#149: Andrew Maurer (Rise)

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:00:00]:

The rest of the world is is moving forward because they understand the impacts of being able to communicate and transfer value with an utmost degree of certainty of of security and finality. And that's the thing I I use the word finality because, like, if you think about using your credit card and buying some goods at the store or, like, paying for services, or even paying your mortgage, like that payment actually isn't final. Like that payment is just a promise that it will be final someday. But in blockchain, the finality is way more efficient and much more precise than any of those payment mechanisms we have today because all that stuff takes time. But with blockchain, it's cryptographically signed and it's executed. And so finality is overlooked often because we take it for granted because we just borrow and lend all day long. But that's really what it is. But with blockchain, it's actually finality.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:49]:

Let's discover what people are building in the Greater Cleveland community, we are telling the stories of Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders, and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I had the real pleasure of speaking with Andrew Marr. Andrew Drew is the cofounder and CTO of RISEWORKS, an all in one compliance and payment platform designed for companies with global workforces. RISE, which is based in Pepperbike and has raised $3,800,000 in seed funding from investors like Draper Associates, Polymorphic Capital, SENO Global Capital, Hashkey Capital, and many other angel investors offers a platform with flexible payment infrastructure Along with automated routing between Fiat and cryptocurrencies. Ultimately, enabling web 2 and web 3 organizations to onboard, manage, And pay local and international contractors and other global workers, all while ensuring full compliance and alleviating burdensome tax processes. Covering over 90 local currencies, over 100 cryptocurrencies, and having paid out over $10,000,000 to teams in countries across the world.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:09]:

Andrew, who is originally a California transplant now living on the east side of Cleveland for the last 15 years, Came to build Rise with 2 decades of experience developing software and a decade long experience at Dealer Tire here in Cleveland prior. Andrew is also a pilot, flying mostly for fun. This was a fascinating conversation as we unpack Andrew's passion for Blockchain and instant global payments as a Catalyst for positive change. The future of digital identity. The challenges of companies building in the web three space. Opting to focus on global first, the staying power of crypto, and a whole lot more. So please enjoy my certain. With Andrew Marr after a brief message from our sponsor.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:52]:

Lay of the Land is brought to you by Impact Architects And by 90. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio, Impact Architects has helped hundreds of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast realize their own visions and build these great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love. If you 2 are trying to build great, Impact Architects is offering to sit down with you for a free consultation Or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. If you're interested in learning more about partnering with Impact Architects or by leveraging 90 to Power your own business, please go to ia.layoftheland.fm. The link will also be in our show notes. It's a long time in the making here. So I'm excited to to talk with you about Rise.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:56]:

I feel like Most emerging technologies evolve in these these cycles. And in the the world of of crypto And, and Web 3, you know, following a period of, I think, significant, you know, hype and activity, I think it would be Fair to say the sentiment has, has waned a little bit in this proverbial winter, sense and that the casual observer That may have turned somewhat cynical and overlook the actual progress that I think the industry is still making, you know, particularly amidst all the kind of profile Headlines of, of bankruptcies and frauds and flame outs of the last few years. However, to, to me as, as kind of like a long time follower of, of this space, I try and just, you know, look for the the durable progress that that's being made in the space. And, I have been very much looking forward to talking with you guys for for a while. So I'm excited to learn more about RISE and the work you're doing. So thank you for for coming on, Andrew.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:04:58]:

Yeah. Thanks for thanks for having me. And, yeah, definitely a long time coming. I'm trying to schedule this for a while, for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:05]:

So can you just kinda take us through your your own background and, you know, your path to to entrepreneurship? I know everyone also personally has their, you know, initial spark and interest in the crypto and web three space somewhere along the line. I don't know exactly where it was for you. How is it that that came into the picture along your own career progression around the things you were working on?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:05:26]:

Yeah. You know, quickly, background. You know, I've been in technology for for 2 decades now. It's been a a long time. I'm starting out at a very large company, AT and T, out in California. So I I really got exposure to, like, how these massive behemoth companies really operate. And I had the opportunity in 2 2008 to come out to Cleveland, and that's, You know, where I got really into a smaller company, Dealer Tire, which at that time was really more of like a medium sized company. The team was small.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:05:54]:

I was number 5 on the development team. And so we have to make decisions really quick and move forward. And that grew into, a company that had 30 or so developers. So quite quite, decent sized workforce. And I moved from into development into some senior leadership roles, in there. And and in that experience, it gave me, exposure to how business operates. You know, why do you care about your general ledger? Where how do you care about accounting and compliance and, operations. And that was really, really great from a growing perspective and experience, which kind of put a bow on being ready for entrepreneurship and going off my own.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:06:29]:

And so that's what I did in 2018. I actually left to join a start up, and just be a consultant for a start up and do my own salting thing, whereas running my own payroll in QuickBooks and charging customers and everything. So really got to see the full gamut of technology and how it relates to these large and very small companies. At that point, I just wanted to actually go off my own and really, I have a lot more influence over my own success because when you're the 1 person show or a really small start up, like, you really The more work you put in, a lot of times you hit that that award given back to you. So that's really where I wanted to be. And so at that time too, it was a conversion from moving working at Dealer Tire, which is a very traditional business, over into the blockchain space. And part of that decision to leave a comfy position to move into something on my own was around crypto. So it really if I could sum it up, it's really I learned that I can program money.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:07:25]:

And once you learn you can program money, you're like as a developer, you're like the world opens up because you never thought of doing that before. But all of a sudden, You can write programs that send value anywhere in the world, and you can run servers to communicate with other servers anywhere in the world. These protocols just started opening up and opening doors for developers. That's really what piqued my interest and really kind of pushed me over the ledge. Not just from the ownership perspective, but really The new thing that was coming out that was exciting and really world impacting. And so I don't think A lot of people get opportunities in their lifetime to actually jump into a new technology that's groundbreaking, like crypto and even AI now, and really, to grab it by the horns. And so that's that's really how I got started. And but before I even left in to be a a consultant, I actually was running miners in my basement.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:08:15]:

So I was mining Ethereum with GPUs. I had 36 GPUs in my basement, charging a ton of electricity and heat vents going out of the basement and to the outside and, really kind of tipping my toes in that way and then and then, of course, leaving and learning a whole lot about Ethereum. And so when I left, I was actually writing APIs, and I was becoming very familiar with the Ethereum, The RPC endpoints, the data that made up Ethereum, and the nodes that ran globally and communicated globally. So that's kind of how I really Got really, really involved because I got introduced into this fine grained introduction into Ethereum. Everything I've done after that has been built upon that foundation essentially.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:58]:

As we make our way to RISE, was that of the first of the explorations you had done, you know, with that foundation in place or where directionally were you thinking about Problem solving with regards to what you could build with programmable money.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:09:12]:

Yeah. At that point, it was much more focused around career and exposure as being like a technologist wanting them to do new interesting things. So I didn't have an insight into what I wanted to do with RISE. But but at the heart of it was really around Looking at the technology, not trying to speculate on tokens or anything that you typically hear about crypto, but really understanding, like, how the technology works And knowing how to wield it, that's really where my passion has always been. And yeah, that is definitely part of the start of RISE as well.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:45]:

So tell us a little bit about RISE and and, you know, what it is and what what you're actually trying to do.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:09:51]:

Yeah. So RISE, we're focused on Paying global teams, you know, as new companies spin up, like, finding the talent you need is not always next door. They're somewhere in the world. And, with the Internet, with video conferencing, people working from home, like, your team doesn't have to be in the same city or states or even country. And knowing that, we need we wanted to build a a platform to help facilitate payments globally and make it easy for people. Because if anybody's ever tried to send a of a bank payment from one country to another. It's not easy. It's, really complex.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:10:24]:

There's other providers you have to deal with, other complete other banking systems that don't make sense to you because you haven't used them before. And it's not cheap. It's very expensive to do as well. So We wanted to really build a platform that people could get paid on very easily, and the payer does not have to worry about, you know, compliance regulation and doesn't have to worry about what currency they're receiving or the the the payers or the payees receiving. And the compliance aspect is really making sure contracts is in place, that there's there's a clear relationship between the payer, payee, what the payment is for, and really having, You know, everything just kind of in order for those payments. Where RISE started was this, really desire to, really use the blockchain technology for what it's designed for and not for just investing in tokens and even exchanges, but really just to facilitate these global payments. And that's why my myself and my co founder, Hugo, we came up with an idea of one way you can get involved in crypto is getting paid for it. The other way is investing.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:11:23]:

So So that's really what I wanted to focus on is people getting paid in crypto. The other part of it is, self starter for money. Like, if you're Getting paid in crypto, you can keep it in crypto and decide what to do with it. And that also means investing it into DeFi protocols and becoming your own bank, especially, where your funds at rest are actually generating yield for you and working for you while they're just sitting there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:45]:

So how do you actually explore the idea maze there, knowing that I think at the time, a lot of people are beginning to think about those kinds of applications and use cases as well. And I imagine it felt quite saturated at the time of Folks trying to figure out how to how to crack, you know, this particular kind of of problem. So how did you approach, like, At the onset, what what the strategy would be to to build something lasting here as an organization?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:12:14]:

Well, I'll I'll say at the very beginning, we we got it, I wouldn't say wrong, but a little bit prematurely. Actually, RISE started out as a a workplace, much like a workplace or A workplace for freelancers to offer up their services like Fiverr. Fiverr is a really good example of where you can go and post your services and people pay for them. That's where RISE started. We were we're collecting freelancers from all over the world, and we post their services, and then creating a way for for users to go on and pay with cryptocurrency, or pay with their credit card, and it gets transmitted in cryptocurrency. So that's still, like, working for crypto and getting paid in crypto. That's still the was the foundation. But we quickly realized that it's really difficult to start up such a marketplace without a large marketing budget to really draw in the users because you're essentially Building a two sided marketplace.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:13:01]:

You need customers to pay for it, and you need freelancers, to provide services. So how do you reach these people? Once we built it, we realized we don't have any money to really, really push marketing efforts. But we also found a real need to connect companies and their, contractors and their payees. There's compliance concern around how you manage relationships between companies and contractors as well. So we're filling that gap as well To say that when you're working with this company, what are your roles and responsibilities? And are you concerned that this this user might be more of an employee rather than a contractor? So protecting the company that way as well is where we found a great opportunity. So we pivoted, in 2020. We pivoted from a marketplace into a payroll processing platform.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:45]:

And and after and through that pivot, I believe you've sought to appeal both to, you know, kind of crypto native and traditional companies Simultaneously working with both fiat, you know, money as as people have historically thought of it and crypto based Currency and kind of webbing together the corresponding internal accounting systems. So, you know, just kind of first off, How does that all work? And and and from the the perspective of of of crypto, where have you found that, You know, the the the gravity and pull has been strong for the adoption of of that use case.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:14:25]:

When we built RISE, we had a real We see and we still do have a real emphasis on being not so web 3 focused. Meaning, like, it doesn't require a lot of this large learning curve. It doesn't query to have a wallet or even know what a blockchain is or even a blockchain transaction looks like.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:41]:

Right. And when you say Web3, What is it that you mean by that?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:14:46]:

Yeah. So Web 3 being this new web of transactions. Like, so today, you might go on a website and buy something. You log in. You buy something by clicking a button. You provide your credit card. Web 3, you probably you might even log in with a a crypto wallet. And so this wallet is essentially like your not necessarily ID, but it's your access into this network of compute nodes that allow you to actually send and interact with websites.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:15:11]:

This wallet contains a public and a private key. This private key is yours to keep safe, and this public key is your, essentially your identifier within these these networks and within these websites. And you can sign messages, and you can actually attest that you are who you would say you are, and your actions are confirmed through cryptographic signatures using these wallets. And so, like, all of those things I just said are confusing to a lot of people because, like, Why do I need all this stuff? Right? And so, like, knowing, like, that's a huge learning curve and a hurdle for any company that even wants to attempt to do this, Realize that that's not gonna be really realistic. Right? 1, they're probably not gonna have crypto, and 2, that they probably want to pay in something that's stable. They're not gonna wanna pay something that fluctuates minute over minute or day over day. And so we really focused on making sure that facilitating the payment happens in a stable way, as well as working within our website within the RizePay application, you're actually your user behavior, the The interactions you're making feel much more like you'd use any other website. And that's what we're really trying to focus on.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:16:13]:

Even though the foundation of The RisePay platform and RiseWorks, everything we do is based on blockchain. So all the data goes into blockchain. When you send money, it's on blockchain. When you change settings in your account, it's on Blockchain. And the reason we do that is for security. We had, a user, just actually yesterday that was Saying, oh, my account got hacked. Like, make sure my account's safe. And we said, it already is.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:16:37]:

You have a web a wallet. Like, we don't have to do anything. Like, We'll reset your account if we need to, but there's nothing else for us to do because you've already protected it another way. And you can think of this as multi factor authentication or 2FA where you actually have this other authentication mechanism to protect your account. And that's that's A great example of why this stuff matters. So, like, you know, it's a hard learning curve, but when you need it, you realize once you by having it, it really protected you, and it was actually great. And so that's been really valuable for us. And so how that works, like, when the RISE PLAY platform is that if If you wanna get into Web 3 or you wanna do anything on a Web 3 application, you need this wallet.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:17:17]:

Well, within the RizePay platform, we actually give you a wallet if you don't already have one. So if you're not a native, like, Crypto user, you're not familiar, we have a simple option, which actually will just give you a wallet in the background. But all you need to know is the password to this wallet, and that's all you need to know using the platform. So it has a very much web 2 like feel. You just need to know a password and you actually are interacting with the blockchain. And we don't show you blockchain transactions. We don't try to show you speculative cryptocurrency exchange sort of graphs or anything like that. It's really just about paying people and paying them

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:50]:

securely. So where is the company today? You know, having gone through these sets of learnings and and and go to market mechanism, How do you describe RISE today, where the company is and what your current focus

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:18:03]:

is? Yeah. So we we're growing month over month. It's a little slower now at 10%, but we've had the past several months growing at 20 30%. We've gained a lot of attention from DAOs, where they're crypto heavy in their treasury, and they're paying their workforce. And their workforce sometimes need to be paid in in USD or fiat or into their bank account to pay for their bills and goods services. And so we see a lot of that. That's where we're really focusing and growing. And so our goal is to, make sure we're known to all of these crypto treasury heavy companies, that were a great option for them to actually spend their treasury and pay their people, and they don't have to worry about how they're receiving those funds.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:18:43]:

So we're growing. We're we're focused on crypto users even though our our application has very much like a web 2 or basic website feel. And, right now, we're focused on building our payroll application, which we'll launch with an EOR, Employer Record Services, which means that We represent and we are the company in the United States that employs those users. And so this is really attractive, if you are cross geography, across the United States, so you don't have NDEs in every state, or you're not in the United States and you want to pay US workers, RISE is a great option for you to run payroll, have employees with benefits and and savings accounts.

Jeffrey Stern [00:19:20]:

So I definitely wanna tackle the geography agnostic approach and and global first implications. But I think we just gotta define, you know, for for folks what a what a DAO is, who who may not be familiar. I've always, you know, to date, I've always kind of thought of like Bitcoin as the original DAO, because it's this decentralized autonomous organization. There's no managerial overhead. It's Collective decision making from the bottom up since inception, but I think it's kind of evolved a bit since then. So how is it You know, that you think about what a DAO is and what are those organizations and how are you working with them today?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:19:57]:

Yeah, and we get caught up in, You know, living this life day to day, you say these acronyms and these things that that maybe don't make sense to a lot of people. And, so, Decentralized Thomas Organization is A collection of of users who actually have ownership in some sort of quote unquote company, but it's like a soft company where there's really No, like, legal entity in any country, but there's actually, like, people collaborating to build up what is an entity across the entire, world. Once you have ownership in it, you have different voting rights and different ways of influencing the company. And the benefits from it are these internal controls, these internal financial mechanisms that actually you work for and you get paid and you live your life. And so you're not necessarily signing up for a company, you're signing up for a global effort. And these are very much technically related or, developer related today, especially because you're building these digital technologies that could be developed from anywhere. Right? So So you probably wouldn't see this in, like, a farm or something because, like, they're you're you're not autonomous. They're not decentralized anymore.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:21:00]:

You're in a specific location. So so, So, yeah, that's how I I think about them. I think that, there's good and bad from what I know that, you know, the the challenges are that everything is democracy. Like so there's votes that happen with everything. So that slows a lot of things down. So I think that's some of the bad in there. And you don't get to necessarily choose and pick who you're working with. A lot of these dials, they take anybody or any contributor.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:21:23]:

Right? So Sometimes that might, cause some problems too. But, that that's really who we're working with. I mean, a a lot of times so we do have traditional companies as well who pay with bank counts. They send bank wires, they fund their account, and they pay their teams globally. Because as I said in the beginning, like, it's it is hard to pay people around the world in different countries and different banking systems.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:44]:

So let's talk a bit about the global market. You know, I feel like most companies when they start with the US launch and then subsequently will go global later. But like you mentioned, you know, increasingly work has become somewhat borderless and and, And global in in scope, particularly for, I think, the most technologically forward applications for things like crypto or even AI, it's just It's very internet first as a concept, which tends to be very not geography first. So how have you approached that? What does that look like as a company, you know, taking on the the global market first, almost?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:22:24]:

From finding talent, that's one thing. Like, I think talent and the way they interact with a company is different from, You know, Eastern Europe to South America to, of course, United States. Right? So the the or sourcing that talent is is challenging and And weighing the pros and cons, to to including those users onto your team is is also definitely something to consider. I found Actually, great success in Brazil. We've had some, really good developers from Brazil joining the team as well. Payments, payments, looks like for our company is that we have actually quite a few payment remittance channels, and disbursement channels. And that's really been our focus for our infrastructure and our payment system for the banking side of things. Of course, crypto is easy when it comes to global payments, but when you need to interact with all these different banking partners, then we need different channels for that.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:23:14]:

So We've been, really just on a role in integrating with different providers to hook into PIX or SEPA or, You know, other banks around the world, and we always fall back to wire transfers as well if we need to. So really just making sure we have all those different channels enabled.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:30]:

And so, you know, kind of just rounding out the the product offering and and the the actual, you know, value coming through the the platform here. You had also mentioned An important piece here is that people have to authenticate that they are who they they say they are. Right? So, you know, thinking about potential Fraudulent type situations that could arise in this, in this environment that, that you're operating. How is it that you've, you've, you've thought about, you know, what it is to have A professional identity in the in the RISE ecosystem.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:24:03]:

Yeah. Well, early on in building RISE, realized that every everybody that joins the platform really does need we We need to know who they are, 1, for for money laundering purposes and for national security and for making sure that we're not we're not, you know, providing resources to Alyssa's activities. And knowing that, that quickly turned into, well, everybody on our platform is essentially being identified, which leads us to, we need some way to identify these these users on chain. And from that, we've created, something called the RISE ID. This RISE ID is your identity within the RISE ecosystem, but But it's a little bit more than that. It's not just your identity when you receive payments. It's also your identity for partnership integrations. So if you wanted to give approval to read your private data, you could directly do so through the Rise ID.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:24:49]:

You write custom attributes to this on chain contract, which is publicly accessible anywhere throughout the world. And that would be of approval to a third party entity for RISE to share your information. And it could be, you know, authentication information that could be approved and rejected at any time. And the value here is that, 1, it's it's globally accessible, and 2, that you're in control of keys, meaning that you can approve and reject these attributes and the sharing attestations anytime you like. None of this is like public identity data. It's really just more identifiers to share public identity data. But this this information isn't actually on chain. It's just the approval to do so.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:25:26]:

But writing these smart contracts on chain that are that is your pseudo anonymous identity that allows you to write any sort of It really is flexible. So you think of, you know, certifications, in platform integrations, and anything else that needs some sort of, like, pointer back to a very trusted listed source. That's what this is really for. And so yeah. So everybody on the RizePay platform, they go through a KYC or KYB That's know your customer or know your business process during onboarding. At the end of onboarding, you're given this RISE ID that's on chain. So it's an address, smart contract, that actually you can write custom attributes to it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:05]:

So kind of taking all those building an aggregate picture here, You know, recently, you guys have closed on about $3,800,000 in funding. You know, the recent, winner of of Consensus, which I believe is is maybe the largest conference for, you know, companies building in this in this space. So tell us a little bit about, like, What the fundraising process was like and a little bit about the vision for where, you know, Rise is going. And I think maybe, you know, a fun way to think about that is, You know, when RISE is in full form in your mind at some hypothetical point in the future, what does that future look like? What are the jobs that are created. What does the world look like in which that future comes to be?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:26:49]:

So so, you know, starting with, our raise and the pitch fest consensus winners. Like, our raise you know, I have a cofounder. His name's Hugo. He did a lot of the leg work with the raise. I was kind of They're with him as, his cheerleader, so to speak, but, man, I felt all the emotions and raising it. It is a roller coaster. I like to equate it to dating. Like, Investors are hot and cold and, you know, I think most more so even though because it's at the seed stage where you're doing things all based on a lot of promise and hopes and not like factual data because you're building your company.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:27:22]:

You're building your product. You're working on that MVP and making and growing your customer base. So it's a lot less about recipes and math and and growth. And it's more about, like, just showing that you can have a product here and your team can execute. And so I think that's why it's extra emotional in that in that way, because it's really hard to convince people sometimes even though, like, it really makes sense to you. It's not everybody sees the same vision as due. So, yeah. So that was it was tough.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:27:48]:

It was long time in in the works there, but, definitely got some great investors out of it. Task. CUNA Global Capital being one, Draper Associates. And originally, one of our very early investors was Justin Matin, founder of Tinder. He he who came in at our pre seed stage and really gave us the opportunity to really kind of get started. So all that, while it has been challenging and and difficult to work through, Definitely, shows resilience and, definitely glad to come out on top. And we're still, working hard and growing fast. So and And as far as the pitch fest consensus, yeah, the consensus conference is the largest Ethereum conference of the year sponsored by Consensus, who is the company behind Ethereum that originally created Ethereum.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:28:29]:

We had an opportunity to pitch, I guess I think it was around 30 some other companies that pitched as as well. All very good companies. But right now, I think it just kind of, shows that there's a real need to build this infrastructure, this, infrastructure for, like, payments and some real, payroll processing companies. And and so, yeah, I'm super happy that we won. I think Hugo did an excellent job presenting in that and, shows that our technology has a place and so do our users, using it. So super happy about that. And as far as, what it looks like in the future for RISE, We really wanna grow to just streamline payments for people. Like, every every week, I use Rise myself to pay my team.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:29:09]:

And I literally go in and click a few things, and I'm done paying payroll. Like and I know everything's done accurately because it's on chain. It's all cryptographically signed and calculated, and I'm the only one that can do it because I have the keys. Like, there is a a level of comfort that is just not That usual in the technology space because the signing of cryptographic messages is really what gives you confidence as a developer and as a user that things are accurate. And that's really, I think, the huge difference here that it's hard to really describe other than just feeling it and and and exposing yourself to it and trying. The the blockchain technology being Turing complete, which means that All the inputs will always always equal the outputs at any given state means that you really can have confidence that when something works, it really does work. It doesn't sort of work As some technology isn't, built all that well and so it just sort of works. So that's always been a treat as well.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:30:04]:

So but, yeah, streamlining streamlining payments to, for companies and paying global workforces that really gives companies the opportunity to grow because they have, a larger talent pool to draw from. They don't have to find the people just down the street or even in the state. They can find help all over the world to build their companies.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:23]:

What what does the the business model itself look like? And one of the things I'm I'm interested about in in kind of a a more traditional go to market strategy hat on is, you know, Now, when you think about that concept of of the ideal customer persona, I don't imagine there's been a lot of precedent set around, like, how to Sell and market to DAOs, for example, knowing that's just a segment, but like, how is it that you're thinking about what it is to to go to market here and differentiation and, You know, the actual selling of of the product.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:30:53]:

The the selling is, you know, being crypto enabled. We've won a lot of customers that have looked at competitors that are not crypto focused, that are You know, typical web 2 companies that have, really full control over where money is going and what it's doing. And we've won a lot of customers just because we're foundationally built on on blockchain. And that's their their native place that they want to be. And so that's that's a huge selling point. The other part is Focusing on the companies, especially the early stage, who are interested in, like, how do I get into a payroll processing system that's not overly burdened or even influences my accounting aspects. That might be a completely different thing, but a way to really just streamline and automate these payments, from my currency they currently have. And so focusing on these DAOs, it's not only DAOs.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:31:39]:

There's there's plenty of companies out there that are crypto, heavy in their treasury that wanna pay their users that are very much companies. Even ourselves, we have, part of our treasury in crypto as well in Stablecoin just to have it there for, paying people. And, really focusing on those crypto enabled companies, because they're new. They're very much interested in our product and, making sure they know about us.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:03]:

What have been some of the the lessons learned as the sentiment And perception of crypto has ebbed and flowed over the last decade here with kind of varying degrees of Of, optimism and and pessimism around it. That that feels just kind of amplified on either side of that spectrum.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:32:23]:

Yeah. I mean, the, the bad actors in the space, design. Definitely haven't made it easy for for the people trying to do good. That's for sure. And the political landscape has also made it much more complicated. But, You know, being in technology, one thing I believe 100% is technology is solid. It's secure. It's working.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:32:40]:

It has high throughput. And so I will fall back on the actual data and that technology before I'll, you know, really invest a lot of concern into the political landscape. And I think you see that in the rest of the world too. The rest of the world is is moving forward because they understand the impacts of being able to communicate and transfer value with an utmost degree of certainty of of security and finality. And that's the thing. I I use the word finality because, like, If you think about using your credit card and buying some goods at the store or, like, paying for services, or even paying your mortgage, like, That payment actually isn't final. Like that payment is just a promise that it will be final someday. But in blockchain, the finality is Way more efficient and much more precise than any of those payment mechanisms we have today because all that stuff takes time.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:33:28]:

But with blockchain, it's cryptographically signed and it's executed. And so finality is overlooked often because we take it for granted because we just borrow and lend all day long. But that's really what it is. But with blockchain, it's actually finality.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:41]:

Yeah. No, I mean, it's certainly operating on the frontier, but there is a decade plus track record of what this technology looks like in practice operating at scale. And so it's, I think the, you know, the often cited criticism of the space writ large has been that it's It's kind of a technology in search of a problem to be solved. But it's, I mean, you just kind of look at where we are right now and there are a lot of problems being solved

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:34:09]:

There there definitely are. And I I think that we haven't we haven't even really skimmed the surface on on the problems it's actually solving. You know, the another great example is supply chain accuracy. I wanna say it was there were a talk not too long ago about Walmart's ability to, like, trace back any sort of infected or foul food back to its source very quickly because they have a snap track record of these chains of transactions throughout their entire supply chain. And so, like, use cases like that, we're gonna start seeing come to light, but It really is a a value add when you recognize, like, how much more efficient you can become if you have these systems in place. And I really like to to encourage, like, users to really get involved, and start learning about Blockchain because I think the self sovereign, like, sounds fancy, but it really is impactful if you were able to actually put that that money to work and you had full control over it 20 fourseven. And in your hands control over it, and transactions that happened right away without waiting for finality on those things. So Yeah.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:35:14]:

I think it it can be really, really, interesting place to be in the future when using blockchain to pay for things.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:20]:

I I thought a bit about that that concept there as, You know, my own company has kind of played in a similar space, but, you know, the consequence right now is that it's like 91% of Americans feel they don't have agency over how their own information is stored on the internet, how secure it is, who has access to it, and who is actually profiting from it. And I think it it does kind of represent this growing And deep mistrust of centralized data ownership. And and so the problem is that, you know, the current data paradigm is not a great deal for individuals, and that Ultimately, individuals should have some ownership over the data that belongs, pertains, and originates From themself. And I think the regulatory bodies are kind of moving in that direction when you think about what GDPR in Europe kind of lays out and some of the regulatory bodies as well in the states have laid out, particularly in California. But but as it relates to to those kinds of pieces of of your digital identity, which which covers, I think, a lot of what you're working on as well.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:36:28]:

And I think that we're gonna see that become more and more important issue of your privacy and your data getting out there, especially with AI and what you now can start doing with AI. People are gonna start really worrying about where their data goes. I think before AI, like, managing, wielding that data from all these consumers was probably a whole lot harder. And so now I think that privacy is gonna become even more of a of a concern of users. And that's definitely why, you know, you wanna have keys in your hand and and control over that at all times, not giving it to, to other companies.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:59]:

So what what is coming next for for RISE? When you think about, You know, what it is that you're building, what you're going to build next, how you prioritize, where, where what is the direction that you guys are trying to go In kind of the the proverbial life cycle of startups to to unlock the next stage, you know, what are the kind of milestones that that you're working towards and And trying to validate as a as a company.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:37:21]:

Yeah. We're we're focused on 100% processing payroll in the United States. And when I say 100%, what I really mean is, payrolls the the terms used a little bit lightly. But when I say payroll, I really mean, like, processing Your tax deductions, forwarding on tax deductions to government agencies like TruePayroll and and and TrueEmployees. So We've got partnerships, for benefits. We've got partnerships for for savings, and we have a product we're building that actually will be calculating and and withdrawing payroll, tax deductions, and other deductions from your paycheck through the RipePay platform. So that's definitely top of mind. Other things are bill pay and also, though, DeFi protocols.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:38:02]:

So as I said, the self saw and be able to put your money to work is really the essence of what we're trying to build here. And as you get paid in crypto and the next thing you you want to do is either go buy goods or you probably wanna invest it or save it. And that's really where DeFi comes in, eye and really can can expose users to being self sovereign, have control over all of their finances and to generating value for them. And truthfully, right, it hasn't been until recently until, banks have actually started offering any sort of substantial interest rates on their savings accounts or even their checkings account. And I think a lot of that has to do with crypto. Regardless though, I think that having that control in your hands is most important. So what we wanna do is really expose all these DeFi protocols to typical users to make it really easy for them

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:46]:

to interact with them. And DeFi meaning decentralized finance.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:38:49]:

Yeah. Decentralized finance. So to take that further, like, that means, like, you putting your money into smart contracts that are tested, trusted, have been audited, and they're providing value. So A good example is you might just put your money out there to be borrowed at 4 or 5%, on that that that loan lend money. And that that lending of money is actually fully collateralized. So there's not, like, this under collateralized loan that has high risk. The money's already there. And for anybody that borrows against with the money that you put forward, they actually have over collateralization.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:39:23]:

So, like, if that that user defaults, you actually get even more back. And so that's why it's a very interesting way of doing it and providing that funds and making it liquid. Today, your bank serves that purpose. Right? That's actually the true purpose of the bank is to actually lend out money, not to keep your money safe. But crypto covers can cover both of those angles.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:42]:

So all this said, what is the impact That you hope to have looking back here in retrospect. I think we've touched on this a bit, but what what does success look like if, You know, all this plays out and goes according to plan.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:39:56]:

Yeah. According to plan, we have users that are getting paid in crypto. We're streamlining processes for For companies, we've got hundreds of thousands of users using the payroll processing system, and payments are flowing automatically securely and, with with same day and same hour, same minute finality. And users are actually then taking their money and investing it for themselves and being in full control of their funds. And a flourishing ecosystem of of, those opportunities for users to to put their funds into either investment vehicles or either Pay for things on the go using their mobile phone.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:33]:

And from the perspective of of RISE as a company altogether, When you think about, you know, where where you're trying to take the company itself, what how does that, you know, work in parallel to to the the vision for the the value that you're bringing to market?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:40:48]:

Yeah. We're processing payroll. We're employing people and, making things more efficient for companies to operate in that space. And when they are paying their people, they don't have to worry about which, banks and which systems they have to to to integrate with. That's all handled for them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:04]:

And if if things don't go according to plan, which which they never do, what what, what will have gone wrong in your mind, that, You know, that you're you're cognizant of the the risks that you're trying to mitigate. How are you approaching those? And You know, what what are the ones that that that that that keep you up most at night?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:41:25]:

Yeah. I don't you know, I I feel really good about the technology. I feel really good about, you know, the mission behind rise and and, streamlining payments for users. You know, what keeps me a little bit concerned is just, these things that you can't control. The political landscape, course. Like, it's always concerning because it has impact of in people's interest in learning these about these new technologies. The other thing that's really important for, anybody in the crypto space to work on. And I would say that people we all know it.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:41:54]:

It's just to make it easier for people to use. Until it becomes that, things aren't gonna look right. So that's really that has to be the top of focus for everybody in the crypto space.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:05]:

What what are you most excited about looking forward?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:42:09]:

As far as RISE or for crypto?

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:11]:

Both, actually. Yeah.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:42:13]:

Honestly, I'm I'm most excited about process and, on on chain because I think it's just good. It just makes so much sense. Like, these rules that are that are just written in stone essentially, to process payroll and and For crypto, you know, again, it's a massive option. To really have it, wield it on your phone, and, really have full control and trust in that money movement. You know, I think that's just really, really exciting.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:38]:

And I I know you mentioned at the onset that an eye towards the future more than than to the past In terms of reflection and, you know, thinking about the the company overall. But to to ask about, you know, lessons learned and and reflections along the way, regardless, What have you taken with you? You know, whether it be with regards to crypto or just entrepreneurship, Having taken that step away from Dealer Tire, you know, so many years ago and and and on this this entrepreneurial path, what do you know now that that maybe you wish you knew at the onset? And what has surprised you along the way?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:43:12]:

I'd probably say that things take longer than you anticipate. You know, I think we're we're always, you know, positive, and we think, things take, certainty. You know, probably half as as as much time as they actually take. And so I I think for anybody who's getting into that space or crypto, whether it's crypto or it's, just doing newer, and you're looking even for, like, looking for investment rounds, stuff like they take a lot longer than you might imagine, for one reason or another. And it it may not have anything to do with, what's in your control too. So it's really just around resiliency and just, keep plugging on. So That's that's probably the biggest eye opener I have.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:49]:

Is there anything that you've, you know, coming into it Long held belief that you've you've changed your mind on as a consequence of having gone through this this journey?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:43:59]:

Not necessarily. I mean, we have, maybe there is, some opinions. Like, you know, you wanna have United States workforce. You do work best with them. But I think what I one of the things I was open up to is really the talent that's in other countries that are very much capable of working with United States workers. And what I mean by that is, like, culturally, they fit, They can communicate well and they can execute. You know, you can you can work with them, at a very high degree of efficiency. So, I didn't know that that was as true as it is.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:44:28]:

I I had a kind of a belief that maybe, like, it require a whole lot more communication documentation, but I found that it it's not necessarily true. The rest of the world can definitely work with, US companies very easily.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:41]:

And and how has been growing a a remote organization from from Cleveland.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:44:46]:

Great. And, you know, so part of my development team is, is in South America, in Brazil, specifically. And then I do have, another Cleveland developer here too. But working with them is though they're working, you know, next door. It really is surprising how well we all get along and they have really kinda created this, close knit of developers building a product. And so finding the talent is a little bit tougher because you're really not sure in the beginning, of course, because you're not in person necessarily. But what actually turned out to be really nice is if you found 1, they typically know someone else who works really well too. And they're all very much interested in working for US companies.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:45:24]:

So, that was also eye opening too, but a great surprise.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:27]:

With regards to to what it is that that you're building of any misconceptions that people have, if you could clarify one thing, what is it that you wish people understood about RISE and what it is that you're doing here?

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:45:42]:

I would say it's probably around the word crypto. I think, like, everybody thinks of crypto as investments, Ponzi scheme sort of stuff, and bad actors. But really, under the hood, there are So many people building right now. That's kind of the mantra and what they they call bear market when, crypto isn't really high. But everybody's building really great, sophisticated technology. ZK Proofs is really kind of a hot topic right now because they enable so much more throughput and aggregation of transactions as well as things where you can interact with sites and they don't you don't necessarily know who exactly, send the message. But you can send anonymous messages like voting systems and that sort of thing where they make a whole lot of sense with this cryptographic technology. So Point is is that there really there's a lot of builders in the hood, and and not everybody is who you see on the outskirts, the loud noisy users that Might be all about speculation and token values.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:46:35]:

It's really not about that. It's about building technology. So that's the biggest misconception. With RISE, because we have crypto on our site, we're working with. But just crypto in general, it's really not designed to be all around speculation. It's really designed around a value transfer system that's global and secure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:53]:

So we can we can close out then with our traditional closing question, which is for A hidden gem in Cleveland, something that other folks may not know about.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:47:04]:

You know, I was trying to think of, like, something unique, something special, something that somebody else hadn't hadn't said. But I kept coming back to the metro parks. I'm sure, like, you had that answer plenty of times. But, man, I would just say, like especially I grew up in California, and It's got some great national parks and everything, but for the city parks and the really accessible parks, the metro parks have been fantastic. Just Well kept large beautiful systems of, rivers and trails, to partake in, and you really can feel like you get lost in them. So I've really enjoyed that. I've really enjoyed how accessible they are and how well that program is run. So definitely not hidden, but definitely something that people should know about.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:41]:

Yeah. They can't get enough love for the Metro Parks. They are, they're pretty extraordinary. Awesome. Well, I just want to thank you again, Andrew, for taking the time and coming on. I appreciate you sharing the story. Excited to follow along on your journey.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:47:55]:

Yeah. Thanks so much, Jeffrey. And, Definitely, like touch base in the future here and give updates. That'd be great.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:00]:

Oh, absolutely. If people had anything that they wanted to follow-up with you about, what would be the best way for them to So Yeah.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:48:07]:

You can check us out at rizeworks.i0. And if you wanna email me directly, I'm andrew@riseworks.i0. Awesome.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:14]:

Well, thank you again, Andrew.

Andrew Maurer (Rise) [00:48:15]:

Thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:17]:

That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if You have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.fm, or find us on Twitter at @podlayoftheland or @sternjefe, JEFE. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land.