I didn't see it as crazy. I had users who were deeply passionate about the product, and I felt that had a responsibility towards them.
The rest is history.
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After running it in a few small/medium-sized venues, we realized that it would be extremely hard to scale operationally and hard to monetize.
We then tried to do a few pivots, including one which was a pokemon-style NFT game, but never really got far.
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We eventually disbanded and parted our own ways. I was in pretty bad debt (-30k) and so had to work a consulting job at a bank to help recoup. 🪦
I was still obsessed with crypto, so I decided to join a startup called
@shakepay
in the summer of 2019.
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Every paycheck, I would put about 75% of my salary towards ETH.
During my time there I discovered DeFi 👀.
My previous background in Finance, with my added experience in software, helped me understand the value prop, and so I fell into the rabbit hole.
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As I was falling into the rabbit hole, I started investing here and there and tracking all those investments in a spreadsheet.
At one point, I got really annoyed with that strategy so built the first iteration of Zapper, called DefiSnap.
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About a month later, I decided to share it in the DeFi community discord I was the most active in:
@synthetix_io
.
It's hard to express the joy I had the next day when I saw people sharing it on Twitter. I actually had real users that needed the product.
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When you spend the last 8 years trying to find market-fit and eventually get a glimpse of it, you don't ever let it go.
And so I built.
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I was still working FT at Shakepay, but all I could think about was building Zapper.
During that time, I met my co-founders
@NodarJ
and
@cryptonomik
who were out building
@DeFi_Zap
. The missing piece to the puzzle.
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In March 2020, Covid hit and we had what was known as DeFi "Black Thursday"
That's when I decided to quit my FT job and dedicate everything I had to Zapper.
.
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@sebaudet26
I appreciate you sharing your story. Respect for the hustle and continuing to search for your path. 🤝
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@sebaudet26
So March 2020 was the early days of Zapper. I remember I did use it to track my staked LPs easily. A few weeks after March I did my first zap. It was an AMPL-ETH LP + staking it to Beehive V1 Geyser. It’s easier on Zapper as it’s just one click. Then the rest is history. 😆
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@sebaudet26
Great thread Seb! Love seeing all the innovation here in Montreal and excited to make the leap into web3 myself soon. Congrats on hitting 1M users form one of them!
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@sebaudet26
loved reading this backstory and its super inspiring. Zapper is such a powerful tool for degens who need every bit of information at their fingertips.
serious gamechanger for many of us!
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@sebaudet26
A wonderful story, you've got a great product! Success is not permanent, there will be many more ups and downs ahead. Never go out of your way! Good luck!
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