Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Alex Yevlakhov COO of Jumbo Exchange, the most UI and UX friendly a m built on near Alex. So excited to have you on the show, and I was excited for anyone in the Web3 fifth because it's so new, it's so fresh, and also it's mature in, in the way that it's based on, you know, principles that have been around for a while.

But use with new technology and new tools. I'm really excited to hear about what you're building and kind of where Jumbo Exchange is going. But before we get into all that, how did you go from international relations graduate and master degree to jumping into Web3 in 2016? What was the journey like for you during that time?

Alex: So, thank you for having me. First of all it's, I'm glad to be here and I'm glad to share my experience and how it basical. Shaped who I am right now and what I'm working on right now. So the journey for me started not so long ago. I'm quite young myself. I'm only 24. So, the journey from the, from being bachelor graduate and being in the crypto space in Web3 space basically has taken Couple of months after my graduation I would say that I was quite lucky to be to join the Web3 Army, so to speak, however cringing it may sound.

So the, my starting point was actually I just simply submitted my resume. I got an interview based on the experience that I had volunteering in my uni with international relations. I have visited a lot of European countries. I've been to a lot of European countries in general, and I think it kind of helped me to.

to have the needed experience. Even though I didn't have a lot of experience within the crypto space before just in general when you have a basis of some kind of conversational skills or this social kind of skills I think it might even suffice to get into crypto even without knowing the the all of the nuances.

So, . Yeah. So that was basically me. I submitted resume and I got hired by e o s it's blockchain I'm not gonna go into details and promoting some blockchain that I don't have any affiliation to right now because they don't pay me. So that's basically how I started.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And what from that experience in blockchain was exciting to kind of continue learning and iterating on you know, not only the technology, but also into what is Jumbo Exchange.

What in particular kind of was inspiring and led you to continue forward and start building a company? You know, like Jumbo Exchange.  

Alex: So it all starts with connections. So in Web3 space I think the same goes for Web2 space and the internet. In general, you build connections, you connect with people, you grow as a individual within the community.

And then you kind of go from. , you start to meet people, you start to interact with a certain cohort of people that might be more influential, might be more experienced in what they do. You interact with them, you communicate with them. You basically attend all of the crypto related informal meetings, if you know what I mean.

And basically you go from there. You meet , the people that you kind of want to meet and in, in this circle in this Web3 circle. Because when I started in 2017 was just around that time that crypto kind of picked because of the bull market and market conditions in general.

So it was quite easy to make connections because crypto was all around, you know, it was basically on everyone's. . So it was quite easy to get into. So from there I just got enough experience from my eeo job at eos. I was basically tackling the validator stuff. Again no need to go into details.

I got to meet a lot of people there and I met people who shared my view in terms of starting something. Branching out to build something ourselves because I personally don't have any technical expertise to build or to develop anything. The only thing I'm capable of developing is an anxiety.

So, that's that's basically yeah, that's where I, how I basically shaped myself at this time.  

Julian: Yeah. And and as you know, in terms of Jumbo Exchange and what the technology does describe for our audience who doesn't know, what is an AMM in, in, in as it relates to crypto or in Web3 in particular, and what is Jumbo Exchange and necessarily solving that, you know, hasn't hasn't been around or hasn't been done, you know, as well as, you know, maybe you're doing it now.  

Alex: So in plain English air is automated market maker, which is a very glorified way to say that people trade with each other instead of trading. Yeah. On the centralized and kind of me basically without having a mediator.

between ibo, they trade basically within these within themselves. It's like peer-to-peer trading. However, you have also a liquidity pool. Liquidity pool is basically a pool where there is assets two kind of assets, for example Ethereum and Bitcoin. Those two assets. And basically based on how the things are going in the pool, people trading, swapping all of.

So it is basically the same as for example, you are trading on Binance, but instead of Binance having the oversight over all of your assets, you are basically at your own discretion and you are at your own kind of you have control over your assets basically. So what we are building yeah. Go on.  

Julian: Oh, I was gonna ask before, before you move, , and I think you might answer this question with what you were gonna say, but is the typical way to trade, kind of having a larger pool that a mediator, you know, kind of extracts from and does transactions through , versus is this, you know, you actually trading with another individual who has that asset?

Is it, and what are the benefits? Is it more liquid or is it less regulated? Is there less fees involved? What in part. is the benefit of doing peer-to-peer transactions versus having, you know, a mediator facilitate the whole process?  

Alex: Yeah, so one of the benefits of DeFi in general is the fact that you can't when there is a smart contract means that there is mathematical proof that you can't be deceived or scammed in any way.

Based on how smart contract is written, you can just manipulate smart contract and change it on the fly. So you can just in the moment of transaction, you can just revert the transaction because you want it to. So the idea is that it is immutable. So that's basically the definition of immutable.

You can't change it when the process has started. So, also as you mentioned, regulations. DeFi right now at least the majority of DeFi is unregulated, which means that you don't need K Y C, there is no K y c you don't need to provide your documents, you don't need provide your IDs. What you need to do is basically to have a wallet wallet, meaning the digital wallet where you store assets, you connect your digital wallet with assets to the.

DeFi protocol or decentralized exchange. And you start selling or in any way interacting with the decentralized exchange, whether it's buying or selling or any of that stuff. Yeah.  

Julian: Got it. Got it. And then you've, you are gonna discuss Jumbo Exchange and what in particular are you excited about that the test this technology is solving?

And how is it going to improve the experience of trading with peer to peer?  

Alex: So the first one is being not beholden to any third party entity. That's the whole idea of DeFi is that you are at your own, you have control over your assets. So what we are building is basically decentralized exchange.

That's basically what we have discussed before just a couple of seconds ago. That's what we are building. We're building a our decentralized exchange on a kind of niche blockchain. So all of the projects are built on blockchain. Blockchain is a ledger, is basically a data storage where all of the transactions are store, where all of the information is stored.

So we are building it on the new blockchain called, near, near protocol. . So that's one of the kind of outstanding features of our decks because as you might know, the kind of more popular blockchains such as Ethereum or being B chain, they're more popular. However, we found that building on near blockchain is much, will be much more beneficial both to us from several standpoints, including the business side.

The side of the of the prospects that we might have with the, this blockchain also growing because as blockchain grows near blockchain, the same the same grows growth applies also to our decks Jumbo Exchange. So how, also several aspects that we kind of stand out that Is one of those is UI and ux.

So as you might have noticed, a lot of DeFi protocols, they're kind of unwieldy. They're inconvenient. You need a lot of, to know a lot of stuff beforehand. You need some kind of knowledge before you can even start to comprehending what the hell is going on there and how not to get scammed.

So that it requires a lot of prior knowledge to do. So we are trying to lower the bar the entry point for users to get into DeFi.  

Julian: Yeah. And describe the process in kind of receiving a grant from near, because you know, a lot of companies are doing this and, you know, to start building out products that are, I think extremely extending the capability of blockchain and also, Sending the access to users like, you know, the ones that you're talking about who maybe don't have the technical skillset, but have enough of the knowledge to, to be able to do trading and utilize the technology that's available.

But what is it like with the process of getting a grant from near? What, how does the process start? What are the terms that are essentially you kind. Agreed to with them. And then what's the follow up look like? Is it like a regular, you know, vc? Is it like a private equity? Is it like an angel investor in comparison?

What was that process like to receive that grant and what are the conditions that come with it? As, you know, maybe companies out there are, who are listening might be interested in submitting know, an application to, to receive a grant as well.  

Alex: So, this story with fundraising and. applying for a grant and all of the business and the financial side of crypto and Web3 is very much peculiar to say the least.

So, the whole Web3 kind of stance, or at least right now on the on the informal side, so there are less formalities than there is in the traditional finance. How it was for us personally I had an opportunity to take to be directly involved in fundraising, in applying for a grant and receiving a grant and so on.

Yeah. So how we received a grant was basically that we applied for a grant. There is a form you applied for a grant. They review your project, they review the prospects, the viability, the. The ideas that you have, all of that stuff that goes on in whether you can be that whether you can receive that financial assistance.

So we applied we received a response couple of weeks later that yes we are eligible however, we need to certainly do K Y C. It's a bit, you know, strange that even in Web3 you need K Y c at the fundraising stage, but it is what it is. So we had a call we discussed the details superficial details about who we are how many people we employ, and all of that.

And basically the transaction itself was a blockchain transaction, so the money wire transfer of the funds was actually to through blockchain. So everything is visible. That's also the advantage of blockchain when you are comparing it to the traditional finances, for example, when theoretically a Tesla acquires Company you might not even know that because you can see a transaction directly.

So with blockchain it is the other way. You can actually see when we received a grant, that grant also near has to account for that grant. They have Dow which is basically governance built on the idea that community decides who receives. Or community takes direct part in who can receive grant or is there enough of viability for this particular project to receive grant?

So based on all of that aspects we kind of, we are lucky. I'm not gonna say that we are, you know, some kind of geniuses. We are, we were lucky because the market was at that condition where there was enough of. Enough of funds and resources for blockchains like near to facilitate the growth of their ecosystem.

So that's how we received the grant for, from the start. Yeah, I think it was in December last year. Yeah. 2021. And are there No, not 20, 20, 21. Yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. And are there any conditions that you know are specific to grants in general? Are there any check-ins? Do they offer support? What in particular is that relationship like with Near now?

Alex: So they have been very helpful because the first financial help and assistance that we have received was actually from them. So that kind of gave us the kickstart to proceed, to fundraise to follow up with the fundraising. . So what it help us to do is basically to help trust from investors, from VCs because they see that near have given us grant, which means that we are at least not the low live scammers that usually crypto projects are associated.

So, there, there is a certain trust aspect and there is also an aspect that we have viability and the project that we are building is actually will be helpful to the ecosystem in general. So from that point on we started raising and near helped us in a way that they connected us with VCs.

So one of our major VC is Panera. , there are, I think multi billion investment fund. They are specifically centered around crypto Web3, so they were one of the first ones who joined our investor board, so to speak. The, they are one of the, they are leading investor for us, and near definitely help us to connect with them to establish the first line of communication.

Julian: Yeah. It's amazing to see what one relationship can lead to. And a lot of founder talk about that experience where, you know, , you have kind of one connection or one relationship or one round of funding with a certain investor or a grant, and then it kind of, you know, or you went through an accelerator, sometimes they go through.

And then all this kind of cascades into other relationships that ended up kind of giving you more runway, giving you more life and maybe even the opportunity to start building you know, more specific parts of your product or your business. And with, you know, with the crypto landscape changing so drastically within the last.

What is the landscape now in terms of building and how has your focus, if it has changed to kind of address this new bear market? And are you preparing and strategically kind of setting yourself up to maybe, you know, some, seeing some growth in this coming year? Well, how's the landscape changed from before and how are you going to address, you know, the challenges that you face?

Alex: I think it is evident and kind of self-explanatory why racing right now might not be a good idea. In Web3 there is a lot of commotion and there is a lot of distrust, at least for the short term that is right now. I wouldn't advise to seek a direct investments or seek fundraising at this moment in time simply because of that.

In general, the those big VCs, they're still on the other hand, those big VCs, they're still seeking new investments simply because it is exactly the time when it is bare market or when the market is at the lowest, it's exactly the time when the. The projects with a lot of prospect shine because they definitely shine through with not only with marketing and kind of business standpoint, but they shine with technical aspects.

So they have something to show and they're and they're certain of that. So we see seek exactly those projects that Even at these kind of market conditions. So, would I advise to raise right now if you can wait? I think no yeah. Yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. And in terms of the, you know, in Jumbo Exchange, you know, has the market changed kind of how you're heading the company or leading it in a direction and and what's changed in that respect?

Alex: So, we kind. , when you are in Web3, you expect that there are cycles of market being up, market being down. So you need to always be prepared for the worst. And if the worst doesn't come, you still prepare for the worst because it comes eventually there is no escape. Yeah. So we acknowledge that.

Thanks to the prior experience in the 2017, in the 2018 when market slammed. So we knew that we need runway, so we didn't go on the rampage of spending, you know, tons of Yeah. Funds and resources from the get-go on marketing on the on on Basical. On the things that are in our opinion would be damaging into the survivability of the project.

So we knew that we need runway. So when you start your Web3 startup, you need to think not in short term or mid, even midterm, you need to think at least two years forward because there is all when the market is up you rarely think about what can happen when the market is down. That's just a human nature.

You know, , you don't think too forward. You tend to think more present than you know, far to the future. But when it's in Web3, you definitely need to think about the upcoming market conditions. Yeah. .  

Julian: Yeah. What are some of the biggest challenges that Jumbo Exchange. Faces today out outside of the market kind of fluctuating, which sounds like it's just the name of the game, the landscape that you have to deal with, but other than that what are some of the biggest challenges that you face?  

Alex: The biggest challenge I think it has always been in crypto and in Web3 space, is hiring the right. Because most of the people when they hear Web3 and they haven't had much experience, or even people who have much experience, they tend to have agenda.

So what I mean by that is they have expectations. Some of that expectations, some of those expectations might be malicious. Either they want to exploit you, your project they want equity that is too high because they want that equity. , they want to get that equity and basically sell it off. Yeah.

Yeah. So you definitely need to pick and choose who you hire in the team. And in our case, it is quality over quantity. Yeah. And it is also difficult to begin with when you are hiring people you kind of have trouble to hire specifically. Web3 oriented developers because there are not that many Web3 Yeah.

Oriented developers. What you need to do and what we did we hired for example, c plus developers that we help to transition to ra, which is language written on year that you build smart contracts with. So we hired c plus developers and we helped them transition with their knowledge of c plus their.

we help them transition to the to Web3 World. So that's what we did. Yeah. If you are seeking only developers specifically for your needs in Web3, you will have hard time because there are not many developers and those developers that are there for a lot, for long, they might have again, agendas.

So you need definitely to select your. Career. Oh, very carefully.  

Julian: I've heard this time and time again. I run a recruiting agency and we help a lot of Web3 companies hire. We've helped like Stellar and things along that nature. And that's the common theme is originally a lot of them were hiring for developers with, you know, proficiency and solidity and Viper and Solana and all these other language.

But now it seems more common to what you're saying, where it's like, hire developer with a really strong skillset in the adjacent technology, whether it's see, rest, or and then kind of work them up to developing within the framework that you've built internally. And it seems to be working, but I guess my question to you is how do you assess our quality and what is the process like?

Do you have something. Pretty structured or are you still kind of in the process of refining the overall recruitment process?  

Alex: Yeah, so I would say our approach is more spontaneity. so we don't adhere to any, you know, strict rules or strict questioning. Like what's your weakness or , what's your strength?

Yeah. It is just in general you talk to the person you in general you can see what the person is like from the first 10 minutes of the conversation. You get the. very general, but still I feel in whether he or she is a fit for the job. So, in terms, again, it is in terms of social interaction quality and social qualities and qualities in general a character of a person.

When it comes to the technical aspect it's usually not my job to create a technical test. So, I usually. I usually just conduct the basic of, again figuring out whether they will be a fit character wise. And the technical test is usually comp composed by cto, our CTO.

Julian: I was gonna say it. Yeah. It seems like an orchestration of multiple pieces that allow you then to kinda identify, but as you were saying, there's two stages. Please.  

Alex: Yeah. Two stages. Basically you have the character figuring out the character of a person and qualities.

And the second is basically the rapid and inci test technical test that they do on their own. So that's our strategy. And I think right now we have a team. We have a small team compared to some of the big. We have 11 people right now. I and how do you know It's a small team is when you, is, when you know everyone's name.

So when it, it is a big company you usually don't even know is when there are 10 people joining in and you don't even know how, what's their name, you know? So I think I can assuredly say that we have a small team.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. . It's definitely yeah the process of growth is interesting, especially, you know, kind of keeping a cohesive team around.

And I guess if everything goes well, what's the long-term plan for or long-term vision for Jumbo Exchange?  

Alex: So, right now we are focusing on two things. Internally, we definitely focusing on the Jumbo Exchange. , but we also acknowledge the fact that near blockchain and our success directly is influenced by near blockchain, the native blockchain that we build on.

So our current strategy is basically twofold. First building Jumbo Exchange and feature layering features on. And the second is facilitating the growth of near near blockchain itself. So how we do that is basically, Partnered with Near Foundation. It's basically the how do you explain that?

It's basically foundation that distributes resources to the whole ecosystem. So they basically are the head of resources within the near blockchain, near foundation. So we partnered with them. We partnered with several VC. and we will be helping new projects to be onboarded on near blockchain.

So we will help them to get into near, we'll help them to establish their name on Near and we will help them with exposure to those CVCs that we are connected with. We will share our knowledge. We will share. Contacts, connections and so on. And we will help them to get into near, which means that near will expand, will grow, and which means that we also will grow in turn.

So it's kind of, an effect that you help to build your own native blockchain, which in turn helps you to build your own decentralized exchange and our project. So that's kind of the layers there. . Yeah, it's  

Julian: incredible to see the way it's gonna manifest and grow from, you know, having the foundation backing, but also building the technology and then adding others to, to be incorporated in that.

What's particularly hard about your job?

Alex: Again, when you have a small team, you kind of have. You don't have titles as you have in, you know, in traditional work environment. Like for example, you have ceo, cto and coo, chief or executive officers and so on. So we kind of build our team on the non-hierarchical way in non-hierarchical way.

So, for example, me, I usually deal with both business development and internal team. Settlement of all kinds. For example, when someone needs to talk about the promotion that's me also. I talk with the, with a guy, with a girl, . So, there is no particular strict titles. My job usually involves talking to the projects, talking to the ecosystem, talking with the near, talking with the VCs establishing all of the business development stuff.

And managing internally the team members it, it has become quite difficult to manage some of the team members simply because we have a couple in Ukraine. So couple of our team members are in Ukraine, so, they are definitely kind of, mentally drained and you definitely need a lot of talking to do with them, to have them at their full.

So that has been also quite a challenge to. to manage internally the team spirits, so to speak. Yeah.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. It, you know, oftentimes fun to talk about, you know, maintaining the culture and the motivation is yeah, is a huge key component to the success outside of building and fundraising and all these other aspects and client acquisition. It's really creating a healthy team environment and, you know, continuing, fostering trust and motivation.

It's a difficult process. Yeah. But, you know, I think, you know, those who can overcome the challenge end up being extremely successful, it seems like, and in repetition from what I've seen. And another question I'd love to ask is, if you weren't working on Jumbo Exchange, what would you be doing?

Alex: I would probably be working in the traditional finance. I think I would probably be in some kind of environment. I would be wearing suits, you know, and not just sitting here in my sweater. So, I don't want to envision that kind of you know, reality where I actually wear suits and where I actually go to office to work and to speak with dejected colleagues.

So, I don't want to envision that. So yeah, but I think that would be my Parallel universe . But I don't want that .  

Julian: I always like to ask that question cuz it always throws SAS off. I think we're always so invested into what we're doing currently that, you know, it nice kind of think of an alternative you know, universe in that respect.

I know we're coming up close to the end of the episode here, so I, I do want to ask you whether it was early in your career or now what books or people have influenced you the most or impacted you the most during your journey?

Alex: In terms of books I don't really like to read more self, self callam books.

I'm more of a fan of traditional lit literature. So I, I like German authors. I like, and a. German authors in general. Kafka is my favorite. I also like the psychology and just in general learning about the philosophy of people their personal individual philosophy, not philosophy in the comprehensive kind of way.

So, I like to read Edward Becker. I like to read some of the stuff from Eric from. I definitely like to read a lot about psychology and personal Phil philosophy and not get, because when it's personal philosophy, it kind of tends to go into self-help. I that I don't dabble in

Julian: I love that. It's a fun question to ask founders because some are heavy into fiction, non-fiction. Some dedicate themselves to startup books, but it's always cool to see a broad stroke of the information that's gathered, and I think it's refreshing. , you know, when people work outside of their domain and learn outside of their domain, I think it kind of creates a  

Alex: Yeah. I think if people were to see my kind of reading list, they would think I'm not, and not know me. I think they would think that I'm like 70 years old, you know, , that's kind of.  

Julian: A literature Professor.

Alex: Yeah. That startles me sometimes. Yeah. . No. That's pretentious. Yeah. Yeah. .  

Julian: Well Alex, thank you so much for being on the show. And I do wanna leave a little bit of spot right here for your plugs. Give us, you know, where we can find you, where we can be a part of the technology your LinkedIn's your websites, your Twitters, wherever we can be a part of Jumbo Exchange, and maybe even yes. Trade on the platform as well.

Alex: So all you need to do is go to Google and type in Jumbo Exchange. That's basically it. You can also visit. Near.com, if I'm not mistaken, you go to the near.com if you ha if you are want to build something or if you are passionate about blockchain technology, you should look into near, you should look into Jumbo Exchange if you want to speculate on the current market conditions.

And if you want to just savor the decentralized exchange and DeFi in general, go to Jumbo Exchange. And if you want to know more about You can also go to our telegram, go to our LinkedIn, go to our all of the social websites by just simply going to our main website, and from there you can basically get to know everything about us.

Julian: Yeah. . Awesome. Alex, again, thank you so much for being on the show and walking me through not only where the current state of Jumbo Exchange.S, but have a broader state of, you know, building in Web 30 and kind of the whole relationship with near and how that's kind of compounded, you know, to, to not only introduce more relationships to you, but also to grow and scale your business as well.

And I'm excited to see what comes of Jumbo Exchange in the future. But I hope you enjoyed yourself. And again, thank you so much for being on the Behind Company Lines podcast.  

Alex: Thank you. Likewise. Yeah, it was great talking to you.  

Julian: Awesome.