Sitting under the shade in Elco’s terrace, I’m filled with an immense sense of gratitude. In a sense, an appeciation for the uncertainties of the past; on the other hand, a feeling of excitement for what’s to come next.

**on failing**

In late May, we announced Mainstream & Actions Builder to the public, but the launches did not generate much interest. We received a few thousand emails on the sign-up form and had 20 large customers on the waitlist, but the team was not excited enough to release the product to this crowd. Initially, my investors and I blamed it on the market - that macroeconomic shifts were drawing people away from crypto and towards AI. [Sigil](sigilwen.ca) once told me that "diversifying focus is a hedge against your own success" - in this context, I perceived the rise and praise of AI projects as an echo-chamber behavior, so I continued to ignore it, thinking that it would diversify my focus away from building Mainstream.

However, I soon realized that the real risk was not diversifying focus but rather building the wrong thing. In my monthly investor update, I said:

> "Despite being founded on a thesis formed from extensive observation across many DAO communities, our approach (and the distinct features we've been building) has proven to be a massive shot in the dark... In other words, we have not been building something that people want 100%."

I had trouble sleeping for the next few weeks and spent a lot of time stressed out about where to take Mainstream next. Pressured by the opportunity cost of capital and manpower, my team and I spent time ideating on/building side projects like Pager (an on-chain notifications-as-a-service) and Grant Tracker (visualization of where Optimism Collective grants are funneled into) while exploring what to build next.

For those wondering why I'm building these side projects, my mentor Navid always told me that perceived risk is usually greater than actual risk – the real risk is missing out on groundbreaking ideas simply because of fear. The feeling of being pressured is not fun, but the feeling of uncertainty is beyond amazing. I find it both hard and rewarding to embrace the feeling of uncertainty, because it was uncertainties that have shaped who I am today.

**more on nomading aka my “work trip”**

My angel investor [Larry](https://twitter.com/lsukernik) told me about Lara Del Rey’s song “Not All Who Wander Are Lost”, and that it’s natural that I find myself troubled at this point in my journey. So I first went back to DAO Palace in Germany to regain clarity, by catching up with friends who work in the same industry.

It turns out that our industry became bigger of a shitshow than what I imagined. Several renowned DAOs were shutting down, internal conflicts happening en masse in big-name companies, events shutting down because sponsors pulled out last minute, and more. Worst thing? People started to call failing crypto products “public goods”.

It feels surreal to come back to Europe after my visit last summer. Last summer, the world felt like an empty canvas, ready to be filled with my disruptive ideas. These days, I find it incredibly hard to find the right thing to work on. [Elco](https://twitter.com/duartedao) calls this typical “bear market” behaviour, but I digress. I say this because of two reasons: 1) crypto was never ready for the mainstream, & 2) financial rewards often bring uncalibrated results in technology, as proven by several examples in history.

In a conversation a few hours ago, Elco told me that the biggest advice he got was “the master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried” – meaning most people never succeed because they don't try enough to become successful. Perhaps I should try harder. It’s something I haven’t processed fully, so will leave more thoughts once I find clarity.

**there are things money cannot buy**

At DAO Palace, Elco, Will & Adrian showed me how to trade on decentralized perpetual exchanges – people traders can long or short positions on underlying asset without expiry. They taught me how to trade, alongside two other advices: 1) the [Bogleheads](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page) wiki, perhaps some of best financial advice on the internet, & 2) chase things that are beyond monetary value – think clear thoughts, relationships, adventures, and experiences.

I was reminded of this memory when I visited Quinta da Regaleira, the westernmost area of Europe. It’s a beautiful, breathtaking place, and I don’t think I’ve seen a blue-r sky than this ever before.

IMG\_3786.heic

~~I think it’s an incredibly hard experience to ignore jealousy.~~ Work in progress, I think I want more time to process this thought.

**final thoughts**

I came to Europe thinking that stepping back and looking at the bigger picture sometimes can help clarify the next steps forward. If you’re wondering, here’s what’s really on my mind:

1. how can we de-compose technical primitives to the masses? related: how do we onboard the next million to Ethereum staking & LSTs (liquid staking tokens)? did you know that staking is a $100b market vs a $10b NFT market?

2. how do we make it easier for people to train large language models? related: building a decentralized on-chain LLM marketplace. similar: [Ocean Protocol](https://oceanprotocol.com/).

3. how to play poker very well? Elco told me that nothing shapes your personality better than a tense game of poker.

If you’re thinking about any of these problems above, working on hard problems, or want to catch up, I’m one text away. :)

summer 2023

```cv
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```

Ava from bookbear express (my fav newsletter of all time) aptly depicts my current dilemma: “… for a long time the things that happened to me felt interesting and exciting and romantic. Lately they just feel dark.”

These days I found myself interested in very different things other than just running a crypto startup – building real-life objects using plastics & coating with primer, hanging out at lumber warehouses, [soldering & making PCBs](https://www.build-electronic-circuits.com/pcb-design/), hacking with different models of [neural radiance fields](https://www.matthewtancik.com/nerf), and more.

I'm also constantly hacking on projects with different people while immersing myself in the worlds of math and biotech. It's my way of embodying Paul Graham’s advice on [Undergraduation](http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html) and while time-consuming, I feel the happiest & the most content I've ever been in my undergraduate years.

A few weekends ago, 60 random college-aged hackers from all around the world ended up in a public bathtub in New York to pull an internet prank. We ran a one-night, pop-up steakhouse for the overwhelming reaction to a fake Google Maps listing that our housemate, Danielle, posted under our hacker house address.

At the time I was just busy bussing tables; a few weeks out I thought about what made this internet prank so successful. I think it’s because of people like Riley and Mehran.

I became friends with Riley and Mehran while living in a hacker house in New York after leaving high school. I really look up to them not just because they are cool and intelligent, but most importantly, high-agency people.

High-agency people have power, are intentional, and are forward thinking. Perhaps it’s one of the most important traits that most successful people have – I see myself lacking this trait at times, but I also witness this trait in every single high-impact person I know – like my mentor Steven, Daniel Hwang, Anson Yu, Sigil Wen, etc. It's a quality worth aspiring to cultivate.

For some reason, there’s a constant pressure to make the most of the remainder of my undergraduate years. I wonder when I will get to do something like this, ever again. Maybe that’s the reason why I pack my calendars tight, and try to balance full-time school and work.

I think the reason I persist in this jam-packed and seemingly outrageous lifestyle is my aversion to conformity. If I had to work for someone building something I fundamentally diagreed with, chances are, I would resign in the first three months. I think that’s because most things I view as “success” came from challenging the status quo. I derive very little satisfaction from tasks I find unfulfilling, and I optimize my lifestyle to reduce the likelihood of being obligated to undertake such endeavors.

While grabbing lunch with my friend Shane in New York, he told me that the barrier of entry may not be as high as it seems. In Singapore, my investor Nicola told me that I should do things I want to build instead of “following the market”. Maybe it’s time to do something new.

I cannot put into words how crazy it is to live this moment as an 18-year-old. Maybe it is these experiences, interactions, and people that will help shaping me into the high-agency adult that I’ve always wanted to become. Always grateful to be surrounded by such awesome and crazy humans who always offer me mentorship and experience!

fall 2023

Design & engineering

Sophomore at the Iovine and Young Academy (founded by Dr. Dre, <40 students/year) on Merit Scholarship.\
\
I research [AI](https://theinvivogroup.com/) (In Vivo Group), design (under Prof. Yihyun Lim), and [crypto](https://x.com/blockchainatusc) (Blockchain@SC). I started sundays@usc (a 200+ student collective to work on side projects every Sunday), and contribute to various student startup communities on campus.

BUIDLing Among the Chaos: What Devs Discussed at ETHDenver

School moves imperial Japanese flag after student's protest draws almost 10,000 supporters online

New York's Best (Fake) Steak House Opens Up

How NYC’s fine-dining elite got pranked by Gen Zer’s fake steakhouse — complete with milk servers, ‘celebs,’ and wedding proposal

elfDAO, the Crowdfunding Campaign to Buy Gifts for Kids

Why we invested in Mainstream, crypto-native token gating

Made-up New York restaurant goes from internet joke to one-night-only reality

Worked with Google's moonshot factory to build a novel Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) solution aiding paralyzed patients with rehabilitation.

Kinisi

Built a machine learning-powered water quality sensing solution impacting 27k+ residents in Flint, MI and 12k+ residents in Newark, NY. at Jaden Smith's nonprofit.

Water Quality Sensing Solution

Pager by Mainstream

We raised $1.1m from world-class investors to reimagine the way people interact with decentralized governance.

Interested in working for us? Reach out at team@mainstream.so.

Mainstream

A crypto-native application that allows folks to seamlessly make donations of their crypto directly to U.S. charities.

Endaoment

Delivered research & suggestions to increase female Syrian refugees’ participation in the Jordanian digital economy.

Femployed

The world's longest hackathon on land, on a train across America, alongside people like [Tom Preston-Werner](https://tom.preston-werner.com/) (founder of GitHub).

The Hacker Zephyr

The world's first decentralized toy drive. Raised $50k from internet anons to deliver gifts to underserved children around the world.

elfDAO

Started a $500k internet experiment to alleviate financial barriers for thousands of students to attend blockchain conferences. Supported by [Vitalik Buterin](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin), [Ameen Soleimani](https://twitter.com/ameensol), and 3,000+ others.

PadawanDAO

Submitted to [HackSC X](https://x.hacksc.com/). A ML-powered patient triage algorithm designed for speed, accessibility & reliability.

Triagify

A 66-person internet prank to create New York's Best (Fake) Steakhouse. Featured on the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/dining/nyc-best-fake-steakhouse.html), [New York Post](https://nypost.com/2023/09/25/nycs-fine-dining-elite-pranked-by-gen-zers-fake-steakhouse/), [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/26/mehrans-steak-house-new-york-opening), [abc7NY](https://abc7ny.com/mehran-steak-house-nyc-fake-restaurant/13831392/), and more.

Mehran's Steak House

Participated in weekend-long IRL rabbit-hole-athons for technologists: an intimate retreat/hackathon dedicated to reading, thinking deeply about a topic, and sharing your learnings with others.

Rabbitholeathon

Organized Hack For The People, the Northeast's largest high school hackathon, gathering 1,000+ participants and $20k+ in prizes.

Director of Operations

Volunteered for various causes, including: [Social Diversity for Children](https://socialdiversity.org/), [Prosper Vancouver](https://www.prospervancouver.org/), [Canadian High School Model United Nations](https://cahsmun.org/), [Telegram Foundation](http://telegram.org), & more.

750+ member reach from 70+ countries, strategic partnership with 15+ organizations, with $50k+ in funding support

Executive Director

I helped lead a community of 10k+ students at the Harvard Innovation Lab, hosting panels for educational discussions and public policy writing to initiating startup incubators and data science research projects related to the coronavirus.

I led the [Coronavirus Visualization Team](https://scholar.harvard.edu/cvt/home)’s Design team, where we coordinated 350k+ articles of PPEs donated during the pandemic.

I also worked on a series of policy-writing events called [Policy for the People](https://scholar.harvard.edu/policython/home) at the Harvard Institute of Politics. We hosted 3,000+ participants, published 700+ policy brief submissions, and more.

Executive Board, Design

Crypto-to-charity donation escrow service. \
\
Left after a few months to start Mainstream Labs.

Product Engineer

A modular, end-to-end decentralized governance platform. \
\
Raised $1.1m+, backed by Lemniscap, Samsung NEXT, Larry Sukernik (Reverie), Linda Xie (Scalar Capital), Daryl Xu (Coinbase), & more.

Co-Founder & CEO

Left high school & moved to San Francisco to build the first-ever iOS-native Ethereum wallet. Product showcased at ETHDenver 2022.

Design Engineer

Design Intern

Built a machine learning-powered water quality sensing solution impacting 27k+ residents in Flint, MI and 12k+ residents in Newark, NY.

Consultant

Built a novel Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) solution, Kinisi, to aid paralyzed patients with rehabilitation.

Byeongjun Moon

2023