I’m excited to announce that I’ve been offered, and accepted, the role of CEO of DEFY Labs. DEFY Labs is the company behind the mobile game, DEFY, which is a web3 location-based AR game that draws players into the world of the DEFY revolution, fighting back against the nefarious Future Systems corporation.

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Background

I was introduced to DEFY Labs by one of the founders, Tom Threlfall, who I was friends with in university back in 2002. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, and I don’t think either of us expected for our professional spheres to align! Tom is from the finance world, and I’m from technology.

I left my own startup late 2021 to build something bigger, faster, and after meeting the founders at DEFY Labs we agreed to trial me for 2 months. We loved working together, understood where we all fit into the business, built out our strategy and tactics and are on the way to building something we believe will change the world!

Strengths of DEFY Labs

The Founders are Brilliant

Across all three I see humility that frees the guys to ask good questions, look for answers and go deep in their respective domains of strength. I see passion and hunger that drives them to GSD (Get Shit Done). They have differing skills, all of which are critical to the success of the company we’re building. They are open, honest, and kind people, which are fantastic traits for people building a company… and especially in the world of web3 where there feels to be a disproportionate amount of bad behaviour.

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The Product Vision is Brilliant

I won’t go into detail here as it warrants a few different blog posts, but I will provide a summary.

DEFY Labs is building a super fun and engaging mobile game. At the moment, we are creating the NFTs that grant players access to the game. We are building out the foundational gameplay at the moment to increase the fun levels. In the months ahead we’re going to start enabling players to create and collaborate more with other players.

In our next NFT mint on the 23rd of July, we’re allowing players to purchase decals that will be available to add to the NFTs they mint. We’re still creating the assets, but we’re allowing players to customise. This is just the first step. Our longer product roadmap will add features that allow players to create in-game assets, modify them, upgrade and enhance them. Then they will be able to use them, sell them, combine them.

NFTs bring a new dimension to gaming that is not yet being executed well on. We believe we’re well placed to show the world some of the rich possibilities. We are partnering with a number of ecosystem participants and want to show what a world space that spans multiple projects looks like. Human entertainment is always evolving, and we believe that we can bring a large step forward into the world. We believe that with a great user experience and the technical capability, we will be able to broaden the use of these technologies to transcend our game world into something bigger.

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NFTs are more than art or avatars: they’re communities, identity, expression and possession.

We Can Build a World-Class Company

Ben, Michael and Tom have placed me in a position to realise my dream of building an amazing company with them, bringing a world-leading product into the world. There is so much nuance that goes into company-building, and the guys have trusted me to build a human system that can execute fast and effectively. I felt like I needed to be in the right role to bring that to fruition, and the team agreed.

About me and where I fit into the picture

Expertise in company building

I’ve invested a large amount of time and energy into learning how to build companies. A sample of my learnings from various mediums is summarised here. I spend a lot of time in the Australian VC community, helping with deal flow, running tech DD on startups and as an LP. This has brought a huge amount of learnings about what works and what doesn’t.

Experience building world-class engineering functions

I’ve spent 2 decades working in technology, and have seen good and bad teams. I’ve been particularly fanatical about the idea of being the world’s best. What does that mean? How do you define it? I’ve had friends in senior roles at companies that have been considered the world’s best, and learned a lot from them. I’ve worked at places that had superb engineering capabilities. I’ve experienced the joy of building those capabilities at The Iconic and Style Arcade. I am excited to support Michael who I have full confidence in… the fact that I’ve already learned from him is a great start!

Experience building a Product function

The most time I spent in my last role at Style Arcade was in building our Product, Design (incl. UI/UX) and Growth functions. But mostly Product, as it was the weak point holding back our brilliant Engineering team from soaring. I developed our strategy, designed the team, hired, designed our workflows, integrated the creative elements and set the machinery in motion.

Experience in web3

I’ve been invested in crypto since 2016 and got into Cryptokitties when they were first released by Dapper Labs in 2017. Since then I’ve increased my crypto holdings to constitute 8% of my net worth, and in 2021 started participating in a wide range of NFT projects spanning both art and games. As part of AfterWork Ventures we launched an Astronaut project that gated access to a community of Australia’s leading founders and investors who are interested in building knowledge in web3. Through that we formed a DAO called the Nauty Collector’s Club with over 30ETH invested across a range of blue chip and mid-tier projects. In case you’re interested, my favourite projects after DEFY are CyberBrokers and Chainrunners.

A deep passion for leadership and management

I’ve partially built a leadership and management training course (available here WIP). I am actually obsessed. I’m particularly fanatical about the role humility plays, as I’ve watched so many people move into management for the wrong reasons. Reasons like: companies paying higher rates to managers or because the idea of power appealed to them. Not ideal. I’ve observed companies pay so little attention to honing leadership and management skills, when it’s literally one of the most leveraged roles. As Andy Grove points out: if a manager improves their management skills and it resolves in a 2% productivity increase in each staff member, and they manage 10 staff… that’s a monstrous productivity increase. Argh, I better stop before I get on a roll!

Game Industry Knowledge

I’ve been a fanatical gamer since I was a kid. I don’t know anybody who’s played as many games as me, as obsessively, that takes the pleasure that I take in the medium. I studied game design and did game development during my Masters of Information Technology degree, have been a member of the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (IGEA), and have studied the game industry my whole life, following my favourite studios, publishers, newsletters and sites. My level 67 Steam profile contains 62 reviews and holds 1,703 games with a completion rate of 25%. I have over 260 days of game time in World of Warcraft, which, if you account for sleep, constitutes spending over a year of my life in-game.

It’s not just games, either: I’m an avid reader — my Goodreads profile has 392 books reviewed, and I’ve rated 903 movies on Criticker. It’s just that gaming is my primary passion.

Conclusion

I am so excited to work with the DEFY Labs team, and am so grateful for the trust they’ve placed in me to build their company with them. There is a long road ahead, and web3 is a turbulent place to be building in, but we have all the foundational skills and funding we need, so we’re off to a great start!

Thanks for reading, and please reach out with any questions or comments!