Joe Vezzani: Finance, Cryptocurrency, and Entrepreneurship
“People don’t want to take three steps back to make ten forward.” — JOE VEZZANI
Joe Vezzani is the Chief Executive Officer of LunarCRUSH.
Joe has a diverse background in working in Finance, Technology, Advertising, Sales, Marketing, and Start-Ups. A second-time Founder with both companies accepted and graduated from Techstars programs. Extensive start-up and business development network. Also technical with six years of product management background. Crypto since 2015.
LunarCRUSH provides a suite of tools designed to improve cryptocurrency research for investors, exchanges, and funds, built purely around providing community insights. The website is a free tool for the crypto community, designed to provide unique insights and adaptive, engaging user experience they can't get anywhere else. It helps simplify crypto investing by reducing research time, simplifying social intelligence, and providing a complete view of the market.
Connect with Joe and LunarCrush:
Website: https://lunarcrush.com/
Twitter: @joevezz & @LunarCRUSH
LinkedIn: Joe Vezzani & LunarCRUSH
Show Notes:
[00:04:45] Joe's Background
[00:05:46] What is LunarCRUSH?
[00:06:28] Entering the Workforce in 2008
“I came out of school in 2008, kind of when the shit was hitting the fan sector in the mortgage banking sector and the housing sector.
And, it was actually a really interesting time to come out of school. And I had a lot of friends that, you know, didn't find jobs for a long time. I was pretty fortunate, out of school, to find a job. I mean, it was in a sector that I actually didn't even know existed. It was in advertising them - new advertising and marketing.
But it's funny when you're just kind of coming out. And I was so financially focused that. I really didn't understand the difference between ever pricing and marketing and advertising and like the creative platform that's created in the end, the idea of the 30-second spot, which I think was such a big thing.”
[00:08:58] Evaluating Options
[00:10:30] Finance goes to New York
“When you go traveling in New York, and you talked to the folks in banking there, I mean, they, they do think that they're, it's the center of the world for them still, which in some ways it really is. I mean, a lot of the big banks are there. There's so much international.”
[00:11:36] Working In California
[00:14:31] Having a different lens than the typical Fiance Person
“I have a different lens from that time. And I've always really. It's like if I saw an opportunity, I was going to get it or try at least try it. You have to try it, and whether or not it's working or not, that's something that you kind of figured out a little bit down the road, whether or not it was a good decision, but, yeah, I think I got kind of under the cover a little bit of how some of these businesses were working. You need even, some of my friends, I went and worked in private equity.
It was like, well, you've never operated before, but how so how are you understanding? You know, this business and it just depends. Some people can, can see value in different ways and, but I think it is an important thing for anyone. And, you know, being a founder of a technology startup.
Now, you know, you see that a lot with venture capitalists. You know, you, you, you know, right off the bat, whether or not someone was an operator or a founder before because of the way they talk to you because of the way they treat you, the way that they. You know, they understand, they truly understand what it's like to be behind the curtain and Hey, are we going to make payroll next month?
This isn't; we're bootstrapping, we're here right now. And it's not some of these folks are really high up on there, their horse and it's, and you can kind of spot it out. And I think over time that stuff kind of really works itself out.”
[00:16:30] How did Joe Enter the Crypto-Currency World
“I had worked for a financial advisor before, and I was like, you can't, I can't give financial advice on this stuff. And so we were just like, let's not do that. John, he had a great background in technology and, and he'd been a vice president of user experience at a couple of spots, and it was a consultant.
He was a builder too. And we were just like, what should we do? Should we, let's build something. If we can build something, and they were experts, you know, and that was the way that we saw it, is that if we can build software and the industry, and we can be in it for a long period of time, it's still only a ten-year-old space and well, the first thing, you know, the first five or six years, no one's in it. And it's flushed a lot of people out in the last, you know, year and a half, cause it's kind of in a bear market. And so we said to ourselves like, what do we do? And now what do we do in this market when we try to find new things.”
[00:22:08] Gaming and Crypto
[00:24:46] What Gaming Can Teach You
[00:26:32] Play Games With Your Kids
[00:28:25] Both Short and Long-Form Attention Exist
“I learned much more because, in these games, other people were, you know. It was like you had to make like for rainbow six we had to make like a really cool, it was like a WinAmp skin, I don't even know if you know what that is, but like Winamp was, we got one of the original like MP3 players, but it was like designing something like that out.
You really had to figure out how, how, like how it was designed was, and then you had to get consensus from you. You know from your clan, you know, to figure out what you wanted to create. That's when you're like 13, you know, I don't know. Parents let your kids play long-form games, but keep them off social media.”
[00:31:16] Working With Email More Effectively
[00:32:39] What Do You When You Feel Distracted?
“I will delete, like some of the social media apps for, you know, like a long period of time.
Like I've done a couple of month period where I've deleted stuff and, you know, you do feel better. You feel. You know, like you're, you're more focused on what you're trying to do. But it's difficult, you know, running a small business right now, no. Twitter is very important for our business and engagement on that platform and getting, getting the word out for what we're trying to do, and answering a lot of questions. You end up, don't realize how much informal customer support you do.
On social media, you know, and people are just shouting stuff at you. It's like they don't even want to go to your site or your app. Like they're just, maybe they're just engaged in the content that you're pushing out, and you end up doing just a ton of customer support by just literally replying to tweets or replying to a thread in a forum somewhere or something like that.”
[00:34:42] Making New or Repackaging Old Content
[00:37:11] The First Content Experiment - YouTube
[00:38:24] What Does LunarCRUSH Show?
“We're doing sentiment analysis on that specific data. And so that we do that on our data and we're looking at, and we use machine learning to identify kind of these trends in a bullish or bearish tone. But that's kind of one piece to what we're doing. But the overall market, sometimes people also use the word sentiment and like that's a category.
And so we sometimes I think we kind of get pushed into that category, but really we're trying to kind of break out of that. And, you know, just. Well, we talk about the community. We're looking at what the community is saying, and what is the community feeling around these specific projects? And then is the community growing, are they shrinking? Are you going to invest in a project that there's, like maybe five people talking about that each day and maybe very early on that, Hey, I know this project is going to be big, and this is very, very early?
But for the average investor that's out there that you know has potentially bought some Bitcoin. If they're looking at these other projects that are trying to kind of solve things that Bitcoin doesn't solve, and they're trying to find value there, you really need to look at the community analysis around what you're looking at to figure out if there's value.
And then there are other things that are that I think are more advanced, you know, investors and traders are looking at things like on-chain analysis and you know, where people are actually going and looking at the blockchain itself and figuring out kind of where the flow of money is going. So all they know how many wallets there are for a coin, and they know, based on where those wallets were purchasing Bitcoin or you know, where they were selling it.”
[00:42:05] How would you recommend taking the first step into Cryptocurrency?
[00:44:24] Predicting the Future - Uber Example
[00:46:21] Evolution of the Internet
[00:48:34] Creating a Personal API - Controlling Your Data
“But you kind of become your own API where if you want to give people access to your data, then you're allowed them access, but then you can shut that off. So it's not you on your phone accessing Facebook and Facebook, putting your data on your face, and you know, I like the Cubs or whatever else out there.
You have that data. Facebook allows it to become available to the people that are out there if that makes sense. And then you can shut it off at any time, and you know, you, it's kind of like the only way to do that in a, efficiently and privately. It's through blockchain.”
[00:52:31] Confusion of Data Usage - Corporate vs Government
[00:55:38] The Need for Targeted Advertising
[00:57:25] What Belief or Behavior has most improved your life?
“I think finding some activity or some workout that you could always go back to that kind of center you. It's probably been at least once a week I've gone for like a five-mile ride, and we'll say, and I think that if you're having an off week or something is going on, you need to always kind of go back to what got you there.
And so I don't know if this is something I've started in the last five years, but it's like I've never missed a week of at least one run and I'm doing other stuff. I'm trying to surf, doing yoga. I'm trying to kind of work out where I can. But it's something that's always continued to push me forward.
And I think it's just really helped. And it's like just sweating, you know?”
[01:01:03] Not Making People Stay for No Reason
[01:02:42] Busy is a Choice
[01:04:28] Wearables - Recovering Effectively
For more checkout: Wearables: Meet Whoop and Oura Ring
[01:08:36] Personalized Medicine and Routines
[01:12:34] Favorite or Most Gifted Books
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
[01:17:03] Advice to Someone Who Wants to Get Started in a New Domain
“I think it's more about just trying new things and networking with the people that you know are, are as open as you are, and want to give you the opportunity. And I think it was like my dad always told me it's do a good job and someone will notice.”
