Andy is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Eco a new kind of wallet to spend, send and save money. It combines traditional banking rails with crypto rails to deliver a new kind of experience that creates more value for customers in an easy to access way. Before Eco Andy was a co-founder at CoinList which is another very successful crypto project.

In this conversation we talk about the founding stories behind both CoinList and Eco. We discuss Andy’s lessons from navigating the last crypto winter. And we discuss Andy’s approach to building Eco into a mainstream crypto-based product that competes with traditional retail banking.

In this episode we discuss:

1. Early career building things 
   • How did you get stated building things?
   • What are some memorable lessons from the Stanford Bitcoin Group?
2. CoinList and the early ICO token sales wave 
   • What was the founding story for CoinList?
   • How did you approach the decision on whether to spinout CoinList from AngelList?
   • Who was the first customer (Filecoin) for CoinList and how did you scale from there (Eg: Blockstack)?
   • What were the biggest challenges running an early crypto company?
   • How did you approach operating the company during the last crypto winter?
   • What advice do you have for founders grappling with the current crypto winter/pullback?
   • What was the strategy behind the large $100M Series A fundraise?
   • What were the new services/business lines you added and how did you approach that?
   • How did you nurture the marketplace and network effect dynamic at CoinList?
3. Founding and leading Eco 
   • What was the founding story behind Eco and what led you joining the team?
   • How did you build conviction on the idea and opportunity behind Eco?
   • What were the early services and features that really resonated with consumers?
   • How did you approach building for mainstream consumers / normies?
   • How have you gotten people to switch from traditional banks to Eco?
   • What is the biggest growth bottleneck (potential unlock) for Eco’s next phase of growth?
   • What is our approach to building during the current downturn?
   • Why should someone sign up for Eco today?
   • What is your vision for the product and company?
   • How do the economics for rewards and yield work in the current market context?
   • How do you think about CAC and lifetime value of a customer?
4. Closeout questions 
   • What is the most challenging/difficult feedback you’ve received — how have you processed it and incorporated it going forward?
   • What are your superpowers that you find yourself leaning on often?

Links

• Learn more about Eco
• Follow Andy and Eco on Twitter

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