🔍What gives you conviction before an idea becomes consensus? With a background in public credit investment, I’m SO used to having financial statements, operating histories, and an existing business to evaluate. Listening to @ani_pai last week, in a conversation moderated by @LBarberis, I was curious about what gave Ani the conviction to back ideas when so little of that evidence exists. Three comments stayed with me: 💡“You’d be surprised at how often very talented people make something work.” The Praxis story clearly proved that! Before there was a city, there was a team bringing people from very different fields together around the idea. It made me think about how much you can learn from who chooses to join a founder and why they stay. 💡“Now companies have to work to prove their value to then be able to launch a token.” The Hyperliquid discussion gave me a different way to think about crypto. Dismissing ICOs because of past failures could mean possibly overlooking an existing business using a token to provide liquidity. Ani also discussed how product quality and incentives helped attract users. What people value about the product, and how much their participation depends on the rewards? That seems like a better starting point for conviction than the token price alone. 💡“You have to be right about the space, the timing of the space and then the timing of the company.” This was my favorite! Ani spoke openly about being too optimistic and expecting things to happen sooner than they did. It’s easy to feel validated when a sector takes off. Whether your particular investment works out is still a separate question. Shoutout to Ani and Lorenzo again for such a candid conversation! 🎥 Watch the full conversation on Venture Math: