77. From Zero to 75k: Scaling Crypto App Bamboo With COO Tracey Plowman

What are the things that make you guys tick?

Being able to pivot really quickly, being able to move with whatever's in front of you. We're moving into the US at the moment. We're in beta. All of a sudden we're debanked. We have to move with the changes that happen that are out of your control.

Welcome back to another episode of the Bennetberg show with your favorite MBA in high school dropout, talking everything, crypto, business and personal growth. And today we have another awesome, amazing special guest coming. Well, I've come to Perth, Tracy Plowman, the COO of Bamboo, the micro investing dollar cost averaging app with over 50,000 downloads. It's a really amazing app founded here in Australia. And Tracy's also a member of Collective Shift, host of Crypto Curious and just an all round champion. We thought we'd have you on the podcast. I was on yours yesterday, so we thought we'd return the favor. Thanks for. Thanks for coming.

Yeah, thanks for having me. It feels like you're following me around Australia. We did together in Sydney and now you're here, so.

Such a creeper.

I'm seeing her more than you, mate. That's a nice change, to be honest.

It's nice to see you here in Perth.

That's awesome. Well, Chase, we want to get into your background a little bit, but let's just go straight in. Like, what's it like working in a. In a crypto startup? Like you guys have been around for how long now?

Four years.

Four years. And you're the coo, you're the, you're the similar role to Bergs in your own company.

We make it happen, don't we?

Yeah, you guys are the quarterbacks, right? Like all the shit goes through you. Talk us like, what's it like being the bull market, bear market? Tell us about the journey.

Well, we've seen it through. I mean, look, are we startup? I suppose we're a small business now.

Scale up.

Yeah, let's say scale up. Yeah, let's call it that. Look, it's interesting and I've been through.

I've been through a few startups, but this one is my favorite. This one's my baby. And I think it's because I love the product and you need to. If you love the product, it's your own. If you've got skin in the game, it's interesting. Everything pivots and changes really quickly. And I'm a high river, much like yourself, Benny, and I think I like that and I like the fast Pace. Certainly not a govy worker, although I've done my time in government in the early days.

You both are similar in that nature.

Did you do your govy time as well?

16 years in health.

Oh, my. You are very measured in the way you talk.

I should have, to be fair. I did work for the Fiona Wood foundation, and not for profit, but we were based in a hospital. Clinical stuff there. And I worked out at guineas and stuff as well. Yeah, a lot of collaboration, but, yeah, interfacing with government.

I know. Yeah. You know, I don't think I've told you the story of me in government.

Okay, here we go.

Good one. Because I worked for the tourism commission in the very late 90s, and my job was to go around and explain to all of the different tourism operators in WA and all the different tourism centers, explain to them what the Internet was.

Oh, wow.

And explain why this was good to their. For their business.

Fascinating.

Yeah, exactly. So it was going to talk to say, you know, a little bed and breakfast down in Albany or the whale shark operators up in Exmouth to say, look, the Internet's a thing. This is the computer here, and you can put your product on here and someone on the other side of the world will see it.

Wow.

And come here and visit you. And a lot of them are like, well, I know the Internet. I understand it a little bit. I'm not sure about this. So we would actually explain and have to get the tourism bodies of each region on board and say, look, this is the future. This is how it's going to work. This is going to bring dollars into your area. We need to explain it to these guys. And a lot of them came on board, they could see that it was going to work for them, but a lot of them were just, I don't believe in it, don't think it's going to work. Does that sound very familiar to you?

Sounds very familiar. I could imagine that is much like working in crypto. You're simultaneously the best and worst job.

You're in an awesome area, you would have got to travel. But then you talk to people, they're like, no, Internet's a scam. Crypto's a scam. It doesn't matter. Not for me.

Yeah, well, it was going from that stage of, you know, web. Was it Web1 to Web2, where it was read only. So, you know, that was that. It was that stage of them understanding that people could book through it. And, you know, so it was interesting. But again, it was banging your head against a brick wall. Sometimes like Mar and Park Hedle out on the farm were like, I don't know about this Internet thing.

Yeah.

So really similar, really similar to what we're doing now, which is explaining to everyday people, this is crypto. It's here to stay. It's not going anywhere. This is why we can make it work for you.

And people are skeptical because that's your users. Right. Like, Doc was averaging fairly new the market. Like, what's been the biggest challenge to onboard over 50,000, like, downloads. That's a lot. How did you get, you know, what were the things that helped you on the product side?

Well, I guess, I mean, right now in this bear market, we're not focused on growth and bringing users in. We're really looking after the users that we've got and retention and making sure that they understand what. What point in the cycle that we are in and why they're probably not seeing that their balance go up and why it's a bit stagnant at the moment. We are in a bear market, but when we do, look at the new users, those users were me in 2018, when I didn't know what crypto was and why should I listen? And we, as an app are the trainer wheels. We're the ones saying, only put a small amount of money into this thing. If you're unsure about it, you want to learn a little bit more where we really are. The trainer wheels, put a little bit of spare change in here. Only Bitcoin, Ethereum, because they're kind of the blue chips, they're the big ones. Don't worry about all these other bits and pieces. So we've, you know, we feel like we're kind of educating and training them on the early stages.

So, yeah, what's it like working? So the CEO of Bamboo, Blake, I feel as though Blake and I are very similar in a sense of like, we need to go over there across the water. No idea how to build the boat. And that's why we've got you guys. The relationship dynamic is very similar, if you haven't noticed.

That's why we're both stressed to the gill today.

We're sitting over here, we're sitting over this side.

He's sitting across me on the pod.

Look, there's a lot of similarities with you and Blake, and then there's really not. I mean, Blake's pretty. You are on the go. I've said this before, there's a couple of you guys in this crypto industry who are high revvers, who are go, go Go. Okay. And you are one of them. I don't think I've ever said. I love watching your Instagram, which I told you before. Where is he now?

What's he doing?

He's constantly on the go, always making things happen. Blake's make things happen as well, but he's a little bit more measured and measured and just chilled out, I guess. And I love working with him, but he's definitely an ideas man. Yeah, I think you've got the, you know, the ideas man. You need the people behind them to execute and make things happen as well. We've got a. I love working with him. We've got a great relationship. He's like, like a brother and then sometimes probably a bit of a work husband. We fight a fair bit.

Yeah. Nice, big.

But you need someone. You don't want a yes man next to you. You want someone that's going to tell you the truth.

You know, what's the key to success as a, as a crypto startup? Like, what are the things that make you guys tick, do you think?

Being able to pivot really quickly, being able to move with whatever's thrown in front of you. You know, look at, we're moving into the, to the US at the moment. We're in beta all of a sudden, kind of, we're. We're debanked, you know, so we have to move with the changes there. So there's, there's those changes that happen that are out of your control, but there's also listening to your user, understanding what makes them tick, understanding what they need. We're going through some big changes with the app at the moment. We're looking forward to bringing those to market later this year and early next year. And they will come about from market research, understanding what our users liked about our app and perhaps what we weren't giving them. So you really do need to listen to the market.

I think that pivoting and being adaptable, that really resonates to us. Like, I feel as every month we're like, okay, shit, what's new now? What do we need to move to?

That's exactly it. It's not just the crypto market changing the macro market as well, because you're B2C and it's one of the most challenging things where interest rates are going up, people don't have money, they're not investing as much. This is what we do.

Right.

Okay, who has money in the market or how do we. First of all, attraction is very, very hard in a bear market. How do we Attract those people who's got money. But then retention of the people that are there. How do you keep.

Well, look, retention, we're telling these people, you know, buy the dip. How many bloody dips can they buy? You know, they're gonna run out of money, you know, so then it comes down to. That's why I spoke earlier about us focusing on retention, looking after these really loyal users that we have now and making them understand what this market cycle is, why we've, you know, not seen much happening in the last 12 months. So they understand, hey, we're here in the market cycle, just keep dollar cost averaging because we see it going here or, you know, what history tells us is going to happen over the next few months. So really looking after them and making them understand that dollar cost averaging, you know, is the, is the strategy not just for this market, but for many other markets as well. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we can't just keep saying buy the dip and then.

It'S one of the most solid strategies and is proven time and time again by everyone on the planet. Yet it is also the hardest sell. People want to get rich today on the spiciest thing that you offer.

Yeah, exactly. How many people, you know, us included, probably sold at the top? Yeah, bottom, because that's what happens is psychology. It's really, really hard to do that, especially for new people into the market. Like we've been, you know, we've been in the market for a while now. We've seen the highs and lows, but we still find it really hard. So anyone new entering the market, as soon as you see it going up and you know, we know that crypto right now, if you speak to anyone on the street, you know, no one's talking about bitcoin and crypto. They think it's gone. The mainstream media is not talking about it right now, which is a good thing because we know that that's the part of the market market cycle where it's quiet before the storm. So everything's kind of leading into that.

Do you see that? That the charts of your users doing the same thing. Bear market comes in, dollar cost averaging goes down. Less transactions, less interest.

You know what, it's funny because no, we actually last year when all the panic happened and the price went down, we had four out of five was our best inflow months of all time.

Wow. And when you mean inflows, this is basically just volume, volume of people bringing in.

And that's because they had learned, hang on, prices down. Let's. So obviously We're a microsavings app, which is when you make a purchase, your roundups are happening in the background. But a lot of our users know that they want a dca, so they've picked a certain day of the month or, you know, whether that's monthly or whatever that they DCA in. So the people use this as dca, but a lot of people will see the market, you know, realize that it's down, and they've chosen to kind of, okay, I might chuck an extra 500 in today or this month. So when, you know, shit hit the fan. Last year, like I said, there was four out of five months where we saw, you know, we were just as surprised as you guys look now. We were like, wow, so these guys are listening to us. They understand that, hey, this is an opportunity, you know, we're going to buy here.

That's great.

Yeah.

In saying that, we did see a little bit of a reverse. So at the start of this year, when we saw that, you know, great pump, what were we at? What were we up by March? Like 61% up or something in March?

Yeah, we went from 16,000 in December to what, 30 something. Us.

Yeah, we're up by a lot. And then we did see a little bit of outflow because people were like, okay, and then take a bit of profit here. And we survey our users and we listen to them and we chat with them. And Elliot, who you guys, you know, know and love, he's fantastic on retention. He speaks to our users like, you know, they're our friends and we know what they're doing with their money and they're taking it out to buy cars. To buy.

Yeah.

It's also to have fortieths to do things with it. So when that peak happens and they can see that they've done well, they will take a bit out, but they stay in and they start reinvesting.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's the lifecycle with the app.

And with the decision to focus on, like, lifetime value, increasing transaction volume of existing users versus new, was that just a decision that in a bear market, just too. It's too expensive.

That when we look at cost of acquisition for our users at the moment, without putting heaps of, you know, cash into TV and other kinds of campaigns, it's just. It's just not worth it right now. Because we are in a bear market, we're not going to get a heap of users. No one's out there talking or listening about crypto. You know, we feel that's going to Be next year. So let's put our pedal to the metal when that happens.

Yeah, it's fascinating. We took a similar point of view on our lower tier. So our lower tiers, our starter membership and just found that it's just basically there's no. There's very little new entrants coming in, mum and dad investors, you know, which is that starter membership is overlaps very similar to. With your audience. It's just very little engagement. So it's interesting. Talk us through what's. What's the day in the life of a CEO, of a. Of a crypto scale up.

Changes every day. Changes every day. Depends. It really does. It depends what happens. And you know, might have a different project like the Net. The. The last probably six weeks and the next six weeks. My day to day is infused with, you know, Sock two, which I'm doing. So that is Sock two. You know, really, let's not even go down that road.

Incredibly important but incredibly boring.

Right.

Just give us a two sentence. Explain to what Stock two is.

I don't even want to go.

It's just compliance.

Yeah, it's compliance.

It is compliance, but it's.

It's a really killed age.

Yeah, I know, yeah. Just in the word.

But it's very important for the business. But it is time.

Yeah, sure, yeah.

Consuming. But I'm nearly on. On the other side of it. Getting to the other side of that.

Yeah.

Uh, but again, like I said, we're really distributed as well. So everyone's everywhere. Like we've got staff all over the place but we do start the day with a nice big scrum. All the big Brady Bunch on the screen there. Every day, every. Every day. Every day we all chat. Not everyone's in every day. Our CTO at the moment over in Europe and you know, like I said, Elliot's over east. Our devs are in the Ukraine, Nepal, Queensland as well. You know, we've got our support in the Philippines.

You bring everyone in, even overseas team.

Yep. Well, the Ukraine's at the time times zones are not so good but we try and bring everyone in because we.

That's awesome.

One thing that I think that we're really, really proud of in the business is our culture and we've worked really hard on, on that and bringing the right staff members in. I think, you know, I think having worked in a lot of businesses of, you know, many different types of businesses, culture is super important, especially in a.

Startup, you know, bear market.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's.

That's the key because you're going to war every single day you're in a startup, it sucks. Everything's against you. You need your team to be aligned and be in the trenches with you.

Yeah, 100%. But that's the thing. If you've got the right team and you're all really excitable, you know, And I think at the moment we feel we've been through a lot, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter.

Yeah.

Like, is it April next year?

I think so. It's funny because, you know, you change each day from being a bull to a.

I think so. I feel like obviously, you know, the BlackRock ETFs huge. I mean, the. The halving. Everyone puts a lot on the halving. But I think it couldn't just be the halving. There had to be something else to spur it along. You know, we talked about defi. I think, you know, Blackrock is huge. And just the change in momentum and the way the talk and the language with Jerome Powell. We spoke about this on the potty the other day, Ben. I think it just feels the winds have changed, have happened a little bit in the US and the Mica, you know, in the. In the uk, I just feel that things have changed a little bit. And if we can get that ETF stamped and then we're off to the races.

I guess this is what we talked about as well with the. When we did a halving episode. It's six months either side of the halving, but there's always something happening in the background, whether it's, you know, ICOs or NFTs or something exciting in the space. And it can just take that period of time, that four years for that new innovation to come through to spur on a bull market.

100%. Yeah. I think NFTs aren't dead either. There's so much going on. Cheeky little side project, myself.

Oh, a little bit alpha.

Not yet. Not yet.

Okay.

Yeah. I'll let you know when I'm ready.

Oh, okay.

Honey, you just mentioned the Mizuki project, which I was chatting about with some friends last night, and that, you know, what was that 32F that it did, you know, in four minutes.

Yeah, I don't know. I think they raised like 40 million or something.

Yeah, yeah. Like, that's just madness. Madness.

Everyone loved it.

It wasn't very good. If you had a good.

Yeah, I've heard it was pretty average. Yeah.

It was rubbish money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. And then the one people do. Yeah. And last week that the one through Sotheby's, what did that sell for? I think it was 6 million for one piece of artwork.

Unreal.

Yeah.

Madness. There you go.

Talk us about getting a job in crypto. So before Bamboo, you're in dcm, Digital Capital Management.

Yeah, that's right. So it was a bit of a gun for hire, doing different contracts. And I was doing. I came into crypto through digital capital management and that was in 2019. So the guys there, they were one of the first digital funds in Australia. And that was my intro to crypto. And yeah, look, that was a baptism of fire, say the very least. And so Ben Ritchie, who's actually one of the directors with Bamboo, and Blake, I was working with Blake there and that was just a ball. Had had such a great time with those guys. And that's where Bamboo came across our desk. And that was the ICO bo.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I guess that's why I feel like Bamboo is, you know, my third child. Because that was in the early days. And for me, not having a clue about crypto, seeing all these different ICOs that, that we looked at, Bamboo was the one that stuck with me. That, that I invested in.

Yeah.

Personally, actually, I invested in a lot of shit, but that was one that I invested in that got me because at the time I was like this. Oh, I will use this. This is per. Everyone needs this. No one gets crypto, but this is what everyone should use because I was. I had raise y. And this is obviously Bambooz.

Yeah, this made sense.

Yep, yep. It's raised, but for crypto. So that was, you know, that, that got me in straight away and hook, line and sinker. But that was a. That was a hard year because I came on board and it was like literally six weeks later. Crypto a winter. So the worst, isn't it?

Yeah. So depressing.

Soul destroying.

Remember those days, man? Like, so those days when you're operating the business.

2018.

Yeah.

Oh, that was just. That was just disaster.

I used to. I used to contract consult with men, help him out with a bunch of stuff. I remember those conversations, mate, where you.

Just like, no, it was hard Dumps.

Is hardly any users. Like, what are we going to do?

It was just bleeding. Bleeding members.

Well, I met you guys at a Burswood dinner in 2019.

Is that when we first met?

Yeah.

Wasn't earlier than that, 2019?

Well, it was one of those.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's when there was a really small. It was a small community everywhere at that point. But if there was a meetup, it would be big.

Yeah.

There's only ever one meetup. Everyone would.

Yeah, yeah. It's only one crypto meet up. Yeah.

And it was all really exciting. But, you know, I remember there's only about. There'd be like 70 guys and two girls. Complete sausage fest. And I was always really, at the time, a little bit, you know, scared to ask too many questions.

Yeah.

But then I remember hearing everyone asking stupid questions because the lingo was like. I remember thinking, I don't know anything about finance. But it wasn't finance, it was crypto. And the jargon was all stupid across the board.

Yeah.

So that's why I kind of.

And it was changing by the day.

Oh, yeah.

You know, it's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's. That's so fascinating. Your story, the. The way I found out about Baby was obviously through these guys, but Nesh, who.

Yeah, Nash is the best.

Yeah, right. He's such a legend. So he was working at a place called Space Cubed, which is. Or +8, which is a incubator. And I was working in health and we're working on projects together. So he was working on bamboo as well as operating that. So it's like, I'm just like, normally change with meetings, and then like all of a sudden he appears in a meeting with, like, you, me, on, like, the company talking about bam.

Like, so. Yeah, it was Nesh and Phil that were kind of the spearhead talking about it. And then as soon as crypto winter happened, and Blake was off in the meantime, trying to help them raise and do bits and pieces, but, you know, the way the story goes was digital capital management helped them raise, you know, million dollars, and we took them off. And then crypto winter happened. And then like many projects, it just fell by the wayside.

Yeah.

And that team, you know, who are amazing team and built amazing product, who we have actually. We haven't actually even had to change it till today. They built a superb product. They just couldn't commercialize it, though. They just couldn't do what they had to do. And then they all went off and did their own thing. And we said, look, there was a bunch of us, me, Blake and Ben and a couple of others that said that we would like to buy it. So we bought it three years ago. We took control at that point. There was 2,000 users. And then we had a really big push and took it to where it is today. We worked really hard.

It's unreal.

Really hard to get it where it is. And you know, it's testament to what they built. But, you know, we really did take it to the next level. And there's still a long way to.

Go towards the tough times. We've had a number of tough times. What is that? What is the tough times like in your, in your team?

Look, and we've been there. Like, we've had to let a lot of our team go. You know what I mean? And that is the tough time. That's the sure one. I know. Look, we've all, all of us in the crypto market have been through it the last 18 months. We all know people that didn't make it at all. The fact that we're all sitting here and we've still got a business is a testament to us.

We're all riding scooters because we can't afford to drive anyway.

Yeah. Other tough times, especially when you have to let really good people 100%.

Yeah.

That'll put their heart and soul into it.

Yeah.

And you, you both know it's off of performance. Just the fact that just. It just can't. Just can't afford it. Can't do it.

Well, we've had people that were like, look, can we come back later?

Yeah.

And we're like, yeah, you know, and we know we've taken pay cuts, but we. So we just know that it's going to be okay. You just stick in there, I guess. We spoke to a bunch of people at the event over the last few weeks that are all like, we're here. We're still here. We can make it, you know, but that's the hardest thing in startups is, you know, cash flow.

Yeah.

Hoping that you can get through.

What's your, what's your husband say? Like, you know, you're in this crazy, wild, crappy crypto startup world.

My husband is literally the smartest man I know.

Okay.

He's incredibly smart, but he just does not care for crypto. Like, that's your bag. Just tell me when you've made a million.

But look, to go back a step further, going into digital capital management with Ben Ritchie and those crew. I, their old school friends from Albany, and they went to school with my husband, so he knows all the crew, you know. You know, he's, he's, he loves it. He's happy to hear all the shenanigans, have me to do what I'm doing. And, you know, my kids probably understand it just as much.

Yeah. Nice.

They're on the roadblocks. Mine and their crypto there Nice. Yeah. Yeah. He's a big supporter. He's a big supporter of Bamboo.

So back to being CEO. My experience in my limited time as CEO is I rock up and I just see what's on fire from Ben, and I just go and put out the fire.

Yeah.

And speaking of your kids there, what is it like to be a mum of a couple of kids and work at a company that you're scaling up.

Or say, I am a general manager or, you know, I suppose, CEO and CEO, I guess, of the home business.

Yeah.

People say, look, I don't think working mums get enough credit, to be honest. Like, you just have to juggle everything. But women are good at juggling. You'd be a good. You'd be a good juggler one day.

If he remembers right.

Yeah.

I'll give you an example. Right. I rock up here, and I'm like, where this place? So we're at a podcasting studio, and we're in, like, some skin studio thing. Like, I looked at the front. I'm like, no, this ain't it. Give Ben a couple of calls, doesn't pick up.

Rocks up.

10 minutes late with a coffee. He's like, yeah, no, I was meditating. Like, some random excuse. Could be anything. Could be, like, lost my passport, didn't know where I was going. I was on Melbourne time, whatever. Oh, I think he's definitely not the guy.

Be organized. That's probably one of my. I'm proud of myself on being pretty organized.

I think that's the skill set of a coo, though. Like, I can juggle balls, but, like, in terms of, like, attention to detail, I'll get the balls off the ground, but I won't throw them in the right direction. I think there's different types of managing, different stuff.

I think it's also making sure that you're just across everything in the business. And when you got a business this size, it's easy. I don't know if I'd want to be the CEO for. If the business was too much bigger, to be perfectly honest with you.

We've had this conversation, and we're like, when you're managing really big teams, lots of complexity. Do you get entrepreneurial whiplash from Blake? I get it from him all the time, where he comes back from a conference or something. He's like, all right, we're going in this direction. This is what we're doing. We're doing this. Exactly. And I was like, you want me posted in Slack? Everyone drops what they doing. Do you ever experience that or I.

Do know exactly what you. That way I do know exactly what you're talking about. But, yeah, that's. That's. That is a true entrepreneur, isn't it?

That's his job.

True entrepreneur. Yeah.

Our company would fail if we didn't have that. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's balance, right? Like, you've got to have. You've got to have the yin and the yang. And, you know, look at you. And Blake is the same, I think, as, you know, Aaron and I. Yeah, yeah. You sort of, like, you match. You match the craziness with a bit of, like, hey, pull your head in. We need to. We need to focus, you know, and.

Yeah, you have to have that open.

And honest relationship that is key, especially with upper management. You've got to have a. It's like a marriage. I said, you got to have your, you know, your work husband.

Yeah, he's like. He's like, bro, we're literally in a relationship.

You do spend more time with that person, and you've got to be able to have the hard conversations. Like, we. I'm pretty sure we've hung up on each other a few times, but, you know, then you can ring up the next back to normal.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's how it is.

We have this thing called Elephants in the room. So every time we have our weekly call, but Aaron and I write elephants in the room. What? What's going on? Did someone say something who's pissed someone off? What's like. What's. What's on your mind? What's the thing? Yeah, you think it out of the way.

You know what it is? It's respect.

Yeah.

Blake is amazing, and he's so articulate and so well spoken. Like, you know, for example, he was so. He had the Ausdefi event on Tuesday night.

How'd he go?

Mark and that. Mark and that. I bloody love Mark. What a legend. Talk about the guys in Crypto that are busy, you and him.

Mark goes hard.

Yeah, he does go hard. And so Blake spoke of that, but he was really tired. We got in. Really? Yeah, we got in super late the night before. We had a really big day.

The podcast day that we did. That was that night.

Yeah. After the potty. So I knew. I knew he was. I could see him in Blake. I know. Is it when he's young, when he has to be on.

Yeah.

But I could tell he was really tired. I was like, I know he would do a good job, but I don't think we're going to get the Best Blake at this chat.

Yeah.

Nailed it. Yeah, he's very. But he does.

This has been. I'm looking. I look at his eyes and he's like, half down. I'm like, you're dead. And he's like, bang. Show time.

Yeah, yeah.

What's on his voice?

He does all of those. I kind of forget what it does. The things in the evening. You'll have to edit this out till I remember what it's called. The talking. You go. You go practice talking.

It's a mantra.

No, no, no, you. They're here in Perth where you go and talk Toastmasters. Yeah, he does Toastmasters and he's done that for a while, so I think that's why he's such an amazing.

He's a good speaker. Yeah.

Very eloquent, very, you know, very well spoken and just. It gets his point across where I'm just the worst. Yeah, yeah.

That's a lot of people that I used to work with, they went to that and it's literally. They're just like, right, you're getting up right now and you're doing this talk. Yeah, Just practice and practice.

Yeah.

That's incredible for him in that position, having done so many talks, to still be that hungry and do it.

Yeah, yeah.

He's got a weapon.

He's good. He's a good lad. Talk us about you said the few years ago, you first crypto meet up two girls, 100 dudes. What's the good ratio?

I was loving it.

What's your.

With all their neck beards and hoodies and.

Oh, they were just sharp. There was no nerves. No, not at all. No, it's much better. Yeah, much better. There's so many amazing females coming into the space now, you know, popping up all over the place. Like I was saying earlier, there's probably four or five really good Facebook groups. You know, there's one that's starting to fire again a little bit now, like the. I'm going to get it wrong now, but there's a. Another lady that's just taken over it. She's doing a great job. The Australian and New Zealand crypto Facebook group. So for any women that want to jump in there, not that I think that you should have to have a female and you have to have a male. You know what? I'm like, I'm in with the boys. But you know what? Some women are more comfortable just having females around and that's fine. So there's some really good groups that you can jump into for that. There's you know, there's a couple of American ones as well. So I think, you know, it's great that we've got to that level where you can. Where you can do that. And I think we all know and probably have seen Jordan around. She's got a Jordan's up dope.

Yeah, she's awesome.

You know, she's doing that for. If you feel like you, you know, you want to do it down that road. So there's just a lot more on offer, I think, for females out there. A lot of Tick Tock and. And Instagram and. And, you know, a lot of those popping up. Not that I'd probably take all of my, you know, advice and recommendations from.

Those type of things, but it's pretty rough. But it gets attention.

Yeah, exactly. Rougher than just.

I know there's a few that Craig Jackson follows that I'm a bit suspect of anything.

Craig Jackson follows. I'm not following. So, yeah, that's it.

I'm out since Craig and gone.

What's your advice for people that people ask me all the time, how do I get a job in crypto? I want to get more involved. How do I do it? What's your advice to people?

To get a job?

Yeah, yeah. Role job.

I think it's getting involved in those. Those pages that I mentioned, Dawn. Talking to people, it's just asking questions. It's always about asking questions, you know, and listening to podcasts, getting involved, you know, talking to people, getting amongst it. Going to meetups. Like there's not as many here in Perth, but like there was so many that you could go to in Sydney, Melbourne, you know, just get a. Get amongst the crowd. Like, this is the most welcoming, you know, community of anything that I've been in. You know, all the different spaces that I've worked in, this one's the most welcoming. You know, I've been to a few of your meetups and the different scale of people.

It's wildly diverse, right?

Oddly diverse, but everyone's really happy to talk. Like the last one, you had a birthday. Like so many different people and everyone's happy to talk. You know, I'm really impressed with the crypto community, you know, on how welcoming they are. You know, not just females, but everyone. Everyone's happy to chat. Really Showed last year at the crypto event that Dave Haslock. Amazing. Everyone was there, happy to chat. I think, you know, that's. I think people shouldn't be scared. Don't be scared to ask questions. Don't be scared to go up and talk to people because it's a really welcoming community.

Don't be scared to go to a meetup. You all have crypto in common.

Yep.

And when you get talking to someone about crypto, they will not shut up. No one can talk to me about Bitcoin or like anything. Because you're in for like three hour conversation. Yeah, I love it.

And no one can ask a silly question. Because if you ask a question and someone knows the answ, then they feel good because I know they love answering. They can get to talk about it.

And they can help you reaffirm, reaffirms their learning. And no one is an expert in crypto. That is bullshit. They do not exist. It is so, so deep. And it's either the finance side or the technical side, investment side, or other communities kind of work. And that was a really good point as well, where getting involved with communities, if there's a project you like, get involved in the community, start talking, become a moderator. That's how I started consulting with Ben. I was a moderator in the group.

Yes.

And I'm like, hey, I can help you with some extra stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Muscle your way through.

Yeah.

Or.

And I started doing analysis on projects, just posting it up nowadays, like crypto, Twitter, it's a wild space, but you can get in there and you can start, you know, putting your perspective out there. Document your learning journey or help out.

DeFi needs a lot of help too. Join. Join a group in your area. Like, I know it was DeFi association, you know, they want people helping them out wherever they can. There's chapters all over the place. There's a, you know, chapter here in Perth. You know, Canberra's even got one, you know, Adelaide. So join a chapter of Ausdefi or, you know, just get vocal.

Yeah, I love it. You've been a collective shift member now for a little while. I'd love to hear how you use it. How do you like it? What don't you like about it?

I love all of your updates, for sure. I love your newsletters. I steal your info. I love. Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, and I'm a big fan of Matt Williamson. Yeah, that guy is, you know, he's the best. He's a legend. He's a bomb. He's just got so much knowledge, you know, he needs to do more stuff in front of the camera, that guy. Get him out there.

Yeah, he's a good man.

Even when we're on the podcast, I could ask him the most obscure questions. Ye, yeah.

Honestly, he's the same. And he's. I think when NFTs come back to, you know, he'll.

Oh, yeah, that's his game he's on.

That's his game. Absolutely. And they will come back too. So, yeah, you guys just on it, you know, all your information.

That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah. 100% community as well. Like, everyone's always so nice in there. Like, I'm still. I said, I'm still getting messages from people that I used to speak to years ago. And then even in other groups. Like, I jumped in a group for an NFT the other day and I recognized a name and a guy messaged me and goes, do I know you from the collective shift? And I was like, I think so. So members are jumping up in other groups. It's funny. Everyone's. Yeah, yeah, it's cool.

That's really cool.

That's amazing. Now talk us through. Not only are you CEO, you're running a company, you're a mum. I'm sure you do lots of other things in your life. You also have a podcast.

Yeah.

Yes. So tell us about.

Can I say I've been a guest a couple of times? You guys are prepared, right? Like, like, like trace, Trace.

I'm prepared. Please. I'm not prepared.

So this is hilarious. This is. This is the way we do it, right? So I freak out. I'm trying to prepare for the podcast. Ben's like, yeah, no worries, I'll prepare. He writes like 1 or 2 dot points. I don't even understand the context of what the dot points are. He's like, yeah, no, it'll be fine. But the second we get together, we spend five minutes, like, talking about it, write some points, and then we just go. And it's all calm from there. But leading up to it, I'm like, man, I got no idea.

Can I just say that your intro and your. Your questions, it seems like you're very prepared. This has been phenomenal. So natural.

When I started typing, that's what I was preparing.

I'm just saying you didn't need any more than that. So you're natural. There you go.

But I love your podcast because it's, It's. We don't do too much news. You know, you guys go in deep in the news. And, like, even on the potty yesterday, I was like, oh, shit. I don't even know that. It was just, like, good to edit. Yeah, I know. It's all you, you know, trace them with the agenda ahead. But it was like, she's all Over.

A few minutes, I give him all the best lines.

I imagine it'll be our heading cats, the other two.

Oh, yes.

Honestly. So I do it all the day before to make sure I've got all the news. Just keep up with everything that's going on. That's my morning. So in the morning I'm up at 6:30, checking all the news, putting everything where I need to, and then by the time, I guess Monday, I just check if that's what's the most relevant. Pop it all in there. But the reason we started the podcast was because as far as Bamboo went, it's really hard to advertise crypto anywhere over the last few years. Couldn't go on Facebook or TikTok or anywhere. So I thought, thought, well, let's do a podcast so we can educate people and we'll bring bamboo in as a side. As you. As you hear. It's brought to you by Bamboo, but we barely mention bamboo. It's nothing. Yeah, it's more of a sidecar, the funnel to get people through. But we love it. We love doing it. Guys produce it. So it's a bit of work to do it, pull it together, record. But after that, Sasha, our producer, just pulls it all together.

Yeah, it's awesome.

So that's great, you know, but we have fun doing it. But it's really short and sharp and it's just the new.

It's fun. It's fun. You got to enjoy it too.

That was the advice you gave to us. So about a year ago, we got started, Ben and I, and we don't know what we're doing. We have to do that look back episode where we plan the episode, we roast it. It's so bad.

I watched the first 15 seconds of it. I was like, oh, my God. The first episode, no intro, no nothing.

Like, Trace was one of the first. She's like one of our first supporters and gave us really good advice where you're like, I love your podcast. It's too fucking long. Seriously. It's at the gym. I got like 20 minutes at the gym. It needs to be short and sharp.

Just get it.

Okay, cool. We'll take it on board. Then we got some more advice. Everyone's saying the same thing.

Cool.

We'll break it, break it down, make it short, sharp, but naturally. That's the thing that you guys have got. You got. It's got to be natural. It's got to be easy.

Yeah, for sure.

Structured and too.

Yeah.

You know? Yeah. But we love it. It's Easy. It's, you know, hopefully it'll.

That's good.

Harder in the. In the bull run. We'll see.

Absolutely amazing. Well, that's all the questions I had. Did you have anything else you want to talk about?

No. This has been awesome. Thanks for having me. It's been great fun, nice and casual. Just what I was expecting.

Yeah, no, thanks so much for coming on. I think your background experience is kind of unique and. And awesome, and anyone else is building crypto startup, I have unbelievable respect for. So you guys are on a wicked job.

Oh, look, we love working with you guys, and no doubt we'll have a long relationship and hopefully, you know, come on the bull run. Not far to go. We're nearly there.

It's going to be wild times. And I don't know about you, but, like, I want the bull run to come along, but, you know, it's gonna be hectic.

Are we really? Blake keeps saying that to me. Do we have everything in place? Are we. We got. You know, we ready? We scale quick. Are we ready? I'm like.

And Ben's like, bro, the best move we ever did was make you coo. Because I was doing it, like, for a couple months before I was announced. And he's like, man, we're really going to need you in the bull run. And then he starts talking because everything.

Everything's your fault.

I'm half out the door, but, man, no, this doesn't sound good.

You guys gonna have, like, therapy together, like, you know.

You know, person lockdown again.

You go.

Well, look, here's to the bull run. Thanks again for having me on. It was awesome.

No, thank you. Thank you very much, everyone, for listening to the Ben and podcast. If you have a friend, maybe a female, that's wanting to get into crypto, we'd love for you to share this with them. You can leave us a rating or review. Positive, negative feedback, as always. And we've got our Twitter up and running. Burgs. I think we have nearly 30 followers, mate. We're absolutely raining followers on Twitter. En and Burgs. You can follow us, but thanks for tuning in, team, and we'll see you next episode.

Thanks so much, Legends.

Bye for now.