Not Just Money

Why Most People Never Escape Their Money Mindset | Andrés Meneses

• Hantec Markets

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0:00 | 1:10:47

Andrés Meneses is a crypto entrepreneur, podcast host and co-founder of Versus on Chain, a video game focused on teaching people how to trade. Having lived through extreme highs and lows he shares his journey to becoming one of the most recognized voices in the digital asset space and a key player in crypto through trading, building, content creation.

In this episode, we explore how much money you really need to survive, how culture and upbringing shape your relationship with risk, the harsh lessons crypto teaches, and what separates those who last from those who don’t.

Key Learnings:
Survival defines your money mindset
Risk is shaped by your environment
Crypto rewards discipline, not hype
Success is built through resilience, not luck

0:00 Intro
3:54 How much money do you need?
9:10 Money mindset across different cultures
12:38 The dangers of crypto & tough money lessons
17:46 Building for yourself
22:15 How did growing up in Columbia affect your money and risk appetite?
29:02 Rich Dad Poor Dad Inspiration
33:23 Andres crypto journey
40:00 The art of networking in crypto
47:12 Social media helping or hurting traders
54:31 Versus on Chain 
1:04:22 Best traders mindset
1:06:42 How do you define success?

Follow Andres:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreswifitv/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreswifitv/
Website: https://versusonchain.com/
Youtube: @Cryptoogspodcast  

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SPEAKER_00

Once nearly kidnapped because they were trying to steal our car. Then I've survived a bomb explosion when I was when I was 20. Money in Colombia is a stigma, right? So, for example, they say, hey, you are rich, you're doing something dodgy. I think where you grow up influences your money mindset. The money realism exists in Colombia. We can be really down in the mod, but we're still happy.

SPEAKER_01

How do you answer that question? How much money do you need to survive? Because our answer is gonna always be more.

SPEAKER_00

I think so. Well, and this is conversation about money I never had with myself for a long time until I start to have kids. People in crypto, when they make so much money, you lose touch with the reality of money. My journey in crypto was because I was sending uh money to my family in Colombia with remittances, right? 2016, I start to get into different uh crypto schemes, and I got crypto now is really difficult. It's it's hard, it's not like it's changed a lot. Now you need to focus on forex and all the other non-crypto trading, they have more uh risk management. You have to learn how to manage the risk, and that's something that crypto people don't have. We go crazy. This is something that people don't mention. You have to lose money in trading to make money. You're this little trader with a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand dollars, you're going to trade against them. But they have algorithms, they have they have built robust teams, and then it's too difficult to compete against them. Versus on chain is the first video game that teaches people how to trade.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I get bad habits from the game because it is a game and it's not real money, so that emotional side, I'm not getting that training. Or Andrés Meneses is a crypto entrepreneur, podcast host, and co-founder of Versus on Chain, a video game focused on teaching people how to trade. Having lived through extreme highs and lows, he shares his journey to becoming one of the most recognized voices in the digital asset space and a key player in crypto through trading, building, and content creation. In this episode, we explore how much money you really need to survive, how culture and upbringing shape your relationship with risk, the harsh lessons crypto teaches, and what separates those who last from those who don't. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Not Just Money Podcast by Hantech Markets. Guys, today we have a very, very special guest. Please welcome to the show, Mr. Andrés Meneses. Andrés, welcome to the show, man.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. Thank you very much for this show. I'm very excited to talk about finance, crypto, life, struggles, winning. Thank you so much for the invitation. By the way, I have a present for you and the guy from Huntek. Okay. Let me see where I put it here. So this is this is two wristbands with the Hantec colors. Oh, no way. That's it. So it's called um Elis are Emblos uh wristbands. Basically, my children make them.

SPEAKER_01

No, that's beautiful, man. So I called them. Can I put it on now? Yeah, you can put it now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I give somebody from the Hunted group. Alright, Huntek team. We're gonna find out what's bigger. You have to choose which one fits the best. There we go. You see?

SPEAKER_01

There we go. Thank you so much, man. That's so sweet. That's really, really cute. I really, really appreciate that. Guys, we're gonna have to fight over the next one. Um first of all thank you for the thank you for coming on the show, Andres, and for the beautiful gift. I really, really appreciate it. So I've done my research and I've taken a look at your journey from when you started in Colombia to the UK to how you got into crypto and now with everything you're doing with Orbek, uh Orbit Orbit, sorry, uh uh uh versus on chain and the podcast crypto OGs. Yes. So you've really built a name for yourself in the crypto space. But I also know that you kind of fell into it by accident when you kind of sent money back to your parents, and you know, that's kind of how it all you know came into it. So what I wanted to talk to you about today is money, yeah. Not just about money, but I think where you grow up influences your money mindset, right? Yes, when you start, and then as you get older, you might start making more money, and it's when you start making more money that you start realizing the bad habits that you've learned, you know, from growing up and stuff, and you have to relearn and readjust and compete and move forward. On the podcast, I watched you. You were uh he asked you at the end, he's like, How much you asked him, I think, how much money do you need to survive? But you started when you moved to London in 08 with $34 in your pocket, no English, working four jobs, and doing all of that for three years before things started to kick up with the computer engineering stuff. But you said at the time you were happy, yes, you know, you were happy, and then so that's why when you he asked you that question, and when you ask how much money do you need to survive? It's a tricky question to answer because at that time, whatever you're making, you were happy with. Yes, but right now that answer will change. So, how do you answer that question? How much money do you need to survive? Because our answer is gonna always be more, more, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's a good question. Look, let me just put in perspective. I was um when I was a teenager, I remember I was 14, 15 years old. I used to work, well, I used to live in a mechanic garage in Bogota, and then I moved to my to another city to visit my auntie, and I lived with her for six months. And they used to have a car wash. A car wash. And I was making 10,000 Colombian pesos a month. That was about that's about, I don't know, three dollars. Wow. Three dollars. Obviously, I was I was only working like twice a week, Saturday and Sundays. But that money I remember I used to save it to go and visit my grandma in another city. Okay, so you see, so for me it was a lot of money. Now, fast forward, the best day I have in my life as an entrepreneur business owner, I remember it was about $200,000 in one day. That has been my best day. Okay, but I still remember more those $2 than those $200,000. Okay, interesting. You see? Because when you have to do $200,000, okay, I have to spend, I have to invest, I have to do it, doesn't have that value. So the answer for you how much money people need to survive is depends. But I remember um I was watching SC, you know, SC is the founder, one of the biggest exchanges in the world. Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I came to Dubai the the second time, I came to a conference, and he said when you reach $50 million, and above is still the same life. Wow. So his next his his number was $15 million. He said after that, the life, yeah, you can buy car watches, travel, business class, whatever. After that, it's kind of the same. I said, wow. And then I spoke to a couple of good friends, uh, they've been the entrepreneurs, business owners, and stuff. And I had noted the pattern that you don't need to live a really good life, regardless of the country you are or city you are, like with $50,000 a month for a family of four, is uh is good money. You don't need more than that. People say like how many private uh dinners you can have, how many uh jobs you can rent, how many uh vacation, you you get fed out with all of that. And I noticed something the last few days. People is trying to go back to the roots. A lot of people that I know, billionaires, millionaires, whatever. And then you know what I notice? People want to go living in a farm. So they're going the 360. You know, I have seen so many people that have all this money and wealth, and they just want to go and live in a farm when they retire. It's like the fish, you know, the fish story, the fisherman that he was fishing all his life, and he has his friend. And his friend became a millionaire and rich to release time. And at the end, they ended up at the same time as fishing. It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01

It's interesting how you know, to your point, uh it's a difficult, obviously, it's a difficult question to answer. Everyone will give you a different one. It's such a like because I think about this question a lot, you know, because uh how how to your point, when you have that that amount, was it 15 or 50? You said uh 50 million dollars. That's a lot of money. That's a that's a lot a lot of money. So if you have above or below that, you know, it doesn't really matter. But also does it make sense for 50 million dollars to be my my target of like what I should make, and if I don't make that, I'm you know, I'm not happy and like whatever. There's uh it's such a tough question to answer because it's like this balance of greed with what I need with this also imaginary life, you know, that I want to have rather than what do I need right now? Like to your point, you said that three dollars might seem like nothing, but that got me to go from where I was to go visit my grandma. Yeah, so it's how much can you this? I think it's how much value can you extract out of whatever amount you're making rather than what the number is. But we tend to think with less, there's only so much little we can extract.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think so. Well, and this is conversation about money. I never have with myself for a long time until I start to have kids. Okay. So two weeks ago, no, like a month ago, I started to play Monopoly with my kids. Okay, and they're seven and twelve. And my wife said, No, it's too difficult. But my daughter, she won. Okay, and she didn't know how, she didn't know anything about Monopoly, but she started to learn really fast, like, okay, I need to get these properties, I need to, and she she basically destroys us. Okay, okay. So for me coming from Colombia, talking about money, um, money in Colombia is a stigma, right? So, for example, they say, hey, you are rich, you are doing something dodgy, right? Or rich people are not are evil. So we have all this misconception in our brains when we were uh growing up. And then I fast forward, uh and I remember my grandma said you have to save money, like you you can you cannot just be rich, like we we're never going to be like that. So I have all of this in my DNA, right? And then when I start to travel the world, I move to the UK. In the UK, their mentality is totally different. Of course. Uh, but UK has something, or they had something, they have they or they still have it, I don't know. They have a very um good system. So in Colombia we have rich and very poor, right? And the middle class is there, but you can see the big difference in UK, it's like everybody's kind of the same.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And they don't judge based on what you have, what you're wearing. And I like that, I love that from the UK. They don't judge you based on what you own, your clothes, or your car, even though who you are or what you know, right? So then when I was in the UK, I learned from my experience there being a student. You know, I was working four jobs, uh cleaning toilets, uh doing uh doing cappuccinos as a barista. And then I was making 400 pounds a month, I remember. But I was making a little bit more in the UK that in Colombia as an engineer. But then I met my wife and their family, and they're very traditional with money. They save a lot. British people, they save a lot. They do everything manually, you know, they do the DIY, they they fix everything. And it was it's a it was a totally different mentality. And then when I moved here, it was a totally different. So it's it's been different. In here, you have you you pay for stuff for time to buy time. And I think so. That's the big thing, what I was saying about the fisherman. You need just to buy time with the money. I think so. For me, the most important now is time, more than money.

SPEAKER_01

More than money, yeah. The you know, I I learned that as you go throughout your life, throughout your experience, you will always pay with the resource that means least to you. So, for example, when I started my business, when you started what you had, we didn't have money, but we had time. Yes, so we invested all that time because it was just we're alone and whatever to learn, to learn. And now you then you reach a stage you're like, okay, now I'm getting paid to do what I do. Now I want more time, so I'd rather pay the money if that will open up more time. So it's funny how those things balance out and adjust depending on where you are and what stage you are in your life.

SPEAKER_00

So, yeah. Um, also, one thing that happened to me when I started to jump into this crypto world. So, and this is very interesting. People in crypto, when they make so much money, you lose touch with the reality of money. Interesting. Okay, you lose touch because you see all these numbers on your wallet and your computer and your screen, but then you forget this real money sometimes. That that that journey, I never have, for example, a hundred thousand dollars in cash in my hand. I never had it. But at least when I had it, I would have treated a different way that we if I have it when I tap in stuff to pay stuff. Of course, of course, 100%. So crypto people had that issue. Sometimes they lose respect for the value of money because it's kind of sometimes free money between brackets. But when it goes bad, it can go really bad. You know what?

SPEAKER_01

That's such an important point to bring up because a lot of people, myself and so many of the general public, I would say that got into crypto got in because we saw people like this who were trading and making money and driving the Lambos and whatever. So everyone's like, oh, if this person who doesn't, you know, seems normal can do that. Why, you know, why can't I? But you do you do lose touch with it, I think to your point. If I was zero and tomorrow I'm a millionaire, I haven't learned how to invest, how to save the right money habits, the right way, you know, to think about money. So it can really work what to your point, what money, uh, what the value of money is and how to treat it to to treat it correctly. But my question to those people is how do I make you, how do I show you that you have to start looking at this differently? Because you'll be like, I don't need to listen to you. I'm doing this, I've won. Why should I, why do I have to learn this? It's still working.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So actually that happened to me, myself. Yeah. Then I seen it how it happened to different people in my nearly, well, 10 years into this space. So when I start, my journey crypto was because I was sending uh money to my family in Colombia with remittances, right? Like using different uh I won't mention the name of the brand, but using different uh I say transactions, you know, like you you pay you go to a to a exchange or whatever, yeah, and then they send money to your country and then they charge you 10 to 20 percent. I say, wow, that's a lot. But I didn't have choice. And then I was looking, I went to the Bitcoin uh forum and I just go into dive into this. The advantage they have is I studied telecommunication engineering and study cybersecurity and cryptography and all of that stuff. And it got my attention because it says Bitcoin, the the crypto scam. So it was the crypto that got my attention. I started to dig in and say, wow, this is amazing. But it wasn't because of the peer-to-peer transaction of Bitcoin as a as a value. Then I watched another video of a company called Empezas, a telecommunication company in Uganda or somewhere in Africa, and people were using it with SMS. You go and you top it up, you have to walk, and you go, for example, to a 7-Eleven, you top it up, you top up your electricity, you top up. That happened 12 years ago before crypto was famous. So people in Africa were doing this to top up their electricity bills because they didn't have banks. So they have but they have an SMS, they have a sync car, and there was associated the telephone number with their uh, I don't know, with their light mechanism. So I remember that because when my grandma, uh I used to, she lived in the mountains in Colombia. There was no banks in her town, and she used to walk two to three hours to the next town. U sometimes you have a course, it will be easier, but then with cars, it was much easier. But then they had something called Telegram. It was called not the app, if not Telegram that you go and pay, and then they top up your electricity. So that got my attention, not the Bitcoin, if not that way. How to the the utility of it. The utility. I said, wow, this is amazing. So I went to this philosophy part of Bitcoin six months learning about it, but I was scared, right? I didn't know what was this. And then I bought my first Bitcoin in 2016. April 1st, right? At $400. Yeah. And then that's it, I had it, and then from there it had been a long journey. But yeah, the first part were philosophical. Then I I understood people were making a lot of money. So I saw a lot of people making a lot of money. And I said, I want to be like them, you know, they're rich, they're traveling the world. And then I became quite more wealthy and I was traveling the world, and then I lost my purpose again. So it was after that, it wasn't about owning, if not about being or feeling better with myself.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and um so because uh I'm so happy you brought up. First of all, I appreciate you telling us this story because sometimes people will watch podcasts like this and they'll see us talking and be like, ah, it just got they're successful, they're successful, they've done it, whatever. But these are the stories that people need to hear. For example, you told me you've uh you you made it all, lost it all, made it all, lost it all. So like that happened a couple of a couple of times, I think. Yeah. So my question is coming back to you know how we started the conversation with money mindset. What was it after the third time? What was the mistake you were making across those three? That after the third time you're like, uh, that's it. This is the problem, and I need to address and start managing my money and how I think about this differently. What was the lesson you took from that?

SPEAKER_00

I was, I think so. I was just chasing money. I was chasing money, but also I I've been just building services, consultancy, providing value for other people. So then after I realized I need to build something that it can provide value for people that I build it. So that's what I that's why we create versus on chain.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So I say I need to provide build something because then most of the people that I've been admiring in my whole career as an entrepreneur, they all built something, right? My favorite books are the books that have autobiographies. For example, uh Shoot Dog uh is the owner of is the memoir of the owner of Nike. Yeah, um Phil Nike is his name. So I watched I like all those books, but they build something to provide service. So I think so, as an entrepreneur, when when you are not building anything, you're building for something else, you lose track. And you can make money, but you need to build a system that makes people make money or have different ways to use your service or product or app or whatever in their benefit, not only on your benefit.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I think that's the that's the I'm happy you brought that up. That's the biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs make. I'm part of an entrepreneur community, a founder community here, so I have these conversations week in and week out. And everyone mentions that last part that you said, like, oh, I built this thing because it solved my problem, but then I am like, yeah, and I'll take it to the market and I'll build a business, and then you take it to market, and it's like, yeah, we don't care. You know what I'm saying? And that's the that's the biggest issue that especially first time entrepreneurs make is that I built this thing for me, it works, it's great. So I assume without doing my research and doing all that, that the market is gonna accept it, but that's where you know you realize, oh, I could have spent that time doing probably, you know, something else. But you still learn, you know, you still learn, you know, so it's okay, I think.

SPEAKER_00

One more thing about the the question that you asked me, um having to do with building something, and what I learned is when I moved to Dubai, Dubai is uh is a PhD degree in business. Because you have seen so many people learn like it's totally different than live in the UK. There was people not very entrepreneurial there. In Colombia, there, but when you move here, so many backgrounds, so many people, you have seen people with so much money but time, or you have seen so many people with so much money but always hustling. Or you've seen the hustlers, they're not making much money, but they're kind of happy. Yeah, or you see the normal people working 9 to 5 and they're so happy. Like the lady that helped us at home, she's super happy and she's very proactive with what she does. Um, so what I learned also is you need to stop chasing uh smoke and mirrors, let's go like that, or stop chasing like shiny objects. When I before I moved here, I got my golden visa four years ago. Congratulations. And I yes, I got it with creating content. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I was looking at all these content creators of crypto specifically. They were living an amazing life, right? Cars, watches. And then I ended up meeting all of them, and some of them they were like really empty inside. They accumulate so much wealth to crypto, they bought 80 on a one dollar and went to 4,000. So, but then they're still missing something. So that part is what I learned as well. What I will do everything again the last three times that I that I lost everything is uh believing more in what is is is inside me and not just chasing other people trajectorial goals.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but it's you know, to your point, it's it's hard though. Yeah, it's hard, especially when you're in that space, especially when you're building you're becoming more recognized and people are asking you, hey Andres, come pr uh Be part of our project or make content for us or whatever. So it's very understandable once you get sucked into that world to fall into the typical, you know, traps that happen.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But coming back to I want to take us, I want to pause on this for a second, take us a little bit all the way back to um money mindset and uh you growing up in Colombia. So you grew up in Colombia during the 90s, you know, as I understood with the cartels and like all that going on. But it was a so it was a tough environment. And I know you were in the army, I think. I went to the army as well. As well, and you know, you had you're in a school, and sometimes people knock on the door and tell kids like, yeah, your parents gone. So like it's yes, it's true. That happened. That's that's heavy, you know, that's not easy. So I'm curious, it would make it the fact that you and became an entrepreneur. I look at it in two ways. Either it was, I don't see I you could it could have gone two ways. Either I don't have much ahead of me right now, so I can't take this, so I can't, or I should not take this risk and play it safe. Or what you did is like, I don't think I have much, uh anything really to lose and everything to gain, so I'm just gonna go and you know try to make it happen. So, what did growing up in that environment teach you about risk as you've now moved through your career over the last 10 years?

SPEAKER_00

It's crazy, but about modern risk, before talking this, I would talk about uh Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As you know, hear about him, is the biggest 100 Years of Solitude his book, right?

SPEAKER_01

Magic realism, I think.

SPEAKER_00

So the mighty realism exists in Colombia. We can be really down in the mod, but we're still happy. So that's something that I want to address. Like all of us in Colombia, we have that my realism in our head. It's crazy. Like, how people can live happy if there is bomb explosions, there is people getting killed in the streets, there is it's it's crazy Colombia in the 90s. So I I I never said this to anyone in the podcast, but I grew in a very hostile situation. When I was little, my mom, she was in their Excel, and then she brought us up. Until I was like 10, 11, we lost everything. So that was that was the first part I lost everything. That was in myself, with my my my mama, my sister. But I was studying at a very good school. And all my school, it was a military school for uh kids that their parents go to the army. Sure. So going back to what you said, yeah, when I was little, teenager and young, a kid, the door, they come and say, hey, come here, and then we can see our friends crying because her dad or his dad was getting killed in action. It was crazy. That's crazy. And for us, it became normal, which is even crazier. And that we we used to have like uh military police in our doors in in the school. It was crazy. Wow. And then something that my mom did really well. So all of these people are still my friends, but they they they were quite well off, right? And then when I was 11, talking about money and the upbringing, we have to move to a mechanic garage because my mom lose everything. And my sister. So I was very privileged in some point, but then to live in a mechanic garage. It wasn't luckily, my uncle adopted us for one year. We didn't have any money, so come here. And he partitioned one of the rooms and put a bed in there for us. And I was talking to my sister actually writing a book about this.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, okay, okay. Exactly. Coming soon, coming soon.

SPEAKER_00

It will take a couple of months, but it's called from the mechanic garage to Dubai. I love it. Yeah, awesome. So my sister was telling me we we have leeches, you know, like we have leeches, it was super cold, there was no air conditioning, it was noise. And the neighbor was full of mechanic garage, but the neighbor next to it, it was full of prostitution, drug dealers, gang man. So I remember I come from this environment, and I told my I had to tell my my friend from school that was living there. It was so embarrassing because I was a teenager, right? And most of them they stopped talking to me. It's crazy. Really? Yes, like Andres is poor now. Until I became a little bit older, and then we moved out from there, and then you become like kind of an adult when you're 16, 17, they don't care about Andres, come on, like we don't care what so that was my bringing, and then people were getting shot in the streets. We uh we nearly got once uh nearly kidnapped because they were trying to steal our car. Then I survived a bomb explosion when I was when I was 20. So I I was studying telecommunication engineering in the military university, and there was a bomb explosion, probably 200 meters from where I was studying. In a fourth floor, there was a car bomb. And then it did luckily didn't kill anyone, but yeah, it was crazy. So I survived all of that stuff. And then money, money was tough. I remember I used to go to university with 5,000 pesos, like $1. And I used to eat these burgers that we call it the radioactive burger. It was like the meat was so but of all the resilience, Stana Uni, and my sister paying for me in university. I didn't have money. I have to hide hijack sometimes in the back of the bus to save money. And yeah, it was crazy. And I was quite lucky sometimes. My friends with more money, they used to invite me to holidays or stuff. That was the only good thing. My friend that had money, they sometimes look after me. And my sister pays for my education. So it wasn't that bad. But if it wasn't for my sister and for my friends, it would be even worse.

SPEAKER_01

So it sounds like from that, you know, first of all, thank you for sharing those stories. It's crazy, you know, what you're telling me. But it shows me you grew up in a in in one of the in an unreasonably risky environment already. Yeah, so you're exposed to not just money risk, life like and death risk. No, you know, no joke. So I can understand how being exposed to that and then going on to build and do what you've done must you must have like iron skin by now. You know, because if you're doing that, you're like, oh okay, whatever.

SPEAKER_00

This is this is manageable. Actually, I forgot to. When we were 21, we went to this event with my friends and the Carpari Villa. And then the owners they go upset with us, and we have guns pointed at our heads once. I remember now, they're probably watching this. I don't know. So they go jealous because uh the girls were looking at us. You know, we were in the army, we were really ball top. Yeah, I'm sure. So these guys in the 20s, they come here. Yeah. So that was another part. Gun your head.

SPEAKER_01

I leave it. It's hard. You you mentioned um the um the magic realism, and uh what's his? I want to make sure I get his name. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And uh you said that Rich Dad, Poor Dad was actually one of the first books you read that opened your mind into entrepreneurship. Because I can only look at my example. So when I grew up, my dad was an entrepreneur, my mom is was uh a lawyer, still is a lawyer, both are still doing you know what they're doing. So I got exposed to both like both uh you know, corporate career and what an entrepreneur looks like. So for me, from the beginning, I always had this mo this thing inside me. I'm like, one day I want to do my own thing. What, how, what that looks like, I don't know. So I'm curious, what did when you grow up in that environment and you don't see those examples around you? I can imagine it would be hard to imagine a world where something like this is possible. But it sounds like this book was the one that opened that door for you to be like, oh no, you there's actually a way to build and to do this. So, what did you what was it about that book and like magic realism when you put them together that really set that off?

SPEAKER_00

That's a good question because you remember me uh Robert Kiyosaki was talking about the Purda So you go. Yeah, exactly. So the book came to me in when I was about 25. I was living in the UK, but that period of time I was it was really rough because I was sleeping in the sofa of my friend for three months. I couldn't afford uh to pay the rent as much. So then I watched this this book, my friend was talking about rich dad. Padre rico, padre, poor rich dad, poor dad. And I started to read it. And then everything that he was saying in the book, you know, like my my poor dad had the mindset of ah, he you don't you you need to play safe, and then my rich dad was giving me the option to be bigger in life. So I think so. That's something that we have in the magic realism with uh rich dad and poor dad. My realism, even you are happy, you don't have the ambition to go up in life, right? With rich time and poor dad, it gives you that overview that there's a mindset. It was the mindset of the rich dad that changed everything. So I didn't understand about this mindset before. I could see people, uh, my good friend Sony, uh, if he's watching this. Shut up. He's he actually was my my my first mentor in business.

SPEAKER_01

He turned the Turkish one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He gave me, we're still friends. He came the other day. He gave me the first job without knowing English. But he was the business guy. He was running uh nightclubs, he was running coffee places. He was my first mentor. But obviously, back then there was not this entrepreneurial stuff like Gary B, Tony Robbins. He couldn't explain me that way back, explain me that way that he he could do back reading that book. Rich Tampurda said, okay, this uh this I wait around. And I didn't do anything about being entrepreneurial like for two, three years. And then I opened my first business called Viva First. It was the first student agency to learn uh to send people to study abroad English because I had a horrible experience with my agency in the UK. So I said to my sister, I want to put this. So I put it together. I went to every single school in Bournemouth. I put the the uh contracts, the connections, I built the website and said, Okay, now how we get to the clients. So that was, but then after that, my mom came back again and said, Hey, uh, there's some company called Direct Cells. I wanted you meet this guy. It was through affiliates. I said, What is this? But in that moment, from Rich Dad to Purdue, then it went all the way to Tony Robbins, uh, Gran Cardone in Graciosa. Yeah, and but Rich Da Purdue was the opening to all the big world that I didn't know. It was amazing that I found that book. I still have it, it's really like Rich Dapura.

SPEAKER_01

It's a really old one. Yeah, it's it's a classic one. Uh, I I that's so Rich Dapura is a book I haven't read yet, but I've read many, many books, you know, from all the big boys similar. That I'm sure you've probably, if I name them off, you've probably read them too. But what I loved about books in particular is and books and podcasts. I like to watch more than I like to read, but reading hits a different you know side of my brain. It just shows you it, it just breaks your perspective. That's that's what I really love about books. No matter what book I was reading, it always added a new context, a new layer, a new mindset to you know how to do this, how to approach this, how to scale, how to build brands. Now, in your case, so you launched that first company with uh Viva First, it was going uh from my understanding very well, and then you handed it over to your sister. And it's still running, right? There you go.

SPEAKER_00

13 years now.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, that's that's amazing. But then what's interesting is when that's when 2016 is when crypto comes into the picture. And then what I found interesting with your crypto story was from 2016 to 2019, you did like everything. I did a lot, you did a lot in those in those three years. It was crazy. It was and you know, and you left to take that customer service, uh customer service job doing 50 to 200 tickets a day, answering questions. So the the learning, you know, when we were talking earlier about all entrepreneurs don't do their research? That was your research. That was your research for this space on top of your background in telecoms and so on. So, how how important was that learning in in you know building yourself over those three years? Because then you learned about affiliate marketing and building a brand and like uh being a becoming a KOL and so on. So, how does how did that play into all of that?

SPEAKER_00

Wow. So 2016, I started to get into different uh crypto schemes, and I got uh a scam, right? So back then, because we didn't know what was happening, remember OneCoin, the biggest scam in crypto story, like billion of dollars. I didn't get into that one, but I went to a similar one. So, what happened back then? People were you were giving your bitcoins to a platform and they promised you 50% annual returns, like a yield kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. But back then it wasn't there was no regulation, it was nothing. And this company were doing affiliates and all of that, and then they were like growing really fast and then they disappeared. So I did that like for eight months or ten months, and I I lost money, right? But I learned, I learned about affiliates and all of that. And then one of my first mentors, um Tomas, he invited me to his new company, and it was a company about trading bots. I said, What is trading bots? And I have my normal job, nine to five. I was making quite decent money. And then he said to me, Con, con, I need that. You come to Mexico. I said, What? I pay for everything. So I go. And he showed me this crazy idea API keys with trading bots to connect with the exchanges. I didn't know what was an exchange. I I only know about three wallets and I have my crypto. That's it. And I said, What is this? We're going to connect the API keys, we're going to do trading for our clients. Uh, we cannot withdraw. We just we just do this trading bot. I said, Well, there was before only 10 pairs back then. They were not like all this pair that we have. There was no USDT.

unknown

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02

It was crazy.

SPEAKER_00

So then I he I say, you know what? I'll do it. What I need to do. And then he called me and said, Andres, I'm going to give you uh 50% more of your salary, a pay in crypto, but you need to come to Spain and work. Oh my gosh. Said to my wife, let's try to do it. Let's do it. So I said, let's do it. And my first job in that company was customer service. So I was in my house, customer service, answering everybody, hey, my API is not connecting. Why losing crypto? Why doing that? So I started to learn, blah, blah, blah. And I became really good. And then I was explaining the software, the trading bot, to everybody. Hey, that's how you do it, that's how you do it, that's how you do it. And then the owner said, Andrew, you're really good. Come and start to travel with me. So we start to travel to every single country because it's true, it was through affiliates. So we splitting the platform, people pay. It was a thing so $2,000 for the license. And then we have 40,000 users. Wow. It was crazy. It was one year of my life, it was the more challenging but the more rewarding as an entrepreneur. Also, I took the job because my mom was dying of cancer. And then I said I need to I need to find a way to make more money and to be flexible to work from anywhere. So that those seven months I went crazy. So I was in Kazakhstan, going to London, then going to Colombia to visit my mom. And then my mom died in July 2018. And then I went I went even more crazy into the business. And then I that was the first time that I made so much money, like more than six figures in a moment. It was a lot of money. But I wasn't happy, right? It was like so much money by quit and spending. My mom died. Finally, I could stay in those hotels and by watching by ties or all of the stuff. And then I say, wow, now what I'm going to do. So that experience helped me to build a community, to speak in public against understanding the concept of traveling the world, meeting new cultures. I think so I traveled to 50 different countries. Wow. And I started my Instagram account with 10,000, like with a thousand followers, and I grew into 10,000 followers because of that community. And then I also did it because I was taking pictures of my man was on Instagram. It was quite interesting. And then boom uh Bitcoin goes down, prices go down, altcoins go down, and the boss was imperforming. And I was the general manager of the company. Everybody was starting to call me. This is not working. Of course, it was not working because people didn't understand that they have to hold the token until it bounced back. But people were selling at a loss because people were too new. Yeah, yeah, they didn't understand, sure. And then I can't talk this publicly now. And then we have the Security Action Commission investigating the people of that company because they thought we were holding the funds. But we were never custodials. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were only APA keys. We were just, and then it was like one year, and I had so much. I burned out. Uh we ended up winning the case because we we didn't do anything wrong. But then that year I started to see different patterns, and I said I live in this company and I started to invest invest in ICOs. And then I lost most of my money. In ICOs. In ICOs and playing say playing it like more risky. So I thought I made money because I'm the best, but it wasn't me, it was my community, it was the product that I was selling, it was the market conditions. So I lost everything just before COVID. Just before. And that was that like my second part of my story as an entrepreneur with social media. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Before we get into before we get on to the social media aspect, you that year that you're talking about when you worked at that company and you were traveling to 50 countries and building a community and so on. What I've learned being a part of this community from the outside, not directly in it. I've gone to you know Paris Blockchain Week and I've attended the big I've attended some of the big conferences here. So what I've learned is the crypto world works in a very strange way. You kind of it's very, it's very, I look at it as very culty because it's the same group of people just traveling around the world to different events, like, oh, and there's a soy in Dubai tomorrow. I will be there tomorrow, and we'll be there. So like that is it seems to be, it seems to me that the way to build yourself in that space is you have to be at these events, you have to be front-facing, you have to do that. That's true. But I think what you've done, you're from my experience and what I've researched, you're very good at networking. I am, yeah. But they're so but you to your point, you've been in the crypto space, you have to also be careful. ICOs, you lost money, you can get scammed, I've been scammed, you know, like it can happen. So if someone is trying to become a KOL or build themselves in this space as a as a person, you know, as a KOL, so to speak, what networking, how do you approach like how do you approach networking? Because it's the way you networked that allowed you to build a community that got you to where you are now. So there's something that you did in that space that must have been different to maybe what a lot other people are doing, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00

That's a good question. I never thought about this. And I actually help a lot of people in the industry as a networkers. So when I left, and this I went to jump like one year. So in one year in 2020, in COVID, I jumped in the call and I was building my personal brand. How it works, and it has to be attached to what you're asking me. How it works is I was selling uh influencer marketing campaigns in LATAM and US, and we were growing accounts, social media accounts of Instagram for the top entrepreneurs in the world. Okay. So I came and then I grew my account to 1 million followers in eight months, but through influencer marketing campaigns. I didn't want to become famous or rich or anything, it was because I need to be the product of the product.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I you your your page or your account has to be the case study for what you do. The what I was selling. Exactly, yeah, I understand.

SPEAKER_00

And it came from a very uh industry of vanity of affiliates and marketing. I had to wear suits and all of that. So I dragged a little bit of that into the social market media marketing. But to be honest, I was living in a small house in the New Forest in the UK. I couldn't do content. It was COVID. Nothing but luxurious. But I grew my account. And I was sending so many DMs to people. Hey, you want to grow your account? And then jumping in calls with my friend Alex in Miami. He won the one that taught me. And then that year it was crazy. So I bounced back through social media marketing. And then in 2021, people started to talk about Clubhouse. Remember Clubhouse, NFTs, Paris Hill Club. Yeah, I used to join some clubhouse. So I grew my first committee in Clubhouse to 150,000 users. Just talking every day. That's insane. And then I fast forward at the end of 2021. My friend that introduced me to this software bot. He said, Andres, let's I'm doing this with these blockchain video games. I said, What is this? Come here, come to this conference. We went to the to Las Vegas 2021. And it was this all these weirdos to go blockchain and video games. So from trading, it went to blockchain video games, and then there was a new wall, Metamask and the central wall. I said, What is this? I left one year, everything changed. And then in 2022, going back to your question, is uh one of the exchanges called me. Say, Andres, from my previous relationships in 2017, 18. Andres, you want to create content for us. And I said, What do you need to do? Do this video, we're going to promote this token and then put this money in your wallet and then just leave it there. I didn't do it for making money. I did it because my friend told me as a friend, I'll do it for you. Yeah, you now and you are famous. And I said, No, no, I just do it because. You're my friend. So that will answer probably the first question. I I did it unintentionally to become famous, rich, or make money. I did it because I was willing to learn. Okay. So then fast forward in six months for nobody knew me in Dubai in March, April 2022, to October, became very like one of the most recognized KOLs in the industry. I didn't know what was a KOL.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I didn't hear until my wife got into the crypto space. I didn't even know what a KOL is.

SPEAKER_00

Key opinion leader, what is that? Yeah. And I was telling her, Lucia, Lucia, I'm doing this for you. No, you're a KOL. And now we're going to give you more uh decole allocations. I said, okay. But those six months, he went so crazy. And then I was going to event trust event, but I wasn't getting pay. They were inviting me and paying for my uh flights and tickets and all of that. But I wasn't getting pay. But the knowledge that I was getting, and I wasn't building a community from those communities. I was building relationships with the network at the C level. So I became very good friends with all the C level from all the exchanges, the founders, CMOs, CFOs, and they're still my friends that all follow me on Instagram. So I didn't build a community to sell to retail. I built a community to network with people at that level. And that was my that was I learned that from how to influence friends. Friends and influence people. How to win friends and I'm going to do it with Insta, Instagram, social media, sending DMs. I position myself. I go to these events and the Instagram back then it was the wow factor. Okay, this guy has 1 million followers, he's verified. Let's talk to him. I pulled the car a lot at the beginning. So that was my my like my ace understanding. Sure. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. But if I had to start again, now it's different, right? Now you need only a thousand followers and then you video go viral, right? But now I think so. You need to focus, and crypto now is really difficult. It's it's hard, it's not like it's changed a lot. Now you need to focus in build community is very important. Don't don't focus on tokens. That's done. There are no tokens going to 100x, 200x. Focus on education and building something new, right? That's why we'll tell people. Go to the events still. Go to the event. You have to go to so many people to understand who is the real actor. I learned and I met so many people, scammers, legit people, they're all mixed up. But then when you become more established, the people start to invite you to the certain tables that nobody can invite. But that takes time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it does take time. And to your point, like throughout that process, you probably had to learn about which projects to take on, which not. You know, probably the due diligence you would do on anyone who would come to you with a request because at the end of the day, you said you're the product of the product and you're building a community, but all roads lead back to Andres. So your credibility is worth more than whatever you know you're gonna pay me and whatever, because long term the that brand will carry forward, right? And will carry through. You talked about the social media side, and it's you know, uh my condolences again to your mother. I know she was the one uh who told you why, you know, why don't you start you're traveling all the time, why don't you start posting? And it's so funny how you fell into that space from that. So on the influencer marketing side, because this might be very useful for not just people in crypto in any industry, you know, everyone wants attention, everyone wants followers. I know at the time, from my what I understood, is giveaways were quite popular, they were amazing. Yeah, and that was what really grew. But I feel like to your point when you're saying crypto is different now, social media is also different now to build a page now is completely different to what it was before. And then all the big TikTok guys were on made their got known when the attention was undervalued. Yes, when TikTok was still new and it was all dances. Same thing with Instagram, same thing. So even podcasting now. When I started my podcast six years ago, when you started a couple years ago, it's not what it is now, man. And to get the a viewer now, a listener, a subscriber, it's so much you have to do so much more. So for people now that are looking to get into the social media marketing space as a tool to amplify their brand, build whatever. What do you see now, given your experience, as the areas or the things to be focusing on instead?

SPEAKER_00

I think so. This is what happens right now with social media, especially with with fintech, let's say, influencers. Companies are looking more to communities, to academies. Yes. So now you are actually in a better place. You don't have to have the 1 million followers account to make an impact. You just need a thousand people in your community. With a thousand people that's really passionate about your community, you can do it. And the good thing about Instagram, I just started my new Instagram in Spanish, by the way. I have 60 followers. But I got 30,000 views in two weeks in a brand new account. So you see now, it's not it's not it's not about that. I think Socari V was talking about this. It's not about the power of attention, it's the power of intention. I think he says like that. I don't know if it's something along those lines though. So now you can have a small account and make so much impact and start to position yourself on authority. You have super users, a thousand users that are very loyal to you, that are doing everything. Now it's it's it's easier. Especially with the chain of Instagram, the algorithm. I've seen sometimes video of people with 400 followers with 10 million views. Yeah, it's not it's not related to your following anymore, right? Yeah. Now, something that I will suggest to people is use AI. I know AI everybody's talking, use AI in a way not to create content, if not to create a system, a funnel, landing page, all of that, all of the aboring stuff, I never pay attention so much. And that's the big differentiator, create a system. If you don't create it, then you have to create content all your life. Without system, it's it's not viable.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and to your point, you know, if you're creating um, I heard speaking to someone about this the other day, they're like, Yeah, man, I'm creating content, I have so much following, but if all of that doesn't convert, what's the point? You know, it's all supposed to convert to something, whether it's building your brand, new business, more views, that all has to come to something at the end of the day. And when you were talking about um the social media aspect, and okay, now it's different. Also, social media, especially in this space, uh, is very misleading with misinformation, and you know, people are, hey, yeah, buy this, you know, look at my trade, and I did this and I did that. I actually spoke to someone, uh, had someone on my show who you've been on their show too. I'll tell you, I'll I'll let you know who after. And I was telling her, like, you know, with with this space, with the trading space, I know it's not financial advice, but when I if I'm posting that I'm making money and trading, I'm not lying, but I'm putting it out there that this is possible, but this is the problem. It's it's an awareness without the education part.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And the education education part, at least from my experience, what I'm learning and seeing, that can only be done yourself.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

You know, until you go try, practice, trade, demo, read, whatever, you won't learn the lessons you need to actually be do like become a trader and be profitable in the long term.

SPEAKER_00

Let me tell you something that happened right now with the industry of crypto. There has been a massive cleanse of content creators, but also the content creators that have been created content, they're more rational and more intentional about what they're posting. Okay. So since I started, there was three different ways. One it was with ICO a long time ago, then NFTs, yeah, then meme tokens. And now we are here. So what happened is even me, I got into these waves of narrative, and I made mistakes. I don't want to lie. I made mistakes with NFTs, with memes. If the president of a country is promoting a meme, then you think, well, it's okay to do it. It should be, yeah. But it's a president of a country promoting, and then you see uh football players. Yeah. So all of that, it didn't help the ecosystem. Now, yes, we have to go through that in waves to understand, okay, we have a voice. We have to be careful where we're going to do, where we're going to promote, what we're going to say. So probably the last two years, I'd say to myself, I'm never going to promote something that it doesn't have actually behind. Yeah. You know, faces. Yeah, yeah. But second, platform is probably easy to promote platforms that people use. Yes, do it. Affiliate system is very good, you know. The other one that you can promote is um other people education platforms that are good. Gotcha. Because you don't have the time to do it, do that. Um, and yeah, that's what that's what I'm doing myself. I I I stopped promoting other tokens. Or if it's a token that I know is going to be long term, I'll promote it. If no, I don't. Yeah, you're like, I've seen so many kids last year. I met a bunch of uh uh crypto DJs, they call it like that. Yeah, yeah. They do mean they did so much money, they're multimillionaires, but now they're bored, they don't know what to do with their lives because they didn't build this foundation. So as a content creator, be careful. I think it's still a good time, but we'll mix it up. Finance, education, crypto, but also AI.

SPEAKER_01

That's the new trend. That's the new trend, yeah. And no, and like you know, to your point, uh, the intention is very important. And like you said, you know, throughout our whole conversation, it's all if you drill it back, it always was the uh the intention wasn't money, was the intention, but there was something deeper behind it. And like to your point, all the examples you gave of once you get that, once you have the money, which we all work for, yeah, then is when you're like, Who am I? I'm depressed, I want to see my friends, but everyone's working, you know, like it's it's a it becomes it can become a quite isolating, uh isolating place. And I wanted to come on to versus on chain.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Where you're your new uh which you're a co-founder of, and basically you're trying to gamify trading, right? That that's could you tell us more about it? Because I have some questions about this. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Versus on chain is the first video game that teaches people how to trade. Okay. So you go against your friend or against somebody random online and you trade in two minutes in the same chart. Okay. And then whoever trade the best in those two minutes, the best PL, take the pot. So you put one dollar, that person put one dollar, and whoever trade the best, take the two dollars. Okay. So we gave me five the par of P2P. It came because in 2025, I see how everybody was losing money, right? With the with the crash of the crypto industry. And I saw how look, there's two different industries, right? Like traditional industries, like Forex, is more regulated. Of course, yeah. You know, and it's it's safer in a way, right? And SP 500. But crypto, it has been really crazy. So I decide, okay, let me build something because there's so many whales. You know, whales. Yeah, yeah, of course. And very good traders, and you're this little trader with a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand dollars, you're going to trade against them. But they have algorithms, they have they have built robust teams, and then it's too difficult to compete against them. So I decided with my co-founders, okay. It was his idea at the beginning. He told me in April last year, a year ago, Andre I have this game. I said, What is it? And he showed me and said, Wow, this is interesting. But I didn't pay much attention then. We went to Singapore in September, and then we started, we tried to build it with other developers, it didn't work that well. And then he said, you know, I'm going to build it myself. So he built it himself with another friend in two months. The whole idea logic. He's a, he's a he's a gamer himself. Okay. And then in December, when something clicks, it was, I was talking to one of my friends. He was probably one of the richest persons on the planet. He's his, I cannot say who is, but he's his right hand. And he I chose him the game in December. And he said, Andres, this game is amazing. You should like you should go crazy, you should do this, you should do that, you have the bootstrap, the chain economy, blah, blah, blah. I said, Wow. When he told me this, I said, okay, let's go. I've been the last three months. We launched it on beta mode, so you can play right now with no real money. Yeah. Kind of a demo. But the the intention with this game is to also solve a problem that happened with the industry of crypto in 2017, 18, 19, when a video game company came and they were using NFTs, and it was like uh one player against player, but throwing like, you know, flames and throwing stuff. But it wasn't about trading. But they had a token. And the vibe it happened in the Philippines and Colombia. People were leaving their jobs to play this game, and they were making a thousand, two thousand dollars a month. So somebody has to lose, somebody has to win. Yes, yes. But then what the narrative played back then, it was about 2.5 million of users back then. 2.5 million is a lot of users. And then the token went, but it was attached to a token. And when the high went down, the token went down. And it's still going around the company, but it's not what we built. We build this platform where no intentional to just based on a token. It's based on people how to learn how to trade. And then we have a trading school inside, but it's not the typical trading school, it's like a more arcade. So I are gaming myself, and I want to do this like kind of Mario Bros. Yeah, yeah. Nostalgia. So yeah, we create the game. Yeah. And then we have 2,000 users. Okay. And this is something that happened that was insane. In February, I invite two of my friends are traders. And I say, hey, play the game. And I was a bit shy, I scared about a professional trader play this game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd be interesting to get their feedback. So my friend Ken Santiago, he's from Argentina. He came the first day and he destroyed me in the game. The game, you can have power-ups. You can freeze the screen, you can freeze the market, you can you can swap the order with your rival. I was trying to play and beat him, right? And he can destroy me because he's a trader. He knows how to read the patterns and stuff. I said, wow. And then my friend, older friend, started to play with another friend, but he gained, he he managed to beat him with power-ups. So I said, okay, there is something happening here. And then my friend, older friend trader, and he played 50 times the first day. And that's when it clicked. My friend, they were traders, they were using the game to relax their brain before going to the real charts. So this game is helping people to find this common part that Gen C's had right now. Gen C they don't want to learn, they don't want to trade. These two body, they like to play video games. You have Fortnite, Roblox. My kids play this every single day. They're very good, they're really fast with their mouth. But it's like that committee spirit. That's why we build versus on chain. So we have video gaming, we trading combined. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So that con that as a concept sounds so interesting to me. I've uh I met someone uh not long ago who had something kind of a similar idea, but what they do is they do live like esports tournaments with this. So like you go to an arena and it's but it's all about trading. So it's great, it's it's very interesting how gaming is coming into the trading space, but I think at the same time it makes a lot of sense. I see so many synergies, you know, between the two. I think game, I think gamifying trading is an excellent idea to get more people, number one, interested in trading, but also from the sounds of it, the way you guys are doing it is like learning how to trade, learning all these things. From my personal experience, what I've learned, and I'm not a trader, guys. I'm learning how to trade, you know, made zero dollars so far. But I'm I you know I trade every day. I'm a demo, I have a demo account and so on. What I'm learning is because I see the benefits of the game, but I'm just reflecting comparing it to my own experience. Will the the question I think about will the game stop me? Will will it will I get bad habits from the game because it is a game and it's not real money, so that emotional side, I'm not getting that training, or is it or is gamifying it a good a good idea? I don't I don't you know because I see both. I see the merit here, but I also have some questions.

SPEAKER_00

It's a lovely question. So before talking about that, I'm going back a little bit about ES Sports.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So that also the main reason why we build the game is because uh trading competitions are so boring. You don't want to go and watch two dudes for one hour in front of a chart. So we our intention is also with the game. You start on your phone, you start, you can even play in a Tesla, you can play anywhere. And then the better that you get, you start to get ranked cap. So they're going to be ranks, and then we use the fees because we're going to charge fees to the for the platform. It goes to the price pool of the best traders.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So you have to become the best trader in the game as well. So they will be the top one, it will get the best the biggest check. And in one year, we will have, and this is the first esports video game for trading in the world. And our vision is to have 5,000 people in arena watching the top 16 in a battle royale. Yeah. And the last and the last one, it won't be two minutes. I think it will be probably 20 minutes, but it will be with power-ups. So somebody can be with trading using a power-up and then it changed the whole dynamic. So it will be like adrenaline-driven. Yeah, sure, sure. Now, going to your question is it will help you to learn how to trade. Why? Because you can start with the demo account, but then if you want to make more money and go to the leaderboard, you need to put money.

SPEAKER_01

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, that's interesting. So I go against you and we trade for two minutes. Cool. And you beat me, you take the two dollars, and I don't take anything. So I need to get better at trading. If I don't get better at trading, I will keep losing. So that way we have the academy inside the game. And then very nice. But before getting to the real arena, the real money, you need to finish the school. Okay. You will you will be able to play a little bit, but then you have to finish the school.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. See, that's very cool. That's a very smart idea. And uh, the thing that stuck out to me there was uh if you want to you know get better, you want to play again, you have to get better, or you're gonna keep losing money. But this happens in the real world with people and real money. Yeah, like uh the fallacy with trading and these day traders that everyone sees in the crypto is that my issue has always been with it, is that no one is posting uh people ready? Thank you very much. It's more useful for me as uh as your audience to learn what not to do than what to do because you know what you did, but I have no idea how you came to that decision. I don't have your experience, I don't have that. So that's where I fall on the trading side. In my I know you mentioned earlier you said you you personally haven't traded, but you've been part of many people who do, and so on. I'm curious, what have you heard from them when it comes to what they think the like those the your friends that you mentioned who are professional traders? What do they in their minds think the key is, or what do you see for the video game? They lose or or for no just to be a good trader in general.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, sorry. Uh it's the mindset, I think. So at the end of the mindset, yeah. And this is something that people don't mention. You have to lose money in trading to make money. You're going to lose. You're going to lose guaranteed the it's just the balance of it, right? And the risk. You have to lose. And everybody, all my best traders, all my best friends are traders that have lost so much money in their lives. You have to be willing to lose to become a good trader, and that's something people don't grasp the idea. And yet there's some people that are very uh extraordinary and they're always winning all the time. But this is a numbers game, right? You have to lose 10 times and then maybe the 11 you will win. Like in entrepreneurial life. You have to go to so many businesses to win in one time. So they're always like that. And also they in Forex and SP and all the other non-crypto trading, they have more uh risk management. You have to learn how to manage the risks, and that's something that crypto people don't have. We go crazy. Uh we lose, we lose. But that changed actually, that changed in the last year. It changed people is more cautious about trading in crypto. Actually, it's better to trade now in Forex, you know, with gold, silver.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. It's you know, that's going up and downs and stuff. Yeah, it's more volatile.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's become more volatile. Now with the oil price, of course, they don't have financial advice, but right now learning how to trade commodities is actually a good we're in a good time to learn how to trade that.

SPEAKER_01

Because this is where it's gonna have the biggest fluctuations, so you're gonna learn the most lessons, yeah. Right? Crypto is like this now, it's not moving much. Yeah, it's been stagnant for the last after that big drop a couple months ago. It's been pretty there. It hasn't even gone back up anywhere near to you know where it was. Again, this is not financial advice, we're just talking about what's happening in the market. Need to be clear about this. Andres, uh, I wanted to round off our conversation today with this question. You said that on that podcast I watched, you mentioned you can only you can't be successful, you know, by yourself. You cannot. Okay. But that I don't know if I agree with that.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. I understand what you're saying though. Yes. There's a I think from what I take from that is there's a cap to how far how how successful you can be alone without bringing on other people. But that doesn't mean you can't be successful, it just comes back to what's that definition look like for you. So if I wanted to ask you to round up for today, what's your definition of success? What would you say?

SPEAKER_00

I was watching the other program about this. Or what one of your interviews? I have a deja with my head. Okay, now I actually I probably that interview that you watched was a couple of months ago, but now with everything is changing, AI changed everything. You see, this first guy that was sold kids company for 1.6 billion, only one person. No, I didn't see that actually. It's crazy. Definition, except for me for Andres Menes in 2026, is more time with my kids. Time with your kids, yeah. That would be the definition now. I'm trying to teach them now that homeschooling with all the situation. So it's just time for me. It's not about money anymore. It's about empowering people. Yeah. It's about making people feel happy about what they're doing. It's about providing opportunities to people. Success, it can be. Look, I was telling you, I was when I never wear a suit in my cocoa. I was like, we're going to do it today. Why not? I walked in, I'm like, this guy's dressed up as I love it. This is the vibe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have done everything. I have done hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have traveled the world. I have been in red carpets, I've been in the Formula One. I've been saying the best suites in the world, seven star hotels. I make with celebrities, billionaires. I don't I done so much stuff that I can't imagine when I was a little kid. And I feel successful in that part in my life, in that moment. By last just a little bit. I go back home after being with one of the uh founders of the UAE, of their families, and I go back to my house, and my family treat me like I'm the same Andres. You know, I've been in the Grammys and then go back home and my kids those just see their dad. For me, the definition of success is making my kids proud, regardless if I have money or no.

SPEAKER_01

Well man, look, that's such a that's a beautiful definition. It's something I've heard over the years of doing the podcast many times. When I ask that kind of question, people always bring it back to family. And even I remember you said, although growing up was difficult, the happiest times are when you're with your family. Yeah. And I think that's still clearly, you know, for you and for many others, still carries through to today. Andrés, my man, I wanted to say thank you so much for joining us on the Not Just Money podcast. This was such a such an interesting conversation for me. I really learned so much about you, not only from the entrepreneurship side, resilience, uh, you've added just a lot more deeper context, not only to the money conversation, to the happiness conversation, to the social media conversation. That anyone, whether you're in this space or not, or looking to get into this space, there's so much they can take from this. So I just wanted to say congratulations, first of all, and thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. And much gracias.

SPEAKER_01

And see you around. We will. Andrés, my man, thank you so much. It was an absolute pleasure. Guys, everyone listening, thank you so much, and we'll catch you on the next episode. Take care. Thank you guys for joining us on another episode of the Not Just Money Podcast. If you haven't already, I'd like to invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on socials to continue watching the industry leader talk about the mindset, tools, strategies, and share the money truths that no one teaches you. And remember, guys, when it comes to money, it's not about flex, it's about freedom.