Meet Wen-Chiao

Originally published on the Credmark blog.

I met Wen-Chiao in May of 2019. Credmark was 5 months old. We’d just gone through an accelerator program in Hong Kong.

For some reason – I really can’t remember why – I was in Tokyo. The accelerator’s Program Manager sent a note telling me that a friend of his wanted to meet. I had no idea what to expect, but I agreed.

Wen-Chiao suggested a coffee shop deep in the bowels of one of Tokyo’s train stations, the kind of place foreigners leave their luggage in lockers they’ll never find again. After some trial and error, I found the coffee shop, and Wen-Chiao.

Wen-Chiao

When we started talking I realized he was unusual.

His speech gets faster as he finishes his thoughts, as if needing to catch up with his brain. He frequently punctuates his sentences with a breathless ‘yea’, which sounds like a confirmation, or a victory cry. I’m not sure which, but I love it.

Back to the coffee shop.

Wen-Chiao sounds American. I assumed he was. Then he ordered a drink, and I thought he might be Japanese. When I asked him which it was, he laughed, and said: “I’m Taiwanese, yea.”

The First “Job”

After that unusual ice-breaker, I asked Wen-Chiao why he wanted to meet. He told me he loved crypto and wanted to work with us. When I asked him what he wanted to do, he said: “I’ll do anything. I know a lot of people in crypto in Japan and Taiwan.” That sounded great. We needed to find potential customers in Asia. Only problem was, we couldn’t pay him. The best I could offer him was a bonus on success. Wen-Chiao thought that was fine and soon disappeared into the station.

I wondered if I’d ever see him again.

Years Pass

Wen-Chiao is tenacious, and creative. We talked every week, and every week he had something new to tell me. He came up with all sorts of leads and introduced me to many people. But commercially, we made no progress. We were too far ahead of the market.

Wen-Chiao busted his tail, but never earned a dime of commission.

Our Pivot

A year ago I told my co-founder, Neil, that I couldn’t continue as CEO. We weren’t making any progress, and I wasn’t capable of restructuring the company to address a more immediate problem. Luckily, Neil was. He took over and turned Credmark into what it is today.

Leadership changed. Our mission changed. Our product was ditched in favor of something a lot more ambitious. Despite the turmoil, Wen-Chiao stuck with us. He saw what Neil was doing, and he thought it made sense.

Duty Calls

One day Wen-Chiao called me and said: “I’m going to disappear for a few months. I never finished my military service, and my time’s running out.” Disappear he did, for 6 months. The only time I heard from him was during short home leaves. He stayed in the loop.

During this time, we raised money and started building a robust organization. Just as we started looking for someone to manage our growing community, Wen-Chiao was released from the Air Force – forever 🤞🏻– and I suggested to our then Head of Marketing that he should talk to him. He did, and a week later Wen-Chiao was a paid consultant.

Community Management

Wen-Chiao took to his new job like duck to water. He learned all the DAO tooling, managed our English community, our Chinese community, and our Japanese community. As far as I could tell, he never slept. In a company of hard-working oddball polyglots, Wen-Chiao fit right in.

Six months later Neil decided that our Head of Marketing should be responsible for growth. I had to find his replacement. I wondered: could Wen-Chiao do it?

I hired a first-rate marketing consultant to help me solve the puzzle. She worked with Wen-Chiao for a few weeks before letting me know that he was definitely Head of Marketing material. He asked the right questions, thought about the right issues, and worked hard to fill in his lacunae. So we gave him the job.

Stepping up to the Plate

People love to talk about the opportunities available in DAOs. “All you have to do is show up and contribute.” In some cases, it’s true. Wen-Chiao showed up. He believed in Credmark through two different iterations. He stuck with us, and now he’s a critical part of the core team.

I couldn’t be happier with this outcome. I’m a little bit proud of the role I played in this journey even though 99% of the credit goes to Wen-Chiao. I’m looking forward to supporting him in the coming years.

The message to anyone else interested in joining our community is clear. We welcome contributors. If your work is valuable, you’ll be rewarded. We’re paying attention.

About Credmark

Credmark is a financial modeling platform for DeFi, powered by verifiable on-chain data. It provides the infrastructure necessary to build models. An API allows anyone to consume the output of these models.

Our modeling tools are the most flexible and robust available today. The Credmark Model Framework streamlines prototyping and deployment. Community members are incentivized to build and improve models. As a result, users benefit from verifiable data and best-in-class analyses.

Credmark is a decentralized project. Our community participates in governance, provides research, and develops models. Become a member of Credmark to advance the next-generation financial system.