Starfish Cast #3 - Edouard on Developing a Starfish Business

So how did you— like, this is what I hear from people who studied the so-called legacy finance, although legacy is kind of misleading because it's such a new thing— fiat finance, fiat finance education. A lot of people have been telling that it kind of like held them back for a long time. That doesn't seem to be the case for you. So can you talk a little bit more about that? Like, how did you Did it help you understand Bitcoin better, or did it actually somehow hinder your process?

Neither of them, I don't think. Because when you study economics and finance, they don't really talk about money, about the core of the system. So I wasn't like pegged to any particular theories before. So I don't think it has held me back or Or the opposite. I think, I think my interest just, just grew naturally out of discovering Bitcoin and working for this startup, working on gold. I was like, um, I need to understand how those things work precisely because it didn't make sense to me. Like, why did we used to have gold and now we have euros and now we have cryptocurrencies? How is that working precisely? I need to know. I need to understand. What's happening?

So, so you kind of came from like finance to hard money to Bitcoin.

Yeah.

And then, uh, then technology was the like kind of like the last step, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

For me it was like the opposite. I came from like technology into hard money and then finance is kind of like the, the least interesting part. So that's, that's interesting how that complements and that's probably why we, we make such a good team.

Yeah. So yeah, when, when I read The Bitcoin Standard, it's, that's when it all started again to drive my interest into those topics again. And, and then I become a big, big reader, listener to podcasts, like everybody else. Eventually I found my way out in ConsenSys Network by wanting to contribute more and to develop the access to the information, to the knowledge about Bitcoin. So yeah, I think it was in 2021 when Saifedean released the early access to the FIAS standard. I remember reading it on vacation and was like, well, I think I'm— I have the competence to help work on the translation of this project. So I'm going to reach out to him, which I did. He told me to get in touch with you at ConsenSys Network. And that's how I came in the first place in in the summer of 2021, I think. And then we started to build a team, a French team to translate it. We found a few interesting people such as Gary, Henri, David, Saintonge, Laurent, a few others. Sorry if I miss some names here. And the team was pretty efficient, so we released the Fiat standard and 4 or 5 other books in the next months because the division of labor was quite efficient. So we kept rolling and translating more books quite easily, I would say.

Yeah, I would say that the French team was, uh, was really a big bullish moment for me to realize that, holy shit, like this, uh, this team is really like hitting the ground running. Like I haven't seen that before. Like I was just like expecting that when people come into voluntary contribution, it's going to be slow, it takes its time. And I think the French team was probably the first, like, what I would call, like, professional level, like, even higher than that, like, uh, work ethics and, and just the efficiency, how, how the work was carried out. I was really impressed by that. And you were leading that team kind of, uh, at that point. And, and that's, that's how you started getting more, uh, more involved, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. I was also pretty surprised at how much books we were able to publish in less than a year or so. So that was surprising to me too because I never worked on translating or editing before, so it was pretty much new to me. I knew nothing about publishing before. I barely translated a few articles for myself or friends. So, but yeah, it worked out nicely. And yeah, it's true that the team was pretty efficient and pretty Like high level, even though we were not like professional translators. I think we're just good at just being serious about what we do.

Yeah, this is something that I talk about all the time. Like, we don't use professional translators for the reason that I don't think they can match our quality, and certainly they can't match our pricing because we don't really— everybody's working on a volunteer basis. And that's precisely the strength of it because then you kind of have to, like, you don't have to have the monetary incentive to do the work because you just simply want to do it and you want to do your best. And I think that's the source of the quality and efficiency of the teams. And it's just a sight of beauty, really. And you mentioned Saifedean, everybody almost who, like, most of the people who came in had the same roots and huge shout out to Saifedean for directing all these people to me because this is how we We kind of grew all these teams and these fundamental members of each language team. Now we have like a team of maybe 10 or more people in each language region, and they all, all came one way or another, usually by reference, because they want— they contacted the author and then the author directed them my way or the ConsenSys way. And, uh, yeah, I mean, we don't, we don't recruit anybody. People just come in and flock in and, and build their own teams and start working, and it's Wow, never experienced this in my fiat life. It's amazing.

Yeah, it's true. And for the quality, yeah, yeah, you're right. Like, the people are not here for earnings or anything like that. It's more like they want the book being like translated into high quality so they can show them to show it to their family or to their friends and, and be sure that exactly we'll find the, the good information and not the— like, when you compare that like artbooks to traditional media or stuff like that, you feel like the gap is pretty wide in terms of knowledge and information. What I wanted to do is to like close that gap if I could by getting the good information that I found available to people. That's what I'm trying to do. Yeah, I think overall the gap in the quality of information between the English-speaking world and all the other countries is maybe a bit too big. And that's what we're trying to do, to reduce that gap, to make the best knowledge available to other regions.

Yeah, it's easy to forget, like, when you, when you're in your Bitcoin bubble and you, like myself, I, I read everything in English. I prefer that. And so, so do other, other people. And it's easy to forget that the fact remains that majority of the world does not speak English at a level that they can access this knowledge. And that's exactly, uh, the value proposition of,

of

how we started. Of course, now we do also original works. It's just a natural extension of, of the whole thing because now we can have the whole process of releasing the original one and then all of the languages that we have teams for.

Yeah, and I see that gap every day because, um, I have to read like the local newspaper for my fiat job every day. So I, I see the the, the gap in information almost on an everyday basis. So I feel like I can bridge the gap lacking between the English regional news and the local news that I'm exposed to.

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what we're trying to do, just bring people— well, like, bring the access, make the information accessible. That's, that's the thing that we're trying to do. Like, I tried to push this information on people for so many years with not, not much success. Like, people are not that receptive. rightly so, probably they are very skeptical about anything, uh, Bitcoin or crypto related, uh, because of the mainstream media coverage has done a terrific job in, in kind of like distancing people from the whole topic and making it uninteresting. Plus the whole socialist agenda that, you know, money is bad and you're not supposed to be wanting money, even though everybody does want money and need money. It's just something that is dirty and you're not supposed to think about it, you're not supposed to be interested in it. So there's all this kind of like barriers that are impenetrable. So people just have to walk across those barriers on their own. And on the other side of those barriers, well, they will find our library and it's free for anybody to, to, to reach.

Yeah.

And, and buy our books and get that knowledge. So, so that's, that's kind of like our role in, in the whole, whole ecosystem to, to expand that library so that when people are ready to step beyond their barriers, they will find that wealth of information.

Yeah, but we must reckon that it's not easy to come to this realization yourself or by reading. It takes a long time to change your mind and get used to new information and new knowledge that challenge what you think you know. So it's a long way. for anybody to come to Bitcoin. But it's certainly not, not helping that the mainstream media is, is holding back that, that much and presenting Bitcoin like being such a bad thing.

Yeah, usually it takes— unfortunately, it takes some really bad events for people to, to realize that we need to— we need an alternative. Like, as long as things are relatively good people are kind of reluctant to change anything, to rock the boat, so to speak. So that's understandable, and it takes a special and curious mind to see that beforehand.

Yeah.

And we, we see this all the time in, in the less fortunate countries that we call the third world countries from, from our ivory tower perspective in the so-called first world countries where things are still relatively well. You know, countries like Venezuela, for example, with severe hyperinflation where people are actually unbearable suffering is existing in people's everyday life. So it's much easier for people like that to seek for alternatives than for us.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And sometimes I look back at my own past and I see that even for me, it took a long time to understand and to read and to process all this information about money, about the state, about capitalism. So you can't really expect people to get it faster than we did, but we can certainly try to help. And that's what we're trying to do by making those books and knowledge available when they want it to access. It's going to be there for them.

Yeah, exactly. And then books are going to be— once the books are out of the printing machine and in the hands of people, they are in the world. Like, they're, they're going to live on their own life. And that's, I think it's a very valuable service that we can provide for the world, that even, even if something happens to us, the books are still going to be, the information is still going to be there. And that's, uh, that's something that makes me extremely happy. Can, can you talk a little bit more about your specific role in, in ConsenSys, um, just to, just to let the viewers know what, what do you actually do day to day and how is the experience working in a starfish organization?

Sure. So, well, first I think I manage the French team, so I oversee the French project that we have. So what is currently being worked on, I follow pretty much all the projects and see what steps that we are currently in. And then I help you and Thibault manage the day-to-day operations, so the distribution, I would say. I follow closely the distribution center that we have. So how much books do we keep, if the orders has been fulfilled properly by the distributor and such. I would say some like accounting and financing. So I also help on this side by keeping an eye and making sure that the company is staying healthy and sustainable because, um, it's pretty easy to misstep when you don't follow closely your numbers. Yeah, so I help you writing and signing contracts with others and with every other partner that we could have, like distributors, other publishers. What else am I doing every day? I think I log into Telegram and I read the hundreds of messages that I have.

Every day.

Daily basis. So that takes a long time to, yeah, discuss. We basically brainstorm every day on so many topics, and I like that. I like that we— that's how we make decisions. It can be quite slow sometimes, but, um, I think it's good because we all agree to do stuff on the— we are all on the same page, and I like that. Like, we Like the company name is ConsenSys, that's how we operate. Like we find consensus between us before taking any major decision. And I like that, even though it's a lot of messages to read and to respond day and night, but it's fine. I mean.

Yeah, we're still in a position that in the management team, we're kind of like all over the place all the time. Like everybody is doing what Like there's so much to do. And, uh, I guess we're still trying to find those, uh, specific roles that everybody grows into naturally. That's, that's at least how I, I see it. And I, I see, fortunately for my, my time usage, is that, uh, you and Tibor and other people are starting to take on more. So that means I don't have to be aware of everything that is going on all the time. I don't have to have a hand in every single decision. necessarily. And I guess that's a growing trend that we see when more people come in and take on more responsibility on their own.

Yeah, this is exactly what I did. I started with the FIAN Standard doing a few chapters here and there, proofreading, and I just naturally took on some more tasks because I got interested into the business. And I was asking you, I remember, How does this work? How do you publish? How do you do that? How do you manage the social media? How does the digital distribution work with the partners? How is the margin calculated? How much should we give away? How much should we keep? And I don't know, I just got interested into this business. And like, I like numbers, not as much as being an accountant, but I like to crunch numbers. So it was interesting to me, all the, all the business behind books and It's interesting.

Yeah, and I guess that's the, that's the strength of one of the strengths of the starfish model, that everybody has a specific skill set, maybe from their fiat trade or just their personality, and there's a, there's a fit for everybody. Like, the business is actually way more complicated and big than I ever anticipated. Like, when I started, I knew nothing about publishing. I just, uh, figured like some other people can do it, maybe I can do it. And it's been a big learning experience and really, really fruitful at that as well. And, you know, how to be able to manage a team of— I don't even know how many. We probably have more than 50 people working one way or another in, in all these projects. So yeah, we don't, we don't really have employees. We just have people who are contributing. to the same cause, which is information distribution about this topic that we are all interested in.

Yeah. And the publishing business is interesting. I mean, I don't think it's like a really, really profitable business. Like it's not a tech technology business or a software business, but when you like your, when you love your product, it's so easy to get to fall in love with your company and to dedicate plenty of hours. That's what happened to me. And I need to mention, like, when I was traveling, and I love traveling, so I was like, I would like to have a job where I could work remotely on languages because I like languages. I like to talk with people in English and Spanish and French and such. And so I was like, I would like to have a job in translation, traveling remotely, etc., etc. And I could never point what this business would like, but when I found ConsenSys, I was like, oh, this is it. This is the thing I had in my mind, but I couldn't find it. Here it is for me. So it was just very natural for me to join and to dedicate more time.

Yeah, I found that amazing. Like, that's what internet did to entrepreneurship. Like, our main office is in Telegram.

Yeah,

actually. And, uh, we, we literally have people all around the world working on these projects. And yeah, I mean, we don't have headquarters. We don't, we don't have those, um, expenses that maybe traditional publishing houses do. Um, as you said, it's not the most, uh, sexy and profitable business model necessarily. But that being said, it's also a stable one. Like, if you think about books and the Lindy effect that books have, you know, like books are more or less forever. Like, that's like, uh, we're solidifying the information in several languages and making the information immortal to, to some extent. And I think that's like, it's, it's so much more valuable than just simply being able to turn that into a cash flow, which of course is, is one of our, our main goals as well. Maybe not the, the main goal. The main goal would be to have this, uh, informational capital available to everybody so they can self-educate and educate their children. And that's kind of like, at least from my point of view, what, what I want to see in the world— people,

yes,

having access to this information and building something better for our grandchildren. And that's like, uh, you can't put a price on that.

Yeah, I think we agree on that, that on the thing, on the, on the, on the fact that Information and cultural capital is superior to monetary capital. It's a piece that I love in the book Bitcoin is Venice. It's a section about the Medicis, the Italian family of bankers, and their banking business was really profitable. And the best investment they could find is to dedicate this money, this extra capital that they had into art, into building churches and, and financing artists and, and culture. And I think I would like to, to think that we are doing the same thing, like transforming monetary capital into cultural and informational capital, which is more valuable, I would say.

That, that's a great way to put it. Yeah, and I, I completely agree. And yeah, you mentioned Bitcoin is Venice. Do you have any other— what are your favorite books at the moment?

I can say the most recent one that I read was Alex Gladstein, Check Your Financial Privilege. This one was really interesting. It was like telling story about people around the world in emerging countries or underdeveloped countries that were using Bitcoin to survive on a daily basis. And like you mentioned before, I think it's easy to forget that we have like a good life, basically. We can access a banking system that is still working and still doing okay for us, but most people don't have that chance, that luxury. So it's good that they have a tool to escape that craziness and and being able to transact with other people. And it's good to have some wake-up call like that, that we are not, we are not alone and we need to think about other people as well and to try to help them by developing Bitcoin use case in those countries. So that was interesting point of view to have. It's a good reminder basically. And yeah, I also saw recently someone saying that That we should stop pushing Bitcoin for like boomers in developed countries because it's not working. And we should instead like focus on people who actually need it for their daily life. And I think it's also a good point. Maybe we should put more effort into that, maybe speed up the adoption and make the point that Bitcoin is valuable to other people in the world.

Yeah, it's difficult to convince somebody who doesn't understand, well, what, what could possibly be better in their life, that they need an alternative. So it's much easier to convince people who are actually in a dire need,

yeah,

of, of monetary services that, hey, here's a, here's an open system that you can, you can just use without any permission. Uh, it's, it's a much easier sale, so to speak.

Yeah, and going back to the books, like, I mostly read like economics books or financial books. I'm not really a reader of fiction or other stories. So yeah, my favorite books are the Bitcoin books: Bitcoin Standard, Plan Money, Ourselves Tomorrow, The Sovereign Individual. All the classics that you could find in any Bitcoin library, I would say.

Yeah. And I guess you read some Austrian economics books as well?

Yeah, I read a bit of Rothbard. Maybe I should mention the first French liberal, Bastiat, Frédéric Bastiat. I like this guy. And this is interesting to see that his ideas were pretty— they go back a long way, like to 1860, I think. And It's sad that they haven't been developed more. I would like to see more people reading and getting interested in, in those topics of money, of capitalism, of like helping each other basically. So, um,

is there any books that specifically you think are going to help, help us reach that goal?

Well, I think the, the Going to the books like economics books or books about money are not for everyone because I tried that with my friends and family and the results, the results not so great. Like I think you can say the same thing, like you give away Become Standard or such books and you don't really get the feedback that you hope for. So we need to find the key, the right thing to to make a click into people's mind. And it could be anything. It could be like a short video, it could be an article, it could be another book about Bitcoin. And maybe the storytelling approach that I found in Glassstein's book was maybe something to try for people to see that it's not just a financial product that you speculate on, it's an everyday tool. that you transact with, and they can save your life if you live under like a socialist or war regime. So we're still trying to figure out the best way to get people to understand why they need Bitcoin. But yeah, it takes time to get there. And as I said before, even for myself, it took me several years. So I'm a bit pessimistic, but I don't expect people to, to pick, to pick it up anytime soon. But yeah.

I mean, generally people are not that interested in nonfiction books. They're not like us. Like, I'm the same as you. I don't really read fiction books at all. I like nonfiction books. I like self-help books to some extent, but mostly books on economics and Bitcoin. That's, that's what I'm into. But I realize that's like, we, we are not, not the majority. So if we really want to help the majority of people, then maybe fiction could be a way for that.

That's true. That's true.

And we actually have a project called 21 Futures that we're gonna do a bit of a live show actually tomorrow about it. Well, that's already gone after this is airing, but anyway, it's worth mentioning here because it's kind of like an outreach program for regular people to just introduce these interesting stories. Just like you said, you know, people are interested in human interest stories and, and, uh, you know, exciting plot lines. And it's not extremely exciting to read about monetary history or, or finance. Like, it's kind of boring to most people, I would say.

Yeah.

So yeah, maybe there's something there that, that could work, and that's, uh, certainly something I'm looking forward to explore. What do you think?

Yeah, definitely. I agree. I agree that people like to read stories and And if we can leverage that to just plant some seed about Bitcoin into their minds, that could be giving some good results. So yeah, I'm excited to see how this book 21 Futures is going to be and what's going to be the feedback of the readers. Definitely. Yeah, I think I'm looking forward to publish more books and to expand our library. I like the Amazon story, the Jeff Bezos story. So he started Amazon with books, and I hope that we can follow his path and do better than what Amazon is doing right now in the future. So that's what we are aiming for at ConsenSys. Right. Try to build, start with a library of Bitcoin books and expand, expand, expand, hopefully reach the size of Amazon one day.

Yeah, that's— I'm glad you brought it up because that's, that's what I think as well. And, and not maybe not many people know that Amazon also started off as a starfish organization and then just grew into this, uh, this monster. And yeah, I, I think the same way, like, we will, will be the, the future Amazon at some, some timeline. But yeah, that's, uh, that's a worthy goal to have for sure. Yeah, no shortage of work. So

yeah, Amazon with Lightning.

Amazon with Lightning. That's pretty much it.

Yeah.

Streaming sets and, you know, this whole Bitcoin kind of circular economy that people can pay with Bitcoin, pay as you go, and then just stream it directly to all the contributors. And

that's the point I forgot to mention. Yeah, I like this idea that, for example, like you could buy a book pay with Lightning and the author, the translator, the distributor would get their sats delivered to them directly from the consumer instead of like the company taking the money and then redistributing afterwards. We could just stream sat to every party involved with us directly straight from the consumer pockets. And I like that idea. I hope we can build such a product one day.

Yeah, I think it's just a matter of time. Like the infrastructure is, is not, not ripe for that yet, but I, I think it's, it's only a matter of time. Like if you look at Lightning Network development within the last 3 and 4 years, it's been pretty crazy. And in a way it's, it's starting to reach like consumer maturity. We're still a far cry from global adoption of Lightning Network or Bitcoin for that matter. Like, People keep saying like, oh, nobody uses Bitcoin, and they are right. Like, if you look at the statistics, maybe in our shops the statistics say that every third person uses Bitcoin, but we are a Bitcoin publishing company and, and our main customers are Bitcoiners already. So it can't really— like, we don't have the data of, of the, the whole world, and I, I suspect that it's, it's quite, quite fringe on top of fringe still. Like, we're publishing fringe books, selling them for fringe money that nobody uses, and, and telling about topics that nobody reads in languages that nobody uses. So yeah, I mean, there's, there's, uh, the work is cut out for us, but, uh, it's been growing nicely and I'm, I'm really bullish about the future.

Even at our little scale, we are able to, to build this little online circular economy, uh, in Bitcoin. And I like that. I like the fact that we are able to do that. And it, it will grow in the future. I'm, I'm confident.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, small things like, for example, you know, let's say somebody goes to a website and, and uses Lightning Bitcoin to buy a book. It goes to our node, the, the funds from one of the channels that are connected to us will transmit the, the sats into the, the balance of our, our end of the node. And then let's say that we have a freelancer who did some work for us and we, we want to pay them. We can then use those same sats to just bounce them to the other end of the channel and kind of like, that's how Lightning Network works. It's just these small bridges between nodes. So we can just go back and forth and, and transmit value like that. And it's just, I wish more people knew about this and I guess they will in time.

Yeah.

But we just need to build something, we just need to build something better than that. something that is already existing. And I think we're starting to get there. Like Bitcoin already offers a superior customer service in, in the checkout, for example. Like it's, it's so easy, you know, when, when the Lightning channels are properly balanced and there's, there's enough inbound liquidity, then we haven't had any problems within the last year or so that we had our BTCPay server up and running. And, and that's something that people compliment us on all the time. So it's just, You go to the shop, put it in the basket, choose Bitcoin as your payment method, get a QR code, scan it with your wallet, bang, done.

Yeah.

And it's like you don't have that experience in anything else.

No, but it's true. But remember that like even if you have a superior technology or superior product, it still takes time and energy to scale it and to make it available. And going back to the Amazon example, Even for them, they had like a long runway to, to get the, the place they are today.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, going back to our bubble, like within our bubble, everything works perfectly. And, you know, in theory, we could adopt Bitcoin Standard anytime now, but it's going to be a while. And

it is,

but I think it's a, it's a worthy hill to fight for.

And it's exciting to work on developing new stuff and new technology and changing the world. So I like that.

Me too. That's what we're here for.

Yeah.

All right, Ed, it's been a pleasure. Can you just tell everybody where to reach you if they want to talk to you directly or?

Sure. They can reach me at @edouard_knw on Twitter or edouard@contestus.edward by mail.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Ed. And thank you, viewers and listeners. This has been the Starfishcast. My name is Niko, and look forward to the next episode, I guess.

Thank you, Niko. See you soon.

See ya.