Web3 Talks: Stories & Tips from the Builders

Blog post version: https://kanfa.macbudkowski.com/crypto-gtm

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If your crypto product is solid but growth feels slow, this episode gives you the clarity you need. It breaks down how teams like Aave, Uniswap, Polymarket and others actually unlocked their early traction and what you can learn from their playbooks.

You will hear the patterns behind channels that work, how to pick a segment that gives you an edge, and why even great products do not spread on their own.

If you are building in crypto and want practical guidance instead of vague advice, this is a focused walkthrough of what moves the needle. Listen and make your crypto GTM sharper.

Good to be back and happy to chat with you. Learn more and book a slot here: https://kanfa.macbudkowski.com/lets-chat

Henri is an ex-research scientist at Protocol Labs. He Co-Founded Privy, which provides web3 projects such as Friend.tech, t2 & Shibuya with seamless onboarding & embedded wallets.

In this episode, we dive into the early MVPs of Privy, learn how it works under the hood, how they managed to design such as smooth UX & more.

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If you like high-quality crypto content, check out the project I co-founded: kiwinews.xyz

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 A few words of intro

01:56: Why Henri started working on Privy

06:02 The early days of Privy

11:37 How have they built their MVP

13:15 Why did they make a pivot despite having an interest in their product

15:41 Which features helped them to tip the scales

22:34 How Privy works under the hood

34:04 Most wallets were built with L1s in mind

37:23 How do embedded wallets work

48:24 What would happen with wallets if Privy went out of business

50:36 How do they acquire their users

53:24 What kind of metrics do they follow

57:59 How does the world look like if Privy fulfilled its mission

1:04:25 Where people can learn more about Privy

Collab.Land is a tool for managing web3 communities and bridging them to Discord and Telegram. It has already been used by 50k+ communities and 8M+ wallets.

00:00 Teaser about Collab.Land's app marketplace

00:56 Intro

02:41 Abridge's first product, pivots & Collab.Land as a hackathon idea

06:48 Early days of Collab.Land during the COVID pandemic

12:07 How did they "sell" Collab.Land to communities

15:50 Cooperation with Axie Infinity

17:54 How they transitioned from a crypto-native tool to a mass-market tool

28:27 How they designed the marketplace and what kind of Collab.Land apps are already out there

35:51 What's their plan if Farcaster or Lens get more popular

40:07 Why they created their token, how they designed its airdrop and what's the utility

49:47 Biggest surprises when building Collab.Land

57:27 Where people can learn more about Collab.Land

Our Gitcoin Grants page: https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/10/0x2871742b184633f8dc8546c6301cbc209945033e/0x2871742b184633f8dc8546c6301cbc209945033e-322

Web3 Talks is back!

Mailchain is basically a web3 email. It provides a web app that lets you send your emails as if you used Gmail or Hotmail. But you send your emails via your wallet, ENS, Lens profile, and other identities you may use. Thanks to that and end-to-end encryption, your emails are 100% private.

Today we’re talking with Tim Boeckmann, Co-Founder & CEO of Mailchain, who shares their project’s story.

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Follow Web3 Talks on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/web3talks/

Get 15% off your EpicWeb3 conference tickets by using the WEB3TALKS code:
https://www.epicweb3.com/

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TIMESTAMPS:

1:46 Origins of Mailchain

6:01 Why they didn’t decide to put emails on chain

7:56 How Mailchain works

11:51 How the first versions of Mailchain looked like

14:56 How they acquired their first users across NFT artists and collectors?

19:09 How is Mailchain different from XMTP?

25:20 How do they decide which protocols to integrate

28:14 How do they acquire new users now?

30:16 What’s the process for integrating a new partner?

31:59 How do they want to prevent SPAM?

36:02 What’s enclave computing?

38:07 How do they plan to prepare for a scale of billions of users?

41:39 How do they plan to monetize Mailchain?

44:25 What metrics do they follow?

48:28 Why it might be hard to connect your Mailchain email to Gmail

51:08 How would the world of communications look if Mailchain became a household name

56:05 What would Tim build if he wasn’t building Mailchain

1:00:00 Guests ideas

Zora is one of the most popular web3 tools, used by the biggest creators in the NFT space. What were its early days? How they acquired their first users? How have they organized the Base campaign that generated 700,000+ mints?

This and much more in our conversation with Dee Goens, Co-Founder & COO @ Zora.

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Follow Web3 Talks on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/web3talks/

Get 15% off your EpicWeb3 conference tickets by using the WEB3TALKS code:
https://www.epicweb3.com/

Mint free episode NFT (pls share your e-mail address so we can let you know when it gets utility!): https://web3talks.xyz/nfts/

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:58 Who is Dee Goens, why they started building Zora with Jacob and Tyson and what was the first Zora MVP

05:50 What were the hardest trade-offs at an early stage?

7:18 How they solved their dilemma between staying 100% on-chain and taking care of good UX?

10:46 How Zora acquired their first users?

14:42 How many people work at Zora now?

16:10 How they organized their teams?

18:26 Why they decided to work on a marketplace, NounsDAO builder & API?

20:48 How did they set up a Base campaign that generated 700,000+ mints?

26:01 How does their cooperation with brands look?

33:19 Are they planning Zora Academy for NFT creators?

34:27 Why they invested in Zine, which is a pretty old school content tactic?

40:42 How does Zora acquire new collectors and artists?

47:51 How they want the creator’s life to look in 2030?

54:07 Why they changed their fee structure from 5% for primary sales to a flat fee?

56:58 Mint market share, number of collectors, and other metrics Zora follows

58:32 What would Dee build if he wasn’t building Zora?

1:00:00 What would he fix with his web3 magic wand?

1:02:15 Where can people learn more about Zora?

XMTP is one of the leading web3 messaging protocols. What were the early days of this project? What web3 native features they developed How they built a developer community around their protocol? How did they start handling DMs on Lens?

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Follow Web3 Talks on Twitter:

Get 15% off your EpicWeb3 conference tickets by using the WEB3TALKS code:
https://www.epicweb3.com/

Mint free episode NFT (pls share your e-mail address so we can let you know when it gets utility!):

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Julien has been building tools for membership NFTs since 2018, long before the NFT boom. What were the early days of the NFT market? How dogfooding helped them to acquire their first users? How they organized ticketing with Unlock for EthCC? What they've learned from running a DAO program?

This and more in our conversation with Julien Genestoux, Founder & CEO @ Unlock Protocol.

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Follow Web3 Talks on Twitter:

Get 15% off your EpicWeb3 conference tickets by using the WEB3TALKS code:
https://www.epicweb3.com/

Mint free episode NFT (pls share your e-mail address so we can let you know when it gets utility!):

***

TIMESTAMPS

0:59 Who is Julien Genestoux and what does Unlock Protocol do

3:21 Julien's experience with RSS & Medium

5:42 Early Unlock MVPs

7:56 How does NFT expiration work?

9:13 How they've been educating people about NFTs since 2018

14:37 How Unlock acquired their first users?

16:32 How they came up with the idea of rebranding NFTs

17:48 What's their process of coming up with UX-friendly solutions like wallet-less airdrops

21:56 Message from OrangeDAO

23:17 How their ticketing partnership with EthCC worked

27:55 Why crypto subscriptions aren't widely adopted yet

32:34 How they transformed part of their operations into a DAO

38:24 What have they learned from running a Grants program

43:02 How they managed their token's value dropping during the bear market

45:58 What kind of metrics do they follow

47:49 How they world of memberships would look like if Unlock succeeded

49:49 Biggest surprises when building Unlock

52:12 What would he build if he wasn't building Unlock

53:42 Where you can learn more about Unlock

53:56 Guests ideas