62. State Of Crypto Update From Consensus In Austin

It's very different times. You know, two years ago when there was excess money floating around and everyone was getting funded. It's the complete opposite now. It's like only the best will survive. Not that much money rolling around, but still a heap of people want to build in the space. But a theme that I found that Matt and I sort of agreed on is it's just a heap of solutions to not many problems. Welcome back to another episode of the Benneberg show with your favorite MBA and high school dropout talking everything, crypto, business and personal growth. And we have some exciting news because we've just crossed a new all time high weekly listeners. It is up to 244 unique weekly listeners. Thank you everyone so much for listening in. We've been going now for nearly a year on the podcast, so huge shout out to everyone that for whatever reasons have listened to the podcast. We absolutely love doing it. We have a lot of exciting episodes coming up, including today. I am currently in Austin, Texas and just finished Consensus, which is the largest crypto conference in the world. There's 15, 000 attendees that attended this week and I'm going to give you all the insights, alpha and updates. But first of all, bergs. Good to see you, man.

Mate, good to see you. It's been a while since we had a chat. It's good, mate. It's been almost a year and we haven't had a bust up. Can you believe this? We haven't quit, we haven't got divorced, mate.

We've probably been close a few times, but no, we're good. I mean, I was reflecting on it today, like, because we're going to do a future episode on creating a podcast and you know how to do it. And for me, like, I could not have done a podcast without a co host. I'd be three episodes in and be like, now this is all too hard. Yeah, so to do it with you, mate, and to genuinely enjoy it, that was the number one KPI, you know, for when we started the podcast. Like if we stopped enjoying it, we stopped on the pod. That was number one rule.

That's exactly it, mate. And we've kept that like some weeks were like, nah, just can't do it. Like I'm just had a massive week, put it onto next week, we'll just schedule and it's just worked, man. Like I'm really enjoying this, really enjoy building it.

Yeah, me too. So today we're going to talk about consensus, crypto insights, what you need to know about the event, what you missed out on to put in the context, like it is super expensive, these events. Like I don't like know really why it's so expensive. It's, it's 1500 US dollars for a two day pass, 2000 US dollars for a three day pass. So we were really lucky. We applied for a startup concession so we, we basically got it for a third of the price. But you're talking $3,000 to go to this event. Australian, like it's fucking ridiculous. Like I would never pay that amount of money to go to a conference. You know, it's just stupid.

How many days is it?

So two days to the public and three days for. If you got the three day pass, which is, it was just like some extra content on day one.

That is crazy. Like conferences do cost a lot of money and usually because businesses are paying event higher costs a lot, conferences generally don't make money. The amount of cash that flows through there, just absolutely incredible.

Well, 15,000 people at $1500 is 22 point something million dollars of revenue USD. That's not including sponsorship dollars. It's not including, you know, some of the high ticket stuff they had. There was the different tiers you could get of tickets, like extraordinary size. And it's run by Coindesk, so it's run by a big crypto media company and they just promote themselves the whole way through it. Like it's like they get people to pay to come to their event and get sponsors to sponsor their event and they get to promote themselves to everyone. Like it's an unbelievable model.

There you go. So probably are making a lot of money otherwise it wouldn't engage in it.

Yeah, exactly. But, but look, there was a few key takeaways for me. We'll get into that and then this episode we're going to do more of just like an A personal wrap up because we haven't done one a little, a little while. So we're doing our meme of the week in the middle of the week and talking about the US and everything else that's going on. But yeah, number one for me because there was a what we call sort of a triple A game being built and they had a prototype of it at the event. So Web3 Gaming, we know it's a massive sector and there was a game there that's being built on Avalanche called Shrapnel. Now Shrapnel is like a Call of Duty competitor. I'd probably say they had like eight computers. They were playing like, like on land modes. They were playing against Each other. It looked wicked. Like, the graphics were epic. And basically, like, the way it works is that as you build up your points within the game and you upgrade your guns and your character, they are all NFTs. So you can upgrade your gun and your weapons and you can sell those weapons and your character to other people for real dollars and you can earn actual in, you know, in game crypto. And this is the first real evolution of what Web3 Gaming is going to be like, but it's actually really cool games that gamers can make real money and build up their characters and sell those assets. So, yeah, really exciting. This game looked pretty sick.

That's amazing to hear. Like, if I got paid to play Apex Legends, I'll be on that 247 mate. Like, seriously, that is like the little incentive that I need because it's going hard. So I had to uninstall a mate because that shit's addictive. But then, yeah, I really wonder about the business model as well. Like, I like that it's on a blockchain, you own it, it's an nft, you're creating value and you own that value. But then I'm also wondering how it differs to just a controlled marketplace.

Right.

So it'd be interesting to see how that actually plays out when it's at scale.

Yeah, I'm not sure about like the sort of the, the token economics and how that all that all works for that specific game. But yeah, it's too early days. But, yeah, there's a lot of VC money pouring into the Web3 gaming space. So I want to keep an eye out for sure. The Next one was PayPal announced, so they've got crypto. So you can basically buy and sell crypto on Venmo, which they, I believe they own. They must own. They announced that, yeah, the 60 million users on their Venmo app that can now transfer crypto out of the app. So I believe you could actually send your crypto outside of the app previously and now people can sort of send and receive inside their app and there's over 60 million people that use Venmo. So that's. That's really cool. I think it's really highly used over here in the us.

Yeah. That's amazing. And what do they call it is like a Layer four kind of thing where it's like you have crypto but it's trapped within the thing so you can't get it out. You'd have to convert it.

Coinbase was like that. Coinbase was like that a Little while ago.

Yeah.

Where you couldn't even withdraw at all in Australia. So anyway, it's good. And I was listening to that. I think it was the CTO of coin, sorry, of PayPal. And it's just talking about how they know crypto runs in cycles and they're investing a lot of capital and people and resources into their crypto products and offerings because they want to be a big player in the stablecoin space. So, yeah, it's really. It's always just nice to hear and see big institutions continue to building out in crypto. And that was kind of the biggest theme for, I felt across consensus. It was very institutional. Basically no retail investors. All the booths were B2B offerings. Wasn't even an exchange there. I think there might have been one exchange. I can't remember who it was. Horby Hobby had a banner. That's kind of it. But there was like no exchange presence at all. Yeah, it was really weird, actually. It was very like back end tech. A lot of layer ones. Every layer one was there. Polygon Cardano.

I think Tezos was there.

Tron, I don't know if I said Polka dot.

These are all the ones that had massive ICOs that may still have money in their bank.

Yeah, 100% they had money in the bank.

And they were sponsoring it everywhere. At the airport, you know, throughout the city, they had like trucks driving around with their logo on the back of the truck. Like. Yeah, they really went hard this, this week. But yeah, it was fascinating. And. And the other one was there's just a lot of startups. There's a lot of, you know, early stage crypto startups looking for capital, but there's not a lot of capital out there right now. There's very few VCs. We went to one investor breakfast. I reckon 95% of the attendees were startups. The VCs just really aren't backing any projects right now. And if they are, it's the cream of the crop. So there's. Yeah, it's very different times, you know, two years ago where there was excess money floating around and everyone was getting funded. It's the complete opposite now. It's like only the best will survive. Not that much money rolling around, but still a heap of people want to build in the space. But a theme that I found that Matt and I sort of agreed on. Matt, I had research is traveling with me is it's just a heap of solutions to not many problems, I find. Yeah, there it's kind of like to a point, where it's like, God, like, okay, cool, I get it. But like, who the fuck is going to use that? And you're competing with a million other people. That also is a problem that isn't that important. Like, there's not. This is screaming out of these, you know, screaming out to get this. To get this problem solved. One company, one founder we spoke to raised at the peak of the bull market, pre product, pre revenue. He raised goodness knows how much at a $550 million valuation. He was burning $4 million a month, losing $4 million a month, and it was two years away from generating revenue.

Amazing. Amazing.

And that is the ludicrous of some shit that goes on over here and.

You can see it a mile away when someone's giving you a pitch and you kind of need a telescope and it's got to have a certain lens and you got to point it at the moon and look at it just at the right angle. You can kind of see how they're going to get to the market.

Right.

Whereas other people where they're like, hey, I've talked to a thousand people that all have this problem. They want this thing. I'm going to build the thing.

Yeah, yeah. Just a.

The us. US market is just completely different to Australia. Right. Could you imagine if the Australian crypto convention. Dave comes out and says it's going to cost you $3,000 to attend this event?

What? Like, just no one would go, yeah, that's it. You just. Even. Even at like, $300, people like, you know, fuck off. It's just. It just doesn't happen at our company. Right. Talk to investors in Australia. They want to know what you have for breakfast. They want to know, like, you know, your mother's middle name. You don't want to know everything. Right. Like, it is, it is, it is super high due diligence. It is not even like, okay, sorry, everyone should do due diligence. But it's more the point of just like, there's very few deals done in Australia. Come over to the US mate. There's like, we're like an 80 strike rate of VCs wanting to meet with us. Like, it's, oh, you've got revenue, your product, you have a team, you're growing, you're in crypto. Oh, my goodness. Like, let's go for dinner.

Yeah.

You know, it's just a whole different ball game.

Absolutely. And I think it's. If you look just like market size and the incentives over there and yellow capital as well. But. But a lot of that has dried up, but you really stand out if you've actually done something. You've got customers, you've got revenue, you've proven this out and now you just need money to scale what's already working. It's a very different story to hopes and dreams.

I was talking to one of our investors today and the analogy he used was like, you know.

Where we are right now is like there's, there's already, there's already a fire burning, right? So you raise capital to, to build the fire up, but when you're raising money to create the fire and you don't have anything there, it's a much harder, much harder ball game to be, to be playing in. And we were in there last year. That's hard.

That's it. This sounds like a very institutional conference. Like all the big players are there. I think Matt was talking about MasterCard or Visa announcing another crypto thing as well. Yeah, all the, all the big kind of, you're right, layer ones and payments. Like that sounds like a really big thing.

It was, it was good. Like it's, it's good to be just in a room with all the sort of heavy hitters, you know. Like I met with a lot of different people, different exchanges, financial institutions, financial platforms, met a lot of startups, met VCs, potential partners. It was just really good to be over here. And like I didn't consume much of the content. Matt definitely did. I'm more of the, you know, I'm the more of the schmoozer out of the, the two of us.

Look at you.

More of the biz dev angle. But you know, even getting meetings with, you know, a really big crypto exchange from Australia happened here in Austin. Yeah, right. Didn't happen in Australia because just is what it is. But when you, when you're there, you're in the zone. Everyone's here for crypto. It's for growth, it's for partnerships. You're just in the zone.

So yeah, what was your highlight of the conference, mate?

What was the best part or the most fun you had or the part where you just went, oh wow, that's eye opening?

It was, it was probably like.

It was probably more of a self, self reflection piece for me. It was throughout the week, you know, there were, there was events on those parties on every night. There was, you know, all these different projects, had things on. You know, there's a lot of the Australian squad that were heading out. There was people out to 3, 4am didn't just getting after it and that's absolutely amazing like because, you know, I definitely been there. But like this week was just like, it was just a really efficient, effective week. You know, we worked really hard. We were still doing just as much, if not more than we normally would because Australia is asleep during most of the day. So we just crunch out a bunch of work.

And there's just a lot of reception to our business. There's a lot of interest really like and it's really exciting to talk to people that you can see the. See the trajectory and have those conversations and then come home, knock out a bit more work, go some tacos and watch the NBA. Like it's fucking awesome.

So.

And then go to bed. You know, like I'm just. Yeah, just. Just been a good routine and did.

Going to consensus match your expectations or were you expecting something completely different in your head before you got there? And then in reality it was just different to what you thought was going to happen?

It was definitely massive. Like in terms of when I, when I went into the convention center, like the space is huge. Right? Had they had like four massive different stages. Like it probably took it 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Like it was massive. And they had different villages. So they had like the. This. I don't know what it was. I think it was like the layer one village and the metaverse village. And they had the, you know the. It had the big stage and they just had different areas. You could go like immerse yourself in the different sectors of crypto. I thought that was really cool. Just the scale of the whole thing would just be massive.

So it probably surprised me of the size but then also probably surprised me how little investors they were and how little startups there were. Ah, retail investors. Yeah there was just a lot of businesses trying to sell their to other businesses. That's kind of what it was. I mean which is kind of what you know, conferences are built for. But yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of it's much different to the Australian crypto convention.

A lot of businesses especially in trade actually do the majority of their sales during these conferences or create those relationships.

100 and I like it like I like because I think a good deal or a good partnership, you get a lot further when you get to sit in. In a room with someone or have coffee with someone and really get to know who they are as a person and what they're building and like you get a good sense of any red flags or possibilities or synergies or whatever it might be. I just like talking to people. Honestly, not every, not everyone. Some people drain the energy out of me. But like I like to. I like talking to smart people that are doing cool things. So that's why I like conferences.

That's awesome, mate. Now let's talk about your journey over there. So last year, horrendous journey. Barreled in. Didn't know what you were doing was it might have been your first time in the States. Got Covid, just all downhill. Still managed to do heaps. How is it this time? How was the journey there, mate? Talk us through. You're leaving Melbourne. Where'd you go to? What happened along the way?

Yeah, mate. Got completely rugged last year, so missed half the conference because I got covert day one. This year I've got my health and fitness in order, so I've been really trying to focus on that. But I've got to go to Bali in a couple of weeks for a business conference and I've got to leave. I've got a meeting and I've got to leave straight afterwards in the US to go back to Bali. So I don't have time to go back to Melbourne and then to Bali. So what I had to do was fly six hours, Melbourne to Barley. Had a night in Barley. Then I had to go from Barley to la. Sorry, Barley to Austin. So I had to go from Barley, eight hours to Taiwan. I had a three hour stop room, Taiwan. And the time, time zone difference from Taiwan to LA is like the complete opposite.

Yeah, yeah.

So it was, it was like 9pm in Taiwan and like 9am in LA or something like that. So I had to flip the, flip the, you know, flip the switch. So we use this time shifter app. So I tried to pull all nighter. So two hours in Taiwan. Then it was a, I think it was a 14 hour flight from Taiwan to LA in the middle of the night. And I'm trying to stay awake. Passed out.

Classic. I am human optimization. I got this, it's all sorted. You get on the plane, you got a plan. Two minutes later, just out, mate.

Literally. So I had movies lined up, I had work lined up, I had it all lined up. Literally 10 minutes in, woke up, it was like out of that, that didn't go well. But I only said for like maybe two or three hours. And I was like, okay, cool. It's like 2 or 3am in the morning. Stayed up smashing coffee. Got to LA. By the time I got to LA, it was night time. I was supposed to meet Matt. Matt thought I was at the airport. So he Was waiting at the airport for me for like an hour and realized I wasn't even coming. Another like five hours and he went home.

Oh, no.

Oh, yeah. Got into la. Went, Went to. When I got some food. Yeah. Passed out and then went. We went to Austin the next day, but that's when it all went downhill with a jet lake. So I was like, oh, I went to sleep really easy in la. I was like, great. Like, this was. This is great. Then just copped it, mate. Like, couldn't sleep. I was tired during the day. We slept on the plane for like three hours. Then I was just like 1am why? Looking at the roof, just going this. Finally fell asleep. Woke up like half an hour later. Like it was just so.

It's the worst.

So I. No. So I just got up, went to the gym and probably after three or four days I got better. I was just super tired throughout the day. But yeah, didn't get sick. It's a massive journey to get to Austin and yeah, then we're off to New York on Wednesday. So the time zone is just horrific.

Oh, yeah. I want to take you back to your first stop in Bali, mate. You are. Managed to get on the plane, which is good. And you had your suitcases, so well done. And then you land in Bali and what happened, mate?

So apparently need a visa to get into Bali.

Go up to the border. Go up to old mate. Yeah, yeah. You're just coming in, leaving tomorrow. Yeah, cool, cool. Yep. Visa. I handed my passport. No, no visa. What visa? You need a visa to come to Bali. I was like, sake. Well, how do I get one of those? I don't have one of those. He's like, over there. So I had to walk at this point I was just like, I'm not going to get in there. I'm going to be sleeping at the airport. This is going to be a disaster. It's going to take a week to get a visa. Couldn't find the booth, you know, where I was going anyway, found the booth. Turns out super easy. You just had to pay like 30 bucks or whatever it was and like signs and documents or whatever and get a visa. But like at the time I was just like, this is a standard Ben, like, need I need a visa? I don't have a visa.

So I talked to the team, right, because we had a bit of a catch up before our weekly meeting and they're saying like, they kept reminding you about the visa.

I remember that.

They're like, they keep reminding you, like, again, have you done this have you done? Yes, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. Didn't do it. Doesn't even remember being told. Did you call. Did you call Dave as well? When?

Called the night.

Okay, Okay. I just want to make sure I got this right. So Dave's telling me the guy we work with, he gets a call from Ben, like, 2:00am he's like, need a visa? What's going on here?

I can't get into Bali.

Dave's like, what the.

It's classic Ben. He's like, no idea what's going on. Barreling. Call Dave at 2am may sort out my life. I see these supposed to. I don't remember it. May just sort it out for me.

Poor bugger. I don't know why he stays around, mate.

And then.

Oh, dude. And then I get a voice message from Ben. He's walking through the airport. He's like, man, I'm going through the airport. It's like Taiwan, Taipei, some. I don't even know where I am, mate. But you should see these people. They're in the gym. They're getting after it. They're doing this, they're doing that. All right, man, I've got to go while you're walking through the airport.

I was so fired up. So this was the thing. This is why I passed out, because I was just so fired up. Like, I was just in that zone where I'm just like, I've got so much in my head. And the plane didn't have WI fi, so I couldn't get any of these ideas and, like, start working on it. And then because we started getting our Facebook ads starting to work, and for those, you know, we'll talk about on a different. On a different podcast. But, like, we're working on this new marketing strategies, and it's really starting to work. So I was messaging burgs like, dude, I'm so pumped up. Like, all this shit's happening. Like, Talking about CACT, LTV ratios and CPLs and like, CPAs and all this sort of. And it's. I was going to tweet about it, but I forgot. That's all I could think. I couldn't sleep after this because all I could think about was like, CPLs, you know, CACT, LTV ratios and like, how are we going to optimize the call to action and. And the Facebook pixel and why we retargeting it? What, like, budget and like, going out of my mind. And the more tired I got, the worse it got. So I was just in this perpetual loop of not being able to sleep, thinking about marketing.

This is classic Ben. I'll get a voice message from. He's like, oh, man. It's like he's all huffing and puffing. He's walking somewhere. He's like, man, I'm so dialed in. I can see the Twitter algorithm, man. I know exactly what to post. I know exactly how we're gonna do ad targeting, how people come in. Oh, mate, I got this new strategy, and it's just. Oh, mate, it's perfection. It's so good, man. You're just so jacked up.

And, mate, like, no one else. No one else gets those voice messages. Like, there's only you that I would send it to. Stuff, right? Like, it's like me at my raw, strategic adhd, off the planet, like, ideas stage. And, like, I'm gonna say, 50. No. Probably at 70% of it's garbage. And you'll tell me, like, the next day, like, boy, this is a terrible idea. Oh, I'll try it. Or like, an hour later, I'll be like, that was a terrible idea. Okay, but, like, 30 of it is, like, the. Is the goal.

The first thing is very few people on the planet would understand what you're actually saying, because first of all, they need to speak, Ben. Right? And then after that, they need to understand, you know, business and all the things that go on and then the specifics of the company.

Right? Yeah.

But then I just give you brutal feedback where I'm just like, mate, you're full of shit. Put your head in. Or. Actually, that's a wicked idea. You need to double down on that. And then it gets me pumped up as well.

My.

Oh, lad. If we do it that way, then we can do this, then we can do that. That'd be sick. Let's give it a go.

And I think for those listening, like, starting a company or being a founder or like, you know, that is. That is the job of the founder or the CEO, the business owner, is to come up with the crazy ideas to be strategic, you know, your job as a founder, as a CEO, is to make sure there's money in the bank. You have the right seats on the right bus, and the bus is going in the right direction. That's the. That's your three responsibilities. And, you know, if you enjoy those three things and the business you're in, I'm so grateful to love what I do. So everything that I think about strategically, I get so excited about and pumped up, and I'm Also super competitive. Yeah. So, like, everything needs to happen right now. We need to be the best. If I see someone else doing something better than us, it's not from a. From a lens of, you know, fuck those guys. We need to be, you know, being better. It's just like, why aren't we better? We need to be better at these things. Yeah. So it's like a continual process of iteration, learning as much as I possibly can about a subject or a topic, consuming as much as I can about it, and then building our own version. And that's when I always, like, would message Bergs about this, you know, this new iteration or like, this new understanding. I've got a strategy or whatever it might be. And it's so good to have someone to bounce off because Bergs has a really, you know, incredible strategic mind that thinks about things in a completely different angle. Like, if you think about it, I, I might. I'm more of like, you know, we need to go, you know, we need, we need to get to Thailand. Right. But I don't have no fucking idea how to get to Thailand. Right. So I'm gonna, I'm tellbergs all these ideas around, like, why we need to be in Thailand when we need to get there. This is a metaphor, by the way. Not literally Thailand or traveling, but. But then Bergs will come back and say, either though that's a shit idea, Thailand's, you know, shit place, or that's a great idea. Here's how we can get there. And that's having that person on the other side is why we work so well.

Exactly. And two other roles that you have is to be the chief evangelist and pushing the boundaries. So you're the biggest champion of the company and you're always trying to do better. And my role is to obviously help with that and do the similar things. Not be in charge of or responsible, but also plug that strategy execution gap where you come to me with, hey, this is my vision, this is what I want to do. This is absolutely crazy. And I'm like, okay, this is the road to get there. And then also is the road, bullshit. Do we want to go there? Or some of your ideas where you're like, I've seen this AI thing, man. It's fucking sick. We need to do this, we need to do that. I know what it actually takes to do that, my bro. We're not an AI company. It's going to cost $10 billion and it's not going to work. You're like, nah, but I've Seen a bro, we just plug it in. We just, we just do integration man. Your figures just go. It's just integration. Like there's a big fucking integrate button. Like data doesn't matter, Data cleansing doesn't matter. Data pipelines don't matter. And it's like compute doesn't matter. Cost don't matter. AI engineers don't matter. Nah, just integrate mate. Just the fingers, the fingers. I've seen it man. I've seen it.

That's so true.

Oh mate. So before we get on to meme and meal of the week we'll do a wrap up. You've got VC breakfast written down here. What's that about mate?

VC breakfast. So we went to a VC breakfast and this was. I'm going to do a deeper episode soon if you, if you'd like. So listeners, if you, if you want this please let me know. I'm going to do a deeper episode of like how we raise money because I learned a lot. I made all the mistakes in the world and I learned a lot raising out. We raised a million dollar USD, $1.5 million sort of pre seed last year seed. So we.

And for those that raise money you would know this. The best referral, the best way to raise money or the best way to get meetings is through referrals. So Bergs has an investor friend and he refers me onto him and does a warm introduction. The reason that's so good is because there's already trust built, right? There's already social proof that we are someone to somebody, right? If you're just going out cold to a bunch of people, you've got no credibility, no social proof, no anything. So you're starting scratch. So what we did on the, on the weekend or last week was we applied to this startup breakfast where we, where we basically gave all the information on our company and then there was a bunch of different VCs that, that selected the companies that they wanted to have meetings with. So it was like a version of a warm intro because they, this, this company basically did an introduction to these VCs. So we had three meetings, 15 minutes with VCs that wanted to meet with us and the conversation at that level you've already, you've already passed all the bullshit of just like who you are, where you're from, what do you do. Like are you just a scammer, like all this sort of shit and you straighten the beans. And that was a really cool way to meet with VCs. There was like Animoca Brands, crypto.com capital. There was Sequoia. There was like. There was like little big dogs in the room and that was really cool. Matt and I went down there, smashed out a few VC meetings and then run out of there. So that was just really cool. Little experience. That's a good way to run it, I must say. You don't get that in Australia. I love Australia. But like, you don't get to go, as we're saying to Matt, you don't get to go to a VC Web3 breakfast and meet the leading VCs across the world in Australia. Like, unfortunately, you have to, in my experience, love it or hate it, you have to invest to get out and just get after it. Yeah. Like, is the only way I found to win in this space or just how I've been able to grow, personally grow a business is you just have to do the shit that no one else is doing. Yeah.

You have to do the hard thing.

Doing after the hard thing. You have to go to Dubai on grand final day and, like, be over there for six weeks and not know a thing. You have to travel and like, just, you know, cold, introduce yourself to random people and be like, just that weird guy from Australia. Like, you. You have to give up on things. You just have to do it. It's another choice.

Yeah. And that's what it takes to succeed. And Australia is small. It's a test market. We don't have the massive institutions and universities that are masquerading as universities, but they're really hedge funds or the massive VC funds that are in the States. We just don't have that here. And that landscape isn't going to change for a very long time. So you have to get out there, you have to chase it, you have to go to the market, you have to go to the place where the things are that you need. And it's very uncomfortable.

It is, but it's also.

It's also relatively easy. Like in a sense of. You just ask people that have done it before. I've never done this before. I just ask the people, the right people. Go on Clarity FM Clarity fm, searching what you want and ask the experts what you need and they'll tell you how to do it. That's how I fucking did it. I did it from Australia. You type in Clarity fm. I typed in, you know how to raise money in the us. I met the CMO ex. CMO of Expedia from Canada, who's now my advisor, and he literally told me how to do it.

That's it.

I just Went and did it.

This is the hard thing though, where what you've done is a well trodden path, right? Like there's a way to do it and people know how to do it. But this is the equivalent of saying, hey, it's super easy to be fit and healthy. All you got to do is eat right and exercise. But nobody wants to do that. How much do you want it and are you going to do it and are you going to show up every day and improve? That's the hard part.

Very true, very true. The consistency, the 1% of the fucking late nights, the sick stomach that can't afford it, they all, all the shit that comes with it, that's the execution, the strategy. You're right, because you can do strategy to the fucking cows come home. But like unless you're actually doing the thing, makes zero difference.

So this is one thing I saw on Twitter, speaking of strategy, where people are like, oh, the guy compass. Like oh, I do strategy. And it's like what the. Like they reckon they're just the laziest people on the planet because they'll write a strategy and that's it. And to some degree I agree with them. I really think you need to go and have a great strategy, but you need to have a plan to execute on it. And you need to be able to explain to the people how to execute on it, how it fits in, motivate them to actually achieve it, measure it and then help those people as well. That's the exact thing. You can have a great strategy, you can have a great plan, but you need to execute.

Yep, spot on mate. And you're not going to get it right from the start. Like it's gonna fumble the ball, you're gonna fuck it up, gonna do it wrong. You know, even as a recent example, like I started this new day in the life videos right to the first five, you know, had a strategy executed, tried and I need to iterate it, but I wouldn't have known this new strategy, this, this iteration that we're making to make it better without doing that first thing. Same with the podcast. Our first 20 podcasts were shit. Look back now iterated our product iteration capital raising. My first 20 meetings got laughed out of the room like it looked like an absolute like idiot. And the, and the deck I use, I look like a 14 year old kid that's never, you know, done a bit, read a business book like that. But you don't know until you just do the thing.

So don't be afraid to be shit Everyone shit. It just means you're starting a new thing. And if you want to get good at that thing, you're gonna be shit for a while and just accept it.

Yeah. And it'll make you feel uncomfortable. Makes me feel uncomfortable, like anxious and like frustrated that I, I even. That was that bad. But I've now learned that you have to do that. I now turn into a positive, like, okay, think about it. You didn't do that before, now you've done it. Now you know how to improve it. You wouldn't have been able to do that unless you actually did the thing.

That's so interesting where I don't get anxious about being. I get disappointed and have regret that it took so long to even try. And I'm like, so I'll do the thing and then I'll be, oh, I'm really shit. But I know in three or six months I'm gonna be great. But if I took a month, two, three, six to actually start. But I should have started early and I would have been so far ahead. Mine's like the procrastination before I start.

Why is the. Is it a fear is an ego thing? Is it a just a can't be bothered thing?

Is it a. Oh, it's all of the above, mate. So it's Some of it is ego where I don't want to be shit. It could be I'm anxious about the thing, like I don't want to do it and I've made up a reason in my head that's never going to happen happen that's blocking me. Or I put it in the all too hard basket. When in reality it's, you know, super easy. You just have to go and do the thing. Yeah, it's. It's heaps of things, man.

Because I feel all those same things, but it's from probably going too fast. So I'll just go and do the thing and then I'll look at it like, that was. Why did I do that? Like, that was terrible that I should have done it this way. But the reality is, in both circumstances, no one gives a flying for Hoosier anyway. Yeah, no one cares. Exactly. Change anything.

Even in mine, it might be like, oh, I need more information, I need to read more about it. I need to understand and. No, you just need to do it. You understand by doing. You get more feedback by doing, but it's harder because you're constantly getting punched in the face, which no one wants to. Wants to do. Right.

But it's. You're Only getting punched by yourself, right? You know what else is.

But this is the thing where I. No one could ever harm me as much as I harm myself because I'm the worst self critic, right? So when you tie all those things together, you're like. But then you do the atomic habits thing where you like break it down, it's in a safe space and you're like, I'm gonna do it for this time period, the worst thing that happens. Great, I can accept that. And then you go and do it. But it's getting to that point. Is that psychological like hump you have to get over?

Yeah, yeah, Amazing. It's a good conversation, man.

How good? How good now mate, let's. Let's get into some eights.

So for those that are new to the channel, every now and again we do a meme in the week, in the middle of the week. We actually used to do it a lot more often, but I feel as though like, you know, there's been more important to talk about and you know, not everyone cares about our personal lives. So if you don't care about this, feel free to skip. But for those avid Benneberg's listeners, the OG listeners, you'll know that this is one of our favorite.

Oh, true fans only, baby. True fans.

So my meal of the week this week is an authentic Texas barbecue. And this was just phenomenal. So what we've got here, we waited probably 30 minutes in line. So massive line Friday night. Like you could smell the meat that had the. I can't remember what they call it, but they had the shed at the back where it's like smoking all the meats and smokers all happening. You get in and Berg's basement, this is just phenomenal, right? So they've got, it's all processed out like, like it's just, they've got a down pat. So you get your tray, you get your side. So I went, I went to coleslaw and. With a big Mac and cheese, mate, this Mac and cheese. Oh, it's just like. You just know it's not good for you because that's how good it takes.

You can feel it like hardening your arteries already.

You just know, you're just shortening your life on every spoonful. But it's so good. And then you go, you take the tray and you go to the meat selection and they've got, there's like, there's like seven people behind the desk right behind the table and they've just got all these meats. They're like, what do you want? You had sausage, you had pork ribs, beef ribs. You had like brisket, pulled pork wings, hot leaves, brisket. All of it.

All of it, yeah.

So I was like, what do I get? I just get all of it. So I got. I got a beef rib. This beef rib, mate. Oh, my. This is the best. That was.

It looks juicy.

Class. Oh, man. They gave you, like, they gave you plastic knife and fork. So this thing was like bendy. You didn't even need the fork, mate, just. You didn't need the knife. Just a fork. You just brush the meat off. Like, it was just phenomenal. Had some pork ribs. Got the beef ribs. Yeah, dude. And then smashed a heap of Mac and cheese. Got a. Got a cup for the soda fountain. This cup, mate. It was like. It was like. It was like a four liters. It was four liters. But I filled it like a quarter and I couldn't get through it like this. Everything's just in massive sizes and just. Yeah, I just nailed this. It was phenomenal. So barbecue meat. This was like a. This is a 10 out of 10. It was sensational.

Oh, did you have any smoked beans? Have you had those before?

No, I didn't have smoked beans.

Get those before you leave, mate. And I like the, like, the beef rib just looks juicy as briskets already falling apart. Beautiful smokering on it.

Yeah.

I like the slaw as well, where it's not too saucy, but it could cut through everything. And those, the pork ribs, they're my favorite style, where it's a dry rub, not slathered in sauce. They'll just be absolutely incredible, mate. Meal of the week. Let's.

What do you got for us?

All right, look at this, lad. So.

Oh, wow.

This is a massive hunk of beef served on a board. It's on a bed of golden brown roasted rosemary potatoes. This was served at my sister in law's wedding, by the way. We had beef capaccio. You got to choose, like, out of all stuff, I chose beef capaccio, which was amazing. This and then tiramisu, which is incredible. And the sauce, mate, let me just change the angle on this bad boy. Oh, look at that. Look at the roasted garlic.

What? Sorry? What's. What cut of meat did you say that was?

Oh, I think they called it like a beef fillet or something like that. It's just like a big hunk of juicy beef. It was just cooked perfect perfectly. And the sauce band. I had. The sauce is the reason I got this. So it is a Blue cheese and walnut sauce. So it's just like big stanky blue cheese and you just have a spoon, like, just like instant stank face, mate. And then you got like the crunchy but softness of the walnuts and the bitterness. Just slather that on. Dipping the beef in there and then dipping all the potatoes in, mate, I had the best, best time with this thing, mate. This is just a 10 out of 10. I could not improve this.

Yeah.

And because the, the meals were so big and this was at a restaurant, people just like, I'll just take this away. So a lot of people ordered this and they ended up taking it away. So what we did the next day was we ended up making pizzas and putting them in the wood fired oven at the place we're staying at. So we ended up putting like beef, all the sauce, right, roasted potatoes, everything on these amazing pizzas and calzones. Oh, bro, it was incredible. Like, just seriously, I'm right into my pizza making at the moment and I've pretty much perfected my Napoli like dough. So it's like beautiful, like soft but crunchy. And the toppings you could put on, oh my God, it's just a whole new world. I'm just loving it, mate. This was, this was a 10 out of 10 for me, mate. It was in.

Yeah, incredible. There's nothing better than just a good steak. Oh, chip chips and veg or something like that. You know when it's so simple and.

Done well even now, like I started doing meal prep and I'll just get all these vegetables, put it in a tray and then just put chicken on the top or like beef or whatever I'm doing. And when the fat just goes into the vegetables, it's just incredible. It is so, so good, man.

All right, amazing.

Now we're going to jump into meme of the week. We haven't done this in a while. We're gonna have to bring it back, mate. We're just gonna have to get amongst it. All right, so I've got a few here, those on the pod. This is Newman from Seinfeld. He's a portly man. He's asleep on the couch. And it says tick tock uses when a movie is longer than 10 seconds and the music isn't oh, no, no, no. Which is so good. And I love this because first of all, this is like what Mason was saying where he's a DJ and producer and people are selecting songs, like promoting them based on if it's tick tock worthy or not. Just that 15 seconds, and he hates it. And what is happening to us as a society. We. Where we don't even have the attention spans. You see people at dinner, they'll talk for three seconds and go on their phones, or they just can't be alone. They always have to have their phone with them. People can't take a dump without being on their phones. And our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and shorter. So it's like 10 seconds. I'm not entertained. Bang. Pass out.

Love it.

So there is a. There is a meme depression theme running through here, which I just absolutely love.

All right, this is of a vending machine, and it says, the light inside has broken, but I still work. And you got the guy from the Incredibles, the dad, he's just looking down. He's got a sad face. He's like, me too, machine. Me too. Poor bloke just busted up inside. But he still works. Just got no hope.

I love it. I love it. This is. This is the feels.

Oh, man.

It's like. It's. It's like in the English shoe. The light inside has broken, but I still work. And it's just like. Yeah, I feel.

Oh, mate. Mate, it's too real. It's too real. All right. And then we got two Pringles cans, And it says, Mr. Pringles lost his hair. And that hopeful spark in his eyes. I feel you, Mr. Pringles. So the one on the left, he's got, like, big hair and he's got, like, shiny eyes. And then the new look one, he's just got, like, black, beady eyes and no hair. Still showing up to work. He's lost that spark. No hope, mate. He's got no hope. But he's still showing up, mate. He's doing his Mr. Pringles best. All right, and this one, it's like, apps rate us, Me never ask again where you press that button. The app's like, okay, cool. And it's a little kitten, and it's got the thumbs up, and it's just got the crying eyes. It's like, cool. I didn't need it anyway, but that's okay.

So. So good. And then the final. The final one for this week, there's a guy sitting with his therapist, and the guy on the couch is like, I have an imaginary girlfriend.

And.

And the therapist was like, you can do better. And the guy on the couch is like, I don't think I can. And the therapist is like, I was talking to your girlfriend.

Just absolutely slays him. I love. Oh, I just love the like sadness, hopelessness, little smatterings of depression that run through these memes. So, so good. These are the memes of the week. That made my week.

I like that. That was good memes, man. That was good. I tell you what, Elon's. Elon said some crackers recently on Twitter. He's. He's the meme key, mate.

Oh, Elon, like, his meme dealers are off the hook, mate. Straight meme, straight into the veins, everyone.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed that. We sort of went down a little bit of a different trajectory there, but I, I really enjoy that. Burgers. It was a good little conversation.

It was really good to do that reflection on why we don't do certain things, what's blocking us and how it's so interconnected and multifaceted. Love that. I'm going to listen back to it for sure.

Yeah, that's top class. So thanks everyone for tuning in. We'd love for you to just share it with a friend. Maybe someone that is starting a business, is a founder maybe going through some hard times or maybe just maybe just, you know, someone that wants a bit of, you know, some, some strategies to get started or just, you know, learn how to sort of push through those barriers. And this was a really good episode. And also anyone that maybe be interested in the consensus wrap up, we'd love for you to share that with a friend. But thank you very much. As always. You can leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. And forgot to mention this, we have a new Twitter account. We haven't really launched it yet, but you can head over to Twitter now and you can type in the. The handle is Ben and Bergs. And we'll be starting to post a lot more reels of our podcast over there. So you can always follow us on Instagram. We've got Ben and Bergs on Instagram and now we have Ben and Bergs on Twitter as well. So head over there and give us a little cheeky follow. But thank you very much for listening and berks. We'll see you next time.

Thanks so much for listening, folks. And hit us up on Twitter. Give us a roast, just a light roast, and we might roast you back. It'll be fantastic. Thanks so much, folks.

Thanks, guys.