Mike Tech, Mike Tech! What up? GM everybody
good morning, good morning
little wind in the background but you know we push on we perspire
oh yeah big heart to do something about the wind but yeah welcome everyone
another day another chilling chill thank you all for being here if you are in the
right place today we have Russ with us from proof of vibes and we're gonna know
what's going on there with them so Russ it was great to see you on
East Denver did you have fun how did that go for you man the vibes were immaculate
you know we had a really good turnout at our pot our first Eve Denver potluck had
you know a sensational vibe everybody was having a good time we had people
coding developing building while people were out in the back doing blunt down
activations so it was a beautiful spectrum of vibes to say the least had a great
turnout there and then we had our second annual vibe check Eve Denver vibe check
which I think we had like close to 400 people was a good turnout had a few
different communities we had like a party bus which was super sick had like
the best Brazilian steak tacos I've ever had in my life and yeah great DJ so you
know great great opportunity to bring community out cultivate great vibes and
get people testing the application love it yeah I really wanted to make it to
the potluck compared to got caught up in all the other events hopefully next year
or next conference that you guys will be at I'll definitely make sure to make
some time and get there at this time I've heard it was really good and kind
of pissed and missed it to be honest for sure what are you guys plans on the
future conferences are you coming to consensus yeah yeah so we have a series
of events we're gonna be hitting over the next few weeks consensus is
definitely one of those so here's some super alpha and I guess to get right
into it for those that don't know provides what we do on children show give
us the super alpha come on that's what that's my middle name if y'all didn't
know Russell super alpha Ballard but nonetheless don't steal my identity
please I appreciate it but nonetheless we have a series of events we're gonna be
planning over the next few months a couple of those will be at NFT NYC in a
few weeks then we'll be at after NFT NYC we have consensus or no excuse me
FarCon which is in Venice Beach then we got consensus from consensus let me
actually just pull up the old document because there's so much going on right
now is it's actually crazy it's definitely great vibes and I'm excited
and we're gonna be going from also we have some web two events in the mix as
well if you guys are familiar with something in the water that is for rails
conference or excuse me his music festival as like that's something
important to us right to be able to still reach out to the culture be in the mix
for web two things or just not be strictly web three then we got pizza day
May 22nd consensus a charged up fest in Richmond we have vibes don't lie ATX
showcase and then we're throwing our very first music showcase in New York with
cash Cobain which was super exciting and then we got rolling through Rhino a
Denver activation it's a huge block party roughly 3,000 people will be
activating there then if CC University of aetherium and Tokyo Japan they will be
doing vibes con we don't have a actual activate or a location quite yet we're
thinking somewhere in Southeast Asia either Vietnam or Thailand and then token
2049 and then near con which cannot really give you some alpha a lot of
people don't know this you know where near cons gonna be this year wax no
idea where Bangkok Bangkok Thailand not America again not America yeah nah
never I don't think we'll ever be in America to be honest but you know yeah
then we got dev con which will be doing a talent show in a Muay Thai fight
and then finally to end the year Miami Basel so yeah we got a series of events
well that's a pretty impressive list I do not expect you to pull that out so for
New York the next thing is NFT and waste here as you guys are throwing
something there yes sir so we're either gonna do a vibe showcase or excuse me a
vibes cafe which is a new series we're launching we'll be taking over coffee
shops playing music and just having good vibes and then we'll also be doing a
potluck dinner well definitely let me know when that's happening you know I'm
based next to New York City so that's just my personal interest make sure to
shoot me a link or something I'll 100% pull up thank you thank you that's
pretty soon right in a couple of weeks yes oh yep so there we go the dates are
April 1st through the 7th I believe so yeah a couple weeks well can you tell
people a little bit about like what proof of vibe does in general before we jump
into more specific questions so people are more familiar with the initiative
with the project that you're running yeah of course so when we first launched
proof of eyes my co-founder and I and Marshall couldn't make it today but
nonetheless the mission was to create a loyalty reward program for events which
you can go to an event tap in and leave a review right and so that was the premise
of it we constantly were going to an event right both web 2 and web 3 and be
like yo this is this is terrible so that we wish we could have figured out
like what was the vibe before we got there and so we created our own app which
you go to proof of vibes calm tap in sign in and leave a review of a event
take a picture leave a view of the event and so you know from there we
figured the best way to do it is to curate our own vibes to you know work
on production and make clothes as once we started really going down a web 3
rabbit hole and realizing especially near I love near with my heart and soul but
at the same time they're not really vibe orientated right it's a tech it's a
technologically focused chain and so yeah people are not really the most bullish
on vibes and so I got a little burnt out and then went back into web 2 to make
clothes and do events so that's been kind of my vibe but yeah I can even
show you some of this stuff we made here these are some of the pants we
launched and then yeah so that's that's it it's a production a pleasure to have
such an experienced person and Twitter spaces just like you said and it
appears on the top nobody's asking me to pin anything so here was vibe check this
was the party we did recap coming soon here's a flyer this is another event I'm
gonna start posting stuff up in the jumbotron this is an event we did in
Toronto with near Toronto that was super fun we have a presentation we did
if you want to learn more about it from near con so yeah I'm just gonna post a
bunch of stuff up there for you guys we also sponsored a hackathon for near
Africa we did a proof of pizza party in Lisbon yeah bro you and I forget how
much we've done this is in a this is a actual post from if you go to near
social you can see our our vibes on there we held a contest for who commit
the most vibes yeah really cool exciting stuff
how do I get those fans so we will be launching our website next week and so
you can purchase it next week got it I mean friends and family discount or
what's up friends and near discount weekend we could work something out for
the number one influencer on near thank you appreciate it it didn't happen
today it's a progress man it's steps you know the hard work starts paying off I
can get some pants for cheaper come on to what's coming next that is a great
question what is coming next well I can tell you we got a series of events
coming up I'm super excited about you know the vibes don't lie and vibes cafe
launching ultimately we want to continue to produce super dope swag we're
working with build out and do some stuff here in Austin build Austin yeah just
event production creating clothes and then vibes token at some point can you
talk a little bit about this as you mentioned near is a tech heavy blockchain
and in general like the space that we're at is is tech space and then of
the day software space blockchain can you tell about like how has it been for
you you know working on basically like events part right on vibes on people
having a good time entertainment part but doing that with the tech industry
where I mean majority of people are like very tech focused probably not that many
of them are have that like party mentality or going out you know it's
just like a completely different space you would think it's even hard to bring
a parallel between something so technologically complicated and like
entertainment and having fun and having good vibes like I would really like to
hear your perspective on this and you know how does it contribute to the
space which I think it does a lot yeah no great question bro it has been an
uphill battle I'm not gonna lie I feel like I've constantly had to try to
prove myself or to convince people the importance of community gatherings I
don't want to call it parties right that's one aspect of it but ultimately
it's it's pretty interesting to see like near spends the foundation spends a ton
on events right so the from a foundation perspective they see the value and even
with the 40% layoffs I don't believe anybody from the events team got laid
off so ultimately near as a foundation sees the importance of events and
outreach and brand awareness and all these things but it seems as though
community members don't really value it the same right and I think that's no
short of previous you know spending from certain organizations within the
community on events and not seeing the biggest ROI and so it really is just a
matter of near is run by a bunch of nerds you know I'm a nerd you know so no
no shade to the nerds but people who are technologically focused right developers
software engineers and heavily tech influenced people right so they are more
focused on ROI and runway for developers and everything and they see it as a
contradiction or they see it as a problem taking those dollars and
investing it in parties and so this is the audience I've been having to try to
convince of the importance of gatherings and community outreach and all of these
things and so I think ultimately you know me being the person I am a very
vibe-oriented person you know being like the monks a lot of the community it's
been a journey to say the least and you know more and more people have I
think ultimately switched and seen the value in producing event production and
events but nonetheless it still has been a challenge trying to raise money and
finding funding for events so I've had to seek other avenues and other
sponsorships and other chains who do have a desire and eager and fever to
want to do events so yeah that's been it I think too on the same note as far
as like what is the benefit of it a lot of deals and a lot of networking happens
at these events believe it or not like a lot of times relationships are created
from people being in the line to a bathroom at the same party or you know
connecting over drinks and other degenerate activities so there is a
high level of importance when it comes to curation of events and bringing
people together right and so that's what I'm focused on and I think it adds a lot
of value in that sense being able to connect people allowing people to meet for
the first time share experiences and to ultimately come together and fellowship
I mean a hundred percent agree with that and well it's interesting as you said
that near foundation does spend a lot of money on events but there's still
this this sort of attitude where oh if it's not something we're developing and
we're wasting money and I even faced this was which is like right marketing is
you can see pretty traditional like part of business but even with like my
activity I faced this attitude from a lot of devs where they just have this
perspective like unless we're paying a developer to develop something it's not
worth it like you know almost like everything else should be just like done
for free and then only if you develop in something then it's worth the money but
again you write as you mentioned near foundation does spend a lot of money on
events so I guess they do see the value there I'm assuming it's harder for them
because there's also different types of events right one is like more conference
presentational and then when it's just entertainment and vibes even though
you're a hundred percent right that's where you know the most connections are
made the the real friendships are created and even me personally like doing
because this is like an online job in the end of the day the times where I do
get to go to events and actually you know end up at some fun party talking
to fun people getting drinks definitely the highlights of the of working in
this industry so I think that's very important personally but can you talk a
little bit about like besides near our other chains more receptive towards
spending money on parties events and like a better understanding over it
especially since since we're like in crypto I think even from marketing
perspective like I was just on the call marketing Dow was doing like what's it
called the PR space yeah yeah yeah the PR call like a little workshop and they
were even talking there very specifically about the difference between
like web to PR where you just do like press releases news this and that and
what three words so much is given on the community and in web 3 right the best
marketing you can have as a strong community like I hope we have here in
chill and chill but the strongest thing for projects to have right is not paid
advertisement which actually like looked down upon here right but it's when you
have like a couple thousand people who really believe in your project go out
there and talk about it and I think real-life events definitely a big part of
it but besides near outside of it because I understand your project is not
just focused on near how has it been for you working with like other chains where
did you find more receptiveness towards what you're doing yeah great
question I definitely think Ethereum is still one of those prime chains as far
as supporting it is not necessarily the chain itself but the organizations under
it right like friends with benefits for example you know they have a community
which is something that I'm more geared towards being culturally relevant and
like culturally trendy and just focused on curation of events production
meeting people and these things like this is their hyper focus and building an
internet native community so like communities like that or friends or
excuse me boys club right they're super dope seed club there's just communities
who have a more niche understanding of culture and of just vibes and the
importance of it I think another great example is a good friend of mine his
name is Gary shang he runs a invisible sit or excuse me edge city and so
things like that that's very important Zuzalo when I've been to a city that
thing was awesome they had crazy right they have a cold plunge yeah shout to
Gary man that's the right like vibes so those are the things that like I've
noticed and other chains it's not necessarily like Ethereum chain but it's
because of the community builders on Ethereum and like the amount of
liquidity flowing around just the overall ethos I think is it as
technologically focused right like near is very dev centric versus I think
Ethereum is more open right because of like the NFT buzz meme coins all these
things I haven't really dove too much into the Solana ecosystem I know they
like to party and so I respect that some other other places yeah I mean base is
starting to become a trendy chain a lot focus over there I'm about to start
doing some stuff with another L2 I don't want to say too much but I'll undocks
myself too early before I actually secure a bag but once I once I get the
money then I'll make sure I'll get a tattoo of it so you guys will see and
if you don't know I have a near tattoo oh nouns that's another community I
think it's super sick and really focused on culturally relevance and vibe so yeah
what do you think about the meme coins apparently we are in a meme coin system
more or less has been going crazy man has been interesting to see I have friends
who really not in the web not in the near ecosystem like shilling near coins
I'm like okay this is lit so like I definitely think that ultimately it adds
value there was a really good suite by this dude who created a synthetics I
think his name is Kane and he talked about it I'm gonna post it here it was
like a long tweet but basically I'm saying like yo I never really got into
meme coins I've been actually here building but if this is what brings
people in then I'm all here for it you know so I really resonated with that
great assessment I love it and I noticed that too especially again in
here you know you're in this two years of bear market everyone was so like proud
of oh we're not like after games we're not after this and that we're just
building technology and the future and like all these things but the meme
coins is popping everyone the stars love of meme coins again and everyone's
down on that but yeah 100% like as long as they have the utility of bringing
people in that's the direct value to it exactly that's the key I think it would
be very interesting to hear from you also because do I understand right like
proof of why this is something that you started and built from like ground up
right mm-hmm can you just like tell a little about your story like what
background you had before I'm assuming you were doing something with events
already and then how did it all just come to because the list of the
activations that you read us in the beginning is very very impressive so I
mean I think there's something to congratulate you on it sounds like things
are going very well and there's a lot of growth and it's turning into a very
strong I don't know should I call it company but something like that so
definitely we'd love to hear like the prequel the inception story no I love
so I started off my very first so what happened was I was doing door-to-door
sales ended up like Covid happened so I couldn't do it anymore and then at the
same time like I was trying to find myself my best friend had passed away so
like life was just like going crazy and so I remember just being on listening to
hell a podcast and blah blah blah and so I was listening to earn your leisure
one day and they were talking about to mark Cuban about DeFi and said he was like
if you can go back and learn anything what would it be he's like I would just
study DeFi and so I looked into it realize there's an entire economic
system being built right underneath our noses and it was a complete game changer
for me so I just decided to become obsessed with it learn as much as I
could reduce all the information all the YouTube channels all of it and yeah
from there I've realized like yo there's something being built here I ended
up going to some conferences met and so I had a project I have a project called
40 acres which the mission is to onboard people of color into web 3 space so I
ended up meeting my co-founder catalyst we we hit it off built that and and truth
be told I really didn't get into I really didn't get into event planning so
maybe like two years ago two years ago consensus of my very first event and
so I planned that without a month worth of organizing took a lot of lessons
learned learned a lot about it but so make up senses where we met that was the
first event where we met maybe was I think might be the year before that we
met we met at the NDC at the NDC house right yes so yeah damn this is my third
consensus well that was was that two years ago bro was that last year yeah
flying by it's about it's about to be next consensus in like a month right two
months no end of May yeah two months two months two months man where the time
going but yeah that was my first event at consensus after a block party was
super sick had a great time vibes was amazing and yeah it was sick so from
there yeah it was just lit and just continuously go I followed the whole
circuit of crypto events meeting people in the connecting doing my thing and
realized all right I can throw events at each of these because I bring in a
certain level of taste I'm gonna play just music you know I'm saying so like
that's that's a win in itself so yeah and how did you actually start you know
from just being on the events you know exploring the space how did you
actually start creating and building in the space and like running your own
events how did that transition happen I just did it bro like I just I think I
remember from consensus really partnerships with other people like you
know I had got some money from just building on near for a grant to build
our application and then I got I think so like some random airdrops and just
different just different hustles and stuff so okay yeah basically realizing
that there needs to be like more curated events that just don't like play and
also I have some homies who are really big into events like my buddy David he's
huge into like New York scene he runs a cannabis brand called happy monkey and
some other friends who just creatives who are doing events so yeah I I just went
out and realized that the best thing to do at these conferences is throw side
events and so I was like is lit let me just go ahead and focus on side events
because sometimes what I've noticed is that people be going to conferences and
I've been going to the main conference so exactly what happens to the
concepts is like I wasn't the main conference for like two hours out of
a week and a half that's kind of meta to be honest like people go into the
side like NFT NYC I probably won't go to the actual conference itself but I'm
for sure be at the side conferences so I don't know I just found like a little
niche of like realizing all right if I could put these elements together bring
people together you know beautiful things can happen and I can hopefully make
some money from it right like everything creates some opportunities because this
is the thing I don't think enough people talk about this an event production like
it's really interesting to be able to be like think of something in your mind and
then have people live in it like that's one of my favorite parts but also when
you're creating an event it's like damn near you bringing opportunities to yourself
right hosting organizing it you can curate it to where is all right if you
have a good mix of developers or VCS or community whatever you know I'm saying
you can create opportunities for yourself it's kind of like inbound BD
well definitely that's a big big part of it especially in web 3 knowing the
right people I'm sure your network has benefited greatly from organizing events
and you also become that point for people to sort of find whoever they need
I guess well I know a couple other events organizers and I'm definitely
planning to reach out to them with some questions to connect me with that
connect me with this yeah it's a great place to be coming to like the other
part of it I think would be very interesting to hear from our
communities you know people in Chile Chile all around the world maybe they
can start organizing some events wherever they are can you talk about sort of the
inter workings of the events industry who are you know like the key
stakeholders what you need to arrange for this all to work where does money
come from just you know like the basic things to show people how does it
actually work from the inside yeah of course so first and foremost you need
to have a vision you need to be ambitious you need to have drive and you
need to have somebody who's detailed logistically orientated right like a PM
so probably you want to have like having a title sponsor like because the brand
is really gonna come from like sponsorship usually or if you sell tickets
but like you need to secure a venue the best practices most events are free and
web free so that's exactly where they I mean the very first part the very first
event I did and web 3 was a was a ticketed event people pay we sold out
so I was like we made brand on those on the door so like I don't know I feel like
people have been like yes agreed like events are free but like people will
pay as well so especially if you like feed them have a good DJ and like they
know it's going somewhere good but uh yeah so their sponsorship is key you
need to have a network of sponsors and have outreach set up meetings have a
pitch deck have like things that like show that it's not a scam it's real you
know so there's that you need to have somebody on your team who's running a
PM like a project manager who like can write down all of the things that you
need to get done and put it in an organized manner from outreach to
sponsors to venue sourcing to AV like there's a lot of different things that
go into event organization so I feel like if you this is your first time doing an
event your best bet is partnering up with a PM or somebody who's already done
it before you know depending on how big you want to do it you could always just
do like smaller events rent out like a local area then in that case one thing
and event throwing promotion is key the marketing is so vital now depending on
what type of events you can do like DJs offer the best marketing so like if you
get fired DJs who have this is a thing and I don't think web three people really
talk about this enough because we so in our own like shell and so in our own our
own way like DJs bring the people right so if you have a lit DJs have their own
communities they have like they have email list and they have they have their
own communities and so ultimately if you get enough fire DJs on your flyer you
don't have to do too much marketing they gonna do the marketing for you so
that's key I really learned that in Lisbon I did an event missing it's in a
jumbotron above but I did that the topo joint views from the topo and we had
like some of the dopest DJs from Lisbon local DJs and they brought the crowd out
we had a great turnout you know so yeah just kind of depends on what you're
trying to do it's different if you're trying to do a hackathon versus if
you're trying to do like a happy hour mixer right so just depends on what what
your goals are what your intentionality is and I think ultimately this is your
first time doing events just partner up with local event organizers work underneath
them and see how the process is done because there's there's so much to talk
about you really can't hit it all until one Twitter space and when you talk
for sponsorships with different projects companies what is like the main
value that you were given them what is that they want to hear that they are
trying to get out of that event is like banners like posters for people to see
their logo what it is about for them in the end of the day another great
question it just kind of depends on the sponsor some want to get access to the
email list and be able to you know reach out to people some just brought brand
awareness someone's you know time on the microphone someone a product demo someone
to sell merch but I think ultimately some of the biggest ones brand awareness
social impact and product placement
about the time we have left let's talk a little bit about potluck we have not yet
talked about that so as I understand proof of vibes is mainly in real life
activations but you also have online activities and then there is a botlock
project can you help me understand like how is it related to proof of vibes is
it's like underneath it is partner projects what's the deal with it yeah
great question so as a contributor of potluck you know I do a lot of community
stuff there and ultimately proof of vibes is one of the projects that was in the
last creative round and so if you guys are familiar with how quadratic funding
works there's a matching pool that's raised by sponsors or whoever the case
might be which then there's a formula created in which the more people donate
it's a weighted donation so if you get a hundred people to donate $1 that would
be rewarded more than one person donating $100 okay and so that's the whole
premise of potluck and ultimately we received some funding from them in the
last creative round roughly like 700 near so these will be going towards event
production and being able to continue to support the mission of proof of
vibes and ultimately growing our community producing really cool merch and
events for our community so super excited about that but in that also yeah that's
just how we're doing we're also onboarding projects showing people how to
donate doing outreach and so yeah that's kind of like the whole thing if you
haven't already highly recommend checking it out there's a two-step
process in order to donate and receive match donations for your favorite project
there's currently a near Africa round going on there's a near builders around
going on and so there's a project that not that the same team built for potluck
called not a bot and it's an anti civil resistance project so you have to first
verify I think the easiest way to become a human is to either verify your
Twitter and your near social or if you have lens or any of those social ones
but yeah and then once you have a once you verify this human then you can
donate to your favorite project so yeah got it and since we touched on that can
you talk a little more about what proof of vibes specifically is doing like
within the online world because we very sensibly dove into in real life
activations but I know you guys have like more stuff going on this accessible
through the internet like I don't know I'll let you tell it yeah yeah so
there's a couple of cool things we're working on right now we're uh we're
gonna be launching a lo-fi channel here soon like vibes radio so super
excited about that or people could just tap in listen to cool vibes and listen
to some of the mixes and playlists that some of the communities have created we
do have a telegram chat in which you know not the most active you know trying
to get like you acts in the community but ultimately that is a place where we
communion we vibe out share alpha so that's super cool we're planning on
doing more things and like the metaverse we were part of a of the
season two incubator for nights and weekends for build space and so it was
a really cool with another way to do a demo for our project and like this
gather space or something like that and so yeah we're gonna do more things like
that and yeah ultimately just getting more online activity like you said more
Twitter spaces sharing our work showing people what we've been working on all
that cool stuff so and what's the best way for people listening to us right now
who are not physically where you are doing your activations and cannot
participate in the real life part of Vibes to get themselves involved in the
project in the community what is there to do for them I think the best thing
you can do is join us on telegram reach out and mental vibe right if you go to
proof of vibes.com okay you can go tap in make sure you're signed into your
wallet and then wherever you're at and your local area just go ahead and meant
to vibe you know we base our vibes we quantify vibes is four things energy
density friendliness and diversity and that creates a vibrating and this is
all on a scale of one to ten so you know we might have a little retroactive
airdrop for all those that meant vibes on a chain so there's that so yeah you
could go ahead and scroll up I'm gonna go ahead and post a vibe that that I
meant it a few few few days ago and then you can see kind of like what we
expect it's really your POV so I just recommend people take like a photo of
like what you're looking at at an event or out at a market or whatever the
case might be and go from there you know so love it Russ before we end this I
have to ask you one last very important question this is a question we are
asking all our guests from now on since we entered like the times are changing
we're not in the bear market anymore it's getting more interesting day by day
and we want to see who has the most accurate grasp of the market which we
will evaluate post factum after this bull market ends but if you had to make a
prediction absolutely theoretical not financial advice how high do you think
can near token reach on the peak of its price this bull market and then we're
gonna compare all the answers from all our guests and see who got it the most
close okay to be honest bro if we could see this AI narrative and we really lock
into that bro we can hit $70 you guys heard it right here today $70 hold until
then great okay man well thank you for that thank you for the space I think
this would be a good moment to wrap it up is there anything else messages we
need to let our listeners know that I skipped before we go now that's pretty
much it you know huge shout out to all the homies in here shot my boy st.
Travis in the building just all those who came supported really appreciate it
and then today I really recommend you guys go ahead check out proof of vibes
follow us on Twitter follow us on IG we got a YouTube channel proof of vibes
you can see some of the bot follow some of the vibes and some of traveling
we've done in the last couple of months and if you're gonna be in Austin and
consensus definitely tap in but outside of that you know join the telegram you
know and look forward to you guys contributing yeah for sure thank you
everyone so much for joining thank you Ross we also do have a giveaway for
today which the winners will be announced a little bit later and yes you all
next week yeah everything is great thanks everyone for coming
Ross hopefully see you soon in New York yeah thanks for coming