Wall Street to Dubai: How Tan Gera Turned $57K Into Millions After a Total Crypto Crash

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex

Episode: Wall Street to Dubai: How Tan Gera Turned $57K Into Millions After a Total Crypto Crash
Date: December 22, 2025
Host: Paul Alex Espinoza
Guest: Tan Gera (CEO & Co-founder, Decentralized Masters)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Paul Alex sits down with Tan Gera, ex-investment banker, current Dubai resident, and founder of Decentralized Masters—a nine-figure global crypto education company. The conversation traces Tan’s journey from Wall Street to financial independence and business-building in Dubai, focusing on how he used adversity—including a massive crypto loss and regulatory hurdles—to fuel his ultimately massive success. Key themes include mindset, strategic risk-taking, the importance of community, and the nitty-gritty behind scaling a modern online education empire.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tan’s Origin Story: From Wall Street to Crypto (02:17–05:00)

• Background: Tan is an ex-investment banker who moved into crypto after initially viewing it as a technological and financial opportunity, despite early criticism and skepticism.
• First Success & Loss: Made seven figures in crypto during the 2017-18 bull run, only to lose it all in the 2018 crash.
  • “I tasted what freedom could be, even though it was just numbers.” (03:18, Tan)
• Motivation: Having experienced “a taste” of financial freedom, Tan became set on achieving not just financial, but also time and location freedom.

2. Pivotal Moment: Using COVID for Leverage (03:18–05:00)

• COVID-19 as Opportunity: Remote work during COVID allowed Tan to start side hustles, including drop shipping, ultimately leading to increased active income that he could reinvest in crypto.
  • “The moment Covid came, they sent us home… That’s when I actually started with dropshipping.” (03:55, Tan)

3. Defining Freedom and Overcoming Skepticism (05:17–09:33)

• Types of Freedom: Tan identifies three freedoms—financial, time, and location—and sees all as necessary for true independence.
  • “There’s three types of freedom… I tasted financial, and I was like, I want all three.” (05:33, Tan)
• Skepticism: Most people around him doubted crypto and entrepreneurship, so he sought out like-minded communities online.
  • “You have to find that niche group of people who think like you.” (08:01, Tan)
  • Research finding: Success is often determined by your environment—“literally zip code”—and the people you surround yourself with.

4. Parental and Cultural Pressures (09:33–10:24)

• Conservative upbringing: Tan kept his crypto involvements secret from his parents, who prized his lucrative and prestigious banking path.
  • “I couldn’t tell them because they didn’t have that vision. They don’t have that understanding.” (09:33, Tan)

5. Scaling the Business: From Idea to Multi-Million Dollar Company (13:14–19:37)

• Dropshipping as a Launchpad: Profits went into crypto. Built and sold a dropshipping brand to fund further investment.
• Turning Point: Developed a unique crypto investment strategy, turning $57,000 into $1.87 million.
  • “That was the decisive moment of my life. When it was happening, I didn’t know this was going to change everything for me.” (13:58, Tan)

Why Teach? (14:59–16:55)

• Purpose in Education: Teaching enabled sustainable business growth by financing a research team, community, and leveraging “reciprocity.”
  • “If they succeed, thanks to you, they will love you for the rest of your life… and they will be your top ambassador.” (16:14, Tan)

Early Struggles: Crypto Industry Pushback (17:21–19:37)

• Unanticipated Setbacks: Regulatory headwinds, industry shadow bans, and banking shutdowns nearly wiped the company out.
  • “Stripe refunded all our customers. We got debanked… Ad accounts… It was literally impossible to do anything.” (17:56, Tan)
  • “If I was a new entrepreneur… That was tough.” (19:37, Tan)

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6. Strategy for Growth: Offer, Team Building, and Marketing (21:45–24:28)

• Importance of Offer: The right offer trumps all; pivoting or refining is essential:
  • “If your offer is good, meaning people want this, it’s game over.” (22:34, Tan)
• Marketing Lessons from Dropshipping: Tan directly managed ads, created compelling video sales letters, and personally took early sales calls.
  • “You can’t delegate something unless the founder himself walks the path…” (23:55, Tan)
• Team Dynamics: Early hiring sequence:
  • Admin tasks first, then sales reps (always two at a time for comparison), then scale up.
  • “Whenever you hire two salespeople, get two… That’s the next thing you do.” (26:17, Tan)

7. Scaling Tactics: Funnels, Channels, and Client Selection (24:28–34:38)

• Funnel Strategy: One solid funnel can take you to $2.5M/month before you need more.
  • “We didn’t deploy a second funnel up until we reached 2.5 mil.” (30:01, Tan)
• Marketing Channels: Meta ads with long-form video sales letters were key, especially with an uneducated market requiring more explanation.
  • “You need more education… Requires more marketing skills because you go after a more difficult market.” (30:29, Tan)
• Targeting Boomers: Focused on an overlooked, high-value audience (boomers with 80% of wealth), rather than younger, more tech-savvy but less wealthy consumers:
  • “Boomers hold 80% of the world’s wealth… We actually priced people out aggressively. We’re extremely expensive… We’re the Harvard of crypto.” (32:03, Tan)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Once you get results, what happens? You use those customer results everywhere in your marketing… your customers bring more customers and that’s it.” (00:31, Tan)
• “If you have a skill, go and teach it. You’ll see.” (16:14, Tan)
• “When you charge a lot of money, you don’t have to run after acquisition. You don’t have to run after shitty customers that you don’t want.” (38:40, Tan)
• “If you can charge 15, go for it. Anything under 8-9, it’s going to be difficult.” (34:38, Tan)
• “The first six months of when we launched this were a nightmare. And I lost a lot of money.” (17:21, Tan)
• “If you believe in AI and that in five years from now there’s going to be AI agents transacting for you... do you think they’re going to be transacting in US dollars or using some form of digital currency?” (43:57, Tan)

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Practical Advice & Action Steps

For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

• Start with Active Income:

  • “Before you invest money, you need money.” (42:43, Tan)
  • Master driving traffic and selling online to build capital.

• Invest Early, Even if Small:

  • “Invest your first grand or so… Your brain suddenly gets very involved.” (40:23, Tan)

• Find Your Tribe:

  • Surround yourself with like-minded believers (Telegram/WhatsApp communities, zip code matters).

• Delegate Wisely, Scale Process:

  • Admin → Sales (always two people) → Product → Push & Optimize Funnel → Add Channels.

For Those Getting Started in Crypto

• Free Learning:
  • Join groups like “Sovereign Collective,” leverage YouTube and newsletters (e.g., Milk Road) for basics.
• If You Have Capital & Seek Acceleration:
  • Apply to vetted, high-touch programs (Decentralized Masters) and be prepared for strict selection.
• Mindset:
  • Avoid “get rich quick” offers—seek education and strategic, high-quality guidance.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:17 — Tan’s background and entry into crypto
• 03:18 — First big win, crash, and financial “taste”
• 08:01 — The role of environment, “zip code” for success
• 13:14 — Turning $57K into $1.87M
• 14:59 — The motivation to teach and scale
• 17:21 — Six months of struggle: industry pushback
• 21:45 — Scaling from zero to $3M/month
• 22:34 — The power of a good offer
• 32:03 — Targeting the right (boomer) customer
• 34:38 — Optimal starting price points for programs
• 40:23 — First steps for learning and entering crypto
• 42:43 — Best advice to Tan’s “old self”
• 43:57 — Macro future: AI, digital currencies, and crypto’s inevitability

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Conclusion & Where to Find Tan

Tan emphasizes the critical nature of community, the importance of a strong offer, and the rigor of execution over shortcuts. For those looking to engage with him, Tan is most active on LinkedIn; he also hosts a free learning group, “Sovereign Collective.” His closing insight: you do not need a personal brand to succeed—you need relentless focus, authenticity, and the willingness to serve your best clients.

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Transcript

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[Tan Guerra]

$57,000 in crypto into 1.87 million. What we did is we actually priced people out aggressively. We're extremely expensive and we're happy to be because we're the Harvard of crypto. And that brings only the top of the top quality people. And what happens when you bring top quality people at a high price? They're engaged, they're smart, they put in the effort, they get results. Once you get the results, what happens? You use those customer results everywhere in your marketing. You don't have to market because your customers bring more customers and that's it.

[Paul Alex]

What would you say is the perfect price point? Especially when you are starting up a startup like this to charge. Hey guys and welcome back to Level Podcast. This is Paul Alex and today we have a great interview with the CEO and co founder of Decentralized Masters. It's a nine figure global finance company dedicated to making fair and accessible financial services available to everyone. Guys, we're going to be talking about crypto, okay? And I'm here with the man, the myth, the legend, Tan Gara. How are you doing, my man?

[Tan Guerra]

Good, thank you for having me, my friend.

[Paul Alex]

No, absolutely, man. What time is it where you're at right now?

[Tan Guerra]

So Dubai, 5pm sunset. Coming together. It's looking nice.

[Paul Alex]

I love it. I love it. Yeah, I got, I got a piece of property over there that I'm selling over there at Business Bay, brother. Let me know if you're interested after the podcast.

[Tan Guerra]

I'm more of a Palm Jumeirah person, you know, Business Bay. I'll have to see.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, yeah, no, but let's get into it, brother. So for my audience that does not know you, who are you?

[Tan Guerra]

So I'm Tan Gira, founder of Decentralized Masters. Basically I'm an ex investment banker that saw the light and then I decided to switch my focus to actually digital assets or crypto because I recognized that actually it's a great technology and despite people calling it a scam, it definitely isn't. So, you know, I decided to go my own way. Despite having a promising career, let's say, and so far, so good. It actually paid off. And today we're the world's leader in crypto education in the world.

[Paul Alex]

I love that. I love that. I have actually a mentee and a really good friend that is a crypto enthusiast. And he was very excited that I was actually interviewing you because essentially what you do is what he's trying to do, but here based in the US So it should be a very good conversation. So when did you first start getting into this niche of, hey, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and Exchange the regular 9 to 5 to starting my own startup?

[Tan Guerra]

Okay. So Basically, in the 201718 cycle, I tasted what money was. Right. I was starting my career in investment banking, but I did really well with crypto. I went to seven figures and then I lost it with the 2018 crash. So all my profits vanished. But at least I tasted what freedom could be, even though it was just numbers. So then I kept on going with my finance career, but then I was like, very set in my mindset. I was like, I have to make it. And I know that a nine to five, even if, you know it's the dream investment banking career, it's still a 9 to 5. So it's not gonna help me get to where I want to be. So I always had this thing, insight, and then I seized the opportunity when it came, which was Covid. Why? Because in investment banking, you spend your entire day and your night and your evening and everything at the office. Right. So you don't have time to do anything else. But the moment Covid came, they sent us home so I could work from home. Now I don't have all the eyes watching my desk, watching my screen. That's when I actually started with dropshipping.

[Paul Alex]

Wow. So you started leveraging your time as soon as you got that freedom of working from home.

[Tan Guerra]

Right away. Right away.

[Paul Alex]

And that's a smart move, man. That's something very similar that I did myself back when I worked in law enforcement. I saw that I was working 80 to 100 hour work weeks. I was like, dude, there has to be a better way to make a living here in America. And I decided to pivot. Exact same thing. So you were in that time in your journey of trying to figure it out with different ventures?

[Tan Guerra]

Yeah, I mean, my goal was. Has always been because I tasted what crypto could do. My goal was, how do I increase my active income so that I pour everything into crypto and I, you know, I know I'll make it. And so, yeah, that's how I did it.

[Paul Alex]

And then. And then tan. When you say you had a taste just for my audience to know, what is a taste of freedom to you, brother? What was that taste before the crash that you got to experience before you lost it all?

[Tan Guerra]

I come from a poor background, right? Like, my parents are immigrants, so I'm not born with money. And so when in 2017, I was. I was young, right? I was 22 years old, I had, like, seven digits on my portfolio. Obviously, I was taking some of that money out. And in New York City, that is very expensive. I was just, you know, enjoying my time there. So I didn't have time freedom yet, but I tasted what financial freedom was, which was the good life. You know, you can afford to do anything that you want to do. So that's what I tasted. But I realized after that that I also wanted time freedom, and I also wanted location freedom. There's three types of freedom, right? You have financial freedom, time freedom, location freedom. I tasted financial, and I was like, okay, I'm very set. I want all three. So that's what I was able to do later on.

[Paul Alex]

That's awesome, man. And you also did this with a. Did you have, like, a friend or a mentor that was guiding you through your crypto journey during that time before the crash?

[Tan Guerra]

Well, not really. I actually did it on my own, to be honest with you. It's more on the business side, where I had a good friend of mine who was, you know, ahead of me that helped me. On the crypto side, not really, because we were all the same level. We were all starting because it was so new, so it's not really applicable, actually. I was ahead because I understood investments, thanks to my background. Right. Which they didn't necessarily, So I was with techies and coders and all these guys trying to make money in crypto because it was very small. And on the business side, though, it's my friend, actually, who dabbled into E commerce before I did, and he just cut my learning curve in half, I would say, just by telling me, hey, don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this. It went quickly. As soon as I was generating my first thousands a month, I was pouring everything into my crypto strategy. And, yeah, it worked.

[Paul Alex]

Wow, that's amazing, man. And when you go ahead and you say you were the only one, did you have people around you that you tell or you told them, like, hey, you know, made a little bit of money off crypto? This is amazing. You guys should Try doing the same thing. What did they end up telling you?

[Tan Guerra]

Most people are super skeptical. You know, usually that's how it happens. So you have to find that niche group of people who actually think like you, and there always is one somewhere. Okay, look, you know, there was a research by Harvard students one day, and I'm going to ask you the question, what do you think is the common, the most decisive factor that determines someone's success?

[Paul Alex]

Do you know your environment, man? To me, it's environment, zip code.

[Tan Guerra]

It's literally zip code. And like zip code is a, you know, synonym of environment. It's literally the people you hang out with and that determines where you're going to end. So when it came to crypto, I actually was part of some WhatsApp groups and like telegram groups back in the days of people who taught like me, and they wanted to make in this space, and they were like, this is great, it's going to work. And so that just kept me going, even if the rest of the world kept saying, no, no, no, you can't do it. It's a scam, it's not going to work. You know, I had this thing, I had this support system, the believers. So it's important to have that.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, I mean, it's a big needle mover for a lot of people. And I think with a lot of people that they go into any type of industry or any new venture, just like you did. Right. Having is very crucial because of the belief that you're instilled. Right. Did, did your parents, were your parents supportive of you investing into crypto in the very beginning or, or did you keep it a secret?

[Tan Guerra]

I didn't tell them. I come from a very conservative. I'm from Indian descent. Right. And so they saw me working my ass off to get. To break into investment banking, to break into Wall Street. It's very, very difficult. Yeah. And so once I made it, it was impossible for me to go and tell them, hey, you know what? I'm going to. I'm probably going to quit and go for crypto and be what, like, or drop shipping? What. What are you saying? But I knew that this was just a launchpad to one day build my own stuff, which is, you know, what eventually happened. But you can't tell them that because they don't have that vision. They don't have that understanding of what you want to do. So that's why you need to find people who do, people who are like you. And there are 100%.

[Paul Alex]

No, absolutely, man. And I'm such a big believer. And I feel like we have that connection now because we have very similar beliefs, brother. And you know, I get goosebumps every time I talk about this because it's so real. And the people that listen to this, they, they, they understand this and they feel it, especially when they hear interviews just like this. Guys like you, right, because you're still in your 20s or you're your early 30s now.

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[Tan Guerra]

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[Tan Guerra]

Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back in Disney's Freakier Friday, now streaming on Disney plus. We switched bodies. I am freaking out right now.

[Paul Alex]

I think I just peed a little.

[Tan Guerra]

It's an absolute riot and the only movie that can be described as so much weirder than the last time.

[Commercial Narrator]

What?

[Tan Guerra]

Last time? It's the Frequel. You ready? We've been waiting for that Absolutely slays Disney's Freakier Friday, now streaming on Disney.

[Paul Alex]

Rated PG.

[Tan Guerra]

I turned 30 literally a month ago.

[Paul Alex]

Oh, man. Congratulations, brother. You are your prime. Dude. They always say for men, right? It's as soon as you enter your 30, that is your prime. That is when you are established, you know what you want, you know yourself. Now, you're, like, locked in, right? And for you, you know, you sacrificed in the very beginning to get to where you're at right now. So with that being said, you went ahead, you started drop shipping, and then what ended up happening?

[Tan Guerra]

So I poured my initial capital, all the profits that was coming in, into crypto, to develop my strategy that I had in mind since the previous crash. That was going well. And the drop shipping thing was just to test out the product. As soon as I saw that the product was doing well, I actually made it a brand. I bought inventory, I turned it into a real brand. Dropshipping was just the testing phases. So as soon as that became a reality, I started running up this brand, and all the profits kept going into crypto. And then with crypto, that's where I was making a big difference, Right? So I turned $57,000 in crypto into 1.87 million.

[Xtandi Sponsor]

Wow.

[Tan Guerra]

Yeah. With my own strategy, Right. Which, you know, now we teach to our clients, our 4,000 members. So that was the decisive moment of my life. But when it was happening, I didn't know that this was going to change everything for me. That brand, I eventually sold it, by the way, and then I decided to do what I. I mean, it just came naturally. It was like, okay, I need to teach people how to invest their money in crypto and use my strategy because it works. It's. It's battle testing. And so that's what we do.

[Paul Alex]

I love that. The fact that you analyze, you're like, hey, you know what? I need to have a proven concept. I need to go ahead and validate it, which I'm a big believer in, man. I've done three different offers in the past six years in the online space, and people always ask, like, well, if you have massive success. And I'm going to ask you the same thing. If you have massive success in an industry and you're making a lot of money like you did, dude, why teach it?

[Tan Guerra]

Okay. For us, it's different, I feel. So, look, our thing is crypto is such a. There's like, maybe 10 to 15,000 tokens that get launched every single day, Right. For me to keep growing, first of all, I realized that I needed a team. A team comes expensive. Like, if I want to have my own research team, I have to pay a payroll. It's a drag, right? So I was like, first of all, even to recover that Cost. I need to bring clients in so that I can share that knowledge of that research team. But that became a thing where they were doing so well. They were loving it. I was like, hey, this is a business, right? And I can teach them my strategy. Now that research team went on to become the literal one of the top research teams in the world. And so we scaled the business with it because then your brain starts thinking differently and you're like, wait a minute. This can actually become way more than I ever anticipated. Now the real value stands in the community. We have 4,000 people who are like, high net worth. It's so valuable. Like one connection, one handshake, one business deal. Boom, done. So those who say, why do you teach it? They don't realize that actually teaching and education, teaching someone how to fish instead of just giving them a fish once triggers what we call the principle of reciprocity. If they succeed, thanks to you, they will love you for the rest of your life and they will buy any other product that you create, and they will be your top ambassador and they will be your supporter and the fulfillment you get from doing that. I get goosebumps every single time one of our customers just writes me on LinkedIn on any of my posts, you just wake up happy, right? You're making a difference. So that's why I actually encourage anyone. If you have a skill, go and teach it. You'll see.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, no, absolutely, man. So you, you went from drop shipping, you sold a successful brand, and you reinvested all your earnings back into launching this, this great platform. And when was that aha moment when you knew this was going to be big? When you started going ahead and actually teaching that community of 4,000 people, you were like, dude, this is going to be what takes me.

[Tan Guerra]

Moon, you will not believe it, but actually, the first six months of when we launched this were a nightmare. And I lost a lot of money. We poured, you know, mid six figures into this with my co founder to really do it well. Like, you know, we invested into the platform and our course, like everything, okay, first employees, etc. Because we had money. But what ended up happening that we didn't expect is that the entire industry fought back. Basically stripe refunded all our customers. We got debanked. So our banks were shutting our accounts. They were like, what's going on? Right? Ad accounts. So Facebook was shutting us down, YouTube was shutting us down. So it was literally impossible to do anything. And the reason why is because. And we learned that way later. You have Mark Anderson, the one of the co founders of Anderson Horowitz that went on Joe Rogan's podcast, you know, show, and he explained that actually Biden's administration had decided to shadow ban the crypto industry. Meaning there's no official law. There's nothing that has been put out there that is not allowed. But they went to banks and they went to service providers and payment processes and anything that is essential for a business to grow, and they told them if there's anything linked to the word crypto, you shut it down.

[Paul Alex]

Wow. Wow.

[Tan Guerra]

Yeah. Which is completely illegal, by the way.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Tan Guerra]

But there was nothing to fight against. There's no proof. There's nothing you can do. You just get canceled. And so for the first six months, they literally Stripe refunded. I remember $50,000 to our customers, our first customers. And our customers sent emails to Stripe saying, hey, I don't want to be refunded. I love the service. I don't want the refund. And they're like, no, no, no. So you know what they did? They didn't even refund. They kept the money for three months. It was just locked. So thank God we had funds and I had made my, you know, my money beforehand, because if I was a new entrepreneur. Wow, that was tough.

[Paul Alex]

What a wiped you out, man. And it happens to so many entrepreneurs. I mean, I think it was the same story with me on Stripe. Back in middle of 2023, they locked up about 700k of my funds with one of my ventures. So it's a story that happens to everybody, Guys, that. If you guys are listening and watching this right now, I mean, what tan is going through is exactly what I went through with literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of other entrepreneurs in the online space went through. Well, so that's. That's. It's crazy to hear. That's crazy to hear. So when that happened, what was the next move for you guys, which is very critical at the store?

[Tan Guerra]

Well, first of all, we didn't break. And that taught me something that is super important, is that this guy is going to be my business partner for the rest of my lifetime, which is very difficult to find. Right. So, Saleem, if you're hearing this, we're together, bro. The thing is, when you start with the hardship and then you start getting some success, because we just fought, right? We opened new accounts, and we just found solutions to problems. That's what an entrepreneur needs to do in the first year or so, I would say, is just fix the problems from yesterday. That's it. So just Keep fixing, keep fixing, right? Be a problem solver. So we did that and eventually it clicked. And from, you know, after the first six months where it was tough, then we scaled from zero to over 3 million a month in the span of 17 months. Every single month was a record breaking month. We just kept scaling, kept scaling because the demand was huge. And we realized everyone wants this, everyone wants to learn how to take control of their money, right? Have how to manage this and like how to use the liquidity pools and like how to invest in this world. It's just that it's difficult and they need someone to teach them. And the demand was insane. Like really insane. And to this day, I mean, it's been what, three years now? And fast forward, today we're like 130 employees in the company. It's wild.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, 130 employees, man. You guys are changing lives. You guys are getting the fulfillment of helping literally thousands of entrepreneurs out there get educated in this space. With that being said, brother, what would you say? What was one of the most pivotal moves to get that type of growth? Like what type of marketing were you guys doing? Was your organic marketing strong? Did you guys have good operators on the back end to go ahead and run ads? How did you go ahead and get this massive growth month to month? Especially in the very beginning? Because a lot of people that launch an online program or an education program like yours, they find trouble with client acquisition. But it seems like you didn't. So what is the secret behind what you guys did?

[Tan Guerra]

The offer. If your offer is good, meaning people want this, it's game over, right? I know a very good friend of mine, maybe people will with the numbers, understand, I will not say the name, but in the AI space, okay, they had a typical SMMA type of growth offer, helping marketers do better, whatever agencies, and they were stuck at 500k a month, which is great by the way, but 500k a month for maybe 2 years and then suddenly they pivoted the offer to an AI offer and they went to in six months to 5 million a month. So number one, just figure out your offer and keep changing and testing and tweaking that okay? It's the biggest lift. But then, you know I told you about the drop shipping thing. Well, drop shipping taught me all those marketing how to create ads and then how to run traffic and like how to do paid ads, how to run Facebook ads. All of these skills are very necessary because when we launched this company, I was doing the marketing and the sales myself, meaning I was running the ads with my co founder, we created a bomb vsl. So we just created that funnel, right? And then when the calls were getting booked, I was taking the sales calls myself initially. You see a lot of people who actually delegate a lot of these things because they think it's not for them or it's beneath them. It's not. I was already a millionaire and yet I was taking the sales calls. Why? Because you can't delegate something unless the founder himself walks the path and like, understands what the customer wants and tweaks and like, okay, now I've reached that critical mass where I know this is dialed in and I can delegate it and I will know if someone is doing well or not, you know, representing the brand, serving the customer, et cetera. So you have to do these things and learn these skills. You have to.

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[Paul Alex]

Yeah, no, absolutely, brother. And I'm such a big believer in that. It's almost like, you know, you're, you're sharing a very similar story of mine. I always say you have to lead by example, right? And that includes doing the marketing, the sales, the appointment setting, I mean, whatever it is that you're doing in the process to go ahead and, and bring the revenue. Because the biggest three needle movers. Guys, for you guys listening right now, client acquisition, sales and fulfillment, right? It's everything in business. So when it comes down to it, you were going ahead and you were the perfect example of what to do, especially in a Startup just like this. So when you went ahead and you started growing, when did you start detaching yourself from doing sales marketing? When did you get big enough where you were just like, okay, I need to work on the business, not in the business.

[Tan Guerra]

Okay, so again, okay, I'll tell you the whole, you know, timeline if you want. So how did it go when we started? And by the way, for those who want to understand how to delegate in what sequence, there's a good book, buy back your time from Dan Martell. It tells you which sequence to hire. Like it's very good. So basically first thing, admin, whatever admin that is taking like, you know, what people call the $10 job, you need to get away from that, right? Because that's just taking up your time in a day. It's too precious and it's just going to keep accumulating. So get an assistant, get vas, get that help, okay? It's needed. Your time is worth more. Second comes usually sales, but you need to sell first. And my tip is to hire two salespeople at once, never one. Because you will never know if the one guy you hire is not closing. You will never know if it's him or the offer. If you have two people and both are not closing, then it's probably a lead quality issue or something. If you hire two people, one is closing, one is not. Okay, it was just a person issue. Okay, so small tip here. Whenever you hire two salespeople, get two. Like setters or closers get two. So that's the next thing you do. You close your first 20, 30, 40, 50 customers as soon as you have a 30% close rate delegate. Okay, so that's the second thing. Then you become what, the sales manager. That's what I did. I became the sales manager. I was managing my salespeople, just reviewing one call here and there, making sure that they're serving the customer. But in the meanwhile, I could focus on the product because after sales you need to make sure. Because now you have sales coming in. You have to make sure that your customers, your first customers are doing well there. You build the product around them, okay? The first version of your product is never going to be. You're never going to know until you get the feedback. So get that feedback and iterate on the product super rapidly. Okay? And then what you do is you just keep scaling. You push as hard as you can to see where it breaks. Don't be shy, just keep going, keep going. Push, push, push, push, push, push, push. On one acquisition channel, all Right. Then you will hit a ceiling at some point. For example, if you're doing meta ads, one funnel, two, three, four closes, and two, three people on the fulfillment side, you will hit a ceiling eventually, okay. Where every dollar you invest is going to be diminishing returns. That's when you need to pause a second and think, okay, you have two options. Either you bring someone in that will help you liquidate your existing ad spend, which could be appointment setters, or do I need to go on a different acquisition method which is, okay, maybe YouTube ads, maybe TikTok ads, maybe this, maybe that. Right? That's your choice as an entrepreneur in your market, in your niche, you need to decide. And then again you push and you keep scaling. All right? As soon as that is done now, there will be a moment when you're in the million dollar a month mark. Okay? Not before you might need to create a second funnel, third funnel, and re become, you know, that kind of a creative person and restart the process. But before the million dollar a month, you don't need to. One funnel is enough.

[Paul Alex]

So one funnel, especially for anyone that's listening right now, based on your experience, one funnel should be enough to actually get you to that million dollar mark and you should be able to push it past that. Once you do pass that million dollar mark, that's when you should deploy a second or third funnel.

[Tan Guerra]

Not even to be honest with you, we didn't deploy a second funnel up until we reached 2.5 mil.

[Paul Alex]

And then what was your main client acquisition channel when you first started?

[Tan Guerra]

Meta.

[Paul Alex]

Meta. And then were you running like ads directly to book a call or like a video sales letter or a webinar or DM ads? What was it exactly?

[Tan Guerra]

Video sales letter for our video sales letter. Yeah. There's like, it depends on how much on how educated on the awareness level of your audience. Right. If you're coming up with a new SMMA offer, I mean everyone knows what it is, right? Or Airbnb or Amazon, people know, understand that. So you can have a shorter, like kind of educational piece. For a market like ours where no one had a clue of what defi is, you need more education. And so we had to create longer video sales letters where we actually explained in depth. So it requires more marketing skills because you go after a more difficult market. Don't think that because it's a blue ocean, it's easy actually. You have to create the demand. So it's actually more difficult. But if the offer hits and you're in a blue ocean, then you skip like within.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's great, great advice. How were you able to create such a demand to get you guys to that 130, I mean, million dollar mark, man. I mean, that's remarkable. Right? And a lot of people dream of getting to that type of point in their career, especially when they launch an education space. So what was it that you did as far as just was your marketing on point? Was it you had a really good sales team. What can you say was the determining factor for your business?

[Tan Guerra]

Something else. We chose our market very well. Meaning crypto is filled with young people. Okay. But one day we saw a graph that was saying that boomers hold 80% of the world's wealth. 80%. And yet everyone in the crypto market was going after the 20% of the wealth, which is basically people under 40 or even 30 years of age. But they're tech savvy, they can figure things out. They don't need education. They have Twitter. It's enough. They understand how to go in Solana and buy a meme coin. Right. But boomers, not necessarily. And the thing is, they're better customers. They want to be educated. They have more time, they have more money, they have experience in the markets, they have patience, they have willingness to build a legacy. They are not looking for get rich quick schemes because they're well established, they're more in capital protection. So when you teach them savvy investment strategies, they're going to listen, they're going to be good customers. And so what we did is we actually priced people out aggressively. We're extremely expensive. We're happy to be because we're the Harvard of crypto. Right. And that brings only the top of the top quality people in. And what happens when you bring top quality people at a high price? Well, they're engaged, they're smart, they put in the effort, they get results. Once you get the results, what happens? You use those customer results everywhere in your marketing and you just like, you don't have to market because your customers bring more customers. And that's it.

[Paul Alex]

That's it. I love that. It's a winning formula for anyone that's listening right now, guys. I mean, get a good product, put it out there, charge your worth. Right. And what did you guys go ahead and start like, as far as a starting point to make it a no brainer to people to invest with you? Especially nowadays? Because some people, they think charging $5,000 is a lot. They think charging $10,000 is a lot. Even though I've seen offers that range, you know, fifty thousand dol. Hundred thousand dollars. What would you say is the perfect price point, especially when you are starting up a startup like this, to charge.

[Tan Guerra]

If you can, if you can charge 15, go for it. Anything under 89, it's going to be difficult.

[Paul Alex]

Why is that?

[Tan Guerra]

Because of the, because of the prices of advertising these days. I think your math is just not going to work out as well. You're going to be cut to cut, you're going to have bad months. We charge 25 for our flagship program now of course we have lower tiers depending on the support, but our flagship is 25. We have literally a $47 newsletter. We have price points in the 6-8k range with less support. We have a middle tier as well. In the 16ish. We have a one on one at 150,000 to work with me. Right. So having all those price tiers is good, but you need to know which one is the one you want to go after. And that only comes after a certain time initially if someone is starting out. If you can try and sell for anywhere between 8 to 10k and then have a higher tier at 15, I think that's what you should aim for.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, no, absolutely. And are you guys doing any type of recurring model as far as just like after you do like an initial price 15k, 25k, 150k and what do you typically go ahead and incentivize your current clients to go ahead and pay that recurring model with you guys?

[Tan Guerra]

So it's not, it's more of a do you want to renew your mentorship? Because they have lifetime access to the community and like some of the stuff you know, they get from the get go, it's more, do you want to have more one on one mentorship, do you want to renew that and then do you want extra services? Because we have a lot of services that we can only give them after their first six months because now they're advanced enough to even take advantage of those. Right. And so they get very excited because you're always solving the next problem. And so we help them solve the next problem and solve the next problem. Because the markets, you know, we're in Finpo, we're in financial markets. So the markets change every day, the markets are open every day, the market trades every day. So there's so much to learn and so much to do because you want to keep growing your net worth literally every day. Right.

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[Tan Guerra]

I face each day head on.

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[Tan Guerra]

May apply as long as in the first six months they make an ROI back, which I'm very confident we help them do. Of course they're going to stay. It's a no brainer. So why would you not? And what we do is we make sure that our customer service, our delivery and the results are so good that after six months they're going to renew. And the result we get right now is we have around 60% retention rate, which in the industry is wild, right? It's like unheard of because we just concentrate on that. When you charge a lot of money, you don't have to run after acquisition. You're healthy in your business, right? You don't have to run after shitty customers that you don't want. And so when you have good customers and you have healthy margins, if you focus on them, they're going to renew much better. Much better.

[Paul Alex]

It's the path of least resistance because they already know that you're providing good Work. They like the customer service, they like you. Right. And ultimately, you know, it's easier to retain them than to go ahead and sell someone new, which is. I mean, it makes total sense, man. I know that you're. You're running short on time right now. So with that being said, let's go ahead and ask you if we're looking for someone who is trying to go ahead and get started their first time in crypto. Let's say there's somebody in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, that's possibly listening to this, and they want to take a deep dive. What would you say would be the first initial steps that you would do to learn crypto in 2025, going into 2026 right now?

[Tan Guerra]

Well, you have two options. Either you know, you're short on cash and you want to do it on yourself. Completely viable and doable. We have a free group that you can enter and, like, get started, all the basics. YouTube is also a great place. You just have to know the right people. They often get very technical if they're good. So we have a free group called the Sovereign Collective that you can find on my LinkedIn page, where literally, it's completely free. I think you really want to do one thing, and people wouldn't believe me, but it's just invest your first grand or so. Because what happens is as soon as you have invested a thousand or two thousand, even if you don't know what you're doing, okay, your brain suddenly gets very involved and automatically you start reading and learning and understanding way more. Okay. That's just natural. One of the good newsletters that I like is Milk Road. It's very good, the free version of it for people who are short on cash. Now, if you don't have time and you're looking for good results, for example, the Fed is cutting rates, liquidity is going to trickle down into the markets. And usually when that happens, risk assets explode. Crypto, by definition, is a risk asset. So we're foreseeing massive growth in the crypto market. Okay. If you don't want to get left out and you do have capital and you want to accelerate your learning and be with the best of the best, then you can work with us or at least apply to work with us. We have strict qualifications, like I explained. But you can go on decendmasters.com and apply to work with us. My team will walk you through everything. The first call is never trying to sell you, as we said. Like, we don't do that. We just want to understand who you are and what problem you're trying to solve. They'll share all the resources with you and from there you can make an informed decision on whether or not this is a mutual fit.

[Paul Alex]

I love that. I love that. And last question, brother. If you were to go ahead and time travel back to when you were still working your nine to five and you know what, you know now, what would you tell your old self to level up at that time, right before you started going ahead and investing into crypto?

[Tan Guerra]

So before you invest money, you need money, right? So I would just be focused on growing my active income. I did it with drop shipping. But today you have to break it down further. What actually matters is how do I drive traffic to a page where I sell something. It's that simple, right? That's what you want to learn how to do. So if I had to advise that to my old self, I would go, just go and buy whatever course. And there is plenty on digital marketing, online marketing, just buy that because it will get you into that rabbit hole and you'll figure it out. So grow your active income. If you don't have enough capital, if you have enough capital, then look into crypto because you're going to be left out. The dollar is losing value, the fiat system will break. It has to. And so digital assets are going to explode. Just ask yourself one question. Okay, I like asking this question. If you believe in AI and you believe that in five years from now there's going to be AI agents transacting for you doing all these things, right, do you think they're going to be transacting in US dollars or do you think they're going to be using some form of digital currency?

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, yeah, no, you're, you're absolutely right, man. Something to think about, guys. If you guys are listening to this or watching this right now, this is Tan Guerra. He is the CEO and co founder of Decentralized Masters, a nine figure global finance company. Guys, to help you guys level up with your crypto investments and Tan, where can my audience go ahead and find you, brother?

[Tan Guerra]

So, Tan Guerra, you can type on Google even. They should, you know, I should pop up, hopefully LinkedIn, Twitter. I don't use Instagram that much, by the way. I don't really, you know, have a personal brand. I focus on business. I like to stay quiet, you know, and do things that way. I'm active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is good, but yeah, it breaks another myth, right, that you need a personal brand to do. Well, it's not true.

[Paul Alex]

I love that. I love that there's so many ways to skin a cat. Guys here in 2025 going into 2026 Tangara once again CEO and co founder of Decentralized Masters, a nine figure global finance company to help you guys level up in crypto. Guys, that wraps up our first interview with Tan. Hopefully we can get you back on the show guys. Very very interesting story brother. Love love your mindset and where you are going brother. I'm pretty sure you are going to make this explode even more to where where it's currently at with that. Guys we are top three in business on Apple Podcast. Make sure to go ahead and leave us five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and anywhere else. What you guys are listening to and watching this Share this with a friend that's looking to invest into crypto. With that being said, my name is Paul Alex and this is the level up.

[Tan Guerra]

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[Tan Guerra]

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