204. What It Takes to Be an Olympian & Crypto Founder at the Same Time With Tori West

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift. And not alongside me today is Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. He is Crook. We're here to bring you world class crypto research strategies and insights to help you crush this crypto bull market as well as a behind the scenes view of us scanning Australia's leading crypto research company. But today we have an epic, epic guest and it's gonna be a far better conversation with at Bergs. We've got Tori west, the best Australian heptathlete in 16 years. And I'm going to get Torah to explain what on earth a heptathlete is and what, what they do in a second. She recently got back from the 2024 Olympics in Paris. She is ranked in the top 24 heptathletes in the world, which if you think about the tennis equivalent, that's actually an absolutely massive deal. She's a blockchain developer and entrepreneur running her own company, Equal Labs, and she's building a sports data network on Blockchain, which is super, super exciting. And she recently spoke at the Collective Shift online summit. She's creating content, she's doing all sorts of stuff, traveling around the world, killing it, and super excited to have her jump on the podcast. Thanks, Tori. Thanks Ben for having me not knows at all. First of all, can you describe what sports, what things you do as a heptathlete? Because I know there's a lot.

Sure, sure. So the heptathlon that I do is a track and field event. It comprises of seven events that you do over two days and you get a point. Score. Score based on how well you do. So the seven events are 100 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200, long jump, javelin, 800. And interestingly, it was actually one of the, I guess an evolution of the original Olympic event. So the Olympics started off in ancient Greece and they did like a pentathlon which was like discus, running, wrestling, throwing a javelin. So obviously I do the modern version for women and men do a decathlon.

So yeah, yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. And then, okay, so you got the, the Olympic stuff, which is crazy alone that you're doing that. And you're also building your own crypto project. So you want to just quickly describe what you're doing on the crypto side as well.

Yeah, sure. So I've been a software developer for the last 10 years. I'm self taught and I got into blockchain in 2021 development. And in 2022 I got a grant from the XRP Ledger, which. No, it wasn't Ripple, it was XRP Ledger grants. And I started building out this network, a sports data network, which basically allows athletes to tokenize their data. I believe that every bit of data that you produce as an athlete, whether that's training data, health data, performance data, you should own in a wallet. And that's really what I'm doing. I'm trying to build a network for that and create a really intuitive experience for athletes to experience. The benefits of Blockchain.

I love it. I love it. I love the idea of like building a product based on a problem that you have. Like, I think that's the best sort of business. Right? Like, you sort of probably been through that. Now you're trying to build something that you wish you had or how you can help other athletes.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing. It's actually the most, it's the coolest journey ever because I get to do it alongside my passion of athletics. Like, I know athletics, you know, you can only do it for a certain period of your life. You know, you grow older and you mature and go into different phases. And I've always known that. And so I was actually more successful as a software developer than an athlete until the Olympics. So people wonder like, oh, if you're an athlete, are you doing that full time? Like, how do you. It's like, well, I actually couldn't do athletics unless I had a full time job because quite frankly, there's very minimal ways to earn actual income. You know, people would assume in Australia we, you know, we love our Olympians, we love sport that if you go to the Olympics, like, you're supported and it's just not the case. Like, I paid close to $35,000 just to qualify for the Olympics and I got no support from our governing body or government in that process. So. So that's just the reality of it. It's a privilege to do this sport and I honestly would not be able to do it unless I worked full time, which is why I'm very passionate about unlocking the value of athlete data using blockchain. Because I really think I'm not the only athlete that experiences and I'm resourceful enough to make a way, but most athletes can't figure that stuff out and I really want to help.

Yeah. So.

What is the normal remuneration strategy for an Olympic athlete? Like, how do most athletes that are training for the Olympics make money?

Yeah, it's a really good question. Each sport is quite different. I can only really speak firsthand on track and field. What you will find in a lot of Olympic sports and a lot of people will be familiar this, if you're familiar with blockchain, is that it's highly centralized. We've got the Olympic governing body which is a central body and then you have each sporting body which has an international centralized sport like governance body. And then each country has its own centralized government governance body. And so what you find with those ones is because it's highly centralized and they're, you know, the central figure of, you know, power, there isn't a lot of innovation and viable business models for a generating income. And then if you generate income then you can disperse it to athletes. It's just not that, that's just not how it is. All the income, not all of it, most of it goes up into preserving the governing body. That is so what you see in athletics in Australia, for instance, we have a governing body for track and field. But if you look at their financials, they do get income, they get nice government grants, they get some commercial income from sponsorship if they're smart and they have business minded people in middle management. But you'll see a lot of it actually just goes to salaries, it goes to staff, it goes to travel, it doesn't directly necessarily go straight to athletes.

And that's purely, it's just because it's highly centralized, that's the way it's always been done. There hasn't really been any sort of real innovation or I guess business models to come in. You know, we see sports like AFL and tennis, you know, they sell tickets, they get eyes, they get attention. Business, right? And even in the world, let's say tennis, that's a huge business model. You got different grand slams, right? It's not just one championship, you got four dispersed around the world and pretty sure it's four.

And there's actual ways of creating income through attentions and selling tickets. Whereas something like athletics, we've got Olympics, right? But even that in itself is very centralized. We've got world championships every two years, but that in itself is run by our governing body. There is no private leagues, so what do we expect? So in a sport like track and field, the only way you can really earn an income in Australia, let's say, is you either a build your social media following attention is value. So you. So if you can leverage that for sponsors, yep, that's going to work for you. You're Going to earn an income. The second way is you can get some funding from the government. There is ways for athletes to earn money. It's very limited and they have tiered systems and it's very subjective, it's not very clear cut and you'd expect that if it's coming from, you know, centralized governing bodies that are very bureaucratic. So for me personally, even though I've hit quite, quite good standards and I've even crossed some of the benchmarks they've set out, I've never been deemed an athlete good enough to get funding. So therefore I' I had to do everything on my own back. Now if I wanted to medal at a major, just say I want to medal at the Olympics or even place top eight, then things would change. But the process to getting to that point, you have to get there yourself. Once you're there, they'll be like, oh yeah, we'll give you something. But getting there, which is where the support should go, is the hardest part. And yeah, that's a reality check. A lot of people don't realize the assumption is always, oh, you make an Australian team, you look, it's just not, it's just not the case.

It's just, yeah, that's such a good insight. Like, I think, you know, I, you know, not gonna lie, I probably watch track and field once every four years, right. Which is in the Olympics probably, you know, same for a lot of people. But you don't see the, literally the blood, sweat and tears that goes into it for the four years even just to get there to compete. Like what? Like and, and, and you're self funding this, you know, you're paying your own way, you're working to, to make sure you get there. Like what's your motivation? Like what's driving you to get back there again in LA in four years?

I think the first one, the core of it is just to see how good I can actually be. There is some, there's a massive amount of, I guess, fulfillment in the process of improvement as you just start to see yourself improve. When you stick to a process where you actually see fruits of your labor, I think that in and of itself is the most fulfilling thing anyone can do. And it doesn't have to be for a sport. It's just like, how good can I be? You know, that everyone feels they might have a destiny. Like, you know, achieving that is in aiming for your highest ideal, I think is what everyone should go for. So that, that's probably my core driver. My second one is probably why not. Why not me? Why can't I do it? You know, I remember when I first started athletics, the reason I started it was I was like four. Even at this age, I was cognizant of this. I seen another girl doing. Running a 400, and she wasn't wearing a uniform, and I wasn't wearing a uniform. And because we had some commonality there, I was like, I can do this too. So I've always known that if I can see something, something that I feel I can do, I can do it. It's just, why not? So they're the two things that drive me. And quite frankly, this. It's such a privilege to do it as well. Like, I get to travel the world and experience all these beautiful things and meet amazing people around the world. And, you know, track and field is such a personal journey as well. Like, you don't get there without coaches and key people around you. So to me, it's like, you know, one of the most fulfilling processes I've ever walked. Well, I mean, I've only got one life. I feel I could ever walk out. And, you know, to me, I also covered. Taught me a lot as well, because everything shut down and I couldn't compete. I learned that doing this isn't a right, which is why I feel like I don't have that entitlement about, you know, I should be paid. It's like, no, I should be paid what I'm worth. And secondly, doing this sport is a privilege. You know, every time I get to step out on that track, every time I get to train, every time I'm healthy, that's an absolute privilege.

So that's awesome. So I. So my sister plays in the National Basketball Women's League, and I see her training schedule as an athlete and what that looks like, you know, and that's a. That's a team sport. You know, I could only imagine what you have to do as an individual. You know, when you're looking at Olympics, like, we're not even talking 1 percenters. Like, we're talking like 0.0001%, you know, improvements to get that extra, like, you know, performance out of yourself. What does a normal training week look like for you? Like, what are you doing? What does the schedule look like? What are you eating? Like, how crazy do you have to get in terms of your schedule?

Yeah, it's pretty intense. I train every day, so I do. Let me. Let me just think. Sometimes, because I'm so deep in my process, I need actually little mental check. Okay, So I do.

Three track sessions, four technical sessions. So I do technical events like short and jab, three gym sessions and three longer runs. I have usually one or two physio treatment sessions and then I think that covers it. And each week the days may change because it's going to depend on track availability, what coaches are available. But I would say I train close to 32 to 34 hours a week on the track, you know, in the gym, like that's how much I bank. And then in my off season I'm also working 30 to 40 hours a week. So. So it's pretty big load. Um, it's intense and like, you know, I've had to, to get to this level that I, to make the Olympics. It, you know that saying like 10,000 hours, like it literally was that I worked it out over time because I started this properly at 21. It's been close to, yeah, 10,000 hours dedicated to the sport to get to the Olympic level.

That's nuts. And are you building this schedule where you're coached literally for the Olympics or you've got like mini schedules towards, you know, tournaments and stuff? You're coming up.

Yeah. So we, for a heptathlon ide, you only want to peak two to three times a year because it's such a difficult event. You've got different energy systems. I can't just compete every weekend like a basketballer or a sprinter. I really do have to work on my like peaking and periodization well and I trust my coach to do that. So we always try to peak for majors. So majors being Olympics and World Championships. Olympics is every four years, World Championships is every two years and then comm Games is every four years. So each year there's something for me, the second comp I try to peak for is this Australian Championship. So that's where you go best, the best in Australia and then one other meet in Europe as well. So Europe is usually where they have the best competitions for my event. Australia is a bit average to be honest, but you go over to Europe, you best the best and the meets are actually gold standard. Like it's excellent. So.

Yeah, just two to three times a year.

And is your coach, how does he get paid? Do you pay him basically out of the money you're making from your full time job? Does he work on like, I assume he's not volunteering?

No, no, definitely not. So I have two coaches, I have a head coach, Eric Brown, and I pay him to coach me and then also, you know, if I do well and I Get a bonus at a competition or like, you know, I get a major sponsor, there's a percentage that goes to my coach as well, because quite frankly, I wouldn't be where I am without him. And then also, I've got a second coach, Sam Leslie. So he started off as my physio and he sponsored me as my physio. So he just gave me free treatment and really looked after me at competitions. Eventually he became my running coach because I kept breaking down, kept injuring myself. And he said to me, I want to stop fixing your injuries. I want to start preventing them. Let's fix this. And so now he's also one of my coaches and steps alongside Eric and a lot of my events, and they work really well together now. So Sam, he more so sponsors me. He's probably been more of a giver than anything because he's had his own business and he's actually. Yeah, through the years he's been a huge support, so. But I do want to shift that. I'm probably not in the position right now, but certainly in the next 12 months, I want to shift it where both Sam and Eric are getting paid a decent amount for what they do for me because the results are starting to show and I really want everyone to be looked after.

That's awesome. I love that. And for you, like, in terms of income from your athletics, like, are you. Are you doing. You know, where is that coming from in the moment? Like, is it sponsorship? Is it, Is it, Is the content play, you know, a strategy?

Yeah, yeah. So in the last 12 months, so the Olympic year, I funded most of that with my own income, so, you know, obviously running software, doing software projects, also making a bit of money off crypto. That always helps as well. I remember in 2021 that funded my athletics for. For a year, which felt pretty good, but I got a big tax bill and I sucked that I didn't expect that. But anyways, that was really cool. But then Also in my 2024 Olympic year, I had planned to do a certain amount of competitions to qualify for the Olympics. And there was one competition there that I didn't expect to go to, and it was Germany. And so I did need a bit of extra cash to go to that, and BTC Markets actually sponsored me for that, which was a huge help. So that was my first sort of, I guess, cash sponsorship that was perfectly aligned with the person that I am. To be honest, I was very grateful for that. And then, yeah, this year, I'm currently unsponsored and the reason for that is because I'm going hard on my own company. I sort of want to leverage my own personal journey for the stuff I'm building. And I don't really want to feel like I'm. Well, we'll see. I'm always open to opportunities. You know, I always like that idea. You attract what you put out. Yeah. But for now, yeah, I'm just going hard on content. You know, building personal brand, getting attention is super valuable. And so far it's working out really well. I think I'm nurturing about 1.1 million views on TikTok.

That's insane.

Posting content, sharing, my journey, just being super authentic and people love it.

So I'm really excited to see where that goes. And that's also led to a bunch of signups for the apps I'm building, which is what I was really after. Like, you know, build a community, you know? You know, because I'm building apps for athletes, Right. They don't need to know anything about crypto or digital assets to benefit from it. That's my ultimate goal. Because we always talk about bringing on, you know, the next wave of, you know, users, but how are we actually going to do that? You know, they're not going to be the speculative investors. These are people who. It's digital assets. It's tokenization of, you know, real things. Like, so, you know, so far, my, my strategy is playing out really well. It looks like I might get quite a lot of people in the sports world, you know, with blockchain wallets and then not even know about it. So it's going to be awesome. Yeah.

I want to talk about your project in a second, but coming back to content, you and I sat down, we were in Queensland. We had breakfast a few months ago, and, you know, you, you did, you. You've created content before. And then I think, like, you know, you're in, like, this sort of crazy training period and we were chatting like, okay, like, you know, what this. What is going to look like? It was more about just getting the time to do it. Looking back in January, I don't know if you have the numbers in front of me. I think you, you tweeted about it the other day and it was some pretty awesome numbers. Talk to us about, like, the way you've gone about creating the content. How do you think about it? Did you have a strategy? Did you just get the phone up and record? Was it really logical? Did you think about it? How'd you do it?

Well, so I used to do content a lot before COVID I was doing TikTok. My little sister. I have lots of little sisters. I have four younger sisters. So it's very easy to get into those things. They're like, you should do this tour. I was like, okay. And so I was doing content for a while there and doing well. But then Covid sort of was just such a weird time of the world and like everyone was very polarized and I didn't really want to play into that. So I really talked a lot of time away to do self reflection and just live my life. I guess I feel when you're young and you sort of get a lot of views and whatever, it can take you into this dopamine high that can be unhealthy. And I started to identify that myself. I was like, I don't know if I really like this. Like it's not sustained. Anyways, bit deeper. So anyways, in the Olympic year, I missed, to be frank, I missed the biggest opportunity to put out content because look how many eyes go on the Olympics and how interesting that journey is. And I didn't do anything because I was so focused on qualifying. I had so much pressure of my own business and trying to get things done. I had a lot of odds against me in qualifying. I just put my head down and I worked and I qualified and I got it done. And then I got to the end of the year and I was like, oh, no one's seen it. People who know who close to you and that's great. And realistically that's all you really need in terms of validation and surrounding yourself with the right people. But I realized I missed a lot of opportunity in terms of sharing about my story and inspiring others and also, you know, bringing awareness about the things I'm doing. There's no point building great things and living this like, great life that, you know, could impact people if no one knows about it. And that was a deep check. And I had that meeting with you and you were sharing what you're doing and you're killing it. You know, consistency across all platforms. People listen to you when you speak. You have a great personal story in terms of where you came from and what you're doing now and you're passionate. I was like, okay, I feel like I can do this too. Like Ben's doing it great. And it was. Yeah, it was. Interestingly, that was after the SwiftX event. Yeah, there was a guy at that event who came up to me named Devin Cooper. He's a videographer and he's really nice guy. He's like, I loved hearing you talk. You know, I have this idea for a podcast where basically I film your whole day. We chat. It's a podcast in real life as opposed to a studio. He's like, can we do it? And I said, yeah, sure. So we did that the week before Christmas last year, and he came out, he filmed a whole day of my life. And at first I was nervous, obviously, and then I got more comfortable towards the end of the day. And as I spoke, I realized. And we finished the day, I just had this high. I'm like, tori, you have to, like, you have to share. You have to put yourself out there. Like, you know, Devin's one in recording it. He's saying, like, there's value there and, like, he's enjoying the process. We had a great creative flow, but honestly, that was the catalyst. That filming day. What I had with Devin, I was like, wow. Like, there is so much here we can do. There's so much here we can talk about. The topics went from not just athletics, but, like, you know, social media and young girls and, like, you know, what we eat, you know, surrounding some of the right people. How your life changes when all of a sudden you had the success blockchain. Like, there's so many crossovers and parallels, and, like, there's no one I wished. So I look at my life now, you know, I'm 29 now, but when I was 18, I'd love to see someone like me share that journey and, like, the realistic side of it. Because everyone projects something that isn't real, especially in sport. They're like, I made it to here. But the truth is, your life is not actually that inspiring. You know, you don't have a job, you have nothing. You know, so that's really where it began. And then getting consistent, I literally just posted one video one day, and all I did was spoke to a camera and cut it up, put some captions on. It was like 20,000 views. And I was like, oh, that was easy. And so I just started doing it every day. You know, it didn't matter how good or bad it was. I just did it. I just recorded my life with a microphone. And then I cut it up and spend an hour cutting it up. Boom, done. And it was easy because all I'm doing is cutting together things I'm already doing. This is nothing put on. It's just my life and it's paying off. And I wish I did it earlier, but at the same time, I feel it was the right time. So, yeah, yeah.

And that authenticity. Right, like especially something on TikTok like that is like the more authentic you are and the more raw it is, the better, the better it performs. Forms, right?

Yeah, I think so. People are just so sick of like, you know, I was watching a video on TikTok this morning talking about how the views on CNN in America would like at an all time low of like 83,000. And then you watch someone like, you know, Brett Cooper on YouTube who's like this, you know, Gen Z commentator. She's getting like hundreds of thousands of views on long form content. Like everything's shifting. You know, young people particularly like I'm on a weird age group. Like I'm like right on the edge of Gen Z and I'm not actually sure my sisters are younger so it makes me feel younger. But you know, everything's changing and authenticity really does break through. I think we're kind of sick of, I don't know, just so fabricated stuff and you know, it's kind of good. I'm very grateful to be in the age we're in and what's. Seeing what's happening.

100 even with the, the White House in their press conference from the other day, they announced that they're going to be bringing in like independent podcasters and youtubers into the actual White House press, press room, which has never been done before.

Yeah, that's where it's going. 100 there's this beautiful shift happening and it's like, yeah, it's. I feel now is the time to get in and create content because everyone, it's. Yeah, it's just a great time. Yeah.

100%. Let's talk about your crypto side of things. Like, you know, how did you, how did you get onto. So you're a software developer. What, what made you decide to start building on blockchain? What is it about tokenization that you like and maybe just go a little bit deeper into the idea and vision around what you're building?

Yeah. So got into blockchain I think actually bought my first Ethereum in 2017. And at first it was just because I learned a lot of what I know in Software by watching YouTube videos and being self taught. And obviously if you're in that world it's very easy to fall into blockchain because everything about blockchain is a lot of, you know, self taught stuff, YouTube channels and whatnot. So at that point it was just general interest. It wasn't until Covid and the whole world shut down and I realized like things were just obscenely crazy. And I was like asking deeper questions. I was like, what the hell's going on? You know, and then I sort of seen blockchain technology and, you know, the solutions that it could provide through decentralization and transparency and all these beautiful fundamentals. I was like, I want in on this. I know this is going to be the future. Like, it makes complete sense. You know that I love that idea of reading right own. We are moving into a place where we're starting, we're going to not starting. We are going to own our digital assets, we're going to own things on the blockchain through tokenization. And I initially was really interested in it for health because obviously during COVID health was a big thing and health data wasn't really. I mean, people would be a bit shocked to know how unprotected it is and where it goes and, you know, the vagueness of policies and whatnot. Anyways, different thing. But I thought that was too sensitive a thing to go start, you know, trying to save the world and, you know, health. I thought sports data was more novel and right in the world that I was already in. So I thought, okay, well, like what sort of solutions can I apply in the sports world? You know, as an athlete, you know, I produce data. That data could go to Garmin, that could go to Aura, that could go to Group. They make money by me paying a subscription. They also make money by selling that data and keeping that data and storing it in their centralized service. But if I produce that data, shouldn't I own it? Shouldn't I be able to take that away and do what I want with it? And that's just not what we sign up for when we sign up to these platforms because we don't know any better. And that's just the way things are, you know. So.

That gave me sort of the inspiration for this idea that, okay, how can we create these experiences where every bit of data I produce, I own. And if there is value unlocked of that data where, you know, someone's making money off it, I get a kickback as well. And in my head, I think the only way we can do that properly is using blockchain technology.

And it's as simple as tokenization and building a user experience where people don't know it's blockchain to benefit from it. So, yeah, that's, that's how I got into it. And, and in 2021, yeah, I got the grant from XRP grants, XRPL grants. The reason I picked the XRP ledger initially was because of fees. It's very hard to sell tokenization on Ethereum with fees and whatnot. At that time when I was developing and the xrp, you know, there was a great value add in that sense. However, I'm not exclusive to that. I think there's, there's many different solutions. I'm, I'm blockchain agnostic, to be honest. So I just have a problem, I want to solve it and I think there's many ways that we can do it and we work it out as we go. So.

And I guess in your situation, like you're building an application where you know your users that will use that application, probably most of them have no idea about blockchain or crypto, right?

No, no. In fact, I've had to abstract away most of that terminology from the apps because as soon as you say blockchain or anything like that, people go, money. And we're like, no, I don't really want to educate you on, you know, go talk to Ben if you want to go invest. It's not for me. I'm not, I'm not trying to play into that speculative space and it's a really challenging thing we're trying to do because there isn't really any good examples of non speculative consumer apps with blockchain integration. So it really is a first of its kind and it's taken a long time to, you know, I came into it with a lot of zeal, with little understanding, to be honest. Like, you know, have this idea it's going to solve but you know, you got to know where the market is and what they're ready for.

And to be honest, like, I think crypto lacks consumer applications in general. Like the most successful applications in crypto are like layer one blockchains. And you know, you had Poly Market and like pump fun. Like they're like, you know, and, and again, Poly Market, in my opinion is probably the most utilized, you know, consumer application that we have in crypto.

But again, it's still like kind of like a betting market in the end of the day. Like it's still finance. You know, what you're trying to do is like sort of decentralized data for sports athletes, which I assume is probably very difficult to try and market and on board and, and get moving.

Yep. Yeah, there is a. Yeah, it's sort of like the way I've viewed it and how I'm doing it is like I'm building a Web3 project that's sort of like a Trojan Horse. The Trojan horse being a Web2 app. Right. So it's like, it's in the middle of that and like I'm doing it in a good, with good intention where, you know, Trojan horse usually thought of bad thing. So that's been the real, real challenge of it all. And so far, like we haven't released yet because we've had a long journey to get to release. We did get an ASIC exemption to launch, which is a huge deal. We got the first of its kind to do in Australia. To be honest, Australia has little to no incentive to launch here. I like, it's crazy, but I'm pretty stubborn and I just want to get it done. And once we launch here, we'll go international. But yeah, it's. Oh my gosh. I reflect on it, I'm just like, what was I thinking? But I'm so deep in now, I'm just gonna. I will finish, I will finish. But I honestly, I'm really excited now that I've got the content stuff up too. It makes it so much easier to actually educate people when you've got a personal brand behind it, talking about it in their language. So in a way it's everything sort of, I feel, worked out exactly as it's supposed to. And I hope to be the first successful example of a non spec, non speculative consumer app launched in Australia.

So that's awesome. Well done. Like, I know how hard it is to build in crypto and a startup as well is just so hard. And then you add the two together and you just on absolute God mode to try and like pull it off.

Yeah. And then try compete at an Olympic level.

And you're an Olympic.

It's ridiculous. I didn't even know. I realized I'm a little bit crazy. Like, I was just like, what the heck am I doing? Honestly?

But like, like, where's your social life? Like, do you have time outside of all of this to like see friends or like.

No, not really. Not really. I, I really. Well, my, my social life is training, so when I see athletes and it's also TikTok now the comment section. So like. But yeah, no, that's why I try to go to outside every once in a while just to like talk to people and stuff. But to be honest, I feel like there's periods and seasons in your life where you gotta isolate, especially when you have a very grand vision because, you know, it's like a baby, you gotta protect its face and make sure you know you haven't got the wrong influences and Also for me too, I. I can't do what I do, especially on the physical cyber sports, unless I protect my energy. So I've had a super high level of accountability. If I start letting things slip and I, you know, just dropping the ball, it shows I can't perform, you know, I just, I can't. So. And in a way to Athletics actually makes me better at the startup stuff as well because I'm very conditioned to setbacks, I'm very conditioned to failure, I'm very conditioned to working hard. And so people like, oh, I don't think you can do. I'm like, no, the reason I can do both is because I do athletics. Like, that keeps me accountable to the nth degree.

Yeah, it's persistence, right? It's consistency. Like, it's like, just like a startup. There's a number of setbacks, constant problems, very little wins. Probably the same with athletics, right? When you, you know, you're battling to try and get on the track and, you know, you may not be having a good week or a good month or a good year.

Yeah, you'll stick at it, definitely. Athletics is a sick game. There's eight lanes in one minute winner. But you go into every race thinking you're gonna win. Like, yes. That's the sort of mindset you gotta have. And so that's why I'm not really afraid of Startup World, because I think, well, try running a race in front of 80, 000 people in a stadium like that.

You waited four years and trained four years.

Exactly. I like Startup World is nothing.

That's nuts. Well, I just back to, back to like you raising money or, you know, the grant from, from XRP or the ledger or whatever was. How do you think about that in terms of like, like, do you have a token or is that like an equity piece? Like, are you looking, doing a token down the track? Like, how do you think about like Runway and all that sort of stuff?

Definitely. So it's a really good question. Very. I wasn't gonna raise, to be honest, but I decided in the last two, three months that I would. So we're literally just beginning that process. So when I first got the grant from the XRP ledger, grants that is equity free. So they obviously are interested in building apps on the ledger because that helps build the value of the ledger through transactions and innovation and whatnot. So everything we've done up to this point has been equity free. And then because the company is also a software development company, I also get work by doing contracting jobs. So therefore we do development as well. So it's been multi pronged. So I've always thought of the company as actually a, I guess a machine that develops apps. And then now we're transitioning to okay, we have the apps, we're building audience. All right. We're actually, it's morphing so we're raising at the moment to.

Well, we don't have a token yet. We have a, we have a utility token right within the app. So. But it's not a speculative token. This won't be available on decentralized exchange. It's not going to be something that we traded that crosses too many lines for us when it comes to our asset exemption and also what our bottom line. I don't feel that's what our business model will be. I'm not going to rule it out in the future, but right now, no.

So we are raising to get that go to market process smooth, you know, and also get this content creation. I have this big vision to. Obviously we're having a lot of success with documenting on TikTok in a very, you know, easy way. But I want to document, you know, nationals and competitions overseas and sort of tell a story with data through my own personal story. Because it's one thing to build a product, but if you can build a product with an emotional connection, you win. You win.

Yeah, 100%.

So I realized, yeah, the value of that. Sorry, sorry.

No, I interrupted. I think founder led content as well is so powerful because you get that as you said, that attachment to the brand and also some of the best businesses in the world don't have the best product but they have the best marketing. Like you can create great content, great marketing and that's what attracts customers. You know, the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, no one's going to use it. So I totally agree.

Yeah, exactly. But I want to do both. I want an excellent product and excellent marketing because I'm a multi eventer and I to want win everything. So yeah, so we're raising because I realized like, you know, part of me always wanted this to be very community driven and like, you know, so cool when you just put in your own money. I forget what the word is. Bootstrap. I really wanted to do that but I realized sort of the ambition I have, like ultimately I want to be the digital asset provider for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane. Like that's the big goal, that's a big vision. I can't do that alone. I can't get The Olympics alone. I need a coach. I need people around me. I need to. So I'm looking for. I've realized now I don't just want to raise for the sake of having Runway. I want to raise for the sake of having a team. I want to build this amazing sports starter network that changes the sports game and opens up value that hasn't been there before. So.

So, yeah, that's. That's where we're at the moment, which is exciting.

I feel as though we went through a similar. Like, I was thinking the similar thing, like, three or four years ago when we raised money is like, look, I'd love to do this bootstrap, but, like, you know, when you're trying to build something pretty big and you don't have the resources to do that, like, you've got to make a choice of sl, longer, leaner, or raise, take a bit more risk on, bring some people around you and go harder and faster. And, you know, I think they both have pros and cons. Like, yes, you're giving up a bit of ownership with your business, but it can also get you so much faster. So. So, so much. Yeah, so much faster than. Than just doing it on your own. So, yeah, I. I think it's. I think it's a very personal question, depending on your circumstances.

Yeah, definitely. And I feel like this was going to be the right way anyway, because I don't like the other thing too, with the. With everything, because I don't want to.

I'm doing something I've never done before, and I think it'd be a bit foolish of me to just say, I know everything I'm going to do. It's like, no, I actually want key players. I want the best around me to figure out how to do this well, you know, I want investors that, you know, have gone to this market before and, you know, can save us time. And because I learn and grow, too, there's value in me is like, there's growth, and then we can provide a better solution to what we're trying to do. So it's taken a while to get to this point. I feel like I was a little bit stubborn, but I realized now, like, yep, this is what we need to do. It's not what we need to do. It's what I want to do. And, yeah, love that.

Final sort of topic I want to talk about is around just crypto in general and you personally, how you think about crypto. What are you excited about? You know, any areas you're in, you're investing in or you have held for a little while, like, are you all in on bitcoin or you're all in on XRP or like, you know, you're a bit of everything. How do you think about crypto and like long term?

Yeah, yeah, I used to be all in on xrp to be honest. I started off with Ethereum and then bitcoin cash and then I made enough money in a day of bitcoin cash in 2017 to buy a drone and then I crashed the drone and I was so devastated. But then I was like, ah, it's okay, I'll just get back in. And then, yeah, I learned about XRP because I was really interested in how the world money system worked. You know, I always thought, you know, we got the gold reserve, we're going to shift all fiat currencies, fail, that sort of thing. But nowadays I'm not all in on xrp. Bitcoin and Ethereum I think are always going to be the kings. Going back into bitcoin is really important. I am. The way I operate now with crypto is I don't have the mental capacity to trade. I'm not a trader. Okay. I accumulate over speculate. I don't ride the waves. Like I have friends message me, oh, you didn't sell yesterday. I was like, I didn't realize it went down because I just don't really look as much anymore. I have so much on in my life, I can't do it. So I accumulate things that I know makes sense. Bitcoin, Ethereum, of course, xrp because I have built on xrp. I also like real world tokenization projects as well. So propy is one. I really love tokenizing real estate. Sui. Got it on sui. Another one was render. So I sort of invest in things that align with things that make sense in the world that I build and I work in and I hold and like that's about it. I'm not a trader. So yeah, it's not the way I work.

What, what advice would you give to anyone that's looking to like get started in crypto in terms of like building their own project or like wanting to start in blockchain or you know, even anything. Like, you know, obviously you're, you're training full time. Like even any tips of like starting a side hustle, like how you manage all of that?

Yeah. Wow. What tips? Follow your passion because. And what really tugs your heartstrings because that's going to get you through the hard times because I can guarantee there's going to be a lot of dry times, like really bad dry times where it's like you're delusional to keep going. So I would say, you know, jump in sooner than later. You actually learn faster by failing. And, yeah, try to align with what really gets your heart going. Because, you know, I think a lot of the space too has a lot of problems with foul players and everyone's just chasing money, you know, and it's. I mean, I understand that that's whatever, we all need money, but we're also building a value ecosystem, blockchain. And it, at its core is value. It's community driven. Like, if you can build communities and build values around things that you all align on, that's more intrinsic, you know, there's huge value there that sometimes you can't measure in dollars. So I would say look deeper into blockchain and what it's actually about as opposed to chasing dollar signs, and that will give you the longevity to keep going. So, yeah, love that.

Great way to end. Thank you so much. Tori, where can people find you? Where is your website? Your TikTok?

Yeah, yeah, TikTok is at Toriwest. Underscore. Underscore, same as Instagram. You can look up Equal Labs. Equal. It's like Equal IO, E, Q, U, I, L, I, O. And yeah, there you'll find the information about the apps we're releasing this year. And yeah, probably TikTok honestly is the best place to get updates now from me. But we'll see. We'll see as we raise and, you know, get a contest team. We'll see what we can do to get more of a community involved.

Brilliant. Yeah, Tori's TikTok is awesome, folks. So go check that out. Tori, thank you so much for coming on. It's been absolutely awesome in an inside look on, like, what it's like to be an Olympian and in crypto, crazy mix and building a startup. Unbelievable. So you're absolutely killing it. Well done. Please go and check out Tori's stuff on TikTok and check out our website. It's absolutely awesome. And if you like this episode and if you think someone else in your network friendship circle work would like this episode, please share with them. It's how we grow the podcast and we want to keep bringing on amazing guests like Tori. So thank you so much, Tori. We'll see you next time.

Thanks, Ben.