She Backed Bitcoin Early. Now She’s Betting on What’s Next | Ep 228 with Laura K. Inamedinova Chief Ecosystem Officer at Gate.io
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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founders Story. Today, we have Laura Inamendinova, an award-winning serial entrepreneur, investor, keynote speaker, just got the Forbes 30 Under 30, which is huge, and currently serving as the Chief Ecosystem Officer at Gate.io and Principal of Gate Ventures. And Laura, I'm really excited to dive into all things about investing in conversations

companies right now, because I'm curious as to what does an investor look at? How do they see this and your whole story with how you got to where you are today? Because I'm sure it's going to be super inspirational. So let's just kick it off with what was the spark in your life that made you say, this is the industry I want to be in? So first of all, happy to be here. Thank you, Daniel, for inviting me. How did I went into crypto? Actually, I mean,

I'm in crypto for almost 10 years and I got here by accident. So back in my day in college, I was studying physics and all my classmates were geeks looking for, you know, interesting things and they stumbled upon Bitcoin, the magic internet money. And I remember I was in one of the last years of college. I was a

2016, and they were telling me how there's going to be new currency on the internet, and it's not going to be tied to any government or central bank. And it was very interesting for me. I was very curious about it. Unfortunately, I was a broke college student, and I couldn't tell my parents, yeah, sell the house, get a second mortgage, let's go all in Bitcoin. But I purchased a little bit, and that was kind of the first step. And then after I graduated, I worked a lot with tech companies and startups, helping them go to market.

And so it happened that I was approached by a few founders who were founding a business in crypto. That was one of the first ICOs back in 2016. I remember they came to me and they were like, hey, Laura, we're going to have three Ws, website, white paper, and a wallet. And trust me, we're going to make it. We're going to phrase. Do you want to be part of it? It sounded crazy. I was like, who are these people? Why are they building this thing?

weird structure of ICO. Like, it was absolutely not what I was used to working in startups, understanding, you know, how to do fundraising, go to venture capital and so on. And you know, something clicked in my brain. I was like, I just graduated. I have nothing to lose. I might as well, guys, help you out because it was interesting. And I already had some exposure into crypto. And so it happened that we raised seven figures in a week.

And that was the point I was like, that's it. I'm going all in. And I was 21 back in the day and I realized if I'm going to go into track five, I'm going to be working in tech. I will always have to compete with people who will be 10, 20, 30 years older than me. And they would have that advantage. Whereas a crypto was such a young industry back in the day was just emerging. If I go together with an industry in a couple of years, I can be already considered OG, right?

basically. So this is how I entered. It was completely by accident, but

Me being a little bit adventurous back in the day kind of helped me to get exposed to it and now have almost 10 years experience. I think a lot of people might look at an industry and if an industry is maybe less mature, they might be concerned about going into it. What advice or suggestion do you have? Looking back to when what was, you know, there was some motivation that made you say, OK, this is safe enough for me to do it.

Because I think a lot of people, they're held back by this fear of doing something when it's less mature or the industry is just not old enough yet. So, crypto...

already now is quite mature we have regulations in a lot of countries we have a lot of big funds pension funds coming in and buying bitcoin as part of their strategy so this industry is already maturing quite well plus a lot of major banks are already using its tables uh for cross-border payments so blockchain as a technology and crypto as a currency is not new anymore

But when it comes to entering new emerging industries, yes, it's a risk. When I went to crypto, it was a very, very risky industry because back in the day, everyone associated Bitcoin with buying illegal goods through, let's say, Darknet.

But the thing is, if you want to get a competitive advantage, you have to be early. You have to make some sort of compromises and going to industries that is not yet developed. Because if it's already developed, there are a lot of places, it's going to be very hard to enter. The barrier of entry is going to be very expensive. Whereas the industry that has nothing, if you're coming and building basic products, providing basic services, you're going to be miles ahead.

So that is the risk people need to take in order to achieve something more or they can go into mature. And for example, real estate, very good example. It's a very mature interest. It's been for thousands of thousands of years, but their returns are very low.

Whereas crypto, where it's very risky, their tiers are much higher. And their tiers are higher because there is risk in them all. So it's up to every person's risk profile and risk tolerance. What do they prefer and do they want to risk it with their career? With investment, with their career, with things that might, yes, go in shambles down the line, or they want to have a more secure path. You mentioned all the things that have happened within crypto already.

You have a lot of big players coming in, traditional players. How do you see this in the next two, three years? And then the influence of all these other emerging technologies with AI advancing and quantum computing, all these things are coming. How do you see crypto being intertwined?

So with every year, crypto as an industry becoming more and more mature. And I would say within a couple more years, the gap between crypto and trade is going to be shrinking and shrinking. In the end, we're going to be part of traditional finance probably in 10, 15 years. AI is, I would say, AI is a good addition to crypto. AI can be as a standalone industry, but crypto is leveraging it a lot for trading, marketing,

for easier payment solutions. There are a lot of ways how crypto can utilize AI the same way as AI companies can utilize crypto, for example, for payments. So their industries are going kind of side by side. Quantum computing, again, there are these kind of conspiracy theories that once quantum computing becomes accessible, crypto is going to be basically dead because then you can mine bitcoins at the

very quick speed and you're not going to eat miners, but I think that's more conspiracy theories than reality. There's always a lot of conspiracy theories. So I'm very interested about the VC and investor space.

What is the pulse right now of how VCs and funds like the ones that you are a principal of? How are you looking at investments? And is there money that is flowing? So VC space right now is very interesting. I would say there is definitely more money than good projects. And VCs are struggling to find the right founders to back them.

The issue is a lot of people who come into crypto space, they come without prior crypto experience and they live over these stories they read in media, especially about 17, 18, where you could come in, write a white paper and have an ICO and raise, you know, seven, eight figures overnight. Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore. The industry matured. And now these are banking products that have

experienced in this space have built something a track record a clear strategy of go-to-market how especially if they're doing a token project how they're going to sustain the token price after the listing and a lot of founders don't have this experience and then they come into space expecting for quick money quick bcr rounds because that was kind of the misconception we had and then get unfortunately uh sidelined because again it's not happening anymore so

Money is there. The founders are not. Number two, right now, a lot of founders, a lot of, sorry, VCs are looking into liquid strategies. That means rather than investing into early stage projects because the ROIs are not good, they're looking into liquid tokens. And that's top 50 largest coins like Solana, like

Ethereum and others, where they can easily go in and go out, stay with a coin for a couple of months up to a year, rather than locking in their money for a couple of years or more investing in a project. Do you think that there should be a mixture of

uh somebody who has had business success before mixed with someone who maybe understands crypto combining forces because i hear this a lot around what you were saying is people come they don't really have much success before maybe they're doing the same thing as everybody else or they're trying to do something that would have been you know maybe successful many years ago and there's just not enough

good projects, do you think there needs to be more marrying between co-founders or partners of different strengths, but maybe somebody who had at least some sort of business success in the past or maybe a successful exit in a non-crypto industry? Yes and no. Of course, any prior track record is always a plus. The only issue is Web2 works very different to Web3.

And building a successful product in Web2 takes very different skill sets and very different strategy compared to Web3. As a majority of Web3 investors, business models are tokens. They're raising not for equity, but for token. It means their whole strategy should be of sustaining the token price. And token price can be very roughly, and that's not exactly, but very roughly compared to stock price.

of the company. It's not the same, but kind of, we can, uh, build a parallel there. So if the founder has an experience of maintaining a stock price, yes, that's a very, very good, um, kind of added value. But the problem is majority of founders have successes in, let's say B2B businesses and building a B2B assessment. We see a lot of founders coming into crypto is very different to build a community driven business where it's all about B2C and the token price. Um,

Crypto businesses invest way more money into marketing, into creating hype, creating excitement because you need to sustain the token price. Also, it's about token utility. Where we see a big issue is that founders have tokens for the sake of having tokens because it can bring you more liquidity or capital when

rather than because there is an underlying need for a token. So when we do that kind of product for the sake of having it, of course, there's going to be no success and the token price is going to crash the moment you get listed. So the key thing is understanding how crypto narratives works, how crypto industry works and what it takes to sustain a token price. Whereas also what I always say when we talk to founders is understand

You don't usually need a token. 80% of crypto projects don't need a token. Just have a good business model with good revenue, optimize for profit, build the company, be happy.

Don't put in the token. But the problem is token is easy to fundraise. Token gives you liquidity. So this is this double-edged sword that a lot of founders choose to do. But in the end, that is why they fail. Pitch deck or no pitch deck? You always need to have a pitch deck. What is the perfect pitch for you? If you could think of the company, you don't have to say like a company name, but this could be a hypothetical. What's the perfect pitch? So one thing...

founders fail to understand is that we see are giving money not because it's charity we're not giving grants we're not philanthropic organization to fulfill your dreams we are business and

is here to make money and what does it mean means we need to provide our returns for either our lps or uh ourselves depending on the fund structure we invest our money so we need to basically give uh returns for ourselves and that means we're here to make money and founders need to

when they're pitching all around that. And again, VCs are not in the business to make 2X. They're not in the business to make 10% per year. That's 10, 15% per year you can get in the stock market. You know, when we were first growing our team, we needed help fast. We had big opportunities, but not enough hands to handle them.

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basically tell these venture capital firms they're raising or an angel or whatever they're raising from, how will he or she make those returns for the investor? How are you going to get those 10x? What is the proprietary knowledge you have access? What is your competitive edge? And I wrote a lot about it in my LinkedIn and then people come and approach me and pitch me and I'm like, so what's your competitive edge? We're faster.

We're better. We're cheaper. That's not a competitive edge. Being slightly cheaper than someone else is not a competitive edge. Competitive edge is something that's never done before. It gives you unique access to whatever audience you're asking. It's something very different to what is in the market. And founders forget that. And then they pitch you a project that is some kind of knockoff. We call it the fork from something else.

And we just don't see money here. And they're like, no, but we have a dream. We're going to figure out. We're going to pivot. No, you need to tell me how you're going to make 10x with my money. And if you have this mindset when you're pitching, when you're creating pitch, when you're reaching out to investors, how I'm going to make 10x for them, that's going to be the best pitch. And how you're going to make 10x is how you're going to launch a token.

How are you going to sustain the token price? How are you going to sell your product? How are you going to generate revenue? And it has to be very specific and exact. And if everything is around how you're going to bring money to investors, that's going to be a great pitch. Thank you for sharing that. I think everyone needs to know what is the perfect pitch. And if they've never heard it before, you need to hear it straight from the investor like yourself. So you've had great success.

You've made it to this executive position. You're also running the principal of the fund. How has personal brand and personal brand building on whether it's LinkedIn or other social media played into that? It's again, double edged sword. On one hand, I get incredible opportunities because of my personal brand. I'm very active on LinkedIn.

I educate a lot through LinkedIn for founders on how to pitch, how to prepare meeting investors because I want to get really good projects. But on the other hand, when you're on the buy side of the equation and people know you are there, if you go to a conference, everyone knows who you are. And on one hand, it's very nice to come in a conference and be like, oh, excuse me, are you Laura?

Like, yes, but then after a 10, 15 person comes and you want to be nice and kind to them and listen to them, give them advice, your social battery kind of gets drained. So on one hand, it's amazing for opportunities. On the other hand, in my particular venture capital position, it's a little bit hard because sometimes I like to be unknown and invisible. I could see it being exhausting.

You know, depending on so when you go to an event, are you someone who needs to go and then recharge back? Or are you someone who could just talk all day? Because some people love it. They could just go to an event five days. They still have energy where like my wife, for example, after, you know, 30 minutes of talking, she needs to go back and recharge and then she can go back to the event.

I love events. I can definitely spend quite some time there. Like people approaching me. But when everyone approaches you with the energy of take, because they want to take something, they want to take an advice, they want to take capital, it gets tiring. It's definitely get tiring. And now last week I was in a conference in Dubai. It was whole week. Had nine panels throughout the week in different side events. At the end of this week, I...

I was drained and people would approach me. And again, I want to be kind. I want to be nicer to everyone. But when you have no energy, I'm like, I'll give you my email. I'll give you my time. Just please send me things. I don't have the energy to like, it's not about you. It's me problem. So on one hand, personal buying is really good for you because you get a lot of opportunities, but it also comes at a cost.

It's like being a celebrity, I would think. I can tell you this. Before, when I would hear the stories of celebrities, like, oh my God, paparazzi. Oh my God, people approach me. I just want to have my meal. They're like, why are you complaining? You are like famous. You should be happy you wanted this. And now when I, in like very specific small niche, am known for very specific kind of function and people the same way approach me. I had this one conference where I literally had a

line of 15 people waiting to talk to me 15 people waiting each one of them talk to me I understand I genuinely understand it's nice first five times but the sixth time you're like damn I still have another nine people I need to be at the good energy nice kind appreciate you know what I mean it's like

I get when something already started. You only get it when you are in this position. I can see that. I know. It's hard not to judge people until you're in something. Exactly. Then you realize like how people feel. If somebody thinks of the same for you and you could be at these events that you, you know, they might be the hundredth person that you've talked to and you're already tired. How can they add value to your life before they ask you for something? So, you know, in my case, I don't mind them asking for something because again, I'm not

I need to look for good projects to invest in, but I would better say how to talk to VC. So every VC has some sort of thesis, how they invest. There are specific narratives, stages, types of companies they invest in. And there are usually these like 5-10 criterias that is black and white, yes or no. Is it in this narrative or not? Is the company the size or not? Are they raising a valuation? Are we comfortable investing in it or not? It's like 5-10.

So what you can do as a founder when you go to these events and you grab a VC, you tell them in five sentences who you are, why, when you're raising, what you're raising for, one sentence, what's the asset, what is the valuation, how much you're raising, who is on your cap table, because that's very important. And then,

any sexy statistics partners or anything you can brag about and that should be five maximum seven sentences very certain point let's say hey i'm jenna i have this podcast we have hundred thousand listeners every month uh we had these notable people coming to space we have let's say uh ellen musk coming in uh often we're looking for sponsorship is ten thousand uh dollars and

And in return, we'll sponsor you. We'll give you five minutes of our time straight away like this. So like it has to be very much straight to the point because then it saves your time and investors time. And then they can say, is it interesting or no? And then if it's not interesting, that's fine. You didn't waste 30 minutes because the big issue is founders come and then they start pitching you 30 minutes. They are telling you all the backstory, how they were the kids and they saw this need. And then they were like,

I know you have an amazing story. I have 20 people with an amazing story. I cannot go for every one of them. So if you could save your time and you need to probably talk to 20 investors and you don't have an energy talk with 20 investors at the same level, give me these five sentences. If it's a win for us,

Let's exchange details. Then we can set up a call. If it's not, well, you didn't waste your time and you didn't waste my time. Well, thank you, Laura, because one, you just gave me the perfect pitch. I'm going to use that, by the way. And then two, everyone needs to hear this. We do. You know, when we were first growing our team, we needed help fast. We had big opportunities, but not enough hands to handle them.

We wasted weeks on job boards that barely moved the needle. Looking back, I wish I had just used Indeed from day one because when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen. Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out.

and hire fast. Your post jumps to the top of the page for relevant candidates, so you connect with the right people faster. And it works. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs on Indeed gets 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. One of the things I love about Indeed is that it makes hiring so fast because there are no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, and you only pay for results. How fast is Indeed? Well,

Well, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 hires were made on Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash founders story. Just go to indeed.com slash founders story right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

Indeed.com slash founders story. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

I can totally think back to many conversations I've listened to of people going through their whole life story for 45 minutes. And we already know people have the attention span of just a few minutes on top of having to think about all these other people that you also have to listen to. So get to the point, make it. I'm going to break down this whole thing later. We'll put it in

in the notes. I think that was really good. So thank you for sharing that. But Laura, if people want to get in touch with you, maybe they can send you something so they're not exhausting you at an event or they can maybe plan something at an event to meet you, to talk to you about something so you're not exhausted at that time. But I'm sad I missed token, by the way. I heard it was epic. I think I might see you out in the Philippines, which I'm excited at Philippine Blockchain Week in 2025. But if you want to get in touch with you, how can they do so?

So we, first of all, we invest only in tokens, no equity. And we're mostly excited about stablecoins, DeFi, infrastructure, PayFi, interest in early stage valuations under 50 mil. And if you're building a project, reach out to me at laura.gate.io.

Laura at gay.io. Well, Laura, this has been great. I know we've been chatting back and forth for a while trying to set this up. So I'm glad we were able to make it happen today. And thank you for joining us on Founders Story. Thank you for having me here, Dale.