Buy Bitcoin with Every Sale (Automatically!) - Stephen Cole
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This free, 27-page resource includes:
- Six ways ANY business can benefit from Bitcoin
- Some of the best Bitcoin-only businesses to partner with
- Key Bitcoin concepts for people getting started
Stephen Cole is the co-founder of Orqestra, a platform enabling small and medium businesses to seamlessly gain Bitcoin exposure through passive treasury diversification. A seasoned angel investor, Stephen has backed over 70 startups, often at the pre-seed stage, with a focus on bold, world-changing ideas. He also organizes the AZ Bitcoin Network, fostering grassroots Bitcoin adoption. Passionate about Bitcoin, startups, and hard tech, Stephen thrives on investing early in transformative innovations.
🌐 CONNECT WITH STEPHEN
- 𝕏 X: @sthenc on X
- 🌍 Website: Stephen's Website
🌐 CONNECT WITH JOSH
- 𝕏 X:@joshuafriedeman
- 🔗 LinkedIn:@joshuafriedeman
- 📺 YouTube:@joshuafriedeman
TAKEAWAYS
- Stephen Cole emphasizes the importance of a seamless integration for small businesses to gain Bitcoin exposure without significant effort.
- The Orqestra platform allows business owners to convert a percentage of their revenues into Bitcoin automatically, facilitating easier treasury diversification.
- Cole discusses the necessity for businesses to understand the value of Bitcoin in today's economic climate and how it can serve as a protective asset.
- Orqestra's model aims to reduce friction for business owners who are new to Bitcoin by handling the complexities of wallets and transactions behind the scenes.
- The episode highlights the evolving landscape of Bitcoin adoption and the increasing awareness among businesses regarding cryptocurrency's potential benefits.
- Stephen Cole expresses optimism regarding the future of Bitcoin, anticipating broader acceptance and integration within small and medium-sized enterprises.
SHOW PARTNERS
Mentioned in this episode:
Bitcoin for Corporations: Use Code BIZBIT for 20% OFF!
Velas Commerce: Biz Tech Meets Bitcoin
Strong Wealth: Wealth Management for Bitcoiners, by Bitcoiners
DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF THE BITCOIN-FOR-BUSINESS QUICK START GUIDE
Transcript
It's really the tool that I just wish had existed in for so much of my own bitcoin journey.
Speaker A:If a business owner, you know, is brand new to this, then the ramp up can be a lot to ask for them.
Speaker A:It can be kind of a heavy lift for someone who's already super busy trying to cook their fried chicken sandwiches, get their fresh fish for their sushi for the day.
Speaker A:Whatever your core product offering is like, that is a lot that you are already having to be an expert at.
Speaker A:I think it's just a lot less friction for business owners.
Speaker A:And when I think about, you know, 10 years ago working in San Francisco, I wish that I had had something like orchestra to go stomp around town and tell business owners about.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Business Bitcoinization show, the show dedicated to helping you enrich your life and grow your business with bitcoin, the hardest money on planet Earth.
Speaker B:I'm your host Josh Friedeman and our guest today is Stephen Cole, who's the co founder of Orchestra, which is a company that helps businesses passively buy bitcoin.
Speaker B:We're going to get to our interview with Stephen right after this.
Speaker B:Stephen, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker A:Hey, thanks for having me, Josh.
Speaker B:So I like to start off every single interview with a few questions that help us to get to know you a little bit better and give us some insight for our own lives.
Speaker B:Are you ready for these?
Speaker A:Let's do it.
Speaker B:Question number one is this.
Speaker B:When and how did you first learn about bitcoin?
Speaker A: first heard about Bitcoin in: Speaker A:I thought I was too busy in my day job to pay attention to it and so kind of shrugged it off.
Speaker A: d then two years later around: Speaker A:It hasn't faded into obscurity since the first time I heard about it a couple years ago, so maybe I should dig deeper.
Speaker A: small bit of bitcoin in early: Speaker A:And once you have a little bit, then you're incentive to read more and learn more becomes greater.
Speaker A:And thus began my tumble down the rabbit hole from there.
Speaker B: t, I didn't buy Bitcoin until: Speaker B: the end of a conversation in: Speaker B:Like a lot of people.
Speaker B:But I've wondered if I would have had kind of the internal fortitude to stick with it that long because there's so many ups and downs back then.
Speaker B: I feel like when I came in: Speaker B:2013, it seems like it probably would have been a different story.
Speaker B:Was it like that along the way?
Speaker B:Did you ever question like, what is this thing?
Speaker B:Is it what I thought it was?
Speaker B:Did you have some of those questions or did you feel pretty confident once you kind of started down the rabbit hole?
Speaker A:Oh, I wish I could say that I just read the white paper, had all the insights, figured it out, and was super confident, but no, it was very much a journey of discovery for me.
Speaker A:I did read the white paper as one of the first resources that I went to, but the educational infrastructure in particular was not as well built out Back then.
Speaker A:There were not excellent podcasts like business, bitcoinization and so forth that were helping people kind of understand this space through various lenses.
Speaker A:And so a lot of it was just kind of sifting through forum posts and in chat groups and trying to figure it out.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:And the price volatility was higher than too.
Speaker A:It's still volatile today by most people's standards, but it was even more so back then.
Speaker A:And, and one thing that your question reminds me of is, you know, it's not just hard to kind of hold through the scary downsides like when it crashes, maybe you get spooked and you sell your bitcoin, but, but in particular holding during the run ups too.
Speaker A: hat he had sent this was like: Speaker A:Like clearly this is the top.
Speaker A:Clearly you've got to take some off the table.
Speaker A:And, and so I think the willingness to hold long term, like it sounds easy to just kind of hold something and, and forget about it and think long term, but it's, it's really challenging in practice to do that.
Speaker A:Feel lucky too that I was primed with a little bit of interest in Austrian economics and, and that kind of, I think helped me hold strong where I otherwise would not have been as confident in.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:Question number two.
Speaker B:What's an insight or fact about bitcoin that you wish everyone understood?
Speaker A:This is going to sound funny, so it's going to sound like I'm picking The most obvious fact, but there's only ever going to be 21 million bitcoin maximum.
Speaker A:And I'm sure a lot of people listening to this are in the bitcoin space.
Speaker A:And so you're going like Stephen, really, you pick that one, Everybody knows that one.
Speaker A:But I think there's this funny dynamic around the 21 million limit where even a lot of the people in the world who maybe have heard that and they kind of nod their head and they say, yeah, I get it.
Speaker A:I, I don't think it's often deeply internalized.
Speaker A:You know, I don't think we really get it sometimes and we really appreciate it because we're just not conditioned in our day to day.
Speaker A:In all of our lives, we've kind of been lied about things being scarce.
Speaker A:You know, the dollars and fiat money are easy to whim into existence.
Speaker A:They can authorize more shares of corporate stock.
Speaker A:They can always make another Star wars movie.
Speaker A:They can always make another of your favorite artists album, you know, and, and so there's a strong incentive for someone to produce just one more of something, you know, if they have the ability and something that is very strictly limited.
Speaker A:And even if the price spikes 10x today from 100,000 to more, you know, you can't go out and mine more of it tomorrow.
Speaker A:The mining only happens at a predictable rate.
Speaker A:And I just still think that's going to catch so much of the world off guard.
Speaker B:I entirely agree with that.
Speaker B:I think there's two things that are more than two things.
Speaker B:But it's easy to say there's two things that are really hard to understand.
Speaker B:Infinity.
Speaker B:And I remember as a kid trying to imagine what infinity truly meant, thinking that I grasped it only to realize that, you know, the thought had gotten away from me.
Speaker B:I couldn't truly grasp what infinity was.
Speaker B:Was infinity and scarcity.
Speaker B:And we've never seen true scarcity like this in anything in the physical world other than obviously time.
Speaker B:But that's not even a set for every single person.
Speaker B:So infinity and scarcity are both things that we have a hard time comprehending.
Speaker B:And I don't think we've gotten to that point in bitcoin yet that we've truly felt that scarcity.
Speaker B:But when it happens someday it's going to break a lot of brains, I think.
Speaker A:I agree.
Speaker A:Well said.
Speaker B:So question number three is, what's the bitcoin resource you most recommend to other people?
Speaker A:The bitcoin resource that was most formative in my journey was actually the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute.
Speaker A:It's a website that was kind of launched primarily by Michael Goldstein Pierre Rochard, with many contributions from others and support from the community.
Speaker A: writings there since at least: Speaker A:But they I think were the first to really apply an economics lens in a rigorous way, in a strong way to Bitcoin the asset.
Speaker A:And in my personal journey, that really made a light bulb go off for me where, you know, like thinking about Bitcoin as not just a new computer science concept and not just this blockchain technology kind of nebulous thing, but really as potentially a candidate for sound money and what attributes something might need to be successful as sound money?
Speaker A:And if it indeed has those attributes, then what does that transition look like?
Speaker A:Is hoarding Bitcoin and saving Bitcoin a good and noble thing or is it not using it?
Speaker A:I think that's such an excellent resource for understanding that type of material.
Speaker B:Question number four, beyond Bitcoin, what's a resource, tool or idea that's been helpful to you or your work recently?
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:I got a kind of a fun one for this.
Speaker A:It's definitely bitcoin adjacent, especially in my personal journey.
Speaker A:But meetups, so actually just going to events, I run bitcoin meetups in Phoenix, Arizona, for example.
Speaker A: n Southern California back in: Speaker A:And being in the same room as people who are energized and excited and hungry to learn about, in my case, Bitcoin, but for whatever someone's interest is, whether it's particular technology, a trade group they're involved in, I think that there's just a lot of upside and fixed downside to attending things like meetups in your local area.
Speaker A:Much opportunity, whether it's investment or, you know, networking, developing personal relationships.
Speaker A:If I connect enough dots, I can trace so many things back to my decision to attend my first meetup.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And so yeah, would encourage anyone listening to, especially if you're in like a major metropolitan area, guarantee you there's a high quality local bitcoin meetup out there.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So go scope it out.
Speaker B:Yep, I strongly echo that sentiment.
Speaker B:It was probably eight, nine months after really being interested in Bitcoin.
Speaker B:I said, hey, I'm going to start something up in my area.
Speaker B:And then I found out there already was one and I joined it.
Speaker B:And since then it's been great.
Speaker B:We have monthly meetups and you know, it ebbs and flows as far as who shows up, but there's a Great core group of people.
Speaker B:And then just this last month we started doing a lunch.
Speaker B:So we'll do like the second Thursday of every month in the evening and then we're going to start doing the fourth Thursday of every month for lunch.
Speaker B:And it's really interesting because it brings a whole new dynamic to the group.
Speaker B:When you get together during lunch.
Speaker B:The conversations you have just feel a little bit different then than in the evening meetup.
Speaker B:So definitely recommend getting involved with a local bitcoin meetup if you can.
Speaker B:So question number five is what we call an arbitrary but insightful question.
Speaker B:And it's this as a general life principle.
Speaker B:Is it better to ask why or why not?
Speaker A:Why not?
Speaker A:Default bias for action.
Speaker A:Go do things.
Speaker A:We often are our own kind of biggest self limiters and I think that if people just kind of defaulted towards building things a little bit slanted towards the ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
Speaker A:But context is everything.
Speaker A:But I think, yeah, just going out and being reminded that the world is, is to shape.
Speaker A:And if you don't like something, if you see something lacking in an industry, in your society, in your community, in your household, like you can affect that and you can change it.
Speaker B:Well, Steven, we're here today to talk about your newest venture orchestra.
Speaker B:I saw you post this on Twitter maybe a week ago or so and I was excited to learn more.
Speaker B:Could you just share with us a little bit about orchestra?
Speaker B:We'll get into some other areas of what you're doing.
Speaker B:You're involved in local meetups, investing, things like that, but you've entered into this new startup.
Speaker B:I'd love to hear a little bit about it and how it can help businesses.
Speaker A:Absolutely excited to chat about orchestra and to be co founding it.
Speaker A:The company was actually started originally by my co founder, Joao Almeida, so he was previously co founder and CTO of Opennode, the lightning payments company.
Speaker A:He began working on this project last year.
Speaker A:We met in the context of that I became one of the first investors in the company.
Speaker A:Well actually so Joao and I have known each other for years though.
Speaker A: We first met in: Speaker A:And so we kept in touch ever since.
Speaker A:Loved seeing his journey at Opennode.
Speaker A:And so then when I saw him building orchestra, we kind of reconnected in the context of that company.
Speaker A:And after I invested into the company then we just found ourselves texting each other like every single day, talking about the product, talking about go to market sales, getting excited about what types of businesses we could bring this to and how to message it.
Speaker A:And so it happened very organically.
Speaker A:We just kind of realized one day maybe it makes sense to partner up and build this thing together.
Speaker A:And so we're excited to be doing that.
Speaker A:Orchestra is software, and we are building what we believe will be the easiest way for small and medium business businesses in the US to get started saving in bitcoin.
Speaker A:So, you know, my personal belief is bitcoin becomes money someday.
Speaker A:And that means listing prices and it means payments, and it means savings, all of the functions of money.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But I feel that, you know, savings kind of comes first.
Speaker A:And right now we're in the savings phase.
Speaker A:And that doesn't mean never spend like, like payments.
Speaker A:Tech is awesome.
Speaker A:It's important to build.
Speaker A:And when businesses adopt it, it can bring them a lot if they are early adopters.
Speaker A:But I think that the use case that is kind of simplest right now, given bitcoin's volatility and just given how early we are.
Speaker A:And by that I mean we're so early that it's not very frequently that someone walks into your brick and mortar business holding bitcoin and wanting to spend it.
Speaker A:Someday we will get there, absolutely.
Speaker A:But right now, whether it's kind of a digital checkout process or a physical storefront, the percentage of people who kind of show up to your business business might not largely be holding bitcoin and wanting to spend.
Speaker A:And so we're really trying to put the business owner in control of how much exposure they have to bitcoin and to make it seamless for them to convert some of the money that they're making into bitcoin.
Speaker A:So rather than any changes to the payment processing system that they use, rather than the business owner and their staff having to understand wallets and seed phrases and all that comes along with that, we've just written Orchestra, which integrates with the payment system they already use or the bookkeeping software that they already use.
Speaker A:And then they just tell us behind the scenes what percentage of their revenues they would like to have automatically converted into bitcoin for savings.
Speaker A:So today, the integrations that we've got, we have 11 of them so far.
Speaker A:We're going to keep adding more, of course, but we've got a lot of the big ones.
Speaker A:Paypal, Stripe, Shopify, Square, Clover, mindbody, which is one of the big ones in the fitness and wellness space, and a handful of others.
Speaker A:And so if there are businesses out there today that are using those solutions for their point of sale systems, then they can Go to Orchestra IO, our website, sign up, link up the accounts that they already have, and then we just give them a slider bar where they can choose whatever percentage they feel is right for their business.
Speaker A:And we see, especially if the business owner is relative, relatively new to bitcoin, they'll often start with just 1%.
Speaker A:But then, you know, maybe they get going, maybe they see that it's working and they experience a little bit of price appreciation.
Speaker A:And then we've seen them dial it up 5%, 10% and beyond.
Speaker A:So, you know, it's early days, but we're, we're really excited to be, to be able to really just help small business owners protect the stuff that they've worked super hard to earn.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:I love the idea.
Speaker B:It's very simple.
Speaker B:And I think that for a lot of people starting off, the ability just to kind of ratchet it up or down is really helpful.
Speaker B:I'm curious to know what, what people's responses have been.
Speaker B:Do you find a lot of people come to Orchestra?
Speaker B:I know very early days for the company, but do people come to Orchestra who are maybe already bitcoiners and love the idea of having a feature like this in their business?
Speaker B:Or is this a lot of outbound sales to people saying, hey, this here's something you can do for your.
Speaker B:If you want a little bit of a leg up?
Speaker A:Yeah, great question.
Speaker A:So so far, most of the companies that we have on board today are owned by people who are already familiar with bitcoin, comfortable with bitcoin, and they're the types that maybe would already be willing to go through the trouble of buying bitcoin, but this is just an easier way for them to achieve that.
Speaker A:They don't have to log into an exchange every month and kind of look at numbers and figure out how much to buy or maybe already have an automatic buy set up, but it's a fixed cost buy.
Speaker A:And if their revenues fluctuate, maybe it's high one month and not as high the next month, then maybe a percentage of revenue like what we do could potentially work better for them.
Speaker A:So we see some where it's just kind of the automation and the fact that it's built into the background as being the biggest reason for them to adopt.
Speaker A:But over time we absolutely are doing outreach beyond just kind of the, the business owners who are already interested in bitcoin.
Speaker A:Financial literacy education on the value that bitcoin can provide to a business is a huge part of what we do and what we're excited to be to, to be bringing to this market.
Speaker A:You know, there are over 34 million small and medium businesses in the U.S.
Speaker A:and I think at some point, you know, maybe 10 years from now, every single one will hold some bitcoin.
Speaker A:As crazy as that probably sounds to a lot of people right now, I don't think It'll necessarily be 100% in 10 years of each business's holdings, but I don't think it'll be zero either.
Speaker A:We're just really trying to purpose build something out there for those small and medium business owners that really meets them where they're at.
Speaker A:And if they learn more and they become more comfortable with bitcoin, they want to protect their own bitcoin, hold their own private keys.
Speaker A:We absolutely encourage that, love to see that we make it easy for them to withdraw to whatever wallet or platform they would like.
Speaker A:So we want to make it as easy as possible to get going, but we never want to kind of limit them in what they can do in their bitcoin journey.
Speaker B:So I have a follow up question in a moment about orchestra, but you just talked about where things might be in 10 years.
Speaker B:You've been in bitcoin for over a decade.
Speaker B:I'm curious to know, are things where you expected them to be at this point in time?
Speaker B:Or maybe a better way to ask it would be what has moved faster and what has moved slower than expected when it comes to bitcoin adoption and.
Speaker A:Growth in terms of adoption, honestly, I don't think we're as far along as I thought that we would be.
Speaker A:And I don't really know what to, I mean, assigning blame isn't too useful.
Speaker A:Like there has been a lot of regulatory difficulty.
Speaker A:Operation Chokepoint 2.0 for the last four years has kind of been, I think, making a lot of big banks, established institutions, hesitant to build solutions around and to embrace this asset.
Speaker A:And then there's also just been a lot of noise from other crypto and blockchain projects.
Speaker A:And so the top of funnel for someone new who's learning about bitcoin has been.
Speaker A:It's been difficult to kind of see what makes bitcoin different from all of the thousands of other cryptocurrencies and why it might be special.
Speaker A:And so I think in some of those ways we're, we're not as far ahead as I thought that we would be.
Speaker A:Maybe the price isn't as high as I thought that it would be by now.
Speaker A:The when is always difficult in this stuff, but I'm very encouraged by where we are right now.
Speaker A:In this moment, in terms of the coming years, I think that a lot of the fear that some institutions have had about getting involved in this is being removed.
Speaker A:And the ETFs have come to market, market and have really validated this asset psychologically for a lot of people in the world, particularly large capital allocators.
Speaker A:And it's by almost any metric the most successful ETF launch in the history of the public markets with the Bitcoin ETFs and BlackRock's specifically.
Speaker A:So I think we are about to accelerate in big ways and that's exciting.
Speaker B:So back to orchestra.
Speaker B:I'm sort of curious to know, is it a percentage of every single transaction or is there a different way the percentages drive like end of day, how does that work?
Speaker B:And then also is there a way to maybe do like a single purchase or is it always a percentage of something?
Speaker A:Yeah, we do allow just ad hoc purchases of Bitcoin, so we have a, you know, a smash Buy button, if you will.
Speaker A:And at any time, if you're a business owner on our platform, you can log in, click buy, acquire whatever amount of Bitcoin your heart desires.
Speaker A:We but yeah, our core product offering is kind of that percentage of revenues.
Speaker A:So our software links up to the payment and the bookkeeping system.
Speaker A:We basically keep track of all of the incoming transactions and what you have set as the desired percentage.
Speaker A:And so then we're keeping tabs on all of that at any time.
Speaker A:You can adjust that percentage and then we give you, the business owner, three options for settlement.
Speaker A:So you can choose from daily, weekly or monthly.
Speaker A:And so, you know, we'll kind of keep tabs on the amount of Bitcoin that should be be purchased.
Speaker A:But then in terms of the execution of those buys, it's just kind of on those schedules according to whatever the user sets.
Speaker B:I'm sure there's probably a multi layered answer here, but you mentioned that you were first an investor in Orchestra.
Speaker B:Is there something about the opportunity for Orchestra or just the focus of it that made it compelling enough to join the company?
Speaker B:I don't know how frequently an investor has an opportunity to join a company they've invested, invested in.
Speaker B:But I'm curious to know, is there something about this other than the fact that the co founders already knew each other and you were talking a lot, that's why you jumped in?
Speaker B:Was there something else about it or did it just kind of, did it just feel natural because of a friendship that already existed?
Speaker A:I love that question.
Speaker A:I think it's because this was the reason that I excitedly invested, and then I think I quickly realized that it's also the reason why I wanted to become more than just an investor in the company is it's really the tool that I just wish had existed for so much of my own bitcoin journey.
Speaker A: Back in: Speaker A:And I'm sure a lot of people listening can relate, right?
Speaker A:You want to tell the people in your life about this, about how much it can benefit from them.
Speaker A:And I would just go around my day to day and I would talk to businesses everywhere about this.
Speaker A:I went to a certain doctor on Union Square in San Francisco just because he took bitcoin as payment.
Speaker A:I ate at this sushi spot called Bamboo Asia just because they took bitcoin as payment.
Speaker A:I would shop on overstock.com so I was really.
Speaker A:And at the time I kind of viewed that as trying to help foster growth of the bitcoin network and learn more about it for payments.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:But reflecting on it later, if a business owner, you know, is brand new to this, then the ramp up can be a lot to ask for them.
Speaker A:It can be kind of a heavy lift for someone who's already super busy trying to, you know, cook their fried chicken sandwiches, get their fresh fish for their sushi for the day.
Speaker A:Whatever your core product offering is like, that is a lot that you are already having to be an expert at.
Speaker A:And so to have to go and figure out wallets, seed words, and you know, how to not lose bitcoin if you do it yourself.
Speaker A:And then if it's not just you and your business to have to train your staff so that they can accept bitcoin as payment.
Speaker A:If you are not there for whatever reason, it ends up being a lot.
Speaker A:And then even if they successfully navigate all of that, then it's not too often that bitcoin enthusiasts like us walk in the door and want to pay in bitcoin, maybe it's like once a week, once a month.
Speaker A:And so the ROI just objectively wasn't great in my personal observation.
Speaker A:And so I think that something like Orchestra, where the business can do it in a way that is just seamless, it's under the hood.
Speaker A:You don't have to ask your customers to do anything differently.
Speaker A:They still swipe their credit card.
Speaker A:You don't have to train your staff and have them remember anything more about this other way to pay.
Speaker A:I think it's just a lot less friction for business owners and When I think about, you know, 10 years ago working in San Francisco, I wish that I had had something like orchestra to go stomp around town and tell business owners about.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So staying on the investing side of things, I'm curious to know how you think about investing in bitcoin companies.
Speaker B:I know you're invested in some other types of companies as well.
Speaker B:Is the goal to support great projects?
Speaker B:I know you want to make money.
Speaker B:Is it always like, hey, can this outperform bitcoin?
Speaker B:What are some of your thoughts there?
Speaker B:Just as far as being an investor goes, especially when you are already interested in bitcoin and there's a lot of upside there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Investing into startup and tech companies has been a big part of my journey in recent years.
Speaker A:I've done a little over 75 angel investments into pre seed and seed stage companies with my own personal capital.
Speaker A:I'm also a venture partner at a bitcoin VC firm, early stage firm named Trammell Venture Partners.
Speaker A:And their focus is exclusively on companies building on bitcoin, bitcoin native companies.
Speaker A:And my personal framework for it is that bitcoin is my savings and startups and companies are my investing.
Speaker A:And so by default, if there is a distribution, if I make money, if I get paid, if there's a liquidity event that goes immediately into bitcoin for me.
Speaker A:And then startups are kind of when I decide whether to invest in something.
Speaker A:And yes, it would be fantastic if they would outperform bitcoin because that is kind of becoming the hurdle rate.
Speaker A:It certainly is to me and I think over the next decade it will to more of the world.
Speaker A:I think VC firms will be ultimately forced to measure their returns against bitcoin in the same way that they kind of have to explain to invest investors why they will be able to outperform the S&P 500 today, Bitcoin kind of is positioned to become that new hurdle rate.
Speaker A:But yeah, it's still so early with bitcoin and the upside is still so great potentially that that is a terrifying bar to try to be investing against and outperforming.
Speaker A:Most of the startups that I've invested in have not outperformed bitcoin.
Speaker A:Most have made money in dollars terms, not made money in bitcoin terms.
Speaker A:There are a handful that have outperformed bitcoin, but also the bulk of my startup investing has been done over the last three years.
Speaker A:And in terms of the ramp up time for a lot of these companies, you tend to see a lot of growth in years.
Speaker A:Three to ten.
Speaker A:And so we shall see how things go.
Speaker A:But yeah, it's exciting to be involved in both.
Speaker A:And that intersection of startup companies building on bitcoin is really such a sweet spot.
Speaker A:And I think that's still overlooked by so much of even, you know, the Silicon Valley VC firms that are kind of chasing crypto and blockchain and in my view haven't really dialed in so much on what makes bitcoin unique yet.
Speaker B:Then the last thing is, if someone was interested earlier in what you said about bitcoin meetups, but they can't find one in their area, maybe because they live in a, you know, less populous area or whatever else.
Speaker B:Do you have any recommendations on how to start up an effective bitcoin meetup?
Speaker A:Yeah, do it.
Speaker A:I mean, this goes back to like bias for action.
Speaker A:I, when I moved to Southern California, I was living in Orange county and there were already crypto meetups and there were already some great bitcoin meetups, frankly.
Speaker A:Like there was a Los Angeles bitcoin meetup and I kind of went back and forth on does Orange county need its own bitcoin meetup or would that be redundant?
Speaker A:And, and I just, you know, you click the create button on meetup, you like type a few sent and and then it's done.
Speaker A:That takes like 30 minutes of your time.
Speaker A:Maybe nobody shows up.
Speaker A:Maybe one person shows up, but like, so what?
Speaker A:That's a starting point.
Speaker A:And even if one person shows up, that person is probably just going to be really excited and you're going to have a great conversation about bitcoin and it'll be a great time and then you'll only, you know, you'll grow from there.
Speaker A:Make an account on, on X, maybe make an account on Nostr.
Speaker A:Nostr is kind of earlier in, in its adoption, so odds of others in your small town being on it, I guess are kind of low.
Speaker A:But certainly make an account on X for it and meetup.com is fantastic and I think just psychologically don't have any fear of it not working out.
Speaker A:The absolute worst thing that could happen is you sit by yourself in a restaurant for an hour and you probably eat some good food and then you go home and that's not a big loss.
Speaker A:And normally it's not going to be even that worst case scenario.
Speaker A:It's going to be like a handful of people who probably show up and some are new and some are curious and that over time can develop into who knows what.
Speaker A:The upside on those human relationships is unbounded.
Speaker A:And it's still so early in bitcoin that in 10 years from now you'll be reflecting on like wow, I'm so glad that I started this group because it led to xyz.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:So if you would share with us any final thoughts you have maybe specifically about orchestra.
Speaker B:Could be anything else as well.
Speaker B:And then where people can go if they want to give orchestra a try or refer other people to it who may also, you know, friends of friends who own businesses who might be interested in getting a little bit of bitcoin exposure.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:We're, you know, orchestra is public.
Speaker A:Any company within the US we can serve today and we're really excited to do so.
Speaker A:We spell the name of the company with a.
Speaker A:So for listeners, O R Q E S T R A IO is our website.
Speaker A:You can go on there, you can sign up.
Speaker A:The platform is $20 a month or it is $192 if you pay annually and the fees on the buys and sells are lower than you can get in other places.
Speaker A:And we also have bookkeeping components to our software as well because some of the accounting around this can become a little bit of a nightmare.
Speaker A:So we see that as a way that we can add a lot of to businesses that are dealing with this.
Speaker A:But we'd be really excited to have you.
Speaker A:We want to make sure that the product is fantastic and that we are delivering way more in value to business owners than they are paying us for the product and 30 day free trial.
Speaker A:So no loss if the platform is not for you for whatever reason.
Speaker A:We just cherish any feedback at this point.
Speaker A:And I'd say we're also just a mission driven company.
Speaker A:We love bitcoin and we're bitcoiners, but we're also not trying to go and push bitcoin on any small business owner where it's not the right answer.
Speaker A:We don't want anyone to go all in on this if it's not appropriate for their circumstance.
Speaker A:We just want to build tools to help businesses because I think the system has been slanted against to them for a long time.
Speaker A:When, when we print trillions of dollars from thin air, the central banks and the primary banks and Wall street get easy access to that money and often it doesn't trickle through the system in a way that is good for small and medium businesses.
Speaker A:They end up getting the short end of the stick.
Speaker A:And so, you know, we think bitcoin helps level that playing field in, in a really powerful way.
Speaker A:And, and we're excited to, to help accelerate that a little bit and and get to partner with some great business owners in the process.
Speaker A:So we'd love to have anyone who wants to come and sign up and try the product and feel free.
Speaker A:My DMs are open on X as well, so shoot me a note directly.
Speaker A:Happy to answer any questions and chat more about the platform.
Speaker B:Great.
Speaker B:Well Steven, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker B:It's been a pleasure.
Speaker A:Appreciate it.
Speaker A:Josh.
Speaker B:Well friends, it's a wrap.
Speaker B:Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Business Bitcoinization show.
Speaker B:If you want to reach out to either me or or Steven, you can find those links down in the show notes.
Speaker B:And if you or someone you know is interested in adding Bitcoin to their business's balance sheet, reach out to orchestra.
Speaker B:As always, keep building, keep growing and until next time, keep living and leading.
Speaker B:Well, thanks to those who have been supporting the show on Fountain in the last week, including Ezeki, who both Streamsats and Cineboost.
Speaker B:His boost was about last week's episode with Christopher David where we talked about Deep Seek Stargate and the battle for AI on open protocols and he commented saying fascinating conversation bullish on an open source AI future powered by Nostr and Bitcoin.
Speaker B:Ezeki, I feel the same way.
Speaker B:Thank you for the boost, thank you for the stream, and once again if anyone else would like to support the show, they can listen on Fountain.
Speaker B:Neither stream sats as they listen or send a boost and if you include a comment with that boost, I'll plan to read it on the show.
