Damn! It’s been a year since the Initial $ALEX Offering

At the time, I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to raise money. It worked exactly as intended: I’m now the cofounder & CEO of the SF-based NFT startup @tryShowtime.

A thread on the crazy $ALEX story https://twitter.com/alexmasmej/status/1247529376234668032

Pressure makes diamonds.

I say this casually now because it’s over, but this tiny crowdfunding event was my last choice: I had no money.

I lost money in DeFi, and my first ever source of income was gone (due of COVID)

Those two events happened within 1 week, and I was about to speak at an Ethereum conference on personal tokens (I had already created $ALEX, without much success).

It was now or never to innovate + make money

Initially, I thought it’d take 2 weeks to raise $20k. It took 5 days.

$ALEX freed me financially: not the $20,000 itself, but other opportunities deriving from my rising reputation, as well as a few whales buying OTC.

I also kept my $20k in ETH, which was smart because ETH is one of the best assets to hold ever.

My reputation eventually rose up, but only very slowly. Many were skeptical at first.

Ethereum podcasts chose to avoid mentioning it. One directly called me out as an ICO scam. Forbes said it “raises red flags”

They forgot that I had put myself naked, front-and-center, and that running away with the money would have ended my career.

My legitimacy was the collateral, and I couldn’t afford liquidation.

It was not always pleasant to be solely known for $ALEX. This newfound micro-fame felt cheap at times.

My goal was always to be a founder, not a one-hit-wonder influencer.

Glad we’re now working on big things at @tryShowtime

After this successful crowdfunding event, I doubled down. I launched “Control My Life” w/ @austingriffith

It was a token poll where you picked a new habit for me. 1 $ALEX = 1 vote. It was clickbait

Fun fact: it partly inspired @SnapshotLabs! $ALEX was 1 of the 1st Snapshot page

Out of the many experiments I made, Control My Life was my second big win. That summer 2020, it solidified the $ALEX narrative further.

I got on Russian TV, Barstool Sports, and even @APompliano!

It sparked people’s minds: “investing in people early, like a stock”.

Every new experience enabled by $ALEX led to a new, bigger opportunity, starting a never-ending virtuous circle.

The remaining of 2020 was absolutely insane.

It took time to settle on a project that felt right. In July-December 2020 I:

met interesting potential cofounders
moved to London
flew to @launch_house
lived in @genzmafia SF house
joined @beondeck
and the ultimate win: meeting my now-cofounder @Alex_Kilkka!

I took all those opportunities seriously, making for a chaotic life, hoping that the dots would somehow connect in the future.

Yes, that’s a Steve Jobs quote, who @blogofjake and I both are deeply inspired by. We chatted on his podcast during that period.

Today, $ALEX is around $1M market cap, which I pride myself on being reasonable for what is now only a meme that means “I support Alex”.

The current $ALEX token trading on Uniswap and other AMMs does not represent any form of investment. Be careful and DYOR.

The ISA was only 30 people and was operated outside of the USA. As of today, those 30 people are making a positive ROI :)

Turns out that sharing your upside against sharing your risks is a great strategy for all parties involved.

Looking back, $ALEX was a lucky, serendipitous career boost. As a French person with big dreams, it was my own way of forcefully breaking into startups.

It was totally worth diving head first into the unknown.

I feel lucky & grateful. This definitely should to happen to more people who want to break out from the environment society set them up with.

As crypto goes mainstream, more people should bet on themselves.

At Showtime, we have some plans on how to do what I did, at scale.

FIN

For more reading on personal tokens, I highly suggest this recent piece by @drorpoleg: https://www.drorpoleg.com/the-ponzi-career/