Beyond Tokenization: Building Systems That Outlive Their Founders | Yassir Haouati, Brickken

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00] This is the Crypto Hipster Podcast. This is not a traditional interview show. These are perspective-driven conversations with founders, builders, and independent creators shaping what comes next.

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00] We go beyond headlines, beyond hype, and beyond price to explore ownership, freedom, and opportunity in the digital economy where builders talk freedom, not price.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00] Welcome back to Crypto Hipster. This is your host, Jamil Hasan. Today, I am joined by Yassir Haouati, who is the co-founder and COO of Brickken. Brickken is a company that's building infrastructure for the tokenization of real-world assets.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_00] But Yassir's story starts well before tokenization. He's an engineer, a systems builder, and an entrepreneur who spent his whole entire career thinking about how technology, capital, and people coordinate. And that's where I want to take the conversation today, you know, because putting an asset on the blockchain is one thing. Everybody says it.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00] However, building the infrastructure, governance, and trust necessary for institutions to actually use that technology is something completely different.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00] Now, today we're going to talk about the journey from engineer to founder, what Yassir learned building Brickken, and how real-world asset market has evolved, and what happens when blockchain stops being an experiment and starts becoming financial infrastructure. Yassir, welcome to Crypto Hipster Podcast. Thanks for the invite. I'm pleased to be here. You're very welcome.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00] So let's start, you know, I don't want to start with Brickken. I'm going to start with you. You know, before Brickken, who was Yassir and what problems did you, you know, were you obsessed with solving?

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_01] Sure. I'm born and raised in Morocco since my very young age, around seven years old. And I started learning algorithmics, programming languages like Visual Basic and Pascal at the time. At around 10, I had my first client.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01] I built the website for my primary school using the learnings I was doing at the time, back in 2007. I created it using Microsoft Front Page.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01] It's kind of not existing now, but I used it at the time to build the website, which was for around $60, which was like very good for me at 10 years old. And that led me to continue my learnings in the digital world.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_01] So I started from there in the backend infrastructure, databases, learning PHP, SQL, also Java, etc. So I initiated around 2010 with small digital business models.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01] I built, at the time, WordPress sites, creating content, optimizing for search engines and monetizing with, at the time, that was quite an opportunity, monetizing with Google AdSense and CPA models. So from there, I started learning automation scripting with Python.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_01] So that led me to kicking off a freelancing journey at an early age in around 2014, with small gigs via Fiverr. And then it has grown into software projects.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01] So in 2014, I finished my high school and had two years preparatory classes for Moroccan French engineering schools, specialized in mathematics and physics. And that led me to my engineering school in France.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_01] That was my movement from Morocco to France, where I had my engineering degree in digital systems engineering and had a master in innovation and research in informatics in Barcelona, Spain. So that kicked off my journey in Europe.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_01] And in 2020, I was part of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program by the European Commission and had a mentorship experience in Spain. And that's where I met my co-founders and founded Recon. So that's in my years before Recon.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00] Got it. So you met your co-founders in 2020. And, you know, what made you believe then, you know, that real world assets would eventually all move on chain?

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, well, at the time, it was quite a challenge just to explain what blockchain is, what tokenization is, before even like talking about the infrastructure that like governs it or operates it.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01] So we had the challenge first to only prove that real world assets were able to be tokenized, opening the opportunities we currently can see. So the difference is now we talk more about how we can operate the digital assets more than if the assets can be tokenized.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_01] So that's like quite the difference we see in the market from 2020 to now, which is quite a, well, kind of short period. If we are talking about the long term, in six years seeing the markets accelerating so much to the point we are now. So by then we saw that digital transformation in general was a thing.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_01] Like it was already, we were already seeing institutions all over the world trying to digitize their infrastructure, operational infrastructure in general. Not only in the talking in finance, but in general.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_01] So we were thinking if we see how we can manage the assets or digitize the processes to manage assets, we would need to digitize the assets themselves first. So that led us to think of the infrastructure of digitize the real world assets.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_01] And that actually everyone would need the assets to be digitized so we can open up to the opportunities it gives. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's how we, or how we were thinking at the beginning of breaking how the idea came, the challenge or the initial challenge was actually to digitize assets.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01] So by exploring the options we had and what blockchain technology was offering, we saw that surely the digitization, digitization, gonna be via blockchain and token, by tokenizing the assets.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00] Got it. So you sat down with your founders and on day one, you didn't have, this is our blueprint for the next five years. This is our roadmap and our blueprint. You didn't know what the, you actually didn't know what it was. Right? So like, what did you discover, not just about the business, but what did you discover about yourself during this process of, of, of the journey of getting the company to where it is now?

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I would say I was a very different person before. Of course, when you start a project or I would call it a challenge, you need to learn on the go. So you know that you, you will, you will face a lot of uncertainty in the process and like, you will have to solve problems fast to adapt to the situations.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_01] And, uh, yeah, that was the whole mindset we had at the beginning. We had a challenge, uh, a vision, uh, to build, uh, an infrastructure, uh, where we can manage assets, uh, uh, uh, on chain.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_01] And we started, uh, uh, executing, uh, because, uh, at the beginning, you can't, you can't know what will happen, what will come if something, uh, in the macro economics happens. So you always need to be ready for an unexpected thing to, uh, solve, uh, today or tomorrow at any time. Got it. Got it.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00] So let's, let's dive back in. Let's, let's, a lot of people, you know, I've been in, in crypto since 2017. And in the beginning, when I first was there, you know, people slap the word crypto on something or blockchain and something, and you get an immediate price increase. And some people still think that, you know, you tokenize an asset and actually you put a token on it. Right. But there's so many things that happen, you know, um, during that process. What actually changes when an asset becomes tokenized?

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_00] Because, you know, it doesn't necessarily like the economics change as well. Right.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Uh, well, uh, by tokenizing an asset, you're just improving, uh, the operations around it, uh, to manage it. So for example, uh, once you issued the asset is simple process. It's like in a few seconds or, uh, maximum minutes, uh, to issue the actual asset, but, uh, you will have, uh, many other things to do around the token itself.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_01] You will need to manage the liquidity you are getting, manage the governance, the compliance, of course. Uh, but, uh, if, uh, if we think about what changes is more around, uh, you get, for example, a broader investor's universe, because by opening it up, uh, uh, on, on the blockchain, you are opening it up to people worldwide.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01] You are not limited to your local, uh, jurisdiction or local place where, uh, you have the asset itself. So you can easily reach other investors in other jurisdictions in the other parts of the world.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, uh, another thing is, uh, you can automate, of course, many actions around the token, uh, automate corporate actions, automate, uh, the distribution, uh, automate, uh, many, uh, processes that you have, uh, uh, for, for the operations. Another, uh, benefit I would call it is more, uh, increasing the liquidity of the asset itself.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01] Because by tokenizing it, of course, you are generating a supply of tokens that reply, uh, that, uh, uh, that, that is actually the, the asset itself.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_01] So it's, let's say you fractionize the asset and you are able to onboard more investors than actually, uh, uh, uh, with the physical asset itself or the, the trade-fi, uh, uh, processes that, uh, we had in the past. And, uh, some places actually have it now.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_00] So that's, so a lot of people think that they, they, they know the benefit is liquidity, right? Because that's what crypto is cash or, or better cash or however you want to define it. Right. But what changes as far as the backend prime, you have backend experience. What changes as far as the backend experience that people don't know?

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Well, I would say the backend experience would be the efficiency of the operations, uh, around the asset. So for example, you will need to onboard investors. Those investors would need KYC AML, uh, processes, uh, would need, you would need to manage the distributions with the investors, uh, for, for the investors themselves. Uh, they need transparency, uh, of the asset.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, they need reports and they need to trust, uh, the ownership of the asset too. So I would say, uh, blockchain, uh, or tokenization in general, that is a technology that gives us not only the liquidity, but, uh, more of the whole operational efficiency coming with it. The transparency and the trust building with your investors.

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01] Because when you are, uh, uh, tokenizing an asset or starting a project in general, I think it's around building an ecosystem. So you have many stakeholders that you need to add value to them, uh, during or, uh, when you are executing the processes. So I would say, uh, uh, tokenization on blockchain technology itself.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01] Strengthens the, uh, relations between those stakeholders by increasing the trust and the transparency. So I would say these are, uh, uh, like what came in my mind for, uh, what benefits, uh, tokenizing an asset. But of course I might, uh, have forgotten something.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00] I think I'm, I'm thinking of five of the six things that you remembered. Ownership, liquidity, settlement, legal, transferring, all get improved. You know what doesn't, I haven't seen get improved yet. And it might, and I want to get your take on this is governance. You know, what, what governance challenges will still, even though you tokenize something, what governance challenges still remain despite the tokenization?

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_01] Of course. Well, uh, when we say, uh, governance, uh, there is something that is directly related, which is compliance. Because when we see the regulations that are, uh, uh, set for, uh, the framework of tokenizations, they are given rules for the governance.

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_01] So actually I would say, if we think of, uh, compliance and regulations more as a design problem to solve when, uh, making the architecture of your model. So, uh, uh, uh, it becomes, uh, more efficient and, uh, more easy to adapt to or to respect. And then, uh, when, uh, you see it as a constraint or as something you have to do.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, because I think when you include it in the process, in the design process, when making the architecture that, that improves, uh, uh, the whole system. Because you are by that, uh, uh, integrating that system within a broader ecosystem, which is set by, by, uh, the regulators. Right. Uh, so yeah. When, when you said, uh, governance has not been improved.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, what, what did you mean by that? Like what, what did you have in mind? Just so I can understand all also your take on it.

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I'm thinking, you know, they've been hearing for years, institutions are coming to institutions are coming. Right. So right now we're building blockchain companies, right? So what if we are the institution, you know, when is it like, when, when does a blockchain company stop being a tech? Technology company and become, and become the institution.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_01] Hmm. I understand. Well, uh, I would say, uh, blockchain wouldn't be actually the institution, but would be an invisible, invisible, uh, part of the ecosystem because it's the infrastructure. And what matters is the experience.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01] So if we are the experimenters, let's say, or the users, uh, we don't want to be, uh, directly engaging or directly linked to blockchain because it is the infrastructure where we work. So, uh, I would say, uh, we should, or what, what comes next is more than, but, uh, blockchain would be more invisible.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, and, and it's actually what is, or it is actually the source of the experience, the financial experience that we cannot be having in the future. Because when it is more popular, we won't be talking about this much because we know it's something that is there by default. It is where we work. It is where we work.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01] So I wouldn't call it the institution because it's, uh, uh, I would say, or in a simple, uh, uh, sentence, we can say that it's a open source database that is scripted.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01] So it is not the governor or the institution because we are the institution, but we use blockchain or the technology to reach a goal or an objective, which is gonna be to govern, uh, the, the transactions, the assets, the contracts, et cetera.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_00] Do you see what I mean? Yeah, I do. So, so it becomes invisible to know what, what, what, what becomes the responsibility of the founder?

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_01] Well, uh, I am talking about the blockchain technology itself, but the founder would be the project built around this technology. So you are building a product that uses blockchain to reach or to add a value to the value chain or to the ecosystem. Right?

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_01] So while creating the ecosystem, you are actually the institution or the governor of that ecosystem you are building. So you are responsible of everything happening between all stakeholders of that ecosystem. Do you see what I mean?

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I do. But then what happens when the founder leaves and, and, and, and it becomes a responsibility of the steward from that point forward?

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, I would say that if, if the founder leaves, uh, and that is important because if the ecosystem is strong, the stakeholders can manage the survival of the ecosystem. But if it is a weak structure of the ecosystem. If one person leaves, the whole thing goes down.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_01] So it's always about building a strong ecosystem with, uh, what, while educating the stakeholders to always be, uh, or, uh, always be able to execute the values happening, uh, or the values transactions happening within the ecosystem. Without the founder being there. That's what define a strong ecosystem. Got it.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_00] So, okay. Okay. So then now that institutions are participating, right. And we have a growth in the real world tokenization and real assets, right. What did crypto initially misunderstand about what the institutions, like traditional finance players, especially needed?

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Well, for institutions, I would say the difference, uh, between institutions and let's call it the blockchain or the crypto community that was before the adoption or the institutional adoption is the mindset or the mentality of, uh, the transactions happening within the ecosystem.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01] For example, for example, institutions, uh, or also, uh, well, I would say ROI for everyone. Uh, but, uh, yeah. So that is the difference. It's. Adds another constraint, which is the compliance and risk, uh, that needs to be added for within the ecosystem for institutions.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_01] Right. So if we want a strong ecosystem, as we said, and we want to add a new stakeholder, which is the institutions, we need to redesign our architecture of the ecosystem by adding also what is needed for or the requirements of that stakeholder to be reached or accomplished.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01] So we need to add the compliance, the risk management features needed within the architecture. So our ecosystem in general would be strong enough to also include that new stakeholder, which is the institutions.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_00] Build the risk management inside of the architecture. I like that because that's not something that a lot of projects did in the very beginning. You know, so you built in this architecture and you built over the years and I'm sure it wasn't smooth sailing. Right. I'm sure that you might have had moments where things brick and broke. Right.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_00] That, you know, nobody today would know. So what was something or a couple of things that almost broke or broke and how did you deal with them?

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_01] All right. So I would say not, not really broke, but more the change in the growth phase. So as you know, at the beginning of any project, you rely more on the founders or the small group of people existing in your ecosystem to reach the value needed and execute all the operations processes.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_01] But then once this ecosystem, there are more processes being added to your ecosystem and you have more stakeholders being added to your ecosystem and more people internally in your team working to adapt to that growth phase.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_01] So I would say the challenge was to design the system without relying on the core founders to execute all the processes within the ecosystem.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_01] But once you go over that phase and you reach an architecture of systems that work, operational systems that work, that becomes much more easier. But I think most founders have the problem of designing the operational systems that help them move to the next growth phase.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_01] So that's something that is really challenging and not popular or visible to everyone at the beginning, especially.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_00] Got it. So was there ever a moment where you thought, hey, this isn't going to have to, this isn't going to work. I'm going to have to go back home.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I think I didn't really reach a point of giving up because I always think you don't fail until you give up. So if you give up, that means directly you fail. So that comes also in a trading mindset, like you don't lose until you close the position.

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_01] Right. So, yeah. Or you get liquidated. So, of course, there were moments of being down. But I think that's more about burnout. When you reach a point where you can't handle a lot of stress, where you need to clear your mind to start fresh again.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_01] So I would say a balance in managing your life is also important to avoid going down because you won't give up if you don't reach your low in your life. So if you manage to never reach that point, I don't think you would be able to give up and let go.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I had a person who was pitching me on his marketing thing for a month. I finally got him to the point where I was about to say yes. He got to the two-yard line. And then he punted and left the stadium. I'm like, you know, I'm like, so you said as long as you never give up, you don't know the hard line you're on. Right. But as long as you never give up, you're still in the game. Right.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_01] Exactly. You can't lose if you don't let go if you're still there. Right.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. So, you know, when you're building the infrastructure that other people depend on, and they do depend on you, right? Do you still, are you still considering yourself as the owner of the system? Or are you a shared steward? Are you a contributor? How do you see your role after you onboard your institutional clients? What do you see as your partner? What are you after that?

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_01] Good question. So, I think, as we said, you are building an ecosystem with multiple stakeholders. And while growing, more stakeholders are being added. At the beginning, you are the core stakeholder managing everything. But as the ecosystem grows, I would call myself one stakeholder in the graph.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_01] So, you have relations between each stakeholders. And we are just one of them. And, yeah, I think whoever or every other stakeholder is only one, has one role within the ecosystem.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_01] And, as I said, to build a strong ecosystem, you can't leave the, let's say, the main thing or why, the why of the ecosystem to be you. You need to transfer it to be decentralized. So, every stakeholder plays a role. And, we are just one other stakeholder that has a role with the value to that ecosystem being built.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_00] Got it. So, I have one last question. I want to thank you so far. Let's just say 10 years from now, you know, forget the price of tokens. Forget this current cycle we're in. Cycles are crazy and they change all the time from one minute to the next. Right. But, when you look back at Brecken, say 10 years from now, what would have to be true for you to say, we accomplished what we set out to do? You know, good job.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_00] What would that look like?

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01] I would say what would define success for us would be more being the invisible player in every transaction happening on chain with the real world assets.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_01] Because we are trying to build the infrastructure that allows us to issue the digital asset, manage it, and govern it, and distribute it.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_01] So, in total, if we see that institutions or anyone, any stakeholder in the ecosystem using our technology, our products, without us being involved, without relying on us directly being invisible, I would say that's a real success.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_01] Because then we are having direct impact on another or other ecosystems without us being directly executing or operating on it. And that brings back the analogy I made of building ecosystems.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_01] So, if we reach other nodes of ecosystems relying on ours and successfully being operated, I think that's what defines success for us.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_00] How can people find out more information about you and about Brecken?

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_01] Of course, you can find us on all social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, everywhere, and our website, Brickken.com. If you want to build a strong ecosystem, digitized on chain, feel free to reach out to us. And our team will be ready to always onboard you to the new world.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00] Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today.

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_01] Thanks to you, Jamil. Nice to meet you.