Part 1: Life of a Blockchain Entrepreneur
My name is Canaan Linder, 23, and this is the start of my journey.
Graduating Carnegie Mellon was a relief. I’d landed an amazing job as a Software Engineer at Bloomberg in New York, committed to no more all-nighters, and a weekly array of foods fit for a king.
Instead I am “self employed”, work non-stop, and live off ramen.
Welcome to Part 1 of my series entitled Life of a Blockchain Entrepreneur. Within this series I hope to give you an insight into the so far unsuccessful life of a blockchain entrepreneur — wishing that those who follow in my footsteps can learn from my mistakes and find the courage to follow your dreams.
Quitting the job
High pay, fun job, great people, people spend their lives trying to achieve what I had — so why did I walk away?
My job at Bloomberg provided me everything I could ask for and the ability to live a comfortable life. However something was itching me and it wouldn’t go away, I had a great startup idea.
I was 23, no kids, no mortgage, and a modest amount of savings from a few internships and Ethereum. If there was any time to risk it for a biscuit, it was now before life tied me down. I could never live with myself if I didn’t take this opportunity.
So I quit.
Step One — Network
A founder is the conductor, the team is the orchestra. Creating an important team around a vision is something that I knew I would have to do if my brilliant idea was ever going to make it to the world. Networking is the best way to do this and these are the three tools I utilized.
Classmates & Coworkers
People you already know are your easiest recruits. The head of Blockchain at CMU, who had been one of my waterpolo teammates, founded a coalition to help startup crypto projects utilizing groups from different universities — called the BlockVenture Coalition. Easy!
I had the privilege of being the head of the internal blockchain chat at Bloomberg with 800+ people, incredibly smart individuals. A personal friend from that chat, Ermos Kyriakides (a top crypto writer on medium) was happy to be a helping hand to the project.
The site everyone thinks is useless, until it isn’t. LinkedIn may not understand that I don’t want to congratulate my friends on their work anniversaries, but its a hotbed of industry connections that you can’t find anywhere else.
Update your profile and summary, include industry key words that will show up in searches and with the type of people you are looking to connect with, advisers, engineers, designers, VCs. Next, start searching and connecting with people. Include a note (must be 300 characters or less) that gives them a taste of what you are doing and with a call to action — Connect to learn more!
Purchasing a plan is not out of the question — seeing extra people in searches, having InMail credits, and seeing who is looking at your profile could be the difference between success in failure. Every person counts.
Upwork
Finding an initial team is hard when you do not have enough work or money to pay someone a full time salary. Getting money from investors is also hard should you have no full time team — a chicken an egg problem at its finest.
Freelance sites are where to go to find members to build out your website, MVP (minimum viable product), and any other media that you need to work towards a larger goal of fundraising. Upwork is my personal favorite because of how easy it is to look at someones job history, skill set, and filter on criteria you are looking for your job. Simply create an account, make a job posting, and invite freelancers that are recommended, or search for more! Check back every 2 to 3 hours, people will apply.
I suggest taking a look at their skill set before hiring as well as work history. The best people speak English fluently, have 100+ hours doing similar jobs to yours, and respond to messages promptly (send them a few before hiring). Be wary of how much money you are spending, but realize that paying for quality is worth it.
Step Two — Whitepaper
A Whitepaper is a 20+ page document that is essentially your businesses manifesto, what it does, why it saves the world, and why anyone needs your unoriginal cryptocurrency. I am not a writer and my first step was to try and find an experienced freelancer to write it.
I learned a few things from trying to find someone else to do the work I should be doing. Everyone wants an outrageous price, the quality of something they will write you is always below what you expect and need, and it will take longer to explain exactly what you want in a white paper than just writing it yourself. On top of all that, after writing my own whitepaper I realized that the process is both tortuous and relaxing. It gave me a real sense of pride to write the paper and it helped me organize all the thoughts I had rattling around my head.
The whitepaper needs to be written by you, the source of the ideas that run your business. There are no cutting corners on this step and an easy way to fail. Would you entrust someone else to write the document that will make or break your business with investors? If the answer is yes, perhaps being an entrepreneur isn’t for you.
Thank you for reading part 1 of my series Life of a Blockchain Entrepreneur. If you enjoyed please consider following and giving this article 👏 50 claps 👏, both mean a lot to me as I continue this journey.
Feel free to reach out with any questions, suggestions, or if you are interested in becoming an entrepreneur yourself!
Email: canaan.linder@gmail.com
Discord: Canaan#1656
