In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews serial entrepreneur Rupert Barksfield, co‑founder of The Crypto Crowd. Rupert opens with a vivid teenage story about meeting Lemmy of Motörhead and delivering a message to Dave Grohl, illustrating how passion fuels relentless hustle. He then shares core business wisdom: always build products to solve real problems rather than to showcase a specific technology, and emphasize that a strong team and network are essential, especially in the crypto space. Rupert advises embracing failure as a learning catalyst and defines happiness as the ability to help others, whether through charity, mentorship, or solving business challenges. He recommends Jeff Olson’s The Slight Edge and the practice of a five‑minute daily journal for incremental growth. Rupert also cites memorable quotes about moving fast and iterating, reinforcing his fast‑execution mindset. The episode concludes with Rupert’s contact details (LinkedIn and thecryptocrowd.app) and a sponsor plug for WagsMedia.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by WagsMedia. WagsMedia provides you with everything you need to generate more customers and grow your brand. Head on over to wagsmedia.com, W-A-G-S-M-E-D-I-A dot com, to enter a contest where you can win a free, done-for-you custom website valued at $2,500 for a limited time only. Now let's jump into the episode.
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Rupert Barksfield with us. He is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of The Crypto Crowd. So welcome to the show, man.
Hey, Tyler, thank you very much for having me on the podcast.
Of course, man. We're grateful to have you here and we'll dive into the first one. Rupert, the first question that I have for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
So I've got a whole bunch of different stories, but this is one of my favorites. And it happened right at the beginning of my career when I first started working in London. Have you heard of Motorhead, the band?
Yes, yep.
So, uh, Lemmy, their lead singer. So I, I was in rock and roll, uh, um, very early on in my career, and, um, Lemmy came to our, uh, rehearsal rooms to, uh, have a photo shoot. And my job, my single job, was to make sure that he always had a bottle of Jack Daniel's in his right hand. And, uh, yeah, he liked to drink, and, uh, that was, that was my job for the day. Anyway, we got, uh, chatting in between different, uh, setups, and, uh, yeah, I mentioned I was going to to a festival over the summer and the Foo Fighters are gonna be there. And he was like, oh, oh, great. Actually, when you go to the festival, can you pass a message on to Dave Grohl? I really wanna go to the NME Awards and I wanna take him as my date. And obviously at this stage, Lemmy hadn't quite clicked onto the fact that I wouldn't have that sort of access to Dave Grohl. Anyway, I was a teenager, not really knowing what to do. I was like, "Yes, Mr. Lemmy, sir, I'll do that." Fast forward, I was at the festival. I managed to blag and hustle my way into backstage, got some passes for me and my buddies. As an awkward fan-cum-teenager, I found Dave Grohl. At the time, he was talking to Pink. And I kind of leered by him and then waiting for my moment, I was like, and then I grabbed him and I was like, "Hey, Dave, I'm really sorry to do this, big fan by the way, can I pass a message on to you from Lemmy from Motorhead? He really wants to go to this awards ceremony with you." And he was like, "Okay, yeah, sure, I guess I'll call him." Anyway, I did my bit, Fast forward a couple of months, in the magazine, there's Dave and there's Lemmy, they're at the award ceremony together. Now, I don't know if I actually created that situation, but hey, it's a great story to tell. But here's actually, you know what, there is a valuable message from that, and it actually didn't hit me until a few years later. The message is essentially that if you're passionate about doing something, I was super passionate about both those bands, desperately wanting to please my heroes in that scenario, that you will move heaven and earth to make things happen. I blag, I had no idea what I was doing when I was trying to get those tickets to get backstage, but I made sure it happened. If I didn't do it that way, I was going to do it another way. You'll just push and you'll push and push if you're passionate. To have passion and you'll get stuff done.
Yeah, man. No, I think that's a huge lesson because I think a lot of people, like, they'll look at some people like, let's say, Gary Vaynerchuk. You might be familiar with him. And they're like, you're like, how does he do it? Like, how? And like, I think it's actually, you know, he maybe is an extreme, but I think it's actually kind of a simple answer that how he does it, like, he just actually really freaking likes it. You know, he loves it. So, it's like that's why I think money-focused will only get you so far. But, if you focus on what you love to do, then the money will come anyway down the road. And then, you can actually put in that 16 hours in a day and actually feel maybe energized by the end of it, not wiped out. So, I think that's actually huge.
No, 100%. If you're pumped about it, you got enough adrenaline, you'll get stuff done.
So I'm excited for your answer to this next one too. So what is the most valuable piece of information that we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Okay, so obviously right now I'm setting up Crypto Crowd. So the most valuable piece of information you can know is that if you invest in us right now, you'll get the best return you'll ever achieve in your life. Ow! But no, joking aside. I've been in digital for a very long time. I've been building products for all sorts of companies, the likes of Google and Facebook. Honestly, the best advice that I can give is never build a product around a specific technology. Only ever build a product to solve a specific problem. Because if you get tied up in the technology, you'll forget about what the problem is you're trying to solve. Trying to solve, and then it will never go anywhere. I mean, it'll be great whatever it is you do, but you've got to solve a problem.
Yes. And so in this next one, I actually kind of want to keep it geared towards maybe crypto. So what's your best piece of overall business advice for somebody that's maybe just getting into crypto or maybe online marketing, however you would like to answer it, but somebody who's just getting started, what would you tell them?
Well, I mean, the best piece of advice ever is without team, you're nothing. That's the key one, but that extends into everything, but it really does extend into crypto and building up your knowledge base. Your team is effectively what connects you to other bits of knowledge in the world. We were talking just before we started recording about how You've got to go out and find— if you don't know anything about crypto, you've got to go and find people that does give you really good, strong, solid advice about the market and about the dangers and the pitfalls that are out there because there are many. If you build up a team around you and a good connection and a good network, and that can either be with inside your company or with inside your social sphere, you will find those people. Those are the people you want to talk to and, and, uh, you know, be on your side. So, uh, yeah, I think it was John Schnabel I heard it from, who was, uh, from that TV show Gold Rush. I don't know if you, uh, you ever saw it. Without TV or nothing. Uh, it's a great point and I love it.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, and I, I completely agree that I just— I never seen that, uh, actual show though.
Oh, it's a great show, you gotta watch it. It's on the Discovery Channel, I think.
Okay.
And, uh, yeah, check it out.
It's called Gold Rush.
Gold Rush. Yeah, it's about a whole bunch of gold miners up in Alaska.
Oh, nice. Okay, I'll check it out. I'm on the Netflix game, so I got to hop on back over to cable and get on Discovery. So the next one I have for you is if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Man, I imagine everybody's given this at one stage or another. 100%. Don't be afraid to fail. Sorry, say that again. Don't be afraid to fail. If I could have failed 100 times more, I'd be 100 times better than I am now. You learn so much more in a failure than you ever do on a win.
Yes, dude, I couldn't agree more. Also, even to extend on that, I think that failure is actually a part of winning or a part of success. It literally is. To get to it. People are so afraid of the first fail. I actually enjoy failing at this point. I'm just falling into things and then like eventually it just works out. It's like, yeah, for sure.
And it does work out, but I wish I'd known that or known that a lot, um, earlier. A lot earlier.
Yeah. Um, so maybe it could tie in, uh, but probably a little different, but in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Uh, well, that is a really good question because there's no solid answer. Everything is, is subjective. But for me, happiness is about helping myself to help others. You know, nothing makes me feel better than when I help somebody in a really profound way. And that could be anything from a charitable donation to helping somebody solve a business problem, to helping one of my team work out a problem in my business. You know, that is the That is the key to happiness for me. Help yourself to help others.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
So The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. I don't know if you've come across it, but it's essentially about compound interest and that if you do a small bit every single day, you can, you can grow things over a long time. And I think I heard in one of your podcasts you do a 5-minute journal each morning. Is that right?
Yes, I actually do. It's actually called The Five Minute Journal.
Oh, right.
Is what I'll do. Have you heard of it?
I haven't, no, but it works with the name, huh?
Yeah, yeah, no, it's pretty sick. Yeah, it's a cool journal and it's basically like journal like what you're grateful for and like your top 3 things that you want to do. And I actually have heard of The Slight Edge. I haven't read it yet though.
It's a great book and it really kind of, I suppose, pushes you to just do a little bit, do it consistently and build up over time.
Totally. And I think that's actually so, and that is 100%. And what I think like the 5-Minute Journal does for me is like in a day. So like what I always tell people is like, if you want to have a great day, just like start like with one small win in the morning. So the 5-Minute Journal for me is like, the first win. It only takes 5 minutes, it's very easy, but if I can do that, it starts me on this cycle because then I'll go work out and then I'll work and then I'll keep working and it all spreads from one little small victory, if you will. I think that's important because I think a lot of people, what will happen is they wake up, they realize all the things they have to do and they mess up on the first thing because it's this huge task and then that just tumbles down through their whole day. Just start with some small wins and then, I don't know, again, things just seem kind of work out. So next one is, what is your favorite quote and why?
So this one comes from an old boss of mine, in fact, first agency I ever worked for here in London. And he used to say, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing fast. And I used to hate it at the time, but as you get older, you realize how little time you have on the planet. You need to get stuff done and you need to get it out there. And actually, there's another quote from I think it's the LinkedIn CEO who said that if you're happy with the first iteration, it will never be released. You know, you've just got to get it done and get it out there and you can iterate and make things better over time. And yeah, so if you want to do it, do it fast.
Yeah, I love that. And actually another guest I had, he said this, that his dad used to say this quote. And I don't know if it's his dad's quote, but I think it goes along this. He said, build the plane while you fly the plane.
That's a great quote. I've heard that one. Yeah.
Okay. He said he's like, he's like, I don't think my dad came up with it, but he's like, I can't, I can't find who to credit it to. So he's like, it must be just my dad. I was like, that's awesome. But in business and maybe in life, in a lot of cases, I think that is accurate, but I don't think it is accurate with the actual plane, because that's scary.
So you gotta hope that Boeing have a slightly different way of doing that.
So dude, thank you so much for coming on, man. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?
All right, so I'm on LinkedIn, search Rupert Barksfield, but also check out thecryptocrowd.app. That's where our signup page is. If you want to learn more, just sign up there and we can meet up.
Awesome, man. Thanks again for coming on. Really enjoyed it.
Thank you very much. Cheers, Charlie.
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