IAM2432 – CEO Shares Blockchain’s Potential Role in Financial Ecosystems

Steve Durbin

00:00 - 00:19

We can build apps off of it, and it can serve anything from digital identification. We have some pretty ambitious goals with national digital currency, medical records, real estate. I mean, really any sort of industry that is keeping records of anything can benefit from this technology.

Intro

00:21 - 00:47

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO

Gresham Harkless

00:47 - 00:55

Podcast. Hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have an awesome guest on the show today as Steve Durbin. Steve, excited to have you on.

Steve Durbin

00:55 - 00:56

Nice to meet you. Very excited.

Gresham Harkless

00:57 - 01:32

Yes, I'm excited as well, too. And Steve's doing so many awesome things. So I'm super amped to kind of jump into this phenomenal conversation. But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Steve so you can hear about why he's so awesome. And as a fast forwarding financial leader with a distinguished career across private equity, hedge funds and investment banking, Steve has been recognized for his ability to navigate complex landscapes and deliver significant transformation. Steve is driven by a vision to modernize financial ecosystems, facilitating the integration of traditional and decentralized finance, while prioritizing transparency, accessibility, and resilience.

Gresham Harkless

01:32 - 02:15

As the president of Quail Bend Capital Partners, a private equity firm he founded in 2010, Steve has strategic investments in fintech and mining, including and controlling interest in save daily holdings. His approach emphasizes leveraging technology to solve real-world financial challenges, empowering organizations to thrive in an ever-evolving market. His extensive career includes pivotal roles at the Whatley Group, Red Mountain Capital Partners, and J.P. Morgan. His work has contributed to financial restructuring, operational innovation, and high-profile leverage buyouts, respectively. Steve holds an economics degree with honors from Harvard University, and he sits on the boards of Save Daily Holdings Corp., Electric Metals, and Blackjack Silver.

Gresham Harkless

02:16 - 02:46

He is currently taking on a new venture at the intersection of Web3 and finance. And before we were kind of jumping into this, I was reading a little bit more about Steve and listened to one of his or read one of his interviews. And one of the things that I really loved about is I think so many times it's important to know what people do, but I think it's even more important to know why they do it. And one of the quotes I have to read is that he was inspired to start the business by a vision to merge traditional finance with DeFi to create a solution that's not only more cohesive and effective, but genuinely useful.

Gresham Harkless

02:46 - 02:59

He wanted to build a product that serves the underbanked and the unbanked populations that too often get left behind by financial systems. So Steve, excited to have you on, love everything you're doing. Are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?

Steve Durbin

03:00 - 03:13

I am. And I got to say, I'm not quite sure who wrote that introduction, but I got to give them kudos because it made me sound quite good. And I've got to give my PR team some props there because that made me sound a little bit better than I probably really am.

Gresham Harkless

03:15 - 03:35

Yeah, no, you're probably being far too kind. I always say it's a lot easier to kind of write the things or to read the things, but it's probably a lot harder to make sure that you're accomplishing those things. So you did the hard work and we just kind of amplified as much as possible, right? I appreciate it. Absolutely. So I guess to kind of kick everything off, let's rewind the clock, hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Steve Durbin

03:36 - 04:09

Yeah, so I grew up in Los Angeles. My mother was the CEO of a tool distributions company, which is pretty interesting occupation for a woman at that time. And she was running it with her two sisters and her mom. So I had this very strong role model growing up. And my dad was in real estate and flipping houses before it was cool or popular to be doing that. So between the two of them, I had, I'd say a pretty good entrepreneurial background and pretty good role models as far as you know, how to support a family on your own.

Steve Durbin

04:11 - 04:54

That being said, I really had no idea what I wanted to do for a career. I was fortunate enough to get into Harvard. I studied economics there. And sort of in my senior year and junior year, I was still in that sort of phase where I was a bit of a rudderless boat. And I had, you know, a lot of conviction in my desire to be successful and my desire to work hard. But I wasn't exactly sure what career that would take. So I looked into investment banking, and I thought that was a pretty good first step in a job where I could learn a really good skill set that could be applied to a wide range of industries, I'd be exposed to a lot of very, very smart, hardworking people.

Steve Durbin

04:55 - 05:35

And I felt like that kind of kept all of my options open. So After Harvard, I ended up working at JP Morgan in their financial sponsor group, which I very much enjoyed. Although the hours were challenging, to say the least, I felt like I was absorbing and learning more than I could in almost any other job. So being exposed to C-level talent when you're in your early 20s is a pretty unique opportunity. And I feel like I had the work ethic and the skill set to be pretty successful as an analyst and associate. So I thought I learned a lot and enjoyed it.

Steve Durbin

05:35 - 06:11

And although you're in a very corporate environment, you do get exposed to these entrepreneurial figures when you're working with the companies and the CEOs and the CFOs, who a lot of times have grown their businesses themselves all the way up. So I very much enjoyed that, although I felt like it was a bit of a big, too big of an organization for me. I felt like I didn't want to keep climbing that corporate ladder. I wanted to be a little bit more of my own boss. So I took kind of the next leap forward and moved to Oak Hill Capital Partners, where I certainly wasn't my own boss.

Steve Durbin

06:12 - 06:46

But there was a bit more latitude, a bit more ability to kind of run your day to day as long as you get your stuff done. They're happy with your performance. So I felt like that was a really great experience. I decided to make the move back to Los Angeles where I worked at a startup hedge fund called Red Mountain Capital Partners. And I think this was sort of my first real experience being an entrepreneur because there was really only a few of us doing all of the investment decisions. There was the founder, a principal, I'm sorry, another partner in me as the principal.

Steve Durbin

06:46 - 07:24

So three of us doing all the investment decisions with our support staff of analysts and associates. Unfortunately, the timing wasn't great there. When I joined not too long after that was the 2008 financial crisis. We were a small cap targeted fund. So we got kind of hit with the wave of the market downturn. But then shortly after that in 2010, I decided to start my own fund, Quail Bend Capital Partners. And ever since then, I've really been doing my own entrepreneurial work. You know, no corporation whatsoever, no overhead. It's all, it's all me as the real CEO and the real driving force.

Steve Durbin

07:24 - 07:41

So that brings me to today where I've now launched a new business called Right. It's a blockchain, which really came out of one of my portfolio companies. And that's really where I'm devoting most of my effort these days. So I know that was a bit of a long-winded answer, but that's sort of how I ended up where I am today.

Gresham Harkless

07:42 - 07:51

Yeah, it's a perfect answer though. I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know you touched on your new venture and what you're working on there. Could you take us through a little bit more what you're doing there, how you're making an impact?

Steve Durbin

07:51 - 08:34

You had mentioned I'm on the board of Save Daily. So that company is a pretty interesting business where they provide investment solutions to the mass market. So the company was founded in 1999 by my current partner, Jeff Mahoney. And the idea was very ahead of its time where brokerage firms like Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, E-Trade, well, E-Trade actually a little bit better, They really weren't catering to the people that had, you know, few thousands of dollars to invest. They liked the people with tens of thousands or hundreds or millions of dollars. And this was a platform built to allow small savers to invest cost effectively.

Steve Durbin

08:35 - 09:16

And I really, really liked the business. And I really liked the sort of the idea that you're helping people while also driving a lot of market share and market value and income to yourselves. So it's sort of a win-win. And so the idea was, his first idea was, look, we can do international remittance using the blockchain. We can transfer money over to these people's families far more efficiently. People are moving money now, you know, they move a few hundred dollars and it costs them 30 or $40 to send via Western Union. So you're talking about like 10% or more kind of going out the door, which is just insane if you're doing that over and over every month, sending money back to your family.

Steve Durbin

09:17 - 10:08

So rather than try to put a square peg in a round hole, we said, look, why don't we just take a blank sheet of paper and figure out how to develop a blockchain that suits our needs. So I think we're approached sort of this idea of creating a decentralized finance platform a bit differently than a lot of other people. We went about and designed what's called a layer one blockchain, what's called the right chain, RYT. We pivoted away from doing really just a remittance offering. We figured that will be kind of one of many ecosystem projects and focused more on an offering that can be applied to other developers that they can leverage and build their own um, apps off of, um, we can build apps off of it and it can serve, you know, anything from digital identification.

Steve Durbin

10:08 - 10:23

Um, we have some pretty ambitious goals with national digital currency, um, medical records, real estate. I mean, really any sort of industry that is keeping records of anything can benefit from this technology.

Gresham Harkless

10:23 - 10:48

Nice. I almost wonder if that learning experience, being open to learning, but also I feel like having the boldness to even try those things. I think so many times people say that, hey, what we're trying to work on isn't working. They don't go to like, let's build our own thing. So do you feel like even having the boldness to really see a problem and actually solve that problem? Do you feel like that was your learning experience as part of that secret sauce?

Steve Durbin

10:48 - 11:20

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think What you mentioned about seeing a problem and solving it is really important. So we didn't come up with an idea that we thought was a great service or a great product and then tried to convince people of why it's a good thing or why they need it. We kind of worked the other way where we saw what they needed and tried to create a solution for that. So that might be a little bit nuanced, but you know, I think it's an important differentiator where we're not trying to convince people what they need.

Steve Durbin

11:20 - 11:53

We're trying to solve a problem they've got. So I think knowing that people want what we're trying to create gives you kind of the fortitude to kind of push forward because you know that if you can create what people want, people are going to use it. So it's not, you don't need a big sales process. You don't need a lot of marketing. You're solving a problem that people have. And I think that's, you know, what gives me a lot of confidence in what we're doing because I know people have been asking for this and I know people want it.

Steve Durbin

11:53 - 12:01

So, so, so I'm, I'm solving problems for people and I think that, that allows you to kind of have, you know, a lot of confidence in what you're doing.

Gresham Harkless

12:01 - 12:14

Yeah, absolutely. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And you might've already touched on this, but this could be like an app, a book, or even a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Steve Durbin

12:14 - 13:07

At the end of each day, I kind of like to do a daily reflection of what worked, what didn't work. I'd like to say I keep a daily journal, but it's not really that rigorous. But I do like to look through my decision-making process and the outcomes and see what could have been done differently. So I think that kind of helps me reflect on the day. I like to try to take teachings away from each interaction. Some days there's not a lot to reflect on because it's pretty mundane, but there's other days where there's big decisions, especially when there's any sort of confrontation between what the business should be doing or there's two paths that both look Like they could be good decisions and we should choose one or the other.

Steve Durbin

13:08 - 13:26

I think another thing is, is I am like absolutely meticulous about task lists. I am always writing down things I need to get done. I prioritize them on timelines importance by, you know, segment, whether it's a finance thing, a tech thing.

Gresham Harkless

13:28 - 13:40

Absolutely. No, I love both of those. So what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this is like a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine.

Steve Durbin

13:41 - 14:28

The most important thing is to surround yourself with good people. I think that means both well-qualified, you know, good working, good, hardworking people, but also just good people. um, trustworthy people you can get along with. So I'm fortunate enough to have two co-founders who I definitely fall into that good people category. They're very hardworking. I think they're very smart and trustworthy and I've gotten to know them over several years. So I feel very confident in their abilities and that sort of needs to trickle all the way down. So you need to find, you know, same sort of good people to run, to be the CTO, to be your analysts, your developers, your marketing people, is to surround yourself with smart, hardworking, good people and empower them.

Steve Durbin

14:28 - 14:49

Allow them to succeed, move up in the chain, give them the latitude for themselves to be successful and contribute in ways that they think they can that maybe you never thought of. They might have an idea about something that's outside of their typical vertical of expertise, but it's good to see those outside perspectives

Gresham Harkless

14:49 - 15:00

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. Our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Steve, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Steve Durbin

15:00 - 15:44

Certainly means sort of being the guiding force of the company. You're responsible for overarching strategic decisions. I think it's also, to my point, it's you're responsible for the culture, ensuring that the work environment is productive for people. So I think you're kind of, you know, you're, you're, you're shepherding on a lot of people's careers and you want to make them successful because if these people are successful, you're going to be successful. So I think a lot of it is about, you know, empowering your, your team, you know, being the leader, being the person that's, that, that kind of sets the big decisions, but you got to rely on people for smaller decisions and rely on people for advice to come to those conclusions about how to run the business.

Gresham Harkless

15:45 - 16:00

Perfect, perfect, perfect. Well, Steve, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best to get a hold of you and your team and find out about all the awesome things you all are working on.

Steve Durbin

16:00 - 16:14

You can follow us on LinkedIn, at Right Chain. It's also on Twitter, it's on X, Telegram. LinkedIn all under Right Chain and the website's right.io. Awesome.

Gresham Harkless

16:14 - 16:23

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I truly appreciate that, Steve. Of course, to make that even easier, we're going to have links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Intro

16:24 - 16:25

Thank you. Thank

Gresham Harkless

16:25 - 16:26

you for listening to

Intro

16:26 - 16:54

the I am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business as CEOHacks.co. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.