Reimagined Finance: Investor Persona Interviews

Interview : #3 in a 10 part series

Introduction:

Hello again, I’m @Abraxas_Seven and welcome to the third in a series of Investor Persona Interviews.

As CMO of Reimagined Finance, I am exploring insights on the major barriers and common experiences for investors across the DeFi markets. This week I interview @waywelive, a seasoned marketing professional with a very balanced view of crypto. His experiences are common, but his investing principles are not. But they are constant with a ReFi investor, which are: a clear, measured, and long term approach. These commonalities are recurring time and again in the interviews and their portfolios reflect this approach.

This interview covers his journey and we hope shows the key learnings and that investors can consider for a better plan. ReFi is committed to not just managing and farming your funds across the #defi space, but helping to educate our communities. The more we inform the better long term investment decisions across the #faas space will be made. This we believe will create more secure, long-term portfolios with consistent ROI’s for everyone.

So let’s dive in! And if you would like to be interviewed for the Persona Series please DM me @Abraxas_Seven on Twitter.

1. Please introduce yourself as you see fit and then provide your Crypto experience and involvement to date.

I’m a Brit, middle aged, middle class, middle of the road, father of two teenagers, living in a city with my gf and two cats.

I got involved with crypto in 2017, bought BTC and then ETH on Coinbase, started playing with other coins, made a small amount of money, lost a slightly bigger amount of money and then pretty much forgot about it until I was between jobs in 2020. I started to spent time on Crypto Twitter, realised that CEXs were where the volume was but not the action, got myself set up with a wallet and started wasting money on gas fees. I’ve been rugged twice, I’ve come close to being scammed but got out just in time, and I ‘hodled’ and amateurishly traded my way to around $25k last November. Since then I have gone right down the rabbit hole, my portfolio has shrunk by around 40% but I am nicely diversified from L2s to shitcoins, and ready to embrace the principles of taking profit just as soon as some growth allow me to. In short, I’m a relatively well-educated, completely retail crypto investor, spending only what I can afford to lose but dreaming of landing the big win.

2. Could you please give us a 1-minute history of your general business experience and what you do?

I’ve worked in advertising and marketing for 25 years, at a number of different agencies and as a client. I’ve worked at independent businesses, start-ups, large multinationals and everything in between, and right now I’m the MD of a smallish business turning over around $5 million. I have a couple of side gigs too, building a spirits distribution and retail brand, and developing a new digital advertising product.

3. How did you get involved with ReFi?

Blame Twitter. Someone I follow was an early investor and he mentioned ReFi late last year. I had a look, liked the sound of FaaS and put in a few hundred dollars. Since then I’ve topped up twice, haven’t sold a thing, and am around 10% underwater today. ReFi is currently my 3rd biggest holding. The guy who told me about it is out sadly.

4. Do you have a crypto strategy and has that evolved since discovering ReFi and if so how?

Sort of. Short-term meme coin holds, medium-term FaaS holds (once I bought ReFi I discovered more and now hold, including spin-offs, 8 in total), longer-term ecosystem holds (LUNA, FTM, now also METIS), now quite small BTC / ETH pots, and not enough stables. I’ve learned to take profit and now do so according to different levels of growth in each category of coin (so not much recently), and I’m trying and still often failing to sell under-performing assets in good time. I should also consolidate but I like having a broad spread of coins. I don’t leverage anything as I’m too risk-averse, and I only invest what I can afford to lose outright.

5. What problems were you facing in crypto investing generally and how has ReFi helped?

Exactly what ReFi was set up to do. I was aware that staking / farming across DeFi was a good way to grow funds but I’m not a trader and I have a day job. So the opportunity to have experts trade on my behalf sounded sensible. I can still do the basics of buying and selling but I’m nowhere near educated enough to do what Huf does day in day out.

6. What are the biggest mistakes you see when people engage crypto investing?

Same as any investing really. Not doing enough research. Getting too emotionally involved. Not having a plan. Chasing green candles. All of which I have done and will no doubt continue to do!

7. What was your main concern that would have prevented you from investing And what put your fears to rest? In crypto and then ReFi.

Crypto — Lack of education initially, then lack of regulation and lack of time. What put my fears to rest was deciding and sticking to a certain risk level, so I can celebrate the wins knowing that if I lose it all it will sting but it won’t ruin me. In ReFi — Same as any new coin because they’re all unknown quantities. What put my fears to rest was the obvious professionalism of the team from Day 1.

8. What are three benefits you’ve experienced as a result of joining ReFi versus other crypto platforms?

The professionalism of the team. The transparency and frequency of communications. The returns.

9. What made you choose ReFi over anything else you could have done? And how important was the management team in this decision?

ReFi came highly recommended in the first instance. The team helped with the first investment for sure but they are definitely the reason I haven’t sold anything. When these guys say they’re shooting for $1bn market cap, I believe them more than I believe others.

10. How has crypto changed since you invested and what new barriers / challenges or opportunities do you see today versus when you started?

Buying BTC, ETH and LTC on a CEX was dead easy. I’m still only a part-time retail investor but I’m on 3 CEXs, I have 2 wallets, I buy on Uniswap, PancakeSwap, SpookySwap and others. I track my portfolio on CG. I run my own P&L spreadsheet. I track prices on Dextools. And there are 10k+ coins out there with more launching every day. And that’s without getting into NFTs, which I have chosen to avoid as I simply don’t have time to do it justice. It’s bloody complicated and time-consuming, so the barriers and challenges are clear. It’s all just too fiddly. And opportunities? There is still clearly money to be made, and I definitely believe that the energy and invention in crypto is going to change the world. As the saying goes, we’re early.

11. How has your personal life changed since joining ReFi and using this system? For example — are you less stressed about investing has it helped you feel more optimistic or secure?

ReFi and FaaS is making one aspect of my life in crypto easier. I probably wouldn’t have got into complex farming / staking as I don’t have the time to do it, so it has opened up access to the intricacies of DeFI investing without me having to worry about it. Not sure it’s changed my life but it’s definitely the most promising category and individual coin in my portfolio.

12. What surprised you the most or made you the happiest about being involved with ReFi?

Quite how grown-up the team is compared to a lot of the rest of the crypto world.

13. In a % how much has your investment grown with ReFi versus your initial crypto investment?

My total investment including payouts is about 10% underwater. In this market I consider that a pretty good return.

14. If you were to recommend ReFi to your best friend, what would you say?

Grown up, trustworthy, dependable, does the clever stuff to grow your $$ so you don’t have to.

15. If someone was unsure about joining ReFi, what would you tell them?

See answer 14.

16. Is there anything you’d like to add either about your crypto investing experience as a whole or regarding your ReFi journey to date?

Crypto is exciting. It’s made the last few years a lot more interesting than they would have been otherwise. Frustrating, and anxiety-inducing too, but I’m here for it. As for ReFi, I’m endlessly impressed how the team just sticks to their knitting — farming as a service so that retail investors can get exposure to DeFi returns. Despite the crappy market they haven’t panicked, they haven’t diversified into nodes or NFTs, they haven’t built a launchpad. And this commitment is clearly paying off. I can’t wait to see what happens when the market picks up.

Conclusion:

We want to give a big thanks again to @waywelive for sharing his journey with us!

While @waywelive has a broad portfolio the core elements he looks for in a good investment are consistent. Focused and seasoned management team, a clear utility benefit to the project that is explained well with transparency in communication.

These elements are often overlooked when chasing the short term. They show a ‘long term win-persona’ form a typical ReFi investor. It is one of the reasons we have such a strong and like-minded community and we often find we rebound and stay consistent in a bear market compared to similar projects.

We will continue to uncover more insights from investors and what attracts this long term smart investor to ReFi. As always I am grateful for all interviewees and we all help each other to learn about the markets and ensure insights help ReFi become a better project day-by-day! And hopefully you’re investment strategy.

See you next week where we will be doing our weekly REFI Twitter Spaces and for more Persona Investor Interviews.

Have a great investment week!

-@Abraxas_seven