Coinbase Alumns Dan and Varun launched Farcaster in 2020. Today, they are the leading decentralized social media platform.
In the Clip below, Dan shares his strategies for rapidly gaining expertise in crypto prior to launching Farcaster and achieving product-market fit.
"I feel pretty passionate about this, I was an English major, so if I can talk about ECDSA Curves, I promise you can get up the curve"
Being technical isn't binary, and the best innovators with no engineering background get up the curve in two ways.
Firstly, it's about authenticity. As Dan puts it, "if you're genuinely interested in this field, it won't feel like work." He jokes having "a competing reading list" with A16Z's crypto canon, highlighting that non-technical founders who have genuine curiosity can leverage the internet to discover outstanding crypto content.
Second, and most importantly, since his early days at Coinbase, Dan surrounded himself with technical people who were really passionate about the technology. His strategy was simple, to "just kind of let them talk and ask them questions". He notes that "the beauty of crypto people, is that they love to just talk about crypto, forever", and the outlier non-technical founders are those who can leverage this to their advantage.
Dan emphasizes that crypto's extreme volatility requires both non-technical and technical founders to maintain equanimity and stoicism, qualities he deems "Brian Armstrong's superpower and why Coinbase is so successful". Persevering with a 'cockroach mentality' is challenging. "If you can actually keep burn low, don't get distracted and make week over week progress and get feedback from a limited number of users you have a real chance on getting product market fit and accelerating afterwards."
If you want to jump right to the quotes above go to 24:57
Video source: Founder talk with Dan Romero, Co-founder & CEO of Farcaster by A16Z Crypto [Entire talk].
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