Welcome back to the growing Lean podcast, once again by Lean Discovery Group. This is your host, dylan Burke, also known as Teage. I'm very happy to be here with David Doss, founder of the CKC Fund and board of directors of ChainBLX. Welcome, david. Thank you for having me, dylan Amazing. So to get us started, can you give us a little bit about the history and background of yourself and how you ended up where you are today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So I've spent about the last 15 years in marketing strategy and operations, mainly for technology companies, and I've spent about the last six years of that in the blockchain and cryptocurrency Web3 space.
Speaker 2:So I've worked on blockchain initiatives with Citibank, with Gemini, a variety of other players in the space and, in terms of what inspired me to get started doing what I'm doing now, also have a very global background, where I've lived in various countries, traveled to several dozen different countries at this point and I was really fascinated with the ability for digital assets to act as a catalyst for innovation globally. So what I do now as the founder of CKC Fund is focus on helping businesses and investment funds to grow through blockchain and digital assets. So on the one side of what we're doing is we help to operate investment fund vehicles in the digital asset space and with that, we help also to facilitate liquidity for other alternative investment funds that accept capital in the form of cryptocurrencies so funds such as ESG funds or other emerging tech funds that are receiving investment capital in the form of cryptocurrency and then redeploying it into other areas. And then the other side of what we do is growth, consultancy and development around blockchain and cryptocurrency startups and digital transformation initiatives.
Speaker 1:Okay, amazing. And when did you start the business?
Speaker 2:So we have been going. It's I guess that's kind of a little bit of a larger question because it built. It have been building it out slowly in the background, but I'd say particularly since about early 2022 is when we really started focusing on building this out. But I think that speaks also to a larger challenge of kind of naming when a business starts, because really this also this started, for example, on the digital asset investments side. It started with building out a personal investment portfolio over six years ago. So, and then from those learnings and from you know, from a lot of those relationships in the blockchain space, is where there's kind of this organic growth into doing what I do now.
Speaker 1:Okay, amazing. And what has been the biggest challenge you've faced in getting to your business where it is today and how you solved it, or how you solving it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would say, in emerging technologies in general, but in particular in the blockchain and digital assets space, there's a very kind of boom and bust cycle that can happen here. Where this is something that I have perspective on, having been involved in this market for quite some time, is that you have just these really major drawdowns. So, for context, you know, all time high for Bitcoin was about $80,000 and it's been hovering in the kind of 25 to $30,000 range lately, but the thing is that this is nothing super new around the larger digital assets space. That also the last all time high in 2017, 2018, bitcoin was at about $20,000 and then it went down to about $3,000. So you have these just very significant fluctuations, but upward trending. So I think that the larger perspective is to kind of prepare for the marathon rather than for the sprint and to really kind of hope for the best but plan for the worst, and so some ways that we've been focusing on doing that is really tooling up and building out what we have to offer in the midst of a bear market so that when there is the next bull market, we can be really 100% equipped to provide value and to handle the demand that will be there.
Speaker 2:An analogy I like to use is you know, if you're surfing, for example, and they're kind of no waves out there, yeah, you could just stop and swim to shore, but then if you see this big wave coming from shore, you have to run into the water and then start paddling over out to the wave, and by the time that you see that wave you may have missed it. So if you're just constantly going back to shore and then chasing that wave from the shore, then it becomes a challenge. So they talk about that in other sports too. You want to go not to where the ball is, but to where the ball will be. So I think that's a challenge in emerging technologies and crypto in particular is to kind of prepare for where the ball will be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% and I love that analogy because it literally is a wave if you look at the graph.
Speaker 1:And you want to be at the bottom of it going up just so you're ready for the pump. I used to. Well, I was dabbling. I was really young in 2017 when that sort of emerged into the mainstream and I dabbled with it and I turned like 500 rand into 30,000 rand, which was like crazy at the time and I remember telling my grandpa I was like, hey, this is what I've done with 500 rand. And he was like take it out now it's going to crash. And I was like I know better than him, he's only been doing this for 60 years with markets. And two weeks later it crashed and I lost it and I pulled it out and I just took the loss because it wasn't technically a loss. It was because it was only 500 rand, which was broken.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And if I had hold that until today it would be worth like 30x what it was. So that's what I'm saying you better to wait in the ocean. I love that melody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well so, and I mean the thing, though, is that waiting is this is something that I think is also an important concept is that waiting is something that is Is kind of a very active thing.
Speaker 2:I remember there was this I think it was a Hamilton song, the musical, but it was I'm not lying around, I'm lying in wait, and so that that kind of Crouching ready to, ready to strike, sort of a waiting is, is really the kind of thing that we're talking about, not this like kind of Waiting for the whole thing to get better, without kind of taking agency of it is, I think, another, another important learning of you know there's there are ways to be productively waiting, and so, to that point and to that kind of you know Example that you're talking about, you know there's there are opportunities.
Speaker 2:You know, certainly would, it's you know, better to better to sell at the peak then Then to sell at the dip. That's, you know, obviously also easier said than done. But then you know, beyond that, to your other point, it would also maybe have been better to you know, to either sell at the the last peak or to wait it out until the next one, and depending on your priorities, right, but there are also other ways of actively waiting, such as, you know, I think, some of the really successful funds out there they have. They've seen that They've been thinking about the short term and about the long term. So and then and that's a story that you're providing you know, I think that what a lot of funds in the space would be looking to do is Sell out of those positions, not to completely cash out and and kind of close up shop, but to sell out of their positions and then get back in at, basically, at a heavy discount Is another area where I think that there's a lot of opportunity in a market where there's volatility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, definitely. And then could you walk us through your overall business strategy and Kind of where you see yourself heading in the next couple years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So In terms of our so we have two sides of what CKC does. One side is CKC fund, and so what we've, what we've been doing, is managing Investment vehicles in the digital asset space. So we're a fund operator or a fund advisor, and and in terms of the model and what we're preparing to do, we're thinking about this in terms of, to your point, of the medium to long-term value in in this market where, for example, analysts from city and from the World Economic Forum have talked about the overall blockchain and tokenization markets being a multi-trillion dollar opportunity, where Right now it's I mean, the overall market's a little bit difficult to estimate, but maybe in the low trillions and they're they're estimating basically closer to a 10 to 20 trillion dollar opportunity by 2030. So what we're looking to do is is really to help fuel that overall, that overall trend, and Provide value in that.
Speaker 2:In terms of the strategy around investment management, our mindset is that there's there's been a lot of kind of risk-seeking behavior in the crypto markets. There's a lot of you know, kind of more, more gambling, and I mean gambling is gambling is cool, you know you can, you can win a lot, you can, but the problem is you can also lose a lot. So you know it's it's fine to be to be gambling if, if what someone wants to do is gamble, but if it's, if it's a question of investing, then there there needs to be more of a Kind of a measured approach of researching fundamental value. You know, diversification, risk management, looking at at price correlations, trying to build out an overall portfolio that can Basically mitigate risk. So what we look to do is mitigate risk across the larger digital asset portfolios that we're building. We also look to provide digital assets as a way in turn, to mitigate investor risk Across their, their larger, their larger portfolio.
Speaker 2:So we like to look at how can Digital assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum, how can they be a counterbalance, given that they show low to Low, to no correlation with other markets like stocks, bonds, real estate?
Speaker 2:How can, how can the Upward trending volatility of of digital assets provide an asymmetric growth opportunity for people's portfolios in a way that also kind of balances out the larger volatility across that. So that's one area or set of areas. Another point there around what we're looking to do is we're looking to really bring more of a rigor to the digital asset space, where a lot of the kind of total wipeout scenarios that have been happening have been from being way, way over leveraged on really, really risky place, where some people have become just unbelievably rich overnight, but other people have lost absolutely everything or are actually in the red, and so what we're looking to do is be kind of the antidote to that, towards a more risk mitigated type of approach. On the studio and development side, what we look to do is help to build out the larger ecosystem of products and services in the blockchain space that are going to help to fuel the next bull market. Essentially, 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got some friends who have kind of like, pulled out most of their investments and then they're just riding whatever they're willing to lose. But I've got this one friend who he's like a super intelligent guy and he's he puts everything into Bitcoin, specifically diversified a little bit, but he's backing Bitcoin to the end and even when it dips he's at it last. He just keeps buying more and more and more.
Speaker 1:And he's explained it to me so many times and it does make sense. He's backing the technology and he's backing that Bitcoin will be the front runner at the end of it. But, with that being said, have there been any times in your journey like where you've seen a tank so hard and you like, oh God, what am I doing? Like I'm losing so much? Has there ever been a time where you considered like pulling it quits and finding something new?
Speaker 2:You know, I think there's always that, there's always that question around. You know, anything in life that gets that gets tough right.
Speaker 2:But you know there have been times where it has been really, really brutal. So you know, for one thing, I left a very, very cushy job in early 2018, early to mid 2018 to work in an early stage blockchain and cryptocurrency startup and, within two weeks of quitting, bitcoin fell by 50% and alt points so you know a lot of the other ones out there fell by up to 95 to 99 plus percent in some cases, and so the market was just totally, totally decimated and I was getting paid in cryptocurrency. So you know, it's there were. There have been times where it's been, you know, a really quite a bit of a shock, to put it mildly. But that kind of hardback to my earlier point I was making is that realizing okay, these are the patterns, how can we prepare for this next time, be better informed, learn from the pain, basically. But yeah, I think that it comes down to finding something that you're really excited about, passionate about, that you think has, has impact potential, and something that's that's worse, worth the headache, worth the pain?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, and you obviously back the technology all the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I will caveat that by saying I have been consistently involved with the technology and with the assets all the way or through that entire duration, and focus the mind, share of my time and attention to it. Personally, though, I've not chosen to kind of go all in on kind of sell the house and buy Bitcoin or sell the car and buy Bitcoin. There are folds for whom that really paid off. There are others for whom it really really really didn't. There are horror stories of people who took on a second mortgage to buy crypto towards the peak and then tanks or stuff like that. So, with that in mind, what I look to do is to practice what I preach, which is the benefits of diversification, not just diversification across different crypto assets, but also diversification of having treating crypto like the promising emerging asset class. That it is where it really depends on a person's risk profile.
Speaker 2:For some younger folks, it could make sense to have 25 plus percent of net worth in crypto. For some, it could really not make sense if they have kind of a lower risk type of profile or set of priorities for, let's say, broader. More broadly speaking, a lot of private-worth individuals, family offices and such, as well as modern portfolio theory would have been saying in surveys or in analyses that it can make sense to put, say, around four or five percent of net worth into digital assets because of the significant upside, while also in a scenario where you're not looking to invest any more than you're okay with losing, it would still be kind of a minimal damage to one's overall net worth. So I think there are a lot of things to think through there of what is the mindset, what is the risk appetite, and then make decisions accordingly. Essentially, yeah 100%.
Speaker 1:So I've got. My one side of my family has a real estate development background, which takes huge risk, and then my other side, my stepdad, is an accountant, so he's very risk averse and both of them tell me to stay away from cryptocurrency. So it's super interesting. Even the risk takers and the risk mitigators. They have a common agreement. But now they're slowly starting to understand it more. As the years have gone by, with more case studies and education, it's becoming more understood by them, especially the older generation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it comes down to looking at crypto as special, just like any other asset class, so it has these particulars about it, just like the real estate market does, or the fine art market or the stock market or what have you. But realizing that you need to look at the fundamentals, you need to exercise good judgment. I think that sometimes folks in crypto can talk about it as this super, super special thing that's unlike anything else, in a way that can kind of make it it kind of smacks of some exceptionalism, like the rules of investing don't apply, fundamental analysis doesn't need to apply, and that's, I think that's a mistake. So, to your point, education really important, and also just realizing the overall value, potential and making informed decisions all really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing. So we are running out of time a bit, but I just wanted to, before we go, if you could rate where you are in terms of your level of satisfaction with your business on a scale of one to 10 today. What? Where would you rate that?
Speaker 2:Oh boy. So I would say, you know, I think this is around probably where most people would say, but it's somewhere towards the first, that kind of six, seven, eight out of 10 range, the reason being, I think it's a balance of celebrating the wins but also staying hungry and staying humble for what's to come. There's a whole lot that I want still to accomplish, but I think that there's been a lot of growth as well 100%.
Speaker 1:And if we were to meet again in three years' time and ask you the same question, what would you want the answer to be?
Speaker 2:I would want the answer to be a lot higher, and I think that that also speaks to your point. There was a saying by I can't remember who was, but kind of a fairly common saying that everyone overestimates what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in 10 years. And so looking through, you know, to three years from now, I think the sheer level of potential of what could have been achieved is a lot more significant, you know, versus the expectations that it would have. So I think it's good to be building for that longer term for sure 100%.
Speaker 1:And do you sort of have an idea what it takes to get to that point Like what's missing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it's for this stage. I think it comes down to better operations around sales and business development, and then also increased focus on optimizing the asset management side of things. So those are, I think, going to continue to be key areas.
Speaker 1:Okay, amazing, I love that. And before we go, what advice would you give to other business owners looking to succeed in your industry?
Speaker 2:A couple of things. One would be testing out what it is exactly you want to be accomplishing. So you know, I think that there have been a lot of folks that will go oh, crypto, you know that's going to be easy. But really finding what it is that you really find interesting about the blockchain and crypto sphere and kind of building out knowledge and experience and kind of track record in that is, I think, really important.
Speaker 2:Relatedly also, just that I would say the other related side to that is that there's just so many areas within blockchain and crypto that are growing right now, ranging from, you know, kind of more B2B infrastructure to, you know, blockchain related to music, streaming, events, and so there's just a whole scope. So kind of trying to find what really ticks with you know, personality, skill set etc. Would be another key area. And then the last point would be just bearing in mind those cycles that you know. I think a lot of people kind of get onto that, watching a crypto bandwagon when you know when the price is ludicrously high and then when things start to dip, they start to drop off a bit. So just bearing in mind that you know that'll probably continue to, you know there will continue to be cycles is another thing and prepare accordingly 100%.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that so much, and thanks for being on the show, david. It's been really interesting and I'd love learning more about this.
Speaker 2:You're having me on don't.
Speaker 1:What would the best? What would the best way for people to get in touch with David Doss, if you have any, if they have any questions or if you have any offers for them to take advantage of?
Speaker 2:Yeah, would be great to to continue conversations. Happy to help in what ways I can. My LinkedIn would be a good way. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn Search for David Doss CKC fund. You can also reach out to me via email. So that's David at CKCfun and yeah, those would be some of the main ways.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Thanks so much, David.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it.