Dive into the world of Web3 Entertainment on this episode of the Tokened Podcast featuring Sander Görtjes, CEO of Hello Labs and the visionary behind the groundbreaking Web3 pitch show “Killer Whales.” Discover how Sander is shaping a new entertainment ecosystem powered by blockchain, reaching millions of viewers worldwide.
Joe Benso (00:00)
All right, hello everyone. Welcome back to the Token Podcast. I’m Joe Benso here with my cohost, Michael Ros. Today we’re diving into the world of Web3 Entertainment with a special guest. Joining us today is Sander Gortjes from Killer Whales, the driving force behind the hit Web3 pitch show streaming to millions of people. And as the CEO of Hello Lab, Sander is building more than just a show. He’s shaping an entire entertainment ecosystem powered by blockchain, of course. So we’ll talk about the impact of Killer Whales, the future of Web3 media, and what’s next for Hello Labs. Sander, welcome to the show. It’s good to see you again.
Sander Gortjes (00:39)
Yeah, what a great intro Joe. Thank you very much, Michael Ros as well. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to this one.
Joe Benso (00:46)
Awesome, see Michael‘s got the, you know, he’s sporting the Killer Whale’s hat. I know you guys have some history already, and it’s a nice connection here. Michael, you’ve got some more insights into Killer Whales, probably deeper than most people. Tell us the story behind the hat.
Michael Ros (00:48)
Yeah, it’s cool. Yeah, Sleap.io was one of the participants in season two. So it was an amazing experience. I want to say thank you again for the whole Killer Whales and Hello Labs community for the opportunity to be part of the show. Of course, it will be aired soon, but Sander will tell us everything about it. That was how I actually met Joe, at Mid-Morning a year ago in Paris. He was actually recording outside the pre-pitch to find great contestants for the show. So I met Joe there, and it’s cool to have those links together. And of course, we met all together a month ago in Paris again, and we had the premiere when I saw the show as well. It was very cool. And again, what I mentioned there, how professional everything was set up was a huge compliment to the team. Yeah, happy to dive into this one as this is a very special episode for me as well. But yeah, I want to start directly because, of course, we joined Killer Whales. It was very cool to join. What inspired you actually, Sander, to start Killer Whales?
Sander Gortjes (02:04)
Well, yeah, when you go through these mentions, it’s like memory lane, right? I’ve seen Joe from the first episodes as well. He was with another firm that was basically powering the production. Casper, I can mention them, I guess. But yeah, it’s been a journey, guys. It’s been a lot of fun, and it all originates basically as a Web3 experience. You meet up with people anonymously in Telegram, you chat, and you start chatting about an idea. That’s where I met my co-founder, Paul Caslin. Paul is the creative director of the MTV Video Music Awards and creative director for some AAA celebrities in the US. We basically originated with building a game. We did that, and it went really well. But after that, at the beginning of the bear market in 2022, we said, okay, you know, we were really successful with this game, onboarding a lot of people. A lot of people got into crypto because of this, at least we felt so. It was probably a little bit smaller number than we were hoping for, but we said, okay, you know, what can we do to actually bring in people into the space? And we thought, you know, when there is a new bull market, there will be a lot of attention-seeking projects, but there isn’t a neutral, high-value entertainment production show that people can actually watch from the comfort of their homes. They don’t need to go into YouTube or crypto Twitter; they can just put on Apple TV or Amazon Prime. They can watch content that they understand, something that looks like Shark Tank. We bring on projects, projects that pitch their hearts out, founders that are really building something cool using blockchain technology or affiliated with the Web3 ecosystem. And we put them in front of people who have been active in the space for a long while. So that’s where the idea originated. I was at an event in Dubai for Binance, and they were talking about how they were going to onboard 500 million simultaneous users onto the blockchain. I was like, okay, that’s cool, but who’s actually going to bring in 500 million people? So that’s where the idea originated. I told it to Paul a couple of days later, and he came back with a very early, rough script of what is now Killer Whales.
Joe Benso (04:24)
And you’re on, correct me if I’m wrong, you’re going into season three now, Sander? So you’re three seasons into this. You mentioned it’s similar to Shark Tank with the judges. So you’ve got a number of well-known people within the space as judges. You’ve got some whales, right, on board. Tell us, who are some of the judges on the show?
Sander Gortjes (04:30)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Benso (04:54)
You know, what can we expect? You know, similar to Shark Tank?
Sander Gortjes (05:00)
Yeah, it’s a wide variety of people. In season two, we have 12 different whales and people that come onto the show. They need to be educated about the space, they need to be in the space, and they need to understand what moves it, where the innovation is coming from, and what the narratives are. These are people, for example, we were very fortunate with having Altcoin Daily as a co-producer, right? So they were the second party to actually buy into the story. They said, this is what this space needs. We need to bring information about what’s created in an entertaining way, and we need to do it in a way that actually grows the space. So Altcoin Daily, both brothers are on the show, sometimes together, sometimes independently. When they’re together on an episode, it’s really funny because you get a lot of people like, huh, there are two of these guys. So that is really funny. Yeah, the twins are there. But we also have people like Rand Euner from Crypto Banter, you know, Invest the VC himself, media celebrity who has worked in the space on the media for a long time. And we have people like Marian, a Fall, of course, well-skilled in the investor game and in the media game. A lot of people hate him a lot, but that’s also what we need in this space. We need a little bit of banter, a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of, you know, back and forth. We have people like Credo NDO, you know, female power, self-made entrepreneur. We have people like the CMO of CoinMarketCap, Jonathan Isaac, on the show. He brings in the data and the wealth of information from CoinMarketCap and the Binance ecosystem, of course. But we also have, for example, Jeff Rochevan, who is the co-founder and CBO of Hacken. I’m not sure if you guys are really aware, but Hacken is one of the biggest auditing and smart contract technology firms. So they help us with, for example, doing due diligence on the projects that are coming in. But also if a project comes on and they pitch technology, you can’t get bullshit past. She will immediately erase all of that. And a couple of other names I just want to mention are, for example, Anthony Scaramucci, Skybridge Capital, ex-Comms director in the White House. Illa, producer, is there, partnership lead from Yuga Labs, but also a music producer. We have new, we have Crypto’s R.S., George Tang, known Bitcoin bull, brings a mass audience.
Joe Benso (07:08)
Big Whale.
Sander Gortjes (07:24)
We have Gracious Chansey of BitCat, and new this season, we have Mika with a little bit of a meme coin type of culture influencer, and we have a new host. It’s a long story. We have a new host with the Tread Guy. Tread Guy brings the culture, brings the vibe, brings a little bit of the entertainment. He also does a lot of voiceovers for season two so that people actually understand what we’re talking about instead of, you know, sometimes—and that was the feedback from season one—sometimes people are like, hmm, I love the concept, I love how it’s filmed, I love the Shark Tank appetite, but I still don’t really understand what they’re talking about. So he’s doing a lot of that stuff.
Michael Ros (08:06)
I saw as well, they’re really to the point. They really try to challenge you sometimes. I don’t know where the Killer Whales name comes from. Again, it’s a cool experience. Not going to say too much, but yeah, they were to the point, for sure. So you’ve recorded two seasons now, and soon I think you go into season three. Are there some learnings you took from the first two seasons? And what might you do differently in the upcoming season three?
Sander Gortjes (08:10)
Yeah, a lot of learnings. If you would compare season one and season two—season two still needs to air, right, so we’re going to come to that—but if you were to watch episodes from season one and then season two, it’s an incredible difference. You know, the format is the same, but for example, when we aired season one, the feedback was threefold. One was like, we need better projects. Okay, we’ve done that. You can see a guy here, right here, right? So better projects. Another feedback was we need more whales. So we added, for example, the CoinMarketCap CEO, Jonathan, and we added more culture with Tread Guy. And then the third thing, the feedback for season one was, do these projects actually compete for something besides having a marketing podium? So we have been able to raise a $1.5 million fund for season two for projects that actually make it through the whale judgments at three out of five swims. They actually share a $1.5 million acceleration pot. You know, we’re now coming to the release of season two, and I already know that there are a couple of improvement points that we want to work on. One is that we do not want to be a seasonal type of production that comes out once a year. We want to make this an ever-ongoing production schedule where the show is the epiphany of everything. So there is a lot of media around that. That is what we’re working towards really quickly. For the rest, we’re just open ears. We’re listening to the market, we’re looking at the feedback, and trying to improve this show each and every time because we believe that we are uniquely positioned to communicate to a whole bunch of people who are not in Web3, and we do want them to come in. So we want to represent the space in every aspect: technology, investments, culture, fun, entertainment, everything that makes our space our space.
Joe Benso (10:23)
Yeah, you wrapped it all up there real nicely, Sander. You have a unique platform here to receive a lot of alpha, right, from projects within the space. So I’m curious about your thoughts on the types of projects in Web3 that you see coming onboard and the types of pitches that people are making within Web3 that are going to generate that onboarding of the masses. Being able to have that platform where people are pitching all the time, you also have recently just announced an ecosystem around Hello Labs. Hello Token is in play. Maybe you can speak a little bit about the projects coming into your ecosystem and where you see that growth expanding for Hello Labs.
Sander Gortjes (11:14)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, that is a great question. It goes back to producing a television show that you produce at a certain moment in time. You scout people, you produce at a certain moment, and then you have post-production because this is still Hollywood. This is not quick to market. So there are like four, five, six months in between the production date and the date it actually airs. Whenever we start talking to projects, we need to think about what is trending in six, nine to 12 months? Where is the market going? Where is the innovation going? We’re doing the same thing on our angel and VC side. What we saw was that the amount of projects that were actually applying to be in a show got so overwhelming that we were refusing great projects to come onto the show. So we said, well, this is actually really interesting because there is great innovation, great founders, really well-backed projects in there, and we’re basically not allowing them to benefit from our main vision: how do we grow this space together? How do we promote the right projects, and how do we create the transparency and growth opportunities for the right projects and builders? If you would ask me what focus we had for season two, it was like AI, meme coins, Bitcoin, strong communities in the ecosystem. That was the focus like nine months ago. If you would ask me now, what is the focus right now? The focus right now is on anything DeFi, RWAs, D-PIN, Bitcoin ecosystems, still a little bit AI. So we’re focusing on that, and we’ve built a lot of strong partnerships. So the deal flow that we’re getting is through trusted sources, a lot of VCs, a lot of big players in this space, a lot of capital funds, and also the KOLs, they sometimes bring in some stuff. We said, okay, we need to get these projects positioned in the ecosystem. So Hello Labs, besides the Killer Whales television show, now has Killer Whales Media, which includes podcasts, spaces, and YouTube productions so that we can do stuff year-round. The unique model there is that we allow projects to come in and talk to the whales. They can actually pitch to the whales, which is virtually impossible if you want to go direct to them. We also have spaces where other Killer Whales are on, but also a lot of other KOLs who see the value of Killer Whales and the model that we’re running. So they come on there as well. For a project, from that point of view, it’s a unique way to get in touch with the better KOLs and our audiences. We all follow that through the Hello Token economy because not a lot of people are aware of that. But Killer Whales is actually powered by Halo, and Halo is our native token for the show. It allows people to vote for the projects coming on, and it now allows people to vote on a season winner. We still have games, but we’re expanding that ecosystem really fast with launchpads, decentralized exchange solutions, and DeFi solutions. We allow people to lock up their tokens and vote for certain projects to win or come onto the show. So it’s a really dynamic ecosystem that we’re about to roll out. I’ve never seen the community so stoked about stuff because yes, we have really cool entertainment and great KOLs supporting us, but you do see that a lot of them are still like, hey, you know, I want to do something with my tokens, something more than playing a game. So yeah, really at this initial point of releasing all this technology and really making Killer Whales a little bit more decentralized as well.
Joe Benso (14:47)
Awesome. You mentioned the communities involved. You’ve been involved in Web3 and very strong communities active within the Bored Ape Yacht Club community. I noticed you just recently changed your PFP profile on X to a very nice trippy Bored Ape. And you also announced an initiative.
Michael Ros (15:03)
Ha ha.
Joe Benso (15:11)
within these communities to participate in some unique ways, signaling their support for Killer Whales, or they’re able to participate within the ecosystem. Maybe tell us a little bit about that and how people can get involved.
Sander Gortjes (15:25)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. This idea actually originated with Michael. I said to him, “Hey, look at my PFP. Should we do something with that?” He said, “Yeah, sure, do it.” You know, the Bored Ape Yacht Club community, let’s bring them in. So what we did was very simple. We are trying to bring crypto to the masses, and a great way to do that is through our Hello Club. The club is basically where all the Hello holders come together. They vote on stuff, they have some fun, they invest with the whales. There is a lot of functionality in there. One of the initiatives we ran with Bored Ape Yacht Club was, if you guys engage, we become one big family. We want to source the best builders from that community, and we want to give you guys the podium on Killer Whales. In return, we do some really cool co-branded marketing. We have some fun together. You potentially come into the Hello Club.
Michael Ros (16:16)
You
Sander Gortjes (16:21)
We have a separate dashboard for BAYC members. We track their engagement, their contributions if they go into the launches, if they invest in the projects, anything they do within the Web3 ecosystem, we will measure that and reward them for that work. Because in the end, we’re building this space together, and BAYC is just the first, it’s the kickoff. We’re working actively with a lot of other NFT, gamified, and other big communities, including L1s, to create this on-ramp for communities to actually be a part of the show, be a part of Killer Whales, and be a part of the ecosystem that we’re building. It’s really interesting to see. It also goes back to, we’re here for the entertainment, we’re here for also some gains, but most of us are here for entertainment/technology. I think that’s what we’re solving with this. To be honest, I’d say, which community is better to kick this off with than BAYC?
Michael Ros (17:18)
It’s very strong what you said there, right? We saw this as well with Sleap.io when we said, okay, we have the partnership with them. We actually got a Bored Ape license, how we can use the IP. I got support within the community, right? What you said, and people say, oh, is it still lively? Is it still our NFT death or whatever? You can see it with the Bored Ape Yacht Club. See, okay, how they support that we are within the community, right? If you’re a builder, if you’re a founder within the community, they support you. I think that’s very unique, and I think that’s what Web3 is about, right?
So you entered Web3 already for a while. Just curious, how did you enter and why did you enter Web3? Because it’s still a crazy industry, as you know.
Sander Gortjes (17:54)
It’s actually a really funny story. I’ve always worked at the intersection of marketing, technology, and business. Since 2004, I was drawn to internet marketing, which was completely new back then. I basically went on to build a corporate career within stock-noted companies, led marketing divisions, and stuff like that. I got drawn to this digital marketing exercise where I had the idea to build a piece of software that actually tracks people, builds a profile about them, so we understand what they’re trying to shop for, but we don’t have their email address. That’s why certain marketing automation software didn’t work because you needed an email address. We built a piece of software that actually did that and then put them into the funnel. We worked for a lot of big companies doing that. When we were starting to develop that, one of the devs said, “You know, this is actually cool. Why don’t we build a little blockchain?” That was like December 2016, January 2017. I said to the guy, “Yeah, that’s cool. Let’s build it on Bitcoin.” He was like, “No dummy, you know, there is something else. There is something new, like Ethereum, smart contracts.” I was like, okay, that is actually really cool. So we bought way too much ETH in January 2017, we thought back then.
Michael Ros (19:03)
I am.
Sander Gortjes (19:16)
because we had no idea how to use it and how it worked. We started developing, and it was absolutely shameful. It was terrible. It didn’t work at all. It was very hard. We didn’t have the scale for dApps and stuff like that. So we kind of scrapped that blockchain development cycle of that software we were building. But the other track we had was a typical software development track, and that exploded. So in all honesty, we focused on that. We grew the company really quickly, but we still had the ETH. Then, when we were about to sell the company in 2020, mid-2020, I was like, okay, cool, I still have that ETH, what am I going to do with that? That’s actually when I got back involved. I started doing angel investing. A buddy of mine was doing that, talking about DeFi and the Uniswaps of this world, and then L2s. I was like, wow, it’s cool. So I had a big learning curve, but I started doing
Michael Ros (20:16)
You still have to ETH?
Sander Gortjes (20:19)
Yeah, yeah, used a part of the ETH to do that. I bought some NFTs with the ETH, for example. But no, ETH was definitely my stepping stone.
Michael Ros (20:20)
You
Joe Benso (20:20)
Yeah.
Michael Ros (20:31)
When it’s all-time high? When we’re reaching 5k?
Sander Gortjes (20:37)
I hope September, October this year, maybe November this year, but ETH is a little bit tricky to predict, I’d say. I think ETH is very correlated to NFT activity, right? So if we start buying NFTs, ETH goes up. So guys,
Michael Ros (20:44)
I
Joe Benso (20:46)
Yeah, I mean, also curious.
Michael Ros (20:53)
for sure.
Sander Gortjes (20:58)
start buying NFTs.
Joe Benso (20:58)
I mean, and also vice versa. What are your thoughts on some of these projects, these OG projects, CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, you know, others that did see 100 ETH floors? Do you anticipate we’ll get back to those floor prices again? What are your thoughts?
Sander Gortjes (21:20)
Yeah, why not? You can’t talk any sense about that because it’s emotion-driven, right? If you had 10,000 Van Goghs, would you still pay a hundred million dollars for a Van Gogh? No, you wouldn’t, right? Because there are 10,000 of them. They’re a little bit different, but it’s like a bigger collection. This is not that industry. This is digital art, pure emotion, a feel of community, a sense of being part of something. So, can we go back to 100 ETH? Why not? You just saw it, right? BAYC went from like nine ETH. Who would have thought that? It went all the way down to nine ETH, and now we’re back to what, fourteen ETH? Punks did twenty-one, now they’re back at like forty. So it doesn’t take a lot for people to just be like, you know, if these are the next big thing again, let’s go back to the root. There’s this element of meme coins have that as well. The gambling element is there, right? I’m emotionally involved, I’m hooked in through the community, but this is going to go up. I think we’re all laughing, so I think we’re all looking back to that moment, like saying, let’s relive this. It’s a lot more fun, in my opinion, having a PFP than hunting down a random rigged meme coin that doesn’t add a lot of value to anybody.
Michael Ros (22:32)
You
Sander Gortjes (22:45)
meme coin that doesn’t add a lot of value to anybody.
Michael Ros (22:48)
For sure, for sure. In the previous episode we had Zeneca, so it still has to be aired. He also mentioned, regarding ETH, he also agreed that NFT season will start. So yeah, let’s see.
Sander Gortjes (22:53)
Yeah! 100%
Joe Benso (23:01)
It’s always fun to do the round trips.
Sander Gortjes (23:04)
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I was on a space yesterday with a couple of guys from BAYC, Yuga, and Elo was there as well. We had a good chat about this, right? It’s like, NFT season is coming back no matter what because it’s something that people understand, you can get in easily, and it has a certain emotional appeal. Yes, we went through a low, but I said to the guys as well, for me, this was like, hey, I got into BAYC around mint or a day or two after. The only rationale I had back then was, hey, they look cool, and the name is cool. Why don’t we buy some? It took me on this journey, and I think a lot of people are emotionally locked in. This space will come back, and the most important thing is community, community, community. That’s what makes this space unique.
Joe Benso (23:57)
And as it grows, and as you’re also demonstrating, utility can keep being added to these projects themselves, as you’re doing so with BAYC with this initiative as well. So that’s great to see and excited about your thoughts. Maybe a couple more questions. We have a quick-fire segment coming up, but I do want to ask before we get there, what do you see? What are you most excited about as Web3 is maturing, and some of the projects that you’re seeing now, what would you say people need to be paying attention to right now?
Sander Gortjes (24:41)
I love projects that are really building great technology that solve everyday problems we experience. Let me give you an example: anything that unifies liquidity or makes tokens more accessible, independent of which wallet, bridge, or whatever you’re using. It’s like trying to create TikTok if there isn’t even decent internet or no connection, or you’re logging in through a very slow connection. I think a lot of technology is being built, but a lot of similar technology is being built. I’m really passionate about stuff that connects liquidity, connects usability, or makes it very easy for my dad and my brother to come in and just click, click, click, here we are. I think that is really cool. So that is something I really see coming up. There are a lot of projects launching that are aimed to do that. But also, of course, I’m really interested in RWAs, right? We’ve been hearing about this for like two years, and two years ago, for me, it was like a fantasy story. Like, yeah, you’re going to tokenize assets, what is that all about? But if you look at the technology being built now and the adoption coming in, I think it’s still under the radar. But in the next two to three months, we’re going to hear a lot about this. There is definitely some really cool stuff being built.
Joe Benso (26:06)
So things like real estate or buildings, what kind of RWA is it specifically?
Sander Gortjes (26:12)
Yeah, these are the simple ones: real estate, buildings. You now finally also see some of the luxury brands dipping into this, like ensuring some form of authenticity on-chain or allowing transactions with luxury items. I just spoke to a project that was basically doing the same thing with ETFs and stocks. They were tokenizing these assets and allowing you to trade them and make a derivative of that as well to trade. So there’s always this trading element, which makes it very entertaining and a lot more fun. There’s a lot of development on that end. The same with BlackRock, they’ve mentioned this as well. There’s a lot of stuff being built in the background. Up until now, it was a little bit boring, a little bit like infrastructure stuff and legislative stuff. But now there are projects coming to market with these real use cases, and then it’s a matter of adoption and finding a good product-market fit.
Michael Ros (27:19)
100%. It’s the same as what we do, like tokenizing reservations, right? It’s like RWA did a hotel reservation actually on-chain, making it tradable, etc. Before we go to different questions still regarding the value ones, you’re building a media company, an entertainment company. If one industry is very entertaining, it’s for sure Web3. Go to any community event, it’s a movie by itself. So how do you think about traditional media? You have discussions now, of course, and you have deals with the largest streaming platforms out there.
Sander Gortjes (27:23)
Yeah.
Michael Ros (27:49)
Still, you don’t see them doing much with Web3 or tokens, anything like this. How do you think traditional media companies should or could move into Web3?
Sander Gortjes (28:01)
I think the use cases are very clear for this, and we’ve been talking to some of the streamers about this. Simple things, even the payments on the platforms, this is something that is very feasible, integrate crypto payments, stuff like that, that is very doable. But if you were to go, for example, into the industry itself, I’m not sure if you guys caught wind of that, but like a year ago, there were massive strikes in Hollywood because people were being paid partially based on a contribution of the revenue that the product was making, the movie was making, for example, but they had no way to authenticate how much revenue was actually being made. So they got a check, but they were never really able to look into the revenue streams and the costs. A very clear use case is to tokenize that whole thing, you know, make sure this whole process is tokenized and put on the blockchain, documented, everybody can access it. There’s a clear chain of funds flowing and how the revenues are distributed, etcetera. But you can also think about how do you further integrate people and user profiles into a show? Do you want to be able to give people special access, access to certain content, for example, because they can influence a certain demographic? Are you looking to get real-life feedback? So can we identify and tokenize people’s viewing behavior and give people the power to actually say, you know, I’m interested in, for example, receiving advertisements on this? The entertainment industry impacts us all in a very big way, and they have an awesome amount of data. So there are a lot of ways to build real-life business models by using the blockchain, tokenizing assets, and just bringing in that piece of data and transparency. The problem, of course, is this is a gated industry, so they’re not really eager to open this up. Yeah, a hundred percent. It’s even strange that we are very close to Apple TV, Amazon Prime, all the streamers that we
Joe Benso (30:08)
Problem is the data and transparency.
Sander Gortjes (30:20)
We produce a show of excellent quality, unseen in our space, but in the streaming space, it’s really good. They put it out there, they reach 600 million people. When we asked them how many people watch this, they’re like, well, we’re like, is there a dashboard? Can we watch anything? Is there any feedback? And they’re like, well, there’s not really a dashboard, stuff like that. Of course, we do get the numbers because we have a good relationship, so we get a better understanding of how much it is viewed and stuff like that, but they won’t tell you. So that’s how much it’s gatekept.
Joe Benso (30:59)
Sounds like a ripe opportunity for disruption for those building in Web3. Looks like there’s a problem to be solved there.
Sander Gortjes (31:03)
100%. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Joe Benso (31:11)
You know, you’ve got many NFTs, I’m assuming. What’s your favorite NFT project?
Sander Gortjes (31:17)
That’s a trick question, mate. It’s really hard to pick between
Joe Benso (31:21)
There’s only one right answer.
Sander Gortjes (31:24)
For you, you know there are, yeah, there’s one, but for a pro, there’s another answer. It is one of these boats like CryptoPunks or BAYC. BAYC because of the culture, the support, you know, the really cool people there. CryptoPunks because of the raw innovation, technology-focused, OG mentality. I love them both.
Joe Benso (31:28)
you
Michael Ros (31:29)
Hahaha. Now a bit more difficult, Pudgy Penguins or Azuki?
Sander Gortjes (31:53)
Never went into both, honestly, but for me, it’s very Pudgy Penguins, Luca, you know, what he’s building, the way he’s innovating the space, endless grind, like insane, and you’ve got to respect that. I love that.
Michael Ros (32:09)
Okay, Milan or Dubai?
Sander Gortjes (32:15)
Goodbye.
Michael Ros (32:17)
Okay, meme coin or AI coin?
Sander Gortjes (32:25)
Meme coin for the fun.
Michael Ros (32:27)
Bitcoin or Ethereum?
Sander Gortjes (32:29)
Bitcoin.
Michael Ros (32:30)
Yeah, still? After all your love for ETH? Okay, okay.
Sander Gortjes (32:33)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%.
Joe Benso (32:33)
Yeah. And maybe Michael, you know this answer, but I’m gonna ask Sander, what would surprise people the most about Killer Whales behind the scenes?
Sander Gortjes (32:47)
I think in the end, it’s the sheer level of production and quality that we put out there. That’s common feedback I hear, that it’s unseen in this space. We try to show it, but we don’t really care about that. We care about the fact that we’re able to bring crypto to so many more people, and that’s what it’s all about.
Michael Ros (33:11)
So I have the final one, this podcast, sink or swim? Thanks a lot, Sander.
Joe Benso (33:15)
Yeah.
Sander Gortjes (33:16)
It’s a swim for me, man.
Joe Benso (33:18)
Yeah, wide open waters. Sander Gortjes, great seeing you again. Congrats on all the success of Killer Whales, Hello Labs, and all the new announcements you’ve recently made. We’re looking forward to seeing everything expand and watching you onboard millions more people into this space so we can all continue our round trips.
Sander Gortjes (33:23)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure guys.
Michael Ros (33:46)
I want to say one more thank you again also for Sleap.io and everybody who didn’t sleep, for the opportunity to be part of Killer Whales. Again, super excited for when I can show my family and friends that I actually made it to Hollywood. So thanks again for your support there. And yeah, it was great to have you here.
Joe Benso (33:57)
Made it.
Sander Gortjes (34:03)
You’re welcome, guys. You know, I would love to say it was a pleasure having you in Hollywood in the studio. You guys rocked it. We had a lot of fun. There will definitely be a day we can talk about that, for sure. We still talk with the whales about that one. Yeah, but thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate you as well. Let’s make this space a little bit bigger and a little bit better.
Michael Ros (34:11)
You should have a behind-the-scenes one, I think it would be very entertaining.
Michael Ros (34:21)
Okay. Speak soon.
Joe Benso (34:30)
Thanks, Sander.
