My biggest mistake: Charlie Karaboga, CEO and co-founder of Block Earner

Blockchain has become a mainstay in the world of tech, with more and more individuals, businesses and organisations jumping on board the world of decentralised finance.

For many, it’s a scary leap into the unknown. But where’s the good in staying in your comfort zone?

Co-founder and chief executive of blockchain-powered fintech Block Earner, Charlie Karaboga, tells SmartCompany Plus that doing so was one of his “biggest mistakes to date”.

The mistake

It happened early in Karaboga’s career, when he had a “great job in a highly reputable company”.

“But staying there meant I missed the opportunity to join what are now some of the world’s largest and most successful tech companies,” Karaboga explained.

Once he’d realised he was “too late to jump on that bandwagon”, he ended up staying in his corporate role for longer than he believes he should have.

“In doing so, I delayed my own startup journey significantly, which cost me valuable time.”

The context

The mistake occurred when Karaboga was working at one of the world’s biggest telcos — Vodafone.

It was the early 2000s, and the telco industry was “the coolest place to work”, Karaboga says. But the industry was also constantly being disrupted by agile and innovative startups.

While the startup sector intrigued Karaboga, Vodafone’s global — and growing — reach meant he knew the “work I did for them would have a direct impact on those around me, and I loved seeing that come to life”.

“A combination of the expertise I was able to cultivate there and the progress I was entrusted to spearhead resulted in an attachment to that brand and made me blind to the developments around me and the opportunities opening up in the market,” he explains.

The impact

The impact of the mistake was largely a loss of his own time, according to Karaboga. But there was also an impact on the entire telco industry for staying put, too.

It was the late 2000s and early 2010s when the mobile app boom began, fuelling the growth of internet and social media startups such as Facebook and Instagram.

“The internet became part of our daily lives as mobile applications grew in popularity,” Karaboga reminisced. “But it meant that telcos lost out to their competitors in the customer relationship stakes.”

Vodafone was behind the pack when it came to this changing digital landscape, and Karaboga felt he was also falling behind.

The fix

Karaboga explains that while he was witnessing this shift of telcos losing out to competitors, he decided to make conscious changes within his own career.

“As I noticed that mobile payments and web accessibility were becoming more of a utility than a ‘nice-to-have’, I moved into a role that oversaw self-service channels such as web and mobile apps, and immersed myself more in payments projects,” he said, in a role still with Vodafone.

He wanted to keep up to speed with the changes occurring in the sector, and get some experience where he could work on app self-service channels, but he also wasn’t yet ready to leave the safety net.

But in 2017, Karaboga took the leap and joined a dynamic DeFi startup called Synthetix.

“I realised I had found my calling,” he said.

As luck would have it, Karaboga worked at Synthetix as head of product, while his Block Earner co-founder Jordan Momtazi was Synthetix’s chief operating officer.

In 2018, the pair recognised the early opportunity to revolutionise the distribution and efficiency of financial systems, and founded their first venture — RelayPay — together in 2019.

“In 2020 we saw the rise of stablecoins and maturity of lending/borrowing smart contracts,” Karaboga said.

“The experience we gained at Synthetix and while building RelayPay paid off and we wanted to capitalise on this new territory with a blockchain powered fintech.”

So the pair jumped on this opportunity with the founding of Block Earner as soon as it was possible.

The lesson

Many say that you can’t regret your past decisions because they led you to where you are now.

And since Karaboga says entering the world of decentralised finance as soon as he realised the power of its potential “redeemed” himself from this mistake, it’s fair to say he’s now happy with how it’s all played out.

It also taught him some valuable lessons, including that to “grow and learn, you need to take risks”.

Karaboga acknowledges that at the time, it was sad to see telcos fall behind as a result of being slow off the mark, and corporates being set in their ways.

“But it taught me a valuable lesson about going with your gut over what feels comfortable.”