And Lived to Tell the Tale

For us, 1 in 3 flights have been booked using crypto since our inception with more than 1,000 total flights dating back to early 2021, with a total revenue of $32m.

If you are building a crypto startup and you are wondering how this was possible, well let me tell you something little about Kyle Patel.

First off, He is a man who loves woodwork and throwing paintballs, and in February 2018, he quit his job to build Bitlux (a private aviation brand) full-time. I said that to let you know that achieving even more results is quite possible.

During our little chit-chat, I realized it all boiled down to the systems and structures he set in place to see him through this journey.

Kyle’s been working in the private aviation space for a long time but something happened in 2017 that changed the entire trajectory of his career and led him to build an empire in this space.

It all started when a famous personality in the crypto space needed to fly quickly on a Saturday and had only Bitcoin to pay.

It was a big trip that cost about $140,000 at that time, and you know how banks can be when it comes to withdrawing such a huge sum on a Saturday.

Plus the client needed to be in Europe no later than 7 am on Monday. It was quite tight and the stakes were high.

Nonetheless, Kyle demanded some time to figure it out since the client had value, and he needed it urgently.

He thought to himself;

So because the banks aren’t open, he can’t go anywhere.

That’s bullshit, that’s total bullshit, the world doesn’t revolve around banking from 9–5.

That’s just not how this works.

And well, that was the spark that set it off.

You could say the client could have used a credit card, but how many people carry credit cards with $200k worth?

In the interview, Kyle said something very striking

You know the aviation industry is like an untapped market in the crypto space, there aren’t many players like you would see in other markets.

And the reason is that scaling with crypto in such an industry is extremely difficult because you’ll be dealing with customers’ data a lot.

You’ll have all your customer's information, and you’ve got to be on your toes to maintain customer’s privacy. These data are quite easy to lose; once they leak, trust can be impossible.

It’s the job of the service or product to maintain the customer’s privacy.

What makes it more over the edge is that Bitcoin and crypto is peer to peer and one must be extra careful when sending an invoice to a customer.

It’s got to be to the right address because if someone gets in between you and the other person receiving the Wallet address or invoice, there can be quite a problem

In Kyle’s words

If there’s a weak link in crypto, it’s not crypto itself but the process you used in communicating sensitive info

Structures and Systems of Management

You’d agree that to pull off a successful empire such as Bitlux, one needs an effective management structure.

According to Kyle, they have 5 people in their headquarters office and 23 in other areas ensuring the smooth running of operations.

When it comes to flight operations, they have two major departments — Client service teams and Operations department — and he has managers in place to manage the activities of those areas.

Kyle believes that having the right people in the right teams and ensuring they understand their roles would make the work much easier.

It parallels what Elon Musk said in his commencement speech at the University of Southern California

“If you’re building a company, you’ve got to gather great people. I mean, all a company is is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service. So depending upon how talented and hardworking that group is, and to the degree in which they are focused cohesively in a good direction, that will determine the success of the company. So, do everything you can to gather great people, if you’re creating a company.”

But it’s beyond telling them what to do, he has to understand what they need to do and help them in getting it done.

In short, he can do everyone’s job but delegates them for maximum efficiency.

However, things like crypto payments, and third-party signing require his signature and full-time attention.

He has this amazing life philosophy that I believe has pulled him through all this while

"If I’m not building or creating then I’m not living well, even if it’s accomplishing little things like laundry and taking it my his checklist”

I believe one of the most important things he did while building Bitlux was to stand out from the competition.

When I asked what Bitlux does differently, He was like, he isn’t even aware of the competition because not all that say they accept crypto, actually accept crypto, and some use third-party payment processing companies.

By so doing they can void your privacy for you to fly privately. It’s like someone saying they accept an American Express/visa

What he did differently is that he took the core values of Bitcoin and compared those against what private aviation is and then built Bitlux on the similarities.

Speed, efficiency, detail, accuracy, price

You can find them both in crypto and Bitlux, it’s something he calls being crypto-centric.

Kyle rightly said;

"Are there other people in the private aviation industry that accept crypto… Yes

Are there those that provide service in the same fashion or as close to Bitcoin and crypto… No not close"

Jimmy Fallon Lol GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Well as you know, Kyle Patel is the founder of Bitlux — a crypto-focused private aviation company — and by leveraging the strategies and systems we discussed their retention rate grew to 87%.

They measure retention rate by keeping tabs on customers who take more than 2 flights in 12 months and that’s quite massive in my opinion.

The primary drive behind his rapid growth was the fact that he took risks to build an innovative product in an area with impressive demand.

Cheers from my screen to yours!