tl;dr: Investing, trendspotting, and timing.

My son and I were watching a surfing competition from Hawaii the other day. (Give us a break, it’s Covid season).

I’m not a surfer. Never even tried, unless you count boogie boards, but conceptually I understand that there’s a lot that goes into picking the perfect wave.

After all, when the surfers get on a wave, there’s a minimum amount of time they need to pull off a few scoring moves. If the wave breaks too early, they may not get wiped out, but they won’t score too many points.

Waves of Disruption

I had the privilege of doing a project for Dapper Labs as it was formulating its Flow blockchain strategy.

Now, 2 years later, the NBA Top Shot marketplace is blowing up and on pace to do almost $2bn worth of transactions this year.

If you want to join NBA Topshot, here’s my referral link.

Keep in mind, that this is the same team that built the game-changing Crypto Kitties app, which I argue is, after Bitcoin, the 2nd most important blockchain application in history.

What is it about Dapper that makes them so successful?

Well, I think back to my time with the team in Vancouver and I am reminded of something that Roham, their CEO said.

“We just look for waves to ride.”

Wave Timing

I think, in hindsight, he was probably being a bit too modest, because looking for waves is only a part of the equation.

Knowing which wave to jump and and WHEN to jump on it are critical.

I suspect that comes from having jumped on a few too many waves early and late.

I’ve done the same, with the classic example being the start-up that my brother, dad, and I did in the early 2000s. It was called SilentFrog and it was basically TaskRabbit, just 10 years too early. Whoops.

But I’ve gotten a bit better at it with time. Internet and social media, though a bit early (but not as early) were better timed. Crypto was the same way.

It’s why I joined Gtmhub as CMO…the OKR wave is taking off as we speak.

And it’s why I’ve signed on as an advisor to Radix (DeFi) and Moss.earth (carbon credits). These are both huge waves that, I believe, are picking up massive momentum….50 footers in surfer parlance.

Waves Don’t Have Emotion

The final point is that the wave doesn’t care how you feel about it. The wave comes and the wave goes and you either try to ride it or you let it go by, waiting for the next one.

And there will be a next one. There always is.

I think what makes the Dapper team so successful is that, though they may believe in the impact of the wave (decentralization and self-sovereignty), they don’t get overly connected to it. It’s a motivator, but day-to-day, they focus on the practical— delivering value within the context of the wave.

Find the wave, then, like the surfers do your tricks (value delivered to the judges or the market), then bail out, having enjoyed the ride (and hopefully avoiding the reefs and rocks).

It’s easy to say from the comfort of my couch, I know. So I guess it’s time to head out and do it.