Contagious Narrative

Spent the week in NY at the big NFT show, here are my big takeaways.

What does it really mean to put a story at the tip of the spear in creating a community around your Web3 project? How do you craft that story, in a way that will attract the right kinds of people, and get them to bring others like them on board? And what exactly, is the vessel for such a story, once you have it?

The power of stories to drive novelty crypto projects like Dogecoin and Bored Ape is pretty obvious. But how do you put that power to work for a more traditional commercial venture? What are the secrets to doing that in Web3, and what do they mean for building a brand? This episode compares two projects for the answer, Terra, and PolkaDot.

Terra Whitepaper

PolkaDot Litepaper

Brands have always lived in the space between a product and a customer. What’s really changed in Web3? Two things, actually. And if you’re trying to build the community necessary to support a successful Web3 project, you really need to understand them, and put them to work for you.

I've been thinking a lot about the intersection of brand building, storytelling, community, and Web3. It's a space I'd like to explore in more detail, and that's what I plan to do here.

For more on how I got here and where I plan to go, give this a listen.

Show Links:

Headless Brands, by Bryan Lehrer Toby Shorin, Sam Hart, Laura Lotti

Tom Huntington (@thuntin) asks... "I heard a B2B SaaS CFO say that keeping pace with growth was the hardest thing.  I asked who set the pace and CFO responded, “the market.”  For non-web sales biz, I don’t really buy this.  Someone internal is setting the pace, no? Can you unpack pace-setting?"

Sure. I'd start by making the important distinction between customer and capital markets... 

Jason from Boston asks, "How do corporate level execs prefer to be approached by young talent seeking opportunity? Are they flattered or annoyed? Do they prefer straight to the point requests, or being asked for advice?"