227: Encore | Eoin Fitzgerald’s Last Dance & Techstars Web3 Recap

MoneyNeverSleeps ep227

[00:00:00] Pete Townsend: Money never sleeps, pal.

[00:00:10] Pete Townsend: Hey there, I'm Pete Townsend and this is Money Never Sleeps. We look inside the minds of entrepreneurs and at the crossover of startups, enterprise, finance, technology, and life as we know it. Most of our loyal listeners have noticed that we've been on a bit of a hiatus this summer. We took a break to recharge after a few mad months, but sometimes you need to go away for a while and dream it all up again.

[00:00:31] Pete Townsend: In this episode that we recorded on the 4th of July, we pulled the curtain off of our upcoming plans with a big announcement for my longtime co host, Owen Fitzgerald, that brings us to a fork in the road with Money Never Sleeps. But before we get into all that, Owen and I take a look back at my experience with the Techstars Web3 class of 2023 founders and our distributed demo day at the end of June, with three investor events across three cities and two countries in five days.

[00:00:59] Pete Townsend: And a real life [00:01:00] story of planes, trains, and automobiles. All right. Here on money Never Sleeps.

[00:01:08] Pete Townsend: Hey, Owen Fitzgerald. Hey Townsend. How you doing? Hey,

[00:01:11] Eoin Fitzgerald: pal. Good. All good. You enjoying your 4th of July?

[00:01:14] Pete Townsend: Oh, awesome. Yeah, I know. We, I, the, the big thing for today is going to find the hot dogs. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna pull this off. I, we left it a bit late because usually we go a few days before and you get the Duns and they've got the good hot dogs.

[00:01:28] Pete Townsend: And I'm thinking I may be getting bottom of the barrel this year. Oh,

[00:01:32] Eoin Fitzgerald: no. Uh, I get the stuff out of Aldi. They're, they're decent enough. Kids like them. Oh, really? Yeah. But now the kids liked them, so they could be terrible for all I know. I don't eat them. Ooh,

[00:01:40] Pete Townsend: no, I don't either. I, I wouldn't touch them. But you know, we'll see what we end up with for hot dogs this 4th of July.

[00:01:45] Pete Townsend: But listen, you've got some big news. I

[00:01:48] Eoin Fitzgerald: do. Yes. And I was glad to chat to you. I was obviously most people won't know yet, but in 10, 13 days, two weeks time, I'll be starting a new job. I'll be leaving enterprise Ireland after six years and starting a [00:02:00] new job in the central bank specifically focused on innovation engagement.

[00:02:03] Eoin Fitzgerald: So there's a new team being brought into central bank. It's around innovation strategy. We're looking at, you know creating a strategy and innovation and financial services, and then also how do we enhance the current engagement? So a lot of people be familiar with the innovation hub, or maybe they're not, it's obviously a focal point of engagement with central bank whereby, you know, startups, even incumbents, large companies can come in and talk to some of the teams and get a bit of an informal chat around areas.

[00:02:32] Eoin Fitzgerald: They're looking at upcoming regulation, that sort of thing. So it's been a really good start, but that's been in place a couple of years and now they want to raise that to the next level. So. Yours truly is coming in to lead out specifically on the engagement piece. We got some really good team coming in.

[00:02:45] Eoin Fitzgerald: Specifically, there's three of us going to be looking after all things, innovation strategy on a, at a kind of horizontal level, all across the bank, which would be great, but like that specifically, I'm looking at engagement. So out and about anyone that wants me at panels, coffee meetings, you name it, I'm available.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Eoin Fitzgerald: The, the more, the more I can listen and learn and bring into the

[00:03:02] Pete Townsend: bank, the better. Sounds like a dream job

[00:03:04] Eoin Fitzgerald: for you. Yeah. Do you know what I yeah, now that I'm kind of looking at it in more detail, I'm like, yeah, what do I love being out in the market? Yeah. I've missed it over the years. And I don't, you know, when with COVID and people only been in certain days, I haven't got as much of it now I'll be dedicated in the office at least two to three times a week.

[00:03:19] Eoin Fitzgerald: So really looking forward to meeting people, being part of the conversation. And like that, you know, I've been doing public sector for six years. I found it really kind of fulfilling the ability to do something that I know is adding value. It's adding jobs, all that good stuff. No, I'm coming to kind of.

[00:03:33] Eoin Fitzgerald: The same side of the fence in that respect, but at least trying to make a difference. Yeah. That's what I've enjoyed doing. So fingers crossed, it'll work out. All right. I might come back on in a few months time, see how it goes.

[00:03:43] Pete Townsend: Yeah. Yeah, no, we'll see. We'll see. And yeah, there's some, you know, obviously big impacts for what it means for, for us, but let's, let's come back to that in a few minutes, cause I am.

[00:03:53] Pete Townsend: Man, I had some trip last

[00:03:55] Eoin Fitzgerald: week. Yeah, I know. Tell me all about it. Oh, man.

[00:03:58] Pete Townsend: So, the [00:04:00] big thing that we did with the Techstars Web 3 program this year was to say, we had a huge learning from 2022 when we ran our first program. We had a wonderful, big, huge demo day. In Dublin at the end of the program at the Irish rock and roll museum, which is the button factory.

[00:04:18] Pete Townsend: You were there. It was a great event. Really enjoyed, you know, 300 people and we had six, 700 on the live stream that was on YouTube simulcast, whatever you want to call it. And the problem was in the VIP room upstairs afterwards where, you know, we all were and had a great time. There were like three investors, so that's just not good enough.

[00:04:40] Pete Townsend: And the fact is that, you know, Ireland is a small economy and that's absolutely fine. It punches above its weight in so many different areas in terms of web three venture capital. It's me, it's Patrick Pinschmid from Middle Game Ventures, part of the time, [00:05:00] Barry Downs from Shure Valley Ventures, and Connor Cantwell from Cosimo Ventures.

[00:05:04] Pete Townsend: There's a few others that are dabbling in a bit. Mike Brennan at Finch dabbled in it a little bit. A few others, but that's it. Okay, so we decided. Let's take this show on the road, right? And said that we, instead of doing a huge demo day production, we're going to do investor dinners, investor breakfast to get right to the outcome that we wanted was investors and founders engaging together in meaningful conversation in person.

[00:05:33] Pete Townsend: So we did a warmup act in Waterloo. We had an water, why Waterloo? Right? ETH Global. Right? The big hackathon. Yeah. Was on. Okay, cool. And funnily enough, Laura Walsh, who is our entrepreneur in residence, shout out to Laura, she did an awesome job on the program with us this year. She came out of her hotel room and was walking to the elevator and there's Vitalik.

[00:05:55] Pete Townsend: Vitalik Buterin from the founder of Ethereum [00:06:00] and she's, you know, I don't want to tell the story, but I think it could have ended up in a situation where maybe he could have come and talked to the cohort. And Laura had a certain reaction to seeing Vitalik and, and we will just leave it at that. And

[00:06:18] Pete Townsend: But, you know, that was our warmup act, right? We had a dinner in Waterloo, you know, we were hoping to get maybe 15, 20 investors. I think we got seven or eight, but all of the founders got to practice. They're not practiced. They did it obviously, you know, in front of investors, but a one minute pitch. That turns into a two minute pitch.

[00:06:35] Pete Townsend: Everyone stands up at the dinner, gives a one or two minute pitch and then, you know, tries to have a conversation with investors during and after dinner. Right. It was a good time, but it was, it was a warmup act. Our big one in Canada was at the collision conference we had an investor breakfast at this restaurant called Stratus up on the 36th floor in one of the RBC buildings. So that was we, I think we had 17, 18 investors there out of 35, you [00:07:00] know, confirmed and that's just kind of the nature of the beast. You kind of get 50% and We had some good conversations there and mixed up the format a little bit.

[00:07:09] Pete Townsend: Just had some tables where the founders were sitting down and the investors came and they move around and everyone got kind of like this breakfast buffet. But that was at the collision conference on the first day of the conference. So, you know although there were some, you know, 17 investors there and tack that onto the seven that we had from Waterloo.

[00:07:26] Pete Townsend: Okay. We're on our way. That was on a Tuesday, Tuesday morning, last week. And then by Wednesday night, we had to be in New York City. No problem, right? No problem. We had a breakfast. We were done by 10. 30, 11 o'clock in Toronto. And people headed towards the airport. And then as the afternoon went on, one by one, everyone's flights were cancelled.

[00:07:51] Pete Townsend: Oh, no. And so mine was one of the last one canceled and one of the other founders was also on that flight. Weather related, was it? Yeah. It was weather. It was [00:08:00] Quebec firestorms. It was thunderstorms in New York city. It was staff shortages. You name it. I mean, you can, you can plan

[00:08:07] Eoin Fitzgerald: for everything except all of that.

[00:08:08] Eoin Fitzgerald: Oh,

[00:08:09] Pete Townsend: totally. So half of the cohort, including Hugh McGirr, one of his, who's our investment principal, shout out to Hugh. His flight. Was canceled early and so he scrambled and he said, all right, how am I going to get there? And all that was left to get to New York city from Toronto was to do an overnight bus.

[00:08:29] Pete Townsend: So that was a I think it was like 12 hour bus, 12 hour drive from Toronto to New York city. And so he booked that and i'm sitting there in the lounge in Toronto in the airport Sitting pretty thinking. Hey, my flight's at seven. I'm all set and then like six o'clock rolls around my flight's canceled So by that point in time, , that bus from Toronto to New York city, that was full.

[00:08:54] Pete Townsend: So a bunch of, I'd say five or five or so of the founders, including Laura [00:09:00] Walsh our EIR were already booked on that bus. So I scrambled, I sent out a WhatsApp to my family and said, Hey, here's my situation ideas please. And people came up with a bunch of different ideas, including Hey, just get yourself to Buffalo.

[00:09:15] Pete Townsend: Okay. So Buffalo, New York is a three hour drive from Toronto. So get over the border. That was the main objective. Once you get over the border, you're kind of in lots of options. Yeah. So I booked a bus from, from Toronto to Buffalo, took the train back into the city, back to union station in Toronto. And you know, it got to the bus and I get to the bus and there's Humiger and Laura Walsh and three or four of the other founders, right?

[00:09:40] Pete Townsend: Because it was the same bus. It was just, I had to get off the bus. At buffalo because more people are getting on the bus in buffalo to go to new york city So got off the bus worked out Well got off the bus stayed overnight in buffalo Well, it was like six hours at a hotel is all it was because I got there at midnight And then it was a nine hour train the next day [00:10:00] To penn station in new york city got into penn station at like quarter to four ran to the hotel That I had booked for two nights and obviously missed the first night there and got cleaned up and made it To the restaurant where we're having the investor dinner at about 5 30 for the 6 PM kickoff.

[00:10:20] Pete Townsend: So And we had some founders that were on the train with me from buffalo they had drove from Toronto to Niagara on the Canadian side of Niagara and they returned their rental car there. And then they had an Uber drive them to the border.

[00:10:35] Pete Townsend: The Uber would not drive them over the border. So they had to walk over the border from Canada to the US and go through the security checks. And then once they got over to the other side of the border, they were able to get an Uber to bring them to Buffalo to the train station. And they got there just in time and two Ubers to get on the train.

[00:10:55] Pete Townsend: And the, the others got in with Hugh and with Laura early that morning [00:11:00] and got some sleep somewhere. Everyone got there. You ever see that movie, Getting to the Greek? Yep. Right? The name of the restaurant that we were at in New York City was called the Smith. So I just got to get those t shirts made getting to the Smith.

[00:11:13] Pete Townsend: Cause everyone, bar one founder who decided he just had to get home, he just went from Toronto because he didn't want to take a chance and unfortunately missed the event. So we had 11 of the 12 founders there with us. And they, it was the CEOs 'cause it was CEOs only that were coming 'cause that's who the investors wanna talk to.

[00:11:30] Pete Townsend: Of course the investors wanna talk to the CEOs. Obviously they would enjoy speaking with the CTOs and the commercial officers and strategy officers and COOs and all that. And they're all wonderful people and wonderful founders. But in terms of if we're gonna have this audience Yep. Of having more investors in the room than founders in the room than you want the CEOs Yeah.

[00:11:48] Pete Townsend: So it was, again, that was our best event. We had 25 out of our 27 confirmed. And I sent those emails like after the Toronto event where we got 17 out of [00:12:00] 35. I'm like, I want more. I want 25. And we got 25 and I sent all those emails out. That's crazy. While I was on the train and saying, please just wanna make sure you're coming tonight.

[00:12:10] Pete Townsend: And that helped and that got, yeah, got a bunch of people there. Also, Mayel, ve shout out to Mayel. She is the c e O of Techstars. She came down and just gave, said a few words to the founders and to the investors, you know, for five, 10 minutes. That was awesome, having heard their words. No, that's really good.

[00:12:25] Pete Townsend: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, It just really kind of, to me, pointed out the strength of New York City as a city, right? And as an investor city and investors are serious. What do investors want? Investors want to invest. And that when they can get some quality deal flow and meet some quality founders all in one go like that and get a nice dinner put in front of them.

[00:12:46] Pete Townsend: And the unique thing we did at dinner is that everybody sat down for the, after having a drink, they sat down for their starters. And then after the starters were done, and it was kind of a family style dinner that we served. That everybody got up, the [00:13:00] waiters came over, cleaned the tables, put down new cutlery and plates, and then people sat down in different places.

[00:13:06] Pete Townsend: So you got different conversations. Oh, nice. Yeah, brilliant. And then you Speed dating. Yep. Dinner was put down. And then after dinner, everybody gave up. Same again. Got up and they had dessert up at the bar. Huge, massive chocolate chip cookies with, I don't know, I don't eat that stuff. Body's a temple. So anyway, obviously, you know four or five days later, still buzzing.

[00:13:28] Pete Townsend: I had to get back. The only thing I regret is that, you know, obviously after, after the dinner, we went out, went out to another pub. Had a great night, had a few good chats with people, I flew back the next day from JFK. Biden was in, was in New York city that day and traffic was terrible to be two hours to get to JFK, but I got there and got home the next morning.

[00:13:49] Pete Townsend: And my daughter, my elder, my eldest kid, my daughter, she had her, I missed her actual graduation event. On the Wednesday night, because that was the [00:14:00] same night at school. But apparently I didn't miss much because it was all in Gaelic, in Irish. And I wouldn't have

[00:14:06] Eoin Fitzgerald: understood it anyway. You wouldn't have had a clue.

[00:14:08] Eoin Fitzgerald: I would, to be honest, I wouldn't have had a clue. Yeah,

[00:14:10] Pete Townsend: no. So I'm glad I got it because I got home for the last day of school. And that was a really meaningful one. And where all the kids line up from the whole school, you know, like. Junior, senior infants, perhaps through to sixth class or fifth class. And they put, create this bridge and holding hands one on the other side and all the kids run through like this.

[00:14:30] Pete Townsend: No, that's cool. And they all come out the other side crying because, you know, boys never see each other again. Yeah. . That's cute. But it was really cool to be able to get that. So I got that in. What that meant, though, was that we didn't have a in person, end of program, closure event with just the founders and close friends of the programs.

[00:14:51] Pete Townsend: It's the only thing I regret. But what that really underscores is the fact that, you know, this is forever. Right? Techstars is for life. [00:15:00] So not having that closure event is kind of like, although it would have been great to have that celebration together, it's kind of like, hey guys, the story continues.

[00:15:07] Pete Townsend: Those that are going to raise are those that take the momentum that they get from these events and they just push forward and they keep going. Right? And so, we'll you know, do our full recap. Myself and Huma Gura will get together and figure out how it all went and, you know, take our next steps for planning the next program.

[00:15:23] Pete Townsend: Brilliant.

[00:15:23] Eoin Fitzgerald: Oh, look, it was, it, it was a mad trip, but at the same time, it sounds like it sounds like it was a great kind of really successful program. Like look, last year's one was really successful as well, but obviously the learning from that and what you did with the investor stuff, like, you know, you're dead, right?

[00:15:37] Eoin Fitzgerald: You got, you got to go to where the market is. Yeah, it sounds

[00:15:40] Pete Townsend: like there were really good events there. Yeah, and it's so outcome orientated and that's how my mind is to shift on this What is it that we really want to get out of this? And I mean, it's a great way to kind of look at anything that you're doing.

[00:15:50] Pete Townsend: What is it you want? What is the outcome you want and work backwards, you know, and who was it? Remember Brian McDonald from Bay Advisory. He was the one who said when we did that two part [00:16:00] special with him a couple years ago, he said that when he sits down with a founder who is thinking about selling their business or thinking about doing a deal, a merger acquisition, he says to the founder, forget about everything else.

[00:16:15] Pete Townsend: What is it that you want? Right. What is it that you really want to do? What is the outcome that you want here? Let's work towards that. And if that includes selling a part of your business, great. If that involves not selling your business, let's walk away from this deal. Right. And so it's you know, I, I'm kind of just, I don't know, maybe hitting 50 just got me thinking a bit more about, you know, what is, what is the end game?

[00:16:37] Pete Townsend: Right. You know, what is the end game? Obviously we're working through the middle game right now, but what, what is the end game? So but yeah, looking forward to take it a few weeks off and digging back in towards the end of the summer and getting this all going again. Yeah. Brilliant.

[00:16:52] Eoin Fitzgerald: Well, no, I don't care.

[00:16:53] Eoin Fitzgerald: It was a great program. That's some really interesting companies, so excited to see where they can end up next.

[00:16:59] Pete Townsend: Yeah, [00:17:00] yeah, I am. I am as well. And just so many cool things happening with all of them. And, you know, I, they've now all joined my wall of fame which you can't see. And obviously no one can see this is, is audio, but I now have 21 companies up there.

[00:17:13] Pete Townsend: My nine from last year, from the first Texas weather accelerator, and then my 12 from this year. And I now have four categories. So gaming and sports, right? I've got defy and FinTech. I've got creator economy and I've got infrastructure. And that feels good, right? That feels like, yeah, I'm covering the basis of, of, of what you know, of what web three really means to me.

[00:17:37] Pete Townsend: And, you know, but we'll, we'll save that story for another day. But listen with all of this, Oh, given your new gig, there's certain things that. You're not going to be able to do anymore. No, I

[00:17:53] Eoin Fitzgerald: know. Unfortunately. And it was a nice one that a nice conversation that happened after I accepted my new job.

[00:17:59] Eoin Fitzgerald: Exactly. Oh, [00:18:00] by the way you can't do the podcast anymore. It's like no. And in fairness, I, when I had given, when we'd been chatting about me taking the job, it was the first thing you flagged. like, oh no, no, no, I'm sure it's fine. Just put in a disclaimer. Exactly. No no, unfortunately not. And look, I mean, been in the public sector long enough. That's the nature of the beast. Which is fine. It's, it's sad. I've like hugely enjoyed doing this with you over the last five years, five, five and a bit years. And I know I'm not on it as much as I used to be, but the amount I've gotten from it over the years founders, investors, even just random people that we've invited on, and then the friendship with you and all that, like it's, it's sad coming to an end, but like that look you know, it's for a reason.

[00:18:43] Eoin Fitzgerald: So that's fine. As opposed to just kind of fizzing out. And the great thing is it, it never fizzled out. Like it's like that, you know, it could easily have kind of tailed off after the first year. There were times when it was hard and we were kind of funding some of it ourselves at the start and everything.

[00:18:54] Eoin Fitzgerald: But like here we are five years later, it's an incredible achievement.

[00:18:58] Pete Townsend: So, Oh yeah, [00:19:00] no, no, you know, I'll miss you. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, all, all of these chats that we've had and just, just call it that. And I think it takes a certain type of relationship between two people. The one to be able to say, let's record our chats and send them out to the world.

[00:19:16] Pete Townsend: But also that learning from each other and that there's just been so many. So many things that have happened in this crossover of startups, enterprise, finance, technology, life as we know it, that have, that we've talked about and covering news stories and whatever, and, and talking to guests and where you bring up a point and I'm like, Oh, I didn't think about that.

[00:19:39] Pete Townsend: And that kind of opens up a whole new. tunnel. It's like you're playing a video game and you're running down one path and then you trip over a gold bar and all of a sudden it opens this door to this other secret path to go down to and you've got some treasure at the end of it, right? And it's like, if you were that gold bar, I tripped over, you know?

[00:19:58] Eoin Fitzgerald: But do you one of the things [00:20:00] I'll miss is your random in the moment analogies. That always makes sense. But I'm like, where did he pull that one from? You

[00:20:07] Pete Townsend: know where I pulled it out. But, but, but no, and, and, and that's it. And you know, the flywheel being the biggest part of all this, you know, looking at a business or looking at an industry or looking at a situation in investing and where you see these multiple pieces that are driving.

[00:20:27] Pete Townsend: Momentum and can drive momentum if they're put together properly and it's, it's fascinating. And some of it is just consultant speak, but if you can really grab a hold of it and see how some of these pieces work. And we, I remember when you were like, listen, you, who was it? Where you first brought it up with a Disney, right?

[00:20:47] Pete Townsend: It's the Disney flywheel. And you had seen, I think prof G perhaps mentioned something about it. Yep. And you jumped in and then we just started thinking about it. I remember I did one podcast it wasn't even a podcast. It was a Twitter [00:21:00] spaces

[00:21:00] Pete Townsend: and. You know, I'm like, listen, I'm going to test this out with you. Is that okay? We're going to get Twitter spaces. She said, we'll get probably like 70, 80 people. I'm like, I'm going to go through this. I'm going to test out this theory and see if it works. It didn't really work because I hadn't thought through it enough with you.

[00:21:17] Pete Townsend: And by the time that we had kind of, I think it was a good five, six months later. And that would probably would have been the summer of 2020. I think where it was like, all right. Now I got it and it's just become so much more evident and, you know, just figure out some of this stuff that I've been doing for the last six, seven years.

[00:21:35] Pete Townsend: And I talk so like to founders all the time about this little flywheel of once you get a product that you've started to build and you've got enough of a product to be able to put that a prototype, to put that in front of customers, you get some customer feedback.

[00:21:50] Pete Townsend: Once you get that customer feedback, you can then take that and. Bring that together and put that in front of investors and say, we've built a little bit of a product. Here are the customers [00:22:00] we've identified. Let's get a little pre seed round going. You get enough raise to build your product. And you build that product and then you go out and you get some real customers.

[00:22:08] Pete Townsend: And then they, you use that together to get some revenue and then to get your seed round out. And it continues and continues and continues, right? So just, I don't know, these little mental models of, of how to think about situations and how to influence behavior, even you know, that came from this, this, that came from doing this together with you all these years.

[00:22:28] Eoin Fitzgerald: And it's so funny because we barely knew each other at the start. And I just remember being like, Oh, Pete has a good voice. Like he seems fairly sound he's let's see if he wants to do this podcast, but what stuck in my mind was, I was like, Pete has a good voice. I don't know. I don't think I sound when I listen back to myself in like videos and like, I don't know how I sound.

[00:22:43] Eoin Fitzgerald: I don't think I sound like that, but I was like, Pete has a good voice. So we go with

[00:22:46] Pete Townsend: him. Yeah. No, you've, you've, you've got a unique voice yourself as well. There, there is a depth of the, of the base in there that, that can be really helpful. And I, I, you know, the, what was it? [00:23:00] It was someone anonymous, but who is well known in the Dublin financial services industry said to me once Pete.

[00:23:06] Pete Townsend: We don't want you for what, you know, we don't want you for who, you know, we want you for your accent that your accent sells.

[00:23:13] Eoin Fitzgerald: Well, it was, it was a bit more than that, but there was an element of that too. No, I knew just by chatting to you that I was like, Oh, look, I think we, we are coming at things from a similar place.

[00:23:22] Eoin Fitzgerald: And I think that's, what's shown over the years is that you don't see it as often. And like, it's kind of where people fall down in some respects, but we kind of, we both know what we don't know. So we'll read anything and everything and like the books that you'd be talking about and the stuff I'm like, Oh, I must write that down.

[00:23:37] Eoin Fitzgerald: I must look at that and I'll send you stuff. And like, I like that. It's like, like the flywheel thing. And then we're looking at it or we're talking about some news article in relation to like a revolute or some product or something, and then like, it's the thought process as we're kind of looking at it and thinking about it and discussing it and the learnings we get from that, from your insight, my insight on it and stuff, I'm like.

[00:23:56] Eoin Fitzgerald: It's been incredibly valuable for me doing my job and everything over the years, just [00:24:00] as we've talked through things and talk to founders and, you know, unpicked conversations, you know, we, we do our usual, here's our 10 questions, we might cover none of them. We'll only ever cover the last one, you know, and we'll see how it goes.

[00:24:11] Eoin Fitzgerald: And it's been a great journey. We've had some incredible guests and conversations

[00:24:15] Pete Townsend: over the years. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I'm just thinking back to the beginning with with Brian. Yep. In dog patch. Yep. Brian and dog patch. And you know, the first 10 episodes getting Paul Smith and Laura Smith from top tier recruitment on the show first, but then as sponsors, sponsors, right?

[00:24:32] Pete Townsend: And keeping us going at the start. Yep. And Chris Adels back that, you know, chat number 15 with him and Martin Cass and you know, just all of the different relationships.

[00:24:42] Pete Townsend: That have unfolded because of this podcast very much for me and when people ask me about Pete, give me your, you know story in a nutshell and I, you know, I start from 2015 or 2014 when I went down the blockchain rabbit hole and then 2016 [00:25:00] jumping out onto my own. I always say, listen, one of the big seminal moments of my career has been doing this podcast and what it does for building relationships and building strong relationships quickly, because what better way to start off something with somebody than to have them put themselves in the palm of your hand for 45 minutes and let me shape them right.

[00:25:27] Pete Townsend: And let us shape them. And then let me edit that and hopefully make them sound as good as possible with some of the new podcasting tools like Descript that I've been using for the last couple of years, that makes it really a heck of a lot easier to make people sound good. And I always mentioned that as being something, it's also been, you know, our B2C experiment.

[00:25:52] Pete Townsend: How is it that you can build up a following? How is it that you can build up a you know, a fan base and get people that will [00:26:00] every week tune in and listen. And it's not easy to do, but it's something that has given me a heck of a lot more appreciation for the founders that I invest in that are pursuing a B2C strategy.

[00:26:12] Pete Townsend: Yeah, yeah, you know, and I actually, you know, it's, it, it's been incredibly impactful. So thank you for asking me to do this with you. No, no,

[00:26:22] Eoin Fitzgerald: absolutely. And thank you. Like, I think what's been clear and for anyone listening and any guests, like is that we're both passionate about it. Like we started out to tell stories because like that, it's like, you know, money never sleeps.

[00:26:32] Eoin Fitzgerald: I'm up at night. Cause I'm just reading this stuff and I'm interested what's keeping founders up at night. Well, why don't we just ask a few of them? But it was really from the personal journey, not, Oh, tell us about your company. Like, we want to know what you as a person, why did you start doing this? Like, why are you being mad going after this idea and stuff?

[00:26:48] Eoin Fitzgerald: And that came across and I think that's turned out into good episodes then, because you were getting a real personal side of people's stories, because we actually were interested. And it was what I found like fascinating over the years is, you [00:27:00] know, the tell us something people don't know about you.

[00:27:02] Eoin Fitzgerald: There's such a range of random things that come out of that conversation and that question. Whereas you think of this person, or they're the founder of this fintech or a web three company or whatever. But yes, you know, we had the guys who played violin in there Albert Hall or whatever. And then the, the other founder who was a trained, not midwife or he was able to deliver babies or something. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. So many random things. Yeah. Yeah. Tech enabled. Yeah. Yeah. So just like really personal kind of understanding why people do something.

[00:27:31] Pete Townsend: Oh yeah. Absolutely. There, there's Oh man, just the people we've had on the show, all of the, all these nuggets of wisdom that we've gotten, , like Mick Sweeney, I think that was episode 110 or something like that. He, he's the CEO of Pinebridge investments, Europe, and just such a sage of wisdom and just told so many great stories on, on that episode. And you know, just going back to the, you know, like we talked about the beginning with Brian, but also my Santa Maria.

[00:27:58] Pete Townsend: Oh, so much time for [00:28:00] my brilliant. She is absolutely brilliant. And just having,

[00:28:03] Eoin Fitzgerald: it was a chance to, it was great because we had an idea of what we wanted to do, but we like, we had full control over it. So we could just randomly have whoever, which meant it was kept a really interesting because like that I could just, you know, some of the more interesting guests we had on in some ways had nothing to do with FinTech.

[00:28:18] Eoin Fitzgerald: I just wanted to talk to interesting founders.

[00:28:21] Pete Townsend: We had Fiona Edwards Murphy on the show.

[00:28:24] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yes, that was fascinating. Maybe I was protect. Heep is protect. Yeah. Yeah. All about bees and everything. Like I just found it a fascinating company.

[00:28:33] Eoin Fitzgerald: It was like, okay, well maybe we'll ask her to come on. And she did, you know, or we, you know, Bradley Tusk is still one of my favorite ones because obviously it marries kind of politics and investing and everything, things I'm really interested in, and this is a guy who's done it like with some of the biggest names in the world and he gave us the time and you've been able to reach out to him on stuff in the past and we've kept in touch with him and like, yeah, it was fascinating.

[00:28:54] Pete Townsend: I was going to meet him in New York city, but because of, I was on that train from Buffalo at that time, we [00:29:00] had to cancel the

[00:29:00] Eoin Fitzgerald: meeting. But sure. That was, that was, he was an early enough or reasonably early. He was like episode 26. Yeah. Yeah. And then for, you know, to build that relationship you know, Peter Gagan, who wrote was part of kind of open democracy and wrote that book around kind of, you know, dirty money democracy for sale.

[00:29:16] Eoin Fitzgerald: Like I just found that stuff interesting. So I got onto him and he came on the show. Irish guy, great story, really interested in what he's trying to do. So we've been able to just like occasionally dip out of, you know, FinTech and stuff and just talk to really interested founders or people that we want to kind of shine a light on some of the stuff they're doing.

[00:29:33] Pete Townsend: No, it's been it's been great. And, you know, I, I think some of the, you know, the, some of the highlights, even logistically switching to Anchor.

[00:29:42] Eoin Fitzgerald: Oh God. That changed the

[00:29:43] Pete Townsend: game. Oh, big time. Big time. That was episode 94 and it was so much work to get off of Transistor and move on to Anchor. Anchor is the, which is now Spotify for podcasters and they're adding even more tools to the mix now.

[00:29:55] Pete Townsend: But I remember

[00:29:56] Eoin Fitzgerald: all of the And It's still free. Yeah. It's crazy. And we were, we were [00:30:00] trying to arrange like back to back sessions. So we'd get like four weeks worth of content in a day and someone would have to move their thing and we'd be sitting down in a top tiers offices. Yeah. We'd rent it for the day and all of a sudden we'd have no guests or one guest and we'd have, Oh, what are we going to do with the time?

[00:30:14] Eoin Fitzgerald: Oh, it was ridiculous.

[00:30:15] Pete Townsend: Doing that video challenge, do that video episode with Gene Murphy. I saw Gene recently really good guy and, you know, I think not doing video. And I was listening to Tim Ferriss talk about this. Tim Ferriss is able to run his entire operation for his podcast with three people, and he said that if he had done video, that it would be so much bigger than that.

[00:30:36] Pete Townsend: And I. You know, doing a couple of video episodes and having to do some of the editing around that, it's just, it's far too time consuming. No, and

[00:30:43] Eoin Fitzgerald: it didn't add much. Like it was great to see Jean and have a video of it, but other than that, it didn't make any real difference whether we're talking about it or not.

[00:30:50] Eoin Fitzgerald: You know, and I think people are more comfortable, like they can see us on the screen, but it's just the words being out there.

[00:30:55] Pete Townsend: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, the, the, the shift to fully remote, [00:31:00] like you said, after, you know, not going into the top tier offices, not going into their WeWork anymore that that's been.

[00:31:06] Pete Townsend: Change, you know, that was a significant shift as well because that just opened up the landscape big time for, for founders that we could talk to.

[00:31:13] Eoin Fitzgerald: And yeah, and even, even the shift from during the day, not that I was recording during the day in enterprise Ireland or anything, but the shift to nighttime recording, the kids had gone to bed nine o'clock on a Wednesday.

[00:31:26] Pete Townsend: I know. I know. And it felt like that was always like, you know, the end of a very long day and it was somehow just rejuvenating.

[00:31:34] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yeah. Yeah. I always was buzzing after. I wouldn't want to go to bed that time.

[00:31:36] Pete Townsend: Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, obviously big shout out to Conan Brophy. He's been with us the whole time.

[00:31:44] Pete Townsend: He's been there from day one. I haven't seen him in person since before COVID. Yeah, it's crazy. It's nuts. It's like, not that we'd hang out all the time, but we keep meaning to try to get together for a pint. He's moved down closer to me now and, you know, so Conan is going to be listening to this and Conan, [00:32:00] let's get together for that pint at the end of August or early September.

[00:32:03] Pete Townsend: Let's just do this because it's been far too long. It's

[00:32:05] Eoin Fitzgerald: been far too long. Ah, he's been a great support, like absolutely. Huge. So

[00:32:11] Pete Townsend: I think where, where we're going to go from here is I've got a couple of ideas. I've been listening to Tim Ferriss a lot and he's kind of challenging my mind. Yeah. I have a lot of time for Tim

[00:32:21] Eoin Fitzgerald: Ferriss.

[00:32:21] Eoin Fitzgerald: He's brilliant. Yeah. His guests are brilliant. And the way the conversation goes with him, like, you know, always

[00:32:26] Pete Townsend: really informative. His book drive of mentors, I'm in the middle of that and that's incredible. And, you know, a few books coming out of that that I want to read, but what he was talking about with Bill Gurley and he did a, he did an interview with him where Bill Gurley interviewed Tim and said that, you know, he does go deep into each guest before the show to really find some nuggets and find something uncommon.

[00:32:50] Pete Townsend: About them that people wouldn't ordinarily expect, which is which we do at the end of the show, right? Yeah. And that he really pokes and prods [00:33:00] at that but does it in a safe way that allows people to kind of skirt the question If they don't really like it and then gives people full edit rights afterwards And it's like I go deep into the linkedin profile, but I think I can go a bit deeper So I want to get back more into the really craftier Type of interview, sorry, not craft your type of interview, but interview crafting that that I really teasing out those nuggets and getting more into the conversation.

[00:33:30] Pete Townsend: And I think that I've got a few guys lined up for September already, which will be fun. And also thinking about trying to do some guest co hosts, right? So

[00:33:44] Eoin Fitzgerald: you have no

[00:33:45] Pete Townsend: shortage. Keep keep the money talks. Segment simple and that I pick two stories and another guest picks two stories and we just go through them Yep, right and like you and I had done and it will be an interesting different [00:34:00] perspective yet irreplaceable from yours

[00:34:03] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yeah, over the years, I learned to, like, I grew to love the money talks more, partly because I was sometimes the only chance we had to catch up on any given week.

[00:34:12] Eoin Fitzgerald: Exactly. But also like that, it was just teasing out things that I've been thinking about. It'd be like, Oh, let's chat about this. Cause you know, this thing has been, or maybe here's a different slant on this other thing. And as much as I love talking to the founders, I nearly, I'd said to you, like, Oh God, half a dozen times, or if not at the least be like, Oh, maybe we should do money talks as its own thing.

[00:34:29] Eoin Fitzgerald: And then you're like, no, reminded me of the workload.

[00:34:32] Pete Townsend: No. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely not. So I, I've, you know, I I'd say using some of these newer tools I've been using for the last couple of years have cut down my workload by about 30%, which has been great. But I, I still, I'm adding it back on by the fact that for all of those, oh, I started using Dolly two, right?

[00:34:52] Pete Townsend: which is the, for creating picture sister of chat pt instead of going into pixels or one of the other [00:35:00] stock photo websites and pulling things down, which I used to spend way too much time on, but just trying to. Create, and this, this is, this is crazy, but create an image that reflects the founder that we're talking to, or the entrepreneur, the person we're talking to, to their company, to the hip hop track selected as the episode title.

[00:35:24] Pete Townsend: That triangulation is insane. And chat, chat, GPT sister app Dali too, has allowed me to do that with a bit more aplomb. And I did that for all 12. Sorry, 11 of the 12 text stars, web three episodes that we did this year because one of them poorly gray from Sonics, I just ran out of time and it was just his picture and my picture.

[00:35:45] Pete Townsend: On a starry sky and that was about it. So I may go back and find another one for Lee and replace that on the website.

[00:35:52] Eoin Fitzgerald: So it's been great to watch your creative side come out with the tools in the background over the years.

[00:35:57] Pete Townsend: I heard someone say when I was in the [00:36:00] corporate world, I had to hide my soul in a sock.

[00:36:02] Pete Townsend: So I'm like, it's a great way to phrase it. I had to hide my creativity in a sock. I absolutely did. And it's definitely come out over the last six, seven years and you've helped to bring that out. So thank you. Welcome. All right. This is our last great sign

[00:36:19] Eoin Fitzgerald: off. This is our last sign off. I don't have anything unexpected to tell you, Pete, that you don't know about me

[00:36:23] Pete Townsend: already.

[00:36:24] Pete Townsend: I thought of one, and I was going to ask you to share one yourself.

[00:36:29] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yes. Okay. Go for it. Tell me something people wouldn't expect to know about you, Pete.

[00:36:32] Pete Townsend: And this came out of reading Tim Ferriss Tribe of Mentors, because one question he asked people is, what is some strange thing that you just enjoy, right?

[00:36:41] Pete Townsend: And I'm like, I like. Killing flies with my bare hands.

[00:36:47] Eoin Fitzgerald: That's, I'm sure there's a psychologist listening somewhere being like, Hmm.

[00:36:51] Pete Townsend: I, I have, and, and obviously we're, we're, you know, 4th of July, we're into the summertime flow here, more flies in the house because Des Bishop [00:37:00] said this once, if you want to live in Ireland and you want to have your doors open in the summer, you have to love flies because in Ireland, there are no screens.

[00:37:09] Pete Townsend: You have sliding doors, there are no screens, you have door windows that you open, there are no screens, the flies will get in your house, you have to love flies, I actually love killing flies and it's not necessarily the Mr. Miyagi thing with chopsticks, although I may try that it is just bare hands, Get rid of it and then wash my hands because I have OCD about clean hands.

[00:37:30] Pete Townsend: And so just in case anybody, everyone ever wonders why that is something that people wouldn't expect to know

[00:37:35] Eoin Fitzgerald: about me. There you go. Well, do you know what? It's funny because I, I obviously have to look after all the spiders and all related bugs in my house as well. But there's a kind of like, oh, the kids are all panicky because there's a spider and daddy just strolls in looks after it.

[00:37:48] Eoin Fitzgerald: No big deal. Yeah. You know, it's like, well, yeah, I feel good about myself.

[00:37:51] Pete Townsend: Oh yeah. I get the shouts, the screams. Oh my God, it's bigger than my face. It's like, it's no bigger than my fingernail. Yeah.

[00:37:59] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yeah. [00:38:00] Anything about you? Anything people, God, I'm trying to think, I've shared a lot over the years, usually as a way to make the guests on the other side more relaxed about sharing something.

[00:38:09] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yes. Do I have anything? Was there something about goats

[00:38:13] Pete Townsend: or sheep? No. No, there was a story that you told once that you were at a wedding. And I don't know if you, you said this, you said this

[00:38:20] Eoin Fitzgerald: to me often. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So actually, yeah. Okay. So myself and Ciara, my wife, we'll, we'll watch like some of the most, or some of my favorite kind of shows to watch or movies to watch are just stupid comedies.

[00:38:31] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yeah. Super bad. And all these sort of ones. And there's one Adam Sandler one with Jennifer Aniston just go with it. I think it's called like it's, you could, you could look at it and be like, this is pretty shit, but actually I find some of that humor hilarious. So the entire thing, Adam Sandler creates this fake identity.

[00:38:47] Eoin Fitzgerald: He's trying to win this girl over and he creates a fake version of himself and Jennifer Aniston, who he works with ends up pretending to be his ex wife and they go ended up. Somehow going on holidays with this girl that he's trying to hook up with, and they have to bring his [00:39:00] friend who he works with and the guy again, just randomly gets stuck in this situation where the girl asks him at dinner, what does he do?

[00:39:07] Eoin Fitzgerald: And he ends up having to create an entire fake persona because that's what they've all been doing, but he becomes this guy and he's, he calls himself Dolph Lundgren, but he's not that Dolph Lundgren. He just happens to have the same name. And he his business is selling sheep online. And you know what, there's a small clip and I, I just think the actual whole thing is hilarious, regardless of how many times I've seen it, that particular piece is hilarious because he puts on a German accent and it's all about why would people buy sheep individually and they use them for like, you know guard sheep and for dressing up and all these sorts of most ridiculous things.

[00:39:40] Eoin Fitzgerald: And what I enjoy doing is just randomly coming up with stuff in like. Personally, when I might ring someone on the phone or whatever. And like Keira thinks, I think she on one hand cringes and at the same time thinks it's hilarious, but I'm re been really good over the years for keeping a straight face while it's telling you the most ridiculous thing to your face.

[00:39:56] Eoin Fitzgerald: And I find if you do it with confidence, people be like, Oh, really. And I'm like, [00:40:00] yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I, so often when I'm at a wedding or with, especially if it's somewhere people don't know who I am, that's what I'll do. I sell sheep online, but individually, not like flocks of sheep or anything, just sheep online, gotprettysheep.

[00:40:13] Eoin Fitzgerald: com is the website and I can do it so well now I can do it. Like, I just can't do the accent in the same way, but I can do it so well. And not many people have seen that movie. Cause like I said, it's generally terrible. But that particular piece is hilarious. So yes, in my spare time, I sell sheep online.

[00:40:28] Pete Townsend: That's awesome. That is awesome. Oh my God. No, you tell that story really well. I have a similar story around Matt Damon and high school and it's no, that, that, that takes, I just

[00:40:41] Eoin Fitzgerald: find a perverse kind of amusement out of telling people as outrageous, something as I can think of, but like, I'll always tell them I'm just messing after that.

[00:40:50] Eoin Fitzgerald: Yeah, just, just to see, because you find people like that, people will believe you. Randomly.

[00:40:55] Pete Townsend: All right. Well, listen, I know we're not going to be talking in the recorded format. No, [00:41:00] any longer, but we will be talking. Goodbye. Goodbye. Farewell. And your last sign off, your last dance

[00:41:08] Eoin Fitzgerald: for Money Never Sleeps. I think that's appropriate.

[00:41:10] Eoin Fitzgerald: Awesome. Take

[00:41:11] Pete Townsend: it easy, Pete. Adios, pal.

[00:41:17] Pete Townsend: That does it for this week, folks. Thanks to Owen Fitzgerald for everything we've done together over the last five years, and mostly for just asking me to help him with a podcast idea back in 2018. You're a true friend, Owen, and thank you so much. Don't forget to check out the show notes on our website, moneyneversleeps.

[00:41:34] Pete Townsend: ie, for more. If you like what you heard, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify as it helps others to find the show. Thanks to Conan Brophy from Create Sound for mixing and editing this episode. Conan is an excellent media man to get in touch with when you're thinking about launching your own podcast.

[00:41:50] Pete Townsend: As for me, I'm an early stage startup investor focused on where FinTech meets crypto and crypto meets Web3, and I lead the Techstars Web3 Accelerator. There are plenty of links in the show notes on MightyNeverSleeps. [00:42:00] ie on how to get in touch, so don't hesitate to reach out. Finally, till next time, thanks for listening.

[00:42:05] Pete Townsend: See ya!