Everyone is an entrepreneur in their own way—and IRs are certainly no exception, according to Nicholas Cary.
Nicholas Cary
Cary, the co-founder of Blockchain, joined SIR 2024 EDGE attendees in his hometown of Denver to talk about finance, business and entrepreneurism. Blockchain.com, one of the first and largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is emblematic of the fast-paced nature of technology, innovation and creativity—three values IRs are well versed in.
“We’re ultimately all doing the same thing, which is trying to create a mutual benefit with your patients or with our customers,” Cary said. “Physicians have a do-no-harm principle, and I believe, very fundamentally, that if you’re going to build a healthy and successful business, you must have a similar mantra for your customers.”
Whether or not IRs identify themselves as entrepreneurs, Cary said that they are. In fact, most people can trace an entrepreneurial spirit all the way back to their childhoods selling candy in the school yard or setting up lemonade stands.
“We all start off as entrepreneurs, but then we fall out of practice with it. And this stuff is not taught in schools,” Cary said.
But whether or not you identify as an entrepreneur, he noted that everyone can practice entrepreneurship in small ways, especially by developing an entrepreneurial mindset and focusing on several key areas: technology, financial literacy and communication.
Embracing industrial revolutions
It’s a difficult time to be starting a business, but it’s also a time of immense opportunity, Cary said—especially if one can embrace inevitable technological innovation.
He cited three key industrial revolution periods: the dawn of mechanized machines, which led to a population boom; the assembly line, which enabled high-scale, low-cost creation; and the computer revolution, wherein computer automation has created quick, long-distance communication and automation.
“These three periods were about changing and reorganizing the molecules of the world,” Cary said. “I would argue that the next revolution will be about how we organize, move and store atoms in order to develop knowledge around the vast quantities of data we’re creating every single day.”
The world is speed running this next phase, he said. “In the 1950s, if you were wealthy, you owned a television and had maybe two channels on that TV. Today, with a subscription, you can access the entire catalog of video content ever created and watch it from the palm of your hand.”
The tech evolution has also created safeguards. Vehicles were mass-marketed and extremely dangerous in the 1950s. “They had no common operating model. They were basically bombs on wheels,” Cary said. Today, consumers can purchase autonomous, electric cars that drive and park themselves, all while collecting data to enhance safety and efficacy.
“We are seeing extraordinary change due to the rapidity of technology in all categories of industry,” Cary said. “This is also true of finance.”
Paper tender has given way to digital assets and counterfeit resistant currencies that computers can create and send anywhere instantly—essentially for free, he said.
“Technology has completely reshaped the automobile industry, media and entertainment businesses, and finance,” he said. “And it’s going to have extraordinary impacts on your practices as well, especially artificial intelligence systems.”
Cary challenged the audience experiment with this by signing up for an artificial intelligence chat program.
“Play with it and ask it questions. It can be your little cofounder for anything you have a problem with,” he said. “If you want to set up an email campaign to learn more about your patients, it will draft the content for you. It will create the schedule for you.”
Embracing the next generation of technology is crucial to the entrepreneurial mindset, Cary said.
“The status quo is probably not the most effective way to secure and sustain a business in the long term.”
Financial literacy
It may seem like a no-brainer, but being an entrepreneur truly does require financial literacy and comfort with money.
“Most people don’t spend enough time talking about money,” Cary said. It’s a taboo topic, and because of that, Cary feels many people aren’t properly educated on financial systems and literacy.
That was where Blockchain’s mission came from, he said—to build a financial system that empowers anyone, anywhere in the world, to have more control over their money.
Money is an old concept, Cary said, one that has taken many forms but has always kept the same key properties: it can be used for exchange of goods and services, must be unique, and must carry a finality. In other words, the same tender used to pay for one service cannot be used to pay for another.
Money as a technology is also something Cary likes to think about—money can be fungible or durable. And it has become increasingly counterfeit resistant. Money also spurs philosophical questions: How much of it should there be, and where should it come from?
“In this day and age, I would argue that money should be a little more digital,” Carry said.
Cary’s belief is rooted in the fallibility of large financial institutions, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank. These big banks have experienced financial crises, which, according to Cary, created the conditions that would inspire an entirely alternative concept for a financial system.
“The 2008 financial crisis was an extraordinary opportunity to reinvent our relationship with money and how money moves around the world,” Cary said. “In the past, that required all these parties who essentially are seeking rent on storing people’s money, charging transaction fees and more.”
In that moment, Cary said, cryptocurrency technology took off.
“If I exchange money from here to someone in Dubai, that money travels over the internet instantly without the need for a bank,” Carry said. “Because of this capability, we have now turned what used to require an entire bank building into 30 or 50 lines of code.”
With this, financial transactions can become a software experience—which is what blockchain.com does.
“We make it possible for anyone in the world to instantly send, receive, secure trade and exchange digital instruments of wealth,” Cary said.
According to Cary, the accessibility of this new financial system is why his company has grown so significantly.
As evidenced by the rise of Blockchain, the very nature of financial systems can shift as quickly as technology. This is part of why it’s key to have a strong understanding of the fundamentals of financial literacy and business, like managing costs.
“There are pretty significant economic shifts that are occurring, and free capital and cash flow are things every business owner needs to be very thoughtful about,” Cary said. “Keeping cash in your bank account may not be the best thing to do. Maybe put it in a money market account, or experiment with riskier—or more secure—types of value savings.”
Communication
The last key mindset Cary identified was communication: communicating your worth, explaining your value and persuading others that your work is important.
“You have to get better at communicating your ideas, and then constantly reinforce those ideas with your team, staff, community and patients,” he said. “It’s just a relentless amount of work to do that effectively.”
It’s also difficult when you’re starting off or trying to communicate about lesser-known ideas, as many IRs can relate to.
Cary said he understands this struggle. “Cryptocurrency sounds very scary sometimes— or cryptic,” Cary said, adding that he still feels his business is largely misunderstood. But rather than seeing this as a negative, it can be a positive.
“When something is wildly misunderstood, that often means there’s an incredible opportunity,” he said.
Building your community
Once you have your toolkit to an entrepreneurial mindset, however, the work isn’t done. Creating a lasting business is an ongoing, ever-evolving process—and Cary highly recommends building a community of mentors and advisors.
“Everything gets easier when you have a bench of support around you,” Cary said. “Regardless of where you are in your career, you can find people that want to help you.”
To listen to the postsession Q&A with Mr. Cary on entrepreneurship and IR, listen to Episode 55 of the Kinked Wire. Watch for updates on the next SIR EDGE, which is scheduled for October 2025.
