 What's up guys and in this video I got my good friend James Gonzalez with me. Hi, Dean brother. Good buddy. Very good Thanks for coming over So basically in this video when we talk about best practices for investing in ICOs. I want to say that I'm not a financial advisor I'm not a trader. I'm not a speculator What James and I about to tell you it just best practices that we've seen people in the industry do and that we recommend So before we do before we do begin I just want James to first do a little quick bio on a little background and who you are So people can have a context for this video. Absolutely again. Thank you, Amir James Gonzalez been in the space since late 2012 investing since 20 early 2013 We founded I believe Canada's first or one of Canada's first strict Bitcoin consulting companies in early 2013 We also were venture capitalists early in the space investing in Bitcoin's first hundred million dollar mining company as a miner and a bunch of other plays along the way We've also we do blockchain TV Which is an industry PR company We believe that the killer app is the stories of the people that the technology is going to eventually empower Totally So yeah, you know big fan of the space big fan of blockchain big fan of what block geeks does and Very excited Cool. So I'm gonna kind of dive into this Obviously the ICO so if you guys don't know what ICO is I made a video leave a link below this video So initial coin offering. It's super hot right now super hot But the market is having a correction, which is good. I really like that. It's a healthy for the market But you know the number one question most people ask is how do I invest? Yes? No, should I invest not even how to invest is like should I invest in X? Should I invest in Y for the most part? I don't really tell people to invest because I'm not a financial advisor always tell people do your own due diligence Don't rely on other people's information. Absolutely rely on your own self-judgment. Yes, you know, there's a saying You know, what's the saying the Rothschilds had a saying it's like when there's blood on the street by exactly Yeah, when people are greedy be fearful, right? That's right So but based on your experience since you've been in this industry for so long What are some kind of basic principles or advice that you can get people on actually? Understanding the space when it comes to investing their hard-earned money. Absolutely. Absolutely, and you know, I completely agree with Amir It's it is being so new you have to do your homework. You do diligence is basically the number one criteria You know living in an age of easy access to information. There's no excuse not to put in the time to do the research But I think that's where it all starts is is you need to pay if you want to get in the space You need to have time first and foremost to ultimately understand what you're getting into too many people whether it's real estate Ico stocks if you don't fundamentally understand what you're investing in you probably shouldn't be in the space in the first place because then you are You know just chasing other people You know, I know a second thing that we've talked about over time is team You know once you've actually studied the white paper and you now move past, you know To the next phase of analyzing the team, you know, who are they? You know, do they come from any industry that they're trying to disrupt? You know, I know Amir is a big fan of Localized team versus decentralized teams, you know, what's the team chemistry like are they all spread out across the world? And there's time zone differences and you know, there's inefficiencies because of that or some of them centralized with some core advisors that are spread out You know, that's always a big thing transparency First and foremost, you know, I know a lot of people love Bitcoin talk org That's always a good place to start for information Again, if the more transparent a team is the more of a warm fuzzy feeling I think I get You know, I want to see your face. I want to see your bio I want to see what you've done before you got into the space You want to see the human behind the car? I want to see the invite and there's too many ICOs that come out And it's an avatar and you're like, okay Well, what do you you know, what do you got to hide and sure not fairness a lot of these guys are still working day job Sure So they're all scared because they don't want their employer to find out but at the end of the day You know, if you're coming to the table asking for millions of dollars Then yeah, you kind of owe that to your your investor that at least show yourself, right? So, you know, you mentioned a couple of things over your transparency geolocation decentralization versus centralization of the company honesty of the individual the founders etc Is there kind of like a checklist or like a five point a seven point system that you can kind of go through that you look at personally when you review something Yeah first and foremost, I guess it would be You know, how how easy is is white paper to understand like when you first get in there, you know going over the first read You know, does does it flow doesn't make sense logically without going too deep into it from there Then you can start going deeper than team is definitely Something on that on that checklist utility What is the industry that they're actually trying to disrupt? Based on their white paper and the theories that they're putting in the white paper. Is it actually going to be executed? Is there an actual product are they actually coming after a real problem? Also again experience which comes down to the team do most of the core members have the experience in the industry that they're Actually trying to disrupt that is huge There's a lot of projects where you see guys that are just Picking an industry to disrupt and nobody on the team actually has any real relevant experience as to the other side of that industry And how it actually can be disrupted, you know regulations and all that stuff You know, I think also You know, obviously transparency is another one You want to see that people are responsive to the community whether it's telegram slack, you know Bitcoin talk reddit, are they answering questions Facebook social media? Are they engaging with their community? But you know, do they have anything to hide are they quick at answering questions? That's something I definitely like I like engagement I like to see strong numbers and slack channels and you know and people actually engaging not just, you know, not engaging You know, and obviously, you know, like we've seen marketing and you know, and I might be shooting myself in the foot here because I obviously run a marketing company, but a Nice deal has to be more than just marketing marketing is a big part of it But marketing can hide a lot of the problems that might be in the ICO whether management or the structural part itself So you have to look behind the marketing side You know, don't just be fooled by that by the big dollars in the smoke and mirrors actually make sure that the marketing is in sync with the plan And and execution, you know, do they have again it comes back to the team Do they have all the core pieces advisors core team members partnerships? Yeah, I think that's a huge one Do they actually have real partnerships before they even ICO or is it just it's a pie in the sky stuff? Yeah, I'll add a couple of things. I look at as well I'll look at the community when it comes to stack exchange. How big is the community of there? How many developers are working on there? Yes, I look at their github profile as well to see their code Is it open for the public one's the last time somebody's updated it, etc. Absolutely because bottom line even though, you know They're solving a problem in the world whatever problem they're solving the backbone of this is developers and You know, you can put all this marketing and you can camouflage things and hide things out If I don't see a vibrant community on github or stack exchange or maybe if a slack channel, especially github Especially I always second guess it. Yeah, for example, if you look at Ethereum stack exchange, it's just graduated You know stack exchange David Thierman its own community. Yeah, it's beautiful I mean you have like 50 questions day coming out there, you know all those 50 questions getting answered So there's actual developers spending time there asking questions getting answers, which is fantastic And there's other communities as well But that's my main thing to add on whatever already what you have so kind of if we can summarize is You know read the white paper understand it ideally in my mind You should be more than a white paper. Yes, you have some alpha product or beta product You don't need millions of dollars to create something you you can use a simple app called Envision app Which costs you almost nothing to actually streamline the creation of your beta product So understand the white paper. Make sure they have a demo product in my mind Study the founders who they are the transparency of them the geolocation of them You mentioned time zones as matters a lot cultural differences. Absolutely matters a lot language matters a lot Study the business utility. Is it a token? Is it not a token? Right. There's different variations out there. What is this salt? Does it make sense? Is there an actual business model to this that when you look at this? I get I get it This is the product or service you're selling for or X Y and Z. You know what I mean? Yes What else we talked about we talked about developer community as well, you know github and stack exchange and you mentioned anything else Don't be scanned by the marketing. Yeah Fall for the marketing Look behind the marketing on that one because like I know as as we start seeing higher valuations You're gonna start seeing more higher marketing budgets. Yeah to try to pull in, you know, especially You know, I know the other day here in Toronto. We had an article in the major newspaper Alex Tab Scott Yeah, and Vitalik was on you know, he was on the cover of that and you know I got a lot of new calls that day saying hey, what's this a theory? That's what you see a lot of fresh faces now a lot of new exposure You know a lot of people got to be careful the regulators are still circling and try to figure all that mess out But yeah Tread lightly right one of my favorite sayings in the world is if you enter a room and you don't know the schmuck is you're the schmuck So don't be the schmuck don't be the schmuck be an educated person I always tell people your job in life and this goes beyond what we're talking about this encompass who you are You need to strive for intellectual capital. Yes, right? Don't take someone else's word Don't take James and I's you know our word do your own homework on everything everything like spend your time to become a Professional not an amateur. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, and and and I think it's important to remember here Everything's still new. So there's you know, we have a hundred plus billion dollar market cap But this is a lot of the stuff is still theory. Yeah, so it's still we're in that work We're in that we're rolling out the practical applications now So that's what people need to understand at the end of the day You should always be investing what you can still afford to lose because nobody knows that's right It's still so much uncertainty in this industry that you know, you really need to tread lightly and don't just get caught up in the hype Mm-hmm, you know, they're they're still a long way to go. The market is still very early You know, so, you know a guy I mean, I would hate to see anyone get wiped out so early on when this is still so early You know just be patient and and you know, don't feel like you've missed out That's right I think that's the biggest thing people need to understand here is don't feel like the prices are out of your reach Dollar-cost average, you know, be smart about what you're doing and just don't chase charts like saying I miss the stock market This is a long term play here Like, you know, even whatever a hundred dollars a week into Bitcoin or Ethereum like that adds up So there's no rush and you know, just just just do your research and you know at the end of the day If you're not having fun Then you're in the wrong. Yeah, so if you're at this turns into a stressful thing for you Don't stop it. Okay. You better be having fun. You want to enjoy this? This is a paradigm shifting experience for all of us a magical journey and It should be taken for fun. This is fun. This is a great time. It's you know, don't make this investing stressful Well said cap it off over there if people want to get more information about you Yeah, you can hit me up at crypto consultant calm we're on check out blockchain TV on YouTube and Add Jimmy crypto for Twitter. Cool. Peace guys. Peace