Okay – this first issue is going to start very imprompt and with no context. And, I'll set a first-person tone here for the rest of my blogs too – sort of an inner dialogue voice. If anything I'm writing about sounds interesting to you, please DM me at @parthbl on Twitter.
2023 started off –– with grief, unfortunately, but nothing I was unprepared for. The start was hectic – I went through the biggest changes of my life while raising Tria's (then Threely) first round after Polygon accelerator.
You know the fundraising drill – back-to-back-to-back meetings to find the best investor fit for our pre-seed. Fast forwarding 60 days, we built an alpha and raised from Web3's best investors in an undisclosed round. Looking back, I couldn't have wished for a better set of investors.
During and after the raise, the team grew and was joined by absolute rockstars. Being a pre-seed, pre-public infra company, I wanted everybody to be together in the same room to build. A close friend found us a stunning villa in Bali. Crypto also happened to be widespread in Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Thai region so it was obvious to move there.
That's all crypto for now – About 6-7 core team members, soon expanding to 15+, shared a villa in Seminyak, Bali. We prepared our GTM, built product, and bonded better than we had ever imagined.
Living the Bali lifestyle – we crashed our motorbikes, dove with sharks and turtles, hiked, glamped, nursed hangovers, got hurt, disappointed, excited to see new cultures; and probably shared every bit of the human emotion spectrum with each other.
We were enabling our launch strategies in Bali and the surrounding countries for our a consumer beta test. In September, before leaving Bali – we launched an in-real Beta in Bali's biggest co-working space for our mobile apps, enabling point of sales (POS) based crypto payments. This was Tria's first time in the hands of people. We also officially changed our name from Threely to Tria.
Proud to be announcing Threely’s rebrand to ‘Tria’ - with our inaugural public beta @ Bali Bustle Co-working. We successfully introduced NFT-based, in-person, point-of-sales transactions to non-Web3 natives with an amazingly seamless user experience that everybody could use.
Before I wrap up Bali – here is my ride, Kawasaki Ninja with Yoshimura R77 exhaust.
Enroute to one of the coldest rice fields in bali.
Private black sand beach view from the resort I was staying at. Cycled to nearby villages.
Later, I was invited to speak at CoinFest as the team left bali to return back to base. I spent a few weeks in Singapore for Token2049.
Insightful time at @apeclubbali WAGMI+ Bali: ReDEFI-ning Onchain Future Co-hosts: @coin98_wallet, @dagoraxyz & @TomoChainANN Exclusive partners: @BuildOnBase, @PundiXLabs, @useThreely, @utopiaclub_, and @parashq. More Coinfest Week to come!
We further developed our infra and b2b interfaces (sdk) during the last quarter of 2023 – gearing up for a public launch with our major partners. In December 2023, during ETH India, we hosted an amazing event and had the greatest people join in.
It was a blast orchestrating Above & Beyond at ETH India alongside @safe, @MetaMask, @biconomy, @LayerZero_Labs, @routerprotocol, @Scroll_ZKP, @MantaNetwork, @lifiprotocol, @OPCryptoVC and more. Tria’s soirées are all about tight-knit intellectual overplay – See you next season.
what's next?
The stereotypical image of a founder tethered to their startup, sacrificing all for the company's sake, is a narrative I partially subscribe to (contrary to this post, I work 10h everyday). But I think what's made me a strong founder, and architect was actually spending time outside of work honing my skills in a more free-form manner. Working with other like-minded individuals (both tech and non-tech/founders) is one of my largest goals for 2024 as well.
Perhaps it's a reflection of newfound clarity, but for the first time, I can honestly say I just want more of what I'm already getting – the ability and resources to build a great, meaningful product while growing as a technical founder in my career. I'll be using this public post as a ledger of what I want to achieve – expect Tria to be a household name (atleast in Web3!), raise #2, and scale public launches with our partners to onboard the Web2 onto Web3.
Hopefully, you can look forward to more frequent (probably shorter, unfiltered, more first-person) entries from me in 2024. Stay hungry, Stay foolish. See you starside.
Me (left) and Jatin (right).