TechCrunch Senior Editor Leaves to Choose Bitcoin Startup

Why would one of TechCrunch’s longest-serving editors leave the media giant for a bitcoin startup?

For outgoing East Coast editor John Biggs, the answer is that he has become a leading player in the bitcoin industry in his spare time over the past year. Peer-to-peer payments startup Freemit has been Biggs’s main project since December 2014. According to CrunchBase, the company has raised more than $150,000 from angel investors.

However, Biggs has now become a full-time employee of Freemit. He just left the company at the end of last month after working there for nearly 10 years. According to Biggs, if you don't act now, you will miss the chance in the future.

“The fundamental reason I left was that I knew that startups can be time-consuming or not, and if you don’t spend a lot of time at work, you lose focus in life,” he told CoinDesk. “I think now is the time to get busier and more focused.”

Biggs said he chose to leave because he was confident in Freemit's product, the team that built the company, and the bitcoin industry's opportunity to disrupt the financial industry system.

Biggs said:

“We’re in a tough spot right now because the banks won’t support the things we want them to support, especially faster cross-border payments. They’ve made a lot of money and seem to be pretty good at it. My concern is that they’re going to keep doing what’s going on until someone changes it.”

In the interview, Biggs went on to say that the company will make more frequent announcements in the coming period and that the startup will be open to users soon.

Biggs said Freemit will be open to more than 7,000 users this month as part of a "rollout."

He also revealed that Freemit is closely following the block size discussion, and while he doesn’t see long-term issues with the current state of the network, the potential changes surrounding Bitcoin transaction volume are an uncertain factor in the decision.

Moreover, he continued to defend Bitcoin technology in the face of new criticism, claiming that the debate that has troubled the Bitcoin space is part of a challenge that will eventually be overcome by innovators at the forefront of the Internet.

Freemit's approach

Clearly, Biggs is bullish on Freemit’s ability to become a major disruptive startup, not just in the bitcoin space, but in financial technology in general.

To reach a wider market, he said Freemit will not emphasize trading bitcoin as a currency, but will instead target new customers who are more familiar with traditional banks and online payment companies such as PayPal.

“The biggest difference is that we’re a hybrid model,” Biggs said. “Most of the team worked in banks, so they’re well-versed in how these systems work. We didn’t go into Bitcoin first, but rather connected multiple paths until Bitcoin had good liquidity.”

Biggs said this approach is contrary to the industry’s most worthy cross-border bitcoin payments startup, Abra, which has raised $14 million in venture funding.

Abra uses a network of ‘tellers’ instead of physical terminals. Biggs praised the model as “super cash” but advised Freemit not to take a similar approach that puts the movement of money first.

Biggs said Freemit initially plans to target international students and younger users of payment products, using similar features to Align Commerce, which helps small businesses use blockchain to send approvals for overseas transactions.

Role swap

Overall, Biggs expressed his passion for the technology industry after his transition to a new role, something he didn’t have during his previous years at TechCrunch.

Biggs said he considers his past experience in the media industry an asset for startups, and so far he has had no trouble transitioning to the CEO role.

“I thought that managing distributed teams and my media experience would be very useful,” he said.

He added that some aspects, such as raising money, were not as fun as he expected, but his family and friends were supportive of the career change.

“No one said I was stupid,” Biggs said. “My wife was supportive.”

For his part, Biggs has been a supporter of the industry, driving TechCrunch’s coverage of the story and contributing to numerous posts on his experience following the money.

Biggs said he would continue to blog for TechCrunch even with his current job, and he has learned to love his business:

“I can understand why people get addicted to it.”