EP42: Jon Holmquist – Will Consumers Use Bitcoin?

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Today, Liberty Entrepreneurs welcomes Jon Holmquist to the show.

Jon is the Head of Marketing at GoCoin and GoPayWin.com. He is the founder of Bitcoin Black Friday, worked at The Bitcoin Store, and Coinabul.

You can connect with Jon, and find out more about some of his entrepreneurial endeavors and insight on bitcoin and blockchains below:

Twitter: @Jon_HQ

http://www.jonhq.com/

http://gocoin.com/

https://www.gopaywin.com/

http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/26/technology/bitcoin-black-friday/index.html

Jon was introduced to the world of working online through gaming, receiving affiliate marketing checks as he was just entering high school.

When he reached the legal age of work, he did apply to minimum wage jobs, and didn’t get hired for any of them.

Jon was introduced to bitcoin by his brother who works at Wikipedia. Jon didn’t become interested in bitcoin until after he become sick of driving an hour and a half to play poker. He realized that there were sites online where he could play poker for bitcoin.

He is now the Head of Marketing at GoCoin, where he is focusing on the adult industry now, and getting them to accept bitcoin, and figuring out how to get their customers to use it.

Some early bitcoin startup work for Jon included Coinabul, where he left do to a disagreement with the CEO. Coinabul in 2013 became a defacto exchange – allowing people to cash out while not using the less than reliable exchanges like Mt. Gox at the time.

Jon was a big part of the success of The Bitcoin Store, founded by previous 2x Liberty Entrepreneur guest Roger Ver.

The Bitcoin Store answered the question, when the other answers at the time were pretty sparse: “But what can you actually buy with bitcoin?”

Roger’s unique goal: Make Bitcoin Store so successful that it would run itself out of business.

In the interview we get Jon’s insight on why hasn’t Amazon accepted bitcoin yet.

Favorite Quote on finding developers to work with your project:

“If you are looking for programmers, the best thing to do is to find people who are working on side projects on github, that aren’t related to their main job, especially during the work day. Because it means they are bored out of their mind at their main job.”

We talk about how to turn side-projects and hobbies into an entrepreneurial lifestyle, or as Jon puts it, ’embracing the chaos’.

That’s it for this week’s episode.

Keep. Building. Freedom.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]