Marlon Williams with Atlanta Blockchain Center

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Marlon Williams. He is the founder of Starter Labs and Atlanta Blockchain Center. Welcome, Marlon.

Marlon Williams: [00:00:39] Hi, Lee. How are you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:40] I am doing well. I am so excited to get caught up. What’s new at Atlanta Blockchain Center?

Marlon Williams: [00:00:47] Oh so many. Where do I start? Well, first, I think we have just been very busy at work with our incubator, which is the only blockchain, crypto and Web3 focused startup incubator in Atlanta. And over the past 18 months, we have incubated now 20 companies, all Atlanta based founders, by the way, and the mission behind that is to help show the rest of the world that Atlanta isn’t just a consumer of products in these emerging industries, but also creators and builders are here as well. So that is one of the biggest accomplishments that we’ve had since our grand opening. In addition to our events. I’m not sure if you recall, but we have educational events around blockchain, crypto and Web3 every single Thursday. So there’s over 100 plus events that we’ve done and the only Thursdays that we’ve missed, I’d have to admit, is Thanksgiving. But other than that, we literally have been delivering educational events to the entire Atlanta ecosystem. Free food. It’s open to everyone. Free drinks every single Thursday for a year and a half.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:12] Now what? Um, for the people who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about your vision and why it’s important to you to put Atlanta on the map when it comes to blockchain, and really invest in the infrastructure and the ecosystem that creates thriving companies that are, you know, need incubation and acceleration and partners and, you know, all that other good stuff that a good community leader is in charge of. Can you talk about kind of the overarching vision and mission?

Marlon Williams: [00:02:41] Yeah, I’d be happy to, but in order to understand that, I need to share a little bit about my parent company, which is Starter Labs. That’s the parent company of Atlanta Blockchain Center. So Starter Labs is a R&D research and development software company. We’re based here in Atlanta now. I moved it from Miami. And what we do is build various products in blockchain, specifically products that are at the intersection of fundraising and launching companies. So you can think about the core product offerings at Starter Labs as something of a kick starter in the traditional sense, the crowdfunding platform fundraising platform for blockchain. So I launched that project, uh, that product several years ago, and it was quite successful to the point where it became the number one crypto launchpad in the entire industry and facilitated over 60 different launches of of companies, uh, with $45 million in funding in crypto funding. And the majority of these founders had never met. It was completely virtual. This was at the height of the pandemic. Um, so my, um, my desire sort of shifted into wanting to apply a lot of that value to founders that I have met and that I know in real life, but particularly founders that are, uh, are affected by the current distribution of venture capital funding. I’m not sure if you know Lee, but in 2021, out of the 330 plus billion dollars of venture capital funding that went to startup founders, only 1% went to, uh, uh, diverse founders. So if you’re a woman, if you’re black, if you’re a minority building in this, uh, in this, you know, tech world, uh, venture capital isn’t your friend. So part of the mission of the Blockchain center is to utilize the strength of, uh, Starter Labs fundraising ecosystem to help identify minority builders. Um, and in the space that want to build in crypto, blockchain and Web3 to get them funded. And make a difference in, in their lives and and just change the world. And you know, we really would like to reduce that significant gap and venture capital fund distribution. And that’s a huge part of what we do now.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:48] Um, as, as, you know, having that kind of full time job, making all that happen for your clients and growing those businesses and then saying, oh, and my side hustle is I’m going to build this, you know, Atlanta Blockchain Center. That’s going to be kind of a place where these folks can gather and, um, you know, kind of create collisions and help each other and just get kind of their foot in the door. That in itself is a noble mission that takes, um, you know, so much energy and time and resources to pull that off. Can you talk about how, um, kind of you’re managing both of that because they both seem like full time jobs.

Marlon Williams: [00:06:34] You got that right. Well, you know, I’ve, uh, I’ve now 23 years of experience in software startups. Um, my very first startup was in 2003. And since then, I have built a lot of different companies around, uh, various industries, from health information technology to telecommunications, contact center, social. Um, I’ve just sort of developed this knack for building things, uh, building software in various industries and juggling multiple things at once, uh, sort of becomes second nature in my role today. So it doesn’t feel overwhelming. But you’re right. It’s it’s certainly two different, two different, uh, jobs altogether. One is, um, tasked with identifying, um, the next up and coming companies that are going to be disruptors and helping them get funded. The other is similar in that it’s also identifying, uh, up and coming builders and founders, but it’s much more mission driven because, you know, that’s the physical component of it. We, um, we have a community of individuals who come by the center every single week that, you know, if they’re looking for engineers, uh, to help them build or marketers or just to network with like minded individuals, we’ve sort of built a solid community around, um, the blockchain center and everyone see, uh, agrees with, um, our pursuit. Right. Which is Atlanta has so much to offer and is one of the most diverse cities in this country. And here’s a an industry where a mass generation, uh, a mass transfer of generational wealth is occurring. Yet there wasn’t a serious effort to educate the people around this technology and one of the most diverse cities in this country, it wasn’t a serious effort to. Um, to nurture talent around building products and services that are going to be, uh, defining the way that we work and play in the future. Uh, so everyone. Realizes that, you know, this need existed and we all kind of congregate around that. So. To me. Although they are two separate, um, companies, they’re very much. Uh, aligned with each other, so that makes it extremely easier to manage.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:43] Now, are you finding that people are, um, looking for opportunities to play on the blockchain and to to build businesses in and around the blockchain, especially, you know, those underserved groups that you mentioned that you’re that’s important to you? Are they kind of raising their hand and saying, you know what, I want to learn more about this. I think there’s opportunity there, uh, for people like me.

Marlon Williams: [00:10:11] Oh, man. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, um. You’d be you’d be surprised at sort of how many people are actually interested in this. I was just having a conversation the other day, uh, about why I personally believe the financial sort of speculative nature of crypto was the perfect, um, use case to capture everyone’s attention. Um, to demonstrate the capabilities of blockchain. Uh, because when you’re talking about finances, you know, and riches and all these other things, that gets people’s attention, right? Um, so that captured a lot of people’s attention. But what that is resulted in is further curiosity as they start learning about blockchain coming in from the crypto side, hearing about the wealth and the different, you know, um, sort of self-sovereign nature of it, but realizing that as they learn more and more that the underlying technology is transformative. So we meet people all the time, every single week who are coming to learn because they were, uh, attracted to the financial speculative nature of it. But as they, um, continue to learn and come to more sessions where we talk about the underlying tech and not just the financial applications or speculative applications, it sparks the curiosity even more and creates more and more interest. Um, so, you know, it starts with the attraction to finance, but it certainly, um, expands into, oh, wow. So I could own my own music, uh, and control who gets to listen to it or, you know, uh, get paid royalty automatically through this technology and not have ten middlemen to go through, uh, giving me a tiny piece of the pie.

Marlon Williams: [00:12:27] And so, you know, that’s that’s usually how it it unfolds. And I’ll share a quick stat with you, too. I mean, more than half of, um, we worked with Coinbase over the last quarter quite a bit. We held an event in Atlanta called the Crypto Town Hall, and it was myself and the chief policy officer of Coinbase, former mayor, um, Keisha Lance bottoms, and one of the majority floor leaders for the for the state of Georgia, all on the panel talking about crypto, right. And what it means to Georgia. And in that, we revealed that more than half of Americans heard about this technology, right. And they’re extremely interested in the technology. And it’s only going to increase continue to increase over time. Um, and in, in the, in the state of, uh, Georgia alone, you know, we have. It’s about 70. Um, I believe it was 70 plus percent or so of the the the the mining, the power for power for some of the miners here, uh, in the country is generated out of, uh, out of Georgia. And there’s some other interesting stats around blockchain and crypto and the state of Georgia that. Or are given hints that this industry is slowly growing and shouldn’t be ignored.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:02] And it’s it’s like you said, the, you know, maybe crypto or NFTs kind of get you interested, but the, uh, the growth, I think ultimately is going to be leveraging blockchain in, in more mundane places. You know, it’s going to. Right. Like it. You know, the headline might be crypto, but that’s not going to be kind of the nuts and bolts of how people are going to be using blockchain.

Marlon Williams: [00:14:30] Absolutely, absolutely. And and again, in a city like Atlanta where it’s so diverse, I mean, the, um, some of the stats around diversity, you’d find that, uh, college educated, uh, black Americans or much more interested in, um, crypto than their counterparts. They believe that it will have a positive impact on society, um, especially in a society where they feel they were negatively impacted by the current financial system. Um, that’s that’s one segment of the population. If you go to, uh, logistics providers, there’s, uh, a lot of individuals looking at how blockchain could transform their operations by increasing efficiency and transparency speed. Um, that’s another end of the spectrum. I gave a hint about, you know, musicians and how blockchain could disrupt that industry. That’s another aspect. I mean, the technology applies to all sorts of situations, from social impact to enterprise efficiencies to creating, um, you know, much more efficient world. And in various businesses, it’s just so transformative. And I, you know, I’m still shocked at why more centers like the Blockchain Center don’t exist across this country, right? There’s just not another technology that is as transformative as this. And of course, I’m biased. Uh, in in today’s world, you know, maybe several decades ago and prior. But in today’s world, I don’t think so. The AI is up there, but. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:30] I think it’s one of those things where when something when people don’t understand it and it and they the part they, they even just kind of superficially heard of it sounds like it’s out there and speculative. Um, you know, they kind of lump the whole thing in there together. But I don’t think people understand that blockchain in the supply chain is real and functioning. And, um, it’s it’s just part of the thing. It’s like when in my background is in marketing. So when, you know, the web stuff and the internet happened, that was like a thing. And you’d have to say, this is internet marketing or, you know, and then it just became marketing because it was in everything or, or, you know, technology used to be a separate thing. But now every company is a tech company. I mean, everybody is. So I think it’s just a matter of time. And, and each iteration of these kind of new things, that time distance is shorter and shorter. You know, it doesn’t take as much time. I don’t think blockchain to be ubiquitous as it did, you know, for the internet or web or, you know, some of the earlier technologies.

Marlon Williams: [00:17:40] They are completely, completely. And it’s scary. It’s just getting faster.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:45] Right? And that’s the ironic part. I mean, all of this stuff makes things faster. Ai makes things faster, blockchain makes things faster. And it just especially older people have a hard time, you know, they don’t like change to begin with. And then the speed of which things change is just shocking. I saw somebody posted a list of like, um, businesses that were that started within the last 20 years. And it’s like every single web business you’ve ever heard of is on that list. And that’s just 20 years ago, you know?

Marlon Williams: [00:18:20] Oh, yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:20] So it’s it’s just a matter. It’s not an if. It’s a matter of when, uh, when all this becomes ubiquitous and, and and this thing that you’re having a hard time educating and selling in, that people will be just like, oh, yeah, you know, where has this been? You know, they’re going to be, you know, wishing they had started earlier.

Marlon Williams: [00:18:41] Oh, yeah.

Marlon Williams: [00:18:42] Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, in the meantime, we’re going to continue to work and build. Uh, and that’s what I love. I love, you know, being heads down. I’m not too much of a public facing individual. I know I’ve had to adapt to to that over the, over the years as my role increased from sort of like a behind the scenes builder to, uh, to someone who is also forward facing and interacting with, with clients and so forth. But I enjoy being the underdog. I enjoy building, um, you know, quietly, uh, into the future and, um, wait for it to dawn upon us, uh, only to, um, confirm that we were we were ahead. So I’m personally excited about the, uh, the work that we’re doing here in Atlanta. I think the, you know, um.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:43] Are you finding collaborators and partners? Um, is this because I know that was part of why you came from Miami to here was to to kind of plug into this ecosystem here. Has this been welcoming? I mean, what do you need more of and how can we help you?

Marlon Williams: [00:20:00] It has certainly been, uh, very welcoming, uh, overall. Right. And there are certain and certain pockets of, of Atlanta that are still apprehensive to block blockchain. And I think they’re going to continue to be until they’re forced to, uh, to react. But for the most part, the wider ecosystem has been very supportive. Um, especially places like Atlanta Tech Village with, with Ali Marriott and others, not so much. But, um, you know, again, sometimes we have to, uh, we have to demonstrate to others what they, they don’t know that that’s that’s been beneficial to them. Right? Kind of leading them into the future. Um, despite not knowing that, you know, it’s to their benefit in a large part of what we, we have been doing is, is, uh, is is like that.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:03] Now. So right now you a cohort just finished or you’re starting a new cohort. What’s going on now with the incubator?

Marlon Williams: [00:21:12] We’re in the middle of one now. Uh, and that one’s going to end. Um, end of Q1 and, um, you know, Q2 or Q3, depending on how many applications we get, we’ll be starting our fifth cohort.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:27] And so people can apply now. Right? Or they they have to wait.

Marlon Williams: [00:21:32] They can apply now. So if anyone wants to build they have an idea or they are building around blockchain, crypto, Web3, they can go to Atlanta Frame.io and apply to the incubator. Uh, we will assess the application. If we think that there’s something substance we can help, um, we will accept the application and they’ll start in the next cohort. Now, all of these, for now, we’ve been doing is all of all of these, um, these founders, all of their work culminates in a pitch fest, an annual pitch fest where at least one of them will win. Um, will get a check for $25,000. And, um, you know, we we anticipate increasing that, particularly during the bull market when there’s a lot more capital flowing in the space. So our goal is to fund almost every company that’s gone through our incubator in some capacity. But, um, you got to. You got to be serious. You know, you got to be serious about your idea, and, uh, we’ll we’ll assist in, um, some go to market strategies to building, development, coding, etc..

Lee Kantor: [00:22:47] So do you have to know how to do this, or can you come in there with an idea on a napkin? Like what? What level of an entrepreneur are you looking for?

Marlon Williams: [00:22:56] Yeah. You got to know how to if you if you if you don’t know how to build a product, you got to know how to, you know, build the business right and find people to help you build a product. But, you know, we’re not looking for just, um, idea folks. You know, I think there’s a place called ideas. Com for that. But in all seriousness, we’re, we’re we’re looking for people who are have already started on something, um, whether or not they have a product, but they’re, they’ve probably incorporated the company. They have a white paper, uh, developed. Um, they’re in the first stages, but they’re taking action, you know, taking action, doing something not simply ideating. So we prefer execution oriented, action oriented, uh, founders then than not.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:51] And then regarding the coding, is this something that I got to be, uh, Coding Ninja or is this something that I can learn how to better code? Like, what’s the technical background?

Marlon Williams: [00:24:04] I think it varies based on the actual product. But, you know, if you’re, um, if you’re not a coder, you should be pretty darn good at, uh, the non-technical aspects of starting a, um. A business and we could help you with, you know, resources for coders and designers and so forth if needed. Um, if you’re a coder, great, because coders can usually execute on the ideas that they have.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:33] So and do you still have the, um, co-working space?

Marlon Williams: [00:24:38] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Marlon Williams: [00:24:39] There, uh, you get to meet with, uh, with us at the co-working space twice a week, and we, um, hashed out all the details of your startup. Uh, you also get, uh, free access to the co-working space in perpetuity as you become what we call an immutable founder, which is immutable in the context of blockchain, just means that it’s unchangeable. It’s forever, basically. So for us, all the founders that we accept are immutable founders. And you get an, uh, unlimited access to co-working space. Come here. You can, you know, sleep here, you can work here. You can just becomes yours to build.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:23] And then um, any you mentioned that 20 companies have gone through. Has anybody gotten funding?

Marlon Williams: [00:25:31] Yeah. Uh, in the last pitch fast, uh, fan funder, um, got a check for 25 K, and we have been helping them with, um, another potential raise. So they should be raising some additional funds sometime this year and in our next pitch fast, which is currently slated for late May, early June. Uh, another one of the founders are going to get a check. Um, and we’re also going to be helping, uh, helping them in others with funding this year. So we should see a lot more funding activity over the next, uh, 24 months for companies that have gone through our incubator.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:15] And I can’t emphasize enough that the blockchain center, this is industry agnostic. This is going to touch every industry. Like. So it doesn’t matter if your idea is in anything, you should be considering the blockchain center as a place to incubate it because it’s going to involve the blockchain, whether you accept that today or not.

Marlon Williams: [00:26:37] Absolutely. That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:40] So, uh, thank you so much for sharing your story and doing the work you’re doing is so important to the community. And I really hate that. You know, it’s one of those best kept secrets. There’s no reason that everyone shouldn’t know Marlon Williams and the good work he’s doing at Starter Labs in Atlanta, Blockchain Center. And I hope everybody invest some time into checking them out at Atlanta. Canijo going by there, going to one of the events. It’s very important for the Atlanta business community and the tech ecosystem as a whole to have Marlon be part of it. And thank you so much, man. I really do appreciate it. You’re doing important work.

Marlon Williams: [00:27:20] Thank you Lee. Thank you. And thank you, Atlanta Business Radio. We appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:23] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.