Frankie Le Nguyen describes the timing of Staging Labs' fundraising round.
Opinion
Nguyen: Crypto 'degens' will never pay for security products
“They don't care about safety. They don't, they believe they're gonna live forever. They're not gonna necessarily be willing to pay for security. And this is not just us. There's a bunch of security startups in the crypto space that also have to pivot out of th…”
Insight
Nguyen: The final 10% of startup execution is unteachable
“I think like the real talk is just like the 90% almost doesn't matter. It's like the bottom, like the last 10% is what matters. You could do everything right and still get screwed. You know, it's like, how do you do the last bit? And that's like, you cannot te…”
Insight
Nguyen: B2C crypto distribution relies entirely on partnerships or community
“I knew that like in a BTC crypto play, it was either partnerships or community.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
MetaMask partner delays pushed Staging Labs' launch from March to September
“We were supposed to go to market sometime in March, but we only went to market in September, not, not anything due to our own execution because of our reliance on partners”
Insight
Nguyen: Building for a customer demographic you dislike is an impossible grind
“If you're a founder who doesn't want to build for your customer, and VCs will never tell you this, it's a very hard road to climb, because, like, if you don't care about the person you're trying to spend, like, 80 hours a week with, like, good luck to you.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
The SEC's SAB 121 flip-flop destroyed Staging Labs' B2B compliance pivot
“So the reason why the urgency wasn't there is SAB one 21, the article got flip-flopped. Like it was nulled in the end. So our reason for being was a compliance, this contingent on a compliance article that didn't come to fruition. So it effectively killed the …”