EP 203: [Interview] Bulls and Apes: A Guide to Web 3 with Anthony Mongiello

Anthony Mongiello is a professional with over 20 years of experience in the corporate world, specifically in the commercial property and casualty insurance industry, working for large organizations like Excel and AXA. He has experience in delivering strategy and transformation, working on mergers and acquisitions, and has spent a lot of time in the finance and technology sectors, focusing on disruptive technologies.

In our conversation, Anthony will share his insights on the benefits of Web3 for businesses and individuals, and he'll also talk about the Bulls and Apes Universe, NFTs, and an exciting venture opportunity for NFT holders. Get ready to learn about the future of human innovation and Web 3 with Anthony Mongiello.

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EP 203: [Interview] Bulls and Apes: A Guide to Web 3 with Anthony Mongiello 

Anthony Mongiello is a professional with over 20 years of experience in the corporate world, specifically in the commercial property and casualty insurance industry, working for large organizations like Excel and AXA. He has experience in delivering strategy and transformation, working on mergers and acquisitions, and has spent a lot of time in the finance and technology sectors, focusing on disruptive technologies.

Anthony was intrigued by the concept of web3 and the community aspect of it, and began volunteering his time on different projects, realizing the potential of the technology and community. 

However, he also recognized the shortcomings in the space, such as scams and rug pulls, and immature behavior from some players in the industry. Along with two other co-founders, Manny and Gee, Anthony decided to bring his experience to the table and start the Bulls and Apes project to add value and make a difference in the web3 space.

In our conversation, Anthony will share his insights on the benefits of Web3 for businesses and individuals, and he'll also talk about the Bulls and Apes Universe, NFTs, and an exciting venture opportunity for NFT holders. Get ready to learn about the future of human innovation and Web 3 with Anthony Mongiello.

In our conversation, Anthony will share his insights on the benefits of Web3 for businesses and individuals, and he'll also talk about the Bulls and Apes Universe, NFTs, and an exciting venture opportunity for NFT holders. Get ready to learn about the future of human innovation and Web 3 with Anthony Mongiello.

Guest Links: 

Anthony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonymongiello/

Anthony on Twitter: https://twitter.com/anthonymongiel3?s=20&t=CVXP5nBII-iJoLgolKOlYg

The Bulls & Apes Project: https://www.bullsandapesproject.com/

Discord Community: https://discord.com/invite/bullsandapesproject

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgJ24d9GJPJTtkZ8_ROPcAGive a review:

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

Anthony Mongiello

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Human Innovation Podcast, where I bring you the latest and greatest in human innovation.

[00:00:06] Today I have a special guest with me, Anthony Mongiello, co-founder and CEO of the Bulls and Apes project.

[00:00:15] Anthony is a seasoned corporate executive with experience at companies like AXA and GE, and he's dedicated to helping people understand and embrace the new worlds of Web 3. 

[00:00:27] In our conversation. Anthony will share his insights on the benefits of Web 3 for businesses and individuals. He will also talk about the bolts and apes universe, NFTs, and an exciting venture opportunity for NFT holders of the Bulls and Apes project.

[00:00:43] Get Ready to Learn more about the Future of Human Innovation Web 3 with Anthony Mongiello 

[00:00:50] Hello Anthony. Welcome to the show. 

[00:00:53] How are you doing? I'm doing excellent. Thanks for having me. I appreciate being here. 

[00:00:57] Yeah, great to have you. Looking forward to learn from you about Web 3, the Bulls and Apes projects and more. But before we go into that, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:09] Who are you and how did you get to where you are today? 

[00:01:13] Yeah, it's an interesting journey cause I've got a 20 plus year career in the corporate world. Pretty conservative industry. So commercial p and c insurance working for large organizations like Excel and AXA. Organizations that are global and big and in industry that's very conserv.

[00:01:30] So I did that delivering strategy and transformation, working on m and a. Spent a lot of time in the finance world, a lot of time in the tech world. So looking at disruptive technologies was always a piece of my areas of responsibility. But I never was an entrepreneur. However, when I heard about web three and heard about the technology behind Web three, I was really intrigued and I started just exploring a little bit more and a little bit.

[00:01:54] and then as I was exploring, I was connected to a number of different communities and the community aspect of Web three is really what was special and really started to draw me in and I started volunteering my time on nights and weekends helping different projects. What I saw through that is that, yeah, that technology has massive.

[00:02:13] And the community aspect has massive potential. It's a whole new way of operating a business, being able to tap into a community that is really engaged and dedicated to what you're trying to do. And so I, that was really pulling me in and I was like, I gotta get, I gotta get more involved. But with that, there's also some shortcomings in the space, and I'm sure that you and a lot of the listeners have heard about scams and rug poles and Yeah.

[00:02:37] 20 year old kids that are working outta their mom's basement. And. Just building stuff and then walking away and just being immature about the way that they're approaching business. But there's a lot of good players here too. And so myself and the other two co-founders, Manny and Gee, the three of us got together and we said, Hey, you know what?

[00:02:55] Can we bring our experience to the table here? Can we add value? Can we make a difference? And we thought that we could. And so we jumped in and started the Bulls and Apes project. 

[00:03:05] Awesome. Before we go into the Bulls and Abes project, let's talk a bit Fundamentals Web 3. What is Web 3 for the listeners who have never heard about it?

[00:03:16] Yes, so Web 3, it's really important to to understand that the core technology behind Web 3. is blockchain, and I know that we hear a lot about blockchain in the news, in writeups. But very fundamentally, it's a ledger. It's all it is. It shows that here's an asset, here's who owns it, and here's what the transaction was.

[00:03:39] Just think about it very simply, and I know that for those that really know blockchain, they're like, wait a second. There's more to it than that. I get it. But fundamentally, it's a ledger and it keeps track of all of those transactions. So who bought this asset? Who owns this asset? Now? What was the history of all of those transactions?

[00:03:56] And what's special about blockchain is that it is public and it is decentralized. And so what that means is that anybody can see all those records. , if you just get access to the blockchain, you see all the records, you know who owns what, and then it is decentralized, which means that you don't have to go through a central bank.

[00:04:15] You don't have to go through an intermediary to make a transaction. So it now allows for peer-to-peer transactions. In my mind, it's like digital cash. When you go to the flea market or you go to a shop and you're paying cash, there's no record of it. It's from one person to. And blockchain similar is where it allows you to have that peer-to-peer without having to go through a PayPal or a credit card company or a bank in order to make the transaction.

[00:04:41] Yeah. 

[00:04:42] How does that relate to cryptocurrencies? Just that we get that into the description as well. 

[00:04:48] A cryptocurrency is one of those assets that is tracked on the blockchain. So when I say that there's there's those assets, the asset is really just a long digit or alphanumeric string.

[00:05:02] And the cryptocurrency is what is attached to that number. And so the blockchain keeps track of all of those transactions that are occurring. 

[00:05:10] Yeah, For those who have never heard about these topics, your projects and what you're doing with your company is not a cryptocurrency.

[00:05:18] It's something completely different. 

[00:05:20] That's right. So we're based on a portion of web three technology called a non fungible token, an N F T. And so we are based on NFTs and that's the portion of the web three space that we're operat. 

[00:05:32] Yeah, and I'm saying that because I have a lot of friends that come more from the corporate world and they haven't really been digging into web 3 and there's, but there's all cryptocurrency.

[00:05:43] That's all not working. It's that Bitcoin is down and I'm not looking into this and that's why I wanted to bring that up because for me there's the foundational understanding of the blockchain, which is the same. Behind Bitcoin and and other cryptocurrencies. But what you do is something different.

[00:06:04] And then the non fungible token, the N F T, is a part of that, which makes it even more important for the future. Let's go a little bit deeper into the community aspect and what does it mean from a web three perspective. . 

[00:06:20] Yeah. So I look at it as one, one of these things like Instagram, when Instagram came out.

[00:06:26] So when Instagram came out you didn't have to go to Instagram to, to share photos. There were things before it Snapfhish Amazon photos. There's other ways that you can share your photos. But when Instagram came out, it happened to be that place that everybody was coming together on and were sharing photos and commenting and sharing information with family and friends.

[00:06:46] It just happened to be that space, that platform that people were coming together and it just snowballed from there with Web 3 Right now. I'm seeing it as that place where people are coming together to collaborate and to coming together with creativity. And to think through what are some of the solutions that we can use this blockchain technology for more so than crypto.

[00:07:06] I think in the crypto space, and this is the differentiator to me between NFTs and crypto in the crypto space there's a lot more around around speculation on where's the coins gonna and in my view, NFTs, there's a lot more of that community aspect of collaboration and creativity, and that's what's special about what's happening in the N F T space right now.

[00:07:24] And we see it within the Bulls and Apes project as well. There's a lot of strategy and creativity and collaboration within our community and people helping each other. They're coming up with ideas. They're very entrepreneurial about where can we take this technology, how can we come together to add.

[00:07:38] And that's that's a special, it's a special moment in time. And that's why I had to jump in. 

[00:07:43] Yeah. And for those listeners who have not heard about NFTs and or Web three, we did an episode, I think that was almost one and a half or two years ago where we talked about this. Josh and I.

[00:07:58] and I think it's very important to understand it's still early when it comes to this technology and the use of the community, the use of NFT. What is your perspective into the future when it comes to this space? Where is it right now in the timeframe, but as well, how do you see it maturing over time?

[00:08:17] Yeah, so the N F T is just a technology it's like a website and when when webpages first came you saw them, they were pretty basic, right? It was, yeah. Having some information or maybe sharing some information about yourself. It was very much a one, one page, and it was very much like a newspaper or a magazine article.

[00:08:36] And now we know that websites are different depending on the business use, depending on what the business is, depending on the personal use.

[00:08:42] There are so many different use cases for what a website was. But when they first came out, people were like, what am I, what do I need a website?

[00:08:48] I don't need a website. And that's what we're seeing right now with NFTs. There will be a point in time when we're not calling 'em NFTs anymore. , it'll just be whatever the function is. Is it a loyalty card? Is it a deed to a house? There it, there will be so many different use cases for why you would use use it, why you would leverage an N F T as a business or as a person.

[00:09:08] And I firmly believe that we're not really, the average person isn't gonna call 'em an NFT or know that they're even trading an NFT. 

[00:09:15] Agree.

[00:09:15] Tell us about the Bulls & Apes project and the universe around it as well. 

[00:09:21] We looked at our backgrounds and I have the corporate background and Manny Gia, both serial entrepreneurs very successful in their entrepreneurial career.

[00:09:28] And they've been longtime partners and so they brought me in. So I'm the third wheel. And but I've got that corporate background. So we looked at the three of us. And we're also looking at this space and who's coming into the space. This entrepreneurial-minded person, this person who wants more, who's coming in cuz they wanna be part of something special.

[00:09:44] So we came up with the two characters, the bull and the ape. And we decided to use those two because of what they meant. The bull strong charging forward bull market. Ape, aping in with reckless and banding aping into in investments. And so we really loved what those characters brought together.

[00:10:01] And so for us it was always about being financially themed, about building wealth, about retaining wealth, and putting together a community that was based on that. Now we have a lot of fun with it too. So there's, in my mind, there's always two sides to the bulls and apes coin. There's the N F T side, and then there's the community side on the NFT side.

[00:10:21] We've got the bull character. There's over 500 traits. And so we've got these 10,000 bulls with all these different clothes and it's all walks of life. So we wanted things that people can relate to in the collection, cuz the NF t does serve as a bit of a digital identity, people identify in the NFTs.

[00:10:37] And so we wanted to make it relatable. We have a whole lore. That goes along and tells you the story of why the bulls are the bulls, where did they come from and that story helps bring to life everything that we do in our project. On the other side of the coin is a community aspect, and we've got a very entrepreneurial community.

[00:10:54] We've got a community that's very smart on the financial side. And one of the things that we offer to the community is VC deal flow. So we have deep connections in the venture capital. . And so we're offering curated deal flow opportunities to our community. And two of them we were allowed to announce one was Open See, which is a secondary marketplace in the N F T space.

[00:11:17] So that one is web three focused. Most of our other deals were not Web three focused. One of them was SpaceX. So our community was able to invest in SpaceX and own a piece of SpaceX, which is a pretty, pretty exciting opportunity to be able to say, Hey, I own a piece of SpaceX. 

[00:11:33] That's amazing. Tell me more about how does that functionally work?

[00:11:39] So there are these bulls and Abes, there are NFTs, let's say in a very simple word, like pictures for people who have never seen a lot is it's a picture of a bull. Yep. 

[00:11:53] How do you get from a picture of a bull to participate in a deal flow and be part of a deal and get pieces of big companies. How does that work?

[00:12:06] Yeah, so that's the beauty of the blockchain is that what we're able to do is you buy the N F T and yeah, it's a digital picture, but it's also that alpha numeric number on the blockchain. And that alpha numeric number is attached to your number, your id, your digital wallet. So your digital wallet has a number on there as well.

[00:12:25] So what we're able to do is on our website and in our community, which is largely in this platform called Discord, we are able to check to make sure that you own one of those bulls. So now that acts as a membership card. So if you own a bull, we check it, we say, yep, you're allowed in. And so it's a gated community that we are only bull holders are allowed to join.

[00:12:46] And it's in that gated community that we offer up the deal flow. We have the interactions between other community members, people helping each other. So it's a very protected environment because only people that own the bulls can come into that environment. No different than a country club or a tennis club, very similar.

[00:13:05] So how does it work from a customer perspective or a bull owner perspective? Where can they buy a bull for those who have never heard about it? 

[00:13:14] So we sold out May 31st. We had 10,000 bulls. We sold 'em out in about 67 hours. And now since then, you can buy and sell them on secondary marketplaces, like Open Sea.

[00:13:25] There's another one called looks rare. There's X two, Y two. And so all these secondary marketplaces, you can purchase them from another bull holder. 

[00:13:33] Yeah, so it is. People have bought this entrance tickets to the community and they're now community members who say, yeah, I want to sell my ticket and correct someone else can buy it.

[00:13:44] Right? 

[00:13:45] That's right. And we've seen it. It's gone up in value four x since, since we, we launched May 31st. So people have seen the value that we bring. And so now, imagine when you are a member at a country club, you're on a wait list, right? And you gotta go through an interview process and they let you in.

[00:14:01] But then when you're done like, ah, you know what? I'm retired. I don't wanna do it anymore. I'm moving away. You just walk away and you give up your spot. In this scenario, as that country club, as our community grows, that spot is worth more and it's worth more. So now our community is really, has a vested interest in making sure this is as meaningful.

[00:14:23] a community as possible. So they're growing with you. One of our sayings is we we build together, we grow together and that's what we do with what a lot of our community members, some community members are just very passive, but there are others who are very engaged in, helping and offering other benefits to the community.

[00:14:39] Yeah. How does it, what if we use the comparison of the country club do in a country club, you are getting selected to be in, how does it work in the Bulls & Apes project? 

[00:14:52] So you own a bull you're in. Okay. So there's no selection process. Now there are some sub communities within the community.

[00:15:00] where some community members have come together and maybe they do a little bit more of a selection process as possible, like in, in one of these sub communities. But in the community overall, you own a bull, you're in, it's, there's no selection process. And in a lot of times, one of the pieces of web 3 that's there is anonymity.

[00:15:17] There are people that, you know their screen name, but I've never, I've never met them. I've never talked to them. There are other community members I've done, face-to-face video calls with and it's very open. I know who they are, I know their names. We've done in real life events.

[00:15:29] We had an in real life event in Texas where eight community members came in and we drove Lamborghinis and Ferrari and we had this really insane 48 hours of fun just doing different events. 

[00:15:41] Yeah. So if we take all of this, 

[00:15:45] what is the long-term perspective and what do you want to achieve with the Bulls & Apes project?

[00:15:51] So our vision for our company is to create a world of infinite opportunities, and our mission is to empower communities where they can build their own worlds, where they can live their best life. And those sound big. And I know I'm the corporate guy, so it's just all corporate bs. But we mean it and we're doing it.

[00:16:08] We're actually doing it step by step. We have a couple of initiatives that were really groundbreaking for the industry. I mentioned that blockchain is public and I can see who owns one of our tokens, so I could offer them rewards. One of the things that we've done, which is, industry breaking is we're looking at who owns NFTs of other people's projects, looking on the blockchain because it's open, it's permissionless, there's no gatekeepers, no intermediaries, and re rewarding them for holding other peoples

[00:16:39] NFTs. So we started doing that. We're one of the first projects to do it, and at the scale that we're doing it and that's to bring community together. It's to empower communities to, create their own world however they see fit. We're also looking at metaverse as a a long term play.

[00:16:52] And we want to build a metaverse where people can build little worlds within it, where they could live their best life. And so we, we see on the N F T side, we see all of this coming to fluition. We're launching the Apes right now. We had a big presale event last night. We sold 5,000 passes to get an ape in 40 minutes.

[00:17:13] 5,000 of 'em in 40 minutes. But about $275 US each. And so it was a pretty massive event. The lot of energy around it. We're doing another official sale event February 7th. These are gonna be dynamic. Pictures where you're gonna be able to have loot boxes and get different traits, and then you could equip your ape the way you want.

[00:17:35] And so there'll be 5,000 male, 5,000 female. We really want people to look at that ape and say, Hey, you know what? I'm proud of this ape. It reflects me, I got to choose it. It wasn't just randomly selected for me. And so that's gonna be a fun aspect, but that plays into the metaverse where, we believe that in the future people are gonna be looking at the metaverse where they have a digital identity, they have a digital social life and they're gonna be able to interact.

[00:17:59] That's one aspect I mentioned, the lore. The lore is really important because we've got about a little more than an hour of narrated video. And so it's storyboard art narrated video. And I've gotta say the people that have seen the lore, it's multi-generational, the appeal. Kids love it.

[00:18:17] Adults love it. It's really immersive. It pulls you in. And so I think that there is a ton of opportunity for us to look at expanding the IP and growing the brand from that perspective. 

[00:18:30] And that's again, a value for the person that has this entrance ticket, which is the N F T, because as further your business and the ecosystem grows as more worth is the N F T I guess 

[00:18:45] it is.

[00:18:45] And the other aspect to so going back to my, put my corporate hat back on, in, in the corporate world, your customer is at arm's length in a lot of cases, maybe you do some focus groups, maybe you get some information or you've got some surveys. 

[00:18:56] Now imagine you have a community like we have right now. We have a community that is dedicated to us. They're involved. I'm talking to them on a daily basis. They're giving us feedback and we don't listen to it all. But some of it's some good ideas and we reflect it in our product. Can you imagine in a corporate world, if you can look at this NFT

[00:19:13] model, build a community around your brand. And now you've got this dedicated community that is providing you feedback, but they're also massive brand ambassadors for you as well. And so the way I'm looking at it is to build at the web 3 way is we're building this community now, this community that is really engaged so that when we do go to build the ip, now we have ambassadors that are already really into it and so now you've got that core and then you're just gonna build around that core as you go. That's how I see brand building and IP building with a web 3 perspective. 

[00:19:46] It's interesting because coming from corporate myself, brand is the most important thing if you look into a long-term perspective, if you're not into the get rich quick thing.

[00:20:00] You built a brand and when you built a brand, you're going to be successful on the long run. 

[00:20:06] Absolutely. 

[00:20:07] And what is interesting for me as an entrepreneur and corporate thinker, the same way I would just buy into it just from that aspect. Let's say I might not be interested in VC deal flows

[00:20:22] but this aspect is if you purely look into an investment opportunity, that's a good investment. If you see there is a brand that's going to grow, but as well, if you look into it from a community aspect, there's another benefit from meeting other people that are bond together with the same perspective of growing something, which in my eyes, there's always something magic happening.

[00:20:47] There is, and what we're seeing now too is that some of our traits people have coalesced around. We have one where it's an alpha shirt and we have this alpha community. They all own a bowl that has the alpha shirt on and we're seeing it show up. One of our top community members has a gym in Australia.

[00:21:04] And you see the alpha in his gym. Like he's branding, he's using the branding. And and by owning the bull, you have full commercial rights to the art. So he's allowed to use it and it's it's part of, it's part of his business. And so you start to see some of that happen, which is really exciting to see.

[00:21:19] And I'm just waiting for the time when, we've got our core lore and similar to Star Wars where you had all of the fan fiction. Yeah. That spun off. I'm really curious to see who's gonna be the first community member that takes their character and brings them to life in their own story.

[00:21:33] That comes off of our core lore. 

[00:21:35] Yeah. That's cool. I'm now listening to this podcast episode as a follower of this podcast. Why is this interesting for me? . 

[00:21:44] It may or may not be, but if you peaked your curiosity with it and you're looking at it and saying, wow I saw web one, I saw webpages happen and I saw the internet, or maybe I missed out on it, or maybe I didn't.

[00:21:55] Maybe I saw web two when social started picking up and cloud computing started picking up. And maybe I took advantage or maybe I didn't. This is web 3 and it is starting to pick up and just like people doubted, why would anybody shop on a website? Why would anybody want a website?

[00:22:12] Why would anybody wanna share information on a social platform? That's so dumb. Just pick up the phone and talk to your family. Everybody's doing it. They're saying the same thing now. They say, why would I want a picture of a monkey? Why would I want a picture of an of a bull?

[00:22:24] Everybody's gonna be doing it. So either you're gonna get in now and try to see how can this impact my company? How can this impact what I do? How can I look at this technology and think creatively around it? Now remember with Web one and I was involved in the corporate world, them, it took us three massive iterations, massive spends to be able to get a website and the same's gonna happen for those that don't learn now with web 3, you're gonna try to catch up five years from now and you're gonna fail hard cuz you're gonna be catching up with a bunch of money. Then you're gonna fail again. Then you're finally going to, you're finally gonna get it right?

[00:23:01] But if you start now and you start experimenting and you start testing, you're gonna go through all of that learning iteration. You're gonna see where people like, like us, you're gonna see us innovating and learning, and you're gonna learn from that. And so that's gonna put you in a better spot.

[00:23:16] Purely from, a strategic perspective, getting in early allows you to see the iterations and learn through as the innovators are learning. 

[00:23:26] Yeah. I love that. Specifically as an innovator myself, you learn from the mistakes of the others while you just watch it so it's not on your own risk.

[00:23:38] It's an opportunity. I agree. 

[00:23:39] It is. And then you buy a couple of NFTs, it's tuition. So you know, you get a and you get a, you get get a And don't just, I'd love for you to buy a bull , but don't just buy a bull, buy a few, see what works, what doesn't work. Get involved in a few different communities.

[00:23:56] And if you look at if you get a few, 200, 300 for, so for a couple thousand dollars, you can get into a few different communities. And that's just, it's just, it's no different than buying a course. No different than going to a conference. We spend $2,000 on a course, we spend $2,000 on a conference. Think about it that way. It's an education process. 

[00:24:13] How can people get one of these apes or one of these bulls you mentioned you're launching something in February. How does that work? . 

[00:24:21] Yes. Number one, bullsandapes.com. We have a very in-depth website, ton of information there.

[00:24:27] We go through a lot of what we've accomplished over the past eight, nine months. We have our lore there. We have all of the gamification aspects. So you're able to see all of that. But you're also able to see the full collection of bulls. And so we have bulls, we have teen bulls, and we have god bulls.

[00:24:41] And so there's three different bull characters within. And so you get to. Search around and through that by searching around, there's a link to Open Sea, which is the secondary marketplace. But it's the top one. And so you'll be able to look to see what's for sale, click on it, go there, and you can make it purchase.

[00:24:57] That's for the bulls. For the Apes, we are gonna be launching the Apes February 7th, and we have an allow list process so on our website, you'll see instructions on how to join the allow list. You enter your email, you enter some information, and then we'll put you on a list where hopefully you'll have a decent opportunity to go and purchase an Ape..

[00:25:18] And that'll be a first time launch on February 7th. 

[00:25:21] So how many apes will there be. 

[00:25:24] There'll be 10,000 aeps. So 5,000 male, 5,000 female. 

[00:25:27] So that's quite a lot.

[00:25:29] It is. We sold 5,000 last night in 40 minutes. So 

[00:25:32] Yeah, I was about to say, because I have followed a couple of other web 3 projects, it can get fairly quickly fast sold out.

[00:25:41] If you're excited about an ape, your best chance of getting high up on the allow list is by owning a bull. So we're gonna reward bull holders with early access. So that'll be your best chance at getting an ape. 

[00:25:55] So for those who are listening, buy first a bull and then , get on the list

[00:26:03] Awesome. Let's transition a little bit on your personal engagement and your story. So how was it for your personally going from the corporate into entrepreneurship. Doing that yourself, what was the most difficult thing for you in the last years? 

[00:26:23] I've never worked in a startup before. And so it's still, it still is a startup.

[00:26:26] We have about 40, 45 people on a team. But we're very much in, in startup mode at the moment. We're starting to get a little bit more structured and organized, and I come from these big organizations where, it's Six Sigma and it's process and it's all that fun stuff. And very tight close schedules and financial close and quarterly reports and all of that, right?

[00:26:45] And so the startup aspect has been the most challenging for me personally. I'm the CEO and so you're wearing a bunch of hats. You're jumping in into things that you have no idea on my background. Commercial p and c, as I'm sure your audience knows you, you work through brokers, so you're not even talking to, you're not even talking to the end customer.

[00:27:03] And sales, marketing, . I have none of that. I have none of that. And so becoming a salesperson coming on podcasts and doing Twitter spaces and talking to community and trying to get people to buy is all new to me. But that, that's been the biggest challenge. The other one is balance, right?

[00:27:19] It's very hard to have balance when you're doing a startup, and so my wife calls it bulls and apes with breaks , and that's been our life. Our life has been bulls and apes with some breaks in between. 

[00:27:32] At least I can say it for myself. It's 24 7. Yeah. Most of the time at least you try to have Christmas in between or this kind of things,

[00:27:42] Exactly. 

[00:27:44] No. Awesome. Let's go to the last part of the podcast where I ask a couple of questions that I ask every guest. If you could work with a project that is impacting every human being on earth, what project would you work with and why?

[00:28:00] Project that's impacting every single human being on Earth. So I believe that I am working on a project that at some point will impact a lot of people working in this blockchain technology. We, when I say create a world of infinite opportunities, that's our vision. What I mean by that is that there are so many people that are limited by gatekeepers and intermediaries.

[00:28:25] There's so many people that are limited. By the opportunities that are in their proximity. I believe that with blockchain technology and the decentralized aspect that I had mentioned before, being able to reward people without having to ask permission and to go through an intermediary, I do believe that this is creating a world of infinite opportunity and we're playing a role.

[00:28:47] So this is the project that, that I wanna work on. Outside of that, I would say you can't knock SpaceX, what SpaceX is, I they're literally trying to find a new home in case this planet is no longer a good home for us. That's pretty freaking amazing too. Yeah, it is 

[00:29:04] What advice would you give to a young innovator that's just getting started? 

[00:29:10] Get started. Take the step. I've always had an entrepreneurial bone in my body. I, it's always been there, but I never took a strong enough step. I worked hard behind the scenes, after work and nights and weekend.

[00:29:24] But I never really took the step, and got out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone was coding, and it was working in the background, and it wasn't sales. And now finally, at 44 years old, I took that step and I put myself into that sales mode, which I'm not comfortable with. 

[00:29:40] So to a young person starting out, a young innovator, a young person who wants to be an entrepreneur, man, challenger, challenger, comfort zone as quickly as possible, challenge it.

[00:29:51] I agree. I also say I should have done it in the twenties. . Yeah. Where you don't have the family burden and that's need, to be somewhere and you can just live in a house with or in a small apartment with five of your buddies and eat chips or whatever. 

[00:30:07] That's right. 

[00:30:10] Good. So where can people find you and how can people reach out to you?

[00:30:14] Bullsandapes.com is the best place to reach out for the company onto bullsandapes.com. There's a link to my LinkedIn profile. I'm very open. I respond to dms. You can find me personally on Twitter, you could find me on LinkedIn. Even on LinkedIn I've got Calendly and I have 30 minute sessions that I put on a weekly basis and it's open for people to ask questions.

[00:30:34] It's open for people just to have a chat. So you could find my Calendly on on LinkedIn. 

[00:30:39] Yeah, we'll put that as well into the show note. Anthony, thank you very much for your time. It was a pleasure having you on the show and I'm looking. Forward to the February . Excellent. 

[00:30:52] Thanks. And the Abes.

[00:30:54] Thanks so much. Thanks a lot. Thank you.