TM Lee is the co-founder & CEO at Coingecko - one of the world’s largest crypto data aggregators with over 150 million users in 2021 alone! But before becoming a founder, TM was first influenced by his brother to become a coder. He learned about Reddit and Digg, and even ended up studying computer science at Purdue University, where he was exposed to the likes of Jason Fried (Basecamp) - a huge proponent of the bootstrap mentality. TM tried many things. He wrote an aggregator in college until things went south, and eventually worked at a Big 4 audit firm but at the back of his mind was the thought that he wanted to start a business. Then in April 2014, he co-founded Coingecko with Bobby Ong. It began as a side project with a starting capital of $100, launched soon after the collapse of Mt Gox. And as you’ll see from our interview, they went through lots of ups & downs to get to where they are today. Highlights:3:52 How his brother exposed TM to coding5:01 Influenced by Kevin Rose (Digg)5:44 Jason Fried of Basecamp9:17 Evaluating business partners10:35 Returning to Malaysia11:47 Side projects14:56 Building Coingecko17:05 Meeting his co-founder, Bobby Ong18:30 The early days of Coingecko20:00 The significance behind the crash of Mt Gox21:30 Why launch Coingecko right after the Mt Gox crash?22:40 Building trust22:40 Bootstrapping with $10025:31 Building collaborations with universities26:40 Scaling via organic marketing27:47 Getting Coingecko translated into 15 languages 30:19 Was TM worried about sharing his code to the public?31:10 Getting investors on board 24:12 Why the banking/fintech industry is so different from the crypto industry35:51 Why maintain Coingecko’s API for free forever?37:05 How Coingecko ensures that they have accurate price data feeds38:25 Deciding on the tokens to list 39:09 Sifting out the scams & rug pulls40:53 Will Coingecko ever delist a token? 42:21 Main milestones behind Coingecko43:31 How the crypto space is impacted by banks (e.g. DBS) launching their own crypto trading services44:14 Impact of Binance’s purchase of Coinmarketcap on Coingecko 45:07 Is TM now more important to investors to remain competitive?50:38 NFTs52:00 The secret behind Coingecko’s rocket growth in 2021: From 50 million to 150 million in 11 months53:03 Thoughts on the current bear market55:34 Crash of the Luna token56:54 Coinzilla’s malicious app script 1:02:52 What to expect from Coingecko moving forward1:03:42 Things to expect if the metaverse takes off1:05:37 How much of your success is due to hard work v luck??Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/90 ? Like STIMY? Buy us a ☕️?: https://beacons.ai/sothisismywhy ? Get the latest STIMY alpha/exclusive updates: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605