Colin Aulds is CTO and founder at 10NetZero, a bitcoin mining company dedicated to reducing waste in the oil and gas sector. He is also a founder and lead SEO at privacypros.io, a wallet backup and cyber security company focused on self-custody of bitcoin private keys. His companies have been featured in Duke.edu, Vice, Nasdaq, CNET, Berkeley.edu, Coindesk, ycombinator, and many more reputable outlets. He is also webmaster and SEO at buybitcoinworldwide.com and thecryptolawyers.com. Colin also researches vulnerabilities in online wallets. His team at privacypros.io was the first to expose a massive theft ring involving the largest paper wallet generator on the internet and how that scam operated. He has also written and ghost written for numerous outlets on the topic of Bitcoin mining, crypto custody, cyber security, and related topics. He is also a member of the Bitcoin Mining Council.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
Shortly after my brother and I started Privacy Pros, we noticed that there are an awful lot of wasted resources in the energy sector. And as any business person knows, finding a use for waste is really crucial to make an operation more efficient. And we knew that Bitcoin miners require cheap energy. Well there is no energy cheaper than stranded energy. At the time, we didn’t know a lot about the operations of Bitcoin mining – we just understood the concept. Unfortunately, at that time (around 2019) we just couldn’t figure out a way to profitably mine on these wasted resources because the generators needed to do it were just too expensive and we didn’t have the capital to make it happen anyway. However, fast forward to 2021 and we met Joel Fulford who was interested in Bitcoin and had 10 years of Oil and Gas experience and his old friend from back home had actually started a business making generators just for this purpose. It scaled down capital needed and now we can make the model work. We were also exiting privacy pros at the time, which meant we had the capital needed to get things going.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Coffee. Lots of coffee. Beyond that, my day to day has changed a lot in the last month as i exited my company and begin to work more on the new one. What I always do though is check my emails and see what needs my attention most for that day and then I prioritize. These days, that means lots of meetings with VCs and investment banks as we do our series A for 10NetZero. However, before that, it was a lot of website monitoring. Making sure we maintain our money keywords in google search, improve articles, develop new products, and much more.
What’s one trend that excites you?
You have to get really honest with yourself. All good business ideas or products solve problems. If you aren’t focused on solving problems, you are wasting your time and money. So I ask myself, is this actually a problem or do I just have a solution in search of a problem. A lot of blockchain “solutions” are like this. People want to use blockchain because they think it’s cool, when really the blockchain adds nothing or makes the problem actively worse.
But let’s say you have identified an actual problem.
Then you need to figure out if there is a large enough addressable market that wants a solution to this problem for you to make money. I’m sure someone out there doesn’t like the fact that ketchup is red. But did enough of them exist to justify Heinz’s making of purple ketchup? No.
But let’s say there is a large market that would want your solution. Then you need to figure out how difficult it will be to market your solution. If no one knows about your solution, it doesn’t matter. Are you in a position to get the word out? If yes, how will you communicate that it solves the problem? If yes, then keep going.
Now it’s time to get really honest with yourself. The truth is that the first version of an idea that you have is usually pretty bad because you don’t really understand a problem until you’ve thoroughly researched it. Your solution may be vaguely decent, but you probably need a few iterations to fine tune it. The best Way to do that comes from trying to solve it and seeing all the ways that your idea might fail. Sometimes you realize that there is a good reason this problem hasn’t been solved. Maybe the tech isn’t yet invented to solve it (timing is crucial). Maybe you are the wrong person to solve it because you don’t have the expertise necessary to deliver your solution properly.
However, on rare occasions, your idea can be modified to solve the problem and you are the right person to solve it. Iterate, improve, and keep doing that until the product is really good – so good it is obvious to anyone who has the problem it solves.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
Using Bitcoin as a backbone to make energy and traditional payments more efficient.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Being flexible. Most of your day to day problems in business can be solved by being open to less traditional ways of solving them and being creative with your solutions. As an example, we had a reseller in Australia that didn’t have the capital to buy our product up front. We had an issue with our operations in Australia, because sending aussie customers product individually was too expensive. So we worked out a deal with this reseller that allowed us to put product up on consignment. They would fulfill their own orders and ours out of a community pot of product that we’d send them every couple of months. This allowed us to save on shipping costs and allowed them to reduce capital outlays. Win/win.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.
Don’t be so sure about how right you are about topics you don’t understand. The hard part is admitting how little you know about most things. So be humble about how much you think you know.
I lost a lot of money when I wrote Bitcoin off when I first heard about it in 2012. I thought it was a dumb idea. Then two years later, I was a believer because I met smart people who convinced me otherwise.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Markets will solve climate change. Government planning can do very little.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Partner with the right people. There are so many amazing things you simply cannot do by yourself or with a bad team. If you have competent people who want to do right by you, you are much more likely to succeed.
The other thing is to invest your own money into your projects before you ask others to invest in you. You will work harder because it’s your money and it will make others more willing to invest in you since you have put your money where your mouth is. If you have the most to lose, others will feel better about handing you their money.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
There is a lot of emphasis on being original. I think that is over-rated advice.
Originality is risky because the market isn’t proven.
The better advice is to find a proven market with profitable competitors and then figure out how you can do what they do much much better. Privacy Pros started off by selling hardware wallet backup devices. The design was not ours – it was an open source design from our competitor. However, their customer service sucked, their operation was amateur, they couldn’t keep up with demand because their manufacturing was slow, and the user experience of the product was unbearable. But, they had first mover advantage. That’s fine – thanks for the free market research. We blew them out of the water without having any original ideas of our own – we just did their idea better.
Mining on wasted energy is also not original. Other people do it all the time. However, all of our competition looks at the energy suppliers as an input. We view them as customers. We try to solve their problems with our solutions, and they don’t need to pay us anything. In fact, we pay them to solve their problems! So in 5 or 10 years, when competition really gets heated for these sites, who do you think they will partner with?
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
When I was in college, I threw a party at a house where I charged $5 to enter and you got a plastic cup that entitled you to unlimited beer at the keg. I made (what was at the time, for me) a lot of money.
So then I got a big head and decided to throw another party where I overpaid local bands to play shows at an expensive venue. I did not offer beer with the ticket price and made no money on the beer or alcohol sold at the venue. I also threw a “pre-game” party at a house that was very similar to my other parties. I spent thousands of dollars and i think 15 people ever showed up to the venue. Most people just stayed at the house party because they weren’t interested in bands. They were interested in cheap beer.
Several lessons here: focus on what your customers actually want and don’t create competing products that are cheaper and better at solving their problems than your “expensive tier”. Also, just because you have a minor success at something does not mean you will be successful by scaling it up.
I gave up on this business because I was not interested in throwing house parties – I wanted glamorous music festivals but I was smart enough to know I was not the guy to pull them off. I guess you could say I never solved the problem as much as I just learned from it.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Buymybrilliance.com: Have a great idea for an invention or a service but lack the technical knowledge or drive to make it happen? Want to start a business because you have the capital and discipline to make it happen, but just aren’t very good at ideas?
Buymybrilliance.com allows individuals to preview your idea through a non-compete and if they decide to run with the idea and you approve, you are entitled to a royalty/equity or lump sum purchase price without having to do anything except consent to it. Both the buyer of the idea and the seller agree to this arrangement. With a site like this, more good ideas can thrive since the barrier to make them happen is not limited to the resources of the ideator. Buymybrilliance.com keeps a small portion of the proceeds of the sale of the idea or equity stake in the businesses that use the idea.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
A business class upgrade on a domestic flight. I think it was actually about $120, but the idea is the same. Sometimes feeling more well rested once you arrive at your destination is well worth the money of the seat.
What is the best $100 you recently spent?
Telegram – it is a messaging app but i use it to send myself stuff. It is simply the best way to do that and its not even the intended purpose.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?
“The revolt of the public” by Martin Gurri
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” F.A. Hayek
Key learnings:
- Originality is overrated and risky – take proven ideas and make them better
- Focus on solving actual problems
- The best solutions solve more than one problem at a time
- Successfully executing on most ideas requires more than one competent person.
- Be honest about how little you know about most things