How Blockchain is Fueling Regenerative Finance: A Look at Coral Tribe NFT and ReFi Hub

I sat down with Christian Chegne and Avery Schwartz, co-founders of Coral Tribe NFT and ReFi Hub. They are using blockchain to push forward regenerative finance and make a big impact on sustainability.

They shared how they raised $1 million from their Coral Tribe NFT and used part of the proceeds to fund five major impact environmental restoration projects. They are now launching ReFi Hub, a marketplace that enables members to invest in vetted businesses that fight climate change, promote clean energy, and foster sustainable development.

We dove into the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), which allows for fractional ownership and opens up new ways for entrepreneurs, especially in the Global South, to get more attractive access to funds than through traditional very-high-interest bank loans. This approach makes high-impact investments more accessible and strengthens the connection between communities and environmental causes.

Christian and Avery highlighted how building strong communities has been critical to their projects' growth. Their stories offer some great insights for anyone curious about how blockchain can drive both sustainability and local business support.

We covered:

• Coral Tribe NFT: Raising $1M and funding coral restoration and other impact projects
• Tokenizing real-world assets: How it democratizes access to sustainable investments
• ReFi Hub’s mission: Supporting small businesses and sustainable growth in emerging markets
• Regenerative finance: Applying it to ecosystem restoration, carbon credits, and beyond
• Community building: How platforms like Discord and Twitter play a key role in Web3 success
• Personal stories: Christian and Avery’s path from traditional industries into blockchain
• Lessons learned: Building teams, securing funding, and overcoming challenges
• The future: How blockchain and tokenization can reshape global sustainability
  
  

Where to find Christian and Avery:
- LinkedIn: Christian Chegne, Avery Schwartz
- Twitter: Christian, Avery
- Website: ReFiHub,  Coral Tribe NFT

Where to find Michel:
- Newsletter: Stun and Awe
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheljgagnon/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/michelgagnon

Chapters

• 2:25 Overview of Coral Tribe NFT
• 4:05 Introduction to ReFi Hub
• 7:24 Understanding Regenerative Finance
• 9:31 Tokenization of Real World Assets
• 11:24 How ReFi Hub Works
• 14:51 Choosing the Right Businesses for ReFi Hub
• 17:23 Christian's Journey into Blockchain
• 25:40 Avery's Path to ReFi Hub
• 30:18 Building RefiHub and Coral NFT
• 30:59 Getting Started in Web3 Development
• 33:10 Importance of a Strong Development Team
• 35:17 Revenue Models and Funding
• 37:08 Challenges and Learnings in Web3
• 41:01 Daily Operations and Team Dynamics
• 44:28 Marketing and Community Engagement
• 48:48 Future of Refi and Blockchain Adoption
• 55:14 Advice for Aspiring Web3 Entrepreneurs

Transcript

[00:00:00] Christian: Say if you're a business, like we, in our position where your resources are not orientated towards the technical side, right? as a starting point, then you need to pay the price for that in, in a way, right? You need to invest heavily in the dev side.

there should be nothing you sacrifice there because it's something that you really have to trust and it has to work well. So as Ave said, we made sure we went through with agencies and people that we trusted very well we made sure that we worked on a milestone basis.

So slowly budget gets unlocked when certain tasks get completed starting with simpler ones where we can assess scope out test and then see


Introduction to Growth Leap
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[00:00:51] Michel: Welcome everybody to the latest episode of Growth Leap. We'll focus on the intersection of blockchain, regenerative finance and entrepreneurship. 


Meet the Guests: Christian and Avery
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[00:00:59] Michel: Today, we're joined by Christian Chengen and Avery Schwartz, co founder of Coal Tribe NFT and ReFi Hub. Christian comes from a design art background, while Avery used to work as a researcher and conversationist.

They have raised half a million dollars already and successfully funded their business. Five, uh, impact projects. And in today's episode, I really want us to talk about how blockchain technology can drive regenerative finance. What it means also to build a web three startup and the future of blockchain in sustainability.

We'll discuss a specific web three projects and cryptocurrencies on this episode, but please do not take any of this as investment advice. I want to make sure that you do your own research on potential investment opportunities and obviously related risk. 

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[00:01:45] Michel: So Christian and Avery, welcome to the show. I'm super pumped to have you.

How are you?

[00:01:54] Christian: Thank you, Michel. Feeling pumped as well.

[00:01:57] Avery: Michel. Yeah,

[00:02:00] Michel: All right. So, as I mentioned to you a little bit earlier when we were chatting, to get started, I would want to make sure that the, the listeners really understand what we're talking about in terms of, covering obviously your project, your businesses and kind of the key concepts.

So it'd be great if we could start by you giving me a quick rundown of both CoralTribe and FT and RefiHub and, you know, just tell us a bit about these projects and what you've accomplished or where you are so far. Christian, do you want to take a stab at it?

[00:02:30] Christian: Sure thing. I can, I can give a start and I'm sure Ava also would like to, would like to share on that point. 


Overview of Coral Tribe NFT
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[00:02:35] Christian: But yeah, CoralTribe NFT is a NFT project, focused on environmental regeneration. what it is is a community of people essentially that formed around an art project around two or three years ago.

which, raised over a million dollars in its mint revenue, and has channeled some of that into direct restoration efforts. The reason why it's called Coral Tribe is, coral is a vital part of the ocean ecosystem, and the art is based on this, and a lot of the initial restoration efforts went towards coral.

plantation sites across Indonesia, uh, Spain, the Turks and Caicos. so that's, Coral Tribe and the regenerative aspect of it. Coral Tribe also importantly has a community fund. So 50 percent of all its primary sale revenue from the sale of these NFTs and its secondary sale revenue gets collected in a community fund.

And this community fund will be used to invest in, businesses with a impact, but also, revenue generating potential as well. and this is how it links a little bit into ReeferHub, which we can describe more later, the direct link. and I'll pass you over to Abe for, for ReeferHub.

[00:03:45] Avery: amazing. Yeah, so as Christian said, Coral Tribe is really our community arm. it's bringing together a group of like minded people, of sustainable investors who are maybe blockchain natives, maybe blockchain curious, and in general just want to push forward the idea of sustainability through tech. 


Introduction to ReFi Hub
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[00:04:05] Avery: So ReefiHub is the product arm. It's, really where we see mass impact happening. As Christian said, we've been able to dedicate some funding from the Coral Tribe Mint towards some really amazing projects around the world. Some great coral planting, mangrove planting, plastic removal from the ocean, Education around sustainability and this has been, a great achievement for us.

It's something that we've, really loved to be a part of, but I think around a year and a half ago, it really clicked for us that we needed to start having a bigger, grander vision, you know, the community fund, which at that time was worth just over half a million dollars. Even if we invested that entire fund into conservation, the global impact would be negligible in the grand scale of things.

So we decided, why just invest this money when we can create a platform that allows anyone around the world to access these markets, which are so often closed off typically. So that was kind of the seed of how RefiHub was born. And from then we've been developing nonstop over the last year and a half, uh, almost two years now, getting ready to launch the platform.

so basically just a quick overview of RefiHub, and I'm sure we'll get more into it later, RefiHub is our marketplace for impactful real world assets, so users are able to go onto RefiHub, they're able to look through a selection of curated businesses. All of which are driving positive environmental change and all of which have a profitable business model.

So not donations, but actual investments where you can have a return from these, uh, and then they're able to choose from several different asset classes. So we offer real world debt agreements, real world ownership agreements. Uh, and in Q4 of this year, uh, we'll be offering real world equity, uh, agreements as well.

So basically just democratizing and opening up these markets, which have been so closed off typically to a much wider group of people, definitely targeting sustainability minded individuals, uh, but, you know, also looking to hit different segments of the population. If you present a 15, 20 percent yield, To someone who doesn't care about sustainability, they're still going to be happy about that, so I think that oftentimes there is a false dichotomy, a false choice between choosing sustainability and choosing profitability.

And that's something that we're really trying to dispel through both of our products.

[00:06:35] Michel: Amazing. I'd like to clarify some concepts, you know, before we go further, you guys are swimming in this, you know, on a daily basis, but that might not be the case for our audience. You said in a previous interview, I've read something that. Pretty much linked to what you just said, uh, you said a quote, traditionally the world has followed a zero sum economic system where you can either make money or help the planet regenerative finance married with the tokenization of real world assets, uh, makes it easier for investors to accomplish both simultaneously.

So, you know, can we just make sure that we start from the. And if you could explain elaborate a little bit about what region regenerative finance is and also what does you mean by the tokenization of real world assets?

[00:07:20] Christian: Sure thing, I'm happy to, to jump in on that, yeah. 


Understanding Regenerative Finance
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[00:07:24] Christian: So yeah, regenerative finance, regenerative finance is basically an, it's a new financial paradigm. We've seen things of like, conscious capitalism and ESG investing and social environmental factors have been a part of finance. But what makes regenerative finance different in in the way i've studied it and understood it is that it assigns a value To protecting the earth so it assigns a value to the resources that you're using And acknowledges the interdependence of the system.

It's not just about okay You've got to make this social and environmental impact Plus make profit. It's about a holistic system, which looks to protect the earth by nature because it's giving a value to it. So that's something really nice. And a way I like to visualize it is with regenerative farming. I think it's something we can all relate to with our food and the planet.

And it's like, An extractive farm just, cuts a load of trees down, plant seeds, tills the soil excessively, and, slowly that soil, depreciates, the quality of it depreciates over time, but it's making profit in its first ten years of life, right? And then eventually you come to a moment where there's excess runoff on the land.

using excessive chemicals and fertilizers and you're losing biodiversity, for example. So there's, uh, this is touching on the zero sum game, right? There's these negative consequences, but companies and people and farmers are getting rich off of it, right? So they're kind of competing, realms, uh, profit and planet in that sense.

With regenerative finance, a regenerative farm, for example, would use a mixed, uh, crop variety, would replenish soils, would look for, plants which create, deterrents for certain insects. So pesticides don't need to be used. All these sort of things which still create pollutants. Beautiful, abundant crops and sometimes of a much high quality and high margin, but also have the land in mind and a kind of regenerate it in combination.

So regenerative finance can be applied to a million things. this is one of them, but you might see it across like ecosystem restoration, uh, carbon credits, loans to businesses, equity, et cetera. Right. so that's regenerative finance in a nutshell, in a nutshell that you can imagine if you're a visual cyclical.


Tokenization of Real World Assets
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[00:09:31] Christian: holistic style of of economy that values, the planet tokenization of real world assets another Quite hot and emerging topic is basically just creating digital tokens, which represent ownership or shares of assets, on the blockchain, right? and what this might be like, real estate, it might be commodities, it might be, certain,infrastructure.

and what this does, essentially, is by tokenizing the assets, you're increasing the value. the way you can fraction them. So you increase accessibility. So people can buy in much smaller portions than they usually could. It's all on the blockchain and we can get into more of the technicals of this later, but.

transparency. So everyone knows who owns what and it's on a public ledger. So you're not dependent on a centralized authority to say you own this and therefore you're owed this. It's a public spectrum, right? and then finally liquidity. If you have tokens, they're much easier to trade those tokens. You can trade those tokens in a marketplace and this opens up the potential.

We're seeing it a lot with carbon credits, for example, where you can bring a lot more liquidity into that asset. And, the speed at which it's traded and the amount of people who can get involved more flexibly, increases, right? So, there's lots of benefits to, to tokenization. So to summarize tokenization, you're wrapping up real world assets in packages, which make them much more easily accessible, transparent, and liquid, right?

And when you overlay the two, just touching on what Abe said in the, comment that you read out earlier in terms of these two make it easier for people to get involved in Climate finance and climate investing. It's basically taking this holistic approach to our economy And making it super fast super electric very accessible and giving it the power of blockchain, you know to accelerate the process of sustainable development and planetary ecology

[00:11:20] Michel: Thanks a lot. I'd like to go into the specifics of, of it, right? 


How ReFi Hub Works
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[00:11:24] Michel: So refi hub, you allow people to loan money to banks. Those businesses that you're targeting, every at the beginning, you said you had three types of assets or, or, or vehicles, right? You had the, the loan, the, I have asset in mind, but then you have equity that's coming up with the second one.

[00:11:43] Avery: Uh, ownership.

[00:11:45] Michel: Ownership, right? So, if we, let's say like, let's take a concrete example. Let's pick a business that, you know, I either have assessed or onboarded or that, you know, you're considering for your curated marketplace. If, if I'm, If I'm a business who would like to benefit from, from that marketplace, that ecosystem, how does that work?

[00:12:06] Avery: Yeah, so if you're our business, the process is basically that, either you'd reach out to us if you're interested, potentially we'd reach out to you, we do a lot of scouting of businesses to try to find good alignment. Uh, and then at that point, we would conduct an analysis, you know, there's a lot of marketplaces out there where it's kind of a free for all, uh, you list things, and then you see what happens, and you leave it up to the consumer, but we really want to, make this as easy for people as possible, you know, we want to have curated investments, where we have done at least some level of due diligence to ensure that they will fulfill both their impact promises, And their actual financial obligations.

So the kind of two pillars of all of the assessments that we do of any company are to assess that company's impact and to assess their kind of financial viability and their ability to repay the loan or to pay yield on the investment. the specific project, kind of varies, uh, based on which business we're talking to.

But overall, we have, you know, a list of documents we request. We have a list of impact metrics that we request from them, and we'll analyze all of these to kind of come up with a holistic picture of the business. And based on these analyses. Uh, we will often recommend to the businesses which asset class they're best suited for, you know Sometimes we have a business come to us and says we don't want debt funding We only want equity.

We're willing to give away equity. We're willing to give away ownership, but we're not interested in debt But oftentimes, businesses just need uh some growth capital, you know, they need something To get them over the hump and our analyses often reveal, that certain businesses are better suited for debt financing.

Certain are better suited for ownership opportunities or for equity. So that's kind of the, you know, the broad overview of how businesses apply to refi hub and get listed. Mm

[00:13:59] Michel: I was talking to Cale Scalarud, president of a scaling venture, and he's basically investing in micro SAS. And one of the things he was saying was that, you know, in general people tend to see bigger companies as safer, right? And he, Decided to take a bit of a contrarian approach to this and said, well, I've seen, you know, small micro sass companies making, I don't know, 89 10 million, but they're highly profitable.

And, he's seen bigger deals, uh, led by private equity and, they were obviously that they had a bigger top line, but, uh, not necessarily the same level of, profitability. Do you have, on your radar, like a specific, uh, company size,apart from the, I guess, you know, the sustainability, uh, element that you're tracking, is there, uh, at this stage, very well defined ICP in a way on, on your business side.


Choosing the Right Businesses for ReFi Hub
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[00:14:51] Avery: Yeah, so for the focus on businesses, you know, we are looking at SMEs. We're looking at smaller businesses generally from around 5 to 15 employees in addition to the environmental, impact of the companies, we're also really keen to have, a social impact of getting money funneled towards markets that, might not always, uh, have financial opportunities.

So typically we tend to have a focus on the global South on emerging economies. So emerging economies in Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and we find that this, you know, presents a lot of opportunity. In that we are able to open up funding to businesses here, which might have a harder time acquiring that funding from traditional routes, such as banks.

But we're also able to tap into what are typically much higher interest rates. You know, if you take Argentina or Turkey, for example, both of the countries are now have runaway inflation, which is making it even harder for businesses to get the loans and funding that they need. Thank you very much. Uh, but also means that, we can turn to these businesses, offer them 15 percent interest, and they'll be jumping for joy, you know, that's much more competitive than what the bank would get.

Uh, but then we bring this 15 percent interest to typically North American, European investors, Uh, who are used to, you know, much smaller amounts typically and you really produce, uh, win win. So this is one idea of the blockchain that I absolutely love is the, the concept of geo arbitrage, you know, being able to connect markets where typically if you want to go invest into a country that's halfway across the world, you might have a much harder time, with this.

So that's kind of some of the focus of how we choose businesses. In terms of the impact side, we are, uh, tied towards specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So we try to focus all of our impact within SDGs 7, 12, 13, and 14. So for anyone who's unfamiliar, that's Responsible Consumption and Production.

So anything that reduces waste within the food supply chain, within the production of materials, chemicals, anything like that. also climate action. Renewable energy, uh, and then life below water. So anything in the blue economy. So creating more sustainable systems of aquaculture, fishing, tracking fisheries on the blockchain, anything within that realm.

So we try to keep our focus on both geography and impact, uh, within some amounts


Christian's Journey into Blockchain
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[00:17:23] Michel: So, Avery, you have a research and science background, while Christian, you've come from more of, I would say, creative, media, arts, marketing world.

I'm, a bit like you. I'm not doing what I usually do. The silly, uh, started with in a way. So I'm always, I think these are always great stories and I would really like to know how you kind of make the jump into the blockchain and web three. And, you know, ultimately I'd like this to, to lead us to some of your advice for other people who'd like to kind of follow the same path.

So maybe Christian, what's the story behind the old and the new Christian, or maybe you've always been the same, it's just the evolution of it.

[00:18:06] Christian: Um, there's definitely been a new and old. There's definitely been an evolution. so like, yeah, Christian V1 was, more, as you said, in the marketing and media world to start with. I was working at a couple of, Media and creative agencies in London, uh, Universal McCann, quite a big global agency.

and my path has always been lined with a sense of entrepreneurship. Like even at those agencies, I was looking at all the metrics for like, like what advertisers were paying for certain spots on outdoor advertising. And I was like, ah, how can we capitalize on this opportunity? You know what I mean?

There was always this like acknowledgement of like, where are the little like gaps and opportunities and everything. And that led me down a path of creating, my own small media agency focused on like immersive digital installations for brands, and later creating my own art, my own digital art, using data driven, using data from the human body to basically create motion sculptures and this kind of stuff.

Right. So that was that was Christian V1. and when Christian V1 saw for the first time, all this digital artwork being bought and sold directly peer to peer on the blockchain, there were marketplaces that emerged at the time, one of them was super rare that caught my attention where Anyone could just create an NFT and put it on there and it could be auctioned on.

I thought it was a really cool, uh, use case because, I saw for the first time that the artists can sell directly to the consumer that doesn't usually happen. People usually go through galleries, which take a massive commission, which control a lot of the art being produced and have their, their grip on, on the human, human expression in a sense.

Right. So I thought this is really cool. And then I was like, actually, if you. Map this out. It can be applied to music with big music labels. It can be applied to banks with finance. It can be applied to so many ways. When you cut the middleman out and you decentralize new opportunities emerge. And we've seen it in terms of like Airbnb and Uber in some cases, right?

Where you're cutting out like the there's a platform where the user and the seller of the service can go direct in a way and have an interface, you know, so yeah. That really caught my attention and lit up my entrepreneurial spirit of like, okay, there's something to, to do about this and to pay attention to.

So I created, I started creating a few NFTs and stuff without much success at the beginning. I just dove into it. And like I've said, just put stuff on there and hope for the best, you know, but there is an art to this. There is an art to community building. There is an art to, building your brand. There is an art to crafting your message and slowly gaining authority audience and.

And users, or fans, in the case of art, right? So with one of our co founders, Jimmy, I, started meeting up with him more and, and I heard a story that some of his friends out of university created an NFT project and sold over a million worth of NFTs and it was, uh, around the play to earn game at this time and this was like three years ago when I Play to earn games were like just ramping up and it was, you know, just before the peak of that moment.

They were really good timing into it and I was like, wow, you can just do that like straight out of uni? That's amazing, you know? So with Jimmy, we just, we both had a kind of passion for, for nature and, uh, wanting to do something about the climate crisis, but felt quite involved in that in some dimension.

And,that was the inception of Coral Tribe. Why don't we create an NFT collection, you know, that, kind of leverages these two interests and aspects. And, and later the whole story evolved and we can go into that and Abe also joined us and the creation of Rehub, et cetera. But yeah, that was my way in from art and media through entrepreneurial, motivation and, and yeah, seeing the, seeing the light of, decentralization basically.

[00:21:48] Michel: Before we move to Avery, uh, is there like, a specific lesson that you learned, you know, by, because you said, I just kind of, threw spaghetti on the wall and,

[00:21:58] Christian: yeah, yeah,

[00:21:59] Michel: like, what, what's like, if you had to do it again, like, is there something specific that you do differently?

[00:22:04] Christian: yes, Uh, everything, I'm joking, not everything, not everything, but, like 75 percent of it, you know, like, at the beginning you're, there's so much novelty and new information and you don't know what to really prioritize when you're building your project, you know. So I think, like, number one would be get knowledge quickly and try surround yourself with people who have already done it because they're gonna They're gonna give you like a They're gonna save 80 percent of your energy because they're really gonna, if they can give you the principles of how they did it and you can follow them, it is a recipe for success if you can apply yourself to it and really Do so in a meaningful way, right?

So yeah finding the right people to guide us And this was over the course of the time on investing in some consulting calls bringing on some people to help us with marketing,and Having a close partnership with this project. I told you about with the play to earn game who guided us in the beginning, you know We did outgrow many of these things and there wasn't always the greatest thing don't always just go for advice and it can sometimes be overpriced but Like there's definitely something there to like bring that knowledge into your way of doing things, right?

And then secondly is like, try understand What is needed when it's needed, we started with coral tribe. creating the art at the beginning and reaching out to NGOs for partnerships and stuff like that for some of the coral outplanting And yeah, I'd say like they were two both important things, but we started quite late on a few aspects of, the community building and other things as well.

Right. So I think like we could have saved a lot more time by just trying to figure out what does the business need in what order, and then and try to go from there a bit more versus just, you know, trying to create out of that naivety and excitement, But who knows? Who knows how, life is also quite convoluted and chaotic, and sometimes things spring up like that, and that's also fine.

So I think embracing your own creativity and the people that life puts in front of you and the ideas that come to you in the shower, like, that's also just as important, right? But,yeah, those would be some, some things to take into mind.

[00:24:07] Michel: Right. So make sure that you, you know, talk to people who've done it to kind of, uh, flatten your learning curve. And then the other thing you mentioned was, 

[00:24:15] Christian: About the order, like, planning

out, like, getting a really clear plan on the whole order and execution and, uh, making sure you're doing things in, in order of priority.

[00:24:24] Michel: Yeah. So, so the sequence, you know, that's one of the things I, I keep saying all the time, like the sequence of event and what you do is, is pretty important. one of the things that also like with the NFT and art, I attended a, a dinner with the Squarespace team, uh, in Berlin and they invited, uh, Roman Limsky, to, uh, one of the, one of the, One painter to, talk about how he's used AI, you know, to kind of find his new or it's his V2 I guess so that's, yeah, I think, you know, it's great when you can mix that creativity with, you know, some of new technologies and you find kind of the sweet spot because I think sometimes it's easy to just, you know, try to chase the hype, but, uh, love it, love the V2 or V3.

I don't know which, uh, version of Christian with we are at at the moment, but,

[00:25:12] Christian: 5 right now. 2. 5.

Great. So, at V3 by the end of this interview.

[00:25:17] Michel: okay, great, great. I'm happy I can contribute. all right, Avery, what about you? You, uh, I know you've done some research. Uh, also you've, uh, I think you've, uh, done some research in, uh, Latin America. Like tell us your, your story and how you ended up, uh, with, your new version of yourself doing Refihub and, and Coral NFT.


Avery's Path to ReFi Hub
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[00:25:40] Avery: Yeah, so I think there have definitely been discrete segments of my life, where I have had my time and energy focused on different aspects. But I'd say underlying everything, there have been a few principles that have really driven all of it. You know, I think the main principle which drove my research, which is driving the work I do now, is, my passion for the natural world, for protecting and regenerating it.

And I think that. I would say almost everything I've done in my work and education capacity throughout my entire life has really been aimed towards that goal. Very different approaches at times, but really with that, as the unifying theme. So, back in my V1 life, let's say, I was very involved in conservation work as a researcher, a student, and a teacher.

and through this, I was able to see some incredible places. Uh, I had a focus on marine conservation, specifically on coral reef conservation. So I was able to do some incredible scuba diving. I was able to see some very remote parts of the world, uh, venture to the Amazon rainforest. Uh, to the Galapagos Islands and, really just see some of the most pristine, untouched, uh, places in the world.

And I think for me, this, really solidified my passion, uh, really made it clear, uh, what I was working towards. In my previous, work, uh, and focus for life, I was very involved in conservation work, uh, in science, some terrestrial conservation, but mainly focused on marine and coral reef conservation. Uh, and all of the work that I did within that sphere, that's Really, you know, solidified my passion for regenerating our world for protecting our planet.

I was able to visit some really incredible places, some of the most, pristine, untouched areas in the world. And I think that just instilled such a burning passion in me, that we don't have that many of these places left. We really need toe work to protect them. But I think at the same time, Yeah.

Uh, during my work, I, I started coming to the realization, that conservation work, uh, typical conservation work and science just move so slowly that it's very good hearted and intentioned. It's pushing towards solutions for problems, but oftentimes, you know. The issue is not that we need more data.

The issue is not that we need to kind of have more questions posed, more research into things. The issue is that there's a lack of funding and a lack of public engagement. it's obscene how many studies there have been done which unequivocally prove that human caused climate change is happening.

That it's a huge problem and that it's going to, destroy our world if we don't rein it in, uh, and it just doesn't feel right to do another study on that, for me, I think that my path has really led me towards, okay, how can we actually action solutions to these problems? So at the time when I was doing my master's, when I was kind of in the last year of my master's, I really started getting into blockchain, uh, and specifically at the time, I was really interested, uh, in the ability of blockchain to affect social and political change, I think anybody who's studied into blockchain can see how it can really reform our financial systems, how it can eliminate a lot of corruption, you know.

Uh, how it can, you know, eliminate a lot of problems that inflation prone countries, often face. So, at the time, I was looking at it more from a social and I'd say political lens. Uh, but over time, everything just started kind of clicking for me, you know. Started realizing that we actually have all of these tools within crypto.

We have all of these amazing technologies, that can really incentivize us. To push forward the ideas of sustainability that I've been toying around with for so long. So, I think that's kind of how all of these elements came together for me. Uh, and at that time, I stumbled on the Coral Trout Project very early days, uh, before it had minted out.

joined in with the team, uh, and then over the last few years I've just been, dedicating my And I could not be happier. It feels like a really refreshing change, from the conservation space. As much as I love science, conservation, everything in that realm, it feels really nice to be able to move things forward at a much faster pace.

Be part of an industry that's very innovative, that reacts, uh, and responds, uh, with agility instead of kind of lagging behind, uh, on many senses.

[00:30:14] Michel: Well, let's talk about, uh, reacting and being fast. 


Building RefiHub and CoreLNFT
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[00:30:18] Michel: I'm, very interested in learning how you actually built, uh, RefiHub and, CoreLNFT and for that matter.what I was telling you a bit, uh, before we got started was that, uh, I've interviewed a lot of, SAS digital, product, Related startups and it's, uh, really, it's very easy.

You hear that all the time. You see it on social media. It's very easy to launch a business today versus, you know, 20 years ago. It's very easy to build on the web to kind of ecosystem.and there's,there's a lot of, uh, extremely. Easy to use and effective tools to kind of build your tech stack around, you know, or, or your business on.

S


Getting Started in Web3 Development
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[00:30:59] Michel: o when you two got into Web3 and if, you know, people in our audience are interested in launching something similar, what is it that you need to know to kind of get started, like how do you launch a platform on Web3 and, you know, as we said, keep it, keep it simple, but, uh, let's get into some of the details.

Every do you want to take this or Christian?

[00:31:23] Avery: Yeah, so I think it really depends, uh, on the areas of expertise, that you possess. If you have, uh, some base level of interest in development, in coding, uh, there's amazing software, there's amazing resources out there for you to kind of take this knowledge and transition it to blockchain learning.

At the end of the day, blockchains, uh, are written, very common languages often, sometimes more specialized, but. The jump, from knowing Python, JavaScript, anything like that, to knowing how to code on the blockchain isn't an insane jump, so if you are interested in the more development aspect, definitely, you can get involved, there's great tools, great communities to learn more, but I would say that our entire founding team, uh, none of us really had that technical expertise, I'd done some kind of big data work, some coding in the past, Uh, but none of us really, had that full on expertise.

All of us were interested in much more of the, the business elements, the environmental, social elements, uh, the marketing, community building. So really we've formed, uh, this massive undertaking, uh, without, a lot of knowledge, uh, of the actual. Uh, I think we all have a lot of knowledge of the technology, but not of how the technology, uh, is built, so I think if you find developers who you trust, you get good connections within the space, there's lots of people who have the technical capacities, but don't necessarily have the vision of what they want to create.

So I think if you have ideas that you think would work well on the blockchain. It's, never a bad idea to try. You can always meet up with people. There's tons of conferences, tons of information out there. And I think that, there's never been a better time, uh, to kind of dip your feet in.

[00:33:10] Christian: Yeah. 


Importance of a Strong Development Team
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[00:33:10] Christian: I would also like to add to that and sort of say like, say if you're a business, like we, in our position where your resources are not orientated towards the technical side, right? Like, as a, as a starting point, then you really, you need to pay the price for that in, in a way, right? You need to invest heavily in the dev side.

Like there should be nothing you sacrifice there because it's, it's something that you really have to trust and it has to work well. You know? So as Ave said, we made sure we went through people. That with with agencies and people that we trusted very well We made sure that we worked kind of on a milestone basis.

So slowly budget gets unlocked when certain tasks get completed starting with simpler ones where we can assess scope out test and then see um and And yeah, we were also fortunate enough to to come across a really great Dev team, you know where they also had alet's say CTO and project manager for that company.

So we weren't having to speak to devs because when you, devs speak in a different language, you know, so Then a commercial person like it and making those two interface Effectively is so important because that's going to make the product, right? so, having someone there in your team like ave who actually openly, and Actively is educating himself and has a ability for that technical Interface of that i'm talking about is great because ave is that person on our team But also if you can find someone on the side of the agency or the dev team you're working with who also has that ability That's where the conversation can happen and that's, that's where things can, can be built, well, you know, so.

We've had to pay for it, we've, we, you know, at the beginning when we didn't have much money, we just, uh, had to work with a percentage basis on, on the money we made, and. Bring them into our vision and be like, Hey guys, we're doing this. Like you can, you can take a decent cut of it if you help us do it.

Cause we know you're good. so we, we had to, we paid the price, but, but it paid off as well because that the coral tribe was a great success and reef hub has been built pretty to pretty high standards and, so yeah, that's, a little bit of insight on that.


Revenue Models and Funding
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[00:35:17] Michel: Okay, how does the the business model works? We're kind of starting to talk about this But and I'm assuming we have to kind of separate the two the two projects, but how Are you, paying yourself and, are you going to be able to invest in the business and, be profitable in the future?

[00:35:37] Avery: Yeah. So a lot of our revenue did come from the initial sale of the coral tribe NFTs.and since then, you know, we've been largely grant funded. Uh, there've been a lot of organizations who we've been in talks with, who we've developed partnerships with, uh, who are really keen on our vision, uh, and be a part of it.

So I'd say the majority of our funding over the last year or two has come from grant sources. Once we launched RepiHub, you know, we developed a much clearer revenue stream. we'll be taking a small commission fee, uh, on both the, lender side and the borrower side, uh, or both the investor and the receiver side.

Uh, so at the start, it'd be quite negligible to the individual investors, to the businesses, uh, but based on, many competitors who we've analyzed. Uh, we think it's very realistic to, scale up the volume of the platform, uh, quite quickly, some of the closest competitors who we have looked at, analyzed, chatted with before have been able to, scale up to multi million dollars.

facilitated through the platform within only the first few years, you know, and if you start getting to that point, then the revenue generated from these very small commission fees starts becoming much more viable, much more sustainable as a, as a long term approach. So, really, we've been, scraping it together, finding funding in any little way we can, and, making it work very well until now, and we're just at the stage, where we're going to start pivoting to a much more sustainable business model.


Challenges and Learnings in Web3
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[00:37:08] Michel: I was talking to Luis Valente, who's the co founder and CEO of a company called iLove, and they use AI and light to help with drug trials, you know, personalized medicine. And one of the things he was saying was that, you have to tackle a big problem. Uh, something that you're passionate about, uh, and something that even if it does not work out or, As you hit the hurdles like you'll you'll keep going at it And I I have the feeling that that's what you also guys picked and Can you tell me a bit about and maybe we can come back to what you were saying christian about the uh, The prioritization of the sequence of what you have to do when you build a project like this What have you learned?

Because my understanding is that you are not Finance, uh, you don't come from the financial world, right? I was talking to somebody else on the, uh, a refiner Solana community who, has, you know, launched something he calls a impact as a product. And one of his co founder is a former investment banker, right?

And so he has kind of that, that headstart, uh, at least on the financial side, but you guys kind of jumped into a new technology, uh, also kind of a new field. Uh, so you're, you're stretching yourself. from different angle, what's your, what's kind of your take on that? Is, is that how you live life, and, or, or is that also,I know what, what you've learned from that.

Uh, maybe Chris,

[00:38:34] Christian: Yeah. I think like, it's felt quite natural and rational the whole time. Like, of course, sometimes it does feel wild. Right. I think there's a pattern to the way in which we make decisions and do business in life, right. It's like a bit of a wild idea. Okay.

But then like study the idea, think about what could go wrong. Who's actually going to be able to implement this? Like, is it worth our time asking all these questions? And we've asked those questions throughout the process, and that's just slowly taken us to To each day edge a little bit closer to where we are today, you know Where we've built a great community of people around nfts Minted a successful project done some great environmental restoration And built a sound platform, you know and bringing members into the team who are educated in blockchain or in financial analysis, etc, so it's been you know, kind of a humbling journey and just But and taking on these like wild ideas but also breaking them down and really thinking like are they viable and how are we actually Going to do it, and there is an element of risk to that.

It's like yeah It's never it's not always going to happen the way you think it might but but it's it's got us to where we were and I think like Personally when you say about like, what have I learned from like, like stretching myself 

I just feel like You Like a child sometimes, you know, I feel like um, like it's it's good and healthy for my brain and my body and you know There's many fibers in me that say don't do this or this is outside your comfort zone or you know I had to go to an impact investing conference a couple of years ago and I felt like I'm not from an investment perspective and, it was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but you go there and we're human beings, we're plastic minded, you know, and you just slowly absorb things that you see people around you analyzing things in certain ways, talking a certain vocabulary, and you just slowly monkey see monkey do, you know, you slowly copy and, and integrate it into the way you personally and authentically do stuff, you know?

So I think that's been a part of it, and like I said, just being open to, to learn and expose yourself to those situations, I think is, is what, is what allows you to have that flexibility, like the perspective of being a generalist. I quite, I quite like that.

I quite like getting involved in, in different things and just, tuning into the core principles behind everything. Cause it's very similar, life is actually, it's very complex, but very simple when you really boil down to it, you know? So, so yeah, that's kind of the, my guiding mantra, I guess, a little bit being a, being a generalist and, and open to that.


Daily Operations and Team Dynamics
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[00:41:01] Michel: I've worked with a lot of startups and startup founders, and most of them struggle with prioritizing and, and, kind of making sure that they work on the right things. I like, uh, James clears in atomic habits, he says, uh, in the longterm. Prioritization beats effectiveness, right? And, I think, like what, one of the things I'd like to know from you is like, what's your day to day, what are the key things you have to do to, to move the needle?

since you're not necessarily coding, or building the platform yourself, like what are your key areas of, or a focus?

[00:41:41] Avery: Yeah, so I'd say, within each week, uh, something that we've been focusing on a lot more recently, uh, which we think has, brought some really great results is setting very clear sprints for the week. it's quite a common project management tool, but really coming together every Monday on a team meeting and setting our intentions, what is going to happen this week?

What are our priorities? Uh, where will everybody's time and energy go, and then routinely checking back in on that. So a quick call on Wednesday, quick call on Friday, and make sure that we're keeping on moving towards that. Uh, we found that that's had, a tremendous effect, especially as a fully remote team, uh, placed, you know.

All around the globe, sometimes coming together, but often, in different sections of the world, different time zones, we feel like this has just been such a great unifying, uh, force to really push forward their vision and make for, make sure that we, focus on what matters within the company.

So I can talk a little bit about, my day to day. and then Christian, maybe we can talk a bit about his. And then we do have another two incredible co founders who are working very hard on different aspects of the project as well. Uh, and then, several other, uh, employees, staff members, contractors who, keep working, uh, to make everything happen.

So, on my side, I am the CEO, so I've been focusing a lot on the project management, a lot on the strategic vision of the company. but then I'd say within the team, I also have the most, blockchain coding experience, uh, and have a bit of, a focus on legal as well. So what I've really been doing, especially over the last few weeks is, making sure that our legal team is able to get all of the revisions right.

Uh, match to all of these real world businesses, make sure that, we're able to get things done on time, that all of the kind of nuances of blockchain technology of each specific business are reflected within these contracts, have also been managing our developer teams, making sure that, all of the designs that we get them, all of the specifications understood, uh, we have two different developer teams in different time zones.

So kind of liaising between them. Uh, and then, each of us, I think, kind of organically has a different network, uh, of businesses we have like a unifying, business management system where the outreach is kind of happening, uh, but outside of that, all of us like to go to conferences, all of us have, various connections as well, uh, so I've also been, chatting a lot with some of the businesses, who are going to be listing, so sometimes it feels like, it's just, Just talking and talking and talking and just connecting things.

Uh, and it feels like, how does this make up an entire day, but yeah, it can get very busy very quickly trying to connect

people and connect ideas. Yeah.

great. 


Marketing and Community Engagement
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[00:44:28] Michel: Uh, what, what about you Christian? Where's your focus?

[00:44:31] Christian: Yeah, so, my focus is more on, uh, marketing and the communications aspect of CoralTribe and RefiHub. so generally I'm looking at a content calendar and making sure that everything we communicate to people is going out at the right time and making sure we've got a nice mix of content that, you know, inspires you visually, inspires you for animation, educates you, articles that go a bit deeper.

Uh, yeah. sure that's all tied in in a coherent way. So managing the creation of that requires managing, an animator, a graphic designer, writing the copy myself, and kind of trying to really put my heart and represent the brand as much as possible in that way and, and, and,uh, communicate our value proposition to.

a Web3 audience. At the beginning, our target is a Web3 audience just because it's a Web3 product and it will be much quicker uptaken like that. You know, you don't need to convert people from Web2 to Web3. Although it is a very easy product to use, we can get more into that later, but you can create an account with an email and you can invest with fiat currencies.

but at the beginning, our target market is a Web3 audience. And you know, a Web3 audience is an interesting audience. It's, it's very hype driven. It's got a lot of unique nuanced terminology, and we're not just going after people who are interested in regeneration or conservation. We're interested in people who are interested in decentralized finance and investing because that's a huge portion of the market.

And that's what's really going to bring in the volume to our platform, you know, so it's positioning ourselves in a way that isn't too green. In a way that's a cool, innovative investment tool that makes, uh, that contributes to making our planet, you know, sound and solid versus, you know, save our planet and.

Here's all the bad shit we've done and you should feel guilty for this. So please donate, you know Like we're taking that that kind of angle on things. so yeah day to day is has that general marketing focus Also get involved with the solana refi community quite heavily. we Are funded through a grant from from the solana foundation to help cultivate that refi community, which is something Very synergistic to everything we're doing and building.

So there's certain tasks that need to be fulfilled there in managing that community. and yeah, pop into areas of the business wherever they need a bit of reflection and back and forth. We're quite a small agile team. So, you know, that, that happens often. yeah. And, uh, one thing I also wanted to say was, I think we we've established in our company culture just by nature and also being friends and like really setting out like what, how we want our company to be and how we want our lives to be like.

We all take time to, like, meditate, do breath work, surf, get out in nature, like, close the laptop. Like, that's just as important, like, closing the laptop and, like, going in the 3D world and not being so fixated on it. To come back with so much more energy and enthusiasm, that's a huge part of what, is a huge part of our day to day.

And a beautiful part of our day to day, you know? So that's something that we kind of try and maintain as much as possible, throughout.

[00:47:31] Michel: you? I, I just wanna go back to what you said about the, the marketing and the communication. Uh, one of the things that you've mentioned in the past is the importance of the community and, you were talking about the content strategy, content calendar. What's your channel of, of choice, to really communicate?

what you're, you're positioning and, you know, stay in touch with the community.

[00:47:53] Christian: Yeah, I'd say there are two main channels. The main channel is Twitter. That's where 90 percent of the audience and engagement is to the public, you know? and, and then Discord is the other one. That's a Discord server where we can have multiple channels and get much deeper into certain conversation.

And that's more of a community building tool. That's where people can have conversations between each other or, you know, multiple people, where you can host quests, community activities, where you can, it's a safer space to share and converse in a sense. Twitter is much more public and much more exposed.

So Discord is that little safe haven where you can, you can build community. And we tie the two together. We have systems that when we post something on Twitter, you can get alerted on Discord and you can kind of go and raid, you can go and like and retweet that post and give engagement to it. So we've built that kind of culture around the two platforms.

But, But yeah, those would be the main ones. We use a few others, but, but those are our main go tos. 

[00:48:48] Michel: On


Future of Refi and Blockchain Adoption
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[00:48:48] Michel: e of the last questions I have for you is really to, you know, I'd like to tip you to tell me what is missing or what needs to happen for refi, blockchain. let's say the tokenization of real, real world assets, like what is missing for things to really, to take off.

[00:49:04] Christian: Yeah, so I think re fundamentally is for, really solid and great use cases. There's been some innovation and, and what we're seeing is the beginning of the revolution in tokenization and blockchain, right? Adoption rate of blockchain is like, I think less than 5 percent people own cryptocurrencies and probably far less use crypto platforms, right?

tokenization still covers less than 1 percent of, much less than 1 percent of the full total addressable market of assets that you can tokenize. Yet, it poses lots of amazing advantages, you know, so it's like, how do you get from 0 to 100, I think something where some one thing is just the innovation factor people to tokenize more things and useful things be it gold biodiversity credits Tokenizing loans like we're doing even shares in a football club, you know where fans can own the club, you know like I think finding more amazing use cases and making them happen for tokenization is going to create interest, right?

And some MVPs of each category, you know And we're already seeing that with precious metals with biodiversity. We're seeing it with all the categories I mentioned, you know, but You know, it's it's it's the beginning Then there's how do how does web3? integrate with traditional finance and legal systems, you know, there is that's a really Information heavy and dense jungle to move, move through.

Right. And, it requires, uh, lawyers and people with expertise in digital assets in crypto in, specific geographical, regulatory frameworks to kind of make that happen. There are bodies who specialize like government bodies and public institutions who specialize in crypto and trying to help that.

That thing come together, you know, but we're seeing it even in our business Like how much has to come together for a web 2 business to to take money from crypto and understand all of this At the end of the day it is quite simple and if you're in the green light you're in the green light and you can do it, you know, but it's about uh establishing this and establishing a set of norms to make it very easy for anyone to build or tokenize a crypto, uh, an asset and, you know, be able to have mass people using this.

So that's, so I, I mentioned, legal understanding. Uh, another thing is like, uh, the fear of crypto. I, I, I believe there is quite a big fear and uncertainty around crypto. The crypto space does have quite a lot of hacks in general. Like there have been a lot of scams and hacks, like any space, you know, but blockchain technology in itself is a very safe, uh, and trustless system, you know, so it's kind of a paradox, but it's about bringing the education and people slowly building confidence in platforms being able to, maintain connection and, the flow of funds, uh, in a equitable and safe way.

Right. So I think like fear of crypto dissolving. More legal understanding and then the first one that I mentioned was like more innovation like just more use cases that people are going to Really use once those three factors are in place Then it's about bringing that to the public. It's making it super accessible super easy So it's like how can revolut integrate they're already integrating crypto, you know But how can revolut integrate tokenized real world assets into their app, you know How can money institutions and just everyday apps have?

tokenization built into them. How can like your step counting app, give you tokens based on the steps you use and allow you to redeem those tokens at, at, uh, for public transport or, at local businesses, for example, like it's about bringing that into people's everyday lives. And then it just becomes, it won't even be called crypto and blockchain.

It will be, it's like, people don't really talk about the internet as like a thing. It's just like, everything is built on it and you use everything that's built on it. So I think. Slowly, we, like, we will get to a point where it's not really even talked about on a thing, and, and I think, yeah, innovation, legal boundaries, and understanding, and, like, the fear of crypto, those are three key things that I've kind of had in my mind that will, yeah, help that, that movement, you know?

[00:53:11] Avery: Mm hmm

[00:53:12] Michel: every, do you want to add something to it?

[00:53:14] Avery: Yeah, I think Christian covered it quite well. I think the one thing I'd add, you know, is, there's two challenges, you know, to people within crypto. One is building out of crypto, you know, building real world use cases at the moment. So much of DeFi decentralized finance is a closed loop. You know, you lend your crypto to some other crypto users so that they can use that as collateral and they can borrow some other crypto and it's just all keeps going around in the cloud.

And it's great, you know, there's some really cool tools that are being developed within that, but that's not how we bring people on board. You know, we need to start building outside of that. We need to start building applications that will interact with the real world, back and forth feedback. The other thing we need to do, which Christian was alluding towards is.

Bringing blockchain to the back end, you know, every not every, but many of the depths that you visit. Now, you know, you have the typical crypto interface, you connect with a wallet has a pop up, you need to sign a transaction, all of these complicated things, all of this jargon that Is really unnecessary, you know, uh, and I think we're getting towards the point where people realize that and people realize that yes Blockchain is an amazing tool, uh to transact across time and space.

Do you have lightning speed transactions to have trustless? permissionless ledgers But it doesn't need to be in your face, you know, all of these things can happen on the background You can get all of these benefits Without all of this complexity that's just turning people away. Uh, and you know, the example Christian used about the internet is like, I feel like many people do not know how computers work.

At all. And they still use them every single day and it's changed their life so much for the better. So I think we're going to get to a point, uh, with that in blockchain, where it will be used in everything we do in day to day life. And most people just won't understand it, you know, and that's fine, and I think we're, we're pushing towards that, and I think that's what we really need, to affect mass adoption.


Advice for Aspiring Web3 Entrepreneurs
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[00:55:14] Michel: the last question would be, you know, what would be your top three advice for our audience? You know, who would like to follow your path? Like, what are the top three things they should keep in mind before, you know, jumping into the web three startup world? 

[00:55:30] Christian: my insights or pieces of advice would be, uh, number one, a massive thing for me was surrounding yourself with the right kind of team, you know, like I think having a team that you can be very transparent with. you can own up to your weaknesses and mistakes with is, is huge saves so much time and resource and, and it feels so free, you know, so I think that's a, that's a huge piece.

And then on the flip side of that, have a team that you trust to like execute and you can depend on and doesn't matter where they are, what they're doing, like you guys, you, you, you'll get there, you know, and you can, you can really grind through the hard moments. We've, we've been through a bear market in, in the crypto space.

We've been through times in our company where we've had very little funding coming in and, you know, really scraping it together. But like having that bond will, will help you through those times, you know, and you can even make it fun, you know? So I think like that's the team and the team dynamics and the openness of the team is like a really important factor to, to feel you're, you're in and part of.

and the other thing is like, uh, Like getting exposed to the industry that you're in, like not thinking, you know, about it too much or, you know, like that there's, there's not nothing to learn there. Like really investing in, like going to some conferences, I think going to like Solana break point or some of the impact investing conferences, that I've been to recently, like, that's really like.

It's opened up my understanding of how others in the industry are perceiving things, interacting, behaving. And it gives you a kind of language to go off and, and that's what can help you push things forward, you know? So I think that's been a, a really big one, like exposing yourself to the industry and the industry language and, and what's going on, like investing that time.

and finally, and this is not really necessarily a web three one either. It's, it's more general, but just like, no, like remembering your value, like remembering, like, it doesn't matter who you are or like, where you come from or, you know, uh, what, you know, what you don't know, like there is a VA inherent value in all of us.

There's an inherent passion in all of us. And if you're genuine and authentic about it, Like people will recognize that and are willing to help and are willing to support that, you know, and it's just like recognizing that value and You know, it's that's going to help you in negotiation because you you can you're valuing what you have on on the side of the table that's going to help you in communication because it's like you're trusting in in in the confidence of your own words, you know, so I think It factors into so many areas of business and just like remembering that and coming back to that.

And when you lose that, which is normal, we all feel worthless. Sometimes we all feel like, you know, it's all going to shit, but, just remembering that. So, you know, you can let that pass and reconnect with it again, you know? So, so yeah, I would say to summarize, remember your value, expose yourself to the industry and surround yourself with a team that you feel you can really work with.


Closing Remarks and Future Outlook
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[00:58:17] Michel: Thank you so much, Christian and Avery, for your time. I'm really looking forward to see RefiHub fly. We'll definitely stay in touch and I guess I'll have to interview you guys again in a couple of months, like to see where you are. But thanks for your time. Wishing you all the best.

[00:58:34] Christian: Thank you very much, Michel. Thanks a lot, Michel. 

Very much appreciated it and enjoyed the experience. So yeah, looking forward to the next one we do.

[00:58:43] Michel G: Thanks again for listening, I hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. And as usual you can find the show notes at stunandawecom.