April 11, 2020
Silicon Valley venture capitalist and a long time Bitcoin bull Tim Draper says he has expected the current crash on financial markets to happen even without the new coronavirus pandemic. He also says that the current environment is a good time for innovation and a good time for venture capital.
“I did expect something to happen because we had heated up so much and people had unrealistic expectations for companies and they were valuing companies at super high prices. But I didn’t expect the virus to come and change everything for us. But in all cases, when all of these things sort of fall away, people start thinking for themselves and instead of just listening to the news, and some of the best entrepreneurial ideas come from this,” said Tim Draper in a recent interview with InnMind.
Tim Draper, who is the founder of Draper VC & Draper University, obviously believes that this tends to be a very good time for innovation.
“What’s more appealing and interesting is that all these technologies that people have been reticent to bring into their fold, are all of a sudden on the table. It’s a good time for venture, it can be a good time for venture capital. Once the venture capitalist is shored up all of their difficult companies, because it’s like a clean slate and the world is going through rethinking and this is the kind of time where all of these things that seemed possible, but maybe unlikely or at least unlikely for a number of years, are now on the table.”
Unsurprisingly, he is confident Bitcoin is going to flourish in a time like this.
“The governments are taking all of this money and then they’re printing super amounts of money. Trillion dollars, you know, huge amounts of money, where they’re going to put it out? Well, the government can’t put a trillion dollars out unless they just do a tax holiday. They can’t put a trillion dollars out into the economy very easily.”
“So, this is going to be a really interesting time where people say: “Well, wait, why don’t I just use Bitcoin? I know there are only 21 million. We don’t have to worry about whether a government is diluting their currency by printing tons of it. We can instead just use a currency we all agree on and it’s all a part of the economy. And it’s already frictionless, open, transparent and global, but why bother with these other ones?”
? Biggest #Bitcoin giveaway in history to take place at Los Angeles Blockchain Summit in October 2020#LABlockchainSummit #cryptocurrencies https://t.co/NcDyMDmUFu
— CryptøEvents /Stay Home Folks/ (@Crypt0Events) March 5, 2020
According to Tim Draper, that’s an exciting thing. He believes smart contracts are going to get more and more popular because people will see that efficiency and transparency are going to be much more important.
“People want to know what’s going on out there. And using Bitcoin, Blockchain and smart contracts, is going to open up sort of new ways of doing insurance, new ways of doing banking, new ways of doing real estate, all of these industries are going to be transformed. So it’s a horrible time, but then it’s also a renaissance for the future. This could be a horrible thing that turns out to be a great thing in a long term.”
When asked whether he would increase his investment activities due to the current situation, Tim Draper stressed that the first thing he had to do was to touch base with all of the existing entrepreneurs, and see what positions they’re in, if they know how to get through this, make sure they’re in strong positions moving forward.
“At the same time, we don’t want to miss some entrepreneur that comes through that might be the next unicorn, decacorn, santacorn, whatever. So, we are looking for, we’re still actively looking. And we haven’t really changed our tune, although valuations have to come down.”
Tim Draper also hopes his efforts will benefit many individuals and help them come through the current storm.
“We have to continue to evaluate the entrepreneurs. This is a very exciting time and I feel like we can accomplish a lot here. We can potentially save many lives, we can potentially save many businesses. So, I look and say, well, that’s my responsibility. I got to get out there. I got to do all this work.”
Full interview with Tim Draper is available in on InnMind’s YouTube channel:
Earlier this year, InnMind and Draper University announced the opening of admissions for Startup Bootcamp 2020, a 5-day intensive acceleration program from Silicon Valley for tech startups in Catalonia, Spain. If you want to meet Tim Draper’s team in person and get prepared for VC fundraising, join Silicon Valley Startup Bootcamp in Catalonia this October!
Additionally, InnMind has come up with a special dedicated landing page for startups that deal with the consequences of COVID-19. It contains all the recent articles and video interviews with VC investors from InnMind’s network sharing their opinions and forecasts on the current situation and venture market, as well as a number of useful resources, links and supportive materials for entrepreneurs.