Alex Mashinsky, Founder And CEO- Mashinsky.com – A Pioneer With Over 35 Patents, $1B+ Investment Raised, And $3B+ Successful Exits

Alex Mashinsky is one of the inventors of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) with a foundational patent dating back to 1994 and is now working on MOIP (Money Over Internet Protocol) technology.

Over 35 patents have been issued to Alex, relating to exchanges, VOIP protocols, messaging, and communication. Alex is a serial entrepreneur and founder of seven New York City-based startups, raising more than $1 billion and exiting over $3 billion. Alex founded two of New York City’s top 10 venture-backed exits since 2000: Arbinet, with a 2004 IPO that had a market capitalization of over $750 million; and Transit Wireless, valued at $1.2 billion. Alex has received numerous awards for innovation, including being nominated twice by E&Y as ‘Entrepreneur of the Year,’ in 2002 & 2011; Crain’s 2010 Top Entrepreneur; the prestigious 2000 Albert Einstein Technology medal; and the Technology Foresight Award for Innovation (presented in Geneva at Telecom 99).

As one of the pioneers of web-based exchanges, Alex authored patents covering the Smart Grid, ad exchanges, Twitter, Skype, App Store, Netflix streaming concept, and many other popular web companies. Additionally, Arbinet’s fundraising story was featured as a case study in 2001 by Harvard Business School.

In an exclusive interview with AsiaTechDaily, Alex says:

The best advice was to hire people smarter than you who also have skills you don’t have or not good at. My advice is to give it a try, many people are afraid to launch a startup, and then they are sorry they did not get to live their dreams.

• Find out what you are the best in the world at – Then go and become that person
• Give, and you shall receive 
• Do good before you do well

Read on to know more about Alex Mashinsky and his journey.

Please tell me about your personal background and What motivated you to get started with your company?

Alex Mashinsky: I started 8 companies as a founder, most of them focused on disruption of an existing industry like Arbinet.com in 1994, where I invented the VOIP service we all use in FREE today or Transitwireless.com, which built 5G & WiFi service in the NYC subways and gave it for free to 8m users. Celsius is just another system that takes Wall Street’s secrets of how to create and preserve wealth and bring it via the blockchain to 7.5B people worldwide. 

What is your current main product, and can you share any previous product pivot story to the current product?

Alex Mashinsky: Celsius pays up to 100X more interest than the average Bank by taking all the profits from managing money and giving 80% of it back to depositors instead of shareholders.

How much money have you raised in total so far? When was the recent funding round? 

Alex Mashinsky: For my first seven companies, I raised over $1B from VCs, but we used the community for Celsius to help us build a service for them that always acts in their best interest. We raised over $70M to date for Celsius. 

What were the internal decision processes in determining when to begin fund-raising, and what were the logistics for this? And how many investors have you met so far, and how did you meet these investors, and which channels worked best for you?

Alex Mashinsky: You usually build a prototype and then go and find VCs to fund your idea; we did it. Differently, we wrote a white paper and issued a token, then got over 1500 future customers of ours to fund the project and allow us to build what they wanted instead of what the VCs or we wanted. 

What are the biggest challenges and obstacles that you have faced in the process of fund-raising? If you had to start over, what would you do differently? 

Alex Mashinsky: It is hard to convince people that you are actually going to act in their interest, that you care for them; I have a 30-year track record of doing it and over 4B people use my technology for free, and yet many were skeptical that my intentions were pure and that I was not just trying to profit from an ICO. I would do it the same way if I had to do it again. 

What are your milestones for the next round? And what are your goals for the future? 

Alex Mashinsky: Our milestone is to enable as many average people to participate in our next round to benefit from the rise in the value of the company instead of the big investors who don’t want to share the wealth until the company is already worth many billions of dollars.

How have you attracted users, and with what strategy have you grown your company from the start to now?

Alex Mashinsky: We asked our community to tell their friends what we do, and it works very well; we took all the money normally being spent on advertising and gave it to our users as rewards for bringing their friends. 

Which has been the best marketing software tool for the growth of your startup, and why? 

Alex Mashinsky: We use Pipedrive, Monday, and a few other CRM software to manage our tasks and relationships.

What do most startups get wrong about marketing in general?

Alex Mashinsky: Startups spend lots of money before the product is ready or before they built or tested the idea with customers. Since many startups need to pivot once or twice, it is smart to get the product and messaging right and not be in a huge hurry to launch.

How do you plan to expand globally? 

Alex Mashinsky: We already offer the app in over 170 countries, but it helps to have local language support and local community buildup. 

What are the most common mistakes companies make with global expansion?

Alex Mashinsky: They go too fast, and without a real strategy or understanding of what local markets need, each country or even each city has its own microcosm of needs.

How do you handle this COVID-19 outbreak situation for your company’s survival in the future?

Alex Mashinsky: We were always a distributed company with our +100 employees working in 14 different countries and cities. Covid causes an acceleration of Celsius’s use, and we had to hire and train faster; this was a bit of a challenge as it was all done remotely.

What are the most common mistakes founders make when they start a company? 

Alex Mashinsky: They think they have the best idea and that no one tried it before, they think it will be easy to raise the money or hire people to join them.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And What advice do you have for someone who is interested in doing similar things like yours or in a similar direction?

Alex Mashinsky: The best advice was to hire people smarter than you who also have skills you don’t have or not good at. My advice is to give it a try, many people are afraid to launch a startup, and then they are sorry they did not get to live their dreams.

What are the top-three books or movies (TV series) that changed your life and why?

Alex Mashinsky:

• How to make friends and influence people – Dale Carnegie
• Think and grow rich – Napoleon Hill
• The Matrix movie 

How do you keep yourself motivated every day? 

Alex Mashinsky: My to-do list is always so long, and I have an obsession with making it shorter. 

What are the top- three life lessons that you want your (future) sons and daughters to know?

Alex Mashinsky:

• Find out what you are the best in the world at – Then go and become that person
• Give, and you shall receive 
• Do good before you do well

What would you like to be remembered for?

Alex Mashinsky: It would be to give others more than taking from this planet. For correcting my mistakes quickly and apologizing to anyone I may harm. 

You can follow Alex Mashinsky here.

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