Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Jim, thanks so much for joining us.
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Yeah. Thanks, Keith. Really excited to be here talking about Flipside.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Yeah, I'm so excited to talk to you because there's so much going on in the world of cryptocurrency. I mean, it's not. You know, it's not it's still in building blocks, right? Yeah, it's kind of mainstream where you constantly hear about it. But it's in its infancy as far as kind of, it just reminds me of like when the internet was just starting to really blossom. It's very reminiscent of that. So let's talk about Flipside crypto. What does the company do?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Yeah. So we help blockchain projects grow and retain users. And you know, blockchain projects, might not look or act like traditional businesses. But they do require growth and retention of users. And that playbook on how to do that doesn't really exist yet. So we're sort of building that playbook now, via a program we call community-enabled analytics. And community enabled analytics is built upon Flipsides, Open Data Platform, as well as these weekly analytics bounty programs that we run. And those bounty programs are bringing in 1000s of new highly skilled contributors from all over the world, to these crypto ecosystems. And they're also driving continuous sort of on-demand data insights for the projects that we partner with.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So is there a good example of the, you know, company or use case that you could share?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Yeah, sure. So, you know, one of our biggest partners, right now is a blockchain called Terra. And, Terra, you know, they have all sorts of different projects that are launching on top of it, you know, from lending to trading, even to content apps. And, you know, really, to enable, you know, people to sort of build on top of that ecosystem and really understand what's happening. They need a sort of open data platform and need key questions answered. And so you know, they came to us as a partner. And you know, we work with the sort of sourcing, key questions that community members have about different projects that are being built. And then those get answered. And then people use those to make decisions or to, you know, even use our data to power websites and power infrastructure. And all those things sort of bring more and more users into the ecosystem sort of power understanding for people.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Got it. Okay, so, your co-founder and CTO and Dave Vaulter, a serial entrepreneur is the CEO and co-founder. So how did you come up with the idea? Like, what was the foundation story of the company?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Sure, um, yeah, so I would. So to take a guess a step back kind of, from when we initially founded it, you know, I kind of began my foray into the crypto space in 27, or 2015. Really, as a series of fun side projects that we'd get together with a small group of friends in Boston, sort of Tinker on, you know, this new thing called Etherium. And I've sort of always enjoyed building things at the intersection of data and product. And so the deeper down the crypto rabbit hole I fell, the more I realized that you know, access to data is gonna play a major role in the growth of this ecosystem. And I didn't know quite like, you know, what we were going to build at the time, but I had this inkling that you know, something unique was happening here, and I wanted to shape its future. In 2017, you know, I finally had that opportunity. When we did found flipside, Eric, and Dave, and I, and it started off as just, we wanted to understand the space better, and understand, you know, what people were building and, you know, as an investment opportunity almost. And so, we started building lots of different tools, particularly around data, that, you know, basically to get access to data, nothing existed yet, there was no infrastructure that had been built. And we started off actually, the company started as a fund. And we were managing a fund for a while on top of all the technology that we had built. And over time, more and more projects, blockchains. And those building on top of blockchains protocols started coming to us saying, hey, like, you know, it's really hard to get at this data. You guys seem to have the infrastructure that enables it and makes it possible. And, you know, shortly after we started, we decided, you know, the fun business really wasn't for us. We are product people we'd like to build and so we eventually shut the fund down and we went, you know, full lead on the product that we were building and focusing on the data.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
And talk about your great timing to start to build like, as I mentioned at the beginning, There's still the foundation layer that's being built in this whole world. So the companies that build those infrastructure types of data analytics tools are the ones that you're seeing now, you know, the stripes of the world that are just thriving. So it's that type of company that is very smart to build at the time you started.
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Yeah, you know, we were lucky to be in early when we were and, you know, continue to also sustain and evolve with how quickly and rapidly the space changes.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
How does it work? As far as the business model? Like how does Flipside Crypto, you know, make money?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Sure. You know, so our business model is a bit unique in the traditional sense, but I think it's very fitting actually, within the blockchain and crypto world. So you know, many things in the crypto world are, you know, built in a very open way. And, you know, we believe really in building an open free data platform. And so what we do is we partner with different blockchains or protocols, and they tend to basically have essentially think of them as massive Treasury's economies. And they basically delegate to us large amounts of tokens. And we use that to sort of fund the operations of these bounty programs. And that really, is what drives revenue. And so you know, we kind of align ourselves as a partner with the projects, as opposed to, you know, being a, say, a traditional SaaS model or paying a subscription.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Yeah. Okay. So what's the current size of the company? And you know, your hiring plans ahead?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Sure, yeah, we are currently about 40 people, we were fortunate enough to grow almost threefold in the past 18 months and will grow pretty substantially in 2022. For hiring, you know, almost across every department from product engineering, analytics, finance, marketing. Within your leadership, right now, there are three major roles that we're hiring for, SVP of product, VP of engineering, and ahead of Finance. In addition to that, you know, we're hiring lots of full-stack engineers onto the team, data engineers, DevOps engineers, as well.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
When someone does join the team, what's it like working there?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Um, yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think we think a lot about the culture that we're building. And, you know, I really like to think about the culture as the landscape on top of our values. And shortly after we started Flipside, Dave, Eric, and I, we sort of looked around at each other, and we said, you know, how do we truly behave? And you know, what, what characteristics Do we want in the company that we built, and you know, we are relentless, we're passionate, we're authentic and responsible, and most of all we like to achieve, and those values have changed very little since we started the company. And they are the guiding principles to who we hire at flip side. And those people we hire, they're the culture. So just to give you a few examples here, Keith, you know, being in the blockchain space, we are typically the first in the world to tackle the challenges in front of us. You can't Google the answer to these problems, you know, you have to roll up your sleeves, get creative, take responsibility, and be relentless about problem-solving. So those are the types of people that work here. We're also really passionate about building the future of not only Flipside but this industry. So we give 10% time to employees sort of go explore the space to fall down the crypto rabbit hole, so to speak, and figure out how to have an impact. We also really, you know, value our time together. We believe in some of the best ideas can spontaneously arise when you bring a bunch of creative minds together. So whether that's in person or virtually, we're kind of constantly doing events to bring the team together.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
The job market out there is very competitive. There are lots of opportunities out there in lots of different industries in the tech scene. So why is now the ideal time to join Flipside Crypto?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
That's a great question. So I think there are two reasons I would give to that. And I think the first one has to do with the industry. And the second Flipside, the company, industry-wise, we sit at the intersection of a rare moment in history, where a set of financial, technological and even social innovations are all co-occurring at the same time. And what strikes me about this industry is just the speed at which innovation and growth occur. I think that is in large part due to the openness of what people are building. So the ability for people to you know, build on top of each other's creations, almost like Legos. That is enabling really rapid growth. Not just year over year but it kind of month over month, and that growth today is really quite explosive. Company-wise, I think, you know, we are still small enough to have kind of a true startup vibe. But at the same time, we're also the beginning of a massive inflection point. And if you want to experience true growth and be a part of building something that's going to shape the future of the crypto blockchain industry, I can't think of a better place to do that than the Flipside right now.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
How'd you guys come up with the name?
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
We were, we had a few different name ideas at the time. And we were in a meeting, talking about, you know, different ideas. And someone said, you know, on the flip side, and you know, we kept, we were like, on the flip side, we're like, flip side that, you know, that's kind of, you know, kind of catchy and, and we kind of stuck with it early. And, you know, it's funny how often that kind of comes up in the come, you know, in conversations. We also like to think about it at the beginning of the company, as you know, everyone at the time, we were initially started off investing, and everyone at the time was, I think investing off of a lot of hype. And we started off as you know, how can we look at the fundamentals of what's actually being built by people and what's being used by people. And you know, that was the flip side, sort of like what everyone else was doing. So it kind of fits with our approach to the space. And you know, the name had a nice, sort of catchiness to it.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Well, if you are interested in exploring opportunities to Flipside Crypto, you need to go to their company page on VentureFizz, which has all their listings. And as Jim mentioned, they're hiring across the board. So go to venturefizz.com/flipsidecrypto, and you'll see all their listings there. Jim, thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through all the great things happening at the company.
Jim Myers, Flipside Crypto
Absolutely that thanks for your time, Keith. This was awesome.
Transcribed by https://otter.a
