“The Bull and Bear Markets Breakout” sees if Krypital Group Can Empower the Project From All Directions
by CoinTime
On June 25th (Beijing time), Maggie Wu, the co-founder and CEO of Krypital, was invited to participate in the live interview of the 26th episode of “The Shopkeeper’s Investigation”: “Bull and Bear Markets Breakout”, which was organized by CoinTime. Tong Yang, CoinTime’s COO hosted the interview, and talked with Maggie Wu about how to empower the project from all directions. The following is a text review of this interview, which was published by CoinTime.
Tong: Let me introduce the guest of today’s show: Maggie Wu, the co-founder and CEO of Krypital. She is an early cryptocurrency evangelist and a successful serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in cross-industry investment and consulting. In less than one year, she led the Krypital Group to raise more than $100 million for a series of successful blockchain projects. Nowadays, the Krypital Group’s blueprint has been upgraded again, it already established its own venture fund and it is incubating its next round of world-class project.
Tong: I have seen some of your resumes and stories, and I learned that you have many years of entrepreneurial experience. If you could break down your past entrepreneurial experience, how would you divide it? What is the reason for dividing it like that?
Maggie: I have been an entrepreneur for more than 15 years and I can divide my experience into four stages. The first stage is the study period. When I first went to college, I was full of enthusiasm and curiosity about entrepreneurship. Just like “The newborn calf is not afraid of tigers”, I wanted to try everything and also, dare to try. In this stage, it is more of a learning process for me. The second stage is the growth period. After I went abroad, I became more cautious about being an entrepreneur. It was in a down-to-earth and steady development period. At the same time, it is also a good experience for self-growth. The third stage is the maturity period. After the completion of the original accumulation, the third stage of entrepreneurship begins, mainly for investment. In this stage, I need to make accurate judgments after taking careful consideration. Currently, which is the fourth stage, it is the challenge period. I am a person who likes to challenge myself and make breakthroughs. This is why I like to play golf.
Tong: A lot of people entered the blockchain industry because they were “being persuaded”. What made you enter the blockchain industry?
Maggie: I was not persuaded, but I chose to enter the industry wholeheartedly. I am a curious person and I am curious about a lot of novel and cool stuff. Then I will continue doing research on it and become obsessed about it.
Tong: So, since entering the blockchain industry, what are the obvious changes compared with your previous industry?
Maggie: That must be “fast”! The entire industry’s development speed and pace of work is extremely fast, and people need to learn new things every day. However, this is one of the reasons why I like this industry.
Tong: What is the secret for you keeping your entrepreneurial passion and work enthusiasm?
Maggie: I love learning.
Tong: The Krypital Group combines “incubator + market + fund”, which also includes the investment banking FA service. Facing many branch line services, what special management skills and principles do you have as a CEO? At the same time, what’s your biggest advantage?
Maggie: I have been an entrepreneur and also a business manager for many years, which made me go through the changes in management styles at different stages. At the current stage, since it is already a highly developed world of communication, and the blockchain industry is more suitable for the decentralized collaboration mode, the new companies’ management model should keep up with the generation. Especially, nowadays young people have their own ideas, so managers should trust and respect every team member, give them more development space, and listen to their voices.
Tong: For managers, it is necessary to give each team member more trust, respect and development space, and listen to their voices. This is not something that all managers can do. It requires long-term collaboration and cooperation.
Maggie: My biggest advantage is “to keep changing in order to adapt to changes”. I have many years of management experience, and I can make rapid adjustments to management methods for different industries according to the generation’s development.
Tong: In fact, I think this may be some of the characteristics of female managers which is easier to communicate with. Speaking of it, I can’t help but ask a question about women’s entrepreneurship. In the blockchain industry, for women, especially women at management level, there are many voices that tend to emphasize facial attractiveness over talent. What do you think of this? How to let the world eliminate this type of prejudice? Please also talk about some suggestions for female entrepreneurs in the blockchain. What dispositions and qualities do they need the most?
Maggie: I think it’s a good thing to be attractive. Why not? I don’t care about those people who have prejudice at all. It’s natural for women to pursue attractiveness and it has nothing to do with their working abilities. We are not supposed to emphasize one of them over the other one.
Tong: I can’t agree more! Of course, I have another question: what do you think about blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin?
Maggie: Of course, I am confident about them, otherwise I wouldn’t choose them in the first place. There is a quote that I really like “I can see it because I believe in it.”
Tong: We have already talked about your personal insights. Now let’s talk about the Krypital Group. Established in 2017, the Krypital Group has recently upgraded the brand. What kind of business adjustment and planning did your company make? How is the group’s current ecological development? What are the reasons for making adjustments? How is the revenue of different business lines after the adjustments? Is there a specific quantitative figure to explain it? Will the Krypital Group focus on the business with outstanding performance?
Maggie: At the beginning of the Krypital Group’s establishment, we mainly focus on the incubation projects. After the bull market and bear market in 2018, we are more clear about the projects’ needs, which is why it’s about the time to upgrade our blueprint.
Tong: Knowing the needs of customers can provide better services, of course, customers are constantly groping to move forward and figure out their needs too.
Maggie: After the adjustments, the Krypital Group has a clearer group structure and a more complete ecosystem. It has three independent sub-brands, the incubator sub-brand is Geeklab, and we strengthened the secondary management. At the same time, with the incubator as the core, we have established an independent fund, which is the Krypital Capital and the marketing sub-brand Apollo_8. Since we have just upgraded our brand, the revenue of the new sub-brand has not yet appeared, but our core business development is still very good. Currently, we have six incubation projects and six are in line. As our core business, we will focus on developing the incubator. Also, no matter if it’s the fund, or the marketing sub-brand, it will be a good asset for the project side.
Tong: We have observed that, apart from other capitals, there are three Funds in the Krypital Group. What is the original intention of establishing the three Funds? What is the difference between their main positioning? What is the current size of the funds? What are the Krypital Group’s main focus and main investments?
Maggie: The original intention of establishing the three Funds is mainly based on our understanding of the current blockchain development and the characteristics of the encrypted digital currency market project. The blockchain has clear divisions on the short-, medium- and long-term returns, so we have set up three Funds for different returning periods. Our Venture Fund I venture capital fund is mainly for early projects in the seed or A round. Fund II is mainly a project whose value is seriously underestimated. Fund III mainly helps some family funds to manage their digital assets. The current fund size is 60 million US dollars. We recently focuse on the projects related to digital financial services, such as Defi, stable currency, privacy currency, cross-border payment, asset management, etc., and services related to transactions, such as exchanges, secondary markets, but also the underlying public chain. We also focus on the public chains on the bottom and their ecologically relevant Dapp, the track associated with mining. In the second half of the year, we believe that there may be an outbreak in the digital finance field that some strong applications may be landing. Currently, many professional financial institutions already entered the industry, and more and more mainstream companies are beginning to accept digital currency.
Tong: Yes, that’s right, such as Libra, which has been really popular recently. Could you please share your insights on Libra with us?
Maggie: I think it’s at least a good try. However, the level of supervision is a problem that has to be considered. The chances of success of the giants are always higher, but there are also voices that are contrary to the purpose of decentralization of the blockchain. If you want to talk about this issue, we can talk in more detail.
Tong: From an investor’s perspective, how do you consider the current market situation? What are your criteria for evaluating and investing in high-quality projects? How can we empower a high-quality project?
Maggie: Supervision is the greatest resistance.
Tong: I agree. The hearing is starting soon, and it feels like many countries are paying attention to Facebook’s next action.
Maggie: I think now is the best time for preparing the future. The premise of a high-quality project is to have a high-quality team. The first criterion for evaluating a project is to evaluate people. For high-quality projects, we will be fully empowered. In addition to our own funds, which will participate in the investment, we will also include white paper from the project side, business model, overall positioning and brand packaging, marketing, global community building 360-degree assistance with management, assistance financing, docking exchanges, and secondary market management.
Tong: I feel that the Krypital Group’s business is very complete, which provides a full range of services and assistance. So if there are early projects that need your cooperation, how can we contact you?
Maggie: Please email contact@krypital.com
Tong: In addition to investing in the incubation, are there any resources in the other layers of the blockchain business that can be opened to cooperate with others?
Maggie: Sure, we have different investment tracks just like what I mentioned before. Currently, the ones we focus on the most are financial services, exchanges, mining and other fields.
Tong: Not long ago, in the background of the bear market, many Token Funds were rushing to North America. They thought foreign investment projects are more standardized. What do you think about the development of blockchain projects in China and in foreign countries? Do you also prefer foreign projects?
Maggie: I think there are some really good projects in China and foreign countries. Of course, there are some projects of great scale and magnitude in the United States, such as Libra. There are endorsements of traditional head enterprises, and there will be more traditional giants and top-level professional institutions in the future. The bigger and better the project, the higher the threshold and the qualifications for investors.
Tong: The Krypital Group has full coverage services from the initial investment to the later development of a project. However, there are many business models in the industry like this. What are the advantages of the Krypital Group? How to maintain your advantages when competing in the industry?
Maggie: I think our biggest advantage is that we have plenty of experience and numerous successful stories.
Tong: Currently, the current blockchain development is at an early stage with a small user base. In the post-service stage for the project, in terms of communication under the traffic shortage situation, how can the Krypital Group compete with other companies that entered the industry earlier? This question should be the advantage that many project parties want to know about the Krypital Group.
Maggie: All projects will face the same problem in the later stage, just like in the traditional industry, it is a protracted war. That’s why at this time the founding team’s experience, endurance and learning ability are particularly important. Our role is to help the project party to conduct a more comprehensive analysis of the status quo, customized strategies, and expand into larger markets.
Tong: Compared to the 2017 project, the bear market in 2018 caused many projects’ currencies to have very low prices. In this market environment, in order to maintain the stability and even increase the projects’ currency price in the secondary market, what special and key tricks does the Krypital Group have?
Maggie: First of all, we still need to select high-quality potential projects to help them customize the entire development plan. At the same time, the project party needs a clear development idea for the future, and it has to be quickly implemented and landed. As a globally-based incubator, we are able to bring global resources to the project side, including communities, partners and, of course, capital. We currently have communities in more than 100 countries and regions around the world, and we have abundant resources in the industry, including exchanges, secondary management, and investment institutions.
Tong: I heard that the business even covered South America.
Maggie: Yes, this year, the key areas for expansion are South America and Africa. We have entered the two regions since the beginning of this year and started to deploy. We have already established many local resources, and these two regions still have a huge development potential in the blockchain and digital currency fields. We welcome our partners who are interested in these two regions or have any resources. Please contact us at contact@krypital.com
Questions on Social Media
Question 1: What is the performance of the project invested by the Krypital Group?
Maggie: Generally speaking, the performance is good.
Question 2: What qualities does the Krypital Group value when it comes to inspecting a project? What are the most important indicators? How long is the inspection cycle?
Maggie: 1) The team, including the founder’s qualifications and experience. 2)The tracks and future development space. 3) The project itself, business logic rationality, landing operability, and industry resources, etc. The inspection cycle is about one month and generally we will quickly decide whether we want to participate in investment and incubation.
Question 3: What do you think about the layout of the layout of the game’s ecological main chain and related market environment analysis?
Maggie: The game field is indeed the field we started to focus on investing and incubating from last year. The game field is one of the early applications in the blockchain industry where there are real users participating. It has application scenarios and landing. However, since it has the bottom chain restrictions, the development of this industry is also limited. It is still in the early stage, and there is still a lot of room for development in the future. Compared to the size of the traditional game field, legal compliance is also a big problem, its has to face different regulations in different countries. In the meantime, traditional investment logic and standards are very worth learning.
Question 4: How can we introduce the legality and compliance of the investment method of the primary equity market into the blockchain industry? What problems have you encountered and how did you solve them?
Maggie: Well, I think it’s mainly about facing different countries’ requirements for compliance, so it takes a lot of time to learn and do research. In addition, in the blockchain industry, time cost is the biggest cost.
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