Jeremy Gardner - Serial Success on the Bleeding Edge

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Welcome to the Real People Real Business Show. My name is Stephanie Hayes, and I'm a business strategist who helps mature entrepreneurs design their wealthy exits. Whether that means building an asset-based business model for an eventual sale, or simply taking yourself out of your business while enjoying its continued growth. I love to speak with like-minded entrepreneurs to share their real stories and the gritty details on how they have navigated their own way through. On this show, you won't hear about glamorized entrepreneurship journeys that you see online. You won't be told how to make six figures in six weeks. Instead, you can expect to hear real vulnerable and inspiring stories that you can relate to that have helped create the foundation for each of our guests businesses today. I'm so excited to welcome Jeremy Gardner. Jeremy is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, in venture capitalist with a track record of successful operating and investing in frontier industries such as blockchain, technology, cosmetics, and psychedelics. Jeremy is one of the most well-known early entrepreneurs and evangelists in the crypto space in 2014. Well, in college he founded the Blockchain Education Network, a global education nonprofit. Shortly after that, Jeremy co-founded Auger, the decentralized prediction market platform, the first ever I C O Utility Token and Defi app on Ethereum. He then worked as an entrepreneur in Residence and Investor at Blockchain Capital, investing in some of the industry's biggest companies in creating the first tokenized security bcap. He also served as a founding editor-in-chief of Distributed Magazine. Welcome to the show, Jeremy, and thanks so much for taking the time to share your story today. Thank you so much for having me. You know, I'm really excited about this interview because amongst all the other things that I like to occupy my time with, um, I got really interested and invested in Defi. And when I say defi, for all those listeners who aren't familiar with this decentralized finance, and it's part of the whole Web three initiative that's, you know, we're going through now where, um, everything's about being decentralized and. enables us to have more autonomy and ownership over our own property. So this is a conversation I'm really, really interested in having and I wanna hear more about how you got started, how this all came to be. And, you know, you're, uh, you're 19 years old and so Jeremy are just having a conversation about age and, and, uh, you know, I'm sure he's much older than 19, but he, everybody looks young to me now. So tell me the story. Tell me how you got. Oh man, I, I had a rough and rough and humble adolescence. Uh, small town western Massachusetts. Uh, just really struggled growing up. Fitting in, uh, uh, figuring myself out, uh, socially, academically. Uh, and it, it, it was painful. I mean, I was suicidal, compressed, uh, by the time I was 14. And you know what would come full circle? Uh, I. Ate mushrooms. And as a result of that experience, I, I chartered a life course that I don't know, I, I could have ever realized. And so I ended up, you know, going through the college process. Sort of, I had been kicked out of high school. I got kicked outta college, dropped outta college, then went to the University of Michigan and landed on, uh, the doorstep of an apartment where there was a guy sleeping on my couch who was just full dead set on Bitcoin. This is January, 2014. Uh, Bitcoin had just reached its all time highs. I was familiar with the technology and as much as you could buy drugs off the internet with it. Uh, but I didn't take it very se seriously. But fortunately, nobody else in the apartment would really talk to me. Uh, and so I went down this rabbit hole, started to learn about Bitcoin. Got really excited, learned there was a Bitcoin club at the University of Michigan, and at the very first Bitcoin meetup I went to there, uh, I learned there were bitcoin clubs at m I t and Stanford. And as a result of that, uh, kind. Connections I had made, I realized there was a real organizing opportunity to bring about all the young people enthusiastic about Bitcoin and become known as blockchain technology, uh, uh, across the globe. And sure enough, within three months, I had started a nonprofit. 300 chapters in 20 plus countries on every capital world continent. It was incredible. And so, uh, very quickly I became an evangelist for crypto. And through the nonprofit I met a brilliant 18 year old computer scientist, and we dropped outta college together and started the first def. Uh, uh, called Auger. It was the first application built on Ethereum and, uh, we've, or I mostly flew around the world explaining what this product was, uh, decentralized prediction, market platform, and what Ethereum was and what a blockchain was. It was a lot of work. Uh, it, it was the very early days, but. That evangelism paid off and you know, crypto is now a real industry. So maybe we could just take like a short moment, um, cuz I know that some of these concepts are not familiar to most people and maybe we can talk a little bit about, you know, so I think most people know what Bitcoin is. I don't think a lot of people know what ETH is and. Probably blockchain. So you've got a background in education and helping people understand these. If we had to, you know, give a little bit of background on what each of these things is, could you do that for our audience? Yeah. Where do we start? Blockchain, because everything is built on blockchain. Gotcha. Uh, a blockchain is just like, uh, a ledger system. It is a, uh, a ledger of transactions and it is verified by thousands of computers, super computers around the world. Um, that are incentivized to validate those transactions in order to mine Bitcoin or another crypto asset, and therefore securing the network and creating an immutable and unalterable, uh, record of. It, it, it, it, it allows you to have a permissionless global medium for transaction, uh, without any sort of middleman. It's a beautiful concept that can be applied to voting systems, to identity systems, to, uh, stock markets. Uh, it, it's a value system for the internet, that that's what a blockchain is. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, you know, Ethereum was, was built as an alternative to bitcoin. Right. Well, it, it, it's like a super computer for Bitcoin. So if that's right, if, if Bitcoin is a calculator, uh, Ethereum is a smartphone, you know, Ethereum's built for smart applications to be built on top of it. Bitcoin's really this kind of digital gold a permission. Internet value. Uh, because before Bitcoin, there was no such thing as like finite value on the internet. Bitcoin was really the first demonstration of something like gold in the real world, the physical world or art, something that is finite, being finite online and thus being valuable. Um, Ethereum on the other hand, Provide something more robust, which is this smart contract enabled blockchain and is a really just fabulous tool for creating decentralized applications that can't be shut down. Censorship resistant. Uh, . It's such as prediction markets, betting markets, uh, for the future outcome of any event, which is what Auger was or is. And so what's so to me, what has always been so fascinating, I'm a huge, uh, I do a lot of work around innovation strategy and innovation management, but what I love about the whole. I hesitate to say crypto industry because I really look at it as decentralized finance is this e evolution. So with Bitcoin you just buy yourself Bitcoin. There are no, there's no evolution of, you know, apps or, you know, smart contracts or anything like that inside of that blockchain, right? And when we saw Ethereum come along, all of a sudden there's this whole community and. You know, there, there's this, there's this plethora of, of applications and people were starting to really think about what could we do with this and how can we, um, how can we make something useful so we're not just trading assets, but we are actually building markets and we're building something interesting. And, and of course when this happens, we have a bunch of flops, but we also have some very successful applications that are proving the concept. So, Figured out how to create auger. And so what was the driving force behind Auger being the innovation that you guys, uh, developed on e Well, I mean, frankly, I w I was young and dumb, uh, There was, you know, this excitement around Bitcoin and what it offered, but it was clear there could be more and. When my co-founder and I stumbled upon this white paper for a decentralized betting market platform, I got really excited because. In high school and in college, I had made money, uh, on Intrade, a centralized prediction market platform, betting on the outcome of the US presidential elections. I, I, I was a political junkie and prediction markets have been more effective. and predicting the outcome of elections. Then, uh, virtually any pollster said, because when people put their money where their mouth is, uh, th there is a lot more likelihood that you're going to get good probabilities. So I was very excited about this notion because Intrade had been shut down shortly after the 20. 15, 20 12 elections, sorry. And, uh, and decentralization, uh, meant that we could per perhaps create a software that enabled prediction of markets to be created as a public good. We, we wanted to create an open source software foundation, and that's effectively what we did. Amazing. And so, so that was, uh, that was when, that was late 2014. Okay. So we're 2022 now. So what's happened since then? That's, we've got another hour and a half. Uh, yeah, yeah. Uh, not sure how to best answer that, but what, what I will say is that, uh, You know, we were way too early. I mean, Vitalik Buter and the creator of Ethereum would be sleeping on the bunk beds in my crypto castle in San Francisco, and he expected the merge, which would transition Bitcoin from that mining process to a process called Proof of Stake. Uh, he thought that would happen in 2016. It just happened this year. Uh, there. Is a lot to say about how crypto has developed. But frankly, like Auger was 10 years too early. Uh, it's still around, but like, it need, like blockchains were not fast enough. The incentive structures were not in place for it to explode. It could still succeed in the long term, but it's, uh, you know, It unfortunately was just one of those ideas that was brilliant. It worked, it, it got deployed, you know, uh, the markets were made, but fundamentally the technology, the blockchain technology was, didn't develop fast enough. And so we put the cart before the horse. But for myself and my co-founder, Joey Krug, who, you know, when I met him, he was 18 years old. He then be, went on to become the youngest managing partner of a hundred million plus hedge fund. Like, you know, it was a launching pad for our careers and, you know, we were able to do great things as a result of Auger and all of our, the early investors in Aug. Uh, e everyone that invested when we launched the product made money. So it, it, it's a feel good situation. Wasn't an optimal outcome, uh, but. As for what happened afterwards. I don't know where you wanna take that conversation. I mean, there are a lot of, of paths we can go that Well, I mean, so you're, you're a serial entrepreneur and I, you know, I, I understand that, that mindset, and maybe I haven't been quite as adventurous since you have, but you know, when we get to that point, like the, there's almost an addiction, right? To, mm-hmm. S to starting up our ideas and seeing that they can come to fruition. And I'm really interested in sort of that mindset. Cause I know you've done quite a bit since. So auger, auger kind of ran its lifecycle. And at what point in time did you decide? I have a new thing. I have a new idea. Okay. All right, great. I, you know, I, I, I, I, I can lead with that. Uh, so after Auger, you know, we raised all this money on what was called an ico and, and there were a couple years left of software development left, and I was not a coder. And so I got recruited to a venture capital firm in San Francisco where I was living Blockchain capital. uh, as an entrepreneur in residence. And so I was thinking about spinning up my next new thing, but very quickly, uh, once I announced that I had joined Blockchain Capital, I was getting all of this steel flow and we started investing in the companies that were coming to me as a result of me being a part of the Venture Fund. And so the partners at the fund were like, okay. Well, let's get you in on this. They gave me carry on the fund and. Well now in retrospect, it's gonna be one of the best performing funds of all time, cuz we had all the big name crypto companies in that portfolio. But they, uh, but, uh, but the, but those guys, you know, they taught me the end zone and outs of VC and I, I continued to evangelize crypto. It was kind of my life cause. Slowly but surely I kind of became this poster child for crypto, which was a bit too much for me. I wasn't quite ready for that, you know, in my mid twenties, uh, you know, being on the cover of the New York Times style section, like, you know, really, uh, having. A lot of scrutiny, uh, ABC Nightline like coming to my house, and it was, it was exhausting. And, and, and I was like, all right, I need to kind of forge my own path. Maybe I'm better at investing in companies than starting companies. So I, I, I started my own fund focused on the intersection of blockchain technology and social impact. Uh, But very quickly call it the end of 2017, early 2018 with this just hype cycle of crypto mania. I was like, I need to get away from this. And so I, I flew to Miami, uh uh, uh, settled down and was like, I need to escape. The press, the media, uh, continued to do the investments, uh, with the venture fund, but did not really, I don't, I don't know. I, I, I, I, I, I, I started to lose conviction and what and, and what I had been espousing for so long because, Crypto had become an industry. It had become very much like Wall Street, which was the reason why I got into crypto was to take down Wall Street, and I had a lot of cognitive dissonance and I was seeing myself on TV and in the media, and whenever they didn't put makeup on my face, my skin looked atrocious. I was so embarrassed, and I. Needed to do something about it. And so, for a second, I thought I would start a men's makeup company. I was like, I wanna do something new. Uh, and, and makeup seems to be the only thing that helps me look good, . And so I, uh, uh, I, I came up with this concept for a company called Made Man. Thankfully, a after, you know, Uh, a series of epiphanies. I, uh, I, I went to my cosmetic drawer, which was filled with all these men's skincare products that hadn't been working for me, and I had a realization that they were all, uh, they were all the same thing. They all have the same ingredients. It, they were just in different bottles. And I was like, this. The reason why I'm not getting results is not because these products don't work is cuz I can't follow a seven set routine. What if I take all the ingredients and put it into two super high quality products? Went to dermatologists and they found, and they told me that I could create a two step solution for men that would work. Um, But it's just not how the men's skincare business worked. But that's how I ended up creating Maman, which is my company. Oh, you did create it? Yes. So I was waiting for the like, yeah, the, like, what? I didn't actually do it. . So, so created, so created a men's skincare company and created like a two step solution, two super high quality like product. All one moisturizer, two in one, uh, shaved gel and facial cleanser. And it works great. And you know, I've been for the past couple of years figuring out how to build a C P G brand in a pandemic and post pandemic world, and one where, you know, e-commerce is not what it was in the last decade. And it's been my, uh, kind of hero's journey of self-discovery. Amazing. And so is that, does that take us up to today? Cause I know you've also been involved in psychedelics, which I really wanna hear about. So I had a client who was, so about a year ago I was looking at the markets in crypto and I was like, all right, I, I've done my part in crypto. There's good socially impactful companies in crypto. Crypto is here to stay. I think I can kind of bow my. And, you know, focus elsewhere. And a big part of that was the fact that psychedelics, as I said earlier on, had deeply impacted my life. I had been following the development or emergence of a psychedelic industry, and I decided, whoa. Like, if I'm investing money institutionally, I, this is, this, is it like, like I, I love this and I can figure it out. I, I, you know, I'm not a biotech guy per se, but I, I knew I could create something that really worked and, uh, uh, in, in terms of a fund. Sure enough, a year ago, um, uh, a bit more now, I decided to just launch my own, uh, Angelist Rolling Fund and, uh, focused on psychedelics, and it's just been a roaring success. I bought out all the LPs in my crypto fund, turned that into my family office, and then started deploying, uh, capital almost immediately into psychedelic medicine startup. Amazing. So I had a client in the last couple of years who had built a a psychedelics lab. And startup here in Vancouver. And then, you know, she went on to, um, become the c e o of another large psychedelics, um, manufacturer in, uh, in Toronto. And so it's been, it's a, it's a super interesting industry and it's, um, especially in when it's crossing over into healthcare. So you have this tendency to want to be on the front edge, right? Leading edge, right at the beginning. And some people would rather. Get on board when we kind of started and there's some traction. So tell me a little bit more about the mindset of living on that, kind of that leading edge space, and when you decide that it's no longer for you. I think it was shortly before I got kicked out of my favorite high school that a teacher was like, Jeremy, you're always walking on. Tight rope and leaning a bit too much to the wrong side of the rope. Uh, you know, I've always kind of lived my life on the edge. I like there's, you know, a great internet video, uh, uh, about fucking around and finding out like I love to fuck around and find out. Like I love to just. Get after it. Like if something peaks my curiosity, I will go and just like dive in. If I'm passionate and believe that whatever it is should exist in the world, I am going to just, you know, give my life to it for at least that period of time. And. I think, you know, I was an only child. I had to create my own adventures as a kid and, uh, and, and always had the, this sense of purpose, you know, to do good in the world at scale. And so for me it was always just a desire to create something new. And so when I see an opportunity and I feel like I can articulate it well, Because I, I've realized that's one of my real superpowers is, is, is being able to communicate ideas in ways that people understand and excites them. Um, uh, I, I tend to give it my all, uh, and, and for better or worse, . Yeah. Well, and what's, what's attractive to you about psychedelic? Well, psychedelics for me, I mean, it's just so personal. I mean, my success, my happiness in life, the fact that I'm sitting here today in the position that I'm in is because of psychedelics. Like I I, there it is unambiguous. So if I can somehow enable people to do that in a much more kind of, I don't wanna say institutionalized way, but like, you know, uh, like accessible and standardized, accessible way, uh, that isn't illegal, that leads to someone having like, like schedule one narcotics on them. Uh, I mean, that's fabulous. I mean, if, if we can help people heal, Rather than focus on constantly trying to create change, that, that's really empowering. That's what I love about this industry is that you have founders and CEOs who aren't trying to change the world. They are trying to heal the world because there's so much healing that needs to be done before we start to actually create the change that we. If we create change without healing, we're just gonna create a very dystopian, uh, uh, reality. And I, I, I don't want that. And so I think psychedelics are the best solution we have to helping ground humanity before we. It reached this stage of exponential where, you know, everything's developing so fast and the only thing that isn't evolving at at lightning speed is. Humans, uh, at least our consciousnesses can be elevated while we do that. One of the things that you're likely up against all the time by being on that leading edge is combating, um, and maybe riding the wave while. You know, a market gains acceptance, right? I, I got involved in building a cannabis startup two years ago, and it was, it had started, it was just when everything was starting to become legalized, and so the industry was starting to change and there was a lot more acceptance and like automatically, kind of overnight things kind of felt like real business. But when you're on that bleeding edge, you're, you know, you're now combating. All of these, these misinterpretations and people kind of create those perceptions from fear and crypto, for example, like I almost cringe saying it because I understand crypto in a very different way now. I look at it from a, you know, the lens of decentralized finance and autonomy and, and, uh, regulate or deregulation and all of that sort of thing. And so there's this really interesting sub-story, but if you're a, you know, a person on the street who's never kind of dug into it, You hear crypto and you, you see Sharmi guys and YouTube videos and you know, the, the Crypto bros videos, you know, and you're not that. I mean, the second I started to be typecast as a crypto bro, that's when I was out. I was like, Nope, that's the, that, that, you know, crypto was my life cause for a long time. But the second I realized that it was an identity. M I might not be able to shed if I, uh, kept on going, had to. Yeah. And, and it's the same like cannabis. Cannabis was originally like a, a crusade, right? Yeah. And through legalization now it was, it was social justice. Sure, sure. And now we have cannabis bros. Right? Yeah. And now we're moving into psychedelics and, you know, all of the benefits of psilocybin in all of the, you know, the industry that's starting to grow up around it. When does that stop becoming a persona that you can. Yeah, I mean, I think anytime the media, uh, you know, finds a new industry or fad, they look for people to fixate on and. They try to create these, uh, like kind of typecasts, but, but I, I can lean very heavily into the psychedelic stuff. I need to be careful with what I say because I do not want to lead people into unpleasant experiences. Um, but I can say with 100% conviction that psychedelic. Made legal inaccessible will improve the state of humanity. Crypto was more morally ambiguous. I mean, all technology is morally ambiguous. Psych psychedelics are not, they are very positive. They're medicines and they can heal us in ways that pharmaceuticals cannot. And so I, you know, I'm willing to be. Labeled more than I have previously. Uh, I if it, if it means amplifying the message, uh, of these medicines, but I think I can take a backseat in this industry, uh, which is good. And now I think it'll go through its natural evolution, right? Well, yeah, the tech, whether it's technology, whether it's drugs, whether it's, whatever it is, once we gain sort of critical mass, there will be. There will be dark players, there will be, um, all sorts of, you know, fussing around to sort of figure out how this, how this comes to be. And then, you know, it'll get a bad rap for a while, but that'll all be fear-based and you are willing to sort of ride that out and be the guy who drives from the backseat as long as we can see the, the culmination of this kind of cause, right? Mm-hmm. , I, I, I, I think that's right. everything's gone swimmingly, and there were never any challenges, right? It, it has been one battle after another. Like, you know, biggie put it presly more money, more problems. I mean, it, it, it's very real. I mean, as you might imagine, after everything I've said, you know, I've totally stretched myself thin at. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've been underwater financially because I'm always just like reinvesting in great new startups and in, in philanthropy, but, uh, but it makes me totally illiquid. I may be a multimillionaire on paper, but I I, if you're investing in companies that aren't making money, aren't going public for years. Decade plus, you know, it, it, I, I've, I've really, you know, struggled at times. I've very recently, and I, it's hard. And, and that, and then the media scrutiny. I, I mean, I haven't dealt with that recently, but, you know, in 2018, I mean, I've no wonder there's the 27 club for fallen rock stars. I mean, I mean the, the, the scrutiny of celebrity. When you're young, I mean, it, it takes a, a huge mental health, uh, toll. So it, it, it can be really tough. Uh, so what's. There, there's definitely a lot of struggle. I mean, I, I, one thing I say is, you know it, it's called growing pains for a reason. You're not going to grow unless you ex experience some serious pain. So what's your strategy? I mean, you've kept going and you, you continue to stay on the bleeding edge, which is an uncomfortable spot to be in because you know that some of these things are gonna happen. Right? So what is your strategy for keeping going? Getting through you, you know what to expect. It's, it's multifaceted. Like I just, like, I know breath. Like I, I know how to breathe when I'm stressed. Uh, I, I, I, I have good coping mechanisms. Some of them are healthier than others. Like nicotine not great. But it works and it keeps me balanced and I, I stay active. I go dancing. I have fun. Like I don't let business rule my life. I really. I intermingle smartly, you know, business and pleasure. And I, I, I have fun. I enjoy my life. You know, I don't take myself too seriously ever. And, and that's really important because, you know, a lot of this stuff that I'm working on, there's a good chance it won't work out. And, and, and, and, and when you understand that you've gotta have fun doing what you're doing. Cuz if you didn't have fun, And it didn't, didn't work out. Even if you end up making money in the long run, it's not worthwhile. Like you, you should enjoy everything that you do. And so I really just try to find joy and every pursuit I have, if I, if what I'm doing, uh, uh, as Mary Condo says, doesn't spark joy, I just toss it up. Yeah. And, and you have. Yeah. Awesome. So I have one question that I ask all my guests and I'd be curious to hear your perspective on it. Uh, we talk about what's real in business and we talk about, you know, the real journeys and that sort of thing. What's the difference between what we hear out there and kind of like the online business world or in the business world in general? And what's real about running a business? I mean, running a business is just survival. It's perseverance. It's, it is literally getting up every day. And not seeing it as work. This is like, this is your life. Like people talk about work life balance. That's great if you have a nine to five. But if you're an entrepreneur or a founder, you, there's no such thing. You're, you. You should live for your work, but your work should give you life. And if, uh, if, if that's not the case, you're doing it. Awesome. I love it. Okay, we're coming up on time. Can you share with the listeners how they can find you? Yeah, it's, it is kind of chaotic these days. Uh uh, I am Gozo, G O N Z O Gardner, g a r d n e r, on Instagram. And it's gonzo gardner.com for my website. Uh, disrupt Entrepreneur on Twitter, but you can just look up Jeremy Gardner, uh, or go to my website. Uh, and then, uh, for the skincare stuff, it's uh, get made man.com. And I actually, I think we have some really nice kind of holiday discount codes so I can share that. Uh, For one-time purchase on the skincare at@getmademan.com. It's n nice uppercase N 30 30, uh, for one-time purchases and for subscriptions. It's, uh, naughty uppercase N 50. Um, and I'm, I know this discounts are deep. Uh, so , uh, if, if you're interested in men skincare or a gift for guys that. Uh, Have everything. They probably still don't have a skincare regimen. So there's that. I love, I love it. I love these interviews because it always gives me new things to buy, . Love it. Alright, well thank you so much and, and we'll publish all those links and those amazing discount codes on our, uh, show notes so you can take advantage of them. And we're gonna wrap it up. I'm so happy that we had the opportunity to chat with Jeremy today to hear more about how this incredible journey. Come to be his experiences along the way and you know what the future entails. Got some psychedelics and I'm really excited to see where that evolves cuz there's, there's absolutely potential in that industry and, and there's lots of growth to be had. And thank you for turning into this episode of the Real People Real Business Show, where we get the real entrepreneurial stories and journeys that you could relate to. The show notes, resources, and links from this episode are available on my website and social media platforms. If you have enjoyed today's content, I'd love for you to give us a review. Platform you on to help us share these genuine stories with an even bigger audience. Until next time, keep building, keep dreaming and keeping real.