22–23 For Cirus
This is not a ‘better than the rest’ statement, but really a transparent story of our past year…
We saw the tumble in the markets, we saw crypto projects wiped out (even the good ones), we saw shots fired at one another, even within our little industry barely pushing the boundary of the 0.5% of the world. We saw remarks again, of ‘crypto the fraud’ even with zero understanding of how cryptography and web3 actually work. We saw virtue signals of companies saying ‘we’re hiring’ as an insecure signal of strength. Quite honestly, it was an embarrassment of a year.
At Cirus, we remained silent, maybe even too silent at times, said the guys in discord (sorry, I will do better). But the raw reality was, we had our heads down, hard faced with some tough decisions. Initially we launched, grew some awesome traction in user acquisition all over the world and then we were a bit caught with our pants down to say the least — a host of junior errors — login issues, server latency, basic tech stuff.
Okay, where now? How the hell can we promote something that sucked and just stay the grind, patch fixing, building as they come.
We faced a crossroad in time — lose momentum of the uptake, the golden traction as start-ups would say or shut it down and rebuild. Yes, it was a beta launch, but nonetheless it was a great start for any company to have. So what did we do?
Shut ‘er down. We went back to the drawing board to rebuild. And this time, it wasn’t a rebuild, it was a transformation. We said we had to come back 10x stronger, yes the team would tease me, saying this was a boring line out of Grant Cardone’s book — I agree! But we did in fact build something greater than anything we could imagine.
Why? — we had the will to WIN (insert Cirus bible here) for those of you who know. After finally finding a gem of a designer, (‘the cleaner’) We took it upon ourselves to win User Experience. Why? Not because of a virtue or statement, but because we knew that the single greatest differentiator in an emerging high-tech industry was UX. It will probably be our single greatest contribution to the crypto industry — to finally cross-the-chasm and bring this technology to the masses. We had the up-beat heart that our decision was the right one.
We built, got fancy, maybe even too much at times. Much debate around product features, ‘scope-creep’ as Jeff would say. I said, ‘well let’s creep’ — and be silent about it.
Then the second, and probably biggest punch in the industry occurred. The misuse and abuse of people’s assets — yes you SBF (thankfully we didn’t list on FTX!). We hit another crossroad in our path — We preached hard about owning your data, well what about your assets? Isn’t that the real meaning of Web3?
So we did the same again, back to the drawing board to build real innovative change in our little, but worthwhile industry. To our delight, we closed a massive deal wanting this technology for the gatekeepers of the industry (CEX’s).
so our purpose was met — Build an unsurpassed user experience with a real solution for an industry-wide problem. Period.
It’s been a grind, a debate, a whack of $$, but what we do know, is our heart is in the right place and we want this industry to succeed. If we can lead that initiative, it will be an honor and something to write about in the history books one day when we actually cross-the-chasm, bringing the 0.5 percenter’s to the rest of the world.
With that being said, please enjoy this product and hit me up for any feedback, comments or just to chat!
Thank you all,
Michael
Product overview: https://cirusfoundation.medium.com/f8c45a4b60f9
Demo-request: mike@cirusfoundation.com
Gen. waitlist: https://cirusfoundation.com
