Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Bryan Courchesne, founder of DAIM , which is a successful asset manager of cryptocurrencies and traditional investments. Uniquely positioned to work with companies and individuals to provide the needed expertise, research and strategies on a balanced portfolio of traditional investments and digital assets to optimize returns for its clients.

Bryan, thank you so much for joining the show. I'm so excited to dive into your background, your experience. We also, You know, some, some shared experience being in, in New York and moving to different places. We've talked about the weather before the show and, and the adjustments there. But really excited to dive into what you're working on at DAIM , what got you to the position you're in now, and what you're excited about in the future.

But before we get into all that, What were you doing before you started DAIM ?  

Bryan: Yeah. Julian, thanks for having me. I'm excited to do this. It, So before DAIM I was doing something completely different. My life was the direct opposite of being CEO and running DAIM . I went to school at the University of Florida and I graduated.

I ended up working for my family's concrete business, so in the construction industry. So, you know, the, the, the first couple weeks outta school, even though I had a degree. Digging ditches. And then I moved up and I was doing some carpentry, and then I moved up a little bit more and I was pouring concrete.

And then I did that for some years and I ended up becoming a general contractor, a licensed general contractor. And I had connected with an investor and we started building luxury homes in Delray Beach, Florida between the Intercoastal and, and the ocean. So, you know, back in time, let's say this was like, this was 2005 and 2006, everything was great, and then 2008 happened, right?

The whole housing market just collapsed. Yeah, so at that time I, I was basically living like the movie, The Big Short, you could say. Yeah, . It was great. It was great.  

Julian: I love that. I love that. Did, did, was that experience kind of, you know, build, kind of growing from the ground about your family business?

What did that teach you that kind of, I guess, translates to. DAIM and, and it seems like during that experience you still had a, what they say, initiative, right? Where, where you're just learning and growing and expanding and this investor relationship, and then you continued on. What did you learn from that experience And also have you always been the type to just take on more?

Bryan: Yeah, so what I learned about like. That I took from the construction industry was that if you've ever seen when they were paper blueprints for a building, it's, it's this massive stack of papers. Yeah. Very thick. And then it usually comes with a, a manual as well, that could be 500 or a thousand pages. And when you go to put something together, you have to read everything.

You have to put everything together and you have to do it the right. With quality as well, because this building needs to withstand and it's gotta support people that are gonna be, you know, working or living inside of it. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the diligence process. Then I carried over to scheduling efficiencies, quality of work, and then also, you know, the ability to, to deep dive.

And that's what kind of, you know, gave me some, some insights to actually transition and, and to come to this business. But there was a few more stops along the way that we'll get into.  

Julian: Yeah. What, what was how did the investor relationship start? I, I think a lot of people are always hesitant or asking, you know, how do I get involved?

I always say, you just kind of gotta take the opportunities that are in front of you and run with them, because those often lead to something else. But what kind of, I guess, motivated you to, you know, get in touch with this investor and start working with him on something that maybe at the time you didn't feel, you know, the most expertise in but you, you thought, you know, I think I could give it a shot and, and maybe I'm the one to learn and, and do something with it?  

Bryan: That's really it. So I wanted to grow and, and become a licensed general contractor, which is elevated from just pouring concrete. Yeah. And when I got the license, now you gotta use it. And how are you gonna market yourself out there? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Pre-social media and stuff like that. So you gotta tell your story, so.

Mm-hmm. Network and around and the church I was going to at the time. Yeah. You need to kind of meet with some people outside. And I had known this guy's son through doing some sports and I updated him on what I was doing and how I'd become, and he's like, Okay, well I got a project coming up, you know, And I was like, I'd love a shot to bid for it, You know, I wanna do this for you.

You're gonna give my undivided attention. Yeah, yeah. And a little bit to the economy was ripping at that time and it was kind of hard to get contractors. You know, he, he understood and he could see the way I presented myself that I was gonna take care of him and do this. Mm-hmm. , it worked out. Yeah. We we started off and, and it's, it went great.

Yeah. Unfortunately, he also died of a random heart attack at the same time of the housing collapse. So , it made things challenging for me.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What, what would you say led you to have that mentality? There's a lot of young entrepreneurs that, you know, we read books, we, we think about different speakers and you know, whether it's biography, autobiographies, different, you know, pieces of information that we want to use.

But I think implementing that is, is the difficult part. Is there anything that helped you implement that, that motivation or that mentality of, you know, presenting yourself in a certain way?  

Bryan: Yep. When I was much younger and playing. And I wasn't the best. But I was one of the biggest, I mean, I'm still now I'm, I'm 6 3, 200 pounds. So like I'm a fit guy even when I was younger and coming up. So like my frame didn't match the skills necessarily. Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to be better. And I just took motivation from like, you know, some magazines, watching sports figures, you know, professional athletes and just started like building up this, this work ethic of like practicing and mm-hmm.

Then when I went to when I was graduating high school and I was going to get into college I did not get accepted to University of Florida the first time. I was very determined to get accepted. And then my insides were like, You know what, I'm gonna go there and make a case. So I told my mom to hop in the car.

And 17, we drove up to University of Florida from from Delray Beach. We drove up to University of Florida and I met with the admissions counselor and I made a case for why I should be accepted and I got accepted. And then Incredible. Once you get that, like the, the attempt with the success Yeah. You think you can do it on everything?

Yeah. And that you just keep rolling. You keep rolling That. So I, I really suggest to people to start with a small win. Yeah. At. Even at a young age, teach, teach your kids. Like, here's, here's an obstacle. Tackle it, win support. Feel it. How exciting that is, that you can do things and then just build on it.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's incredible advice and it seems so. Easy, but it's not because it takes a little bit of courage, some bravery, and and I think a lot of times it, it takes, you know, minimizing the, the negative outcome because oftentimes it's just, you know, maybe a negative feeling or emotion and reality, you know, the positivity that you get from success is weighs much more than the fear of, of, of failure.

Or just like the hesitation to fail. But kind of shifting gears here, you know, once the recession hit you, you said, , you know, relocated to New York. You're you, you worked with trading options in the, in the pit of the exchange. Tell me about how that experience was, because it, it must have been just so challenging.

I mean, the environment was so hostile and, and you moved to a city that we talked about that has kind of no forgiveness. But has, has mounds of opportunity. Give us a little insight into how that experience kind of built your skill set and what that was like at the time.  

Bryan: Yeah, so I was almost like I had to force change, right? So the, the housing market collapsed. I had to get rid of the truck, get rid of the jet skis, I had to rent the house. No more pool parties. Yeah. And in that time I had met these two guys that were working at Goldman Sachs and they were equity derivatives traders. They were on the options desk specializing in options, and they were doing.

But I was still in Florida not doing anything, and I could just feel like this pulse of energy like coming down, like almost coming to Florida and I wasn't doing anything. So I decided that I was going to move to New York and take a shot, and this was in October of 2009, and I was gonna get a job as a trader.

So I pack up my things. I ran a small little studio on the west side, being from Florida in New York City in October. I got surprised very quickly by the first, you know, there was an early snowstorm, but I'm studying options during the day. I'm watching cnbc, Bloomberg, trying to just pick up anything that I couldn't.

I'm just waiting for the weekend and sometimes nights later on in the week to to go out and meet these guys and to network as much as I can to try to get in the industry. Yeah. You meet people, ah, you don't know nothing. You hear people back at home. You know, New York City's gonna chew you up and, and spit you out, and you're not gonna make it six months.

You, you hear all that stuff, but it, it keeps building inside. Mm-hmm. like to the point where, I'm there. I have to make it work. Right? Yeah. And what ended up going down is I, I met a guy that had a seat on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I met him a few times and told him about me and what I was doing, and just like, you know, didn't have his phone number, needed to connect him again, make the pitch again.

I stood outside the New York Stock Exchange a couple times in the morning in the snow, hoping to catch him coming in, and I ended up speaking to him and I told him, Look. You know, I became a licensed general contractor. I can do math. I know some engineering. I work hard. Yeah. You know, I know stuff. There's gotta be something I can do to help you.

So he said, All right, I'm gonna give you a shot. So he gave me a, you know, a seat in the back corner, writing paper tickets, backing up the traders that were on the floor to try to learn everything. Yeah. And. It was. And I, I had no, Well, all the stuff I was reading during the day didn't equate to anything that was really going on down there.

Yeah. It was completely foreign to any book ever written. Yeah. But it was a really cool experience. It, it, it was bootcamp. So then I went from writing paper tickets to filling in one day when they were shorthanded and executing some trades in the pit. And then I, you know, you get the, you get the jacket, you wear your suit and tie work.

You have the badge Yeah. Headset. You got the pad. So I was down there for 13 months. It, it was, it was really cool experience. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty awesome.  

Julian: Yeah, we always think, I mean, at least now I think the Wolf of Wall Street shows movie is synonymous with people who think about stock exchange, especially during, you know, that time we think about the big short, all these movies that.

You know, describe a story, an experience you know, through the transition of the Great Recession and, and through these big time periods where the economy was, you know, going through ebbs and flows, volatility and not where, where is it now? Like where is the, you know, you sent me a keyword earlier.

You talked about the end of, of the Wolf of Wall Street. What does that, What, what do you mean by that? What does that define? Does that defining a time period or a transition in thought? Can you describe that a little?  

Bryan: Yeah. For, for me it was just like, kinda like the movie narrative. I was, I went there, I started something. Yeah. Like he did. Yeah. Jordan Belfort Right. That does this, and I'm gonna pre this out right now. I, I was living a. Compliant, cleaner version of that movie, . I love it. But yeah, some of my buddies back at home were like, you know, they would make the jokes and say that stuff because when I got there it was, there was still a lot of action on the floor.

There was just great things to do and network and events to go to, and everything was busy. And my, my wife now was a singer songwriter and model, so there was a lot of cool things to do and party. And it was, it was a really, really cool life and, You know, later on you gotta kind of transition again.

Julian: Yeah. So it's things go, Yeah. Now is that transition. I know, you know, I think I was reading your bios back in 2013, you started really dig, digging deeper into to cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and a lot of that, a lot of people. There was, I feel like there was very like, few people that were really diving into the technology behind that and what that meant and how it was gonna actually progress.

What was your experience learning it and. Cued your curiosity towards cryptocurrency and, and Bitcoin to now obviously run a company that that works with managing those assets, but what kind of, what was in that time, if you can re think back, what cued your attention to, to that? .  

Bryan: Yeah, it's interesting Julian, cuz now, now at the age of Bitcoin at 13 years old and the age of my business, I haven't had to tell that story in a while, so, Well, let's, we'll dive into it a little bit.

So things in York were, were a little transitory, you know, every two years you kind of move and do stuff. But I was running a desk of sales traders and then I moved to another firm and then I was looking at my, my PA one day, my personal account, and I was like, Okay, you know, I wanna diversify the portfolio.

I want something alternative that's, That's got high vol because if you're on the right side of the movement on something with high volatility, you can, you know, have out performance from, you know, typical assets. Mm-hmm. , I already had some real estate, It was a bit too illiquid and I'd come across Bitcoin.

So this was all self-research reading about it. And what ended up happening was in 2014, towards the end of the year, our government announced that they were gonna auction off Bitcoin from the Silk Road. Yeah, Which ended up happening and Barry Silver ended be, ended up beating out Tim Draper. Barry Silver's the ceo, founder of Digital Currency Group, which is the parent company of, of Genesis.

So at that moment, I, I was like, Okay, our government's not going to You know, deem it illegal, anything, it's gonna sell itself, right? Yeah. So if they're gonna sell themselves, it's not illegal. And at that time, that was like one of the bigger risk factors was that it could become illegal besides the volatility of it.

Mm-hmm. . So that, that pushed me over the ledger said, Okay, this is gonna be around, it's gonna be around forever. I'm gonna, I'm gonna invest this. And then there was like a, an ancillary point where there was a guy from one of the other trading desks at my firm. This guy was typically wrong and he had an accent he was from, from over the ocean.

But he saw me reading about it one day and he's like, Oh, I have some of those, you know, they're, they're terrible. They only go down. They're, they're, I don't want anything to do with those things. And so I'm reading the same article, right, like reading about the launch of the so ground. I'm like, you know, this is, this is it.

We're gonna, we're gonna make an allocation and we're gonna get along. That was October, 2014.  

Julian: Wow. Wow. And, and so what, what made you transition to, to DAIM on starting your own thing and, and, and what was the, I guess a lot of, I feel like a lot of founders when, when they talk about this transition into running a company and, and kind of proving out, it's almost like proving out a concept or an idea or, or a a hypothesis that they have.

What was the hypothesis at the time and what motivated you to kind of take it and, and run with it?  

Bryan: I get invested and you talk to your friends, telling me, Dude, try to get them, You know, you try to orange pull them and get 'em going. No one wants to do it. But over the next few years, people knew I had a position.

Mm-hmm. , the, there was an increase in the amount of inquiries I was getting. Yeah. What are they? How do I buy some, you know, where do I trade 'em? How do I custody? What is this token? What's that ico? So I, there was an increase right in questions, and it was coming from sophisticated investors too. You know, guys more aligned with tradify.

So in 2017 at the current firm I was at, it was being bought out by a large bank and I had the opportunity to. out. Mm-hmm. . And at the same time, my wife had just had my wife, Heidi had just had our son, Luke, He was three months old. And I'm sitting there going, All right, like if I'm gonna add risk, it's now while I'm younger, I got the family, we can move, we can pivot doing this later when he is in school or I'm locked in more, it's just not gonna work.

So I said, This is the time I want to be in control of a business. Mm-hmm. , this is what's needed. I know it in my background. We're gonna take a shot, so, We moved outta New York City and came over to beautiful Newport Beach, which is a little finance hub over here. And I, this is where I wanted to build DAIM .

Julian: Yeah. Where, where is DAIM now? Where do you see, its like, you know, you're investing in cryptocurrencies and, and Bitcoin in particular other digital assets as well. I know you incorporated a lot of traditional investments as well. , where, where are you now and, and what's kind of getting you excited about continuing the growth of, of DAIM ?

Bryan: Yeah, it's, it's probably worth shedding a little light, you know, for Behind, Company Lines about what it took to get here, because that was another struggle. All in all in itself. And on your podcast, you, you'll look back in history, you can cut snips, you know, whatever a founder says about how difficult it is, how much money it takes, double, triple, how much time it takes, twice as long, three times as long is, is all.

Yeah, there's, there's hurdles you can't even think of that, that pop up. So basically we're licensed as a registered investment advisor, which is an R i a. Mm-hmm. , Typical RIAs are advisors of stocks, equities fixed income products, bonds, and life insurance. And that's what's all out there. But we decided that for the investors I was getting questions by and the pulse I could.

There needed to be a licensed investment advisor and asset manager who could properly help people get into this space, help them with, you know, sizing of their positions. Risk tolerance, what tokens Manager portfolio. So we decided that we're gonna submit the registration and if they, they tell us, no, we don't wanna do it right away.

Okay, that's it. I'm going on to a different business plan. Yeah. But if they wanted to explore it, we would go down that. So submitted the application for an ria. Ours was very different because it was all just for cryptocurrencies. Yeah. And they said, Okay, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna ask you a few questions in a couple weeks.

That was like the best thing that happened. Yeah. That time. And from then on, it was just months and months of educating. The examiner on, on what digital assets are, how they trade custody, building a large list of potential risk that could happen. Some of the stuff was that they didn't quite understand that there was like, you don't need a broker dealer in the middle.

Mm-hmm. , like a retail customer can go direct to exchange and, and acquire the asset. So Basical. . We did this exercise and going back and forth with them, but meanwhile, Bitcoin had started in 2018. It was, it was at 13,500. Okay. Yeah. And during the application process it's, it's sliding down . Now we're in May and it's trading 9,000.

And I could tell the regulators are kind of getting wet, a little squirm. And outta nowhere. Like they just email me, they're like, Look, we don't want to license the first of its kind investment advisor for crypto. I'm like, Oh, you guys could have told me that a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Would've had to sell all these Bitcoin to fund this party and the life over here.

But you know, I, I wasn't gonna take no for an answer. And this comes from what's inside. And the story I told you, you know, a bit ago that stems from University of Florida all the way to moving to New York City. I, I wasn't gonna let. So yeah, I, I got a guy that tried to do some lobbying for me that didn't materialize, and then we almost moved and didn't do that because there's a lesson I learned at a young age, which was, don't ever think you can move from your problems.

They're just gonna follow you. You, you've gotta take 'em head on and you've gotta fix it and you've gotta find a way. Cause if that's what you believe, it's gonna work out. But don't ever try to run.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. What, what, you know, a lot of founders talk about these, these, these periods of time where, you know, they kind of think about they have some kind of good news or, or optimistic outcome and then are hit with something that is almost stunts or, or halts their growth and potential.

What did you do in that, in that time? What, what was like your strategy did? You said some guy tried to lobby for. What is one, how'd you back up and kind of reexamine your situation? And then two, how did you use what you had? Tools, people, network. I'm not sure what else. You know, whether it's favors or anything.

Yeah. But what did you use to get through that process and, and something that maybe other founders can use to get through their hurdles? If they're seeing something that's as, as, as, as stalling as, as that situation.  

Bryan: Yeah, I'll tell you that not many people are gonna do something for you when you reach out.

Really, if you want to get great things. You need a great team, but it's gotta come from inside you and you gotta get it done. You gotta go out there and push it. Right. So, like I said, with the guy that, that tried to do some lobbying that didn't materialize, he had low energy for it, he gave a little huck and, and went away.

And now I knew I had to take into my own hands again Right. And make the case. So even though the price of of Bitcoin was, was coming down, the ICOs were. Like it was just scams risk, you know, hacks, frauds, everything was going on and, and I looked at it and I said, Okay, I'm gonna make a case because I'm actually the most qualified to do this and open this business.

So I went back to the examiner and I said, Let's have a meeting. I gotta tell you why this is needed. And I leaned into the. problem That the market was going down, that there was, you know, people were losing money across the street. And I said, Look, I, I have the series 24, which is a compliance officer. I had the series four, which is an options principle, so I understand volatility.

I have the series 65, which allows me to advise and manage for clients, so I understand how to speak to them. Risk tolerance, and I've been in the space since October, 2014, so I understand the asset and the. history The history is very important to understand in this space, and I said, You need somebody like us because there's citizens here are just, you know, they're losing money.

They have no one to help 'em. Everything is self-directed. That's out there and the, and the next day. We got the license. I came in, I, I saw it in the inbox, and that was another big victory. But just for that day, because then there was more, there was more hurdles that came into that.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I, I love the idea of leaning into the problem because I think a lot of people even founders included, tried to think, continue to, to highlight the optimism.

Their market or their product or their service, rather than exposing the truth into what they're facing and offering their strategy as a solution. Which I think is, is compelling to the right people or who the people that believe in, in your product or. You know, what you're doing. How has asset meant?

I was curious because, you know, I don't come from a finance background. I, I run a services company, but which I know yours is as well, but you have a, you very kind of fine tuned expertise in in asset management. How has it changed since, you know since 2014 is particular in cryptocurrency? With the different upgrades in technology?

Adoption of, of crypto and Bitcoin and other coins now coming to fruition and being more complex and people building on it. How has this changed the the, the way you manage this asset class?  

Bryan: Yeah, so this is unique. There was really, Coinbase was around in like the first ones that were like the on ramps in October, 2014.

It was really hard to link a bank to any kind of platform to get us dollars onto a platform to own stuff. And now where we are in time, there's many, many on ramps. It's, it's pretty conventional to get assets on board, but there's a couple things about. One, most people feel comfortable with a few thousand bucks, maybe 10 grand if they put more than that on Coinbase without somebody helping them.

They're kind of reserved, but sophisticated investors, guys that are in tune. If their profile suggested they could, you know, allocate six figures, 500 grand to this space, they want to do it through something that's more conventional, something that looks like tradify, right? Mm-hmm. , and that's still needed.

That space is, we're, we're still very few of us in the space that, that do this, that offer this kind of service. So on our end, The asset management side still looks a bit like traditional finance. The way we onboard and take on clients, the way we go through risk disclosures, client suitability, and then on the asset management side, that's, that's going, the platforms underneath are always evolving, so that's one part of the business where you gotta stay in tune.

To continuously stay at the forefront, upgrade look at what investments are out there, you know, try to stay away from things that are bad. We do testing ourself with our own money before we ever do any investments. That way if something goes wrong, it's on us first before we ever, you know, make a recommendation or do what the client accounts.

Yeah, but I'll say on one side, on ramps are there, it's easy for small accounts, but when you wanna do complex things, IRAs, 401ks, trusts, or you wanna do larger amounts. Having a business like mine is the platform you want to go through to get this done. Yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. What, what are some of the downfalls of, you know, kind of, I don't, I don't know if it's the average investor or the typical investor who maybe doesn't partner with a DAIM or you know, kind of is a self expert that, that tries to work within this space.

What, what are some of the, I guess, the common mistakes that they make that maybe you all either have seen before, have expertise in, or have done and have experience with that kind of give you a step ahead?  

Bryan: There's a lot and they still pop up and, and I think they will continue to because the space evolves rapidly, especially in the DeFi notion.

So in the beginning it was, you know, Hey, I wanna do this in a tax advantage account. How do I do it? We have that expertise. We can put pure digital assets in something like a Roth IRA to get the tax advantages where you don't pay taxes. On gains inside the account and you also don't pay taxes that time of distribution.

So it's kind of like God's gift of the account. So we do that kind of stuff for clients. Other rescues are whenever an exchange goes out and like lack of service cuz there's a lot of activity, it usually turns off a bulk of people who now want out. Because that fear of like, I'm not able to touch my assets, makes them want to leave and come to a place where, like us, you know, with the, with our partners in the background, we have the ability to talk to humans on these platforms.

So again, the, the, the crypto space is very self-directed. No phone numbers, you know, they, nobody wants to talk to anybody. They just want you to get in and trade. But in reality, we're here as humans, so we can go into things. And then Robinhood, for example you don't actually own pure tokens. Well, they're trying to work on that now to when you transfer out.

So people found that out. Gbtc, you know, going from a premium now to a, it's at a discount. But before, when it was coming down, we were trying to help clients move out that things like impermanent loss on DeFi platforms. Yeah, these are, these are things that we see and we'll continue to see.  

Julian: Yeah, I hear a lot of the, the idea around balanced portfolios and, and a lot of times the, the answers to that question, what is a balanced portfolio is, is, you know, having a lot of different skin in the game with, with different asset classes, whether, like you mentioned earlier with your own personal portfolio, real estate, you know, traditional investments and, and then, you know, crypto and cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin and, and all the tokens underneath the, underneath that.

How would you define, in your words, in, in your experience, what a balanced portfolio is at, you know, people who and, and, sorry. And how do you, and how would you segment them amongst the different types of investors out there?  

Bryan: Right. So the 60 40 portfolio, you, if headlines being shown recently is not looking good right now.

Right. And in retirement it's probably gonna show. Retirees are gonna be underfunded that are in a 60 40 portfolio. Mm-hmm. 60 40 portfolio in the underlying tone wants to be rebalanced to maintain that ratio, rebalancing, incurs trades, which helps fees for bigger banks. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So we, we start to step aside from that and back up and we look at our clients along the age spectrum and income spectrum.

So younger higher income can be. Can can handle more risk and have a larger portion in cryptocurrencies. On the end of the end of the spectrum, retirees 80 plus no job. If they come in wanting a hundred percent in crypto to get the moonshot, we can't take 'em. We gotta walk 'em down. We gotta walk 'em down drastically, drastically into that part.

And then from there, balancing out the portfolio. A lot of people you know understand now to have alternatives outside of crypto real estate and then also then along to compliment stocks and some fixed income. So really we just slide along that spectrum.  

Julian: Yeah, yeah. You know, thinking about DAIM and, and where you are now and, and where you know, you, you got to this point.

Tell us a little bit about your traction. What, what companies, what individuals you're working with and what you're excited about in, in the near future. And, and with, with what you've, what you've built, but also, but what you continue to build again, maybe new directions that you're, you're  

Bryan: hoping to go?

Yeah. So now the business is licensed, right, And I'll tell you about the traction we had to start with zero aum, so that's May. Now the prices of Bitcoin goes down about another 30%. It's at 6,500 in August of 2018. Okay. Then I'm pitching friends and family and you know, get a, get about. Going to 2019 and we get about 20 accounts, right?

And things are kind of bleak and, you know, still, still running around trying to get marketing. And Google doesn't wanna allow us to advertise Facebook that wants to advertise, you know, they, they shut it off when things are bad. And then when things are going well for a while, they turn on advertising again and they help pump things that shouldn't be pumped.

Some fighting against the curve. And then we enter 2020 and everybody knows there was Covid and people. Able to do more research on themself now that they're at home working. Right. They were able to look at investments and really do the due diligence, and they became more open to alternative investments.

Okay. So we had that behind us. And then it was the Bitcoin having in that summer of the block reward and Ethereum had announced, you know, the outline to change. To proof of stake. Yeah. So we built a narrative and we ran with that and caught some tailwinds to the point now where we have 210. Client accounts that are all separately managed.

We have a 401K business with the option to add pure Bitcoin into it. That's growing. Things are great. And then we we're launching a new product to the blended portfolio, which I'll tell you about in a little bit.  

Julian: Yeah, yeah. What are some of the biggest risks that, that DAIM faces today?  

Bryan: Yeah, so I think there's three, There's regulatory, there's taxation, and then there's investment.

On the regulatory side, you do hear a lot of people saying, you know crypto should be regulated. You know what else? To us, it's pretty clear. On, on what's happening and, and what's going down. Mm-hmm. . The, what could, what could come from the regulators is additional licensing required for firms that want to interact with individuals in the space.

Kinda like the bit license. And I foresee if that happens in California or in the United States, that will apply and. We'll comply and then we'll get the license there. So I see that being small. And then there's the taxation side. Mm-hmm. where if our government was to put a special tax on crypto individually or on firms that deal in crypto, you know, that that could be a bit punitive, but I really don't see that happening.

You know, the, the, the Board of accountants really came out and said recently that, you know, it's, it's short-term, long-term gains. You gotta report this stuff in what you wanna do. Yeah. And then the other one's investment. So this is a bit of a black swan. So Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, who released 21 million units, has 1 million units of Bitcoin.

You, you can't look in one wallet and see all those. They're actually broken apart into 22,000 wallets, which is really smart. But should any of those Bitcoin be transferred out to an exchange that would kind of ruin the belief system and what's going on? That means somebody's behind it, you know, at, at this day there's, you know, 19 billion in that of worth of those.

So they wanted to tap into him. There's plenty of opportunity in the past 13 years to do that. Yeah. And you don't have to wait until it gets this big. And what really shows is statistically is the longer that those coins don't move, the higher the probability is that they won't move in the future. So we see this as a diminishing risk. Small basis points. Yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. What if everything goes well? What's the long term vision for DAIM ?  

Bryan: So I have a, a great independent CEO advisor. His name's Mark Harel. You guys can look him up. Highly recommended. So he advised me to build a month by month plan that goes out 24 months and then it goes out 30 years with some milestones on the way.

And when I look at this, it really opens my eyes to what I gotta do to drive this business to hit the vision. So what we want to do is we want to add four to six more companies to our 401k plan. And our 401k plan is really. in it. One of the portfolio options for the employees is to have 10% in Pure Bitcoin, and then 90% along the suite of Vanguard Mutual Funds.

And it really just UPS the, the return metrics, sharp ratios, sorrentino ratios. And like I said, the 60 40 portfolio is likely gonna be underfunded at retirement. This helps. attempt to better fund at retirement by adding pure Bitcoin even with the drawdowns. And then we have our conventional model portfolio that has a four year track record that's doing really well.

It's total return over that time is 266% versus Bitcoin alone, which is 158. So we do have outperformance there and like on a unit of. Basis, that's like a 42% increase in units of Bitcoin. So we wanna keep that going, keep adding clients to that and, and hearing to that track record. And then we got one more.

We got our new blended portfolio, which is one portfolio to get a mix of equities and crypto. So this portfolio is for qualified investors. It encompasses 2000 small cap stocks, the top 100 NASDAQ stocks, take out the financials, and then we put in our crypto model portfolio, the one that has the 266% return.

And if you look at some historical modeling, Going back to 2011, that portfolio would have a 16 x return on it. Wow.  

Julian: Wow. And it just, I one for, I guess a selfish question, but also for, for our audience as well, if you are kind of on, on the fringe, you know, you're working on our project, but you're investing kind of on the side.

What is your advice to, to getting, helping someone get their portfolio to a position where, and, and it sounds like anyone could work with DAIM at this point, but I think other people can be more strongly equipped to, to partner with a company like yours to even take it, you know, take advantage of, of the strategies that you employ.

What can we do to get ourselves to the point to work with DAIM and then where can DAIM kind of help an individual like myself or, or other founders. Really see returns on the money. This the hard earned money that we work on, our ideas, and that we spend time on what can get us there.  

Bryan: So at DAIM , we can have any client, they don't just have to be qualified clients. So like a fund that's out there, most people have to be high net worth and meet like higher financial levels. Yeah. With DAIM you could be, you know, an an entry person and then we help out a lot with qualified. So those IRAs, traditional IRAs, so that's the service that we have out there, and it's good to put some money away in those.

That way you have it for retirement 59 and a half, and that's planning for your future better. One of the things I'd also say is be really careful with where you're getting your information from. . Yeah. So YouTube, TikTok a lot of talking heads out there. They're making money off you, but are they giving you the right advice?

So really filter and like. So really be careful with where you're getting your influence from. A lot of talking heads on, on YouTube. Don't try to stretch too far to get outlandish returns.

Yeah. A, a core position in Bitcoin is still. Dollar cost to average in. Give yourself some time. Make a long-term plan. Know where a stop loss is if you can, and then just be patient. There's no need to rush this stuff. There's no need to day trade it. Day trading works. A lot of guys think they're, they're miracle makers and fun managers when the market's going up and then a lot of those guys are, are feeling the pain.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I love the piece about understanding where your information is coming from because you know, I, I've done the same, I've, I've seen the YouTube clips I, I've looked at the TikTok videos to see where we can allocate and invest. And so but it seems, and, and I love that you kinda reiterated that the traditional ways that you invest and, and move your money, whether it's dollar cost averaging and, and you know, kind of thinking about a long term strategy because just like when you make a business and create something that's, you know, people are starting to buy, it takes time.

And it takes time to adopt, you know, whatever you're working on, to have success. And, and it sounds like same with investment and, and management and with, with these assets. And is another question I'd like to ask, just, just so we make sure we cover all basises, is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have?  

Bryan: It, it's inspiration cuz we all need it, right? Like, we're not like professional athletes where we have you know, a six month season and we have the off season and we get to recharge and come back with fury.

Yeah, we gotta do this day in and day out. So you need inspiration and for some time now it's been Ron Barron. So he of Barron funds, the guy that started off with a thousand dollars and now manages over 45 billion over. You know, it took him a few decades to get there, but he does a great job. He typically holds things long, so four to five years and something like Tesla, he's held even longer and we're a bit.

In that, you know, we're unconventional in this space where we hold things long too. Sometimes a couple years. Yeah. The space really wants you to trade it. It wants you to, you know, like I said, the YouTubes and the ticks and, and that's all underlying pressure from the exchanges cuz they make money on the trades.

But oftentimes this leads to loss. For the individual. So we like being long and our model portfolio showed that. And, and like in its outperformance and really my other influencers are the wife and kids at home. You look at them, then you're. Wow. Like I got hungry Mouse to feed. They don't know the struggles, but you gotta get this done.

You gotta make it happen. Yeah. And you gotta get through any challenge. So Yeah. They give me a lot of fuel.  

Julian: Yeah. I thank you so much for sharing the inspirational piece. And, and may I gotta add that question to the, to the deck because I think a lot of founders, myself included, struggle when. Just doing something long term and, and having such a, a marathon of something that you're working on because there's a lot of emotional strain that people don't necessarily understand that you know, you have to be creative about the ways you reinvent or remotivate yourself or, or look at a problem time and time again because there's a lot of cost to it.

And and it. Takes you know, some self-reflection, some inspiration, motivation from other parties to get to get through that. Yeah. Another question I'd love to ask my founders as selfish research and for my audience, what books and, and you mentioned some people already, so what books have influenced you the most either now or or in the past in, in coming up in your entrepreneurial.

Bryan: I, I like to say that I have a lot of time for books. Yeah. and to read 'em, and, and it's really turned like in small doses, like it's, I just, podcasts like yours have actually been a bit more like informational motivating, just one little tip that you could get from that. You know, can just change a problem that you have and now you have the solution.

Yeah. And it's just relating their problem to yours. Whereas, you know, books are great. I'm not gonna discount anything. I think everybody should read books and go in. It's just not something I do lately. And, and you gotta multitask a lot when you're in the role that I am. Mm-hmm. and yeah, no, you know, podcasts are definitely it.

Yours is great. I was telling you about yours in the beginning. I definitely recommend everybody check it out like when you're running a business, like just hear these stories cuz it will help you through some of your problems. And I'm also a fan of the All-In podcast with Shama Illa and Jason Cal.

It's a great podcast talking about local markets and it's a bit motivating too. You know, to, to push your business as they talk about VCs and how they run their business.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if, if you're similar, but I love the little bits of information that just, those for me are motivating because it, it helps reinvigorate, you know, trying something and trying it again in a different way because nobody likes to, you know, try the same solution and get sented or see the similar growth.

We all want to kind of interject some innovation in, in our daily lives and in our business to, to, you know, move past some hurdles. But Bryan, thank you so much. I know we're at time and, and we could talk time and time again with your, your experience and, and thank you for being so candid in your answers and your responses.

Bryan: Of course. It's great to tell my story. I appreciate the medium.  

Julian: Of course, of course. Last little bit is where can we support DAIM , what are your LinkedIns your, your Twitters? Where can we be a part of the journey, the support, and also get more information about how your company really takes on. You know, this. This new and innovative asset class into a traditional investment approach.  

Bryan: Yep. So on Twitter, when you're sorting through and trying to figure out how you know who to listen to and who not to listen to, you can find our company Twitter that's on there. So that's daim_io. So Delta Alpha Indigo Mary Underscore Indigo Oscar.

So that's our handle there. And then it can connect back to me as the ceo, bryan_courchesne. The last name's hard to spell, but you'll find it when you link in. And then our website's also great too if people still use those. It's a place to go. There's a little bit of education. You can get our sub stack newsletter that's on there, and that's dame.io, so d a i m.io.

Julian: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Bryan. I, I not only learned, thank you so much from your experience, but your expertise and I can't wait to share this with my audience and give them some great soundbites of information, not only on investment in trading, but also what it takes to get through the challenges.

Building a business and how to view you know, the strategies on building and moving forward. So I really hope you enjoyed yourself. But thank you again for being

Bryan: I did all right. Thank you for letting me tell my story.  

Julian: Of course.  

Bryan: Thank you, Julian. Bye, buddy. Yeah.

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