Ever stared at your portfolio and thought about the investments you didn't make?

Yeah, we've all been there. That pit-in-your-stomach feeling when you see a company you passed on raising at a unicorn valuation.

Today, we're diving into one of those stories – from Hustle Fund GP Eric Bahn. It's a tale about a little crypto company, a valuation disagreement, and a $1.3 billion lesson.

Let’s dive in.

The company that got away

The year was 2017. Crypto was still that niche thing your head of engineering wouldn't stop talking about.

That's when Eric met CoinTracker – essentially "TurboTax for crypto." The founders had built a solution that connected to users' crypto wallets and automatically generated tax documentation.

At this time, crypto was largely unregulated by the U.S. government. Most people had no clue how to file taxes on their crypto investments. And for the ones who did have a clue… it was still super complicated.

CoinTracker was raising its pre-seed round – that magical moment when a little capital can begin its journey of returning an entire VC fund.

Why Eric passed

So why did Eric pass on what would become a billion-dollar company?

Two reasons:

First, there was the classic valuation standoff. Eric valued the company at $4 million. The founder wanted $6 million.

Neither budged. But they parted ways amicably.

The bigger reason was the market potential. See, Eric assumed CoinTracker’s growth opportunity was limited because of the size of the crypto market at that time .

But as we all know, the crypto market in 2017 is much different from the crypto market today.

It’s like judging Amazon in 1997 based on how many people were buying books online at that moment.

What Eric didn't see coming was how dramatically the crypto landscape would transform:

• Wall Street pouring institutional money into the space
• A global crypto market cap of +$2 Trillion
• The creation of over 16,000 cryptocurrencies
• Over 500 categories associated with the crypto industry
• Rapidly evolving tax regulations
• Your grandma asking about Bitcoin at Thanksgiving dinner

Poor Eric. Hindsight really is 20/20, huh?

Welp, that was a mistake

Eric only had to read the news to see that he had made a mistake in passing on CoinTracker.

In early 2022, he saw that CoinTracker’s latest round valued the company at $1.3 billion.

They serve over 2 million customers – about 5% of the global cryptocurrency market. And they’ve expanded their services as they’ve grown.

The technical term for this is “ouch”.

The $1.3 Billion Lesson

It’s not all loss and tragedy, though. At least Eric learned some big lessons. And what a gentleman he is to share all of this with us, dontcha think?

Eric always believed that the CoinTracker founders were an A-player. His mistake was in underestimating the market’s trajectory.

As Eric puts it: "When it comes to markets, you always need to factor in: is something that is true today going to be true tomorrow? Or is something that is not true today going to become true tomorrow?"

Basically… what could change between now and 8 years from now? Might this market grown 8 or 10x bigger than it is today?

In retrospect, Eric wishes he'd picked up the phone and called a few more crypto experts who could have helped him see where the market was headed.

Had he done that, CoinTracker might have been a fund-returning investment.

Instead, it became a valuable lesson… and a great story to tell at parties.

Your turn to learn (without the $1.3B tuition fee)

Want to hear more stories like this one – where successful investors bare their souls and share their expensive lessons so you don't have to learn them the hard way?

Join us at Camp Hustle next month.

200+ investors. 3 days of raw, unfiltered wisdom. And zero PowerPoint presentations about hypothetical scenarios.

Just real investors sharing real mistakes and real strategies.

The best investors aren't the ones who never make mistakes. They're the ones who learn the right lessons from them.

See you at Camp?