Cleveland still on top

So a new year and a new year a LeBron James team gets at the #1 spot. At least in the East that is. But the truth is that there is something to be said about consistency. LeBron James have been keeping up the numbers on a great high, and breaking records after records. The latest was his advancement on the all time career points and also keeping up those stat sheets. That said, he has had some issues this year, like his mid-range numbers are all time low as well as marking a few games with really bad averages at 12-14 pts per game.

Not sure if the King is tired or just trying to get the rest of the team involved. Specially after a back to back lost against the world champion and ex-NBA finals opponent the Warriors and the next game after the Blazers. But I hope this is not as alarming as it looks on paper.

The truth is that other teams have been loosing around the Cavs like the Spurs, the Raptors and the Bulls. So like Kendrick Lamar said, we’re gonna be alright.

Few minutes to 2016 a quick talk about Bitcoin

So before 2016 arrives, I want to share the conference I did just a couple of days back in my hometown. The talk was on Bitcoin and the Blockchain. The talk was organized quickly and I was a bit nervous the people or the venue wouldn’t be optimal for the talk. In the end things did went through but not exactly perfect.

I decided to create some new slides for my presentation. However, many images where just not done. This made it even more difficult as the time of my conference approached. I was nervous and I really wanted to have enough information without leaving it out without much content on it.

In the end I decided to settle and thought it was good enough and most people will ‘get’ the images as well as the content. Things seemed to be set, however upon arrival, I started experiencing issues with the projector. My screen didn’t come in, and after many tries I decided to give up and end up giving the talk with no slides.

Although scary I thought I knew enough on the topic to make sense without getting trap into a corner. This also gave me more focus on what I said and the way I say it. Which end up being a blessing in the sky. The mental track of the topics I was mentioning were awesome and in the end I got to cover a lot of ground with so little time. I’ll share some of the pictures taken during the talk and the video itself of the talk.

During the conference about Bitcoin and the blockchain

 

More VC talk on Bitcoin at LA BitConf 2015

This is my second post on LaBitconf specially about the issues that were handle on the Mexican Startup scene. The panel was presented by the CEO of Bitso, Marcus Dantus a venture capital rep from Mexico Startup and the CEO of MexBT.

So far the points were around the issue of comparing the startup scene in Mexico vs the one in the United States. Also about the way that startups and VCs get together.

Other subtopics were also discussed on the area of exit strategies in Mexico vs the US, why they don’t work as well here in Mexico. The key points had to do with the ecosystems of mergers and acquisitions both legally and just practical in too complicated in Mexico to let it flourish. The national stock exchange also lacks the dynamism of the one found in the United States, so the growth is just not there.

On the topic of Bitcoin, and Blockchain, there were also a certain competition about if blockchain is better or is Bitcoin still relevant.

The failure of a flat enterprises in Mexico is also another thing that hurts the economic environment. The concentration of power is usually what makes the value also stagger and makes it hard for startups to grow, fail and be reborn. Traditional thinking on management and employees don’t ‘get’ the way to get motivated.

The management ideas have slowly been reaching the Mexican shore but still something that is usually unheard off mainly because of the legal complexities and cultural perception of things.

On the QA there was some key questions about the lack of diverified capitals to invest in the country. However the way to get capital in the US is easier than before and that should be KEY in order to develop and promote your startup.

So key points and conclusions about this talk are simple:

1. Go back to think “Internet first, country second“. Make business that scale, and make businesses that act global.
2. Bitcoin is new and developing, opportunities on them are 100x than any other space on technology at the moment, profit from it.
3. Ideas are cheap, lets make more ide-a-thon until we have a framework to make these type of ideas.
4. Work on increase the transparency on the industry, fuck up nights are good, lets make more blogs, documentaries, and such

Now, the questions to are, what do we have to do to enable this. Lets research on VCs according to our ideas, not our area codes. Do not search for VCs in Mexico, search for VCs in Bitcoin/Blockchain.
Let’s research on their funded companies, lets reach out to them on Linkedin, social networks, etc. I am sure they could send you bits and pieces of what you need.
Lests work on presenting our ideas, publish a blogpost, videos, and such on it. Let’s do potcast interviews on podcast that specialize in that.
Put money where your mouth is, if you are already making money (from a job or your startup is running). Lets put some money on funding our presentation, use job marketplaces and find some quality designer, animator, copyrighter, to have this produced.
Finally I would say to build a first company structure, although this might vary if are already on it. But document your processes so you are able to show it off if needed.
Let’s escape Mexico, really, start thinking on issuing assets on the blockchain, make your idea transend and live off the environment you are trying to push. The more attractive is to the internet, the more will the internet invest in your idea.

Structure ideas on the blockchain

This week I went to LaBitConf in Mexico City, we got the opportunity to meet people from different parts of the world doing things that matter in the Bitcoin space. And then there were the mexicans that got their way into the conference. Not to say that there aren’t smart people, but sometimes I feel that we just don’t know what are supposed to be doing.

One of those is how are supposed to think, during my talk with many of them I couldn’t shake away from my head the many people I talk at the GNU/Linux conferences in Mexico.

The biggest difference I can tell is the age, but with the age also a vision that is somewhat shortsighted. Wanting to do things local are the kind of things that well, wrap around our thought process and keep revolving over this concept.

Being native to the cryptoworld my hope was of finding people eager to help this world. But what I found is again the same pattern, the itch they want to scratch being too narrow for the world. Too local, too shortsighted.

So I want to build a framework on how to formulate Ideas. Ideas that can form  global projects and can gain traction. First step is to learn that we are not citizens, we are internet entities, dealing with an internet asset. We need to use these assets as a platform to transform our digital ecosystem. Code is our tools to change the ecosystem and also the way we can make a difference in the world.

There is a tendency to make a difference in the physical world but I think that we first need to explore our own digital world. After all, nobody drop an actual bitcoin on our head. We learned about it through a digital system or service, and for that we can control it and use it. The physical world is an effect, almost side effect of what is happening on the digital one.

Once we are aware of our digital existance then we will be able to move forward with our ideas. Solving issues, building on platforms, creating services and making data and value move way faster.

We need to be aware that ‘flags’ are holding us back more than giving us identity. A quote that I always get reminded of is: “On the web we are all dogs” Meaning basically, that it really doesn’t matter, where we are from and it shouldn’t matter. Let’s move on and make an application for the internet and by the internet.

A good example is our own Satoshi Nakamoto. Does he matter if he is Japanese? That he is a he, or a they? Was his vision to help the people from Japan, the people from his hometown, to pitch to the local investor? Should we be more like satoshi and less like the ‘digital crusader that just learned a new trick‘?