Aaron, my brother, thank you for being here. It's an absolute pleasure to have you. I know you've been in space all day, so this must be a long day for you, my brother. How have you been now? - Thank you so much for having me.
I love spaces. So like honestly, it's no big deal for me because I would be in spaces anyways. So of course, I'm gonna come out and support the man himself, Socrates, baby.
Yeah, for sure my man. I appreciate you coming out and you're are you on the west coast with the in the house as well So it's like what APM for you guys now. I actually escaped So I got out of there Right before the the youth reveals so I'm in a central right now. I'm actually in Oklahoma
No way what? Dude I'm from Tulsa dude. Oh really? That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I went to college in Norman at OU. Oh you went to OU bro? No, I want to OSU.
That's awesome. Small world man, small world. They really is bro. Did you go to high school or anything in Oklahoma or no? No, no. I grew up in Dallas, Texas and then I came to earth for school.
Yeah, we got a bunch of dudes like a lot of my friend group in OSU are actually from like the Dallas area right because there's not a lot of options It's like the UT system or like TCU or like Dallas you or whatever and then it's like oh you so like yeah, I totally get it bro Yeah, dude everybody went to like Texas schools At least when when I was in high school like it was a
Texas State, A&M, UT, UNC, so University of North Texas was a very popular one because that's where I grew up. A lot of people went there. And then after I went to OU, a lot of people started coming, man, because we got good at sports. The excitement came. But dude, I love
I used to think Oklahoma was the worst. I still kind of do. It's not a great state. But Norman is a nice college town. And I do one time, so in college I worked for Red Bull, the energy drink company. And we did all kinds of stuff. And in one year,
For homecoming at OSU I went up there and I worked homecoming I had heard I had heard the legends of of like this crazy homecoming that they do at OSU Dude I was not prepared. It's actually insane like the level of like celebrating
I didn't think it was that crazy but it was. OSU is a great interesting place to have been there a few times. I love it man.
Coming in is a little bit crazy. I think the one thing it's weird about schools in Oklahoma or the dry campuses was oh you a dry campus as well So you got to like drink it stuff off off campus. Yeah, except for game days whenever whenever there was a football game it was a wet campus actually though Yeah, I think I was you it was still dry, but people on
just stop caring. And then it was every man for himself at that point and you just kind of try to make it work. But not a man in small world for sure. I love to hear some more people from or at least have some time in Oklahoma. So I kind of underappreciated state in my opinion, but you know it is what it is. But once again, thank you for being here, my man. This is making time
I should have hosted by me, HV Socrates on the Syndicate Network where we learn more about the creators on Solana, the Space Host, the project owners, the, you know, anyone along those lines of anyone who's creating something, and this is a Twitter space. And I actually have pinned today's link, the today's space, to the top on the Jumbo Tron. If we could go up there and really quickly
up a quick comment like and retweet on the space that would be absolutely fantastic so we can get some more people in here to learn more about Aaron. But Aaron, we've already kind of started talking about stuff, talking about life and what it is and I appreciate you know the vibe you're bringing in here but if you don't mind just hop and straight into it. My first question for you is what got you in the web 3?
Yeah, honestly, Web 3 for me started is like a guilty pleasure It was like my my dirty little secret from my Web 2 startup life And so I just like started moonlighting as a T-Gen And then that just snowballed into into a lot more, but no, it was just
It was just a hobby. It was something fun. And like to be completely honest, I was like, damn, I could make some money doing this. So that's what really drew me in. But I've been in like crypto. I guess I haven't really been in crypto, but I've held crypto for years of different kinds. I've just never really gone off exchange.
and dove into Web 3 until NFTs.
My uncle at the time when he mentioned that but there we are, you know now I'm training JPEG and I'm making it work But you know it is it is interesting. You know you kind of just got into it. It's a little bit of a guilty price good to pleasure You doing it for a little bit of fun. I'm curious. What were your plans originally like what were you originally doing before you got in here like what was your web to#
Yeah, I had a startup so after I graduated college, I just started a company because I just did I wasn't super pumped about the idea of like working some office job and I was like spoiled to an extent in college because I got to work for Red
So like I was just like a very fun and like active role And so yeah, I just I just like kind of dove right into it and I knew nothing I knew absolutely nothing But I just like started meeting really cool people Really nice people people that were down to like help teach me and help me learn
about the intricacies of that world. So yeah, I started my startup and it didn't really pick up until like a year after I started it because I was getting my feet under myself and like meeting people. But it was an alcohol compliance company. All right.
Before you get to board, it was actually pretty cool, man. For someone like you, for example, we had a mobile app. The mobile app you would scan in and verify your ID. Your driver's license, we would verify that, and basically just tokenize that and keep proof.
Not like blockchain tokenized, but just like Web2 tokenized. And we just like keep proof that you are 21. And then we would let you add your credit card or your debit card or whatever other payment method you wanted to your account so that when you went in order to beer at the bar or at a sports game or
concert, you actually just wouldn't have to have your wallet at all, you just use your phone, you scan the QR code that we would give you, and it would work with the point of sales system to verify your age and complete the payment all with one scan. And so we built that.
It was built. We had the app. For businesses, we had a point of sale integration with Oracle. Oracle is a very big company, but they have one of the industry leading like point of sale software. So we were an Oracle partner, and then we also had an Android
that would kind of function as the point of sale if they didn't have Oracle. And we had it all done. But the issue really came when we were starting to try to really make those first sales. And I was targeting like the University of Oklahoma where I went to school because they just
added beer to the stadium and I was one of the only people from the entrepreneurship department that was actually starting to start up so they were just kind of down to scratch my back a little so they were into it and then my business partner, my co-founder was actually the regional
manager for a third party service provider, which is basically the people that staff like stadiums and run the catering and food and beverage for stadiums. So he knew the ins and outs of the industry and that was our company. We basically tried to sell it to a few stadiums,
to get a few deals done, but we ran into issues where, I mean, basically when we made one sale, we had to make like three sales. So we had to get the service provider for the stadium on board. We had to get the, because we were targeting stadiums first, we had to get the organization
of the stadium on board. We had to get the state regulatory body on board and we had to get the point of sale system on board. And so it was just like this web of like chickens and eggs and then like COVID hit and then like the whole industry of like going out and drinking and meeting people just kind of died.
And so like we we kept going at it for a while, but that's when I got into web 3 because I was like pretty burnt out with the startup and I was like looking for some sort of release and I found that in DJNN web 3 shit and Eventually now that has turned into my full-time career. So I guess I guess it worked out
Absolutely. And you know you said it might be a little bit boring, you know alcohol compliance maybe as a larger industry is a little bit boring but I definitely think it's an interesting concept. And I think it's something that a lot of my homies might have been interested in when I was back in school, you know, just having your phone and being able to buy a couple beers or go to
the liquor store and pick up a handle or something might have been something quite of their alleys. So you definitely could have capitalized on that market for sure my brother. Dude, that's like how we came up with the idea basically is like me and one of my best friends at the time we studied abroad in Europe for
summer. We went to this bar in the Czech Republic in Prague and this bar had these tables where the beer tap came out from the center of the table. You didn't have to go to the bar to get a refill. You didn't have to go close your tab. It was
all on a screen. You just sat there and drank. And we were like, "Damn, this was great." He just kind of kept drinking. And then we got back to school and the whole curriculum of the entrepreneurship department, which was one of my majors, was basically like start a company.
company. And so then me and my friend were like, well, this could be cool. So like the very first iteration of it was actually an automated like self-serve beer machine that we then pivoted to like it just being a tech-based thing. And then when we graduated, I was just like, fuck
it like why not like we'll give it a shot see how it goes and and it didn't work out the way we wanted it to but but it was it was fun dude it literally came from us just being a bunch of college bozos and like basically being like we want to watch the football game and not stand in line for 15 minutes getting a beer
Yeah, I mean absolutely and I think one thing that's interesting about becoming an entrepreneur or launching any kind of startup or business is you really suffer with that you know that imposter syndrome at the beginning right you're saying you're just some some business dude right like just some kid in business school You know you don't really know what's going on but you take that leap and then you just
Woo, tough one man. I mean from a business perspective it was very interesting working on something that was so highly regulated. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody because it's not like an easy path. But it definitely had a lot of challenges and made
think outside the box for a lot of things. It reminds me of Uber and there come up. Uber basically broke a bunch of laws and was hoping that they would have enough money to pay the lawsuits at the end of the day. Sometimes it's like to move fast, you got
to break some things. But like at the end of the day, if you make it to the destination and you didn't break anything too bad, then it's probably going to work out. And then I think from just like an entrepreneurship perspective, like the interesting thing was just like how, and I think it's very similar to Web 3 is like how color
collaborative and open like people in this this area are Because like there's this big misconception in that like oh, I have I have the next billion dollar startup idea and like it's so freaking good And I'm not gonna tell anybody because they're gonna steal it and they're gonna make all the money
And it's like that is number one just like so not true because like if anything if they actually are interested in what you're doing They'll just like want to work on it with you But in most cases nobody gives a fuck about your idea Like like actually just nobody cares enough to even put in any effort to try to steal it
And also if they did and they were able to like beat you to it then bro you didn't deserve it anyways And so I think like just learning the social dynamics of like what it actually kind of takes to like be a professional in a collaborative industry Was like a really interesting thing to learn and it was good
kind of like trial by fire. And you mentioned Imposter Syndrome earlier. I mean, dude, that was super real, especially like right when I started. And there's a, there's a, there's a, I think it's called like the Dunning Kruger curve or something or the, the effect or whatever. It's like this bell curve.
Basically, it's like you know nothing and you feel like an idiot and like you learn a little bit and you feel like a fucking genius and then like you learn a lot and then you feel like an idiot again and I was definitely like I spent a lot of time on the loves Because I was also an Oklahoma dude like there's not a big startup community in Oklahoma
So it's like when I was doing this the entire startup community of Oklahoma City was me and my three best friends like that was it And so it's just like that kind of stuff makes it really difficult to kind of like build things in a vacuum Whereas to like in web 3 dude you can be in you know
the desert. But as long as you have an internet connection, like you got a thousand people you can just start talking to about whatever you're doing. And there's something really cool about that. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's kind of, you might feel like he's boosting when it comes to the startup community. I mean, things are definitely got a little bit better.
I think the thing is, especially you know, you went to OU and if you know anything about OU when it's career fairs, the only industry you're getting recruited into is oil. I mean, that's just the name of the game. You're going into oil, you're going into natural gas, you're
going into aviation, you're working at Boeing, that's about it. A lot of people who go to those kind of schools, it doesn't feel like you have the capability of launching, as you mentioned, like a tech company. You suffer without imposter change, you don't know if it's possible because no one else is doing it. I think that's one thing that's really unique about web
3. You're integrated into this global community of entrepreneurs and people who are passionate about something and want to push it further and see where that takes you and that in and of itself inspires you to achieve something or create something and see where that might take you. But in Web 3, there's
Damn good question bro. Um gosh, I mean I went through the ringer growing up man. There was at one point when I was really young. I was like the typical I want to be an astronaut kid because I was and still am very fascinated with space.
And then I developed a crippling fear of heights. So there's no chance I'm ever going up there. But I mean, honestly, I mean, I always saw myself just like, and this is kind of boring, but just like working in business. Just like doing something, right? And like, like actually, like, like making a difference in
in whatever business it was. And I think that was kind of my bar was just like, I don't like have to be like the boss, but I want agency over like what I do. And I think like I really figured that out in high school, because in high school I had a job at a gym. It's called lifetime fitness.
Pretty nice gym, if any of you guys know Lifetime. But I worked in the Aquatics department. I started as a lifeguard and then by the end of my time at Lifetime, I was the department head of Aquatics. And so I basically got to run that bitch. That was my whole, that was my domain.
I was responsible for the profit we made and all the good stuff. I was part of the meetings with the GM and the other departments. To me, especially being that young, that was just a really cool professional experience. On the flip side, when I worked for Red Bull in college, while it was
It was like a really cool job. I got to do a lot of cool things with it. I didn't have nearly as much agency over my work in that I would have a cool idea for something and I would just get shut down. I would get no, no, no, all the time. It basically felt like I was working in a cage.
And so when it came to graduating college, I really thought to myself, I was like, damn, if I could have the best job in the world for a college kid with one of the coolest companies in the world being Red Bull and hate it, but then have one of the most
like vanilla jobs at a fucking gym and love it. It's like what's the difference in those two situations and to me it was like agency. And so that's like the big reason why I just started my own startup after school was I just wanted agency over whatever I was doing and that was my way of just kind of like
grabbing it and forcing it on myself and that's kind of why I'm super into startups is because like dude you join a startup it's like you're wearing one hat a lot of the time but like you're you're wearing all kinds of hats at all different times and like you actually get to make an impact which is which is why I'm pumped to fucking work at Dust Labs baby I'm pumping the bags
Absolutely, yeah, thank you for pumping my bags. I mean you're definitely doing the incredible service here. Definitely very selfless of you. I appreciate you doing that for sure, for sure my brother. But you know, you mentioned being the astronaut kid, dude, I can totally 100% relate to that. You know, I was the astronaut kid. I wanted to be on the space station.
I thought you'd catch me on Mars. I just thought that was the reality of the situation. I live on a colony. Those giant glass domes as you might imagine with the trees on the inside. That was my plan. That was the plan from day one. Are we getting there? Elon might take us there one day. Now I'm working at Web 3 and that's
that matters, I'm out here, building. That's just what it is. I totally resonate with your message, which is having and valuing the concept of freedom and agency as you say, and that's a reoccurring value for you. I agree. Whenever it comes to working in a startup or working on your own kind of projects,
You can kind of do what you want to do whenever you want to do it and pivot accordingly, right? You're not pigeonholed into one thing. You don't have to wait for someone else to approve something. You know, you have the creative liberty to pursue whatever is interesting for you and then go down that route and see where that rabbit hole takes you. You know, you might come up with
something greater or something cooler or something a little bit more interesting for you. So I'm curious, you know, I think inherently what kind of comes with the idea of freedom in agency is the concept of curiosity. So one thing I'm interested in learning is what is something you've been really curious about recently and how have you gone about, you know, learning more about it?
Yeah, I mean I this I feel like this this is like kind of an easy easy answer just because everybody's saying it these days, but like chat GPT and just like the the AI like revolution that's happening is super interesting to me and I think like
I think there's a lot of ways that people don't necessarily expect that this type of stuff is actually just going to change every industry imaginable. And I think honestly, I would compare it to the '90s when the internet was taken off and shit.
This is a huge opportunity for anyone. There are some absolute bozos that made some huge companies in the .com boom. All you really have to do is be creative. I think there's going to be a lot of room for
Creativity and a lot of opportunity for some like game-changing Companies to come out of this this next year or two of like AI being you know generally accessible to to businesses and people so As far as I've been like exploring that curiosity
I love messing around with chat gpt. I've been looking at like a few like not really like courses but like guides and stuff on like how to actually build things with the API. I'm completely non technical so I can't code. I can do a little sequel.
You know, from back in the day in my MIS class in college, but nothing really, really fancy. But also, it's like kind of what I learned with my startup too. It's like, you don't necessarily have to be able to build it. You just like have to be able to like find someone that wants to work on it as much as you to help you build it.
It's like you can kind of kind of cheat your way to that, but I would love to just get a better understanding of how it actually functions. So I love reading articles about it, how they train the different AIs. I'm always down to test out the new shit that comes out. And I do think,
We're going to see some wild stuff come out of this and some people are going to be very successful over the next decade. Literally just using the tools that other people build. An example of that too is a company I came across when I was running my startup called Copy AI.
Their website is literally copy.ai and they use GPT API. So they use like an earlier version of chat GPT. They use their API to basically target the API for like startups and like marketing agencies.
and social posts and website copy and all this stuff. They literally didn't build too much proprietary tech. They were able to gain a ton of traction, a ton of users pretty early on and raised a multi-million dollar
pre-seed around like I think like months like four or five months after they launched was some pretty big name investors. And so it just like goes to show you like like there's a lot of opportunity out here and there was even years ago more so now to just like actually create things
of value leveraging this tech that people will literally pay a lot of money for. And that's a good thing, right? Because if you're providing something of value that people are actually going to be down to pay money for, then you're doing them a service and they're happy to pay it because you're actually improving their lives.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, you're changing value. You're doing something that's better for them and then that's something they'll end up paying for. But I think it's interesting. You know, you bring up copy AI and how you actually kind of discovered that when you were working on your startup, right? It was something that kind of came out around the same time.
So something I'm a little bit curious on is, you mentioned chat GPD and you love exploring that. If you had chat GPD back when you were working on your alcohol compliance company, how do you think you would have used it? How do you think you would have leveraged AI for your company?
Damn, that's a really good question. I mean, I definitely would have used it for marketing copy and stuff for the website, which is why I use Copy AI. I think where it would have made sense there is in app experiences and that we had thought, I mean, very long
term right when you think of a platform that has basically Mo Wide with any venue that sells out all. That very can quickly become something with a map and with profiles for businesses and reviews and all this other kind of stuff. I probably would have tried to
to explore a way to make it into your nightlife concierge. Like, hey, I want to go do something tonight. What is available? What are the events happening? Where should I go? And becoming a platform for that? Could have been an interesting route.
thinking of iterations of basically like the Yelp model but like without all compliance. So yeah, I think that's probably where I would have gone initially. But dude, I mean that's the crazy thing is like that was honestly off the top of the dome, right? And so like imagine if I just spent like fucking month
just grinding on it, experimenting and seeing what's possible, like who knows what you can come up with. And so I feel like you don't even really have to have an idea around what you want to use AI for. Just like start playing with it, see what sticks, and like lean into what you're enjoying, and like that'll probably become something that'll continue to
to grow in interest for you.
on hand. You can do whatever you want at any time. One thing I've been using it for is coming up with some kind of strategy, whether it be Web 3 or Social Media strategy, and asking them to come up with contingency plans. That in and of itself is a technology that opened my eyes into like wow, I never even
thought that I didn't even think about that. And it's crazy how far that can take you. You know, it's like you have 10 eyes now. You stopped to, now you got five times that amount. It's a little bit ridiculous, honestly. You know, but I think it's interesting for sure. It's definitely a horrible, just like space and going to Mars and whatever. You can kind of get a little bit lost in it, for sure#
But I think what comes with AI and space and whatever web 3 is there's a lot of cool ideas that you can think of, right? And things you might want to do. So I'm curious, have you ever had any cool ideas or concepts or, you know, businesses that you wanted to do, but just haven't had the chance to realize in what were they?
Oh, dude, tons, bro. Tons. I think the first business idea I had that I'm actually a Bozo because someone did go out, multiple people have gone out and made this business and they've been rather successful. I think I was like 16 at the time.
'cause I was like, I remember talking about it to my boss at lifetime 'cause he's kinda like entrepreneurial too. He's since like left and done some pretty cool stuff. But the idea was, is basically the problem I had is that I just like never made time to go get gas in my car.
I hated having to go out of my way to go to the fucking gas station and was like always either when like I'm on my way to work and I'm in a hurry or I'm like leaving work and I'm like fucking tired and so the idea was is that I would basically be a gas truck and the business would would you
would like sign up and you would basically like like have us come fill your tank while you're at work. And like you just pay us like on the website or whatever we charge you will just like fill your tank. And like it was going to be really easy and then you leave work with a full tank and it's a beautiful, beautiful time. A couple of years later,
There's multiple businesses that do this and I definitely like as a 16 year old like I probably could have hustled and like actually made something of this happen But that was like the first example like straight up in my face or it's like damn maybe not all
these ideas are dumb because some people are making money off of them. But yeah, and then I've had all kinds of random business ideas. My first actual sketchy little business is back in the day when I think it was iOS 7. When iOS 7 came out,
I remember it was when the bubble background came out on the iPhones. It was a big update guys. It was a pretty big update. It was like the first update where you could like change the home screen background. There was like a lot of cool shit that was coming out. I remember the beta came out and I was like, "Damn, I want to fucking play
with this beta. I was in a developer, I just wanted to change my background and use some of the new features. I figured out I had to have been 13 or 14 at the time or something, but I figured out how to basically open up an Apple developer account. I bought a license
as an Apple developer, which allowed me at the time to register up to 100 devices to have access to the beta. And so basically you would log into Apple and you would put the idea of the phone in and then it would push an update and you could basically just download the beta. Well dude, I only had one phone
I'm going to do the other 99 slots. I'll tell you what I did. I sold that shit on eBay. I sold each slot of that fucking registration on eBay for like $10 a pop. I made almost $1000 off this little gift, man. And I gave this
to out to anybody on eBay that wanted it until someone maybe Apple, I don't know, found it and I got dinged, I had to take it down. But I was like my first little venture, you know? And then I had a lot of web three business ideas. None of them I ever acted
on really. But like I had I was thinking about NFT liquidity platforms like not AMM's but like lending protocols back in like September of of 21. I was like yo like we should fucking make this thing and like we could we could make so much money and I just like didn't have people around me that
could even like help me try to figure out how to make it. So I never did that. Tried my hand at an NFT project that kind of just like went down in flames back in the day. I got ousted from the team and I was pretty brutal. So yeah, dude, I've been, I always like think of like funny
to try to do and I'm always down to work on fun stuff as well. I love just fun side projects, things that you can do to create cool fun things. A lot of my friends in real life too are like that's who they are and one of them are the best examples when my best
friends his name's Garrett. He has a company that's like super crazy, like pipes in the ground crazy. I don't even fucking know. But he, if you ever played the game "Wordle", it's like the, like you have to like guess the words and it's like the colors and stuff. After that
came out and went viral. He made a version called Factal, which is the exact same concept. Except instead of words, it's like, "Oh, what are the top five grossing movies of all time?" And it's like, you have to say the facts instead of like
spelling out the word. That little just like it was a weekend project for him and his company guys and his company and that little project now pays the rent for their entire office every month. And it's just like dude you don't have to like change the world every time
you make something, it's just like make something that's like fun, make something that's cool and like you never know like it could turn into something big, it could turn into something small, but it's like if you do that enough times, like eventually you're going to have a couple good shots on goal. Yeah, absolutely right. More often than not, you know,
It ties into some of the stuff we said in our earlier conversations. Most of the time, the ideas you have, they're probably not bad ideas. You mentioned a gas truck idea, that kind of been something that's pretty sick. You drive around in some big truck with a bunch of gasoline in it, fill up people's time.
from kind of gasoline distribution service that's a little bit more realistic or more approachable. But it's very obvious that you are an idea guy, right? Like you love coming up with ideas and working on projects and being involved in ways like that. So I'm curious, how do you keep track of everything? Like do you have a notebook or how do you stay organized when it comes to your ideas?
Dude, honestly, I don't really keep track of the idea. I think if there's not enough legs on it for me to stay interested in working on it for a week, then it's probably not worth thinking about or writing down in my mind.
like figure out something or if I like have an idea and like I want to like actually pursue it. Like I would probably just like go hard out it for like a month and then like if I didn't see any like clear future in it, I would probably just move on to the next thing. And I think like that's kind of the difference now that that I didn't have
back when I started my company was like it just took me a very long time to like figure out how to even move things forward an inch and like now especially like working with with everybody at at dust labs it's just like we're we're very fast like fast to just make decisions and I think that
That's the most important thing whenever you're building something or proving out an idea or doing anything. It's just like your time to decision needs to be as fast as possible and as accurate as possible. And if you can optimize those two things, then you're just going to start churning, dude. And so for that reason, like I
I just try not to spend too much time on any one thing unless I can clearly see or feel that it's working. Because it's just like a waste of time. There's so much opportunity out here. So if you just get stuck to your idea because you think this is the one, you're actually just not going to make it.
You stuck to my idea to be like, "No, this is going to be the biggest best thing. I may not even be here." I'm totally okay with the fact that, "Dude, mobile ideas, it's not like that's a crazy idea." That's coming. It's already here in a lot of ways. Apple is even
doing mobile ID in a lot of states now. And so it's not like the idea wasn't sound. It was just like, you know, it didn't work out. And so it's like, I'm not mad that like I'm not the one to make that happen. It's just like, God damn, like let me move faster next time so I can be the one for the next thing. And that's kind of like always the goal.
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes you know, you might have a good idea, but you know, it just wasn't meant to be right that and that's kind of the name of the game. You know, out here sometimes, you know, despite your best efforts and you know, the great strategy you make and everything, all the work you put in the long the way, it's just
maybe it wasn't the right time or maybe you didn't have the right team or maybe you made one wrong move and then that was it. But you just got to learn from those lessons and pick yourself up and keep continuing. Because ultimately, above all else, failure is how we learn as people.
Whether it be your first start-up or your first relationship or whatever it might be, it takes out that one failure to change your entire perspective on what it means to be an entrepreneur or a significant other or a teacher or anything along those lines.
for really. But one thing I'm curious about, it's very apparent that you've gone through quite a bit of failure in your life, whether that be through business or trying to discover what it means to be you as Aaron. So I'm curious, why do you think you never gave up along the way?
I mean, honestly, I feel like giving up is just like, what does that even mean, right? Like, it's giving up, like, getting some normal job. Because I've definitely considered that, right? Like, I got bills to pay.
But I've never thought about not one day like creating something or being a part of creating something. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's just like one of those things where once you actually start trying to do it, you realize that it's actually really hard.
And the idea that you're just going to hit it out of the park on your first go is pretty insane. Most people don't. Most actually successful startup founders have failed a couple times before they actually hit it. And that's okay. That's the game that you're playing.
And so I've really just like tried to embrace that like to me like I don't see it as like giving up or even winning right like you have like a you know multi-million dollar exit like that's cool But what does that mean you're done? Like no most people like after they do that they try to rinse your repeat. They're like damn that was so
sick. We're going to run it back. I think it's just one of those things. It's something that you just kind of chase for your entire life while you have the energy. You hope that along the way you find success and build relationships with great people. That's my whole
I'm not going to be doing it.
like dude this is literally the best job ever right now so I have no regrets right now maybe I'll feel differently in like 10 years or something but you know by that time I'll probably be on to something else like working on something that's completely different and hopefully having a great time doing that too
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you said it well. Giving up is born to be Frank. It's just not fun. You know, you know, continuing perseverance, being okay with having your back against the wall is you learn from that. You know, you're
perspective changes on life you get new skillsets you're able to do something new and pursue something you never ever would have thought possible you know you push yourself to new heights you know if I look back on the person was two years ago I would I would not recognize myself like it like
I would not understand who I am or what I'm doing. It's just so you gotta keep trying. You gotta keep going. You gotta keep learning more about you and what things could possibly even look like. You know what you can do. But I'm afraid about that.
is the right thing with what you're saying, but you know, it's very obvious that you're a creator, right? And you've been creating things, being a part of these larger projects, seeing something come into reality. So I'm curious, when was the last time you really felt alive doing what you're doing?
Ooh, I guess the most recent time.
Um, I mean, the last time I felt dead inside was, was when we announced the bridge. Um, that fun storm was, was not a great thing to deal with. Um, but I think, uh, that last time I felt alive working on this, I mean, dude, like,
Honestly, I have pretty exciting calls all the time. And it gets me really excited talking to like other project teams and companies that are also just excited about doing something. And I think the way that we're going about
trying to build out this ecosystem of communities is pretty interesting and I think it's pretty compelling to a lot of the people that we talk to in a way that the reception we get and the reactions that we get and the feedback and the positive feedback
back that we get, it's just like something that we feed off of. And so like it's just so easy for me to get really pumped up like after like a bunch of these calls that we have because I mean, dude, we just get to work on really fun things. Like today, I spent a lot of time working on the DNY
see stuff that we're doing. And it's like, dude, that's just so fun, right? It's just like, damn, I'm like imagining that week right now and like seeing all these holders and like the communities just having a great time together. And like that gets me jacked up and excited.
and truly makes me feel like we're doing something that matters. And so yeah, dude, I feel alive. I feel like every day, honestly. And I feel like that's maybe a cheesy answer, but it's so true just because we're blessed to be in a position where we actually get to do really cool shit.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, whenever you're working something you're passionate about, it really does feel like that, right? I've been working up three for a little over a year now. And you know, it really doesn't feel like I'm working, even though I'm putting in like 12 hour days sometimes. I'm working 16 hours a day and
despite the fight, despite the shittiest parts, and despite our highs, through it all we're still here because we love what we're doing. And it's just an absolute privilege to be able to make this happen and pursue this. But we are coming pretty close to time.
So I'll probably be asking you know to read three more questions before we wrap it up But one thing I am interested in from you is you know after everything you've been through in web 3 and you know the kind of opportunities you're afforded now What do you think is your most treasured memory since your time in web 3?
Honestly, I think it would be the night the dead gods came out Yeah, that was that was pretty crazy man We it was it was like an all-time high at that time. I think it was like maybe a hundred and fifty hundred nade
So like everybody was pumped up. It was like the mythic run up. It was like the two or three months of like the the first part of the year where we ran out from like four sold like 150 and like everyone just like it was that feeling of just like damn like
This was tough, but we fucking made it. We were out here and I was in the voice chat in Discord with probably 150 or 200 other holders. We were all just sitting there talking and vibing about dead gods.
like just excited because we had we had seen the teasers we hadn't seen any of the actual like dead gods yet though. And I was a I was a mod at this time so I was like in the telegram chat with the boys so I like I knew that like it was gonna get delayed right like I was fully aware that the delay was going
And I was on crowd control duty. I like to call it quelling the rebellion. You got to give everybody a little bit of love. You got to give them some stuff to talk about so that they don't care that it's getting delayed. And it was delayed a couple hours, but it was just a little bit more than that.
So much fun and then I remember when the first dead god hit it was I believe it was chills it was chilly. He's a lead dev for us It was his dead god that hit first and just everybody freaked out bro like we it was it was a beautiful dead
It was a great one to do first because it looked really good. At the time too, Art on Solano was not on this level at all. It was just wild to see it all start happening. Every couple minutes the team started coming out. It was just the most
fun experience and we were all just sharing and in the joy and just the feeling of awe that this was happening. And then they hit us up and they were like, "Alright, it's live, it's good to go." And I transcended my first one and it was just fucking beautiful.
But no, I spent probably like six or eight hours honestly on that voice chat that night just hanging out with everybody in the community and we were all just vibing for the dead gods and things have gotten better all sense, you know.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's really events like that, you know, when you're with the homies, you know, shooting, waiting for some big event, and then you go through that together that make all the difference. You know, they're extremely, extremely memorable. They're basically core memories. You know, you look back on those memories, those times fondly, and you know, they often become a source of inspiration.
You know they drive you creep and event and you know see the community event and interact with people and build new memories and see where that might take you So absolutely and I love that you had such an awesome experience and something like that but I Absolutely absolutely and I think it's interesting. You know you were modded at times. So it's definitely been a long time
long way, since then for sure. It's definitely interesting to see your journey come to where it is today. But one thing I am coming to the close of the show, I do have two questions left for you then we'll wrap it up. We are coming a little bit over, I do apologize. But one thing I am interested in learning about you, Aaron, is
You know, sometimes we don't always get to talk about, you know, the best parts of ourself, whether they, not all the time, are they something you talk about in spaces or something that's a little bit more under the radar. So one thing I'm interested in learning is, what do you think is the most underrated part of yourself as, you know, Aaron D. God's?
Oh wow, I ask him to kill myself here. I feel like people sleep on my rocket league skills, man. Every time I talk about rocket league, people just come at me like they
I know my rank or something dude and like I grew up like gaming. I'm a big gamer. I don't play as much as I have in the past anymore because the boy Kevin's got me grinding.
people just they talk all this shit on video games, do you on Twitter as if I didn't come up in the modern warfare 2 era, you know? So honestly like I'm pumped because I think there's at least one you
who's working on a pretty dope video gaming club/event. I just can't wait to sauce on these fools, man, because I'm underrated, bro. I am an MLG pro, and I'm ready to dominate the field.
Dude, I'm looking forward to that brother. You know, oh, we might rug before I rug this face. So let me make sure my blue stocks is not asking us here. Um, not you but I feel that bro. Don't sleep on my boy right here bro. He gonna clap you and you know rock and league monorfay to bring it on. It just is what it is.
deal with must be dealt so way to go you know when it comes to monitor to you I can't say I'm not cracked my mom I was definitely the guy with one man army and a CR with new tubes so yeah you were getting on up across the map with my load on unfortunately but that's just you know that's the name of the game it's the name of the game out here
But Aaron, it's been an awesome time chatting with you, learning more about you. It is a small problem, glad to hear about someone who has at least spent some in Oklahoma, you know, had to more Oklahoma guys in Web 3 for sure. But Aaron, my last question for you, before we go ahead and start wrapping this up, would be, do you believe in destiny?
Wow, got a little deep there, huh?
I mean, if anything, I think you get to create your own destiny, right? And the whole idea that you create your own luck, I think I definitely subscribe to because it's like, dude, if you're in the trenches, then it's like that you're
there's way more likelihood that you're going to find success than if you didn't enter the trenches at all. And so I do think like in some ways like you are you know the ruler of your own destiny, but I do think like sometimes bro like the stars
a line and like, you know, when life gives you lemons, right, you'll take them. So I believe in it, but I think with like hard work and like actual, you know, determination that you can create a lot of what a lot of people refer to as like destiny.
Absolutely. I totally agree. You gotta be in the trenches. You gotta be showing up every day and over time you'll make your own luck. You know, some days those stars will align and when life gives you lemons, you gotta make lemonade. So I totally 100% agree with what you're saying. But Aaron, it has been an absolute blast to have you on today's show. This is making time. I still hosted
by me, HV Socrates on the Syndicate Network where we learn more about the creators on Delana and why they're still here. But this has been an absolute, you know, I've enjoyed our conversation today. This is a daily show. So if you did enjoy this show, you know, learning more about here and you guys, I will be hosting another show at the same time. Learning more about how to
heroes, co-founder, snooze. So if you're interested in learning more about him, please go to the top of the show and drop a quick reminder. And please, if you can, a comment like and read on that tweet as well. So we can hopefully get the more people in here to learn more about the creators of Solana. Today's show was about Aaron. Aaron, do you have any kind of last closest thoughts before I go ahead and#
Thank you so much for having me, man. I enjoyed talking to you. It's been dope getting to know you on spaces over the last several weeks and months. I appreciate you for just putting on for the youth's community, man. You're a great example of a great community member. I appreciate all you do for the
community and pump to continue watching you grow bro. Absolutely. Thank you so much man. It really does me. But you know once again guys thank you for coming out here to not only support me but also support Aaron D. God's you know we made time out of our day you know making time that's for the show name comes from to learn more about the
creators of Salana and we need to do this more often. You know, because ultimately these people that rep our projects, that rep our NFTs, that rep the communities we, you know, we have to be a part of their people too. So let's give them some time of our day and learn more about them. But once again, thank you guys for coming and I hope you have a fantastic, most of your day. Bye.