On the road again. My late Uncle Bill always felt that when he read my blog and my travels, rest in peace Uncle Bill.
Leaving the wife and kids (again) as the theme of “getting back on the road and business development” trend I set a couple months ago continues.
This time it is Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Vienna, Austria to Prague, Czech Republic. (Also a couple days in Copenhagen, Denmark too).
Why Prague?
We have been invited to speak at hcpp.cz (read about it at mikesblog.com/hcpp) about the importance of owning your name, domain, and content in general on the internet. The dWeb foundation also pitched in the flight and it will be a great chance to meet other “hackers” in this growing web3 and decentralized internet world. A few I have been talking to regularly online during the covid lockdowns.
So excited to deliver that speech, and have worked hard on preparing it.
In addition to the HCPP event this Friday and through the weekend, will also be able to catch the POW summit (proof of work) – more blockchain talks and networking.
Cannot even recall the last time I was in Europe – maybe 2016? It will be a good chance to meet some people from the Handshake community, the bitcoin community – and the transition of my “merger” of the Amazon FBA / ecommerce community / Global From Asia world – and the decentralized web side.
More about this Transition
We are closing on the takeover of Purse.io, the original platform to help Bitcoiners buy on Amazon with Bitcoin. It started in 2014 and somehow this deep rabbit hole I’ve been on has lead me to being part of a group that would acquire this business and convert it to a web3 ecommerce protocol that we call Loadpipe.
To me, it shows the wild rabbit hole I’ve been down since the pandemic started.
- Late 2019 – Wendy wants the kids to spend a half year in China, and learn Chinese, while she takes care of her mom who has cancer.
- Early 2020 – in China, to the Philippines, volcano/covid outbreak. Barely made it back to China in late March 2020. Amazon stopped accepting new shipments, and the world feels like it is ending.
- March 2020 – launch Loadpipe as an emergency group buy platform to buy PPE from China at factory direct prices. Mask stuff is insane.
- September 2020 – a friend Chris tells me of this new domain system on the blockchain, called Handshake. I feel I don’t need more domains, but he insists and we both love the freedom of it and I dive in.
- Make a new blog/YouTube- Skyinclude – decide this is a totally different element of the content I currently make – Mikesblog / Global From Asia, and start a new blog/channel Skyinclude on the decentralized internet and “keeping you included in the sky”.
- 2-3 years of separating, with limited cross promotion – so it is 3 years in, and while there has been some overlap and cross-marketing – finally we will make it fully integrated.
- Purse opportunity came from Handshake + also being in the ecomm space. If I wasn’t actively contributing to Handshake, also while being an active Amazon and ecommerce seller, this chance would not have come. It was due to being in both “niches” that this unique opportunity.
Will be putting it all together until the Loadpipe protocol – a protocol for ecommerce. There is so much happening on this, and there is marketplaces being built, and dapps for financing products, and communities forming.
It will represent the merger of all these efforts and synergize them into a web3 ecosystem for ecommerce.
Cross Border Summit will be where many more opportunities will be shared and openly discussed on Nov 16,17. For now, it is a whole lot of building and deal making.