How to Build a Resilient Startup with Web3 CEO Drew Beechler

from the crossroads of America in the hoer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Matt hunkler CEO at powderkeg and I will be one of your hosts for today's conversation I will be joined in Studio by co-host Christopher to day CEO at Elevate Ventures and none other than Nate spangle head of community at powderkeg on the show today is Drew Beach founder and CEO of holder team you know I mean and who you have in the founding team is also just that's always really what makes her breaks any idea too Drew beer is the founder and CEO of holder a web3 CRM and marketing automation platform that powers customer data for the tokenized world before starting holder Drew was the direct of marketing at Venture Studio high alpha where he helped launch 35 companies in his six years with the firm Drew has also been part of more than $3 billion do of tech exits throughout his career so on the show today we're going to cover a lot of really interesting topics including marketing Essentials for all kinds of Executives practical applications and the future of web 3 as well as startup founder dos and don'ts here's Drew beer founder and CEO of holder Drew welcome to the show thanks so much for having me this is a blast so good to be with three friends and fun people hopefully listeners as well have a lot of fun listening to this it's going to be a good time it's excited to have you here I know you have your own podcast focused on it all things web 3 called hold on for dear life yes we do it's a play on our company name holder and then there's this moniker in the industry and actually it's probably it started with Wall Street bets and that sort of thing of a hoddle somebody misspelling hoddle and then all a sudden it became like oh hotle means hold on for dear life and yeah we decided to name our podcast that and so we typically it's more yeah news Round Table let's share some highlights on things happening in web 3 and crypto but yeah so podcast me super excited to to get to chat with you all for those that don't know holder do you mind just giving a quick flyover of what the business is and I know you've had some pivots along the way but talk to us about the business today yeah happy too so holder is a marketing Tech platform for the blockchain vertical in kind of the most basic sense we are specifically our wedges via messaging and CRM technology so we are we can probably talk about this too but if you're in the midwest or from Indianapolis you're probably familiar with exact target in many ways we are just exact target but instead of sending emails to people we send uh what we call wallet messages to someone directly in their inbox in their wallet inbox and so it's this new web 3 messaging vertical and marketing channel so marketing tech for the crypto vertical can we go deep into wallets for a second yeah so yeah I gotta pull mine out talk to us about wallets what is a wallet and what's the difference between all these different wallets out there and why would I choose one versus the other and why should I merge stuff and let's just go deep into that for a second oh yeah definitely wallets are uh and there's a handful of ways we when we talk about like a crypto wallet it is a account basically that you own and you are and this is one of the basic premises of uh cryptocurrency of blockchain as a whole I would say is around kind of ownership and so a there are two major types of wallets there's one this is going to get real technical but one called a custodial wallet and so this is I create an account with coinbase.

com and coinbase essentially owns the wallet on my behalf so essentially think of this as a bank so I go to Chase and I create an account with Chase actually holds the physical dollars that are in my account that is a custodial wallet they the custody so cust custodial wallet coinbase but I have to I would have to go set up a coinbase wallet do I automatically have a wallet if I just sign up for coinbase under the hood Yes actually there is a wallet that holds those assets you there is this is more in kind of cryptography there is a product called secret phrase secret seed phrase uh and this is like just standard kind of encryption level stuff but basically coinbase is holding on to that phrase for you in more more or less and then the this version of the non-custodial is you are custody that private seed phrase and so you are the bank yourself in this kind of Realm and this is where there's lots and so basically that is all run by the blockchain itself that's all just kind of code and Technology managing this and so all of these like different wallet providers quote unquote are just different uis on top of the same exact data basically but the keys themselves that's actually what the wallet is because that actually has access to the things that are held in that wallet if you forget your phrase is it true that you've lost your wallet yes yeah oh gosh there are yeah it's it's gone forever get my horse back yeah that's all these the people losing Bitcoins and things like that on Old hard drives that is that but if you always have that phrase locked up somewhere written down somewhere you can always kind of recover that in any UI wallet application there are definitely like subing startups too they are doing like ways to protect to that but also back it up in a way and there's lots of pass keys on on iCloud and things like that too that kind of back all that stuff up to it's interesting ways to do it or etch it into a metal card I there's some high-end kind of things they just like unique ways to store these yeah if you lose those that 12-word seed phrase it is essentially gone which is why it's not for the faint of heart but also and there's lots of platforms and products like coinbase that have easy ways to do this and you don't need to be your own bank but also engage in the ecosystem if I lose my if I lose my phrase do I only get one wallet am I just out of the blockchain economy you can create as many wallets as you want and that's kind of part of the challenge with our business too is one individual could have 15 different wallets and so how do I consolidate these identities like what does a CRM look like when someone engages with my brand and that many different ways in I mean different accounts identities in many ways it's more like a wallet is more like an identity in in some ways because all of you know what you're doing on this blockchain with that wallet is all cemented you know Forever on that like literal blockchain well and one of the things that is key and a core value of web 3 and blockchain is this idea of decentralization um and that's literally uh what they're talking about right when they say you can have your own wallet you don't have to have it at a bank you don't have to have it on someone else's account you can actually own that on a flash drive or on your laptop and that is your own bank yeah and now that's core to your business model and it's even back to bitcoin the original kind of cryptocurrency it was born out of the 0809 crisis this is what is the where oh the Great Depression that's what I'm trying to the first time since like the Great Depression really that we saw like Banks collapse and like real like from that perspective so it gave rise to this idea that and especially outside the US that might be underbanked more or might not have access easily to Banks could we build a currency system a financial system that is purely decentralized and trustless where I don't have to store my money in the bank I can store it on code and because the code cannot be hacked or broken or whatever that money is secure but then it has some of the tradeoffs are you are your own bank then so like the security that a bank has you have to operate or think about it in that realm we're we're five minutes into this podcast and I don't want to lose any listeners out there that are like ah Bitcoin I'm I'm out I'm not into that could you just talk quickly about a few of I know web 3 is so much more than Bitcoin but are there to the person that doesn't care directly about Bitcoin how does web 3 still going to affect their life definitely I think this is more just it's just a different kind of technology for how data is stored and so if you've been in if you're been in technology understand what a database is a blockchain is a different kind of database and how the record is stored there's lots of products that are built on these databases that consumers interact with in many you know ways today millions of consumers are using these products in kind of fun and engaging ways so I think that's where we're leaning a lot in more too is like how do we help a lot of these consumer forward companies just engage with their customers in more unique ways and yeah some like fun examples like just like recently and a lot of these are around like how do you leverage there's some unique things because it's tied to Open Marketplace open trading so you get a lot of the financial kind of incentives which is what led to a lot of the bubble of people just betting on coins or pictures of apes or whatever but but it is like core to the the product itself that there's like a free market that I can go and sell this asset you know I mean so there might be a price worth it this asset so anyway there's one new product called friend Tech and it's basically you buy access to someone's kind of Twitter feed basically so like I can post updates or it's almost like a patreon really so I can post updates to it but you have to own one of my keys but I can also sell and trade that key at any time and it's on a bonding curve and the first person who buys it if they sell it to the 100th person it's uh exponentially higher what they've made on that like key and things like that so there's just like some interesting fun ecosystems like that there's a a really popular dating kind of experience called unlonely recently now and you can like basically wager based on whether people should have a second date and it's just like a live stream version of a zoom date that's fun and I I have not engaged or watched it that much so I'm like probably butchering a lot of the explanation of it but like just how do you use this like unique technology around buying and selling digital assets and goods and I think writ large like maybe to take a step back more and more of our lives are moving digital online and like more and more of the goods that we collect the goods that we buy whether it's my fortnite skin or back to the the early days of buying mp3s and videos on iTunes more and more of the goods we buy and the things we interact with live on the internet and so that's where it's just this is just a unique and better way to manage a lot of those goods and so that's where I think the future of more of this is just where we're heading and it's just this is the underlying technology when we talk about wallets like it's like talking about IP addresses like nobody knows what the IP address is for your website you just know you go to holder.

XYZ or P pw. com or whatever you don't know what the underlying IP address is and none of us are talking about IP addresses now so do you think this will get us closer to a place where like marketing is just totally flipped upside down so historically you go way back and like we' put up a billboard right we put the billboard near town because that's where people congregate whatever more people are going to see it things fast forward over what the last century let's say and then this thing called the internet comes around and but but markers are always trying to find you right how do I find you to buy my widget and how much more efficient would it be if I didn't have to you didn't have to find me what if I could just tell you I'm ready to buy a pair of blue jeans I'm ready to buy a 60-inch TB and all the people who sell 60in TVs are like there buy right now here's my price and one click so I don't have to search I think to's pitched this business before on this podcast I have I'm bringing it up again because I'm really passionate about this I somebody needs to solve this issue and I think you might be the one to solve it but like why can't we do that as a consumer why is it so hard why we have to go search this thing called the internet anymore yeah yeah in the like it's that power dynamic between brand and buyer and that's what got me all into this around the marketing side of things is I think that this is a unique opportunity to completely shift that power dynamic between the buyer and the brand or the buyer and the the producer of the product The Advertiser if you will and I think in many ways yeah like marketing's been we've been evolving in the the the digital marketing era into just tracking everything but yet still like that is also like the biggest pain for most marketers is I still don't really understand what works or why and like where some like leads are coming from though I'm tracking everything so much data and like I just buy products tell me manage the data now but I'm not actually getting any better at at that and that's where like I saw in marketing was like we're just in this inevitable death spiral to optimizing to the nth degree my Facebook ad campaign and it's just not fun or interesting to me anymore as like a marketer and this was very interesting of it changes the power Dynamic where the user think about like cookies are going away the move toward digital privacy the move towards like more and more ownership there's lots of like way outside the web 3 world of like research that's showing this that like consumers want to own their data consumers want privacy and then I think that there's another story for what we say versus what we do now this is the trend and so we're seeing like the cookie d whether it's in like EU regulation or CCPA many others but this is like bringing about this like Brands need a better way to engage with customers but also I think customers really hold the keys on intended but customers hold the power of like my data and my relationship with the brand and so I think this is just a technology that has the opportunity at least to be the middleman that manages that relationship between when I am a buyer and I want to give my data or give access to my data my interest my purchasing kind of behaviors I can manage that on a blockchain I can revoke that at any time the brand has transparent open access to this and so that's yeah when if I were to talk about a mission statement for us it's how do we make marketing more transparent open and creative what are some of the brands that are doing this well today in your opinion yeah I think there's kind of two sides but there's definitely some that are leaning in more like I'm a traditional brand leaning in today into kind of web 3 like Nike is Nike and Starbucks are probably the two like just major they get a lot of headlines but also they're just doing things in really unique unque ways Nike purchased a nft brand called artifact was probably about 18 months ago a little over a year ago and for hundreds of millions of dollars it was undisclosed but yeah major and it was at the bowl they they cast out at a good time but the peak but like they so they've done the acquisition approach but then they've also built a whole internal team kind of program called swoosh and all this lives on the backbone of a blockchain but if you were to engage with it you'd have no idea you go and you sign up for a swoosh account you are now part of this like ecosystem and it's very focused around co-creation of Nike products in like heavy like Air Force One culture and collectibles you me that's just like part of that ecosystem too and sneaker culture and so it's a community yeah and that's where like they've leaned in heavily on that front and I think are doing really cool things around Collectibles giving exclusive access you get to co-create the next design of the Air Force One or put some cool designs on top of them and they're starting to C that into with their purchase of artifact I think they're doing some really cool things Starbucks is also leaning in heavily a whole brand new loyalty program that sits us alongside their existing loyalty program all of us have used it the stars and the app kind of thing they have a similar program it's called Odyssey few hundred thousand users in the beta right now and all of it's just a Loy program but the database that they're using is a blockchain so all the assets you're collecting all the points are onchain and I can essentially sell and resell these in an Open Marketplace and kind of reuse them in any way we want so when I think about the future state of a lot of this is we think about digital Goods or whatever and what does this enable it's yeah all of my Delta points are on chain so when Delta makes a decision that I can't go into their that I don't like with their like loyalty program I can just sell all my Delta points for whatever United points or sell them for Starbucks points and go and buy some coffee with it instead but it's all in this open kind of access Market those examples I really like that and we're talking about brand which I think is really relevant to some of your past experience working at high alpha Venture Studio really focused on brand Centric uh B2B SAS companies and and I'd be remiss if we didn't take at least a few minutes to talk about some of your experience there because I I imagine it largely influences what you're doing now at holder and how you're going about things oh yeah 100% it was absolute it was a dream job to get to work there and with that team there some of the smartest people that I know in in in the world leading and building that company but yeah I I joined so high alpha was the original kind of created coin the term Venture studio in 20 kind of 14 early 2015 when they first started thinking about this and fundraising I joined as part of the the initial kind of early team and led marketing there from 2015 to 2022 before I jumped out to do holder and yeah just an amazing place but the whole essential Innovation that they had was we love building companies so the the four co-founders and partners were all entrepreneurs CEOs Founders in the past like we love building companies and and we want to invest in these companies as well because they're like a dream job that is like we're building companies and investing in companies at the same time and that was the birth of holder and you guys have had or the birth of sorry that was the birth of high alpha and you guys have had lots of other high alpha CEOs and and other people on the podcast I'm sure but like they had it was funny they had started doing this nights and weekends with companies like Tinder Box which we branded octave and sold the conga and lessonly and visible and a couple of others and so they were doing this nights and weekends and was like oh what if this was a model we could build out like we would raise a fund that could invest in the companies we were like starting out of the studio and so it was essentially just a company a company to start companies and so that was the mission statement of the company was we're going to start 10 to 15 companies over a three-year period and they're still rocking and rolling but it was an incredible experience to get to yeah our we woke up every single day figuring out how to start new companies and so we wouldd start somewhere in the 5 to 10 companies a year range while I was there and all with this lens of B2B software and that's what we know best that's what all of our experience and background was B2B software companies are a little less they're a little more resilient and not quite as tied to market conditions consumer appetite and Trends and that sort of things as consumer and b2c Brands and so there's more of a like kind of repeatable Playbook that we could run and so that was the original model and yeah it's been working really well it's always hard cuz it's these are this is pre seed stage companies so like the lifespan or something like this is going to be a decade plus to really know is this working we like a typical Venture fund you have you know by fund two and a half you know what is you know your your your real return going to start to be for these funds and are you good at it or not but they've had you know enormous successes and exits already and um I think they' probably started a little over 40 companies now but there was 45 or so I got to be part of at least 30 35 companies I was there during that sevene span out of seeing all of those companies that were launched out of there I know those were whittel down from hundreds of potential ideas of things thousand that you could probably thousands yes that you could have pursued out of seeing all those different patterns is there something that you would say that B2B Sask startups consistently have to be a good idea that's worth going after yeah and I think these are the same kind of examples or things that like a typical VC would like point to to like Market B and the market size matters so much and is this a a push versus poll ecosystem and Market are people asking for this how big can it get and those are like I don't know tongue and cheek cuz I hate that when you hear that from an investor and now sitting on the other side of it cuz you were like this is the biggest thing in the world this is going to be huge and you just can't see it yet you know what I mean but like it does really matter in terms of and it's and mostly it's just it's easier like in terms of you can point to a real kind of Trend in clear Direction so it's what is the momentum basically in the world that's meaning this is like the right now period for this idea in this business like that is like an ultimate trump card in many ways um Team I mean and who you have in the founding team is also just like that's always really what makes or breaks any idea too is do we have um the right team in place because I don't know the stats but whatever the amount of companies that aren't doing what they originally set out to do it's in the very very high percentage so oh yeah you have to be a% yeah it all comes down to is the team able to be resilient figure out what's the right path and I think that's probably like a just even a lesson over that time period too of the most successful companies the most successful entrepreneurs and Founders they are resilient and flexible and they are willing to have a very strong opinion and point of view and not be like pushed around but also be flexible in that we're going to find what is the true opportunity here and yeah it's really it's really a special skill that I don't even know if I truly have it would you greeto as the resident VC at the table right now oh yeah 100% I think the background of being it high off at to for seven years and and seeing all that stuff develop as a real asset as a startup CEO I I want to share it's so very different from being in the seat for sure you know that's still like night and World different but it was fun where we building companies and getting to see a little bit of you're learn through osmosis for sure if you had to pick three traits that you saw 30 35 companies launched if you had to pick three traits that found had that you try to incorporate at hold there or in yourself what would those be I'm going to see what Drew says on this but Hal ala actually did a study and there's two words but I want to see what Drew says first yeah fun yeah I love I don't know the Scott dorsy one of the partners he loves this word and I think it was I can't even remember the year it was but it was like the winning spelling be word inagotable basically inable to be fatigued you know what I mean it was is like the death definition of this word and I think and we talked about whatever that year was like quite a bit but I think that kind of just like that resounds in my head of you are like Relentless and like resilient I think and I think a lot of I'm a big Runner and I think a lot of this is a marathon and like that kind of like mentality and just like the parallels there and so I think that's like just huge is like the inde indag bless of a founder of you're just like can run through brick walls I think too I don't know what the right word but this is like uh uncapped ambition like you there is no like limit to and this kind of I think applies to a lot of things maybe the third thing I would say is actually just an insatiable learner and I think the uncapped ambition kind of applies to that of there is no limit to like what I don't know I'm always learning new things like I love being the dumbest person in the room I think or people like that are like the people that I want to attract in my company the people I think make really good Founders and I think that leans into Midwest humbleness too but I think just I'm always learning new things and I have this ambition level that that is uncapped I don't know if if any of you listen to the acquired podcast been Gilbert and David Rosenthal just one of my favorite podcasts they had the CEO of Nvidia on recently this podcast was he and this is circulating around LinkedIn I reposted anyway so everyone's probably seen this but he asked him like oh would you do this again you're sitting down with three of your closest friends tomorrow and he's would you do this again he hell no like no that's right yeah he said hell no hard you I know now what I didn't know then he has this just it the entrepreneur just always has this idea in their mind of like how hard could it be how hard could it be and I just keep telling myself that and I think that's I know there's a lot of that incorporated there too just like this the entrepreneurs delusion I'm gon to I'm going to write and coin a post around that or something sometime but it's just this like level of delusion almost that this is going to happen when the world is this big and this needs to exist in the world and not to the degree that like build it and they will come but um that I'm willing to do anything to make it successful almost are you ready to transform your brand with award-winning video content that captures your vision and connects with your audience check out Alchemy the experts at building your brand using video from story-driven social media Snippets that leave a lasting impression to compelling fulllength documentaries they have got the expertise to take your brand to the next level Alchemy is actually our video partner here on get in they do amazing work all the videos across social across YouTube all that is done by Alchemy and and they're an amazing partner to work with reach out to me Nate at powderkeg or check out Alchemy film.

com to get connected with Alden and his team they will take care of all of your video needs yeah what was the what was your take on two words nearly as fancy as your words but it comes down to grit and creativity and you described all that stuff right grit One Foot In Front of the other you just got to stay after it and creativity being willing to change open-minded right you got to find that right path path that product Market fit Etc but grit and creativity it sounds simplistic but it's a manic bipolar world yeah and speaking of grit I I would imagine this has been challenging for your business in the last you you talked about the the bull market and the peak 18 plus months ago learning to fund raise through that learning to manage a business in a market that still has so much potential with web 3 but certainly didn't get positive headlines last year how did you manage all of that and at the same time manage the What's the total addressable Market of this thing that's evolving right now and is clearly a blue ocean but you have to kind of balance that oh yeah that's such a hard question the tan question we we can come back to too but I think it's been it's been a blast like in many ways yeah like incredibly this has been the hardest time period I think to start any startup in the last 10 years period it doesn't matter whether you're in web 3 even if you're in Ai and you're like the hottest thing it's still like the hardest time periods ever been in AI right now this is a massive moment of opportunity where you're betting on jockeys right so a lot of this early early Ai and web 3 by like web 3 is not all created equal right there's all kinds of things that add real value it's I think sometimes people paint too broad up a picture they hear web 3 that's not cool anymore it doesn't work well hang on what are you talking about in web 3 right yeah um and and that's what like it's can we pivot like or talk about our we're a NextGen marketing Tech and messaging platform yeah and it just happens to be uh it's through this ver IAL of crypto users only is who we Target and the me this is my sales pitch now and the messages we're sending are 10 to 15x better than anything they're else sending on any other channel qu do you want something that converts at 10 to 15x better doesn't matter who you are I don't have to talk about crypto it's just this is the way you reach a consumer and so anyway like it's that's evolved like we had to evolve like how do we get out of being a cool technology into being a we solve a problem we bring new Revenue in and I think businesses large have had to figure that out and then I think too like we in our industry it's washed out as maybe like a too strong of a word but like we've just seen the pruning of the branches if you will in the webing kind of crypto ecosystem but people that either weren't in it for the right reasons or the ideas just weren't great we've seen this across lots of verticals but I think in many ways that's made it good where our business is still here and around and we've been building now for 18 months and so we have lots of real product real use cases and case studies and we have lots of folks competitors that raised 10 plus x what we did in an out of business and and so there's it's just separated who's in it for the for the Long Hall and and who was not and so I think because of that we've been able to move at just a different pace where it's not quite as much hype and we can focus really on how can we drive value for your business how can we really help and it's not just people were able to also just slow down a bit more where like when things were just ripping and it was clearly a bubble everything was like a kind of pseudo her on fire problem and so now it's we're getting back into how do we just build a a good business and how do not we just chase a hype cycle but let's get back to the fundamentals a little bit and I think that all of that's r large good for us for the industry the ecosystem as a whole but yeah it's been an incredibly great learning experience the last 18 months has been fun our team is incredible they've all hung on that the hotle motif and pun is really fun cuz that's exactly what I feel like our team the builders in the space are doing how did you talk about Tam yeah and then Tam is it's difficult and so like the most recent version that I'm talking about it is people don't really understand this but like the crypto market and let's not even talk about I don't know what it's at today like or the last week whenever we're talking about this Bitcoin and things have had like 15% jump because there's lots of trading speculation based on ETF so like before all of this was still like a$1 trillion Market you know in assets like the buying power within this ecosystem is massive the like like user base you know per buying power like that kind of like per capita is just like wildly different and so if we just look at like the revenues that's happening in crypto is 30 billion plus or so usually 10% of her revenues are spent on marketing expenditures that's $3 billion of like marketing spin that's how I talk about Tam in a like very tiny is market and that's only 30 billion or so revenues but then like a trillion dollars of like your buying power and kind of market cap essentially I don't know how it lands but that's like the most recent kind of way of thinking about it of trying to boil it down into what do companies typically spend on their marketing spend and we are part of that spend like large of people are actually spending that on us today or on Technologies like us today eventually that's where it's going to net out to because it doesn't matter what industry you're in you're like somewhere in that seven to 12 per.

do they treat it like a channel today in essence yeah yeah it is um alongside their email marketing newsletter or we do their email marketing newsletter with them because we have an email product or it's alongside their Discord Channel or things like that it is and a lot of it for us today is like evangelizing this as a new modality a new channel to to reach customers because that's exactly how we want to how we want to view it yeah I want I want to go back real quick and share something I can't remember if we talked about this in our previous podcast or not but there's a guy named David Adams that did a bunch of work around Innovation over in in Cincinnati I they stood up 400,000 square feet of of innovation space working with the big corporates the pgs and all those kind of fun things he came back to Indiana and but he shared some numbers with me recently that Standford this is a little bit different than like the Venture Studio high alpha or just general startups Etc but so this is more Tech transfer but people think about Stanford right you think and they are sophisticated a lot of smart people going there all that kind of fun stuff over the last I think roughly 30 years Stanford has had they've tried to commercialize 6,000 companies 6,000 1,440 or 1,443 roughly of those companies ever made $1 53 of those companies ever made over a million so it just goes to show how then especially when you're diving into a new technology a new world that's like the cream of the crap it's really insane we know crops around here it really some insane numbers know that brings you to a point that that I wanted to double click into was you talk about your competitors raising 10x of of what you raised how many of your competitors were based in the midwest oh I don't a couple maybe well one or two yeah but most direct competitors probably like zero like more than likely they're on a coast somewhere yeah the one the ones that raise big funds definitely on a coast somewhere and then this place 2o is just very and and this is more like a the personality of the industry incredibly Global and Incredibly remote too so yeah we work with lots of people just they live around the globe you know I mean are you moice oh no we're very like iners focused culture too like we love being in the midwest love all of our team members are based in Indianapolis we love having a local team I think it's a huge competitive differentiator for us why why is being based in Indianapolis a competitive differentiator for your web 3 company yeah that's a good question I probably get that or we get that often I think one like one the the fact that we're in of all local and mostly all like her default position is like in the office like IRL work and that is a competitive differentiator regardless of where you're based I think if you're a startup there's so much extra exhaust and lost and just like extra work you have to go through to make a remote culture work if you're a startup and you're just fighting death every day like why put in all that effort when if you all just get together in person like you don't have to worry about all that stuff it's just like it removes so much overhead and I don't I yeah and unless you've worked with that team for like decades or something like that in the past I'm just like default if you're a startup like be in person that's my opinion but it's working really well for us and I you know I talk about as a differentiator for us we move 10x faster we you know our the trust within our team is is so much higher and then I think you know on the where we're located here in Indianapolis side of things like easily I would say sub objectively You could argue this is one of the best markets in world for marketing Tech talent and I think you've seen that firsthand as well and I wholeheartedly believe in that and so I think we're building a messaging and marketing Tech platform this is an amazing place for talent that have built systems at that scale before and understand that and yeah granted we're not in New York it's like the advertising capital and the web 3 crypto Capital right now either or San Francisco but I think when we think about just Arbitrage opportunities and we think about um you know the cost it takes to run a business and being here in Indianapolis and just like absolute world class kind of marketing talent and marketing Tech Talent you you can almost look at it through the same lens as technology in the decentralization of innovation when you look at historically a large portion of innovation 75% of venture capital primarily going into three states Massachusetts New York California where you're seeing that Trend where there's huge opportunity in the decentralization of things and I think holder's a great example of that where the where BCS get the best return on their money I'm guessing it's the Midwest amen amen there's a study that was just done in the middle quarter outperforms of the coast on uh return of capital to VCS by it was a few points yeah somewhere I think one and a half to 3% something like that we'll link it up in the show notes Midwest is best exactly Best Coast Best Coast I wanted to to dive into one more thing about web 3 before we I want some founder do's and Dons questions that we have for you and I know we're getting pretty close on time but what do you think the most common misconception about web 3 is oh that's good and part part of some of this is is rooted in truth so this is hard but I think a lot of people just view web 3 as oh that's like that scam thing or that is a get-rich quick kind of scheme and so I think that it just just has a very bad rep because of the nft runup because of massive price increase people losing a lot money because of that because they're getting caught up in the hype and I think Looking Back Now hindsight 2020 people just really like to gamble this was just another way of gambling and look at sports betting and like all of that it's just it's that was really what like was driving a lot of the pmf market fit and demand of kind of that cycle and so my like argument is just I think from the outside looking in that's just what people like label all of it as and I think they don't necessarily see the true Innovation around the technology and and there's Al huge headlines like SPF is in trial right now and that's all over all of the axios headlines and things like that still so there's just like Bad actors because the space was growing so much and because there were like no rules no regulations Happ in every gold rush though there's a reason there's something called Fool's Gold I think there's a there's a direct correlation to thebomb days yeah and bomb into this web three thing and I think it's eyeballs and then cartoons to your nft comment so it's like everybody all these eyeballs right back in the dot days when it was all coming about and then everything crashed because people just they didn't know how to monetize anything and now all these other capabilities come around and so people start making C I'm oversimplifying right but they start making cartoons and getting people to buy and sell them or whatever and then that just crashes like what and then but then now you you have the holders coming up and saying oh this this is real There's real pain here we can leverage this technology in a much different way a much better Roi and we're going to see some massive winners come out of this one of the things I love about holder is it's what do you want to do during a gold rush you don't want to go after the Gold you want to be selling the shovels and pickaxes yeah yeah and it's it's very much that kind of business where it's you went to work building utility and Dr yeah yeah and I think how do you help the builders you know mean that's where we're just seeing lots of success too like right now in particular like just working with Builders like even more directly with CEOs and smaller teams and granted like it's a smaller deal size those aren't the Enterprise deal sizes and yeah you can't make that ACV Math Workout to The Tam question but got go back to exact target all the time Marquee customer Groupon and like Groupon was using them and they were sending 100 emails or something but like they grew with Groupon until they were sending millions of emails a day everybody forgets that and that's what we're then that's what we're building for is can we just be the go-to place for Builders that I just need a CRM or I would need a messaging toolkit or this is just part of my marketing stack and and that's where it's grow with the industry and be ingrained with the people that building like truly novel stuff and that's the stuff that I love is like hopping on the phone with a customer a prospector when they're doing something that just blows my mind I'm like you can do that and that's what just I love about it and so that that's what I would say there's a lot of it that's just still very technical and so to me I'm like I nerd out on that stuff and I'm like you can do X Y and Z and to any of the normal person it would be way over their head but I think definitely lean in and try to squint beyond the Riff WP and what we've seen happen in this space because the same thing happened with GameStop and yeah stalks so is there a is there a if you have to leave names out of it that's totally cool but so for the listeners out there and everybody has friends or marketers and working for companies there is there one case study that you can share if you got leave names out of it fine but but one example or a case study of one of your customers and like bam this is what we did for them and this is what happened yeah yeah we we work with one of the major uh I would call it like a top 10 wallet providers so they are one of these uis where I can manage all of my money and crypto assets and things like that in and hundreds of thousands of uh monthly active users very popular product they struggle with lot like lots of businesses in this space I have really engaged Community I can't tell them about all the new cool stuff that I'm doing because I have no way to reach these people and so we we were they were launching a new product feature they had this weight list of call it 100,000 people they on this weight list we're trying to reach these people on the traditional channels that they were using Discord and email and stuff and just unsuccessful and so we started running some campaigns with wallet messages around this new browser extension they were launching and we were seeing 10 to 15x the average daily new user signups from when we were sending out the messages and so that's a lot of it's just and that's like batch and blast like just I'm sending this out to 10,000 people not personalized automated like Dynamic nothing like that yet which is where we want to see this move toward yeah and this just like we're just able to reach an audience we couldn't before and in a more digitally native way and that's really huge yeah that's amazing it's amazing I think it might be about that time Nate is it time for the lightning round I think it might be time for the lightning round Drew this is my favorite part of every show where we get to go through just some rapid fire quick questions and just talk through lightning round we're going to get it started here outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecos system what is Indiana known for is this the has to say the first thing that first thing that comes to your mind yeah Racing for sure racing or corn though like I think corn is just back to that it's a it's not accurate it's just a branding problem it's a branding problem it's a marketing problem it's a market but I love speed I would love for people yeah to say I don't know maybe you or someone else has said that at some point that like speed is what we want in the end point absolutely speed I like that what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana Oh we we have our our marketing person on the team here with us just hanging out and she is from Taylor so this will be from fun for her there's a spot in Upland called Ivan hose have any of you no been there Ivan hose I hose Daren Dar he said that was his the ice cream spot right yeah yeah yeah I don't know it's just like a random they have 200 flavors of ice cream or types of Sundays on the menu and maybe we can hit that up on our way up up to Sweet Water right off 69 it's great is there a competitor that Iwo has in Maran like a different ice cream shop I'm pretty sure it's 15 minutes or so from Iwo so it's probably not it's it I don't know we're going to show up for our interview with the CEO of Sweet Water gonna need to take a nap yeah I love it I tried all the Flav ofon there lots of nostalgic like going there when I was a kid and stuff that's awesome yeah that's probably why I also think of that that's a good answer we got to go to IV hose and who is someone that we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things oh Darion is a great example I love Darion and what they're doing to qualify is great I think I don't know we got a handful of or Fellowship alumni here on in the room too but maybe I would just say like that like program and the kind of the talent that they're cultivating not to shout out like any one individual person but I think the impact I think that program had on my life huge I think the impact that program on Indiana on the entrepreneurial ecosystem here on the startups here it's huge and just maybe RIT large I think that program the alumni on that program the current ORF fellows don't sleep on orow May that's what I would say don't sleep on theow don't sleep I'm I outwardly say that program changed my life like I wouldn't know Matt I wouldn't know you maybe I would know you but not we have this unspoken Bond the unspoken or Fellowship Bond agreed we have one more thing we need to shout out as we wrap up talking about people that are doing big things for our listener or for our viewers anyone who's viewing at home you'll see me to Matt we're rocking the HomeField shirts and for those who are listening what is HomeField home field is the I'll say the greatest Collegiate licensed collegiate apparel company we had Connor on the podcast a month or so ago of HomeField Conor is a founder of HomeField if you don't listen to that episode what are you doing you got to go listen to it now they've built an amazing brand around licens Collegiate apparel all here in Indianapolis their headquarters is over in Speedway they make incredible shirts similar to this what is it this is basket Paul basketball we got basket Paul basketball but it's like the holidays are right around the season you're looking for a good Christmas gift you need to go check out HomeField apparel get your cousin get your aunt your uncle your mom your dad whoever a cool licensed College teacher not just the generic throw an IU logo on there and whatever no it's going to be something cool unique good for the holiday purchase and Conor said if you go like my LinkedIn post from a month or so ago that maybe we could get a monan on Bell game exclusive shirt so for any W bash toall listeners out there go check it out love it good shout out and maybe we'll be wearing some holder gear on on a future episode I do actually you the holder you w the holder I love the holder actually I was out I don't know where I was out of Indiana someone came up to me this is I don't know if you get this a lot so I'm just going to be candid with it someone comes up and says oh my gosh I I love that brand to my hat I'm like oh you like holder and they're like holder I thought it was Hurley yeah it's the it's very similar to Hurley if anyone knows it's a brand that was really popular Surfers and your age Matt like it's like vintage your age Matt I think I still I proceeded I proceeded to give them the no we're talking web 3 you got to check out holder way cooler yeah absolutely so Drew appreciate having you on today this was awesome thank you awesome Drew thanks for all you do for Indie oh thank you this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have have suggestions for a guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powder.

com newletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listen to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at powderkeg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82% off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted at cd. us/ powderkeg