We present to you the seventh episode of The Wise Ones Podcast. Pop is back. This is his second time sitting down with The Wise Ones, and if you thought Episode 4 told the full story, you weren't even close. Six months ago, $PUMPCADE was pre-product. A gaming concept with a token and a community that believed before there was anything to believe in. Pop was building alone, shipping every feature, every screen, every line of code by himself with no team, no salary, and no guarantee any of it would work. What $PUMPCADE has become since then looks nothing like what it started as. The product evolved. The vision sharpened. And along the way, Pop's community did something so unprecedented it might be the most powerful moment in this entire interview. This conversation is the rawest founder story we've ever recorded. Pop holds nothing back about what it took to get here, what almost broke him, and why he's never been more locked in than he is right now. If you hold $PUMPCADE, build on @Pumpfun, or want to understand what it actually looks like to build a real company from a token launch, this is the interview. In this conversation, we explore: The transformation: What $PUMPCADE has become and why it looks nothing like the product Pop described in Episode 4. The solo founder grind: What it actually costs to build every single feature alone for six months without paying yourself a dime from creator fees. The conversation with his wife: The moment she told him to consider getting a job if this doesn't work out, and why his answer reveals everything about who Pop is as a builder. Building in public: Why launching the token before the product existed was the smartest move he made, and why he'd do it again without hesitation. The community moment: What the $PUMPCADE army did when Pop needed support for the biggest opportunity of his career. Nobody asked them to. They just showed up. Why Pump Fun is the best incubator in crypto: Pop doesn't hold back on his endorsement of @Pumpfun and breaks down why he believes there's no better place for a builder to launch a project and get real support. AI native development: How tools like Claude Code allowed a backend and smart contract engineer to ship an entire front-end product solo, and what that means for the next generation of builders. The new team: Who Pop brought on, where they came from, and why he believes he now has one of the strongest engineering teams in the industry. @gnarzilla @steoniy The shift to wartime CEO: How Pop went from writing every line of code to managing a team, running a roadmap, and thinking about $PUMPCADE at a level the project now demands. The VC problem: Why raising venture capital with a live token is still broken, how the model is being forced to change with, and what Pop thinks replaces it. The agent layer: How $PUMPCADE already supports AI agents creating markets, placing trades, and claiming winnings the same way a human can. Locked in from day one: The @Wisemenmentors community were among the earliest investors in $PUMPCADE. Six months later, nothing has changed. This interview is a reflection of that conviction. What's next: Where $PUMPCADE is headed and why Pop has never been more confident about what's coming. This is the unfiltered story of a builder who bet everything on himself, built in public when it would have been easier to quit, and earned the kind of community loyalty that money can't buy. No hype. Just building in public and letting the work speak. We hope you enjoy. @PopPunkOnChain @pumpcade @Pumpfun @a1lon9 @pumpspotlight @solana @toly @rajgokal @blknoiz06 About The Wise Ones: The Wise Ones Podcast sits down with the builders and strategists shaping crypto's future before the mainstream catches on.
