Daniel Lian from fomo on Becoming a Web3CFO

[00:00:00] Daniel: As a finance leader in crypto, you often get very caught up in the tax and the infrastructure and the controls and, like, how many different walls you got here and there.

[00:00:08] Daniel: And like, yeah, that's all great, it's all necessary, and you gotta do it well, but, like, that's the back office. Like, it's not what's driving the business.

[00:00:14] Daniel: And I think as a leader, you should try to do that higher leverage, higher thinking strategic work, you know, when you can.

[00:00:21] Umar: Daniel Lian made the jump from web2 to web3 in June of 2022, becoming the first finance hire at dYdX, one of the biggest decentralized exchanges.

[00:00:31] Umar: In February of 2025, he moved to the Walrus Foundation, the team behind Sui's decentralized storage protocol.

[00:00:39] Umar: And most recently, in May of 2026, he joined fomo as VP Operations and Finance, a social-first crypto trading app.

[00:00:48] Umar: Daniel, what should a finance person do sooner rather than later when they just got hired?

[00:00:54] Daniel: Over time, I've just put more attention on getting your subledger in sooner than later just 'cause it keeps things a little bit cleaner and saves you a lot of time down the road when you, when you finally hire that finance person.

[00:01:07] Umar: Welcome to The Accountant Quits podcast, where we help accounting and finance professionals learn how to manage a business using crypto. On this episode with Daniel, we discuss managing token distribution at a foundation, the web3 finance tech stack, the playbook for setting up a finance function, the web2 CFO versus the web3 CFO, and much more.

[00:01:32] Umar: The Accountant Quits is the official podcast of the Onchain Finance Institute, the leading educational provider for finance teams using digital assets.

[00:01:42] Umar: Their programs, the Crypto Accounting Academy and the Crypto Treasury Management Academy, focus on practical knowledge, including tools required to work with digital assets.

[00:01:53] Umar: Inside their platform, you can also connect with peers working in web3, join focused chat groups, access job opportunities, and attend practical workshops on onchain finance.

[00:02:05] Umar: You can join the community for free by heading to onchainfinanceinstitute.com/community

[00:02:11] Umar: The link is also in the show notes.

[00:02:13] Umar: Now let's get into my conversation with Daniel.

[00:02:21] Umar: Daniel, welcome to the show. It's great to have you on.

[00:02:25] Daniel: Hi Umar, thanks for having me. Excited to be here

[00:02:27] Umar: Daniel, you've been now working in web3 for about four years, and you were early, right? You've had this front row seat on how tooling, let's say, for digital assets was being built. So I said in my intro, but back in June 2022, you were the first finance hire at dYdX, one of the most well-known DEXs.

[00:02:49] Umar: But before that, you did spend your career quite a bit, of course, in web2, right? So you worked at Expedia, then close to seven years at a SaaS startup. So for the listeners currently looking for a way into web3 company, what was it actually that piqued your interest in 2022, with regards to crypto, and what was the story behind you getting hired at dYdX?

[00:03:14] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So I think my own story is not so different than a lot of people and how they wind up in crypto, right? First, it's often price and speculation, that kind of attracts you to, to the industry. So, you know, I remember, like, buying my first Bitcoin back in 20, like, 14. I think it was around 1,000 bucks or something at the time.

[00:03:32] Daniel: I was here for ETH when it was, you know, $40 or whatever. And so initially, right, when I was working in, in other jobs and in tech, it was really just like, hey, this is the craziest speculative asset that can go up insanely. What's going on here? It just, it kind of draws you in. But over time, you know, I, I started learning more about the industry, you know, smart contracts started taking off, and it wasn't really around, you know, 2020, 2021, started listening to some crypto podcasts and seeing, like, there were real businesses getting built around and on top of this technology. And when I dove in, I just fundamentally believed that, like, blockchain made sense for a lot of finance, uh, and things of that nature. And so between that and, the sort of bull market in 2021, right, I think it was, like, NFTs and DeFi, around that era, around that time, I found myself spending a lot of time just, like, researching this stuff, and I wanted to spend all my time, doing it.

[00:04:21] Daniel: I'm, I'm not a guy that likes to have too many different focuses. So, I made the decision at that point to just start looking for, you know, jobs and opportunities in the space. At the time, you know, there were definitely lots of projects, but not that many that, were reputable, bigger, you know, and had actual businesses behind it.

[00:04:38] Daniel: I think I was fortunate that I stumbled across dYdX. They had just launched v3 at the time, which was, their, you know, perp DEX, the big perp DEX, and there was, you know, news articles about them surpassing Coinbase volumes on certain days. So, that's how I got introduced to them, or that's how I found out about them.

[00:04:54] Daniel: They happened to have an opportunity at the time for a finance person, and, I applied, and that's what got me into the space.

[00:05:02] Umar: Fantastic. So we can actually start with the, the first company, dYdX, and maybe some of the challenges that you faced at first. And just to set the stage for your time at dYdX and also for the listeners, there's actually a lot of legal entities that sit under the dYdX name, right?

[00:05:21] Umar: So the structure follows the well-known, so you have the lab and the foundation model. We've discussed this at length on this podcast, but Daniel was part of dYdX Labs, the team building the dYdX DEX, and not the foundation. So the foundation on the other side would be involved with, you know, everything around the community governance layer, making decisions around the dYdX chain, validator proposals, the dYdX token, managing the treasury of the foundation, et cetera.

[00:05:52] Umar: And also from what I've dug into, preparing this episode, Daniel, the governance layer of the foundation is also more structured, like even more layered with, they've got sub-DAOs, operations sub-DAO, treasury sub-DAO, et cetera. So we're focusing right now on your role as a Head of Finance at dYdX Labs, right?

[00:06:14] Umar: So when you joined in 2022. Could we start with maybe some of the challenges, when you first got hired, maybe what were the first responsibilities you worked on, you know, in the financial reporting process or streamlining operations back then?

[00:06:29] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So you're correct. I worked at the lab entity of dYdX.

[00:06:33] Daniel: They were a US Delaware C Corp. They made revenues that, that initial v3 product and some of the product before it, the fees flow directly to that entity, which was different, later down the road. But, but yeah, I... a lot of my initial responsibilities I would say are not so different than any sort of startup you jump into, right?

[00:06:50] Daniel: dYdX at the time I joined had already been around for, I think it was like five years or something like that. Prior to me, they had a business development guy that handled a lot of, you know, managing bookkeepers and things of that nature. So, while I was the first finance hire, there was some infrastructure already in place, right?

[00:07:05] Daniel: And so my job was to come in, expand it and, and clean it up really, right? Like they had spreadsheets where they kept certain numbers that they would feed to the bookkeeper, you know, on a monthly basis. But, you know, they weren't reconciled. They definitely weren't complete, right? You had wallets everywhere.

[00:07:20] Daniel: There wasn't really a centralized place where that was managed. And so, you know, for the first many months it was, you know, get the books in a good place, something that we can rely on to help make business decisions, for instance, right? So that was definitely a piece of it. Other pieces of it I would say included, you know, treasury management and forecasting, right?

[00:07:39] Daniel: Treasury management, as I'm sure you guys have talked about a bunch, is a little more complicated on the crypto side with, all the different custodians that you can use, and managing both crypto and fiat. So, you know, again, around the time that I had joined, I joined in June 2022. I think, some of the stuff that was happening around that time, I think FTX crashed in November around that time.

[00:07:59] Daniel: SVB shortly after that in March of '23. So around that time there was a lot of, not only set up, a base system, but also have redundancy and make sure your capital was in places that, that weren't at risk. So that was some of the stuff that I was working on early on as well. But yeah, the, the rest of it I would say, you know, very common for your typical Head of Finance, you know, treasury management, budgeting, AP, you know, setting up the, the internal work streams, if you will, to make sure that your company can run.

[00:08:23] Umar: And for the listeners, we'll dive a little bit more in detail later around the tech stack and the capital efficiency of a treasury. Now, given there was, like, not a lot of educational material for crypto accounting back in 2022, how did you actually teach yourself this crypto specific side of the job?

[00:08:44] Umar: Was there any particular responsibility maybe around, I don't know, bookkeeping, reconciliation, taxes? What-- and that was really the steepest learning curve for you? Even though you did mention that as an investor you were active, but this was your first time working at a web3 company.

[00:09:03] Daniel: Yeah. So I mean, like, I was familiar with wallets and signing transactions and things of that nature.

[00:09:07] Daniel: But to really learn, I would say the, I don't know, best practices, if you wanna call them, I definitely, had to learn from others, right? So again, when I first joined, there were some, you know, documentation pronouncements out there from the Big4 firms on, you know, accounting treatments of this and that.

[00:09:23] Daniel: And I'll be the first to say, I'm not an accountant by trade. I, I worked in sort of like FP&A, M&A in, in a prior life. So when it comes to accounting, I know my way around, but I lean on advisors and our bookkeepers and, and I make sure I have a well, you know, staffed team around me, or, or people that I can go to to ask questions when, when I need them.

[00:09:41] Daniel: But as far as, you know, learning at that time, it's, yeah, it's, it's getting the right advisors. Reach out to the, the venture capital firms that have invested in your company. So at dYdX, you know, a16z was a, an investor. They have a big finance leader, group, you know, go to them to questions.

[00:09:59] Daniel: Groups like this, you know, Web3 Finance Club that you've put together are super helpful in getting connected with others in the space. Yeah, I, I think this industry is good in that people are willing to share, best practices and help each other out. So I, I definitely lean on a lot of that in my early days.

[00:10:14] Umar: All right. So now moving on to the next company you worked for, which is the Walrus Foundation. In February 2025, you left dYdX, you joined the Walrus Foundation, again, as the Head of Finance. And for the listeners, Walrus Foundation, it's a decentralized storage protocol on the Sui blockchain, right? And you joined right before their mainnet launch.

[00:10:36] Umar: So around the time Walrus, they went through their fundraising through a token, private token sale, and with this mainnet launch, Walrus had an airdrop, right? And also as a delegated proof of stake blockchain, it had a staking program post that airdrop. Now, as a finance operator, could you walk us through those responsibilities managing the token airdrop?

[00:10:59] Umar: Would you have used, you know, like token vesting tools like Liquifi or Magna at the foundation?

[00:11:06] Daniel: A good question. So, full, you know, full transparency. On the actual airdrop, at the, at initial airdrop, I joined, like, right as they were doing it. So there was a lot that went into it from the teams and people that were there before.

[00:11:19] Daniel: So I don't wanna speak too much on that. But I guess what I can say is there was, there was a testnet for, I wanna say, six to eight months prior to the mainnet launch. And the work that the teams did there was a huge partnership between product engineering and, and data science. We did not use a tool for the airdrop itself.

[00:11:38] Daniel: It was, basically built in-house by the engineering team. And they looked at a lot of activity, you know, of people participating in whatever the testnet was, as well as different things across the SUI ecosystem as well, to create, you know, some type of program, to decide who they should reward and how much they should reward them.

[00:11:55] Daniel: I was definitely there for subsequent airdrops. We did a couple after the fact. But the process was very much the same, right? It was an in-house tool that we had used. And my involvement there was largely working with the product team to help determine the criteria, of, you know, what would qualify and what doesn't qualify.

[00:12:10] Umar: And because it was the first time for you working on such an airdrop, the challenges, like, did you encounter any specific challenges regarding bookkeeping or accounting or taxes, et cetera?

[00:12:24] Daniel: Honestly, not, not so much. I would say, much more attention was put on just, you know, who should actually be rewarded when and for what.

[00:12:34] Daniel: Because as I'm sure you know, in the crypto space, airdrops are a big thing, and people can feel very positive or very negatively about how things get done. So I would say a lot of my attention was more put on that. As far as the accounting side of things, I don't remember anything, you know, fairly complicated about it, for us.

[00:12:51] Daniel: So, so no, there wasn't too much there for me on that side.

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[00:14:21] Umar: Now, foundations, they carry a different fiduciary weight than a lab company. What changed for you operationally moving from dYdX as a lab co to now the Walrus Foundation? I don't know, anything around maybe the reporting cadence, or maybe now you had to manage a grant program.

[00:14:40] Umar: Maybe managing the treasury is different. So what, what, what was different, for you at the time?

[00:14:46] Daniel: Yeah, I would say the two biggest things that were new for me were, one, dealing with more of a multi-entity, you know, foreign, entity structure. So, so at the Walrus Foundation, we were Cayman, Cayman Foundation, and we had subsidiaries across the US and other, other jurisdictions as well.

[00:15:03] Daniel: So just managing that, making sure you're in touch with, you know, your, your tax counsel, your tax advisor, making sure you're doing things and coordinating correct activities into the correct entities was, was a piece, right? Payroll's also more complicated when you, when you have to pay people across multiple countries.

[00:15:16] Daniel: So that was, new for me at the time. And then yeah, the second piece was definitely grants, right? When the new protocol launches, you're basically looking for people to use the protocol to prove that it's useful and, you know, find traction, product market fit, all these things. So, a significant portion of the treasury went into, finding cool use cases.

[00:15:35] Daniel: So we did this across a number of ways. But in the SUI ecosystem, there's a partnerships team that would go out and find teams that are either already, that were already within SUI or, you know, building another ecosystem to see if they would come over and we would, you know, negotiate deals with them to, to try to get them to build something.

[00:15:51] Daniel: Simultaneously, we also put together an RFP program, so I worked with our teams on that to determine, you know, what are some cool products that would showcase what Walrus can do. And then finding, interviewing teams to basically apply and build that over, you know, a period of time. So, those two were definitely new activities for me that I hadn't had to work on in the past.

[00:16:11] Daniel: But very cool to see on, on the foundation side, to be a part of.

[00:16:14] Umar: Perfect. And so most recently in May of 2026, you left the Walrus Foundation to now join fomo. fomo is a social-first crypto trading app, and the social part of it means, for the listeners, there's actually a leaderboard and a social feed where you can discover and follow top traders.

[00:16:34] Umar: And, but also, please do, feel free to share anything else around fomo that the listeners, should know, Daniel. Now, they went for their Series B with a $75 million, uh, fundraise. And unlike dYdX and Walrus, fomo it doesn't have its own blockchain, doesn't have a native token, or this whole foundation structure.

[00:16:55] Umar: Now, having built a finance function from scratch before, what did you do differently this time around at FOMO? Maybe for the listeners, if it's helpful to have, like, let's say, a first 90 days checklist of the important things that, to just address

[00:17:13] Daniel: Yeah, no, that, that, uh, that's good.

[00:17:15] Daniel: Yeah, so fomo is a social trading applications that enables users to trade digital assets in a self-custodial manner, right? And a lot of the focus and attention that the team spends on is building, you know, beautiful, usable, intuitive UIs that regular people can use. Like, we believe that over time, you know, you shouldn't think of your app as a crypto app.

[00:17:42] Daniel: It's just a finance app. It's just an application that anyone can use, and crypto are just the rails underneath. You know, over time, we shouldn't have to distinguish the two, right? So that's, that's where a lot of the attention comes. We work with a team here. They're, they're ex-dYdX, so I, I worked with them back, in, in, you know, the, during that chapter of my life.

[00:17:57] Daniel: As far as setting up the finance function, you know, by not having a token and our own blockchain, it actually simplifies a lot of things, right? Like, you don't have to worry about basically that entire, all the tax issues around it, and managing perception and messaging around the token. We don't have to really deal with that.

[00:18:15] Daniel: We still have a community. We still have people that, you know, give us feedback on the product, but, I would say there's a huge chunk that gets cut out because, because of the fact that we don't have a token and, and it's honestly kind of, kind of great. For finance itself, being the third time around I've done this, right, I have my go-to, like, vendors and tools for all the things already.

[00:18:33] Daniel: So a lot of that comes into place and I, I'm able to set that up a lot faster now, which is great. But what that enables me to actually pay more attention to, and which I think sometimes gets lost but it's starting to come into, you know, people's focus again, is actually focusing on the business and what is, like, the underlying reason why people are using your product.

[00:18:51] Daniel: 'Cause at the end of the day, like, for any of our projects to do well and any of our business to do well, you have to do something that, people will pay you for, that can keep you around over a longer period of time, which means you have to deliver a, a compelling product experience that, you know, no one else can, can do or that people will want to actually use.

[00:19:08] Daniel: So I get to spend a lot more time, you know, working with our marketing folks or even testing the product myself. And, you know, working with the co-founders or, or the leaders here to just think through, like, what, what can we do to actually, grow revenue, grow the application here, and use it myself as a user.

[00:19:24] Daniel: So, I don't know, it's a refreshing thing to see, I think as a finance leader in crypto, you often get very caught up in the tax and the infrastructure and the controls and, like, how many different wallets you got here and there, and, like, yeah, that's all great, it's all necessary and you gotta do it well, but, like, that's the back office.

[00:19:40] Daniel: Like, it's not what's driving the business, and I think as a leader, you should try to do that higher leverage, higher thinking strategic work, you know, when you can. So, yeah, that's what I'm trying to at least spend some more time doing over here now.

[00:19:53] Umar: Could you give examples for the listeners what, like, as finance leader, where could be areas where you could add more leverage?

[00:20:03] Daniel: Yeah. So I mean, a lot of it is like, you know, so for example, you come in as a finance leader and one of the things you have to do is set up some, you know, expense approval or vendor approval process, to, to be able to spend money on whatever given thing is, right? I think one type of person will come in, build a process, and just try to, like, stick with it and like, you know, come hell or high water, like, that's what we're gonna do.

[00:20:28] Daniel: I think if you put on your, like, company, you know, company leader hat, it's like, okay, what can I build here that is- that helps us organize better, but also reduces friction and is adaptable based on what the needs are of the business. For example, here at fomo, one of our big marketing channels is UGC creator content, uh, you know, clippers, things of that nature.

[00:20:49] Daniel: This is all kind of like new to me and, and marketing, you know, I, I'm not an expert, but by working with the marketing team to understand what they're doing, how quickly they need to move, what are the types of people that are actually creating this content, I can then work with them to build a process that lets that happen a lot faster so they can move quicker to get the content out there.

[00:21:05] Daniel: 'Cause, especially in crypto, right, attention is fast. It goes quickly and if you get bogged down by, I don't know, a compliance control process internally or, a bill approval process, like that can literally s- help make you miss a window for, for something to happen, right? So just, that's just like one example of a thing.

[00:21:22] Daniel: But by being better connected with the other leaders in your space and, or, sorry, in your company and understanding what the problems they're trying to solve, I think that enables you to be a better, you know, finance leader yourself and make sure you're building things that, that fit and suit the company for where you're at.

[00:21:37] Umar: That's a great example, and it's a great mindset to have, right? To be flexible as a business leader, not just get bogged down to writing policies or developing controls, but understanding what is driving business right now. Now, maybe before we move to those vendors list that I'm sure the listeners will, will be fond to, uh, to hear of, maybe we could also go through a specific question I had around volatility around, you know, DEXs or now, during your time at fomo.

[00:22:07] Umar: So fomo, like platforms like fomo, you can have a big trading volume spike overnight when, you know, there's a viral token just took off. So from a finance seat, does that sudden volume surge like actually, does it change something in your day-to-day operations, maybe on your reporting versus a week that is more steady?

[00:22:32] Daniel: From a pure, you know, reporting process, I would say it doesn't change things too much, right? You see the n- we recognize revenue as it happens. So yeah, you do see these spikes, the, the very large ups and downs, as they're happening throughout the space. But I think from a, you know, planning level, it informs how you approach it, right?

[00:22:50] Daniel: So when I build forecasts, it's not trying to, like, precisely nail down what I think is gonna happen. It's basically give me many c- multiple cases that capture the, the extreme. So when I... You know, I'll have a base case, kind of roughly where we're at. I'll have an upside case, you know, 2X everything. I'll have a downside case, draw everything down by, you know, 50, 70%.

[00:23:11] Daniel: Like, what does that look like and what impact does that have to your bottom line? 'Cause this gives you the extremes and helps you manage in those cases, right? Just 'cause you have a great month does not mean you should start, you know, ramping up spend to go meet that revenue that you had, you know, one time in, in one month.

[00:23:24] Daniel: So that's, that... I would say that's really where, where that factors into how I operate. yeah, again, cryp- crypto, a lot of the startups that we're in, very, very young, very early, and I think it's important that we keep a longer term mindset in a lot of what we're building. So when you're planning and budgeting, like, give yourself some runway.

[00:23:42] Daniel: You know, assume worst case scenario can happen, 'cause they do. I mean, we are, you know, I don't know, alts are probably down 90% plus from October of last year. Like, crazy things can happen. And, and your job as a finance operator is to make sure you have the treasury to stay alive and operate. So, you know, keep that in mind when you're, when you're planning, I guess.

[00:24:01] Umar: Perfect. So we can move on to the tech stack. Daniel, you've built this, finance tooling at three different types of companies. We went through them. A trading protocol, a foundation with a decentralized infrastructure, and now a consumer social trading app. Could you walk us through your tech stack, when it comes to, like, subledger, mainledger, any treasury tooling, wallets, and how they've evolved from these three different roles?

[00:24:31] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So, again, I, I, all three places I've joined, I've joined relatively early. So as far as like main ERP ledger goes, it's been QuickBooks in most places, and also NetSuite in some. So I've, I've done both of those. I know there are some newer ones, Campfire, for instance, Rillet for instance, and you know, we're definitely looking at those and just wanna make sure they have the right integrations with the crypto native stuff before we, we actually move to anything like that.

[00:24:55] Daniel: Subledger wise, I've used a number over time. The one I'm currently using is TRES. They've been a great partner. Their tooling is pretty robust, and, and you know, relatively intuitive as well. So I, I like TRES. But I've also used tools like Integral, um, Bit- uh, there's a Bit something in the past I can't remember.

[00:25:11] Daniel: I used that a couple years ago. Treasury management. So for, as far as custodians go, I've used Anchorage, BitGo, Coinbase, over the course of my career. I think actually all three are great. You know, so the, you know, two of them are public now. They're, they're reputable. They have big resources. They can, you know, they can do new things relatively quickly for a big company.

[00:25:29] Daniel: And they're relatively secure, so I, I enjoy using them. As far as, you know, decentralized like multisigs and wallets go, I'll use the Phantoms and the, the Metamask. Squads is a great one, a multisig on Solana. They also are building a new product called Altitude that's more of like a enterprise focused version of the product that we're exploring as well.

[00:25:49] Daniel: So that's great. And on the fiat side, we bank with Mercury and Erebor. So Erebor's a newer player. we, you know, set up an account with them a couple months ago, and they combine a lot of fiat and crypto into one place, which we really like. And so we're working with them to kind of, you know, see what they can do and see how they grow, uh, as well.

[00:26:09] Daniel: So that is just kind of a quick overview of some of the tools we use. yeah, feel free to... If there's anything else I can help with, because I'm happy to dive in.

[00:26:15] Umar: The last one you mentioned is Erebor. E-R-E-B-O-R, right?

[00:26:20] Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. It's a new sort of like crypto friendly bank, I guess. But I think they started earlier this year.

[00:26:26] Daniel: It's Palmer Luckey, I think is the CEO. they have a backing of a lot of big institutions, and they're growing very, very quickly, if I remember correctly.

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[00:27:50] Umar: Head over to requestfinance/partners/theaccountantquits and get two months for free with all the Pro account features. Join three thousand finance leaders today using Request Finance and make crypto operations simpler, compliant, and less stressful.

[00:28:12] Umar: Yeah, I haven't tried Erebor. I've spoken to them, but I've actually tried Altitude and I think it's a fantastic product. It's very clean UI and, uh, yeah, it's built on top of Squads, the multisig, so it's actually not a bank.

[00:28:25] Daniel: Yeah ...

[00:28:25] Umar: they don't take custody of your assets. I think it's a great model, and we've spoken about it on, with their, uh, Founder or the CEO, on episode 104 for the listeners, if you wanna check that out.

[00:28:37] Umar: Now, is there at all a process that maybe you didn't prioritize early enough at dYdX or Walrus that now you made it a point to set it up from day one at fomo , or maybe not really?

[00:28:49] Daniel: Not really. So I don't have a great answer for you on that question. I think if anything, over time I've just put more attention on getting your subledger in sooner, than later, just 'cause it keeps things a little bit cleaner and saves you a lot of time down the road when you, when you finally hire that finance person.

[00:29:08] Umar: Now, I wanna go through for people who maybe just got hired at a web3 company, maybe the playbook for setting up a finance function. If you have to give like a practical checklist to a finance professional who just walked into their first web3 role, back when, like the exact same role of how you were at, at dYdX or at Walrus, what would you tell them to get right immediately and what would you tell them not to overthink?

[00:29:37] Umar: And you've, you, you actually gave some, a, a few tips around those earlier.

[00:29:42] Daniel: I would say, I mean, as soon as you join, right, there's a couple big things I would suggest you spend time doing. One, and it's just generic advice for any, really any startup, not even crypto or web3, but it's understand the business itself first.

[00:29:54] Daniel: First and foremost the product, what is it trying to do. , Again, just helps you be a better leader. But on the more finance specific type of thing, understanding where the money is and where the fund flows are at, at literally a wallet level, and understanding how a dollar revenue comes in and, you know, how it ends up getting paid out via payroll.

[00:30:12] Daniel: Mapping that out, understanding all the connections, making sure everything's accounted for in how you, you know, do the month-end close, is, is very important and that can take very, a significant amount of time, right? Especially with crypto products, sometimes they're cross chain, you know, L2s, L1s.

[00:30:27] Daniel: Like money flows through a number of places before it actually ends up getting paid out to a vendor or something. So just be sure to take the time to talk to your engineers and your product people to understand how all that works first. I would say that's actually probably the most important thing. And then from there you can start, you know, putting in your subledgers or whatever to make sure that you're actually capturing your historical data correctly.

[00:30:47] Daniel: You know, if that's wrong, then like your forecast, everything else is wrong, right? so, I would urge people to do that first, I guess.

[00:30:55] Umar: Now, fomo, I mentioned it earlier, they raised 75, they recently raised 75 million, and the company's still running with just 17 employees, based on my research, but do correct me if I'm wrong.

[00:31:08] Umar: Now the company's model, business model seems to lean on keeping the team small and outsourcing infrastructure like, Privy for wallets, Hyperliquid for perps execution rather than building everything in-house. As the finance person in the room, how do you think about capital allocation in a setup like that?

[00:31:28] Umar: There's, with so few people making spending decisions, is most of that budget now earmarked for infrastructure, liquidity, marketing, or, is there real pressure to build, to start deploying that into headcount, headcount and new product lines?

[00:31:47] Daniel: Question. I would say, look, I mean, anytime you raise money, right?

[00:31:50] Daniel: In- investors are gonna expect that you do something with the money. And, but ultimately, like, your goal here is to grow the business in a responsible way that keeps you around longer term and ultimately return shareholder value down, down the road. So, I, I try to keep that in mind when I, when I do anything, right?

[00:32:05] Daniel: What a new fundraising allows us to do is, one, it gives us a bit more security. We talked about how this business is very volatile, so we know we have a little bit of buffer if things are to go very south for whatever reason, right? And that gives us comfort in to, to know that we can continue to invest in, whether it's headcount or infrastructure or mark- whatever it may be.

[00:32:24] Daniel: Two, it enables new sort of like more strategic opportunities that we can look at that maybe we weren't able to do, uh, when we had a smaller treasury before. and three, it allows us to be more comfortable taking risks, right? In where, in things to invest in, right? So a lot of the marketing stuff that I talked about, right?

[00:32:41] Daniel: Like, we, again, we're, we're a company that's like one and a half years old. We need to be able to move very quick. So we can now, with this treasury, deploy more, more multiple experience, experiments much more quickly, gather our data, and then iterate from there a lot more quickly, rather than being very concerned about like, oh, we only have this little bit amount to, to do a thing.

[00:33:01] Daniel: And, so, you know, as, as, again, in my role, I view it as I'm trying to help the company shepherd capital to grow, but like the to grow part is the, it's the important part. It's not to like restrict capital, it's, it's to, to deploy it, right? So, it's just working with the leaders to find what are our most high conviction channels for whatever it may be, places that we can spend to help improve, whether it's the product itself or how we outreach to, new potential users.

[00:33:30] Daniel: Yeah. I, I don't know that even answered your question, but that's kind of how I think about capital allocation.

[00:33:35] Umar: Yeah, it does. yeah, I don't think the aim of the podcast is to dive into those specific str- strategies because we're purely focusing on the finance operations accounting side of working at a web3 company.

[00:33:49] Umar: But, whenever I have such an experienced finance professionals whose work, who, who has worked in web3, like yourself, Daniel, I always like to compare and contrast the web2 CFO versus web3 CFO role. So where, where would you expect the web3 CFO to be good at, let's say?

[00:34:08] Daniel: so if, you know, if I were to compare my experiences in web3 versus, like, my SaaS experience, right? A lot of it is around the planning and how to, to build a, a, a good plan to handle that volatility that we talked about earlier, right? In, in web2 and SaaS, it's way more predictable. It's recurring revenue on annual or longer basis.

[00:34:27] Daniel: So you have better confidence in a particular, you know, case that you put together. whereas in web3, you know, you need to think across multiple, multiple cases, and if certain cases happen, what then? Like, how does the management team react if ones go crazy, you know, really high versus really low, right?

[00:34:45] Daniel: So, and the web3 person needs to be able to iterate and, and think through those ahead of time. I mean, there's an element of that in web2 as well, it's just, I think, just less volatile, right? Beyond that, obviously we talked about all the sort of operational, you know, nuances, the finance infrastructure.

[00:35:00] Daniel: There's a lot more here, I would say, on the, on the web3 side than on the web2 side. And then just in pers- you know, from my experience, if you're at a foundation, like, I would say you're probably spending a lot more time with your tax people than when I was at least at a web2 company. So, you know, making sure that you have good tax advisor around you that you can reach out to on a moment's notice, has always been helpful to me.

[00:35:22] Daniel: There's a lot of things that you can, that you wanna be careful of, certain activities happening or whatever. You just wanna make sure you don't inadvertently trigger some unintended tax consequence for employee, investor, you know, community member, whoever it may be, uh, even your own business, by not setting something up properly.

[00:35:40] Daniel: So, I think I've spent a lot more time focused on that side of things in web3 than I, than I did when I was in web2.

[00:35:47] Umar: And I know you're not hiring right now at fomo, but maybe in your previous roles, would you have any tips for, or rather, what would you look for in a new hire, like a person who just applied to interview?

[00:36:00] Umar: Yeah, what would be the ideal candidate for you? Let's say if they've never worked in crypto.

[00:36:06] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So if I was, looking to hire my first finance person at a crypto project, I'm looking- for someone that can learn on the fly, that can adapt very quickly, that is willing to get involved with the different stakeholders at a, as a business, right?

[00:36:22] Daniel: You don't want finance to operate in a silo. You want them as an integrated part of the team, so that's one thing. And this probably may be weird for me to say 'cause I'm not an accountant, but I think accounting backgrounds are probably good for your first finance hire because there's so much that needs to be done on the h- getting the historical financials correct and setting up the right controls and, you know, custody wallets, all that type of stuff, that I think it's better suited for a person with that background than your, you know, usual FP&A person maybe.

[00:36:47] Daniel: So if I'm a project leader, right, either, either you hire that person or you have very, very strong outsourced accountants that, that can do this for you. And there, and there are a lot of them out there, especially crypto native ones, so you know, get introduced to them, talk to other founders. Uh, you know, they're, they're out there.

[00:37:03] Daniel: But yeah, that's, uh, that's probably what I would do if I was looking to make my first finance hire.

[00:37:08] Umar: Thanks for sharing. These are some good tips. Now, there's a last topic that I wanna go through, today, Daniel, which is, and I make it a point now, of on, during every episode, which is on using AI. So how has your use of AI evolved, and maybe what are you doing today that you couldn't have done back in 2022, during your time at dYdX?

[00:37:31] Umar: And has there been maybe a recent AI powered workflow you'd set up that you wish you did sooner?

[00:37:39] Daniel: Well, start by saying I don't use AI enough, and I want to use it more. But, uh, just to talk through some of the stuff that we are doing right now, you know, I, like many others, probably started by just using AI as sort of like a thinking partner.

[00:37:52] Daniel: A quick way to learn. I, I preferred chatting with AI to try to learn and get, uh, the gist of how things work before, you know, doing deeper research. That's always been helpful for me. But since then, and at fomo, I've started trying to feed it more of the accounting data directly from ERP or subledger, wherever.

[00:38:09] Daniel: 'Cause it can do things... and I'm sure a lot of people know this, like it can, uh, it can catch errors, it can do your BVA, you know, summaries in, you know, a minute, where- whereas it used to take you, like, a day or half a day to, to actually look through all that, right? And then when you look through your financials and you have a bunch of questions, you feed the questions, it gives you the answers, like, immediately.

[00:38:28] Daniel: Oh, you know, it went... you know, this went up because this vendor did this. Or, oh, actually we had two invoices come in this month instead of last month, so maybe you need to spread that and, you know, change it to the right month. Like, it catches all these things so fast. so that's, that's what we're doing today.

[00:38:44] Daniel: We use it in the month-end close process. I'm sure there's a lot more that can be done. I had a, a peer in the, the suite sort of SUI ecosystem that was coding custom dashboards for his various department stakeholders to look at, and understand where they were at in their budgets, which was super cool.

[00:38:59] Daniel: and yeah, it, it's great because, you're not restricted by the limitations of whatever tool you put in place to, like, handle a certain process. If you need something supplemental to that, it doesn't take that long to, you know, build it out yourself. so again, I, I'm not the best AI user yet, but it is, uh, an area I'm in- investing into

[00:39:17] Umar: Thanks for sharing, Daniel.

[00:39:19] Umar: Now, the title of the episode today was becoming a web3 CFO, and I enjoy speaking to experienced web3 finance, finance professionals like yourself, Daniel, just as a way to... I mean, our mission, let's say, is to try and bring in more accounting and finance professionals in the digital asset industry. And I think conversations like these can maybe inspire them or, you know, give them an i- an idea of what it is to work at a company using digital assets on a daily basis.

[00:39:51] Umar: As closing thought maybe, has, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners or anything we didn't touch on that you'd like to, to share with them?

[00:40:01] Daniel: It's not that we haven't touched on it. I think, you know, and maybe a lot of this is just 'cause that's, this is where I like to spend my time.

[00:40:07] Daniel: But I would just, definitely wanna encourage the finance leaders here to poke your head out of the finance silo, as much as you can and work with your team, on the problems that they're trying to solve. There's al- there's, you know, finance usually touches everything. But if you only look at the payment portion of it or, or whatever, and you're not involved in the, the criti- criteria behind it, it's, you know, what is success, what is not.

[00:40:31] Daniel: And you can be such a, a useful thought partner in a lot of those conversations. So do it. cause one, it's also very interesting, but two, at, at the end of the day, you need that stuff to work for you to, you know, for the business to continue. So, understand the business, understand the other stakeholders that are working on things that help grow the business.

[00:40:50] Daniel: Do whatever you can to poke your head in there and, uh, help them ch- accomplish what they're trying to do.

[00:40:56] Umar: That's great advice. and there's a last question which I like to ask, Daniel, which is, do you have a favorite quote or a maxim, let's say, that you live by, or let's say you regularly repeat to yourself?

[00:41:09] Daniel: This is a quote. And it's basically, it's sort of tied to what we just talked about. But it's, uh, "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." I actually didn't know there was a second half of that quote until a couple years ago. And when I heard it, I was like, "Oh, this makes a lot of sense."

[00:41:26] Daniel: And it kind of flips the meaning of it, right? Like, initially, when you hear the first half, it's, oh, you know, you're, if you're, if you're a jack of all trades, it's not as good as being, uh, some- you know, master of one. But when you get that back half, it emphasizes the importance of versatility and being able to think the multiple angles.

[00:41:43] Daniel: So I think I like it because that's how I've sort of crafted my own career path.

[00:41:48] Umar: Yeah. And I think in the age of AI, it's ever so important nowadays. Like, maybe companies are hiring less and, as a finance professional, you need to be able to do a little bit more than before. I think this was a great conversation, Daniel.

[00:42:02] Umar: Thanks a lot for coming. If people want to, if they want to reach out to you, let's say, on social, is there a platform that you may be most active on, or maybe they shouldn't reach out to you and you should say so.

[00:42:15] Daniel: You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can just find me, just Daniel Lian. Or I'm also on X, @dmanlian.

[00:42:22] Daniel: Feel free to, you know, DM me there if you want.

[00:42:26] Umar: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time today, Daniel. It was great conversation, and we'll be in touch.

[00:42:32] Daniel: Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was very fun.