Will Duckett, Co-Founder & COO of Equity Shift: Opening Up How Private Company Ownership and Markets Operate.
Will Duckett, co-founder and COO of Equity Shift, joins me to talk about building the infrastructure behind secondary liquidity in private markets. The conversation covers Will's path from a hedge fund back office in New York to co-founding a regulated broker-dealer in Raleigh, what it actually takes to get licensed with FINRA and the SEC, and why Equity Shift describes its platform as a digital operating system for private companies rather than just cap table software.
Will and I dig into the mechanics that most founders never see up close: tender offers, the daisy-chained SPV structures that made SpaceX famous for not knowing all of its own shareholders, and how Equity Shift built a system meant to prevent that. We also trace the company's growth from small business customers up into some of the largest private equity firms in the world, and the underlying blockchain patent portfolio that powers it all.
Will offers a candid look at what it's like building a capital-intensive fintech company in North Carolina, plus hard-won founder lessons from seven years and two economic shocks: expect everything to take twice as long as planned, and don't underestimate the value of a strong co-founder.
Timestamps
00:00 Cold open & sponsors
01:36 Welcome & meet Will Duckett of Equity Shift
02:16 From Chapel Hill (and ancient Roman history) to Wall Street
02:40 Hedge fund back office to a Columbia MBA
03:06 Moving home and meeting co-founder Tom at a blockchain meetup
04:41 Why a blockchain meetup, in 2018
07:21 Founding Equity Shift with Tom Gordon
08:24 First customer and becoming a broker-dealer
09:53 Secondaries 101: SpaceX, Pendo, and tender offers
10:41 What Equity Shift actually does
13:17 The SpaceX SPV daisy-chain problem
14:45 How Equity Shift compares to Carta
16:19 Life as a regulated FINRA broker-dealer
18:14 The taxi medallion analogy
19:07 Splitting CEO/COO responsibilities
22:39 Fundraising milestones and the NC Tweener Fund seed round
25:07 Climbing from startups to private equity customers
30:30 Finding the bigger market beyond Carta
35:59 Go-to-market: enterprise sales, not self-serve
39:17 Founder lessons: it's always harder than you think
44:35 Coming home to North Carolina
47:13 What's next for Equity Shift
51:07 Wrap-up and credits
-----
Where to Find Will Duckett:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wduckett/
Equity Shift: https://equityshift.com/
Where to Find Scot Wingo:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/
Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/
X: https://x.com/scotwingo
---
This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West.
We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:
Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org
Gold Sponsors:
- Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs
- EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com
- Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com
Silver Sponsors:
- Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co
- Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html
Will and I dig into the mechanics that most founders never see up close: tender offers, the daisy-chained SPV structures that made SpaceX famous for not knowing all of its own shareholders, and how Equity Shift built a system meant to prevent that. We also trace the company's growth from small business customers up into some of the largest private equity firms in the world, and the underlying blockchain patent portfolio that powers it all.
Will offers a candid look at what it's like building a capital-intensive fintech company in North Carolina, plus hard-won founder lessons from seven years and two economic shocks: expect everything to take twice as long as planned, and don't underestimate the value of a strong co-founder.
Timestamps
00:00 Cold open & sponsors
01:36 Welcome & meet Will Duckett of Equity Shift
02:16 From Chapel Hill (and ancient Roman history) to Wall Street
02:40 Hedge fund back office to a Columbia MBA
03:06 Moving home and meeting co-founder Tom at a blockchain meetup
04:41 Why a blockchain meetup, in 2018
07:21 Founding Equity Shift with Tom Gordon
08:24 First customer and becoming a broker-dealer
09:53 Secondaries 101: SpaceX, Pendo, and tender offers
10:41 What Equity Shift actually does
13:17 The SpaceX SPV daisy-chain problem
14:45 How Equity Shift compares to Carta
16:19 Life as a regulated FINRA broker-dealer
18:14 The taxi medallion analogy
19:07 Splitting CEO/COO responsibilities
22:39 Fundraising milestones and the NC Tweener Fund seed round
25:07 Climbing from startups to private equity customers
30:30 Finding the bigger market beyond Carta
35:59 Go-to-market: enterprise sales, not self-serve
39:17 Founder lessons: it's always harder than you think
44:35 Coming home to North Carolina
47:13 What's next for Equity Shift
51:07 Wrap-up and credits
-----
Where to Find Will Duckett:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wduckett/
Equity Shift: https://equityshift.com/
Where to Find Scot Wingo:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/
Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/
X: https://x.com/scotwingo
---
This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West.
We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:
Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org
Gold Sponsors:
- Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs
- EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com
- Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com
Silver Sponsors:
- Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co
- Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html
------
Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:
Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:
- Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/
