Manning the Mission Chapter 01
Simulant: Kain Warwick
Role: Founder
Orgs: Synthetix, Infinex
Guided by: Kristian Michail
Role: Founder
Company: Simulations
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Start Simulation ↓
Reading Time: 22 minutes
In this simulation, a world renowned founder is frustrated by his actual impact in the world, even after global ‘success.’ Through simulation, a higher mission is mandatory.
① Context
Hi Kain. Welcome to your Simulation. Before we get into it, who you are in your own words? It's always good to set a bit of context with what you're working on, where you have come from, what you've built, and where are you looking to venture in the future?
My name is Kain Warwick. I've been in crypto for a little while now. I previously founded Synthetix, a derivates protocol in crytpo. I am now the founder of Infinex, a venture which sits adjacent to the protocol and aims to continue that legacy as a seperate thing. I have done some startups before crypto such as different payment and retail startups. I've been in the startup game for 25 years now.
Well, you look pretty damn good. You still get that slim, chic aesthetic. You are doing solid.
It’s from lots of running. Running away from regulators.
Brilliant. Tell me more about this new venture of yours.
Infinex strives to be the UX layer of crypto. It’s an on-chain portal that allows people to access many crypto protocols under the one roof and do things like trading, lending, borrowing, staking, yield farming, and all the stuff that we think of in Decentralised Finance. It's basically a web2 layer that helps the average person interact with crypto in an easier way. It’s not a protocol like Synthetix. I'm still on the council of Synthetix, but it’s duties differ from a traditional business. Synthetix, which I founded a few years back is one of these crypto protocols which allows people to trade derivates, serving a very narrow use case in Decentralised Finance. It’s one of the OG, blue-chip DeFI protocols with a very focused niche. A bit like Aave protocol which lets you borrow against crypto assets. These protocols are the foundation, but there is more work to be done. The new venture, Infinex, is basically saying ‘cool, we've got all of those protocols that do all those things, but they're still hard to access for the average person, right?’ There's still a fairly high learning curve to set up a seed phrase and get crypto assets. What we want to do with Infinex is to tell the world that all these amazing things are out there, bring people on-chain and give them smooth access to blockchains.
That's seems humble. In a market where everyone wants to be cashing in by building a new protocol or a dropping a shitty meme coin, you're trying to create a practical bridge between the old world of money and the new. A more traditional internet service for the average person.
There is plenty of work to do.
① Challenge
Look, there's a couple ways we can always go in this conversation. Ultimately, you're gonna choose where we go. Simulations is consensual. It's your choice. It’s your free will. No one’s going force you to do anything, say anything or go anywhere that you don't want to go. We start by choosing a worthy challenge, which is not necessarily negative or positive. It may be irritating or maybe it’s inspiring. We're looking for an electrical charge of some sort. Something in your energy that the makes the challenge worth exploring. It may be something that triggered you yesterday or something completely non-related to work, to crypto or to your business. It might be something that's long standing, that's been there for decades. It might be something as small as a mosquito bite, but you're somehow still thinking about it in 24 hours later.
Let’s explore the new venture I am working on, Infinex. I think one of the challenges at the moment is working out how to focus all of the energy that we have. Like our velocity, getting some direction and finding momentum. That's something we've been struggling with. The challenge with every startup is coordination. Every startup is different, every market is different. In our case, we are currently dealing with the fact that we're very well capitalized, thankfully, but struggling to co-ordinate. How do you coordinate a bunch of people that have all been thrown together over the course less than six months and get them pointing in the right direction? It's actually more challenging than I thought it would be. I've always operated with startups that were fairly resource constrained. In this case, we are unconstrained with resources and that's created some challenges. Right now, it's about trying to find the alignment on how we attack this problem.
So when you have tonnes of cash in the bank coming into a new venture, do you feel like that creates other problems or other illusions? What do you think is the paradox of having a lot of money that comes with other burdens?
The paradox is not exactly choice paralysis, but it's in the same domain, right? It's like we can do so much, you know, in fact, there's nothing that we can't do. In a normal startup environment you got to choose A or B. In Infinex, over the last six months, it's been let's choose A and B, but also C. Because we can do multiple things simultaneously, right? But we don't have time to do C. So it's like, alright, let's hire some people to do C. Cool. And then those people turn up and they're like let's do D and let's all be to able to do D and then all of a sudden you're doing A through H. There's just a lot of uncertainty and chaos and trying to do so many things simultaneously. Most startups have to do things sequentially. You have five people in a room they focus on step one, they focus on step two, focus on step three. Maybe by the time you get to step 10, you've got 20 people in a room. But we were like at step one, let's throw 80 people at it and see what happens.
Okay, so the challenge you're dealing is with the fact that you now are dealing with seven variations of a problem when you started out to attack one?
Exactly. The scope has expanded massively, which is cool, right? The original intent was just build a centralized layer on top of the decentralised Synthetix protocol. That's what I started out to do in May of last year. Well we're not far away from a year in, and we want to conquer the world and that's cool, but there's a lot of stuff that needs to happen to conquer the world, right?
Okay, what you are you emotionally feeling about that problem? Locate it in the body.
I think it's a level of frustration. And it's a gut feeling of like, this isn't the way it's supposed to go, you know? This is supposed to be easier with more resources. Not harder.
Got it. Thanks for being so honest and authentic. I appreciate one of crypto’s wealthiest founders being so straight forward. So, let me get this straight. Synthetix brought in a massive amount of opportunity and capital to your world. It was a global success. Then there was this other specific problem in the market you felt called to address so you started Infinex afterwards. This new venture went from a specific problem to a big scope of work. And now there's some tension around what the future look likes. And as the founder, you have to make some calls on direction, confront the challenge and restore order to the chaos whilst still fulfilling what you set out to do. Does that sound accurate?
Yes. That’s a good summary.
So we’re clear on the challenge. If you could identify the challenger you're up against, who would it be? Maybe it’s yourself, the market, team members, or maybe it’s just the world of startups the in general. If you can label this challenger, if they were a person, if they were a character in a movie or a video game, a force that is behind the challenge you're up against, who would you say is causing all this chaos?
The challenge is uncertainty. Right? There's always uncertainty in a startup. There's always uncertainty in life. But you can reduce certainty by approaching things in a sequential fashion. That’s my thesis. We don't know necessarily what's going to happen. We don't even know if our decisions are right. But by trying to maintain maximal optionality, delaying a specific call on any one thing and then moving on to the next thing is dangerous. We end up with a bunch of different things that are in some uncertain state. And that uncertainty is just this like fog that pervades the whole thing. That makes it really hard to see how to connect all of this different stuff, right? You go to try and connect one thing to another thing and you're like, oh wait, actually, that doesn't connect at all. We need to connect it to this thing. It’s like blindly stumbling around in the dark.
Okay, cool. So then how could you characterise this experience? If you had to give a criticism or a complaint to someone or a group causing this fog, what would it be? If you had a direct line to the complaints department and you could send it through to someone, who would you be sending it through right now?
Definitely myself.
Thanks for the honesty. If you can label yourself in two words, with a complaint or a criticism, what would it be? Have some fun with it.
Unfocused Founder, I think is good.
Great. Let's proceed with Unfocused Founder. And let's see where this character takes us. And then by the end of your simulation, it will all makes sense.
Cool.
① Facts
🅐 Doing
Let's go on a fact finding missing. Let’s begin by looking at the doings of your world, the things that you do day to day. All the actions you are taking. Neither good nor bad, just things you do. What have you been doing as an Unfocused Founder?
What I'm primarily doing is trying to clarify the tasks that need to be performed to get the outcomes that we want. So it's a lot of clarification, a lot of like reducing uncertainty, reducing optionality, and just making some concrete decisions that we're going to have to live with,. Whether they're perfect or not and trying to get to a point where it's like, okay, we're going to do this and we're not going to do that, we're just going to lock it in.
We're also spending quite a bit of time thinking about how we think about things, which is something that takes up a lot of time. The lack of clarity and certainty means we're still sort of ideating through what is this thing. We are asking lots of questions like what are we trying to do? What should we be trying to do? What does the market want?
Cool, what else are you doing beyond the area of work?
I spent some time out of the game as a full-time founder. I’ve come from a reality where I didn't need to be that focused. I was more an advisory role for a while after years of driving things as the lead. In that advisory position, I could kind of dip in and be like let me help you with this thing and then dip out again whilst doing a lot of different things not related to work. I had a lot of things going on in my life like free diving, running, personal training, and playing chess. The last week has really collapsed that and I've just been focused on work and getting the outcome here. I can see the distractions everywhere. I used to have a lot of tolerance for things like, ‘hey let's see where this interesting thing goes.’ I'll have a conversation with someone who wants to get a coffee and pitch me something. I don't have the luxury of that anymore. As of probably this week, I need to really get more focused and cut out the distractions.
Well, I promise by the end of this conversation there's going to be value worthy of your time. How about what you have not been doing, Unfocused Founder?
I used to highlight the most critical outcomes each day that I needed to get done and ensure that I get them complete. A list of just two or three things that unequivocally on this day need to get done. I have not been making the time for that lately. It's a habit that I built up over many years when I was a focused founder that I need to reintroduce in my life. I have not been sleeping enough the last few days either. I've not been having any downtime. It's been like start to finish from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep
Given your huge success with Synthetix, I feel like you have the luxury that if you never wanted to work again, you probably don't have to. Correct?
Exactly. I wonder why why I still am.
That reason will become clear by the end of this, I assure you.
🅑 Having
Okay, so let's look at the havings now. What do you have in your world? These are things maybe physical, non-physical or maybe even emotional. We just want to collect what outcomes or realities you have as an Unfocused Founder?
I've got a very good team. I've got the resources to execute on this thing. I've got the ability to command attention in the market. I've got an understanding of how the market works and what the market wants. And I've got a sense of how to approach this problem. Now, I just don't know how to work through this challenge sequentially, if you will.
I've got my family were very supportive as well. You know, my wife and kids are very supportive. So that's something that I definitely have is very good support network. One thing that I really feel like I do not have at this particular moment is Etherium, that's something I am feeling quite acutely.
I don’t have enough time.
Anything else you don’t have?
One thing that's changed a lot in my life is not doing drugs and stuff. I’ve stopped alcohol also. I don’t have the effects of being chaotic and crazy when doing that stuff. So it’s nice not to have all that. I have less chaos now, much less chaos.
Thank God for that. I’ve been there myself as well.
🅒 Being Next question. You are a human being, you are not a robot (not yet, at least). So it’s important to assess the ways of being that consumes this character. How have you been being besides unfocused, Unfocused Founder?
I'm probably a bit intense at the moment, right? This has been a big shift. I had gotten to a level of equilibrium in my life and that's definitely shifted coming back as a full time founder in a startup. So I'd say there's a level of intensity right now. I’m not not switching off and not really having a balance. I’m probably less tolerant. I'm not very tolerant state of mind.
What other ways are you not being? These are things that you don't necessarily get to be where you're definitely not being this or its things that you want to be but you don't get to be?
I'm being very black and white. I'm not being open. I'm being a bit closed. I could have gone from this mode of like, ‘oh yeah, let's talk about stuff and whatever.’ And right now It's like, no, this is the thing and this is what we're doing. It’s very serious and straight. It’s very blunt. No poking around anymore. This is what we're doing. Shut the fuck up, this is it!
Ha!
I'm probably not being very kind to myself. I would say i’ve sort of thrown away any attempts to regulate myself in a normal way. I've spent quite a bit of time in the last couple of years working on being a bit more balanced and since I got into sobriety, I’ve tried to have a level of acceptance of things as they are. I've sort of said this is wartime CEO mode, not peacetime CEO mode. We don't have time for that shit. We're trying to kill people.
Well, you're not being intoxicated or addictive, that’s clear. It’s clear that you are a different stage of life and you’re creating a new baby in the world and it’s requiring a new energy for you as a founder.
You know, I think work can be an addiction also, right? Previously, work was definitely an addiction for me. I had other ways of numbing out stress, so I wasn't feeling it. So I think that one thing is I'm experiencing it all this time in my sobriety, that's very different to last time. I’m actually experiencing the stress of this very difficult process, right? Of creating a new entity and building something. I'm happy to live through the stress. I can't just numb it out anymore.
Got it, so you're not being numb. I love honesty. It’s beautiful. People draw a lot of inspiration from that kind of rawness. That's what it's all about. 🅓 Wanting So, what do you want then? I get in this moment you are an Unfocused Founder, but clearly there's some things you want, which is why you created this new venture. What do you want for your life in this next chapter?
I felt since I started Synthetix that it was not entirely done, an incomplete mission. I wanted some sense of closure that I'd actually executed the thing I originally set out to do. You know, to have the mission that we started be successful, genuinely successful and self sustaining. And so I wanted that sense of closure that like we've truly build something that is effective, right? Earlier last year, I was like we have become successful with the protocol but people aren't using it yet. So it's like cool, okay, you build this amazing thing and it works really well and it's competitive with other offerings, but until people actually adopt it at scale, it's not real, right? And so for myself, what I want is to build a thing that allows people to genuinely experience Decentralised Finance. In particular, I want protocols that other people have built to be made accessible as well. I want to bring people on chain and let them experience this new way of doing things. This open and transparent, trustless system that we built that's much better than the traditional way of doing things. I want to really demonstrate the power of it. That's what I want. That's what's driving me in this moment. I want to get that sense of ‘we did it, job done! ’ I want to be truly successful. The people that believed in and invested in Synthetix, by any reasonable metric, have all done very well. It would be very easy for me to declare victory and go sit on the beach for the rest of my life. I felt like there was a deeper thing that was not achieved that was still not satisfying to me. And so, I was like someone's got to go and do this. That’s why I built Infinex. Someone is going to have to build this portal, this thing that's going to bring people on chain, that's going to close this usability, accessibility, user experience gap, and make it not only for a very small percentage of the population who are tech savvy, but to make it accessible to everyone in a safe way. That's how I will actually fulfil the promise and the initial mission. Until we do that, we're kind of in our own little bubble.
I'm hearing a couple things. There's some other founders that would have cashed out, left the game and said thank you very much. But at the heart level, you know that wouldn’t have been right in terms of your mission.
I'm noticing there's this real, sobering reality of what you're trying to build now that genuinely gives access to the masses. It’s like your sobriety in your personal life is coming full circle with sobriety in this venture. Does that resonate?
Yeah, it does. It does. It was all sort of unsatisfying before hand. It was inconclusive, right? There was no conclusion that this endeavour actually worked and, made a difference. It was still an unfinished job or an unfulfilled promise.
Very cool. I am loving what you want. What are you not wanting?
What am I not wanting? I don't want to lose sight of what we're trying to do. I don't want to lose sight of this goal of building something that is accessible to everyone. In a bull market, it can be quite easy to get distracted by things and go chase shiny objects. I do really want to keep focusing on the hard thing. I don't want to pivot to doing something that's easier or whatever. I'm really trying to swing for the fences here and execute on this grand vision.
Beautiful. How are you feeling right now? You started off feeling frustration. What's the emotion right now?
I feel good. I feel motivated. This has focused me to understand what it is that we're trying to do, what I'm trying to do and why it's important. I feel a sense of direction.
It’s a great place to be. Let’s proceed.
⑤ Choice
I'm very clear on what you want. I'm connected to the heart and the spirit of your mission. So I will ask bluntly, do you feel like Unfocused Founder is going to be the character that gets you what you want?
No, no, not at all.
And the opposite of that is what?
A Focused Founder.
Do you feel like Focused Founder going to get you what you want?
Yes.
Okay, just hold that thought. It might appear like a yes, right now. This is where it's gonna get interesting. Are you able to just to close your eyes for a second? I'm going to do it with you. Take a deep breath through your nose and out through your mouth. If I asked you what's missing in your world right now, that would make the difference, what would it be? We are creating a blank canvas. We're more connected. We're more grounded and we're feeling more directional. What is missing that would mean the world?
Certainty.
Knowing what needs to be done and how to do it.
Okay, great. Now we have a choice. You said Focused Founder is going to get you what you want. Maybe it is, maybe it something more. Look for the two words sitting in a blank open space. What would you would choose that really touches your heart and really connects to the grandiosity of the vision but also the honesty of it. Maybe it’s something you’ve never thought before. Maybe it’s something you are yet to feel is possible until this moment. If you could actually label this character in two words, what would it be?
Commited. Conviction. High Conviction.
Committed Founder.
I like that a lot.
Nice choice. Let’s proceed.
⑥ Simulation
I’m going to refer to you as Committed Founder moving forward. Keep your eyes closed and take another breathe. We are going to go somewhere now, a moment in time. It could be the earliest time in your life, maybe when you're younger, or maybe its sometime recent. Wherever you go, it's very clear Committed Founder was alive and real in the world. Where are we? What’s happening? Take some time and let me know when you're there.
Yeah, it's walking into the warehouse that we had with our online retail startup. There are a bunch of boxes everywhere as you walked into the space. All after it was set up and we'd really scaled up. We had a ton of boxes there. We'd filled the whole place with stock. We had an office upstairs. We had warehouse staff. The whole thing was buzzing.
What is the feeling in that room now?
Buzzing energy. Confidence. Like a lot of competence
What else do you see?
I’m just appreciating this thing that we'd kind of maimed into existence, that we've built something real and serious. We've got hundreds thousands of dollars worth of a stock here. This stuff is coming and going. We are wrapping stock, picking, packing. It’s like a genuine, serious operation.
Is there any action that you didn't take at that time, now that you're back there in that place? Anything you want to say to anyone there? Anything you'd want to do? Honour whatever the space time calls for.
I'd say work out your unit economics more effectively. To the team, to all of us. Stop packing for 20 minutes and build a model of the unit economics of the business and make sure it's actually working. It's not just the appearance of growth, it's actual sustainable growth.
Great stuff. We're gonna go to another place now that can be found far into the future. This is beyond time. Maybe it’s when you're gray and old, maybe it’s decades in the future. Wherever it is, Committed Founder is alive and true in the world. Where are you we now?
In my house with my family back to a sense of stability and balance. I see my kids, my wife, you know, sitting around the house. They are eating some food as we are gathered around like the kitchen table. Everyone you know back from various things that they've been doing.
Is there anything you want to express as the Commited Founder of this house? Any action that you feel called to take in this moment?
I’m telling them I love them. That it's it's good to see them. We are laughing about something. I am joking around with them. Something sort of light hearted.
I love that. Where do you feel the light-heartedness?
My chest.
If you feel called to do so, put your hand on your chest just to feel that light-heartedness that before we go to the next place. Let's go 12 months from today. A true miracle is unfolding. You are experiencing something you’ve previously deemed “impossible.” Where does your heart want to take you?
In our new office that we're about to move into. We're launching another product, onboarding. We're upstairs, looking at a big TV. We'd watching the KPIs. We've released the thing, watching watching the numbers rolling. There are thousands of people moving into some new novel protocol that no one has ever used before and wouldn't have used otherwise. We've got a team that's working together. That's coordinated, efficient and executing well. Users trust us. Their assets are safe. We're just in a really stable, balanced place executing well.
What's something you want to express or communicate given that that miracle has happened?
We survived team. We did it. We made it through.
Got it. Last question. What’s the action you are called to take in the next hour, day or week?
Document what that future state is. I want to write down what that future of the project looks like, what the numbers are and what the state of the world is in a year.
⑦ Integration
What are you learning in this simulation?
I think being extremely concerned about the immediate term and losing awareness of the future state is a problem. It's important to be focused in the moment but not to lose sight of the future and what we're trying to achieve and not get too caught up in the minutia. It's a series of days that will add up to this eventual goal, not any particular thing that we do in any hour or five minute period.
What about the simulation has suprised you?
I wasn't really sure what to what to expect. I think what surprised me is the level of groundedness that I felt at the end here. You know, it’s like I get what I'm doing right? I get it. I have done this before. I have a sense of clarity.
How would you as a founder value this groundedness and clarity in the marketplace of other founders, even if you are a founder that has all the money in the world?
These are are valued very highly by founders. It's an intangible thing. You can't buy things like conviction and certainty. These are things that you earn. I think they're extremely valuable.
If simulating is the future of consciousness, how would you describe your experience to the world?
When I was younger I was an athlete. In the mid 90s visualization was a really big thing. I remember reading a book about visualization on how you want to perform and building a mental model. And it never really worked for me. It wasn't something that I found easy to do or accessible in the heat of the moment. So it’s similar to that, but different. It's like guided visualization, but more. I inherently understand the value of it. I guess the question is does this thing land, does it actually persist beyond the initial process itself? Is it something that has like a longer term impact or even like a short term impact? I'm very quick to switch into next mode. I'll be sort of mindful of how persistent this feels.
I need to know there was a very tangible, practical benefit to simulating, like a noticeable measurable, tangible benefit that I got or sifted through during whatever period it was. If I'm going to do something like this monthly, does it actually persist through the intervening period or is it something that's sort of lost for a couple of hours afterwards?
I can answer that question. But I don’t think it matters. Only you can answer that question in time, by mastering the simulation. Maybe you’ll have the answer to that question the next time you simulate.
What I liked about my simulation was that it pulled me out of the chaos for a moment, the immediate term and into a longer term mode of thinking. It was clarifying and helpful. It's easy to get myopic. I'm going through a big transition and I'm really focused on what am I doing this minute and then next minute. But life is not the next 10 minutes. There's a lot more to simulations that I was not expecting.