About

Be a student of Bitcoin.

Ten years of corporate life. A whiteboard on a Calgary street. Four hundred days across Africa. An accelerator in India. The constant was never Bitcoin, it was staying curious.

9 teamsIndia's first Bitcoin accelerator

400 daysCairo to Cape Town, ten countries

3 booksBeginners, Businesses, and Africa

5 keynotesSolo stages across four continents

How it started

Ten years in, then a whiteboard.

I spent ten years in corporate selling enterprise software before any of this.

Somewhere in there, I got curious what Bitcoin looked like to someone who had never heard of it, so I started standing on a street in Calgary holding a sign: "Bitcoin, ask me anything." Why? I was curious how others perceived this technology and how I could make it approachable.

I consolidated all my learnings into visual notes, into a book, Bitcoin for Beginners, before my wife and I ever left for Africa.

See the books →

Santosh holding a Bitcoin, ask me anything sign outside Bankers Hall

Illustration of two silhouettes walking toward a continent-shaped moon, for the book Cairo to Cape Town

Cairo to Cape Town · the bookOut this year

Africa

We went looking for Bitcoin. We found Africa.

Getting out of your comfort zone is the biggest life lesson, and that's what my wife and I did. We sold our home and spent four hundred days crossing Africa, mostly overland, to understand how this technology was actually being used.

What we found was everyone chasing grants, not building something that could pay for itself. It left me wondering where the capital was.

Read the stories →

Angel investing

I wrote a check. They asked me to stay.

I was looking to understand where the real capital was moving, so I wrote an angel check for Bringin, a bitcoin exchange in Estonia, amongst other startups.

They asked me to come on board. We raised nearly a million dollars and built the structure the business needed to launch. Then I left it all to focus my energy close to home, India.

See the portfolio →

Bringin · the angel checkRaised near $1M

The Bitshala BOSS Summit accelerator community in Goa

India

Can we export brands instead of talent?

At the Bitplebs Summit in Goa, I judged a pitch competition. Ten teams, covering mining hardware, literacy, payments, and more. The talent was obvious. The business model wasn't.

A fellow judge asked the question I'd been sitting with since Africa: how will this make money? Most teams weren't ready to answer. That gap became the accelerator.

See how it works →

Now

Bitcoin-powered, not Bitcoin-first.

The same pattern kept showing up: good people, real talent, and no path to a business that pays for itself. Now I back founders in India and Africa doing the harder thing, building something that doesn't need a grant to survive.

The goal is brands that are sustainable and can pay for themselves. Bitcoin doesn't have to lead. It's a powerful tool that can enable businesses of all kinds, quietly, in the background, wherever it's useful.

Everyone should be a student of Bitcoin, not an expert, not a believer, just curious.

See who I've backed →

Get in touch

Talk to me.

If you're building something real and wondering where bitcoin fits, or you back founders doing the same, I'd like to hear from you.

Talk to me