this is something I want to do and you No I don’t want to just be a magazine I want to build a media company and you know so that’s where it really like the snowball began and then it just started rolling and growing and you know, here we are today we’re about you know, six seven issues in and you know we have another one dropping in about you know less than two weeks it will be up before Christmas time and then it’s just really exciting man as far as all you know, the conferences we got to travel to and you know, all the great people we got to meet I got to meet Charles Hoskinson. I got to meet Charlie Lee, I got to meet you know, Derek capital from you know, token pay. But aside from that, all the great people that come on to our magazine that we got to feature you know, like Justin sun, we interviewed Craig right. You know, previously we just had, you know, Justin sun rock, the lead developer for verge. So it’s, it’s, it’s really interesting. It’s something that we enjoy doing. But also at the same time, it’s like we get to meet passionate people that are doing something for the space at the same time, so it’s kind of Like a win win.
Rob McNealy
So why I’m print magazine you know, everybody in crypto seems to be all about the digital and moving from paper to digital, yet you guys are doing kind of a, you know, a paper thing. Do you think that’s the is that a strategic direction do you think that’s the best direction to go?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
For right now honestly, the majority of our stuff is all digital. We do offer print solution and the print solution really is only for when we attend like major conferences. So like the previous one, we were at like WCC, and you know, a futurist and stuff like that that’s where we’ll bring some physical copies. But for the majority, you know, we are looking at as far as partnering with another blockchain you know, magazine that has a print solution what it’s so expensive and the logistics behind it it’s just it’s not it’s not even sure if it’ll make financially sense. You know, I like how like Kindle came over. Sounded like, you know, Barnes and Noble like everything when you know, just everything geared towards internet and E reading and everything like that. So and as far as from like a numbers standpoint, you know, the amount of digital downloads that we get as opposed to the amount of like physical hard copies we sell is just outweighs it. But at the end of the day, still people like at a conference or something still like it’s still like, you know, kind of like Sylvania or something that take home. So that’s why we try to bring you know, a little both offer both experiences.
Rob McNealy
What would you say your, your kind of your angle that you approach crypto with with your publication?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine e
The main difference between us and I would say the majority of any other publication is, is everybody else is just geared on just crypto crypto crypto, you know, which is great. That’s why we’re here you know, that’s, that’s our main love. That’s our baby. Yeah, obviously, crypto blockchain adoption. I’m all for it, but I didn’t want to just quarter ourselves into that niche market. You know, like, granted, yes, crypto is, you know, multi billion dollar industry. Sure, no problem. But at the same time, people don’t want to just read about crypto, you know, that’s why we try to incorporate lifestyle. We try to incorporate travel, we try to incorporate art and fashion to as well. So that I don’t see anybody else really doing that, at all. At least from my experience, at least I haven’t noticed it.
Rob McNealy
So beyond the actual magazine publication, you mentioned that you want to develop a full media company, what all is on your roadmap and horizon with your project?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
Well, for right now, we offer as you know, as encompassing a full media company as opposed to just offering you know, ad solutions as far as within our magazine. We have we’re looking into doing events, hosting events, hosting parties. But also making these events and meetups something different, something unique, you know, from my experience of traveling to all these, you know, crypto events and everything like that. And so very beautiful. Some of them are lavish, and all that is great. But when you get there, you’ll do a walk around, you know, you’ll check out all the booths and everything. And then usually there’s an awesome after party at the end. But while I’m there, like I go ahead and I do my walk around and everything I check out everybody, I get 113 business cards that I put in my pocket, but I’m like, you know what’s next? I’m like, Where’s the bar? You know, because I want to have fun. I want to have fun when I’m there. So like my idea of what I would like to do as far as from like, an event standpoint is like, Listen, you want to come to my event. Yeah, we’re gonna have all that. But you know what, I’m gonna have a bouncy castle over there. You know, I’m going to have face painting over here so you could bring your kids whole bunch of different stuff with We also want to incorporate education to as well. So, you know, a lot of people in the industry at least, you know, what I’ve noticed is everybody wants to be the most intelligent. Nobody wants to look silly. Everybody wants to seem the most brightest and whatnot. But everybody is a little taken aback to say, Hey, listen, I’m not sure what that means. I don’t know what that means. We plan on doing a little bit of education as as opposed if we’re you know, teaching blockchain to a five year old and kind of like dumbing it down but also having you know, big speakers come in like say possibly Justin sort of Tron or something you know speak about Tron like what is Tron? Tron is great we know Tron Tron Tron because Justin, you know, promoted he’s a phenomenal marketer. What going dead Tell me about Tron Tell me what the transactions per second mean? Like what what is this going to do? How is this going to change the game and I think the more knowledge People have about it. And the more it’s broken down and simplified, I think that makes it easier to spread adoption. Because if your normal Joe person comes to their conference, and you know, sometimes it can be overwhelming, but if you’re able to teach them something, and they’re able to leave with more knowledge than they got there with and change their perspective a little bit, they’re going to go home and tell somebody about it. And that’s how that whole ripple wave, you know, starts. That’s how adoption spreads. We need the people to do it. So I’m looking at an angle is where we can make that happen, but also make it fun for everybody.
Rob McNealy
I think that’s a really healthy attitude. So let me talk a little bit about you know, crypto in general, as far as your how your magazine views it. crypto seems to be very tribal. Yeah, Bitcoin maximalists out there and things of that nature and, and a lot of publications are also kind of biased One way or the other? Are you guys more Bitcoin focused in and or do you really look at all coins and the greater blockchain community and all the different types of projects that are out there?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
No, we try to offer you know, we’re definitely not maximalist. That’s That’s for sure. You know, my opinion, yes, Bitcoin is king will always be king. But I would be naive, in my opinion, to say that, like, that’s it, that’s the end all be all. Like, there’s hundreds and hundreds of great community projects, like for yours example is the wonderful project, you know, I mean, and it’s going to be a great blockchain. But why not give opportunity and shed light to these wonderful community driven projects that deserve exposure? You know, why limit ourselves to just talk about Bitcoin? aetherium Litecoin. Why it makes it makes no sense. At the same time, all of these other these other projects, too, as well. They have the community behind it, you know, sure. Bitcoin everybody loves Bitcoin. But everybody likes to like everybody likes to rock their favorite sporting team to as well and like that’s what I noticed too as well as like how you said like crypto is a bit of tribalism. What it’s become also too is like you rooting for your favorite sports team as far as like your favorite crypto that you’re backing? So we try to give and share the love to everybody.
Rob McNealy
So, you know, I always wonder Then why aren’t people rocking their Visa and MasterCard t shirts?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
See that? Exactly. I got my Bitcoin t shirt right, my Bitcoin hoodie right here, man.
Rob McNealy
No, I just meant from the standpoint that you don’t see that.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
You know, you don’t see that at all. Never.
Rob McNealy
So what are the kinds of projects are you associated with besides the magazine itself?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
Myself personally, I’m also a community manager for Telcoin. What Telcoin is is basically it’s going to be the new Western Union as simplified enough. What tell coin is doing is disrupting the mobile money industry but also the remittance industry at the same exact time. So what is allowing people to do is allowing people from say Point A to Point B to send funds back home to to their loved ones for significant discounted rate for example, I believe the Western Union charges somewhere between five and 10%. Tell coin will be able to do that same exact transaction as opposed to having to have somebody go to a local Western Union require bank account, wait five to 10 days for that transaction. Tell coin aims to do it with about anywhere between one to 2% for the whole transaction. The beautiful thing about it too, as well is it’s instantaneously sentell point two to my art director on the opposite side of the world. I live in New York. He lives in Sydney, Australia. It took about 15 seconds. And I need even need to do it through the Ethereum blockchain, which Yes, tell us a utility token built on. You know, it’s an ERC 20 token. But I didn’t send it through the blockchain. I had the option where if I want to, I can send it through the blockchain. But I sent it right directly to his phone number. So the way they’re they’re doing this, they’re leveraging your mobile network operators. So for instance, United States, the big companies are your Verizon or at&t s and whatnot. But where they’re targeting is, you know, the big populated areas where predominantly the most money is remitted to annually. So that’s where they’re honing in on their business model. And then they’re jumping from, from that big area from A to B to C. What they’re leveraging the moment network operator and I say it twice. I mean to be repetitive, but it’s so important because these people in these other countries like Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, all these places, a lot of these people don’t have smartphones, even though some of them are very up and coming. But a lot of these people still don’t know about cryptocurrency either. And the beautiful thing is, is that they don’t even need to, they don’t need, they won’t even essentially need to know that they’re using tell coin. Because it’s going to be a service that’s offered by say your Verizon you’re at and see somebody you already trust somebody you’ve been paying a bill to, for the last 1015 years. Now they’re going to say, Hey, we have this option, where instead of you going over here and using company X, Y and Z, we can just do it for you and we can save you, you know, 75% of your fees. And then you have the option to either use it for mobile money top ups, or you can have it you know, the agent Integrated a partnership with you know, Jeremiah, which is basically the Amazon of Africa. So they’re building this whole ecosystem. So its utility token made for remittances. But it just doesn’t stop there.
Rob McNealy
It sounds an awful lot like CoinText on the BCH blockchain.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
I’ve never, never heard of them to be honest. Are they leveraging mobile network operators though?
Rob McNealy
It’s all every it’s all designed to work on dumb phones. And so the phone number becomes the wall. It’s kind of an interesting technology, but it’s Bitcoin Cash based not Ethereum based.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
Gotcha. And do they have regulations as far as because that’s where I see like tell being being at the forefront of this is they have their MSP their money service business license from Canada. They have their VC from in Singapore so they have the blessing by all these financial sectors and these governments that which allow them to do it, but allow them to operate and do it legally without having to worry about being shut down in a week or so.
Rob McNealy
Very cool. Yeah, I haven’t reached into, you know, how compliant they are aren’t but I know they do serve, you know, all over Europe in the United States. So, but I haven’t dug into what their compliance is not my project. But I just think it’s interesting. And I think that eventually, you know, one of those types of products will be beneficial. I think with like all crypto, there’s lots of great ideas. But we’re seem to be lacking the ability a lot of products seem to be lacking and like I would go to market strategy and marketing strategy in general. So it’s just going to be interesting in my mind to see where these products kind of end you know, where it all kind of shakes out. But I think, you know, I believe in the future that the most successful crypto products will be the best one marketed crypto projects. And right now even if you go to the top hundred coin market cap, very few of them are actually even being marketed. And so I think that I think the future is uncertain. You know, when people say, Bitcoin will always be king, I don’t necessarily agree with that, because we haven’t they don’t have adoption yet. No crypto products have adoption. All these crypto products have investors. But as far as adoption, none of them do. Nobody’s using crypto for buying and selling goods and services at this point pretty much anywhere in any kind of real numbers. And so I think until that actually happens, I think the the opportunities in the field are still wide open.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
I definitely understand I get that point and it and it makes 100% sense. I guess like when I say like Bitcoin is king. I mean, it’s just it’s just a granddaddy for me as far as what brings every what uh, what brought everything Else to the field? You know? Sure. At the same time, I think it’s like the AOL. It’s a little old, it’s outdated, you know, but without that we wouldn’t have all these, you know, amazing projects, you know, being born today from it.
Rob McNealy
Oh, no doubt, it’s an amazing proof of concept. That’s not what I’m getting at. And I am a holder of Bitcoin. So I’m not anti Bitcoin by any stretch. I just think that as far as if you have to look five years out, and you had to say right now, what are going to be the top kryptos in five years? I don’t think there’s a safe bet to say any of them that are on the top 100 right now, I think that the market could be vastly disrupted in different in five years than it is right now.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
Absolutely. See it. That brings me to another point. Like I think the most successful projects that will be going forward as you as you say, I do agree with you, the ones that will be most marketed to as well but I believe in the ones that actually We’ll have a real use case to as well. And there are very few projects that are actually being used or piloted are in beta. You know, kind of up until this point, it’s kind of been a little bit of like smoking mirrors a little bit like, and I’m kinda like, you know, waiting for it to clear and like, you know, what’s behind the curtain. And there’s, there’s really not many that I can I can really name that have that use case and you know, and like I can’t share, you know, my experience, you know, you know what’s helpful and has as far as in the making, but aside from that, the only other project that I see that has an actual real working product is is te food. That’s the only other product that I see project that I see that has a real viable working product product. It was a real company before it switched over to blockchain. People probably most people probably haven’t even heard of it, but I believe is the top five blockchains as far as the amount of number of transactions, and if you look at their partnerships, and I’m not trying to show this, but I’m trying more so saying that, hey, you other companies, you guys can talk a big game, but like, at the end of the day, what why p at least for me why I’m going to buy your token or why I’m going to invest in it into it is I need to see application I need I need to have a reason why and not only how am I going to use it, but how is the mess in general public going to be used for
Rob McNealy
I’m kind of a heretic when it comes to crypto in general. And I’m not shy about that. I have a lot of different opinions because I don’t believe in groupthink. And I’m not full of hope Iam, but I don’t think of crypto projects in the same way. As far as the wording people use around them the vocabulary like use case, I can think of all sorts of use cases, meaning that something that crypto can fix or some kind of problem kryptos can solve. But I think looking forward, and which I don’t hear out pretty much anywhere in the spaces, who are the customers? Who are the people that are using these products and services, and are willing to pay for them? And that’s what I always kind of come back to who are the customers for the project? And how do you get your project in front of those customers. And to me, that goes back to just business. And to me, even though kryptos is some of them are decentralized and things of that nature. That doesn’t mean they’re not subject to the laws of the market. And to me, it doesn’t matter how great your technology is, it doesn’t matter how many features your technology even has. What matters is how does your product solve a problem for people People, and how are you as someone on a team putting out a project, whether it’s community based or an actual company? Or it’s a dow or what have you? What is your strategy to get your solution into the hands of the people who have a problem? And when I asked these questions, I get the funniest looks from lots of projects. And and it’s kind of a troll, though, because a lot of Unfortunately, most crypto projects are led by development teams. They’re not led by entrepreneurs or sales or marketing people. And so their worldview isn’t really focused on those things. And and I don’t have an issue with that. I mean, it’s just understanding how engineers think versus how business people think versus how sales and marketing people think. And unfortunately, for a successful project, I believe you need to have all of those attributes kind of combined into the project. And right now, most of the the major projects out there are just led by developers, they don’t have well balanced teams, and most of them don’t actually have Have market segmentation. They don’t have marketing strategy and they don’t really have salespeople. So to me, understanding how business works and having launch products and companies into the market, those are some of the most important things you need think about and when major products don’t even think about those things. That’s why I’m very bearish on a lot of major products that other people are very bullish on. It’s not that I’m anti the product, or the project is just means that they haven’t explained who their customer is, let alone how they’re going to get in front of them. What do you think?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
I think we were talking about that the other day, like I don’t I’m not sure if I was talking with you, but I was talking about it with somebody else. But like, at the end of the day, like I agree with you, you don’t you mean like I think the most valid point you made was is that okay? We need to find a solution for a problem. That everyday people are facing, but then present them with the solution but then actual, like, there needs to be a benefit. It can’t just be like that, like people need to need to use your product but also solve, be solving a real real problem at the same exact time. You know, I mean, like, we can create something like, like, if there’s a cure for cancer, you know, and we put it on the blockchain, is that really going to do anything? No, like, you know what I mean? Like, that’s what medicines for that’s a whole different thing. But if you can solve like, like what you guys are doing, like, I don’t mean to be bringing it back to you. It’s just this is what I think about is because of the conversations that we had. And as far as when we talked about Tosca and what they were doing, or what you guys are planning to do and as far as how you guys your approach, and as far as how, what you guys are focusing on and how you broke down your business plan. To me was was, I was blown away. I really was. And I noticed that in, like how you were saying all these other projects, all these top top top projects, great. You have the marketing, you have the numbers, you have the market cap, but who’s using it? And why are people going to use it is the question. I still I still haven’t been presented with that answer. You know, so there’s very few maybe, aside from maybe Litecoin that’s the only one that I’ve seen maybe that has adoption, maybe from like the Miami Dolphins and as far as, you know, the use cases where you can use on that new app or whatever it is that that they’re using. I don’t know I’m lost.
Rob McNealy
Well, I appreciate you know, your pimpin, or you know mentioned our project because we have worked really hard to and we’ve worked really hard over the last year and a half to get to where we are and we do think about these things. A lot. But to me, I have a lot of history working with startups, and I’m a serial entrepreneur. And, and the first thing I asked a new entrepreneur, like someone who hasn’t been an entrepreneur, and you can always tell a new entrepreneur, that they’re green, and that they’re going to struggle by asking a few simple questions. And I went through this twice in Las Vegas the other day when I was down there for another conference. And I was introduced some to some new entrepreneurs that are trying to come up with some projects and different in different industries. And the first thing I asked is, who is your market? And they look at me like what do you mean? And I, I’d like to see a very specific answer. And when you ever hear an entrepreneur or someone who wants to be an entrepreneur said, anybody in the world that does this, that and that tells me right off the bat that they probably have no clue who they’re going customer is, and they’re probably not going to be successful. And, and I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. But yeah, if I said my cryptocurrency could be used by anyone who doesn’t like fiato, or you know, some nonsense, generalized statement like that, that doesn’t tell me that you’ve thought about this, because let’s, you know, I know from a marketing and business standpoint, that Yeah, big markets are great to go after. But unless you even if you have the giant marketing budget, it’s very challenging to go after every single industry on the planet that could use your features and benefits with your project. You need to be focused and you need to be laser focused on where you think you can get the best traction the fastest, and where you have the most success converting people over to using your product or service and you need to be very, very, very, very specific about that, especially in a big market because most people don’t have unlimited marketing budgets or unlimited amounts of time to educate people. And so It’s interesting when you go and talk to engineers and leading certain crypto projects, you get the same kind of responses. Well, anybody who blank, you know, or every person in the world that could, you know, doesn’t like banks or whatever. And you know, that’s nonsense. Those aren’t those aren’t actual people that think about an understand sales and marketing and product launches. Now doesn’t mean that they can’t learn. They certainly can. But if that’s their generic statement, I would tell you that they have a really difficult time. They’re going to have a really difficult time being successful with that. And that’s just my my experience. But what backs me up is how angel investors and VCs ask the same questions and they’ll excoriate a startup entrepreneur who can’t nail down exactly who their customers exactly what their customer looks like, and can articulate a strategy to put their product or service in the hands of that potential user. And unless you can do that very clearly and clearly articulate it. I believe they’re going to struggle with And unfortunately with the crypto space, that’s more, that’s more often than not the cases what I’ve seen.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
I agree. And I hate circle back, just you brought, you brought up a word as far as like VC and venture capitalism as far as exactly what they look for and whatnot like recently, as far as with telco, and they are, they’re partnered with one of the largest VC firms, East ventures in Asia, and they just double down on telecoil. The reason why is obviously, they see something they’re able to, you know, meet or achieve all those targets they previously had previously, and then hopefully, going forward, they’ve set new ones, you know, they’ve they’ve, they’ve obviously given them a little, you know, bigger piece of the equity or whatnot. But I don’t see other people i don’t i don’t see other people being able to answer those questions, you know, at least the way I don’t I don’t I don’t think anybody would be able to answer it or articulate themselves as well as you just did for nine let me
Rob McNealy
Let me explain another way and I’m not going to pick on anyone project but I will little bit a theorem. Go ahead who is Ethereum’s intended customer? Yeah, we I think we talked about a little bit I go but who’s Ethereum’s customer?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine – Gokhshtein Magazine
Right, but but to me I think of a smart contracts platform in a certain way. Yeah, it does a certain thing. It’s for people that want to have some, you know, utility from a blockchain but don’t want to build their own. To me, that’s what a smart contracts platform more or less is. Now to me, there’s all sorts of potential customers that might be interested in such a product or service. However, if you go and talk to any of the major smart contracts, platforms, teams and ask them Who their customers or their intended market is for their smart contract platform? They can’t give you an answer. They can’t say, Oh, it’s major corporations above $300 million that are focused in this sector, that sector, or maybe it could be large, contract, programming, comm software development companies that want to build semi walled permissionless blockchains for other customers, you know, I would love to hear that kind of response to that question. But you don’t you always get anybody who needs a smart contract, blah, blah, blah, which again, that tells me two things. One, they really haven’t thought about who their customer is, and to they have no plan on how to put their product in the market. Because if you can’t clearly define and clearly articulate who your exact intended customer is, you can’t develop a go to market strategy to get in front of them. Because you don’t know who they are.
It makes all the sense in the world.
Rob McNealy
I’m not picking on Vitalik. I’m not picking on any of these platforms, I’m just saying is, you know, the companies that are out there are the products that have multi billion dollar market caps. Because sure is how hire a couple VP of marketing or marketing consultants to come help sort that stuff out. And they would probably tell vitalik or people from the certain like maybe the theorem Foundation, maybe you need to go to industry conferences. In the space you’re looking at providing services to I don’t believe a decentralized project is immune from the laws of marketing, sales and business development. Even it’s just an ownership difference. I tell people, when I’m talking to non technical non blockchain people, when I’m talking about what a decentralized product project is, I said, and because they don’t get it, they don’t understand the decentralized minimum. People can’t grasp the concept of a know company. Right? They can’t figure it out. It’s just a new thing. It’s really abstract. So you still have to figure out a way to talk to those people and communicate the ideas, even though it’s an abstraction. So, for instance, I’ll tell people, well, we’re decentralized project, it’s kind of like a nonprofit thing. Okay. And technically, you know, a Dao or decentralized project is a nonprofit. But when you say it like that, where the focus of the project isn’t on make, you know, because even tous where focus is not making profit or you know, empowering CEOs and all that kind of stuff. That’s what we’re doing. We’re like a nonprofit. And if you say in an articulated like that, it makes sense to people. Yeah. You know, and you gotta, you gotta communicate with people in a way that makes sense to them. But I think that in right now, until the major projects out there, kind of really focus and doubled down on who they are, and who their customers are, and then figure out a way to get in front of them. I believe that the market is completely wide open from an opportunity standpoint. And I do believe the projects and I’m not saying it’s going to be tossed, but it can be any projects that really have the go to market strategy, the go to market definitions, the market segmentation, and all those ducks lined up and around. And those products once they start getting out there are going to be very, very, very successful in this space because I do absolutely see lots and lots of problems that crypto and blockchain can solve. But I don’t see the folks in the industry actually trying to actually make the connection for end users that way. It seems that too many of the blockchain and crypto products are really just focused on market cap and, you know, improving the the number of people investing in their projects, rather than the number of users using their products. You know, for instance, We’re focused on the gun industry. And I go to lots and lots of gun related events. I talked to lots and lots of influencers and lots of people in the industry, and nobody, and I’ve talked to hundreds of people in this space. No one has ever been in contact with someone from a project in crypto besides us before us. None of them. They’ve heard of Bitcoin. And I haven’t everybody’s heard the word Bitcoin. Yeah, two years ago, the big pump. Everybody’s heard the word Bitcoin, it usually has a negative stigma attached to it. No one really understands what it is and no one’s met anybody from the Bitcoin project. That’s what I see out there. And I go to industry conferences. So I have like one foot in the industry and one foot in the crypto space. And when I go to industry stuff, I’m the only guy out there they’re talking to them. I’m the only one that’s interested in expressing an interest in trying to hold their hand and provide customer support through our project, which is kind of how We’re trying to go to market. And to me, that makes no sense, especially with the massive amount of resources. Some of these, you know, top 10, top 20 crypto foundations have available that at this point, they’re still not putting people in charge of business development and marketing in any routine way.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
If I had their money, I’d burn money. I’ll put it to you that way. If I had their money, I’d burn mine. But you said how do you have you not put something in place? How do you if you don’t want to do it, you guys have the capital to hire probably some of the best and brightest minds in the world.
Rob McNealy
That’s what I don’t understand. So think of it this way. Even if this is my take, even if there’s no company and you just have a foundation and let’s just say pick, let’s just say Bitcoin, right? Let’s just say Bitcoin doesn’t have a foundation. It doesn’t have a marketing team. But let’s just say you’re a bag holder, a Bitcoin, right? You’re one of these infamous Bitcoin billionaires that are running around right? You’re telling me these guys go pay a couple guys 150 K a year to blow up their project and get out there and really find use cases just out of their own pocket if you’re a billionaire and you’re and you love this this crypto products so much or let’s just say you’re worth a couple hundred million dollars from the investment side of rock Why aren’t you personally just going and hiring salespeople to go and market it?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine – Gokhshtein Magazine
I know I would be because I know if I don’t know once you get past that threshold of where you have that kind of like excuse my language fuck you money like I’m gonna do everything I damn well possibly sure to make sure that investment that nest egg I have just continually grows and in this world you need to spend money to make money. Like why not? I don’t see anybody do doing it. The only person like I made me see doing is maybe like john McAfee. But who else who else Like you don’t even mean like john McAfee was running for president. Like, yeah, it may be a little bit, you know, an ego trip or whatever it is, and his his ploy against, you know, getting back at the US government. But at the end of the day, his promotion is all about adoption. Like, you know, that’s what he wants, because it’s gonna help him, you know, help him in his pockets. But he also knows that if he can get on a bigger, louder stage, he’s going to be able to speak and reach to a bigger audience. And that’s the same thing that David David is trying to that David is doing David’s running for Congress, not because he wants to win. It’s not because of anything like that at all. But it’s to give the people you know, of New York that hadn’t heard of crypto before, you know, it opens their ear. And if he does win, you know, what do you think is it his thing is going to be it’s going to be on regulation, how it was built 75 million years ago and how nothing is change. We’re behind, and how all these products and all these bright and brilliant minds that we have from MIT, these business majors from Stanford and everybody else, they’re leaving to go work on these blockchain projects overseas. Like, why not keep them and let’s work on something where we can create something in the country and let it stay? I don’t know. That’s that’s just that’s just my, my opinion. Sorry for going on a little right there.
Rob McNealy
You know, I think we’re both ranting at this point, but because we’re passionate and, you know, you and I, I think you and I both agree and we see the value in the fact that you know, getting mass adoption is going to require a whole other level of customer support and marketing and sales and product launches and developments and basically some business acumen. Now, and it’s frustrating to least me and probably you that you got the big dogs in the space that want to tell everybody else how to do crypto and you got these maximals telling people How they should do crypto and whether you’re doing it right or wrong, or how what’s a fair launch or what’s pre might, you know, all these different, like laws that they’ve dictated about the industry, yet the same cats and got these massively full bags because they just got in early, won’t open those bags up to actually go and do the little bit of work to make it happen. Yeah. And, and that’s frustrating to a guy like me who really does want to see decentralization, I didn’t have any plan to like start a project. You know, it took it took some time for me to like really understand the space when I started really evaluating the crypto space and started looking at where can I use crypto? How are people and to me, how are people these projects running these products getting in front of people, and you don’t see it happening and we didn’t see it happening? And once we decided to, you know, solve a problem with crypto, we got out there and it’s funny because you get nothing but hate from the maxies out there and you’re saying look, if you were doing this we wouldn’t need to.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
But it’s so counterproductive it’s mind boggling to me like I like I’m all for it you know be a maximalists everything like you know just Bitcoin Bitcoin Bitcoin but like it goes back to our point like what what how is Bitcoin being used like you like you said it I still believe the doors open for you know a project to come in to be actually use and for transactions and all this like like let’s let’s be real Bitcoin slow, you know it’s slow it’s not going to be that end all be all so why just have that closed mindedness and say this is it this is that’s it like if we’re all praying and preaching for adoption, we should be rooting for everybody you know besides the people that are bleeding of the scammers, but anybody that’s trying to be an entrepreneur in the space or anybody that that wants to do something is helping the overall take a I just don’t get it like, you know, mean, and I don’t like the bullying that I see sometimes to, you know, like, you know, putting people down or it’s like, you know, my sports team is better than yours. So you know what your stinks? Like? No, like, yeah, be passionate about the one you like, but there’s no reason to not give credit where credit’s due or at least applaud people for trying. Like, I don’t know, that’s at least where we’re wellies. Where I come from and that standpoint, um.
Rob McNealy
Well, I think it makes sense, right? I mean, I was kind of joking about it earlier says people aren’t wearing visa shirts and arguing visas better than MasterCard on the street, right? And there’s a reason for that because no one gives a show because they’re just utilitarian kind of payment networks and people don’t get excited or polarized over it. Whereas crypto in many respects is very religious people have wrapped and I think what happens people’s wrap their own Identity around, you know, being an evangelist for a specific product, or project. And they do that for so long that they kind of, from an ego standpoint, kind of sell themselves into a corner. And then if someone says their baby’s ugly, or maybe another project comes along, that’s a little better or a little different, that might be more successful. Instead of saying, Yeah, you’re right, this part of my baby’s kind of ugly, they say, No, your baby’s ugly. And since I was here, first, ours is better than yours. And I think that’s inherently. I think it’s very narrow minded, but I think it holds back crypto. And I use an example of someone recently that says, let’s just say you’re a retailer and you have some interest in accepting a major crypto project. But it’s a decentralized project with no you know, no customer support, no tech team to call no phone number to call if you get a problem, but you still want to Use it. So where do you go? You go on to forums and you go into crypto Twitter? And let’s just say you’re interested in Bitcoin, right? And I like to use Bitcoin because it’s got the biggest communities out there. But now you’re saying, well, I need something that’s fast and I need something that’s, you know, consistent and pretty cheap and, and then they look at, you know, a different fork of Bitcoin. And if they mentioned that, they’ll be excoriated, what do you think that retailers going to do? He’s gonna run away. So and, and to me, I believe that maximalism and toxic maximalists actually are holding back the adoption of crypto for that reason.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
I agree. I really do. I wanted to close with this. I want to give your audience something I want to share with you guys something that we haven’t shared hasn’t been out on Twitter yet. It’s a partnership that we just landed a few days ago that we’re solidifying or having my graph designer make it up right now currently. But before I get to that I wanted to offer we have we have a partnership with major gaming one of the best, you know, Gears of War teams out there a gaming gaming team. And we are currently about to build three new teams on three different games. Best thing in Europe. I want to offer to whatever it is we offer as far as up to 25% off discount on that 50% off any company interesting looking to offer in our magazine, but also if this YouTube, if this podcast right here gets over 100 retweets, I will randomly pick somebody and they can pick any project they want and we will give them a free interview or a free write up about their whole entire project to as well. Now the partnership that we just struck with is travel by bit. So travel by bit is powered by binance. So travel by It will be our traveling partner. And all funds will be paid via BMB. For Gosh, team, the next event that we’re heading to is we’re heading to the Washington elite down to Miami. And then I’m going to be staying there for the week and going to be attending the North American Bitcoin conference. So I extend the invitation to you, I would love for you to come if it’s possible.
Rob McNealy
I’m already going
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
Are do you? Look, did we just become best friends Damn, and we’re going to meet up down there.
Rob McNealy
It’s going to be a good time. I’m going to all those events as well. So I gotta represent. But hey, you know, what we’ll do is we’ll put all those details in the blog post that accompanies this podcast so people can access it. So if they want to check it out, it just go to Rob McNealy calm and you’ll be able to find all the details about what’s going on with your promo. So, Mr. Riley Vinnie, where can people find out more about all the various things that you’re doing?
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
You can go ahead and follow us on Twitter, @Gokhshtein. You can follow us on our website Gokhshtein.com. You can check us out. We have a Discord. We have a Twitter, we have a telegram. My personal Twitter handle is @RileyVinnie. But that’s really it, man. That’s it.
Rob McNealy
And we not had a really good time today and you are always welcome to come back on the show when you got any updates or some cool stuff happening. So make sure you keep me in the loop on all the stuff you’re doing.
Vinny Riley – Gokhshtein Magazine
Absolutely. Absolutely. Rob, thank you so much for inviting me on it was absolute pleasure speaking with you.
Rob McNealy
Anytime Vinnie. And make sure you hit that subscribe button this Rob McNealy, check us out of the web of RobMcNealy. com.