Web3 w/ Me

My guest today is Mike Kanovitz (https://twitter.com/mikekanovitz ), Founder of Jurat (https://twitter.com/JuratNetwork ) a startup with an ambitious goal of bringing legal rights to web3 by connecting courts to the blockchain. Mike is a founding partner at Loevy & Loevy (​​https://twitter.com/LoevyAndLoevy ), one of the most prominent civil rights litigation firms in the US. After practicing civil rights for 20+ years he had his first crypto consumer protection case, which soon led to the discovery that the world of web3 aligned with the values he was already seeking to enforce. Now he is building a solution to make it possible. 

We discuss:

The way courts can provide protection and preserve decentralization, cryptographic security and anonymity

What will it take for Jurat to help web3 become the backbone of commerce?

• Adoption turns into regular use - settling tx with Jurat
• Make smart contracts enforceable by connecting ot court system

Suit filed by Jurat to enforce OFAC sanctions on BTC

The use cases for a better global commerce system if law can be enforced on chain

Jurat’s Business Model (https://jurat.io/whitepaper/ ):

• Bespoke blockchains with their own tokens - P2P trading through Zabbo (a Jurat app)
• Licensing to other blockchains
• Commercially viable, legally enforceable smart contracts with arbitration support (Arbit3)

Chapters

2:05 Mike’s Founding Story

4:16 Jurat’s Founding Story

6:46 Legal Protections w/o Sacrificing Blockchain Value

16:24 How to Help Web3 become the Backbone of Commerce

37:07 A world where blockchain and laws coexist

50:36 Jurat’s Business Model

54:06 Closing Questions

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Justin Daniels (​​https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinsdaniels/ ), Head of the Digital Assets Group at Baker Donelson Law Firm. Justin has made a name for himself by spending 20+ years in cybersecurity. He has written a New York Times Best Seller with his wife, Jodi, called Data Reimagined (https://www.amazon.com/Data-Reimagined-Building-Trust-Byte-ebook/dp/B0BDVQ97YQ ) and hosts a podcast called She Said Privacy, He Said Security (https://open.spotify.com/show/5q8B2oYUPajIvmvZiLa4K4 ). We get a comprehensive overview of the current regulatory landscape for blockchain, cybersecurity and privacy. We discuss the competing interests and values of companies, individuals and the state when it comes to security and privacy.

We Discuss:

Cybersecurity as the BIGGEST impediment to mass adoption

Web3’s security problems are no bigger than anywhere else

SEC says hold my beer Web3, everything is a security

Why Justin thinks we need to press the pain to find the use cases

Should brand messaging include safety?

Role of AI and how it affects safety - https://stanforddaily.com/2023/01/22/scores-of-stanford-students-used-chatgpt-on-final-exams-survey-suggests/

Lessons from Axie Infinity Hack

• Worshiping convenience and growth can come back to bite you
• Security as a design feature

Autonomy’s role in different regulatory regimes, and how much is too much?

Chapters

00:21 Justin’s Cybersecurity and Blockchain Background

4:21 Cybersecurity’s Importance to Our Digital Future

14:29 SEC: Everything’s a Security

18:34 Web3 Use Cases that Work 

23:34 Companies Putting Safety First (0)

27:36 Autonomy & AI

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Liz Morrison (https://twitter.com/thelizmorrison ), co-founder of Your Web3 Besties (https://twitter.com/YourWeb3Besties ) media brand. Liz has built amazing expertise in marketing and partnerships over 7+ years. She provides an amazing platform for women and everyone in Web3 on her weekly spaces with Becky Wowo called Girls Night in Web3. We get a masterclass in navigating the various parts of Twitter, how to build the best partnerships and a reminder on why Web3 is so powerful for building lifetime connections. 

We discuss:

Twitter’s Subcultures

- Marketing Twitter

- FinTwit/MoneyTwit

- Web3 Twitter

Web3 vs. Web2 Marketing

- Things that have NOT changed - you must understand your customer completely

- Things that HAVE changed - community is in direct communication, you must listen

Ingredients for an Amazing Partnership

- Be strategic about how you spend your time, tiering your partners

- Empathize with your partner

- Be intentional about a go-to-market strategy

- Partnerships are forever, not transactional

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Gary Coover (https://twitter.com/c00v ), COO of Superlayer (https://twitter.com/superlayerio ). Gary started his career as a consultant before going to get his MBA and cofounding a D2C startup. Eventually he ended up in Korea at Samsung, tasked with building out Samsung’s innovation arm called Samsung X. After helping scale that for 8 years, he was bitten by the Web3 bug when he noticed the momentum it was gaining. He joined Kevin Chu and Mahesh Vellanki as COO at Superlayer, a venture studio dedicated to Web3 startups. We discuss many of Gary’s learnings from Fortune 100 to startup venture studio, including the difference between cats and kittens and the importance of having a strong shit umbrella. 

We discuss:

How do you build out a venture/innovation arm at a tech behemoth?

Spoiler Alert: mostly takes thick skin and good relationships

Venture Studio vs Incubator/Accelerator vs Venture Capital

• 2x2 of Funds Deployed and Value Provided
• Tradeoffs is ownership as you move between models

Web3 as 2 different businesses

1. Product

2. Tokenomics

What does a healthy community look like?

- Aligning incentives in a way that benefits the collective over the individual

- Creating lasting partnerships 

The future of Web3 as an industry. Is it more of a building block?

Chapters:

0:00 Gary’s Founding Story

7:52 Creating Samsung X, An Innovation Arm

13:09 Venture Studio vs Accelerator vs Venture Capital

16:49 Why Superlayer? Business + Tokenomics

34:41 Future of Community and NFTs

46:36 Is Web3 a building block or an industry?

56:34 Closing Questions

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Diego Borgo (https://www.linkedin.com/in/diegoborgo/ ), Strategic Advisor to F500 brands on how to enter the Metaverse and Web3. Diego’s lifetime personal brand is clear: one, he is an outsider, having moved 35 times in 33 years; two he is always looking at things differently, and challenging the status quo; and three he aspires to build personal freedom, which goes beyond money, as it is about the freedom to do what he wants when he wants. His career in marketing started at 16 in 2007, where he helped brands like Samsung, Warner Bros and Microsoft understand the world of eSports. He then took those learnings to the client side at Adidas which is where he was introduced to web3. Most recently he has advised brands like Porsche, Salesforce and Shell on web3 strategies. He has a masterclass on bringing brands into the space, and it shows because his thinking is so clear on how to approach legacy brands and introduce web3. 

We Discuss:

Why NFTs were the first unlock because he saw the technology as Brand plus Culture.

Why he always advises to follow your natural inclinations, do what feels natural, what feels almost like a magnet - if things are boring then switch it up.

Why echo chambers and group-think always need added perspective. In web3 we only talk about web3 so it can seem like a lot of the same thoughts, but if you go outside to random people they have no idea

How to bring web3 to F500 brands  - reverse engineer the WHY by asking 2 questions:

(1)How do you think this will impact your business?

(2)How should we go about doing that?

The answer to these questions comes down to who is your target audience?

Is it a current customer base (non-Web3) or new audience (Web3)?

Porsche and Adidas wanted the Web3 natives, the degens

Shell wants to use NFTs for energy provenance or energy sharing

How do you know where to start with the audience?

-What is your brand strategy? Where do you want to be in 5-10 years?

-Where are you coming in as a consultant? Do they already have a team or are they in the education phase?

Reverse engineering your WHY, is your brand strategy, it is where you want to be in 5-10 years

-This is the ultimate question to determine what web3 strategy to use because if it is not consistent with brand strategy then it is bullshit

-If it does align with brand strategy then we look at the business side, the feasibility, what are some realistic impacts on the business - SPOILER ALERT - it is not always generating more revenue, there are other impacts it could have like loyalty, or CX

When should you not work with a company on web3 strategy?

-When the brand strategy does not align with the business case in a way that is realistic and consistent with web3 values

Current trends are look to current strategies like loyalty and membership, and using web3 as a way to make them stronger in the long run

Building belief inside an org

(1) Learn as a collective: (a) Create a way for the team to interact - POAP for a meeting; (b) Create a way for the team to see their customers interact - POAP for an event

(2) Look at the data: (a) what does their intent data (wallet data) say, how can we adjust strategy based on that data

What happens to the experience for a person as a consumer and as an employee when all of their interactions across websites and IRL are connected by a digital wallet?

Why brand is culture and culture is brand, and what happens when technology intersects that is when there will be a revolution

Three Levels of Partnerships

(1)Project-based - PFPs, Communities or Artists - align values

(2)Technology - how web3 partner is solving a problem that is relevant to F500, that they can’t solve themselves

(3)People - who are the people that real in Web3?

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

Welcome to a special episode with previous guest, Brian Zwerner (https://twitter.com/BrianZwerner ), and relevant to this episode is his nonprofit venture studio aimed at help diverse founders called W3 Studiio (https://twitter.com/w3studioatl ). For more on Brian’s work outside of W3 Studio check out Episode 18: Web3 COnsumer and Entertainment Investing (https://youtu.be/NOL_Gn6RQyI ). 

We go deep on the personal and professional motivations driving the founding of W3 Studio, for both Brian and myself as a strategic advisor. One of those reasons is the amazing environment for diverse tech talent here in Atlanta. Hope you enjoy the episode and please reach out if you have any questions.

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Sean Judge (https://twitter.com/seanjudgeciv ), general partner at Castle Island Ventures (https://twitter.com/CastleIslandVC ). Sean has been investing since he started working in 2011. He was fortunate to take a wide lens approach early on in his career and narrowed over time until he ultimately landed in the Web3 early stage venture space. He is partnered with some amazing minds as Castle Island, and aspires to build a generational VC firm. He takes us through the mega trends they invest in and why the future for this space is bright. 

First receiving ICO offers at Highland Capital Partners from companies started by major talent but no revenue and a white paper to meeting Matt Walsh while he was at Fidelity and putting a personal check in Castle Island

We Discuss...

2023 Outlook

-Proof of Reserves with Exchanges

-Stablecoins

-From 555 Seed and Series A deals in 2019-20 to 1400 in 2022

-People are still leaving comfortable full-time jobs because of the promise of Web3

How to Survive a Bear

-Seed or Series A check to last closer to 36 month rather than 18

-Plan for the best (rebound mid-2023), Prepare for the worst (2-2.5 yr bear)

-Big consumer brands are still moving forward so lean into Sales and Marketing

-If your audience are crypto-native then focus on making your product as sticky as possible

Pick and Shovels Business following 3 megatrends: 

1. Monetary Networks - custodians, data analytics, compliance software
2. DeFi - decentralized focus on all aspects of traditional finance
3. Consumer/Web3 - sovereignty over data

Chapters:

00:00-10:50 Founding Story

10:50-14:19 Outlook for the Space in 2023

14:20-19:37 VC advice to Survive a Bear Market

19:38-24:30 Role of Decentralization in Web3 Startups and Investing

24:31-29:36 Crypto-Native Portfolio Breakdown and Outlook

29:37-44:20 What is the Future of DeFi and Enterprise Blockchain?

44:21-51:40 Consumer Side of Web3 in 2023

51:41-57:26 Closing Questions

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Ian Andrews (https://twitter.com/IanAndrewsDC), Chief Marketing Officer at Chainalysis (https://twitter.com/chainalysis). As CMO of Chainalysis he is helping scale the company to enable governments and financial organizations to safely adopt cryptocurrency. He is also the host of the Public Key podcast, where he sits down with thought leaders in the space to discuss:

▪Emerging risks and opportunities in blockchain technology

▪How policymakers around the world are approaching cryptoregulations

▪Data-driven insights into the latest trends in crypto economics and crime.

▪Breaking news in the crypto market

Previous to Chainalysis, he ran marketing at Tanzu, the modern apps portfolio at VMware. Before that he was CMO at Pivotal from launch in 2013 to IPO in 2018 to acquisition by VMware in 2019 for $2.7 Billion. Ian is one of my most accomplished guests, and more importantly communicates so clearly the current state of the Web3 ecosystem and where we need to go to move it forward.

We Discuss...

• Ian’s first role in tech in 2000 as the dotcom bubble burst
• Why Ian thinks we are all in marketing (hint: life is about driving narratives)
• Why Crypto/Web3 must evolve to be a combination of the original vision and its practical use cases
• Tracers in the Dark, Andy Greenberg - https://www.amazon.com/Tracers-Dark-Global-Crime-Cryptocurrency/dp/0385548095
• We are entering an era of what blockchain technology can DO, not what it IS
• To get there requires dual-face (redundancy of onchain and offchain activity)
• The reality of incrementalism in technology, about 50% of compute is still not run on cloud
• Public Opinion of Criminal Activity in Web3 vs Reality
• The Reality of Autonomy and Personal Agency - Usability and Convenience Wins
• That doesn’t mean companies get to only worry about UX here
• Web3 is as much about making better use of our identity as it is about ownership
• The regulatory environment and why we need to embrace it, not fight it

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Diana Richter (https://twitter.com/dianarichterh), Head of Marketing and Brand at ConsenSys Mesh (https://twitter.com/consensysmesh), the original organization created to proliferate ETH and the broader blockchain ecosystem. Diana takes us through her 15 year career as a marketer, and the experiences building partnerships and communities that landed her in Web3. We get a masterclass on the current state of Web3 marketing, and the importance of the balance between maxi’s and mass adoption.

We Discuss...

The building blocks that lead Diana to be a successful head of marketing in Web3

• Understanding use cases for countries outside US
• partnerships, partnerships, partnerships starting at William Morris
• Understanding consumers through venture backed D2C brands

3 Goals for Partnerships

1. Credibility and Trust
2. Adoption and Customer Acquisition
3. Revenue

Diana’s Favorite NFT Brands

• Artblocks
• Doodles

From art history major to consulting on an NFT project for Mesh

Why ConsensysMesh and why Web3?

• No more physical product
• Exhausted by VC expectations diluting brands because of emphasis on top line growth
• Wanted to promote awareness and education, without geographic borders
• Intellectual stimulation and expansion required
• Extending beyond Weekly or Daily Revenue Metrics
• Consulting gig as dating, to get to know each other
• Mesh was a place surrounded by buildooors

Current State Web3 Marketing

• Overarching theme is immaturity 
• From a complete lack of knowledge on how to work with marketing team to how to set a marketing budget to team structure
• Time + Resources + Effort = Goals of Company?
• Performance Marketing (Growth) vs. Brand Marketing (Partnerships + Community)
• Tunnel vision creating too much brand similarity
• Events+Content OVER Partnerships

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube

My guest today is Ash Egan (https://twitter.com/AshAEgan), founder of Archetype (https://twitter.com/archetypevc). He is a true crypto-native investor, having led early investments in Chainalysis, Near, and Balancer. He also led Accomplice's investments in Dapper Labs/Flow, and Bison Trails, which was acquired by Coinbase. We get a clear glimpse into the shift in investing in the space, from FOMO-fueled investing during the bull market to taking the longterm view in our current bear market. We also take a deep dive into how web3 is shaking up the music industry. 

We Discuss...

A framework for Tokens vs Equity:

• Highly regulated, core, infrastructure = equity
• Highly decentralized, network, collective, protocols = tokens
• Where does value accrue?

The difficulties of decentralizing at the outset

• Hard to get anything accomplished
• Hard to stick to a singular vision
• Only true decentralization has occurred over years with ETH and BTC

Top-down investing vs. Grass-roots initiatives

• Finding optionality for core needs
• Understanding problem sets from first principles
• Familiar UX

What is the Impact of Web3?

• Removing gatekeepers
• Self-custody assets
• Lending/Borrowing
• Openness, transparency, and programmability

The future of music in Web3

• Streamlining of the various offerings from record labels
• Curation becomes a professions to compete with added discoverability
• We make our own Top 40 that we own

Thanks for listening! Did you know you can also watch the show on YouTube? Just hit the link below and don't forget to subscribe!

Web3 w/ Me - YouTube