A fair bit of luck really. Met the CEO at a specific crypto-development conference back in 2016 and we hit off and he gave me an offer right then and there. Initially, had to prove my worth for the first 2 years and when my full-time work and other life events started getting in the way I gave him my two weeks notice and he countered with more money and less day-to-day work so long as he could keep me on "retainer" which he did by creating a board and placing me on it. There's a few other folks on the board which I'm quite certain earn more than I do because they're former Googlers/Apple employees and I have never worked for a FAANG company. Company has taken a big hit over the last 1.5 years due to the poor performance of cryptos recently and waning interest from our existing and potential client base.