Mance Harmon On Raising $124 Million To Power The Next Generation Of The Web

After two previous successful exits, Mance Harmon is now on his third startup. One which has quickly grown to become a multi-billion dollar venture that aims to be the platform for tokenizing everything. The venture, Hedera Hashgraph, Has raised financing from top-tier investors like Boeing HorizonX Ventures, Vestinwolf Financial Holdings, Digital Currency Group, and Tata Communications.

In this episode, you will learn:

• • Resilient and decentralized governance
  • Decision-making and empowering your team as the CEO
  • Hedera’s token, and the tokenization of everything

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For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash.

Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here).

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

About Mance Harmon:

Mance is an experienced technology executive and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of strategic leadership experience in multi-national corporations, government agencies, and high-tech startups, and is Co-Founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph.

His prior experience includes serving as the Head of Architecture and Labs at Ping Identity, Founder/ CEO of two tech startups, the senior executive for product security at a $1.7B revenue organization, Program Manager for a very-large-scale software program for the Missile Defense Agency, the Course Director for Cybersecurity at US Air Force Academy, and research scientist in Machine Learning at Wright Laboratory.

Mance received an MS in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, and a BS in Computer Science from Mississippi State University.

Connect with Mance Harmon:

• • • Crunchbase
    • LinkedIn
    • Bloomberg
    • Forbes Councils
    • Twitter

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So super excited about the founder that we have today joining us. We’re gonna be talking a lot about building scaling financing exiting I mean all the good stuff that we like to hear. But oh my god. This founder has done it and has done it for quite some time so without farther ado let’s welcome our guest today his name is Manz Harmon welcome to the show.

Mance Harmon: Hello. It’s good to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally from the deep South Mississippi so why so how was life growing up, give us a little of a walkthrough memory lane.

Mance Harmon: Well, you know it was always very rural and very simple. My parents ah were come from modest means my father is a minister and my mother is a nurse and so. Ah, we we always lived in tiny towns and and I didn’t really understand that we didn’t have much money. You know when you grow up in it. That’s just the way things are and in retrospect I look back on it I understand the sacrifices that they made for me and my brother there are 2 of us. And and then I bootstrapped I bootstrapped out of rural Mississippi by using the military the air force so I graduated high school and had no opportunity for college I enlisted in the air force with the intent of going to school ultimately getting them to pay for college. 2 years in the air force. They decided to send me to college fortunately and I went to school back in Mississippi and to four years later after getting a cops I degree I was able to be commissioned an officer in the air force and then they sent me to work which was which was fun. You know I got to. Finally achieve the dream of being a computer scientist and and pursuing tech the way I’d always dreamt about actually there’s 1 interesting part of that story. My first computer. Ah.

Mance Harmon: I got in the sixth grade. This gives you a sense of of of what we’re talking about here is ah you know, growing up years in the sixth grade the way I was able to buy it. It was an old ti ninety nine four a back in the days of the commodore pets and the you know the pre-apple days. And we had a garage sale that my mother helped help put together and just through the garage sale. We raised $100 to go and buy my first computer so that’s how it all got started and then the military educated me and and they sent me to. To to do work in a ah laboratory subsequently.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing and I know that during this time is where you also made a lemon bet. So why was seeing that connection there so impactful.

Mance Harmon: Yeah, well so and 9093 I got commissioned and a second lieutenant in the air force and I got sent to do research at Wright Labs which is the largest air force laboratory and. I went to work ultimately for the senior executive in the military for machine learning or artificial intelligence. That’s where I met Lehman Lehman Baird and I have been working together since 1993 in lots of different capacities. Persists to to this day and it’s just been a ah great sort of symbiotic relationship I quickly learned that I would never be lemons equal when it comes to the tech. Although I’m proficient enough that I can appreciate the beauty of of the science. Ah, Lehman does all the hard work and I focused on business and Lehman takes care of solving the hard problems and and doing the innovation and solving the you know creating the the new products and I take care of taking those products and. And growing the businesses taking them the market and everything else raising the money et cetera so that the 2 of us combined make a great team and we’ve been working together now for well almost thirty years

Alejandro Cremades: My God quite the marriage quite the marriage now now in this case, you know for you and in this in this case for you. It didn’t take any you know much longer to be become an entrepreneurs so tell us about venturing into the.

Mance Harmon: Yeah, it’s older than you with house marriages. That’s true.

Alejandro Cremades: Startup you know world. How was that.

Mance Harmon: Yeah, well it was interesting. It was while still in the military. Um, the air force was good to me like I said I did research in machine learning to start then taught computer science at the air force academy cyber security. And then managed a massive program for the missile defense agency many of your your listeners might remember the movie war games from the 1980 S with Matthew Brodrick that was my program I did the real thing so I built the real thing for the air force for the missile defense agency. And while still in that role Lehman and I decided we wanted to become entrepreneurs and we had this great idea for building a decentralized identity solution. This is back in 1998 1999 timeframe raised a small round of friends and family money even while still in the military $300,000 and then grew that on the side until I could leave the military a couple of years later continued to pursue that and. Your your listeners may also remember the old palm devices. So the the way this solution worked is that you would have a palm pilot or one of those old trio devices and all of your credentials would be on those devices you would have your device you would sign in on the device using.

Mance Harmon: Handwriting recognition. So the biometric is handwriting recognition enter a password. That’s what you know the handwriting recognition is what you are and then there is an embedded key That’s what you have so it’s 3 factor authentication into the device and then the device would log you into a computer. It was an early. A single sign-on solution and it was decentralized it meaning that there was no single database for the enterprise of users. All of those credentials would be pushed out to the devices. Well we approached palm palm source was the operating system back then. And pitched this idea we told palm you should be selling into the enterprise market and then this is your enterprise play use this software to build an enterprise grade identity solution and and now you’re focused on enterprise in addition to retail and that went. Fairly well actually at at the end of the first pitch I put together the initial pitch deck I remember it very well I was pitching to the Vp of engineering at the end of the first pitch he said something that was new to me. He said okay I love this send me your terms. We’re going to put it in the operating system. So you know we said okay hey we’re we’re off to the races we we are going to be in palm source and go in you know, hundreds of thousands of devices and then we did that we pursued we we negotiated the terms of the deal and it went to the executive council.

Mance Harmon: Their palm source and then they went dark on us and they were dark for for three or four weeks had no idea what happened the guy that was leading bd on behalf of the the Vp of engineering called me up said he’s left the company. But we’re still interested the the champion. The executive champion had left the company. We’re still interested in doing this deal. Let’s let’s get it inked I said great. Let let’s full steam ahead. Let’s get it done and then they went dark on me again several more weeks past the product manager calls me up. He says the head of Bd is no longer with the company. He’s left but we still want to do this deal. We want to get it in the os let’s let’s get the deal done said great I’m ready to sign send me the paperwork right? Then it went dark again and just no communication. Eventually the original executive sponsor the guy that was negotiating the deal in the first place called me from symbol technologies in San Jose turns out symbol at that time sold more pdas than all the other pda manufacturers combined. He said we want to just acquire you and and so we did it. We did the deal. We sold to symbol. It’s now part of Motorola and that was our first experience in entrepreneur and we never raised more than that $300000, we’re able to build the tech.

Mance Harmon: Deliver it integrate it and deliver ah a a decent return to the investors and and I consider that a win given that that it was our first experience commercially outside of military experience. We sort of dove head first and and it worked out for us.

Alejandro Cremades: And first company first exit I mean that’s quite an accomplishment man. What’s the yeah, but kind of disability. Do you think that gave you into the full cycle of of a business.

Mance Harmon: Oh I learned so much right? I most importantly I learned what I didn’t know right? It’s it’s 1 thing to not know something. It’s and much better position to know that you don’t know something. So that you know where at least to go look and and and what to figure out so I you know I learned how business works I learned the language of business I I’m sure that we made a lot of mistakes along the way in retrospect there are things I would have done differently. But it was just the educational experience was invaluable and we made a little bit of money which was a big deal for somebody coming out of the military right? and that very modest means in the military and it was you know it was a great experience.

Alejandro Cremades: Absolutely once an entrepreneur to always an entrepreneur entrepreneur. So what happened next for you mans.

Mance Harmon: Well, we we moved to San Jose as a result of that deal from Colorado springs that’s where I taught computer science and had been working for the missile defense agency and um, didn’t stay with symbol very long. In fact I I decided. You know that was fun. Let’s go do it again. I decided that in less than 18 months we decided that we wanted to move to Texas so we were when the early early migrants from California to to Texas settled in Austin and started our second company which. Was focused on really modernizing the building access control industry with Data Networks at the time it wasn’t the case that access control like you know cards that you might use to get into building systems. Those types of video systems and and access control systems. They didn’t use Modern Data Networks they didn’t use wi-fi they didn’t use ethernet. So we built one of the very first companies that created those types of security solutions for. Ah, you know Modern Networks Modern Wifi Networks I I found a partner that had owned the largest independent distributorship of that type of hardware in North America

Mance Harmon: And decided. Okay I’ve got a channel I’ve got the channel partner to start now I just need to build the product and actually I had the partner before we started the company so we we started the company I built that to be a national company over the course of about 6 years and ah learned a lot learned a lot about 2 wo-tier distribution learned a lot about sales channels and building out sales channels while also developing some cool tech ultimately ended up selling out to my partner who had a small equity fund private equity fund that wanted to put a bunch of. Businesses together and I decided it’s time for me to go back mainstream into computer science I felt like I was just getting too far removed from the core of the tech industry and so we sold that and in 2011 December of twenty eleven and ended up.

Alejandro Cremades: And and how is and man’s quick question there. How is it different Ah in this case because on the first go around you know with your company essentially with with trio security I mean you sold that to I strategic player right? in this case, you know like with with blue wave.

Mance Harmon: But right? yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: You sold it to a financial player. So how is it different. You know from an acquisition on the strategic side to an acquisition on the financial side like you went through with with blue wave.

Mance Harmon: Um, on the financial side. It was purely a financial play. In fact I was doing it so that I would no longer have to participate I no longer wanted to participate right? I I felt like I had done what I could do or what I was interested in doing with the tech at that point. When we sold it to the strategic player I viewed it as an opportunity to get it embedded into an organization that could really take it to market on a large scale I didn’t stick around to realize that vision. It’s not you know is not the role that I wanted to play. But I wanted to see the tech itself. Ah you know reach its potential and so that that was the difference between the 2 organizations and the 2 exits I should say the yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: And and 1 thing that 1 thing that is very interesting here for me is that and I’m sure that for the listeners too is that after you did you you finalized the the transaction with blue wave and it was time to turn page instead of building another company. You were. You know, helping you know someone else build their own dream and I guess that you know for example with with ping identity which was the immediate step you know for you to really? you know, bring your the rocket ship that you’re in now I mean you were in this process of whether I stick around or. Or I go and and and and and launch my own thing I guess 2 questions here one. Why did you go and work for somebody else after you had experienced entrepreneurship for a hand firsthand twice and then 2 why didn’t you stick around and you thought hey now is my time to shine.

Mance Harmon: Yeah that’s a great question when I joined ping I did it for several reasons one I was I was friends with the founder guy named Andre Duran Andre Duran has been very successful with ping. He’s grown. It. You know for now what 25 years something on the order of 2025 years and he is a serial entrepreneur as well. He actually started jabber back in. You know the the pre-ping days. He saw he started jabber installed at Cisco I love tech. But I also learned the value. Through those 2 first 2 experiences of really sort of taking a step back and making sure that whatever you’re preparing to devote yourself to is the right thing that you really know for certain this is the play that I’m going to give the next 5 maybe 10 years of my life too and so I was in a position to take some time and and and not jump too quickly right? just to to be measured in that decision about what it is I want to do next Andre gave me the opportunity to have fun. I went and stood up the labs organization for peeing identity and then also served as the lead architect for the work that they were doing there while taking the the opportunity to sit back and observe what’s going on across the entire tech industry.

Mance Harmon: And and look for the next opportunity it was in that role that during that role I should say that Lehman went to work on trying to solve a really hard problem a hard math problem. And it’s in the field of distributed consensus. So the whole crypto industry by the way is built on distributed consensus algorithms and that’s what Blockchain is blockchain is a distributed consensus algorithm lehman went to work in 2012 on trying to solve a really fundamentally hard problem in the field of distributed consensus that problem specifically is how do you maximize? The security of a network ah issue consensus network while simultaneously maximizing performance. There’s always been this tradeoff between security. And performance of these types of of systems and and it he started in 2012 had nothing to do with Blockchain right? it it just was not informed. His work was not informed at all by what was going on in the in the world of blockchain or bitcoin back then it wasn’t even blockchain it was just. Bitcoin right? that that was it and and in two fifteen he solved that problem. He cracked the nut so to speak he figured out the solution. It’s a fundamental advance in the field of distributed consensus. He solved that problem.

Mance Harmon: And today we call that hash graph. It’s an alternative algorithm to blockchain at the same time. Um, you know bitcoin was becoming prominent and bitcoin sort of made the market if you will for this new invention that Lehman had called. Hash graph I am ping from an identity perspective. We had an interest is there. Are there any identity solutions that we can build based on blockchain bitcoin blockchain in particular I came to the conclusion. No, it’s just not performant enough and then Lehman. Solved the problem. He he solved the problem of of performance and security and so we decided wow the timing of this is fantastic. If this is correct then this is a billion dollar invention right? We knew upfront at the beginning. The implications of what he had developed. We knew it from the very beginning and you know and there you have it. There are these moments in time where you just feel an overwhelming compulsion to. To do something because it it. Everything is aligned and and that’s what we discovered in 2015.

Alejandro Cremades: So obviously you know when you discover that you know eventually you started incubating this this thought of give me your notice at the same time you know they wanted to promote you so I’m sure that they you know when you knew that you had a billion dollar you know, baby. You know in in in in in the process. You probably you know thought it was an easy. It was an easy answer to to where to go? No. So I guess you give your notice what happened next.

Mance Harmon: Yeah, well actually what happened is I put together the first pitch deck right? So you know you have a new idea you got to go raise money to to build it and I put together the first pitch deck and I called up Andre. And said hey I I need to come see you I want to talk to you about an idea I lived in Dallas at the time for excuse me Austin at the time and ping is in Denver so I get on an airplane I fly to Denver I get off the airplane before I could even get off the airplane I could see that my. My schedule had been rearranged rather than going to see Andre. They said we want you first go see the chief marketing officer guy Brian Bill and I I went to see Brian and he said man we we want you to take over product marketing for us. It’s an important role. We’re going to give you a big raise. We’re going to give you you know ah a boost in in title and rank etc. All of those things equity and I you know I thanked him and it said I need to consider it and then I went to see Andre walked in the room. First thing out of Andre’s mouth mans. We really value what you’re doing for the company I need you to take this job. We want you to head up product product marketing and I’m going to give you all these things right? we’ go to give you a seat at the table and I’m going give you a bonus and all these things and so I knew then.

Mance Harmon: That I had a fundamental decision to make do I take the promotion and you know take sort of the easy path and continue to climb the the ladder. So so to speak or do I turn them down because I knew that once I show him this deck. It’s gonna become clear that I’m leaving and it’s it’s tough right? It’s tough to to go back and I decided that I had to show on the deck and I said well look I appreciate that I’m gonna give you this pitch and then let’s talk about it afterwards. So I get into the pitch first pitch deck. First time I’m ever pitching and 15 seconds into the pitch Andre stops me. He says man stop I want to get my camera or phone I’m going to record this because it it sounds and feels a lot like it did. When we first started talking about Jabber and so he he records my first pitch and I have a copy of it. He sent me a copy of it and at the end of it. He said okay can you do both jobs I said no I can’t I’ve got to go pursue this I’m all in on this. And he said okay come back in the morning we want to invest and and and then we you know we negotiated a deal and simultaneously closed another round of funding from an investor on the front range but ping was one of the one of the earliest investors in the project.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow! So I Guess say for the people that are listening. You know to ah to really get it. What ended up you know being the um, the model here for the for the initiative because obviously you know you guys have like different structures on how hey there I say support it on how you know is it has really being brought to life. But for the people that are listening to get it. You know what is it and they what’s the model behind it.

Mance Harmon: Yeah, yeah, well so we first started a a normal ccorp called swirls and that’s a mashup of shared worlds. That’s what it stands for the technology hash graph. Is just a consensus algorithm that has superior properties to first -generation blockchain and so we compete today in the same space as the other major platform providers like ethereum. Inslana and algorithm and and others in in that space. Ah when we started it all. We knew that we were going to be well definitionally we we were centralized but we decided let’s create something that looks very different than the rest of the market. Um, we had the tech. We had fantastic performance in the tech in terms of speed and security and cost structure. But we also knew that equally important if not more important ultimately was the governance of this global network. And we wanted to to be decentralized and we knew that the governance models of those early players those early crypto platforms just was not working very well for a lot of different reasons. So I read a book literally I read a book by the founder of visa.

Mance Harmon: Guy named de hawk and deha stood up visa back when his bank americard before visa was was the brand. It was bank mariccard in the 1960 s and he wrote a book about that experience and all the travails that he went through and the governance model that they created and we decided. Let’s let’s adopt that and apply it here because what we’re doing is bringing together a bunch of independent entities all that maybe are are competitive with 1 another in some fundamental ways. But we want to bring them together to build this ecosystem in this platform that everyone will benefit from. Today what it looks like is a global organization of blue chip organizations. They’re 28 today they they include some of the biggest companies in the world like Google and Boeing Deutsche Telecom and no morera and standard bank out of South Africa and magazine Louisa it’s like the Amazon of Brazil and South america f is you know they process 50% of the credit card transactions today you know this caliber of organization including. Academic Institution University University College of London and London school of economics I it Adam Madrid and others they we brought them together. We were able to convince them to join a delaware based lllc so hidera.

Mance Harmon: Is and a delaware based lllc and the members of the lllc are this global collection of organizations. they are hidera and they govern hidea in ah in a. Fundamental way. What? what? I mean by that is aa is a public network that makes it possible for developers to build applications on top of just like a developer might use Amazon Web services for normal applications. They use addra for web 3 applications. Except all of these companies I just mentioned are the ones that they’re running the nodes that the developers use when you know instead of Aws Run by Amazon. It’s hadera run by this collection of organizations and they provide the governance and and there’s nothing else like this in the crypto industry where we’re unique. In the crypto industry in the governance model. We definitionally started centralized because just me and Lehman but we very quickly built up the organization raised a lot of money and hired a lot of folks. And then decentralized the governance in the way that I described so we we recruited these council members. We’re 28 strong Today. We’re growing to 39 we decentralized governance and then over time we literally deconstructed the operations.

Mance Harmon: Of the organization this you know this is kind of unheard of it. It doesn’t happen in in most well any industry that I’m aware of um we we built up the organization then we we spun off created a foundation. Where all of my Bd team and Corp Dev team left and went to work in the foundation. We gifted the foundation a bunch of cryptocurrency our cryptocurrency the h bar and the foundation then has its own Ceo its own staff. Ah. Completely independent of us. We don’t hold a board seat with the foundation. The gift was was you know a gift and then where we cut them loose and then we did it again with a different organization in Switzerland so in the United States we have the H Bar Foundation in Switzerland we have the hash graph association similar situation. There’s an academic organization that’s doing that now as well. It’s the Dlt Science foundation that includes the council members that are that are universities on our council and and others as well. And then finally operations. So what was left inside of adea engineering product management ah Dev Devops Backoffice functions all of that we spun out into another organization called swirlds labs including me and Lehman.

Mance Harmon: And and so Leman and I and the rest of operations moved over as swirls labs and now hera exists as a council of these organizations that run everything by committee. It’s got a treasury and it’s It’s not much more than that. There’s a staff that manages the operations council operations and and finance and and that sort of thing think of it as a cross between a a standards body as well as a network ah that is operated by. By these council members in Sworl’s labs where we are today builds the software under contract does you know provide services to Hidera under contract and then swirls is going to go on and and build other products and services that are complementary. And supportive of the larger hidera ecosystem. But it’s ah you know it’s a very unusual ah play here and the the central thesis of it all was that while centralized organizations are certainly more efficient. And you you know you can move faster at maturity. The belief is that decentralized ecosystems of organizations are far more robust and resilient to whatever might come in the market.

Mance Harmon: And and now we’re seeing that play out right? We’re We’re seeing the growth of this hera ecosystem explode as a result of decentralizing all of these functions into multiple organizations each of which are autonomous and have the ability and capacity go build. The ecosystem and and it’s Worked. You know we we’ve you know we’ve very quickly gone from 0 to a multi-billion dollar organization using this this approach.

Alejandro Cremades: And while we’re talking about money. How did you guys go about really raising the money you know for this incredible. And also unique structure that you guys have put together. What was that process like and then also how much how much have you guys raised in total to date.

Mance Harmon: Yeah, yeah, well so before we announced hera the organization we really promoted hash graph the consensus algorithm you know this was back in the 2017 timeframe when blockchain the hy if you look at the garter hype Cycle Blockchain was just you know roaring in terms of of the hype associated with Blockchain and we we had a superior technology in hash graph and so we really. Talked a lot for about six months talked a lot about hash graph and the promise of hash graph without ever saying how we were going to use it and then in the spring of 2018 we decided, let’s have a big event where we. We really tell the world. Okay, we have hash graph. You’ve been waiting here’s now what we’re going to do with it and we we rented out the playstation theater on Broadway in Manhattan and decided we were going to have an event and. I remember it very well within just a couple of hours of opening ticket sales for the the theater it was completely sold out right? Just completely sold out in record time and then we decided. Okay, we’re gonna live cast this live stream. This.

Mance Harmon: As well. We went into the event prepared to talk about all of our plans and and and introduce hidera to the world and and the governance model and the whole vision right? The entire vision for what hidea is today. We actually did write down and put together in a white paper. Before we held this event in preparation for the event. We. We released the white paper the same night as the event and then the online accounts you know the the number of people watching it online just began to skyrocket. We. We bought enough seats I think we bought five Thousand seats online for the event and we hit it in just minutes and through the evening we surged to nearly eighty thousand people watching this on a global basis. So we we had an entire global. Ah. You know audience with with the pacted playstation theater there on Broadway and and we announced to the world. The vision for for Hideera and it just resonated right? everybody just everybody loved it and so we went on ah a road show. We and immediately went on a global road show all over Asia all over Europe and the us and we were able to to raise the funds that were necessary to kick off and.

Mance Harmon: And run the project and you know over the course of I don’t know three or four months something like that. We raised one hundred and twenty four million dollars pretty easily at a great valuation and that kicked it all off and then you know subsequently we’ve. We’ve released the token we we have it. We floated the token right? You have a token that’s associated with the project and the token went live and 2019 I don’t know the total amount that has been raised for the project since then but what I do remember specifically is that before that point. We very quickly raised a hundred and twenty four million dollars

Alejandro Cremades: So Let’s say you were talking about vision there and obviously that’s saying you know why you were able to get the investors you know to to come in so quickly and so easily as you were saying which is remarkable imagine if you were to go to sleep tonight Manz and you wake up in a world where the vision of Heata. Is fully realized what does that world look like.

Mance Harmon: Oh look. Um I think that we will realize that vision and it’s a world that is fully tokenized. We will live in a tokenized world and when I say that what I mean by that you know many of your listeners will. Obviously know about Nfts and then a lot of them will know about crypto but that’s the tip of the iceberg when we think about as an example, let’s just take a supply chain use case as an example, you have some ah large organization that is. Building producing manufacturing I should say sneakers you have raw materials flowing into the supply chain. Those raw materials will have associated digital twins associated tokens those tokens then get combined when the tennis shoes get. Manufactured the tennis shoes have a token associated with them as the product flows through the supply chain. There are natural points where you take the tokens associated with the sneakers. A lot of sneakers and you in real time with the workflow in the in the normal workflow. You exchange those tokens for working capital using defi the decentralized finance stack and and that’s all using stable coins and the tokens and it’s all programmatic. It just happens and then later you use the tokens ah to to.

Mance Harmon: Purchase Product insurance or shipping insurance and then finally you deliver the lot of sneakers to a distributor and the distributor pays you an account you get it. An Account’s receivable from the distributor and that has a token associated with it and what do you do with that token that a R and token form. Again, you go back to the defi stack and you factor it you you get working Capital you know by by selling that token associated with the accounts receivable for stable coins that you turn into fiat and you fund operations. Every single thing that you see. And touch everything that has any value associated with it is going to have a token associated with it. We’re going to live in a tokenized world and Hidea is enabling all of that. So Att. Maturity Hera is the platform. For a tokenized universe.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it now you’ve been at it for a while as an entrepreneur man. So let’s say put you into a time machine here. Let’s put you into a time machine and bring you back in time. Let’s say back in time to the late 90 s where you were. Thinking about building something of your own. Let’s say you had the opportunity of having a chat with that younger mans and being able to give that younger man’s 1 piece of advice before launching a business but would that be and why given what you know now.

Mance Harmon: Well, that’s a great question. Um, you know I think the most important thing. Well I don’t know if it’s the most important thing certainly an important thing is. To never be rash never make decisions important decisions when you’re tired or when you’re stressed or in the heat of the moment. There are a lot of times. Where you know when you’re when you’re an entrepreneur when there is a lot of pressure. There is a lot of stress and there’s the opportunity to be expedient in ways that perhaps are not ah. Most advantageous for the long term now fortunately with Hidea I don’t think that we’ve made that mistake. We’ve taken a very long view with hadira from the beginning. Ah, but you know as an early entrepreneur. There are times when you just don’t have the the experience to to to know you got to take a step back and and you got to rest sleep get advice from those that have been there and done that.

Mance Harmon: Before pulling the trigger on on major decisions and so that more the other thing is to assume that you assume that you’re you’re probably not the right person to answer the question right? You really need I’m a big believer. And surrounding yourself with really good expertise and I practice I very much practice. What a lot of the world will call servant leadership and what I mean by that you know everybody defines it slightly differently. What I mean by that. Is that I view my role as the Ceo as not necessarily the one to come up with all the answers. In fact I normally am not the one to come up with all the answers but rather to hire the very best talent and then remove the roadblocks to their success. I’m the one that tries to fix the problems and and remove the the friction just so that the those that are working for me can do their jobs if you trust their judgment as the experts and you enable them to do the jobs. They’ve been hired to do. And you knock down the walls so that they can do them then you have the benefit of the team and the team is all important I appreciate what that means today in a fundamentally different way than I did back in in 1998 so.

Mance Harmon: So so that’s it.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s very very profound mans. So for the people that are listening that would love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Mance Harmon: Oh um, yeah so mant at swirldslabs.com is fine I have an assistant that can help with ah you know with with the inflow but that but that is the email address and that’s probably the.

Alejandro Cremades: You see enough mans. Thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today. It has been an honor to have you with us.

Mance Harmon: The most direct approach.

Mance Harmon: Thank you so much for having me I appreciate it.

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