By Jessie Ying
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“Looking back, I’m not quite sure how I managed to do it,” Michael said, laughing.It all started when Michael took an entrepreneurship class from Haas Business School in which students were asked to come up with ideas for their own start-ups. For most students, it’s only an opportunity to get a taste of the start-up world. But for Michael and his project partner Dustin Seely, their project became the prototype of a real business. Their initial idea was to create a crypto index or hedge fund. But after research and several pivots, they decided that a brokerage platform was what the market needed.
“The market for crypto went through the roof during the last year. We were lucky because when we started it wasn’t evident that it was going to happen. It was just lucky timing,” Michael recalled.As market interest for cryptocurrencies grew, people wanted a platform on which they could trade and manage all their currencies conveniently. Although trading Bitcoin was already relatively easy, the same didn’t go for other currencies (alt-coins). People holding fiat money needed to first buy Bitcoin and then use it to buy other coins, a complex and often intimidating process that required multiple accounts across different platforms.
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“For the last two or three months of the program, I was basically awake for 35–40 hours straight and then got one regular night of sleep, maybe. It was intense,” he said.
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“People often talk about the emotional roller coaster of founders. Even though it sounds cliché, looking back I think it’s very true,” Michael said. “You face so many uncertainties and opportunity costs.”
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“But you always have to put on a happy face because you have to convince yourself, investors and potential employees that it’s a great idea,” Michael said. “You are the last part of the chain that has to deal with all the pressure.”That’s why Michael thought his emotional support system was crucial. His co-founder Dustin helped to share the pressure and was always there on his down days. Their mentor Professor Kurt Beyer also offered both practical and emotional assistance. Having been an entrepreneur himself, he gave them helpful advice, introduced them to legal personnel and guided them through the mental journey.
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His advice to current MEng students: “Make wise use of your time at Berkeley and try to tap into all the great resources that are available to you.”Michael Brenndoerfer is currently a Senior Software Engineer at Fitbit. Before Cryptonite, he spent 4 years at IBM Research and had worked at two start-ups. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Germany. He went on to receive his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley. Connect with Michael.
Michael Brenndoerfer: How I started a company while going to school full-time was originally published in Berkeley Master of Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.