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Building on Bitcoin: A Founder’s Journey with Botanix COO Alisia
Recorded: Dec. 11, 2025 Duration: 0:53:48Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion, Alicia, co-founder of Botanics, unveiled their innovative project aimed at enhancing Bitcoin's programmability and introduced STBTC, a new yield-generating product. The conversation highlighted significant trends in the crypto space, including a growing interest among Bitcoin holders in utilizing their assets for earning opportunities, as well as Botanics' successful fundraising efforts and the project's potential for growth.
Full Transcription
Thank you. I Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. I'm going to go to the next episode. The Thank you. Music
Music
Music I'm Thank you. I'm sorry. Hello, hello!
Let's get started with it.
See some familiar faces around hi guys
all right let's let's get into it
oh hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Anchor Partner Spotlight series
where we sit down with founders, builders and innovators who are shaping the future
of Web3 as we have today here.
And yeah, today we are joined by someone at the very center of one of the ecosystems
most talked about developments, which is the
mission to bring programmability and new layers of functionality to Bitcoin. And well, that's a
huge topic, right? I'm really excited to welcome Alicia, co-founder and COO of botanics and alicia thank you so much for being here today um before we get
into botanics and you know everything that your team is building um i would love to start with
your story like if we can start at the beginning you know how did you first enter the crypto or
web3 world you know and what sparked your curiosity uh who is alicia
awesome thanks sergio uh thanks everyone uh today um yeah happy to tell you guys a little bit more
about my journey into bitcoin and then tell you more about botanics so um i'm originally canadian
uh did all my schooling there, and actually worked
a pretty traditional career. So I was working in management consulting, corporate development,
finance. But all of that career was mostly in the emerging markets. So I was working
across Asia, Africa, Latin America. And it's actually there that I fell down the Bitcoin
rabbit hole. So actually, I celebrated my 10-year Bitcoinversary last month.
So 10 years since the first time I bought Bitcoin.
And 10 years ago, I was actually living in Brazil.
And I was trying to send money back home to Canada to pay for some student loans.
And at the time, Brazil was very, very tough financial system to get your money out of.
And I think continues to be hard to this day.
So it was an egregious amount to, you know, like basically repatriate your funds to any other country.
And so a few of my friends at the time, they were very early to Bitcoin and crypto.
There were fintech entrepreneurs at the time in Sao Paulo.
They were like, hey, you guys, you should look into Bitcoin and figure out a way to off ramp it in Canada.
And I started to look into it and I was like, oh, this is super interesting.
So that's how I first learned about Bitcoin, which is over a decade ago, which makes me feel sometimes ancient in crypto terms, because I feel like I feel like I've seen a lot in this industry over the past decade.
But yeah, that's how I first learned about Bitcoin.
I remember buying it in like a pretty sketchy meetup in Sao Paulo with cash.
But at the same time, I love the whole like crypto, like cyberpunk mentality.
This anarchist idea of, hey, let's rebuild fairer, juster financial systems.
And actually, I saw it
solving pain points I'd seen in all of these other countries and markets I'd lived in,
right? So I could see it solving the pain points in Africa and Latin America and Asia.
And so that's how I first got orange-pilled. And then, of course, this was 2015. Then,
of course, the whole ICO era happened. The Ethereum community started blooming. So I
actually spent a bunch of time as a trader, but just as a hobby. And actually, I moved to the U.S.
seven years ago to go to grad school. And that's when I decided to take Bitcoin and crypto a little
bit more seriously because crypto was professionalizing. So I worked a few jobs in
crypto and then met my co-founderfounder who also went to the same grad school
as me and we started with this problem statement which is hey Bitcoin is like the largest and
biggest cryptocurrency in the world why can't we do more with it like why is it just stuck there
like digital gold and I think that was an incredibly interesting problem statement
and that's what provoked the start of
botanics which was almost three years ago um and yeah that's that's how we got started happy to
tell you guys more about it but that's how i originally got started yeah that makes perfect
sense you know everyone seems to have like that moment where things click for them right and yeah
thanks for sharing that and well I have a similar experience
like a friend of mine you know he just got started in in web3bcoin he's a bit late uh you know but I
mean late quote unquote right um but yeah he wanted to do like this uh being like person you know you
know with someone and I think he was using some platform. I don't remember the name, but I don't want to mention either.
And yeah, he was like, can you come with me?
Because he was like, I'm so anxious and kind of scared
at the same time.
And I was like, dude, why would you do that?
There are so many ways now on-ramp and off-ramp.
Like, why would you do that but
yeah regardless i've never had that experience so it was fun in the end uh but yeah i totally
get where you come from you know um yeah oh there we go is it back on alicia
yes yes it's working so i was having some technical issues
cool yeah well it's you know twitter x um call it whatever um yeah so well next question was actually um you know like
from there like what's the story of how botanics came to be you know like how did you personally
get involved in co-founding the project you mentioned a um a colleague of yours you said
yeah so we started about three years ago and as i mentioned the problem statement we were
working with is why isn't bitcoin programmable and honestly the answer for a very long time was
it didn't really need to be right just because three years ago is when the or yeah exactly and
so three years ago is when um um if you guys, that's when like BRC20 ordinals happened.
There was a huge, you know, spike in terms of Bitcoin transactions and base layer fees exploded.
And that's when we're like, oh, actually, we do need scaling solutions because transaction fees are becoming prohibitively expensive.
So actually, at the time that we were starting, there's only a few scaling solutions, like Bitcoin scaling solutions, and neither of them had really achieved product
market fit. Because as I mentioned, there really wasn't a need for them. And this is, and so when
the Ordinal BRC20 boom happened, and we saw this need, that's when we're like, okay, let's think
through what makes an ideal Bitcoin
scaling solution. And there were three things that we really wanted to optimize for when we
were building botanics. First is decentralization, because if you think about what makes Bitcoin
great, what's made it stand the test of time, it comes down to two intrinsic elemental core parts
of Bitcoin. One, which is the programmatic scarcity, which
was what attributes value to Bitcoin and which is what gives it that uniqueness from any other
crypto asset. And two, it is this element of true decentralization and censorship resistance.
So decentralization is the core of what we do. Compared to other Bitcoin scaling solutions,
I would say we are the most decentralized.
And we like to call ourselves decentralization maxis.
There's been a lot of debates on whether on the value of decentralization.
We think it is fundamental for anything that touches money.
So decentralization may not be the most pertinent for, let's say, social applications or gaming applications.
But we think for anything that touches money or financial value,
we think it is core and elemental.
So that was like the first thing we were trying to optimize for.
The second thing that we were optimizing for was EVM equivalents.
So one of the key pain points we were noticing, you know,
in the initial ideation of Botanics is a lot of these Bitcoin devs found it really hard
to build on these other Bitcoin scaling solutions because they were not EVM. And I think the best
analogy for the EVM is actually like Microsoft in like the 80s. So Microsoft in the 80s won out,
not because it was the best tech, but because it's the one with the widest distribution,
not because it was the best tech, but because it's the one with the widest distribution, right?
So that's how it beat Mac in the 80s.
And I think of the EBM similarly.
It's not the best tech, but it's by far the most Lindy, has the most devs, the most tooling, the most ecosystem.
And so those were the two things that we tried to optimize for.
And with that, my co-founder is a cryptographer, invented the spider chain, which is our approach to Bitcoin scaling, which still stands to this day to be,
I think, the foremost and most interesting Bitcoin scaling solution out there.
I'm happy to get more to the technical architecture, but just to give out a more
zoomed out perspective, it's a network of decentralized multi-sigs, frost multi-sigs specifically,
that's used to secure the Bitcoin in the second layer via a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
So we were the first ones that proposed proof-of-stake on top of Bitcoin and this element
of staking Bitcoin on Bitcoin. And really, I think that sparked a movement That's when a lot of other Bitcoin L2s started popping up
And yeah, that's how we started building
Raised two rounds of funding
Launched our test net
And then we launched our main net about six months ago
Right, cool, Leo
Sorry about that
I might have to just speak through the Yankar account
Since for whatever reason, X is kicking me out as well
so really sorry about that on the logistics side and yeah thank you so much Alicia for sharing that
it's actually pretty cool you know like and interesting like listening how these funding
teams you know come together and it sounded very organic as well. And yeah, and those early signals that you mentioned, they're really powerful.
And now that we kind of have set the stage a bit, right, and you've gotten into what Botanics is building and whatnot, you know, for a little bit.
Let's, yeah, let's bring listeners into what Botanics actually is building, right?
wood botanics um actually is building right uh but yeah maybe um let's uh try to keep it accessible
to everyone since you know um i don't know how how many of our listeners are will have a technical
background but yeah if you can make it um easier to understand for the average Sergio, that would be lovely.
And for anyone who might be hearing about botanics for the first time, I don't think there will be many of them.
But, you know, how would you explain what it is, right, in more simple, practical terms?
I would say the most simple terms, and this is what I use to onboard
people like my dad, for example, to Botanics, is it's the ability to put your Bitcoin to work
in a safe and secure way. It's the simplest pitch ever. So, you know, Bitcoin for the longest time
was just stuck there. You were buying, selling, holding it on some centralized exchange.
What if you could earn yield?
What if you could use your Bitcoin as collateral?
What if you could trade with it?
What if you could productivize it as an asset instead of just a store of value?
Botanics enables all of these applications and so much more.
And so that's the simplest pitch I can think of.
And, you know, at Botanics, we try to do things, I would say, always very differently compared to anyone else. And it's because we're trying to find organic product market fit as a Bitcoin-based blockchain. And we're already starting to see that, right? We actually came out with this product in September called STBTC or Staked Bitcoin.
And it's actually a really, really interesting concept. We thought, what is the one thing that all Bitcoiners want to do or anyone that holds Bitcoin?
They want to earn more Bitcoin.
I mean, you can see that even now when Bitcoin's price has fallen, still a lot of people are holding on to Bitcoin.
I actually don't know a single person that's sold, right?
Because everyone is convinced Bitcoin is going to go way, way higher, right?
So we're still in this, despite a lot of long-term holders selling,
and that's what's causing the recent sell pressure in these macroeconomic conditions,
conditions, I would say the majority of retail and ETF holders are holding and planning to do so
for the long haul, right? And if not, accumulating. And so what is the purpose of the accumulation?
Like they obviously want to grow their Bitcoin a lot more. And we've seen a lot of experiments
in Bitcoin staking. The issue always fundamentally comes down to where does the yield
actually come from if you stake your Bitcoin, right? And you're seeing progenitors of Bitcoin
staking like maybe minting WBTC on Ethereum, on Arbitrum, and being able to earn some yield on
Aave or some DeFi protocols. But the yield earn is very low, and you're assuming a lot of trust assumptions when you do engage within
DeFi within Ethereum with your Bitcoin. So the idea is, one, how do you provide the simplest
form of Bitcoin yield? And two, what is the source of it, right? So for us, that's how we came up with
SDBTC or stake Bitcoin. So the way that it works is when you bridge your Bitcoin to Botanics, and we built our own bridge, of course, like that's the main product that we've shipped for our main launch.
Once you bridge your Bitcoin over, you can immediately stake it and mint something we like to call STBTC or Staked Bitcoin, which is basically the simplest staking product we could come up with.
And the stake or the yield comes from the gas fees generated on the network. So 50% of all of
the gas fees generated on Botanix chain go back towards the STBTC staking contract.
This is all in Bitcoin, not affiliated with tokens or points. There's no
lockup. There's no inflation. It's basically just Bitcoin in and Bitcoin out and an up only
mechanism. So I've been staking my Bitcoin there. The entire Botanics team is and of course everyone
we know is. And we found that that is actually the hook that gets people excited about putting
their Bitcoin on chain. And once you do get that Bitcoin on chain, that gets people excited about putting their Bitcoin on chain.
And once you do get that Bitcoin on chain, you can educate them about all of the other things you can do with it, right? Which is, for example, using that SCBTC as collateral to borrow stable
coins on Dolomite, for example, or open a position on GMX or swap into a stablecoin on Bitsy. So basically using STBTC almost as like the gateway
to start experimenting with decentralized finance on Bitcoin,
which we still think is a massive untapped opportunity
and not one that anyone has truly cracked yet.
And so for us, STBTC is that primitive that opens it up,
but there's still a huge, huge world, obviously, to unlock.
That's a great breakdown.
Very clear.
Thank you so much for that, Alicia.
And I think I remember hearing about a meeting, I don't know if you or somebody who was advocating botanics and Bitcoin programmability back in 2022, maybe?
Yeah, around that.
And I remember we spoke in person, it was during an event, you know,
and I was like, what?
You know, I was like, let's see how that unfolds.
But I was kind of astonished because I was like, wait, why do you need to, you know, why do you need all this on Bitcoin?
Like Bitcoin is just for buying, selling and whatnot, you know.
So, yeah, great to see how far we have come.
And, oh, yeah, I had a curiosity, you know, I wanted to ask you, Alicia, you've been 10 years, right, in crypto and you bought your first bit of Bitcoin back in 2015, right?
You said the price is falling and whatnot, but how does it feel for an OG like you?
Like, do you really, you know, when you see it falling from 100 something K to 90 something K, does it really affect you?
Do you see it and you'd be like, oh, you know, it's, I don't know, making me anxious?
No, it's funny.
I never think about Bitcoin's price at all because for me, it's something that I DCA Bitcoin every month.
And then I'm going to look at it in 10 or 20 years.
But do you see that as a drop?
Do you even care?
Does it look ridiculous to you, like that sort of quote-unquote drop?
Do I?
I mean, of course I care because I think of Bitcoin as one of the more sensitive macroeconomic indicators.
So, I mean, in that sense, I care about it because of what it says about the broader economy.
And I do think it's a leading indicator rather than a lagging indicator.
And so to me, it portends, you know, maybe potential bear market dynamics
and also global economic dynamics.
So I care about it from that perspective,
but speculating on price action,
I find deeply uninteresting
because I truly think it's like
the least interesting thing about Bitcoin.
I think Bitcoin as freedom tech is so interesting,
so compelling, a censorship resistant money
has so much interesting things being built on it.
As a hub of finance has a lot going for it, and that's what we're trying to be at Botanic.
So to me, I find the applications of Bitcoin way more interesting than its price action.
Right.
But I mean, again, being in crypto for 10 years, the price is the headline, right?
So you cannot live in a tech vacuum.
It's important to understand the broader macroeconomic context in which it operates.
And so, yeah, obviously, take a look at price.
But I think it's really interesting because in this period of increased vol where Bitcoin is dipping, that's when things like yield become much more important
and relevant. So I talked to Bitcoin holders all day long. And if you ask them, yeah, if you ask
them five years ago, hey, would you bring your Bitcoin on chain for some yield? They're like,
no, no, no, we would never risk our Bitcoin for anything. Like I'm going to keep it in cool
storage until the day I decide
to unhodl. But now that there is more vol and now that, you know, it has dropped a little bit,
they're like, wait, actually, if you're able to provide me with 5% yield, then actually I think
I'm interested, you know? So it's actually increasing the risk on nature of a lot of
these Bitcoiners. So a lot of those folks who would never have
considered unhodling their Bitcoin are now getting curious about it. And I do think Bitcoin yields
and Bitcoin staking and Bitcoin finance is going to become the number one most important theme
over this next bear market and the following bull market. I think this cycle was still a bit too early because there were too many primitives that
came out that didn't have the yield mechanism figured out.
True.
But I think, especially as we've seen with Botanix's launch, people are really eager.
When we launched STPTC, the first cap got filled in like 20 hours and the second cap
got filled in like an hour and a half.
So it's just showed the excitement that people have for real Bitcoin yields.
And I think that's going to just keep growing as people will want to productivize their
base asset.
Yeah, 100%.
What's the API, by the way?
Just curiosity.
So for our STBTC, since we've launched, it's ranged between 3% to 6%, which is still pretty high considering this is purely in Bitcoin terms, right?
And you get paid in Bitcoin.
Yeah, so it's fairly exciting and attractive for anybody and at any scale, right?
So what I'm really excited about is there's a lot of people who've never been on chain before who are actually bridging their Bitcoin and staking for the first time ever.
We got a lot of screenshots from Bitcoin whales who were trying to figure out the Botanics Bridge and like figure out how to get on chain.
And that's what I think is so exciting, because I think crypto as a whole is at an inflection point.
We're seeing a mass exit of crypto retail, especially this cycle.
And people ask me all the time, it's like, where are the users? Where's the liquidity? And
to me, the biggest set of untapped users are Bitcoiners, right? Like that is still
the largest user base by far in the world. Bitcoin is still the most retail-friendly
cryptocurrency. So if you want users, that's all in Bitcoin.
If you want liquidity, that's all in Bitcoin.
Everyone now, even as we're moving towards a bearish market, right,
people are rotating everything into Bitcoin.
So if you want users, if you want liquidity, it's all on Bitcoin.
And these people are craving applications for their Bitcoin.
People are craving applications for their Bitcoin.
The construct becomes how do you build it in a user-friendly enough manner to actually get folks excited and really break down the barriers to entry?
Yeah, the philosophy has shifted quite a lot, actually.
So that's good.
Thank you so much again, Alicia, for your insights. And yeah, now my next question is regarding, you know, why build on Bitcoin, right?
Because it sounds like it's been a really exciting journey for you and your team, right?
But I assume it's also extremely challenging or challenging to some point, right?
So from your perspective,
like what's the one thing that makes this path worth taking?
Just one idea or, you know, one, yeah.
I mean, to be honest, I, it's, it's,
it's really, really interesting when you're working at a startup that is at the forefront of Bitcoin.
Because Bitcoin, I think, as someone who's been in crypto for about a decade, I almost quit crypto actually a few years ago before I found Botanics.
Why?
Because I felt like we were building too many solutions for problems that didn't exist.
solutions for problems that didn't exist. And I just wasn't very, I didn't have much faith in the
industry's ability to course correct. And that's how I found myself back at Bitcoin. Because if
you think about Bitcoin, it is the most narrative allergic crypto in the entire industry. And I
think there's a lot to be said for how unshakable it is, foundationally and community-wise as well.
And so that's what really excites me about Bitcoin and the fact that it is going to endure.
It remains the gold standard, and it is always going to be the foundation of the rest of crypto.
be the foundation of the rest of crypto. Because I do think we live in an industry and we all work
in an industry or are excited by this industry of crypto, whereby it is driven by trends and it is
driven by price action. And I do think, obviously, that's endemic to the nature of how market
structure has developed within crypto. But at the same time, I do think it's sometimes antithetical to real building.
And so I'm just grateful that I'm now building in Bitcoin
because I do think we're building something real, something durable,
something that is narrative resistant in the best possible way
in the best possible way and something that's going to touch the real world and real users.
and something that's going to touch the real world and real users.
So I think that is the overwhelming thing that brings together the entire Botanics team.
We're about 20 people.
Half of us are in the US.
Half of us are roughly in Europe.
And I think what really unites us as a team is like our mission and vision and kind of
love for Bitcoin.
And we really, really have this,
we really are united by this purpose
of getting Bitcoin in the hands
of every single person in the world.
And so I think that keeps us centered
as a team every single day.
But yeah, I think there's,
building a startup is the most rewarding thing ever
that I've done.
Every single day, you wake up and you have a new set of problems to solve,
which for me as someone who has always worked in a profession
that relies upon critical thinking as a primary job function
is just really, really exciting.
And I think what's been really fascinating as well to see is just
the growth of the team, the personal and professional development of every single person,
and seeing the impact that we've already started to have on the Bitcoin community, on Bitcoin culture,
and Bitcoin holders as well. And I think that's a community we want to keep growing.
And that's what really, I think,'s a community we want to keep growing. And that's
what really, I think, unites us at the end of the day. Absolutely. Yeah. The opportunity on Bitcoin,
I think it's massive, right? And well, I guess it also demands a lot from teams building there
like yours. Out of curiosity, what was the size of your team when you first started the project?
As you mentioned, now you're over 20 people, right?
Yeah.
I mean, at the beginning, it was just Willem, who's my co-founder.
And then he recruited a few engineers.
And then I joined as the first business sort of person.
So yeah, it was less than five for quite a while.
And then we started growing and scaling.
But yeah, we're a big believer in very small teams.
I think we're...
Well, I think it's a decent team.
Yeah, but compared to other blockchain teams, I think we're quite compact.
Oh, well.
Yeah, and we want to keep it that way.
So we actually don't anticipate expanding too, too much because we really think there's like power in small, efficient teams. Like you think about Tether, which is like the most profitable company in the world per employee when they're able to build a company of that size with less than 100 people.
So we really are big believers in that, like, you know, bringing on board high agency, high impact individuals who are driven by the Bitcoin mission.
Yeah, 100 percent. You know, there's also if you like if too many people join, you know, then on the logistics side of things, then coordinating teams, you know, it's a huge, another huge one. So, yeah, I think, you know, if it's working and you're doing well,
you know, I think that's the perfect way to go with it.
But, yeah, thank you so much for that.
I was just curious, you know, to know where you came from
and where you're now.
Now my next question is regarding misconceptions.
I love this kind of questions.
What do you think people still misunderstand about becoming layer twos
or the role that botanics play within that landscape?
Or if you want to go into something broader, like what,
what do you think are some misconceptions about just even Bitcoin?
I think the biggest misconception is that I've had to contend with over the past,
you know, three years is that people do not want to do anything with their Bitcoin.
It's so funny. I've been interviewing my friends
all over the world. They all have Bitcoin, by the way. And it's so interesting because
there's obviously this massive narrative around stable coins, and stable coins are going to be
foundationally super important in terms of building the rails of global finance. We definitely,
and it's something that we're definitely working on at Botanics. But if you think about what most important in terms of, you know, building the rails of, you know, global finance. We definitely,
and it's something that we're definitely working on at Botanics. But if you think about what most people hold, it does come down to just like Bitcoin at the end of the day. So almost every
single friend that I, that I was surveying, that I interviewed, they held some amount of Bitcoin,
right? And they've been doing so for quite some time. Obviously, I'm also like older. So that also plays a role there, right? And whenever I ask them, hey, would you do something
with your Bitcoin if it got you 5% yield? Would you stake it or do anything? They're like, yeah,
of course I would. It's a very, oh, yes, obviously sort of answer. And so I think there's a huge misconception about who is a Bitcoiner
and what do they want to do or not do with their Bitcoin. And I think we need to shift that
perception of who or what a Bitcoiner is, right? So especially over the past five years with the
rise of the ETFs, the ETFs have legitimized Bitcoin to such a broad scale globally that almost everyone who
wants access to Bitcoin has Bitcoin, right? And the idea that we have of a Bitcoiner being like
this maxi person who has their Bitcoin buried in their backyard and is guarding their Bitcoin,
that is a very small minority of the Bitcoin holder base.
There may be very loud online, but it's a very, very small minority.
The majority of Bitcoiners are people like you or me or people like our parents or our
family or our friends who just hold it in a centralized exchange or hold it through an ETF.
And if you give them opportunities to earn yield on their bitcoin or do a little like use it as collateral to to borrow stable coins or trade with it or you know do a little bit more with
it that is immediately appealing to them so i would say like that's the biggest misconception
that we've actually had to deal with over the past few years um the other misconception is hey if
all of those people um who wanted to do with their Bitcoin, they probably already could do so on Ethereum, right, with WBTC.
And that is true, right, actually.
So if you are a savvy crypto user, right, you could basically, you know, mint WBTC and then, you know, bridge it to Ethereum and then obviously do a lot of looping or DeFi nomics in
Ethereum and try to earn yield. However, there's two things that we don't take into account here.
One is user experience and two is DeFi sophistication, right? One, the user experience
is still very clunky along every single part of that value chain that I just described.
So for an everyday user of Bitcoin, that is still a very tough pathway to get them to follow.
And Bitcoin L2s and Bitcoin blockchains, we think, are a much easier pathway for them to do so, especially the focus on Bitcoin, right?
For most people, Bitcoin is all they hold.
So if we create a focused and targeted set of simple financial primitives, we think that has
much more value. And the second piece, as I mentioned, is like the level of sophistication
DeFi wise, right? So even if you are able to figure out the entire bridging process,
like, do you actually understand how to DeFi, right? I remember when I started getting involved in DeFi during, you know, DeFi summer, for example,
it took me a few days, right, to figure out, okay, how does looping work?
You know, like, how do these basic primitives work?
How does arbitrage work?
And so I do think that there's a level of education and awareness that not everyone has an appetite for or not that everyone even cares for, to be honest.
So there's a lot of simplification that needs to be done of these core financial primitives to really bring the bulk of these users on chain.
So I think those are the two things that people also misunderstand when they make this blanket assumption of, you know, these primitives exist
already on other chains. And I think those are the misconceptions that we try to break down
with botanics, again, while creating a very custom application and user experience that
is targeted for Bitcoin and Bitcoin specifically. Yeah, that sounds like me and my friend pedro henrique so
i think well it's really accurate thank you so much for that alicia and yeah now i would like to
shift gears um a little bit you know we don't have as much more time with you, unfortunately. But yeah, because your role as COO, right, is such an interesting
one. You're balancing product strategy, operations, team leadership, I assume a bit of everything,
right? What does that look like day to day for you?
It's a great question. Yeah, I do a bit of everything is probably the best way to describe it. So I mostly handle the business side of things, right, which is like the BD, the ecosystem. But I also play a role in like marketing and creative and design. And honestly, that's what I really, really love about my job is like every day I get to wake up and do cool new things and like I
can kind of figure out like where to have the highest impact I think it's so funny I think like
the first job you have after uni or college I think really determines like some of your early
skill set and the first job I have I had after college was management consulting and it's funny
because in crypto on crypto Twitter people always shit on like corporate jobs
and like people who've done real jobs.
But honestly, I think management consulting
is like the best possible job to have when you're young
and when you're willing to like work hard and learn a lot.
Because I think what management consulting really teaches you
is to step into any organization
and immediately identify like the three biggest
issues and then create like a very specific action plan to fix those issues. And that's a very
simplistic way to think about the like consultant analytical toolkit. But I think every day I get
to wake up, think about, okay, like what are the three biggest issues facing botanics today?
And how can I build a team that actually addresses that? And how can I, what are the three biggest issues facing botanics today? And how can I build a team that actually addresses that?
And how can I, what are the key questions that I need to ask?
And who are the key people I need to speak to to get smarter?
And I think I'm very privileged to be at a team where almost everyone I think is much smarter than me.
And so I'm constantly learning with every single person around me.
And I think we all get to just really work cohesively as a team to solve all of these
issues. So yeah, I think it's a very cool job.
Obviously being a founder, I have the fun role of also kind of being a bit more
external facing and representing Botanics to a broader audience.
And that's been interesting for me because I've never really done
that before in any of my previous jobs. I've always just been more of an analytical persona.
And so being a bit more public facing has also been like an interesting learning curve for me.
But actually, I realized I love talking to people. I love meeting new people. And I think the number one thing that I've learned throughout this entire process is
just to be as authentic as humanly possible when meeting people, right?
And I think that's served Botanics and that's served our purpose as well, which is just
being very open-minded, speaking to as many builders and as many users
as humanly possible and genuinely listening to them. I think that's been the most transformative
part of Botanics and of my, I guess, founder or leader journey is just listening as much as
possible and listening to your builders, your users, your partners, and just iterating quickly and being as authentic as humanly possible
in each interaction that you have.
Yeah, totally.
I feel like the CEOs often kind of end up being these connective peas
that keeps the whole system moving.
So whenever it breaks down, it could be a huge issue.
Yeah, and another question, like, following the lines of, you know,
the previous regarding Bitcoin L2s is what's something people often
kind of underestimate about being a COO, you know,
especially at an early stage Web3 project?
It's a great question.
Underestimate about, I would say,
it's one of the loneliest jobs,
which is really, really interesting.
I'm very lucky to obviously have a co-founder
that can speak the same language as me
and that we're able to communicate with
on a fairly regular basis. But I think it is, yeah, I think that the biggest thing that people
underestimate is just how much it can consume you and become your baby. I do think botanics is the
closest thing that I've experienced to having a baby. And so
just being, it's really, really impossible to switch off. But I do think it is the most rewarding
thing ever. So I think as much as everyone tells you, like when you start something,
it takes over your life. I think it's still hard to under or overestimate like how true that statement is right
so i think i live and breathe botanics for better or for worse and i think it's one of those things
that um people prepare you for but i think once you're in it you really it it really takes over
and um it's really important for you to have like the right support system, to have the right people around you as you navigate this.
And I think I'm really, really grateful to have friends and family who are so supportive, you know, as I've kind of been going through the founder journey and have really supported me along every single step.
Right, right, that's cool. Is it like the kind of, quote unquote, invisible word that is massive, but then it's rarely talked about, you know, something like that, maybe?
Right. Right. That's cool.
What's the invisible word?
The invisible work, like, you know, you do like so many, you know, things ranging different kind of topics that it becomes kind of the backbone but at the
same time it's not that visible is it does it feel like that i guess so i i suppose so i i don't think
of it as invisible work but i do think um it is all encompassing in a way that no other job can truly ever be. And so, but yeah, I would say it's fairly visible.
I think one really rewarding part about startups
is what you put into it is roughly what you get out of it.
So I would say the ROI is fairly linear
in terms of the time and energy that you spend.
And that is also, that I find very rewarding
as a dopamine fiend, of course.
So in that sense, I do think, I do think the ROI is fairly linear.
Okay, then that was a misconception from my side. Thanks for the clarification, Alicia.
And yeah, just one last question. Since, you know, and I have another set of questions, but maybe we could do
a second episode, Alicia. Um, cause you know, this is so interesting. And, um, so in web three,
right, there's very rarely a roadmap with perfect information and timing, you know, and so on. So
when you approach decision- making, especially in moments of
uncertainty, right? How do you do that?
I would say that the number one thing that I know I've already said to, I already spoke to this is
talking to users. Like that's the number one thing that matters. So I would say at Botanics,
every single decision we make is governed by data. This also comes just because I would
say most of our team comes from a more analytical or engineering or technical background. So
we believe very heavily in data driven decision making, and that data has to come with actionable impact to users.
So if you're out there and if you wanna build in Bitcoin
or you wanna build anything, talk to a hundred users,
it's gonna change everything
and do it in as open-ended a way as humanly possible.
And I think the more you talk to users,
the more you'll have,
you will widen the gap of your product market. I'm sorry, you will narrow the gap of your product market.
I'm sorry, you will narrow the gap of your product market fit
and allow it to arise much faster.
So that's what I would say is just talking to users.
That's the number one thing that matters.
That sounds to me like the Churchill's underground talk, right?
But yeah, it's cool and nice to hear.
Oh, since we have still a minute,
what kind of daily habits or routines help you stay organized and sharp?
Oh, that's a great question.
Honestly, I work out every single day,
and I think that's what keeps me centered.
So I literally go to the gym seven days a week.
That might be a bit too much.
But I think that that is massive.
I mean, there's obviously other things you can do.
You can meditate, you can pray, you can do all of these other things for mental focus but for me um working out is is a good double hack because it allows you
to you know stay fit work on your physical as well as mental health at the same time and honestly i
do it more for my mental health and so it just helps to keep me sharp um and it just starts your
day off really really well and keeps your skin glowing right Right, yeah, that's true. It's a great way to just fix many parts of life at once.
And if you're ever stuck, just move your body.
It truly fixes 99% of all of your problems.
That's true.
I feel my skin has gotten a lot better because I started,
I took it more seriously January this year.
And, you know, we're December right now.
And I feel like a skin, you know, and everything.
I don't know, man.
I just feel like I'm doing better.
And, yeah, on a physical and both mental level.
So, yeah, can relate.
Definitely can relate.
And, yeah, thank you so much for sharing that with us, Alicia.
And, well, it's been a fantastic conversation, you know,
but, yeah, and thank you so much for sharing your story,
your perspective, and, you know, that look, sneak peek inside botanics.
I booked you for 50 minutes in, well, unfortunately, time's up.
I have so many questions.
I always prepare so many questions, you know, so yeah, my bad on that side.
But maybe, what do you think about the second episode sometime in the future, maybe January,
February, you know, when you have the time?
Yeah, happy to.
Happy to.
Yeah, unfortunately, I do have to jump off right now, but yeah, happy to take up the
conversation.
Great. Thank you so much.
Yeah, I know Sarah was like, yeah, I want to speak about being a woman in crypto.
And I was like, I have a lot of thoughts on that, but it needs to be very well structured because I do think it's a conversation that merits a lot more nuance and structure.
So yeah, happy to do a more deeper dive into that because it is something that I obviously contend with every single day.
Yeah, no, definitely. I think we would love to hear more about that, especially coming from, you know, a real OG like you.
And yeah, well, I mean, I don't want to take up too much of your time.
Before we wrap up, just one final thing I would like to give you the final word in this session.
You know, is there anything you would like to share with the builders the creators anyone curious about botanics about you um before we wrap up
yeah i mean i would say just follow botanics on on socials to keep up with us if you're a builder
go talk to your users and if you hold any amount of bitcoin start learning about how you could do
a little bit more with it.
Perfect way to close.
Thank you so much.
And thank you again for joining us today, Alicia.
Okay, thank you.
Have a great day.
You too.
And thanks, everyone,
listening to this episode of the Anchor Partners Spotlight series.
And we will see you in the next episode with Alicia again.
Thank you so much, everyone.
Take care.
