Jul 19,2021
Dear Cake DeFi Community!
Q2 2021 turned out to be a completely different quarter for Cake DeFi, more so than any of the quarters. From a price and market sentiment perspective, it was one of the worst quarters in the history of crypto, with most cryptocurrencies dropping by over 50%, and investor interest even more so.
Nevertheless, Q2 2021 ended up being the best quarter yet for us, hitting all-time highs in revenues, rewards paid out, customer numbers, and profits. Additionally, our extremely conservative treasury management proved to be a strategically sound move, putting us well on track to achieve our 2021 targets. These are the moments we live for, and I am so proud of just how far we’ve come in this journey that only started two years ago — yes, we celebrated our 2nd anniversary on June 7th.
We started the quarter quite unexpectedly, as our two outside investors signalled U-Zyn and I that they would be open to be bought out — if the price was right. If you have ever been involved in intense negotiations, you know just how taxing such an event can be. In the end, the four of us found an option that worked, and allowed U-Zyn and I to become 50/50 partners in a company that is now worth around 300 million USD, and on track to being a unicorn over the next year. I want to thank U-Zyn here for always being 100% aligned to our vision, especially during the many late night phone calls and discussions. Also, my wife Bettina, who kept me sane as we got closer to the finish line and the final details seemed to drag out. Furthermore, our legal council, Ezra, who ensured all the legal work was completed under the time pressure. Being 100% team owned not only aligns our incentives, but ensures a long-term focus on our decision-making.
I am so amazed by how much the entire team was able to achieve in such a short time and how well we dealt with the various obstacles that came before us. I want to reiterate how proud and thankful I am of all of us at Cake DeFi. Whenever we had issues with our platform or something had to be dealt with urgently, the team pulled together doing weekends and/or all-nighters, making sure our customers’ experience was aligned to our team principle of customer obsession. Without each and every one of them and their contributions, our results would have been completely different.
With that being said, let’s shift our focus to the specific amazing results we were able to achieve in the past quarter. So, let’s go, time to show off:
I may not have listed every single achievement — there have been so many this past quarter — but that does not make them any less important. Once again, I would like to express my gratitude to the entire team that made all this possible with their creativity, hard work and passion, especially during these trying times with the pandemic, lock-downs, crypto crashes, etc.
I want to finish this personal reflection with the things I will especially get involved in over the upcoming quarter, as I believe the following points are especially essential for our success:
A quick reminder of our goals until the end of 2021:
OKR 1: Be a disruptor of traditional financial systems. We achieve this by offering the six investment categories of cryptocurrencies, securities, precious metals, commodities, currencies and collectibles as digital payment tokens to our users in all FATF regulated countries, who will be able to invest in these individually or in the form of algorithmic funds with the simple click of a button, and without the traditional heavy regulations.
OKR 2: Be a sustainable and cash flow positive company. We achieve this by having 2 billion USD assets on the platform from 1 million users, returning enough net revenue per year to pay for all our costs.
OKR 3: Be a unicorn. We achieve this by being valued with at least a 1 billion USD valuation.
Breaking this down for Q3 2021, I see the following main three goals for Cake DeFi:
OKR 1: Have an offer for non-crypto users. We achieve this by working on our user experience and offering synthetics.
OKR 2: Be a sustainable and cash flow positive company. We achieve this by growing our user base and their funds by at least 100%.
OKR 3: Be on the road to become a unicorn. We achieve this by our team members being Cake DeFi and DFI owners, and by being in the process of our external audit.
I hope you are as excited about the journey ahead. If you are one of our existing customers, I want to express my gratitude! I hope you continue using our service even more and this transparency helps you with this. If you are not yet one of our customers, give it a chance and try it out! Let us amaze you! And, if you are open to working with us, please apply! We are looking for about 25 more team members until the end of the year: http://cakedefi.com/jobs
Julian
PS.: If you haven’t done so already, follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/cakedefi) for all our updates.
Find the full version of this transparency report with all details on the various company departments here.