BBW24 – Day 1 – Angel Investing in the Blockchain with Chain Reaction

I am John Hargrave and I'm joined by the esteemed members of the blockchain web 3 crypto Angel Investing group chain reaction and I wanted to start off Eliza as a co-founder of this group tell us the origin story yes well first I want to just give a shout out to a few other Chain Reaction members who are in the audience I see will I see aen p Steve yes Steve hang on and Sean is somewhere in here and Meg anyone else that I'm forgetting Meg's over there m it's hard to see from up here can you guys raise your hands just so people see the other members of the group if you're interested in uh joining us or pitching to us those are other members cost those people after um so the origin of chain reaction so about 5 years ago I was working with a client from China who was looking for Investments um I was working with him on investments in edtech VTech um mostly and really wanted to get into blockchain and I knew nothing about blockchain at the time um and I said I'll find someone who can work with you on this and he said no no no it's early for everybody go learn about it and find me some other people who want to work in this space so um I started going around to different uh communities at the local universities attending pitch events um and we found you know five people who were kind of interested in blockchain we got together um then we started launching a Meetup where we invited all the different stakeholders educators investors students startups random people from the subway who saw the sign and decided to come and we created a wonderful community of about 100 plus people each month who came to talk and learn about blockchain um I accosted John on a stage at a conference once so then we found out about BBA um and our group grew really organically until we had enough investors who were in the group that we could actually have a separate Chain Reaction investor group that could really complement this larger monthly Meetup um so we ended up having the Meetup as an educational Forum a chance to have local startups give pitches um and the ones that we're most interested in we funnel them over to the angel investment side um and before the pandemic we just looked at companies in Boston and after the pandemic um we pivoted to being uh on zoom and it was wonderful in some ways because we expanded our membership to other states and cities but we also expanded the startups that we considered and we started talking to people you know in different parts of the United States in other countries um so that was a real pivot um since we have uh been around for about 5 years we're kind of in a new stage now um where we have um members are leading the group um we're doing a lot of uh work around bringing in new members around bringing in startups and members are really leaders in that so we've kind of shifted from this very early model of a handful of people um to a larger group of investors who are really taking the lead yeah it's great uh show of hands is anyone here looking for fund or maybe a startup or founder who might be yeah that's great so uh Ken maybe you could talk a little bit about the process by which we uh evaluate Investments sure John um the process is actually pretty straightforward uh go to our website Chain Reaction boston.com click on the startup Tab and you can fill out an application and we have monthly meetings and what we do is we have two or three members of our group review all the applications um this this past month we I think we had 17 17 applications we pick two or three uh to present at our monthly meeting um it's a short presentation it's 5 to 7 Minutes followed by Q&A the members will caucus a little bit afterwards and see if there's interest in going forward um and if there's interest in going forward with that particular company what we do is we set up a follow-up call go over to do a little light due diligence and if we decide that um we want to bring it either to uh it's not a fit for us or bring it to our group for a full pitch which can go two two and a half hours and then we pride oursel on trying to make a decision very quickly and sometimes there are companies that not quite there yet um we really uh I think Chris is going to talk a little bit about you know what we like to see in a company but sometimes we'll put you on our watch list you our watch list we keep track of it um we've had a number of companies recently we actually went through the whole watch list invited a few companies to come back because they've got traction and they've moved on all our investments are direct Investments made by the individuals in the group so there's a quick pitch if you make it through that you go to a more in-depth and if you go make it through that you go through a full pitch and then we make a decision for that right exactly right and occasionally um we may be working with a lead investor uh maybe venture capital and maybe they need to fill out around we may play a role in that um you know cuz I mean you know Angel Investing is really kind of an important thing because it's that bridge you know between that uh friends and family type of money in the VC and maybe give you a little more maybe you need a little more money to get to that next level yeah Chris uh maybe you can talk a little bit about what we look for in terms of qualitative or quantitative criteria for investing sure so you know we're we're Angel Investing so we're not a series a we're not looking at a series B we're looking at pre seed and Seed round companies companies that are just getting started we do like to see like him said a little bit of traction um but we want to hear about you know what your ideas are what your vision is and what your plan is to get to that Vision um we uh we are you know we're in the blockchain space but we care about not just blockchain and cryptocurrencies but even distributed Ledger technology that you might be using uh we're not focused on any particular industry we like to hear uh pitches from all sorts of Industries whether it's Healthcare or you're in rwa uh we've heard obviously a lot of nft pitches going back a few years ago less so now um but we're looking to be there early and we're looking to be there for the long term I think a lot of maybe VCS who are in a series a and series B they're thinking three five years out at at an early stage investment like us we're we're look we're there to plan for the future we want to be there to also help and mentor and also open doors for you so don't be ever afraid to ask what other connections we can make um like kened mentioned you know sometimes you need help filling out around and maybe we can't fill it out all ourselves uh we're happy to make introductions to other VCS and bring in other investors that might uh be useful especially once we know your industry in space um let me open this to the group how do we Source deals where do we find our pipeline of uh of great projects well you know it's a variety of sources um some of them come from the members themselves um Chris recently uh attended a few conferences we've got some applications from that um but you know frankly um places like cubic Labs cubic Labs is you know sponsoring this today but they also nurture a lot of potential platforms here so we deal with all sorts of accelerators of uh Frontier Bitcoin Frontier fund um hyper Nest uh outlayer Ventures they all You' be surprised how many I've I probably in the last month or two probably heard maybe 50 60 short pitches and you know if something is interest I might call them up or reach out to them through telegram or X or whatever it is and encourage them to apply a chain reaction so they really they come from a lot of different places and we do follow on rounds too we've done a couple of follow on rounds so yeah I think you know Del lead on what Ken said accelerators are really important because they help groups prepare and to pitch uh not just Angels but but VCS um for Angel Investments for you're looking for Angel Investments for me there's just no other uh replacement for attending events like this and meeting people one-on-one and getting to know a little bit about them I find that very helpful so that I can help kind of evaluate who's on the other side of the deal and then when I bring it to the group I can speak a little bit having some knowledge um I attended consensus uh back in March that was I think a Big Boon I think we got I don't even know maybe 10 or more applications out of that um and uh you know I also attend a lot of uh you mentioned BBA which is by by the way blosson ban Association um they have a lot of events almost at least one a month great to attend so if you're looking to either find an angel investor or uh join an angel investor in group I think um it can be a lot harder than try trying to find a VC I mean you can go online and Google search VCS pretty easily and find those in the crypto industry it's a lot harder to find the angel investors so there's to me there's just no replacement to getting out there and meeting people at conferences like this y I'll just add two other ways um a lot of us are members of other Angel groups in Boston that don't uh traditionally do blockchain deals um they do a lot of Life Sciences or biotech so a lot of those Angel groups will get blockchain deals that come onto their uh platform and they send them our way and then we do a lot of work with universities um a lot of blockchain classes including Ken has you know teaches a blockchain class at Subic um where a lot of students and grad students come out of those classes with really great ideas nor Eastern is another one Babson um so we get a lot of application from those students who may be a little bit early on their Journey for us but we hope to give them good feedback and sometimes Mentor them and invite them back um at a later time Ken's blockchain class by the way is one of the best in the nation woo um let me ask hey Chris we were talking earlier about this whole idea of uh tokens versus Equity yeah and maybe you can say a few words about the difference between tokens and equity and how we think about it as investors here yeah I think that's a great question I I'm going to say right off the top is that every investor is going to look at those two things a little bit differently I think you know more traditionally you're looking for Equity especially as an angel investor you want to get in early on an early round and get that Equity now with you know investing in crypto companies and blockchain companies there's the additional addition the addition of a to what's called a token warrant which is usually a percentage of the tokens that's put aside for early investors um you know when I evaluate uh an investment I like to evaluate it as a whole and I like to include both the equity and the token warrant I'm not necessarily looking for just Investments that include a token warrant I know there but are other investors who are were like that's it if there's no token warant I'm not interested because they see that as the way probably to make their money back quickly or make a profit very quickly um and most likely those not just disparage them at all but most likely they're probably going to be as soon as they hit that period usually some sort of lockup period 6 months 18 months they might be what you know dumping so to speak those tokens um I think it's great to have a token warrant I think if I am going to invest in a company that is going to have a token whether they're building their own L1 or launching it on another blockchain like a salana or erc20 token um that's that's nice but it's also really hard to quantitatively understand what that might be valued at in the future um so um it's good if if if there's a company that is building a token I I kind of almost at this point expect some sort of token warrant because they'll have some sort of tokenomics that says early investors or the VC investors get about this much i' actually don't like to see it if it's a big piece piece if it's a big piece of the tokenomics that concerns me because I know I'm probably not going to be the only investor and that it's going to be a community of investors especially with chain reaction we almost always invest as a community um that could be problematic for the token going forward I also don't know how it's going to be priced and there's a lot of work that goes into getting on those exchanges to me even make it so that I could actually buy or sell that token um for me I like to focus in on the equity because I could understand what that value would be as the company grows and I see the token warrant as really nice to have sometimes expected depending on what your business is but it doesn't scare me or sh I don't shy away if there's no token warrant or if there's only a token warrant um I like to evaluate the investment as a whole you know with Equity it's a much more straightforward easily understood model where you know how much of the company that you're legally owning by investing in it and the token is such a new and weird thing and everybody's token deals are totally different but you just had a great point that you want to look at the percentage of tokens that are being offered give us some guidelines on what you look for like what's the low and what's the high amount that seem reasonable as an angel investor yeah I mean that's a that's a really good question it really depends on the tokenomics and and that I'd like to see a percentage that's reasonable such that the the the investors don't control a majority share right that you know you you hope that the tokenomics work that if you're trying to build a community that most of the tokens are going to be there for the community if there's going to be some sort of mining program or if it's a say if it's a dpin project where you're going to be rewarding node uh operators that the majority of the token is allocated to that project because that serves the business right that serves the business versus enriching the investors and the founders you know if the majority of the token goes to them there's always a concern that there's not going to be enough for the community that it won't gain traction on exchanges and there there's always the possibility of someone dumping on you which I think as we all know in this space is a real possibility so I'm not sure if I answered your question it's hard to come up with a percentage but you got to look at the overall hole and understand how the allocations are made if I saw something that had a 68% allocation to the founders I would probably say that's you know not for me I suspect there's some question around this topic out here so maybe we can take some audience questions now but it seems to me that uh you what you're saying is the token is solving the cold start problem of building up a network because all blockchains are based on Networks you're trying to reward the tokens to early users to get that Network going so you don't want to see it all going to the founders and the investors if it's 51% or higher going to Founders and investors you're saying that's too much most of it should go to the community for building out this sort of network effect to help the product be successful right yeah so you want to see it small yeah I think the network effect is really important when you consider token ons yeah that's great do we have a question John could I just add something to speak to equity yeah uh versus tokens so uh taxes are a way of life right and you're hoping that the investment you make is going to make you a lot of money but it's how much you keep one of the advantages of doing an equity deal if it's a price round and you own the stock in one of these startup companies is the 1202 program so if you hold um stock in a particular company that qualifies after 5 years if it's if there's a capital gain there's no tax on it so the I don't think tokens would qualify for that it hasn't been tested by law but if you own stock on a company so that's one advantage to doing an equity deal yeah you're going to pay gains when as soon as you sell that token regardless yeah and then Eliza you were saying that a lot of more traditional investors don't want anything to do with tokens at this point right yeah so some of the other Angel groups that I've been involved with um one of the reluctance uh you know reasons for the reluctance about investing in blockchain is um not understanding the tokens not really trusting them not trusting blockchain anyway it's a really different way um of investing when you're looking at tokens or when you know they had the Ico craze um so having Equity deals seems like a more comfortable entry point for investors who may not have done a blockchain deal before so might be a new area for them but if some of the um structures are the same that's like a more comfortable way to enter the space uh Chris and I are looking at a deal right now where the valuation of the equity is really high we felt too high but there's also a token warrant that goes along with it that we think a lot of their early investors are looking at that token as possibility possible uh way of getting some of the liquidity out of course your tokens got to be able to be sold as well right so you got to have liquidity on the token right all right do we have any questions around this topic yeah right there in the second row are the current the question is around current valuations of web 3 blockchain companies Now versus 6 months ago I I'd say that valuations are down but not substantially um I think anyone that has been trying to raise funding last year ran into a brick wall for the most part there's a lot of money out there there weren't as many deals that were getting done and quite honestly I think what was happening is that people were Shoring up previous Investments that they had made in portfolio companies but having said that you know if you've gotten through last year and you have a decent Runway ahead of you there's plenty of money on the sidelines I think we're now getting to a point where I think more money is going to be invested valuations are tough um you know if you have a running business business with a lot of cash flow you can use discounted analysis and comps and things like that but with pre-seed and seed companies you really can't do that so it's really just kind of a rough estimate But to answer your question I think the valuations are down a little bit but when you have someone come to you with a PowerPoint and they say it's worth $30 million it probably isn't you know and that's why that's a good reason to go to Angel groups or um talk to VC or whatever and you can get the feedback and adjust your valuation you'll know when you go out to investors that's not the the only thing but that is a kind of a key thing because if you're valuing something to 20 million versus 10 million for the investor it takes a lot more to get that big return kind of makes sense right and I think Eliza we see that these come in waves or Cycles depending on what's the crypto flavor of the moment right sure yeah we had a whole craze a few years back of um defi applications then we had you know like 30 nft applications um now it's dein so there's definitely like es and flows and once something's really hot we see like the $30 million deal pre-revenue um and so uh we tend to kind of wait a little bit for those to die down so we can really evaluate which companies here are kind of going to be here for the long term they're not just part of the craze um and we always want to be founder friendly and have a fair deal um the founder economics have to really work we want the founding team to be incentivized to stay with their company right so as a group you know there have been times early on where we've encouraged um a Founder to raise their valuation right to make the founder Economics work for future rounds so it really we take it Case by case we look at the company we look at they have any Revenue um we do comps where we're able and we really want it to be a fair deal um that's going to benefit investors and the founders other questions at this point in the back yeah over here right here I'm sorry we've got a microphone hi my name's Calvin thank you guys for the insight into Ang web 3 I'm from Canton in the South Shore actually okay I'm doing crowd work right now all right well to your Point's your occupation no to your point about uh some shifting metas in the space uh you know we've learned that for a company to remain adaptable is one of the most important aspects uh as you know web 3 develops I was wondering what are some of the common traits to the people in businesses you guys have seated in the past couple years yeah good question are there any defining factors or characteristics you know you like to have a pretty much a proven out MVP um you like to have someone show some traction right you like to have someone oh gee I have C I have actual customers I have some Revenue I'm not saying they producing positive cash flow or maybe they have subscribers or they have customers of Partnerships you know you'd like to see for me it's really nice when I see a team that's done it once before you know they've had a successful exit and even if they haven't because that means they've been through the whole process before um you know that's those are some of the traits and also you know you like to be excited about the project if if it say it's a nft project and there are many companies large companies already doing the same thing well you have to make sure that whatever you're doing maybe you're doing back office support or something that's not covered in the marketplace so you want to see something like that I think um you know I think the management teams and these smaller companies early stage companies are not fully developed so I think you know one of the advantages of an angel investor is that you may have someone that is investing in you that has some expertise in your area so if you're very coachable I think that's a positive too yeah thank you i' I'd also add you know the shifting meod is kind of interesting there's a couple companies in our portfolio that have pivoted actually uh we had I believe one company that was an eth mining company which you can't really do anymore so they had they had to Pivot and they've now actually become a data center company right so um we look for that I think there's also been cases where a company pitched us and we we we said no this isn't for us and then they a year later pivot and they actually come back and Pitch us again and we're like oh we love this new way you're going and we're already familiar with the team so that's helpful too so you know you have to be adaptable I think both as an investor and as a startup right yeah that idea of being coachable I think we place a very high premium on that because we do try to approach it as a dialogue and as a collaboration that if we do pass that we give you some meaningful feedback to help you get better so it's not just going to be your goes into the void but you actually hear back from us hopefully with some good stuff that you can take back so being able to receive that you don't have to agree with it but at least being able to receive it and hopefully make some pivots where it makes sense with your vision is a is a real plus one more thing to add um a really wellth thought out go to market plan yeah cuz the key thing is acquiring customers right and that's the thing that fails most often and to be able to acquire the customers at a reasonable acquisition cost so you know if you're going to make a pitch think through that go to market plan that's where I see probably in the pitches the most weaknesses and the ones that just don't work I just need to ask am I following this clock down here okay great other questions yes you gentlemen thanks for the presentation name is Bobby um just wanted to double click on something that was said it seems like some of the the value that you provide to these companies is the you know quick money that you can provide them in flux um can you maybe expand on the other value that you provide um whether it's expertise in the market or how do you kind of assist these Founders in growing their companies good question additional value that Chain Reaction brings besides a check yeah I mean I think Ken kind of mentioned it we have a broad membership base so we have a lot of different experiences we actually come from a lot of different backgrounds um I don't think we all would have met each other probably had we not want to invest in blockchain we have people uh in the education space the healthcare space I you know I come from an IT and Technical background so I you know tend to help with uh technical due diligence with with with them so um we just bring a a broad network of people together um and that's one of the things that we offer plus with I think over 30 companies now in our portfolio we have some experience we've we've done we've gone through this before with uh new companies and and sometimes firsttime Founders so can provide that mentorship as Welling for yeah so it's the question is are we pooling money for all these Investments yeah you want to answer that yeah so um we do our diligence together as a group but each person invests as an individual so um we don't have a SPV setup unless we're doing a special deal with the VC co-investing so um the the way the process will work is if you decide to join the diligence team and learn more about the company um we make a deal as a group so sometimes a company will say we need a million and minimum of $100,000 from your group um other times they'll say it has to be a minimum of 50,000 or 250 whatever that company has set and the minimum check size our members come together to form that amount you know sometimes it's above the amount so if we um set the size at say $10,000 and you decide you want to invest 10,000 you re everyone reviews the forms and we'll call out to each other if we see something that maybe we want to like check on and like you know double click on but otherwise we all are responsible for reviewing our own forms signing them why iring our own money and following up right if you you get an email about something you know it goes to you directly but no one just invests on their own because usually we have that threshold with the company um our own threshold is two or more members doing a deal counts as a deal usually we've got more than that um but again the diligence is done all together and that's a beautiful thing about being an angel group um especially in a space like blockchain which might be new for some people like I said for me 5 years ago it was brand new is that you come together with people with all different backgrounds and whatever you're bringing you're going to know something that's going to add value to the group because a deal is going to come along and you're going to know something about that space um it's a great way to learn as a group and as a community I'll just Echo that if you're thinking of joining us as an investor uh so I come from a marketing background around a marketing company I totally get the marketing go to market branding messaging communication I got all that but when it comes to the actual quantitative stuff these guys are way better than me so I really look to them and turn to them for help me understand if this is a good deal and uh I think that's how we complement each other here it's kind of fun yeah you know I think the other thing John is I I've started two businesses before and uh I've made every mistake known to mankind so I can probably tell you the things to avoid more than anything else uh but it's nothing like experience I think and the aggregate of experience of 15 or 20 people can be beneficial to a to a New Stage Company yeah plus we've all just been in the crypto web 3 space for so long too that's the other piece other question we had that friend over there yeah uh hello yes I was just wondering if there was any pies what's your name uh Nicholas Nicholas uh was welcome thank you thanks for coming yeah I was wondering if there was any pitches in the uh d space uh decentralized science which is building up a brand new or actually a parallel scientific research stack Nicholas wants to know about decentralized science we've had two applications over the years one was before the pandemic and one was posted have to look them up one was a but of South Africa that was looking around more of a um uh collaborating different people's research kind of in one spot and the other was almost making like a stock market around peer-reviewed articles it was something like that which was really interesting it wasn't the white right fit for us at the time but I'm happy to dig those up and I think that's a a really interesting space do you have experience in that and do you think it's kind of an upand cominging thing we should be looking at uh I don't have direct experience but I've definitely done a bunch of research and all in in terms of knowing which companies are emerging and what their applications are like you said there are many in the peer review side of it the data side of it the IP on chain there's um yeah so it's like a whole stack where it can be Innovative and parallel to the current system uh basically working out the outskirts of where the current research Tech fails so so Nicholas you're going to join you'll be our dii expert thank you appreciate it be the dii guru I know there's other chain reaction members out here is there anything you guys want to add or any questions that you guys would like us to answer we had a couple more people walk in since I we got Tom Duffy arrived and Sean Sweeney arrived anyone else just arrived it's basically half Chain Reaction yes we wanted the room to feel full yeah anything anyone wants to add if not um we can do more questions do you want to talk about you know one of the stories or something yeah tell us a story about someone uh I set that up for Chris not for me oh um you know there's uh there were two brothers that came to us and they're using they came up with this idea to uh to use blockchain and Healthcare and these are two guys from Tennessee and young you know we we they actually pitched us we put them on the watch list right so um you know I kept in touch with them and help so let me just unpack that they go through the whole process yes they do the whole thing and then we say thank you we don't think it's right right for us now hear some feedback from the members we'll put you we want to hear how you're doing follow up with us in a few months right and the feedback includes if you do these Milestones you know and we'll stay in touch with you but I I like the two of these um young guys and and I made it a personal thing you know to stay in touch with them so they came back and and they um they had raised a little money and they got some grant money and they kept it going and they're making progress and they repitched us us and we decided to make an investment the thing I you know that I really like about it is we I think we put in a couple $100,000 but they had a million4 from venture capitalist and we got the same deal as the VC we got the tag along rights all that sort of thing the Venture capitalists knew a lot about Healthcare but not much about blockchain so they wanted us involved and one of the nice things is that um I became an observer on the board so I know exactly what's going on and the company um and you know they they Contin to make progress they were getting contracts but they weren't really executing on the contracts so we had to work through all that but I work with them on things like governance and then we actually did a follow on rout with uh and we put another couple hundred thousand in the company when they needed it and they also went through an asset sale they sold some assets so there's a lot of things these young guys were doing that was a learning experience for them so um you know we don't know exactly how it's going to come out you know the next board meeting is next week but they've made a lot of progress they've got revenue they're adding clients but it they were so coachable you know and I and I think they really loved Eliza they were they call me ma'am ma'am all the time so um but um it was a great experience to work with two young people um that were making progress had a great idea you know we think it will be a good investment but that shows that we you know I think it goes to you were saying what's the value ad yeah well I talked to them once a month and I'm not saying I know everything but if there's something I don't know about I have someone I have a connection to that can help them out so that's you know that's a the real good story I hope a year from now you ask me the same question I'm going to say I don't know 10x what what I what can I say and it was it was 1202 no taxes it was it was wonderful yeah um John I wanted to talk a little bit about what makes a good pitch because I feel like what makes a good pitchot good pitches um you know we we see a lot of pitches we take we're taking some today after I think we're going to talk about it uh but I worked uh worked at Salesforce for a number of years for Mark Benny off and he has a great quote that I I like to say is that the you know the business of business is improving the state of the world so to me a good pitch you should come in and tell me what the current state of the world is and why you want to improve that state right what are you going to do what's your Vision to make the world better to improve this little piece of the world this little slice of the world that you want to focus on how are you going to improve that I want that vision and then I want a plan a tactical plan about how you now achieve that Vision I think Kendon mentioned a go-to market strategy is big part of that uh there's also financials that are are part of that there's team building there's community building I want to make sure that you cover all of those check boxes when I talk when I get a pitch and that's tough to put together in a 10 or 15 minute pitch so you really got to you really got to know it um I think that's one of the reasons why we've been so successful with accelerators because they often help with that pitch um but you know also you know get feedback practice the pitch over and over get feedback incorporate that feedback make sure that you know you're not trying to cram in too much um Tech speak or too much Financial speak in a 20-minute uh presentation because that can really uh lead you down some paths and I'll also say that when investors ask you questions um do your best to answer the question because we get a lot of pitches where we'll ask a very simple question and then the founder will go on for 5 minutes and then we'll look at each other and then we'll ask the same question again right so um I find this is a trick that I I tend to use when someone ask me a question in that situation I pause for a second nobody notices that you pause for a second by the way it might feel uncomfortable but nobody notices it repeat the question your head and then try your best to answer it if you want to give a long answer and a short answer start with the short answer first and then ask ask the investor do you want more information on that and then give him the long answer if if he or she replies but I think that's really important I mean you got a very short window to make a make an impression and you got to you got to do it as precisely as possible but communicating that Vision communicating the current state the vision and the plan are the key parts of any pitch the other thing I would add to that is you've got a group of angels and we all think we're very smart you know and so they want to ask qu everyone has questions you never get all your questions answered so if you give a long answer maybe you answer one or two questions you want to answer as many questions as you can and then I would also take any opportunity to practice pitching I would do it even if you get rejected don't take it personally yeah um you know it's practice practice practice and you find that the more time you're in front of a group you it'll be a better pitch every time you do it I think treat the pitch like a product and you're just constantly iterating on that pitch or on that product um if you guys aren't already subscribed to the newsletter from a16z crypto that's Andre horowitz's crypto arm a16z crypto newsletter it's really great on the drive here I was listening to one of their talks about how to tell your brand story in web 3 and it was all about pitching and it was great and it was about many of the things that these these guys are talking about here so check that out out um let's see we're going to actually have a chain reaction meeting this evening tell us about it who can come it's at 4:30 I believe yeah 4:30 so we're going to have our Chain Reaction monthly meeting here um we usually do it at a law firm partner downtown Boston but we're doing it here and we're thank you to thankful to cubic um and Manuel for hosting us we'll be across the street uh at I think it's 14 what number is it 1495 1495 fourth floor fourth floor across the street um you may join us if you'd like to know about Chain Reaction you need to be an accredited investor um feel free to Google that if you're not sure if you're accredited investor or not um and if you are an accredited investor we'd love to have you no pressure to join just come check us out we have two pitches tonight of great blockchain companies one local iners company and one company calling in in the middle of the night from Romania we also have a portfolio company beable who will be here in person and giving an update on their current raise um Sean you want to add something