Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | Google Podcast
Background
Mint bonus episode: I was invited to speak at NFT LA on all things about the creator economy and lead a discussion with Jesse Tevelow of Praise, Alexandra Hooven of Rally, and Noel Borges of Mintblack.
In this episode, we discuss:
- 00:00 – Intro
- 02:12 – The current state of the web3 creator economy
- 06:28 – Should creators strive to build virality or a niche group of true fans?
- 14:22 – How to transition your web2 audience into web3?
- 22:02 – What data can creators unlock via NFTs and other crypto assets?
- 35:47 – Outro
…and so much more.
I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Yeah, I guess moderators here, what a good-looking crowd? Yeah. Check, check, check, check. I want the mic working. Yeah. Check, check. Hello. All right. How are we doing? Can make some noise? Yeah. Give it up for edge of NF T for a killer conference bringing the LA community together and all of us together. How are you guys doing?
Jesse Tevelow: I’m good. I got a lollipop.
What flavors is that?
Jesse Tevelow: It’s a bubble gum. Bubble gum, I think.
All right. All right.
Jesse Tevelow: I’m feeling it.
Intro
Guys. Before we get started really quick. This is all about how the creator economy NFT is intersect? How many people in the audience are actually creators, by show of hands? All right, three fourths? Is it like video creators, tick tock creators, by show of hands. Video creators. Bloggers, Twitter, shit posters. All right, not too many. Well, I’m excited to be here, guys. Pleasure to be on stage with you. Just dive right in. Let’s start with a quick bio. Who are you guys? What does the world need to know about you? Keep it short. 30 seconds. We’ll go one by one.
Jesse Tevelow: Hi, guys. I’m Jesse Tevelow. I am the creator of a community called praise and praise piles. And I’m going to talk more later, so I’ll leave it at that.
Alex Hooven: It’s awesome. I wasn’t familiar with praise. So, I’m excited to hear about it. But I am Alex Hooven Hooven. I am director of strategic partnerships and growth at rally. And on the other side of the coin, I’m also oversee governance and operations for a Dao called Friends with Benefits here in LA.
Noel Borges: Hello, everyone. I’m Noel Borges Burgess, one of the cofounders of mint black, I have the pleasure of working with an incredible team of folks to work with creators like Jim Jones, who was the first hip hop artist launching NFT, as well as a social token and Nicole Buffett, excited to be here.
The current state of the web3 creator economy
And then I’m Adam Levy, I host a podcast meant basically document the pulse of where crypto meets creators, teaching creators how they can use these crypto primitives to build, monetize and own their audience. So, without further ado, we’re here to hear you guys talk. Okay. I think a good place to start. We’re talking about all thing’s creator economy here. What’s the current state of the creator economy as it pertains to web three? How do you guys see that?
Jesse Tevelow: Are we going down the line?
Yes, down the line.
Jesse Tevelow: Down the line? All right let’s do it. Creator economy? Let’s see. Where do I start? Web three is all about community. So, it’s pretty much the core for me, you know, it’s kind of synonymous community verse creator, I think producers are the leaders of the future. So, creator economy is about being creative, being you, being authentic, being genuine, finding your true value. And, you know, in this web three world if it’s like, people are like, oh, what why is this art valuable? Because I think it is, because I said it is because someone else thinks it is. So, it’s a much more just open environment, and creators are going to be the leaders of the future. You know, our currency is going to flow to creators, I think a lot of currencies are going to flow to creators. And it’s just exciting times, because I think we all feel this vibe happening here. Certainly, if you’re here, you can feel it. And it’s, I think it’s the age of the Creator. So, let’s go.
Alex Hooven: Age of the Creator love it. The question was?
The current state of the creator economy in web three, as we stand today.
Jesse Tevelow: Oh, I think the state of it is awesome. Sorry.
Alex Hooven: The state is awesome. I think what’s so incredible about the Creator economy and how its intersection with web three is that all the tooling and primitives that are being designed right now in web three are really just allowing sort of that relation, that precious relationship between a creator and the fan, to be able to have this symbiotic relationship where both the fan and the artists can be capturing equal value that they are both providing, without having any middleman in between to sort of disrupt that. So that’s what I think is great.
Noel Borges: Amazing, I love it. First of all, before I want to shout out Adam and mint, every Sunday at 3pm, I’m looking forward to your email, if you’re not subscribed, you definitely should as he captures everything from Dallas to NFT social tokens. It’s really the best podcast.
Thank you, sir.
Noel Borges: So definitely check it out, within the sole creator economy. So, I think there’s economy 2.0 or creator economy 2.0 And there’s a creator economy 3.0, which I’ll consider web three. So, in the social token space, we talk often about moving from web two to web three, and we liken it to going from hashtags to cache tags. And we see the future in which is now we’re embodying our future self now. So, what does that look like? It looks like creators, having, as mentioned before a symbiotic relationship with their fans. And more specifically, we’re capturing value of the personal brand. So, they are creators. Up until now, the relationship is such that a tick talker or an Instagram influencer will perhaps sell a product or service or an experience, the fan will purchase it. Creator receives money, fan receives product or experience. And that’s usually where the relationship ends. Within web three, the fan receives experience and as well as the product. And more importantly, they now have the potential to share in the financial gains by reselling that NFT. And by the way, when that happens, the creator also generates additional revenue. So now their interests are aligned. And that’s where we’re moving from web two to web three. And regarding hashtags to cache tags, it’s this idea that within Instagram and TikTok, it’s about popularity, right? It’s about gaining as many followers and attractions. Within web three, it’s about community. It’s not just about followers, it’s about building community, and monetizing that community in a way that’s not just beneficial to the Creator, but also beneficial to the token holders, whether it’s an NFT, or a social token.
Should creators strive to build virality or a niche group of true fans?
So, should creators strive to build virality or to build their like 1000 true fans via NFTs? What’s better?
Jesse Tevelow: Yeah, I mean, I, I wrote a book about this. It’s called the connection algorithm. And so, I just, I think that everything is about humanity. And if sometimes we get lost in the technology, sometimes it’s hard for so, you know, for us to socially and culturally keep up with the technology. But you know, I just think that, you know, I just think it’s really important for people to understand that, again, it comes back to the community, that community is the most important thing, and that people are going to gravitate toward that. And so, it comes back to like culture. And so, I look at one on one connections. I try to figure out who I am. And then I try to figure out who’s gravitating toward me. And I try to have real relationships with those people. And I go one by one. And I asked that person who do you admire? And then they tell me, oh, I admire this person. And then I, and that’s literally like how I’ve grown my entire platform. And it’s funny, because like, three weeks ago, we didn’t have any community to speak of in web three. But I’ve been building community for so long, real community and real connections and real relationships, that, you know, we had no Twitter, no discord, no email lists, less than a month ago, now we have 30,000 plus, in that environment, and we didn’t spend a penny on advertising. We did that. Because, like, you were just saying, man, like beautifully said, eloquently said, you know, it’s a circle, like the community is getting value from itself. There is no product, there is no leader, there’s just a community. Right. And then there’s currency that is attached to that community in the form of a token or NFTs, or art, or whatever, something in IRL something in the metaverse, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a community of people. Okay, like, the community that you were born into was, was controlled by a government, you just popped up, you spawned onto the land. And then they were like, these are the rules because you’re in this box of the land. Right. So, make real connections with real people. Don’t worry about the boundaries that you think are around, you just find people that you love. That means something to you, that are doing something that you like to do, or want to do or are doing, find out who you are, and then that value will start to literally manifest. And the cool thing is that you don’t have to worry about the fucking lines on the map anymore. You can just share your value.
Noel Borges: Just see if I can say I think the real secret is your swag. You have a pink lollipop with the glasses. I mean, you’re, I think that’s what attracts everyone to you.
Jesse Tevelow: Well, that’s deliberate because i don’t really give a fuck anymore. So, I’m like, this is me. So, you want to hang out or not? Let’s make some money.
Let’s go. Alright. So, the question was, again, build for virality or built for an intimate base of people. Right, that may or may not end up being your collectors. Like how do you guys think about that?
Alex Hooven: Yeah, I think, I think it’s interesting. Like, if you look at sort of the entire crypto landscape, whether it’s a platform or an exchange like uniswap or a big successful NFT project, like board eight Yacht Club or any things similar like that. I think What makes them successful is the community around it, not the morality. And so, I think especially when you’re talking about, you know, a creator, or some sort of any kind of artists, that’s going to introduce a token, whether it’s a fungible token, like a social token or an NFT, you know, the success is going to be sort of a parent by the community that supports it, not the virality, the community is what drives the virality. So, I think, you know, when we think about a pop star, or any or a sport, the athlete or whatever, who wants to introduce a token, I don’t necessarily think an athlete with millions of fans necessarily translates to a community of people. And so therefore, if there’s not any sort of unifying ethos, or philosophy or mentality around why we’re introducing this token, what the goals of this community to build together and share an ownership of this community, there’s not going to be a tremendous amount of at least an instant success. And so I think, a community that’s been established, so you know, that could be a media company that has a passionate group of existing subscribers or a community like praise, where they’ve already sort of fostered this idea of like, why they’re in this together, they’re way more set up for success than just your average athlete or musician that just wants to introduce a token for the sake of introducing a token. So yeah, I think it’s more about creating that community first and less about the virality and I think the virality will come and success of the community.
Noel Borges: Absolutely. I think virality is more. So, web two, and creator economy 2.0. As we see it today, I think community building is at the heart of web three. And, as mentioned, the goal isn’t to just get more followers, but to create raving fans, and how do you create raving fans? I would prefer to call them token holders, right, and build this community where everyone is aligned and sharing in the upside. And the follower doesn’t just see their contribution to the fan by just liking or posting or commenting or liking or commenting or sharing. But now they get to purchase a product or an experience when the account when they collect, let’s say an NFT of a creator. Or if they purchase the social token of a creator, that gives utility. And I think utility is at the heart of community building, where there’s more than just collecting it, collecting it is Cool. And I think we’ve seen a lot of that over the past year, I think we’re seeing the shift where creators whether it’s folks on Tik Tok, Instagram, or celebrities, right, Jim Jones, for example, the goal isn’t necessarily to just create more fans and have this one two-way relationship, this one-way relationship where the Creator generates revenue from the fan. But rather, everyone is aligned, everyone is communicating, the fans now get to communicate with one another, rather. So, the community gets to interact with each other in let’s say, a discord by holding an NFT of that in that particular creator. And so, the goal is less virality. I think virality is a byproduct of community building, not the other way around.
Jesse Tevelow: Yeah, I was asking if I could add on that, you literally just hit it right at the end there. So, it’s like, I don’t want people to misinterpret like, virality is awesome, right? Like you want virality. So, I’m not saying virality is bad. I’m saying that it doesn’t start there. You’re not it’s like, you don’t just like have an idea. And then it’s so good that it’s viral. You build something slowly, like we’re talking about to the point that it’s solid, and then you turn on, you know, you put the foot, your foot down on the gas, and that’s what we did. And it’s like, it’s a hype cycle. So, like, you want to leverage that still, you know, you’re still trying to it’s a competitive market. It’s a hype cycle. You know, you got to look at all these elements. But the problem is that people don’t see the forest for the trees, and they just try to go all the way before they build it up. You know, I’ve been working on something for a year. And then, whenever you see an overnight success, it’s never an overnight success. Never, ever like It’s lightning in a bottle if that happens, so.
Alex Hooven: If it isn’t a scam.
Jesse Tevelow: Yeah, and it’s yeah, it’s 99.9% also a scam. So, there you go, whatever that equals out to so yeah, that’s just use virality is good. Just stick with humanity first.
How to transition your web2 audience into web3?
So, because the panel is only 30 minutes long, there’s different types of creators, right? There’s music creators, art creators, video creators, bloggers, all sorts of creators. And I guess in the context of which creator pertains to like if you’re a musician, because the hottest thing right now are music NFTs, like everybody’s trying to buy music NFTs a lot of people are talking about music, NFTs. If you look at a music artist, is like number one source is kind of like getting virality on Spotify, on Apple Music, right? And then trying to use NFTs and social tokens as that primitive to kind of bring his fans together to monetize his fans separately from Facebook, separately from Spotify, in all that, so I think it’s very relative, right? Another thing I want to ask you guys is because I host a podcast like, thankfully people listen to it I get hit up by agencies who manage craters, okay? That have existing audiences that have existing followings that want to integrate these primitives into their day to day, right? Have their fans by their NFTs, build a fan base, a token gated fan club, whatever, whatever the buzzword is, how can an existing creator who already has virality tap into web three, what is the funnel look like? How do they get started? Okay, do they issue a social token? Do they issue NFT? And once they have that asset, how do they actually funnel in their audience from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok into telegram or discord to create token gated communities, right? A lot of people, a lot of creators in the Creator economy have already quote unquote, made it in web two. There’s, there’s a lot, I’m not saying everybody that want to use these primitives to kind of transition I think rally, by the way, is a good example of that, right? Using these primitives as a way to create some type of token asset to reward incentivize their audience. So maybe Alex Hooven, you can start with this one. How do existing creators web audiences transition their fans from web two into web three?
Alex Hooven: Yeah, so I actually think there’s like a giant misconception and like, sort of what that barrier is, in terms of bringing your audience along into web three. And I think the way that people need to think about it is less about okay, there’s, I have all these new tools at my disposal, how do I plug them into my community, and it’s more about actually just taking a look at your community and knowing what they, what they want, and how to engage them in ways that you are already doing that. And just thinking about how you can use tokens, whether they’re NFTs to just add more value in those spaces that you are already engaging in and adding value to your fan bases. So, rally specifically, just for everyone, if you’re not familiar is a social token platform, it is a sidechain of Ethereum. That does allow any artists or community organization to mint a social token as a means of starting a micro economy with that fanbase. What is a micro digital economy mean to us? It means sort of pairing this idea of fungible currencies, so social tokens with non-fungible tokens. So, NFT and what we really focus on is figuring out how you can integrate NFTs and add value to your communities in a way that provides utility and not scarcity. So, we’re not really focused on, you know, one of one drop where you can, you know, have high volume, high value auction items, and it’s more about how can you use NFTs as tickets? How can you use NFTs as badges, keys, access to things, and really just figuring out what that utility is? And so I think getting started is more looking at your community, looking at your roadmap of like what you have going on over the, you know, next six months to a year and saying, How can I actually just sort of take this technology, this from, you know, fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens, and actually integrate it into what I’m already doing, and ultimately be providing your fans more value, right? So instead of saying, okay, I’m doing this live stream, and I’m going to sell tickets, maybe those tickets are NFTs. And, you know, instead of just paying a sunk cost of $50, for that ticket, you’re not providing them with an asset, which they can, you know, carries that intrinsic value of the content that they want. Or they can just, you know, sell it on the secondary market, if that’s what they choose to do. And you’re both participating in the value of that transaction. So yeah, I think it’s, it’s less about saying, Do I need to do an NFT? Do I need to launch a social token, and it’s more thinking about what the community wants, what you’re already doing, and what you can plug into with those two options?
Noel Borges: Amazing. I love it, I think, as creators who currently have virality, let’s say, for example, this is in conversation with Kimmo who has 2 million followers, she’s here, shout out to Kimmo and Samir who has 4 million followers on TikTok. So, as we are speaking about, how do we not just monetize your fans, because that’s a one-way relationship? How do we give more value to the fans than you receive? Right? And I think so long as the creator is thinking about giving more than we take, that will be a sustainable con, there will be a sustainable growing community. And whether it’s a social token or an NFT, it’s likely to thrive, I think, where we see the Creator, whether it’s an Instagram or TikTok influencer, or as a celebrity, only thinking of it as a one-way relationship, how much money can I make? I think regardless, whatever they do next, it’s already a lost cause. And it’s, it’s going to end up being a whirlpool, and no one’s going to win. In fact, they’re going to burn their following, right. So how do we, from the beginning of the conversation, think about how do I give more value to my community and some of the examples we’re speaking about with Kim and Samir, how do we allow fans give access that they may not have gotten before for example, being able to meet in person have in person IRL events where upon so now that wasn’t something that unless you’re a close friend of the Creator who you celebrate chemo as a fitness influencer, if you happen to be at the gym, you might be able to meet with her. Otherwise, how is it possible to have a zoom one on one meeting, or setup? If you DM her, you’re one of 1 million people in her DMs, she’s probably not going to respond. But if you purchase one of her NFTs, you might you’ll have the opportunity to have a video chat with her. Same with Samir, you know, folks are admiring his cars, and he’s a car enthusiast on tick tock. How do you imagine the ability to ride and ride shotgun literally and figuratively with Samir for a day? Well, now you can buy purchasing one of his NFTs and now you get to see a community that is more engaged than ever before. And so, this creates that medium to create a more intimate experience, whether it’s in real life virtual, and the relationship doesn’t stop there. Because the person who collected the NFT of Samir, Samir is incentivized to continue to provide value to the token holders by potentially air dropping his Samir coin. So, he now has the social token, he creates an airdrop it to folks who are in possession of any of his NFTs. And so, we don’t see it as an either or whether it’s NFTs or social tokens, we see both ends, we think they work in harmony with one another. The way we see the current landscape at mint black, which is a social token platform as well. We don’t just focus on social tokens, we see the trajectory of where crypto was, where it is and where it’s headed. Where it was, was NFTs then Metaverse, now Dao’s we see the next frontier being social tokens. And social tokens will tie it all together will bring all of those four pillars within the crypto economy in a way that works in harmony with one another.
What data can creators unlock via NFTs and other crypto assets?
You know, you brought up ticketing, it’s one of my favorite use cases for NFTs. I’ll share a quick story and the next kind of like conversational I want to talk about his data, what kind of data can creators tap into that they otherwise would have had through social media platforms? So, if you issued tickets, let’s say you do like a meet and greet. Okay, a lot of creators do meet and greets. They try to meet their fans, they issue tickets as NFTs, teach them how to open a meta mask. One of the coolest things or one of the most successful creators, they actually create videos on how to open up a meta mask, how to buy your first Ethereum that comes from them personally, that creates more of a level of comfort, right on how to actually do these things. So, there’s this creator, her name is Queen George. Okay, she basically did a NFT concert at Eth Denver, I think a couple months ago, excuse me a couple of months ago, and she issued free tickets for people to collect to then watch her perform. Now the cool thing about that is that she got about 200 collectors off the bat. Okay, they all minted one of her things for free. So, she gave before she took. And then on top of that they came in, met her in person, watched her perform live and then had the option one to join her discord and to mint, one of one music NFT on the spot. But the cool thing about that, why it’s so unique is now she has about 200 collectors who collected her stuff and also came to watch performed. There should be a way basically for her to understand who her collectors are, it extends beyond anonymous addresses. She now can see okay, are any of them in FWB? What percentage of them? What things do those people vote on? Right? How much money do they have in their wallet, she starts tapping into data points that she otherwise would have never had, thanks to these collectors. So, she might realize, wait a minute, 75% of the people that showed up to my concert aren’t FWB, it may be worth to do a collection or some type of collaboration with FWB. And now she’s growing her audience in web three. How do you guys think about data on chain? And how can creators tap into data when they issue their NFTs and kind of build more meaningful communities around their collectors?
Jesse Tevelow: Who is it going to me first?
Whoever wants to take it?
Noel Borges: Awesome. I’ll go so I think what was mentioned with brands earlier, how I think it goes this is, the data point is not just important to creators, but also to brands. where for example, let’s say Kim has a relationship with a brand, a fitness brand who wants to do a collab, if there are let’s say 1000 collectors of her NFT and she can see that these creatures we can Airdrop now let’s say that brand wants to create enemies, you can Airdrop it to her current collectors. And over time, we’ll be able to look in the wallet and see which fans are the ones who are likely to buy product A versus product B. And as mentioned a moment ago if they’re 50% of them are holders of let’s say a since 3000 generative art collection, therefore which is an upcoming collection with the Danielle Lesley, she’s launching shortly. If similar to like a world of women, for example, if they’re in possession of that NFT, we know that that’s someone who’s passionate about women’s empowerment, right? And so those NFTs that are in the wallets of a token holder, says something about the person, Danielle is very intentional with the NFT she collects, right? Because it’s a representation of her brand. So, when you look at her collection, now, she has a world woman, she has a board, he has some blue chips, but more importantly, she has NFTs of collections. And with that causes that matter to her. So, we can see what matters to the individual that perhaps in web two, you wouldn’t be able to see that because this is all public.
Really quick. That’s the ownership economy, right? When you talk about creators owning the platforms that they participate on, this is data that they might have not otherwise been able to tap into. Right? And to learn more about who’s their audience who’s doing what with them? Who’s engaging with them? When you have these addresses, and everything is transparent, and you can tap into this data, you’re able to unlock insight that you otherwise wouldn’t been able to kind of explore.
Alex Hooven: Right? Yeah, I was just going to add, like, I think that’s just the huge part about web three is this idea of ownership. And like, the question I posed to a lot of creators is like, okay, if you were to wake up tomorrow, hypothetically, and YouTube or Spotify or Instagram or wherever you’re, you know, you know, interacting with your audiences, the most magically disappeared? Would you feel like you still had meaningful ability to connect with your audience? And I think most people would say no, right? Because you don’t have ownership over that data. So, I think the most exciting thing, just to I mean, everything that you said is correct, is that you truly have the, through decentralization, you truly have ownership over your data, and you can do anything you want with that data, no matter how, however way you choose to synthesize it.
Jesse Tevelow: Yeah, I agree with both of you, I feel like we’re also aligned on this panel. And you know, I guess I don’t know. For me, I feel like it’s, it’s definitely a situation where you’re trying to look for what is the culture and to me, it’s the model is completely flipped, like the power has shifted from the corporation to the individual, right. So, when I think about that, in the context of data, it’s like a whole different thing. It’s like, when you think about data, you think of corporations, but now it’s flipped, the data is yours, it’s the individual. So, it starts the core, everything is center is you. So, the future is all about you. And I’m kind of on a mission to change the connotation of the word selfish, because I think it’s a really positive word, I think we all need to be more selfish. And I think we’re all starting to realize that we’ve not been selfish enough, the corporations are selfish, the institutions are selfish, like, we’re just literally like living miracles. So, like, let’s just own our data. And I agree with everyone on here, you know, it’s what they’re showing, we’re all showing the world is that this is where we want to spend our money on self-expression, on art, you know, the data is showing us now because it is decentralized data, it’s real data, the data is coming from you. And you and you and you and, it’s coming from us now. It’s not coming from the corporation. So that’s why the web two folks are like, I don’t get this, you know, here’s all my data, here’s all my numbers. Okay, here’s how NFTs work. Okay, I’m gonna plug this in, and then I’m going to raise my bottom line by this. It’s like, guys, that’s not what this is about. So, if you have a long-term view, then you got to really like literally to turn the concept of data on its head upside down and start thinking about it that way.
And again, why I’d suggest doing stuff for free, giving things out for free, just get something to collect something, right? Get someone to just commit that action. And I think you’ve already like enter the funnel, like a top-level funnel to kind of building like a minimum viable community in web three.
Jesse Tevelow: Yeah, they’ll come to you like, you’re literally, your people will come to you, and then you monetize.
The coolest part about web three is that in web two, where the products of the platform right, like we rent, everything, you know, many people on my Tik Tok feed, they disappear because Tik Tok decided to like shadow ban them or like remove their account for whatever reason. And they have to build their millions of followers from the gecko. They rented their audience, right? In crypto, you now own your audience, right? You co own now, the platforms that you belong to, that you participate on. And you share the upside as they grow. Right? You want to add something.
Noel Borges: I want to add on to that. We see. Web two, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube as one layer and we see social tokens, the NFTS as a layer that sits on top of the various platforms. So, if you are in possession of a Samir NFT, you can now gain access and benefits to his brand, whether it’s on Instagram or TikTok, or YouTube, wherever you find him. You can all have this shared common interest that goes beyond just the relationship on that respective social media, as mentioned, if you’re Tik Tok shut down or if you were shadow ban, how do you communicate and interact in a way that’s separate from these platforms. And we see social tokens and NFTs as the medium to do just that. And it sits above all of the various social media, all the all the various social platforms.
Go ahead, Alex Hooven.
Alex Hooven: Yeah, I was just gonna say and by the way, like, it’s so possible for these platforms to just shut down, I remember when Facebook was down for like a day like that actually had tremendous impact on small businesses that operate on Instagram. But I just wanted to add to something that you said about just I think that web three has kind of flipped this idea of like, the traditional web two tech notion that, you know, you build the platform of the product first, and then the community will come. But in web three, it’s actually built the community and incubate the products from there through the ownership of your data. So, like, an example of that is FWB where, you know, there is now I think, about 2000, about 6000, token holders, but 2000 active members. And you know, we were throwing events at different conferences and trying to find a way to get our members in through like a token gated mechanism, and we couldn’t find a solution that works for us. So, we then, you know, voted internally, to allocate some of our treasury budget to just build our own product. And now we license that out to other Dao’s and other platforms. So, it really is that notion of like looking at your data that you own and seeing sort of the white spaces, and then building things for the community because of your community needs it. There’s obviously others that needed to.
Jesse Tevelow: it’s like your community is your team and your team is your community. It’s all the same thing.
Noel Borges: Well, we’re in the same hat. And by the way, I love that line. And we got to repeat it again, for the people in the back, the token, you build a community, and the product will come versus the other way around.
Alex Hooven: Yeah, exactly.
So, it’s like the model in like web two is like build a minimum viable product, right? find product market fit, and then scale. The web three, it’s built a minimum viable community, find people that align under a common theme under a subject, bring them together, issue an asset of some sort, whether it’s a membership pass, right be an NFT, some type of ERC 20. That’s a speculative asset, whatever it may be. Give them upside that as the community gets stronger, grows builds, they share that leverage with them. By the way, I was a victim of the first event that happened that then led to building the event platform.
Alex Hooven: Oh, in Paris.
Yeah. Paris. Yeah. Throwback. Yeah. I want to leave an open the room for questions. If anybody does have any questions. Does anybody have questions? Show of hands. Do we have time for questions? Yeah. All right. I’ll come to you. Let’s do it.
Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing? Hello. I had a question about as far as doing free NFTs. How do you how do you set that up? Because from what I know, I have very limited knowledge of a lot of things in the NFT space thus far. It’s a lot of cost that goes into everything. How do you set up something to give for free? Do you have to like to choose a certain blockchain like might not be able to use Ethereum? You might have to use something different in order to get that out there because I want to give something away for free, but I’m not sure as to how to go about doing it.
Noel Borges: I’d recommend the marketplace drawstrings on one of my partners. Kenny was one of the co-founders of drawstring is built on near it made it easy for folks to give away. And as pretty much gasless where you can create NFTs, you can Airdrop it, send it via an email or a text and folks can redeem it. We’re doing, we’re using drawstrings for a drop we’re doing with Julianne Moore, where if you’re in possession, if you bought purchase one of her NFTs, a collab we did with Nicole Buffett, it’s as simple as sending an email, someone clicks the link, create an account and the NFT appears in their wallet. So therefore, there isn’t necessarily a payment that’s required.
Alex Hooven: I’m also just going to quickly show rally because rally is very much just an out of the box economy and that you can just create an account, sign up and all of the tooling, the smart contract language is all done for you on the rally side chain. So, it’s as easy as just making an account and you know, uploading your art asset and then being able to drop it that way. There is no gas on the side chain. And I think you know, that’s actually a key thing to touch on is that rally was built with sort of the fan relationship in mind and in thinking that, you know, these people that are creating social tokens or NFTs on the on rally, probably have a community and probably have some sort of reputation on the line and you know, you want that first expand experience in crypto to feel safe and secure. And, you know, for us, that means no gas fees so that people don’t feel like they’re getting sort of Taking advantage of when they’re making a transaction. And so that’s a big thing for rally.
Jesse Tevelow: Yeah, I’ll just quickly say plus one for rally. I mean, that’s like for what you describe probably one of the best, if not the best options. And then the second piece to go along with that is do your research, right? Because there’s not one answer ever. It’s like, what is your specific goal, and then, you know, in touching on gas, like, totally agree like rallies, good for what you just described, because of that fact that whereas, you know, on Ethereum, you’re gonna pay for gas, if you don’t know is almost like a tax for bandwidth or throughput through the system. So, but then you’ve got Ethereum has a big community, right? And they’ve got a lot of, you know, eyes on them in this. And so, you just got to, like, really think about how you want to, those are just two examples that you could use out of, you know, 1000s. So, but you know, so, use rally.
Outro
So, I’ll add one thing, and we’ve got to wrap up. So, I can’t do any more questions, but obvious pull ups, which are basically like free NFTs, I’ve growth hack my newsletter to 1000s of subscribers, because of pull ups. It’s like a hidden secret in crypto. The best way, in my opinion, I haven’t tried rally stuff, I’d love to try it. But from my personal experience, a lot of people that throw events, they use pull ups to kind of just give something for free just for attending, right? And then from the, so pull ups is, it’s a proof of attendance protocol. So, it’s basically its own like mechanism to reward people for showing up at an event or doing an action. So, at the end of every season, I basically give out listener badges, speaker badges, and I give sponsors NFTs as well, via pull ups, right? And it’s just a fun thing people love, and people go crazy for them. So, it shows you if you can give something then you’ll get something in return. But I think that’s where we got to end off. You guys want to plug yourselves really quick. And then yeah, thank you.
Jesse Tevelow: I’ll just plug you man good job. Amazing moderation, dang sure is amazing conversation. Everybody can find me so thanks for being here. Love web three of all you guys keep doing what you’re doing.
Alex Hooven: Yeah, I mean, if you’re interested in, you know, figuring out what a social token economy could look like for you feel free to come see me after this. And follow rally on all our social channels for more.
Noel Borges: amazing. Check us out at the exhibit booth, mint black and as well as on our socials. We have a number of exciting drops. As you mentioned, we’re doing Jim Jones performance where he’s also dropping an NFT live right after Steve Aoki. So, if you’re still in the building, make sure to check that out. It’s at 6pm and Steve Aoki speaks at 5:30 as well as we have an exciting NFT drop that Julianne Moore did, where she created a, she created NFTs of her wearable of her dresses where if you auction when you receive a gown, and we ran the world first NFT commercial during the Oscars, which would have made the headlines if it wasn’t for Will Smith. That said, you will not even know that it happened. And shout out to Jessie, I need a black lollipop. Thank you.
You guys can find me at @Levychain everywhere on the Mint podcast, if you search mint Adam Levy. You’ll find it everywhere. Thank you, guys.
