All right, we can get Josh up here look at this
Rolling, sir. Hello. Hello. Hello. Yeah. Hello. Hello
Hey Josh, how you doing? Good. Thanks. I'll be you inside in a second. I gotta
Yeah, man sounds good looking forward to hanging out though. Yeah, absolutely
Hey, yeah, how's it going? See should we have ash up here too if she's available and let me retweet the room
Jesse have you seen this Jesse Brian Eve account you have an impersonator?
But they're wearing really preem of like Louie baton background on an ace. It's hilarious
Really? Yeah. Oh crap go to Oh perfect. Jesse Brian Eve for the Twitter handle. Oh my gosh. Okay one sec
My word, yeah, Jesse Brian eat perfect. I love it
What is this? Yeah, it's like a diamond-grilled ape with supreme on and Louis Vuitton background. Oh my gosh
You know, he's dropping the Jesse meme coin and like 30 seconds
Exactly, oh my gosh, I bet you got a bunch of fake Josh out there somewhere
Yeah, and I got a bunch that I'll use my ape first stuff
There was a there was someone who was like pretending to be a co-founder of board of ventures with my eight
People do you have me like hey I got a deal for you and I was like, oh no, I had to report them but
It's funny so I got a report that
They didn't do anything but then the account
Locked itself down. And so I don't know if they saw they got the report and then just like, you know
Scrubbed it. Yeah. So by the time they reviewed it, they were like, oh, it looks like it's cleared
Don't I don't do much about people who just want to use my ape unless they're trying to actively scam people and then I just try
Yeah, for sure. No, that's crazy
I guess I guess that's a new thing. So if anybody gets hit up by Jesse Brian eat
With a Louis Vuitton background in the Supreme podium or baseball jersey
That means you made it Jesse you made I made it. Yeah, exactly
Although if that was a real if that was an actual Supreme baseball jersey, I might actually need that
Pretty cool stuff pretty cool stuff
Awesome. So yeah, if you have the chance, please retreat the room. We'll get it going here
Josh is gonna be here to drop some knowledge, which is awesome
Also for anybody who didn't get a chance to catch it
I did interview Josh when we were in New York a few weeks ago
And we touched on some of the web 3 branding stuff and really just also dug into Josh's background
So if you're not familiar with Josh and all he's done
I mean Josh is as OG as it gets in this space and is
As knowledgeable if I mean, I don't really know who knows more about this stuff than Josh does
So definitely interesting to jump in in here
If you want to get kind of dig into Josh's background and how he got in here into this stuff in the first place
Alan if we could actually pin that at the top for anybody that wants to go back
And get into that Josh is also one of the founders of border and ventures
Which is an awesome web 3 agency out in New York that I get to work with quite a bit on all sorts of fun stuff
And I mean, I don't know Josh like how would you I was about to try to list off all the projects that you're either
Looks like Josh is probably having problems connecting. But I mean, I know that Josh obviously is on the council for
he's also an advisor to Jenkins and
I think clonax also it's I mean the list goes on and on I know they did a he was one that helped
time X with their stuff and
Think did the first metaverse campaign for CBS?
So when a major network pretty much
Television wanted to come in and share to exploring in the metaverse they hit up Josh
And so I think the thing he did for CBS was the first ever
kind of brand extension into a
and Josh quarterback that whole thing so
Definitely been around the block
Definitely better on the block here
Cool. Looks like Josh is just reconnecting. Sorry. I just connected hear me. Okay. No problem. Yeah. Yeah, we got you
No problem. I just kind of setting you up a little bit Josh helping people understand a little bit of your background
All the crazy stuff you've been a part of or continue to be a part of I know you're also a part of a bunch
Of stuff that I can't talk about. So
Why don't you kind of let folks know a little bit about?
Anything you're currently doing just because I don't want to say anything you're a part of that. I'm not supposed to
Yeah, I appreciate the shout out and
Always enjoy working together chatting. I think we have a lot of
fun thoughts together on where this whole space is going and
Tying that back to some of our real-world experience. So yeah, I was a kind of web to comms and marketing
you know got deep into collecting NFTs and digital goods and had some fun with that and
and then started getting approached by
NFT projects and new startups to legacy brands that we're looking to enter the space. So
Couple things I'm working on right now. Let's see one is
My agency board of ventures that we're working together pretty closely on
Rolling out utility NFTs for creators. And so the goal there is
NFTs that have you know, clear terms and conditions baked in a metadata and tied to
royalty payments that are
utility offerings from creators and so that that could be anything from like, you know a group chat and membership to
You know a group video call or you know a tutorial things like that
so beyond just a visual artist thinking about
Creators like gamers and athletes and
Musicians that that want to be able to engage with their fans
Through NFTs that are backed by utility. So creatorhood is one thing we're working on and the other thing is we're doing a
Board of ventures doing an art exhibition in June with compassion international
Yeah from hunger to hope exhibition with the
the eight or nine artists and projects and what three who will be
Doing auctions and open additions to that will go toward feeding people around the world who are hungry
Josh, like I said, I know that you're just you have your hands in a bunch of different stuff and
Just for the folks here there. I bet most of these folks here. Obviously are probably familiar with your work in web 3
I mean you've been in on the you know building brands in some form or another for so long
Would you mind giving just a little bit of background on what you did pre?
Yeah, I mean I started my career as a tech journalist
I was actually just just on a space earlier today. We were talking about
Apple rumors for this upcoming AR headset, which looks crazy
Yeah, I mean I was letting I was telling them I was like, you know
I started my career at Apple insider work in the night shift from Beijing covering
You know, whatever was half breaking it up, you know the Apple rumor mill and and so I think you know
I guess the themes there for me were like a combination of like
Communications and storytelling around
around the tech and the brands and so worked as a reporter over like
you know startups and gadgets and you know reviewed game consoles and everything in between and then
Went in-house with a mobile app developer helping them, you know, think about their taking their brand global and
And so that's where I got a lot of kind of these
on the ground marketing and comms experience
alongside my you know journalism background and
then start an agency after that and so worked with anyone from like Alibaba and tick-tock and
You know a bunch of different tech brands helping them anything from like product marketing to
The strategic communications and thinking about you know brand position your brand strategy so
As I was you know going deep in web 3
just found this this sweet spot to combine my
kind of web 2 brand building with
You know some of the excitement around what what the whole world was
looking to in web 3 and NFTs and
Digital ownership so so that's something that I've been
Exploring and building out with the with my team at board and ventures. That's awesome. So
Also, I'll say this for everybody in the room. Josh is a super humble guy
He's one of those dudes that he'll be hanging out with someone else and they'll mention
Oh, and you know Josh did this or you know, oh a fest
You know, that was Josh that started like all this crazy stuff and then just be like you ask him about it
I'd be like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn't mention that so just know that behind all these stories
There's also a million other stories that Josh doesn't tell anybody because he's super humble and a nice guy. So Josh
web 3 branding right building a brand
Blockchain-based digital ownership thing. That's you know AI emerging web 3 ecosystem. I
You and I both come from the brand side our backgrounds, right?
And I mean there's even a couple of projects you and I are working on together right now
I mean one of them is one of the projects you and I working on together
It's actually for one of the largest manufacturers of a certain product category in the world and we're doing their web 3 strategy and
So folks will call us in like at that level
International level to help them go cool. I'm trying to get into web 3. How do I think about this and
Most of the time it feels like we're trying to explain to them how different
Entering the web through web 3 and building web 3 brands is from web 2. Well, do you think that's a fair assumption?
I'm just saying like because almost all the time at the beginning all we're doing is educating
Yeah, I mean there's so much education that needs to be done
I think a lot of organizations just don't have someone who understands what's going on
But maybe they read some headlines, you know senior management was like we should look into this. Maybe there's some money here
You know, obviously like big dollar signs, you know, certainly attract the attention of brands
But but beyond just the dollar signs lots of success stories, right?
So there's plenty of brands that like they'll read up on like board a VR Club and I'll just you know
Like what happened here, you know, and how do we how do we learn from this to channel something for for our brand?
This is often a question that they would they ask themselves and how do they tap into that and and to me?
There's there's this trend that I think we could talk about which is
you know, one of the advances with web 2 was
D to see right so you you were able to go e-commerce instead of being mediated through
You could in a middleman you could actually go to rest to your consumer and a lot of that was powered by like
the social graph and the power of say like, you know, I can advertise my brand on Instagram and go direct to buyers and
prevent potentially kind of have better margins and
You know be more activated. I think that what's interesting about a web 3 brand when they work
Will do their job correctly is they're not just direct to consumer. They're direct to community
And so there's incredible power that comes when you you don't just say like, okay, I'm gonna reach this one customer and sell to them
but it's actually like I can directly engage with an incentivized community that is excited to build the brand together with you and
And that's that's both a challenge to existing legacy brands who are saying who you have to say like, okay
What does it mean to do this together?
Right because if you if you don't add that together and if you don't work with your community
Then is it truly a community or is it go back to being a customer or even if it's you know
web 1 it's like mediated it's not even your customer your customer is like your
distributors and their customers are you know, the end the end users, so
It's it there's a there's a incredible power when a brand
Can really develop a strong web 3 community and the reason why I think web 3 special is because with digital ownership
you can activate your community with
Really powerful incentives that that just aren't available to other
Like to pre web 3 and if you do that, right?
it's a superpower now and obviously a lot of brands do that wrong and a lot of
Brands want to come in with three and you kind of have have their web 2 cake and their web 3 cake and and kind of eat
That's not gonna work. Of course, and we've seen seen that
Fail and then sometimes it does work when when when brands get it and they understand the sacrifice that needs to be made what you give
Hopefully you get back something greater
Yeah, you don't do that then, you know, it's gonna be a challenge
So so Josh you and I talked about this in your interview at your office there where you know
I was speaking the National Women's Board of Directors conference and I asked all these
boards of directors, you know, what's the most successful startup in history and
You know, somebody said the church and everybody's laughing or whatever
But I was but they're like, I don't know and I said it's called board a pia club and nobody in the room had talked
About even heard about I said, yeah
They went from you know, a couple of friends getting together start a brand 12 months later is worth four billion dollars
That's never happened before and nobody in the room has even heard that
I was like, this is the power of community like when you can have aligned incentives in a community
Right and you can activate that you can take something from zero to four billion dollar valuation in a year
That's mind-blowing and you're doing that at such a at a scale that like nobody in the room had even heard of them
Right. And so I think that barrier you're talking about of hey brands want to control everything, right?
I mean, that's the goal kind of the web to goal is how much control at the very least
How much influence do we have on everything related to the brand and web 3 you have to give up some of that control
Right in order to really kind of have that the community also incentivized and part of the conversation
How do you approach having that conversation and helping people understand that because that is a pretty massive shift
For any, you know brand manager CMO out there or even business owner that's trying to think about web 3
How do you get them? I guess how do you get them to start to make that shift in their mind about how they actually approach?
I mean, I think a lot of it is just really spelled out for them like what the opportunity is and and so often you just want to
Case case studies where brands have been able to do it and see it work and
And often sometimes it's like a competitor or some funds. It's like, you know
comparison in a similar industry, but you know adjacent
But you do have to sometimes pull it out because it's it can be hard to envision until you look at like
Oh someone did it and this is how they did it
I think I think you know for me an example
The way that BAYC gave gave gave their IP to holders. Mm-hmm
I think a lot of brands would be like wow that that IP now is extremely valuable
you know, and so I bet they wish they had it back and the realization is like
They wouldn't have gotten where they got
Without giving away that IP like that was actually the key to success. It wasn't you know, something that
It it empowered this, you know, what did I say last time? It was like this proliferation of creativity
Mm-hmm, and that did more for the brand
faster than they could have done on their own if they were like holding that IP and trying to like take all these apes and like
license them out as like a brand that wouldn't make sense and so that was a the shared incentive of like
Holder does something would be away with their ape to create a new business or a new work of art or something
That's positive to the to the world
That's a you know rising tide for every member of the club and ultimately for Yuga. So they understand that
so it's a position of generosity and I think
Not every brand is in a position is able to to take that position
If they come down sometimes the values it comes down to like culture and and management
But the ones that do and that come over to web 3, I think we're gonna find find real opportunities
So so Josh during the last bull run we saw I think I read something where it was like of the top 100 consumer-facing brands
40 40 of them are already in the space and it's my opinion the other 60 are building into the space already
Just there's a lot of people just waiting to launch and tell things for it to pick up, right?
It's funny. It's like when I have these conversations where like NFTs are dead
I'm like you have no idea what's going on behind the scenes from a brand perspective
And the types of people that are getting involved and at the scale, it's it's gonna be massive
I think this next run is gonna absolutely melt faces
But one thing I saw on the last run was we saw so many brands coming into this space and it just fell flat
Some of the biggest brands in the world, you know
Have tried to attempt to come into this space and it just didn't work
What in your opinion like if you were to pick out any of the things that stood out to you
What were they doing that that fundamentally did not translate to web 3?
Right, like what were they missing about it?
Yeah, I mean I'm definitely biased here
But this is I think precisely why we started boardroom ventures and so this silly pun of the boardroom
you know and some of that drawing from my experience is the name but
To me what a boardroom is is the intersection of professionalism and
Think in my view there's only a handful of organizations out there that are able to really natively navigate both of those and
and some of it's a combination kind of timing and age and experience and
you know interest in kind of peculiarity, but I
Think what we found is there's a lot of brands that were trusting these like kind of what the advisors that just aren't
They know a little bit about blockchain, and they kind of like have watched from afar, but they're just not
What makes it so special they don't understand the community they don't understand how you know the through lines on how to market it
And they don't understand how to connect it back for their
You know web 2 customers, and so it things just can sometimes kind of run up against it
And then on the other side, I think there are lots of dgens who you know for lack of a better word who are
Working in the space, but they don't always know how to work with a brand or an agency or you know how to how to cross that
Chasm and that sometimes you know they'll activate someone and then it just they aren't always able to
When I pulled on my partner one is who's down in the audience and the partner John like our goal was like how do we
Build a professional outfit that is natively web 3 and continues to be present in the community and advocate for what's best for the space
But also work with brand startups and new ventures to think about how to help them go to market
so definitely definitely selfish where like you know maybe the the kind of
Best examples like Porsche or something where where everyone like in web 3 was like watching that dropper like yeah
It's a little expensive, and yeah, it's like
I'm not sure that's gonna go well
And I don't I don't honestly don't know who was advising them
I actually talked to some folks who were like trying to give them some advice like not as clients, but like
Or not as you know an agency, but like maybe they'd bid on their work
And then they saw what happened and just been like hey
Maybe maybe go this other route
So we've definitely seen a couple
Things that that have failed
and and then you see like the brands that get it right which is like they they find you know
True practitioners in this space and true community members
And they listen and and and and kind of enter for a while and then build together
That doesn't mean their drops are perfect, but they they like you know are genuinely in web 3 they understand
what makes it tick and why it works their brand and
they're building up and and
Yeah, the hope is kind of more of that
Professionals coming in space and learn and so hopefully there's a more good advice going around for brand whether it's internal or external
So that's maybe that's my own kind of selfish pitch for for I think the need for
Ambassadors, but but you know to tie it back to some of the work that we've done
For works for a big big web to consumer product brand like
She was realizing she had to do this web 3 strategy presentation to senior management
and she asked us to tailor our
Our deck for her as if it was marketing for like expanding to a new market
Like a new territory. And so we wrote this whole deck around
Web 3 as this like foreign country that has this you know, an incredible opportunity and
has its own culture and language and currency and and
values and practice that you should learn before you jump in and that was I think a really fun framework and I imagine in a
little bit like kind of like
Starbucks before it enters China, you know
Like that's a ton of research and they have to understand like alright if we're gonna launch Starbucks in China
We really need to understand how to do this, right?
They did it right they crushed it and they have a better brand in China than they do in the US at least from like
Same thing with like Pizza Hut in China and stuff. It's just hilarious
And and good for them and and obviously they you know, they had to do that partly because they understood the way that economics
They didn't want to compete, you know locally with at the bottom. They they wanted to be a premium brand there. So I
It's it's fun to think about
you know, maybe we lean in and get a little silly with like a DJ that's these kind of like
other country citizens that need to be, you know understood and and
Listened to but but I think I you know
I think a brand will do better by taking that approach
Then by just saying oh, you know, we've got a big, you know
We got a big following. I'm sure if we just dump this on them like someone will buy it. I think of like
Well, I think it was it Chris Brown or someone who did an NFT drop and he had like whatever 10 million followers or something
Just like tweeted out or that's we, you know posted on Instagram. I got this thing you could buy
And still like a hundred. Yeah
And and that's it was a Chris Brown or Chris Rock or someone I don't even know but yeah, that's that's just like
Honestly, that's not even a wet it's it's a web 3 problem, but it's not only a web 3 problem
That's a marketing problem because you didn't think through like your conversion rates
For from your audience to all the way down to your your purchasers like that's just bad
And Instagram, you know has terrible conversions rates right now
That's one of the reasons why web 3 is so interesting is because web 2 some of the monetization there the business models are really challenging
But but yeah, I think you you can't just like
Throw it out there like you would like an e-commerce drop
You've got a community build
You've got to educate you gotta listen and you've got to enter and do this based authentically and
No, I love the sacrificial part you're saying. I mean, that's massive Josh
I feel like a lot of brands when they come into the space, they're just going what can I extract?
You know instead of what value can I serve just like in any other market? I also think that piece you made
When she asked us hey set it up as though we're entering like a new market
It's so helpful. Like it's just for any brand builders in the audience when you do that in the same way
I don't know. You're in it like whatever we're a American based company. We've never done business in Canada. We're in in Canada
What's all that normal leg work that you would do over the next six months to a year?
Just to educate yourself on the space before you actually make any sort of capital investments in this new market
The fact that people don't do that when they're in web 3 I just think it's such an interesting
Such a short-sighted way of looking at it, right?
Because man when they do it like I was funny
I was talking to Joey sir Joey about this Josh in that interview when I saw where I was telling him I was like in
Paramount like the Ninja Turtles thing they did I'm like Paramount needed
Chimpers more than chippers need a Paramount right because this is a space that if you don't know and you know
Chippers and Joey and inside the team is so awesome and they work their ass off and they're just you know fulfill their promises
And so when I saw that happen and I asked him about that in the interview
It's like these brands are coming in going like hey, we don't know how to do this. It's like in essence
Why don't we work together help us understand? I just thought that was a really smart approach for Paramount to take to
Yeah, I love that like me Sun Harry man was was one of them one of the ones who like made that intro
So he was advising Paramount on their web-free strategy
And I love that they worked with him because he's such an incredible voice for the space and such incredible heart
And and a fighter too when he needs to be and he was just told him he's like, you know
What the perfect brand for you would be is like this chimpers thing
I just see so much alignment and you got to meet these folks and it's like they're doing things such so well
Check it out and they you know
So he introduced them and kind of referred them and and then they they started ironing out the partnership
But I you know, I the fun thing is like we're not even sure what it is yet
Like yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing it
But I know that just from from seeing the art and and the like messaging of it
It's it's really exciting and I'm looking looking forward to that
When it when it comes out
So just the concept of brand goes back at least as far as we know
The idea of actually branding cattle goes back at least to Egypt like ancient Egypt
I know, you know, at least in my studies
that's as far back as I've seen it traced and that obviously the problem was whatever Josh has
Cattle and I have cattle and they're interspersed with each other. How do I tell the difference, right?
Brandon really started taking off with the Industrial Revolution because in essence for the first time
Like your logo the equivalent of your logo was just your family crest, right?
So that was like the original logo was the you know
On family crest or the Brian family crest in a way it was just to be able to go like hey
If this family stands behind this thing, right and that was kind of like the proto
That was like the beginning of what we would now call like, you know when people like they need a logo
Well, the original logo is your family crest
Once we got into you know, they just revolution started making things in bulk
We had a problem, which is Josh is selling a bunch of soap that looks exactly like the soap Jesse selling
So how can I tell a difference right people see through contrast you if you don't create enough contrast
You can't tell the difference between you know, whatever XYZ, right?
So this concept of branding of like how can I at a glance tell the difference between?
Whatever what Josh is selling from what Jesse selling is ancient
So what kind of ancient practices that you've used to build tons of other brands with Josh?
Are you seeing that port over really well to web 3 and which ones aren't porting over in your opinion?
know you said this podcast called brand matters and talked a bit about the you know, the cattle branding and and I think the
Way that I think about it is
Your brand is the impression that you leave on someone else
Companies don't define their brand their community and their customers do
Because like you if you could be a brand and be like we stand for this and that and this and that
Receive that impression of you in that way. That's not who you are. You are whatever they think you are
and so I think that's such an important reminder for
web 3 but brand building in general is
that it's ultimately that that impression leave on your customer and your community and
It's so it's so important to see it from their perspective
Because if it's just like top-down kind of broadcast marketing where you're just like this is who we are and it's not true
It's not authentic. It's not actually how it's being received
Then it's failing and your brand is gonna be something else and you're gonna you're gonna have to hire a bunch of expensive
Consultants to help you figure it out later
instead of just being you and
reacting and responding and and we get into a place where you you get so I mean
I think one of the fun things about web 3 is
NFT projects talk about like they feel like they're public from day one
Like IPO'd right? Like when you do an empty drop, it's like you've got shareholders
maybe not literal say our shareholders for an ASCC, but you have like
Stakeholders at least which are like people who feel like they have some kind of risk like
stake in your brand which they should because it's web 3 and they're your community and
Now you have to build in public right and things are on chain like treasuries are on chain
You know what you do is just like four prices are on chain and so that they're like as a brand
It's just like can be very difficult to say like okay at any moment
This is the price that someone has put on
you know getting out of my project and leaving leaving the community or not not being part of this anymore and
Teams, it's incredibly inspiring
And hopefully they take it to heart and rather than just be like, oh I need a public price
it's like well low floor price is actually like a
It's a it's a drag. It's a drag on sentiment from your community
Because someone someone went and listed that and said, I don't like this anymore. This is my price to get out
And and so like it's not about
Manufactured ways people not to list. Although we've seen that, you know, it's really about
How do you understand your holders and your community and your future customers your your audience who demographic whatever you call it?
how do you understand them a way to say like, what do they want and
What am I offering them and how does that align and if it doesn't you got a problem, right?
and we've seen plenty of brands in this market where
What what people want and what they're getting? There's a gap and sometimes it's a gap in expectations. Sometimes it's a gap in communications
Sometimes it's a gap in that impression where it's like the brand says they're this thing and other people think it's that something else
Or they came for other reasons
Big reason why everything is, you know, so angsty right now is like so many people who came to the space late
Came for a reason which was money and that's a perfectly valid reason to come and do something like we do that every day
when we wake up go to work, but
when you come for money and
The brand is like we're trying to do this project and we have this really cool idea that make these things and help these people
Whatever like people are just like well what they want
Until you convince them to be part of what you're trying to do
It's going to be like like a battle
so that's that's I think one of the things about like the speculative nature of web 3 that has caused a lot of pressure on
Got a little bit off track from your question, but but that's that's something that I think
We feel and so yeah to circle back. I mean, I think
The the the big picture for me with web 3 is like marketing hasn't changed we have like some new tool sets and new channels
And it requires some more sensitivity in web 3 where you're like listening to your community and you're working with them
You know one example for me is like we see these projects we're like
Sometimes you know, you're gonna make the same decision whether you pronounce it from on high or you go to your community
And invite them into like feedback and the process and vote and they make the decision together and like you might end up at the same
But this is a case where it's not so much about the decision
it's about that community process because if you don't involve them, then they're gonna feel disenfranchised and disempowered and
Your community morale which could be your superpower, but can all can sometimes become your greatest curse
Yeah, that's that's something I remind people is like look what how do we web marketing web 3 often?
We market in web 2, but we do it with like a weapon ethos, which is
community first shared incentives
You know promoting like ownership and Freedom Trends Act and some of those are some of the principles that we want to see the essential ization
But like can we do that through?
Twitter and discord and Instagram and you know email and however we do it like yeah, there's there's so many different channels
Very few of those have changed
Dramatically. So yeah marketing is the principle
You you have a great quote about what marketing is
That might be apropos here. Yeah, it's a Jeffrey James. It's my favorite definition of marketing
He says marketing is just the removal of obstacles between by for buying and selling
Like in essence every time you remove an obstacle for a customer so they can get where they want to go
That is marketing and just because a lot of people think marketing is I don't know more like placement or creative or whatever
It's like no marketing is helping people
And that's why Seth go and says that if you're an actual marketer and you're actually helping people go from where they are
Where they're stuck to where they want to be he's like you actually have the best job in the world
Which is just helping people so I just found that framework always helpful because that that was true during the Industrial Revolution
It's true now. It'll be true 100 years from now
Ultimately, if you really want to do anything sustainable, it's about actually serving and helping other people and so they're just looking for your upside
There's always two kinds of money right short money and long money. Most people choose short money and then don't don't know why things don't work out
You walked away from like a pretty serious career to jump into this web 3 thing
I'm I love talking to founders or folks. Yeah, I mean you're a founder of the agency obviously and you part of most of the biggest
What did you see in web 3 that made you go?
Because you could have just stayed where you were at and just printed but instead you jumped into a highly kind of volatile
Very cutting-edge, you know again like less than 1% of Americans have had a meaningful interaction with there's a loaners traditional ownership
Like you're way out on the edge of all this stuff. What did you see that made you go?
I'm gonna go start an agency in this space, right?
Yeah, I mean some of it was learning like
Before I started an agency in the space like I took my web 2 agency who was working on web 3 projects as like people would say
Hey, you want to you know, you'll work on this and be like, well, I understand it
You know my social media manager. I've like taught her what web 3 is. She's lost project with me. Like sure. We'll do it together
And so I was trying to kind of bolt on web 3 on to web 2 and
I was struggling. I mean, I was making money because it was the bull market, but like
I think I came to this place where I realized like web 3 deserved a
natively web 3 agency from me, I mean in general and that if I was going to put
myself into it, I wanted to go all in and not try and like
The old ways of doing things with like, you know, some of some of the web 2 ways so
That was kind of a choice that I made
I think the bigger picture like
you know as a kid was was kind of a sci-fi geek and
Was was really interested in like, you know the books on the like metaverse and AI and robots and all that stuff. And so like
I'm very future looking kind of personally and it's that's exciting to me
And at the same time like
When we talk about this, I think it's pinned in one of the
One of the tweets here from our chat, you know in New York
Like I think I was sitting down with my future partners and we were trying to talk about like what was going on in web 3
2021 and and I was able to articulate like this kind of realization that
And if not majority digital world
And I think like if you look at your screen time you already spend kind of most of your waking hours on a screen
You know and sometimes it's like three screens because we're like, you know
What you have the phone on and your TV's on and you're like, you know
You know what you have the phone on and your TV's on and you're you know
Like your laptop's open and it's just like it's absurd
Like to me that's already
A form of the metaverse. It's just very like
Relatively primitive. It will it will feel primitive once we're kind of immersively digital
I I think that a world with
Fully rented digital goods versus
Is the difference between like a bright future and a a dark one?
um, I think that there's a ton of like oppression that we've even seen to a certain degree in web 2 from tech giants that
Drawn to a deep like like a further degree in you know in a
Is extremely dangerous for people
and so I think that that just became like this realization for me that
If I was to put my work into this space
That's what I wanted to fight for
Um, and that and that continues to be like a beacon for
For for the work that we do now
Is it sometimes disconnected from that because it's like today I need to go like market this thing like absolutely
If by advocating for web 3 with brands, you know helping new projects launch that I that I believe in
Um, you know working with startups and helping them to build things that I um, I think are a contribution to the world
That I can leave the space and ultimately the world a better place. Like that's that's that's my hope
you know, I think the goal is to show up every day and
contribute in that way and and both through community and through my work and you know through the work of my clients
And with portfolio companies which we haven't talked about but yeah
No, I love it. I I when you when you I've heard you talk about that before and it always
Uh fires me up because I I agree like when people talk about how bad things could go
Right. It's like well, it's guaranteed to happen if you don't do anything
You know, it's kind of like well if we're moving more towards this metaverse space
Then why don't we try to build a metaverse? We'd actually want to be a part of you know
and I you know, I point to um, you know ready player one because
From from at a surface level you're like, oh like this is great. Um
They're like, you know, they have a giant sword and aliens
They have like the retro cars in you know, the metaverse or whatever, but it's like what is the story of ready player one?
It's like indentured servitude and like, you know deep
debt from people like, you know, and it's about a monopolistic company that that could potentially like
um, you know if taken over by the wrong forces kind of ruin the world and a world that's already ruined by you know overpopulation and
environmental whatever but like
There's there's a there's a really sad story in there even the stacks that the wade lives in when he's like born
It's just like it's dystopian
I love the imagination of you know, he escaped to a school and even though it's like parents and drug addicts or whatever
He like they will survive and win and you know, like that's fun
And I love the nostalgia for the 80s
But I read that and i'm like, oh gosh, no like i'm terrified of that kind of metaverse for people
extremely exploitative so
Maybe we can advocate for something. That's a little less harmful than that. Hopefully. Yeah
No, I love that. Okay. So if anybody has any questions now be your time to kind of make your way up here
If you have anything for josh josh, um
Just giving space for people to do that
You and I don't want to give away any of your secret sauce or whatever and your process
So if you don't want to if you don't want to talk about this, that's totally cool, too
But i've seen you do this before
With clients where you'll pretty much give a list of things where you're like if you're not doing this
Why are you doing it in web 3?
Do you mind speaking to that even at a high level because I found that to be such a helpful framework
For anybody here in the audience that's either building a brand or working on a brand in web 3
I think I think those kind of boxes you check. I don't know. I found it helpful if you're if you're willing to talk about it
Yeah, I mean it's it's an exercise we do and in some ways it's kind of a filter mechanism for
Whether or not we should work with a client
but at a high level it's like
And I don't mean that in the in the broader like oh why should web 3 exist and why do we like web 3 or whatever?
And web 3 which I define as the decentralized internet. So, you know, uh a 1.0
evolution of the internet from say
Connected computers to connect to people through social web 2.0 to uh, you know
Decentralized internet that allows you to connect people and things
So when I talk about why web 3 with a brand it's not like okay, like, you know, why does this matter?
Why does the product that you want to sell or the thing that you want to build and create or the company that you want to launch?
Why does it need web 3 to do what it does?
and if you don't have a compelling answer for that then you probably shouldn't be making nfts or tokens or
You know whatever blockchain product like it might be able to just perfectly exist in web 2 or web 1 and that's
Go do that right or like stay with your legacy business or like go build something else. That's not so much fat oriented
And so so when we ask why web 3 one of the things that we do is we talk about
What I call like decentralization
Sliders and so we'll go through different aspects of a business and help them think through okay
You as a brand may be used to
Fully centralized control over these elements of your business
Which of these can you open up? Can you slide up toward some progressive decentralization?
in order to match the spirit and the
efficacy of web 3 right because if you're not going to do any of that then
Like if you're gonna make an nft, but you're like, oh, I don't want it to be traded except on my
My side and I don't you know, I don't want this or that or this
And you know, I want to be able to you know
Shut it down if whatever then you're like, yeah, that's what's called a database
That's web 2 right? Let's go do that and that's
Perfectly fine. Um, but if you're like, oh I want my speed or operable and I want the community to say it
And I want people to be able to like, you know
Keep it and trade it and all that stuff like great. Then maybe you have something in web 3 and so
some of the different sliders that we talked through are
Um, and so that could be anything like your storytelling and your ip and your characters like are you willing to get?
Creative there like, you know warner brothers with the fat cow
Project they let their holders of vote on these digital like the story like story arts within their digital comics
and it's not like, you know, does batman die or not, but
you get to have a say in a
Based on your the digital item that you hold a digital asset
And that's a certain degree of relinquishing some creative control, right?
And it might not end up the way that you expected but you go on a journey together with your community
So, um, you know some of the other things are like
uh, you know decentralized ownership
Governance like, you know, what what level of state is your community have and that's not just in
Um, you know the creative control but you know other other factors. Um, you could decentralize the rewards and
You know, we know that the scc has some challenges there, but uh, you know, I think how do we think about?
Incentives on reward system and I love
Starbucks is doing with odyssey, you know, I think it's a test that still needs to be like fully proven whether it can scale globally
but in the short term, I think
You know, they they've worked with a great team to really think through
How does this rewards program?
A degree of decentralization that you can have in this space and certainly how do we handle?
You know all the legal considerations and you know compliance for that stuff
But I think there's some really fun stuff with like, you know stamps that you can trade and the benefits like different tiers and all that stuff
Yeah, there's like probably five or six
Different factors that we go through and there's more than that like especially depends on the brand
You know decentralized access is another thing that we talk about
But yeah, we'll go through each of those and I think you know if a brand is willing to kind of open
open the kimono is not the best the best example there but like open up to
Rethinking kind of their way of doing business in a you know more decentralized way
I think they have some really good opportunities and went great. That's awesome
You know, it's funny. I've just had we just put out an episode where I was interviewing joe
Forum three and dj network and not only number one joe joe's big brain super smart guy
But oh dude super smart and we did an hour long like deep dive into his thinking behind
Okay, you're building this platform for brands. You started with starbucks. How are you thinking about digital reward systems?
So if anybody's into that, um
I'm sure uh alan if we could pin that too
But joe has done more thinking on that space than just about anybody
So definitely shout out to him and and what they're doing there if you want to check that out. Uh ash
Yeah, first of all, can you hear me because I just got on the road everyone can hear me. Yep. Okay. Yep. Perfect
Um, hi josh, you legend. It's finally so great to talk to you
I've got a question for you. Like we've been talking about the web3 aspect of branding
But do you have any advice or any insight on?
The web3 back to web2 kind of branding like for instance you take my donuts
Building their businesses off of ip from web3 bringing it back to web2 with the intention of kind of for me
onboarding people who maybe love donuts and have no idea what the nft is and kind of
Onboarding them into web3. Do you have any any advice or insight on the branding for that?
Hey, let me kind of set that up a little bit ash. So ash
Um, that's her one of one. She has a quirky 101 which is her dragon
She took that ip along with some of her other ip and she built out like an entire donut business
And number one the donuts are amazing, but like the brand and everything she's pulled together is just super cool
And so we've always talked about I mean you guys saw this super early on with apes, right?
Where people are actually taking their ip and building businesses on top of them
Well, uh ash is one of the people I know that actually did that also in the quirky's ecosystem
So that's kind of what she said enough of you know, how do you cross pollinate those brands and leverage them in both directions?
I love that. Um, I see I see this picture of you with your donuts and they look amazing. So
uh, i'm gonna try them someday and
I'm looking forward to it
So yeah, I mean, I think that's the fun thing is like you can go backwards with the brand and and uh from web3 to web2
There's nothing to stop you
And if anything because you have a community behind your back you have other folks you can incentivize together
To win. I think it's really powerful. One of the things I love
Pudgy penguins like instagram, which is like do have to I mean probably like 90% of people fall
I have no idea that it's an nft. They're just like I love this
Silly penguin meme account. That's like really inspiring
Uh chimpers and uh instagram and tick tock
Those are some examples of like kind of breaking out kind of what doodles is trying to do with their animation studio is like
build things that like, you know have hooks into digital assets and memberships and and um
You know decentralized ip but but also like to pursue
Your ip in a way where like it doesn't matter
To a web2 person like like what you are they can they can go deep and if they want to get in the ass that they can
But they can also just enjoy
You know the content of the ip or the donuts, um as being good and a good example for that
Of that for me is like borden hungry, which was started by a couple restaurateurs
the burger from borden hungry, which was also um
trilla burgers in texas with um
virtual burger with uh fun b
You know, they they used his ip and kind of he helped to weigh in on like a burger that he'd like and that's the burger
If they use important hungry, um, which used, you know bought an ape and used it as the ip for this
This burger restaurant that won america's best burger
On uh, what does it be? Good morning america show, right? And they did like a you know, like regional competitions
They won their regional they went to new york
They they made those burgers and people ate it and it's like
Bored and hungry can claim to have america's best burger. So that's one way and it's like a little bit. Um,
facetious but like the way to win going from web3 to web2 is to have the massively superior product, um
and then also to have like web3 incentives in alignment, but but I think I think about with web3 games like
A lot of people took the approach like okay
If I make a web3 game like I don't have to make a good game
I just have to have like a really crazy tokenomics that that like our you know
Crazy pump and sinks and all that stuff and it's like no don't do that
Like make a good game, right? Like make a better game than what other people
make and you can make it more fun because like with web3 you can have um
You know different levels of like
And kind of community input and like, you know, we can dial up whatever but like
Start by like having a better product and that could be again content or consumer goods
consumables like you know
digital goods whatever it is, um
And and make it so compelling. So I think we start from that like desire for excellence
And then beat so beat web2 at its own game to to that extent
um, but then add on you know, like community support and you know licensing and
Decentralization like then you get some really fun stuff
So I think if you start with like a bad thing and try and make it make it better with web3
Like it you're still working, you know, it's the lipstick on a pig, right? It's like you can't
If you decentralized garbage, you just left with like
Um, i'm sure your donuts are amazing and i'm glad you're using your quirky ip
I think I think it's you know, that's going to be a winning combo and and that's going to be awesome
uh, you know just keep being the best at what you do in web2 and web3
I was going to say here's what people don't understand is
The magic of again web3 and I think I heard somebody really describe it as just web3
Just a community with the line incentives, right?
Like what people don't understand is how hard it is to build a brand. There's a guy named, uh, john haggerty was so good at
Advertising he got knighted
So now he's served john haggerty and he had this quote where he said
The most valuable real estate in the world is the corner of someone's mind
Which just means like once you're in someone's head
He was the one that turned around levis in the 80s when it was really struggling
Uh, you know the whole one other zigzag black sheep stuff
He that was all of his work kind of like a legend in the space like a lee cloud type of person
And once you're in the corner of someone's mind
That's so valuable and it's so freaking hard to get there
Like when even when i'm working with brands and they're like, hey
We're thinking about spinning up another brand to do this and another brand to do this and i'm like, too
Don't add brands unless you have to because it's so hard to get that
To carve out that real estate in somebody's brain and the fact that in web3
You've got a shortcut to that is what I don't think people really understand
so luke is a machine right and what he's doing at pudgy's if
He's going to get massive reach and he's just going to keep compounding on top of that over and over and over again
And the bigger that brand gets the bigger the ip you own gets too
so if you're starting a I don't know like a
Like an iced coffee whatever joint in southern california and you can either go out and pay somebody I don't know
30 to 50 grand or more for a brand and try to do it from scratch or you can go buy a pudgy right now for
Seven eight grand and leverage that pudgy and that pudgy is in however many people's minds from
Tiktok and tiktok and instagram of like I think i've seen that before
That I think that i've seen that before is invaluable
Right, and that's what people like that's why web3 is like such a massive opportunity
for people to come into the space
The peter teal what's your unpopular belief type thing my unpopular belief
Is that all the biggest brands for the next 20 30 years are all coming out of the space and it's because of the decentralized nature
And it's because other people see an upside in it too
And when you have 10 000 people all working together to try to make your ip the biggest ip on the planet
No brand can touch that from a spend perspective
Because every other brand that's still operating web2
They have to do it all in house with thighs and creative and they have to play all the overhead
Versus it's like a dandelion in the other ways and then you get to
You get the upside from that. So anyways, josh, do you have any thoughts on that side?
Yeah, one one is like I think it's never been
Easier and never been harder to build a brand
And and then the way they say it is like, you know, the internet social like what three all that stuff like
You can spin up a brand for like nothing
And yet at the same time we have attention deficit in the middle of an attention economy
And what that means is it's just so hard to break through the noise and then like so many products are commoditized
Like you're competing at global scale with almost everyone else
um, and you got amazon over there like crushing the margins just left and right like
I think that the opportunity there with web3 is you know, how did how did uber?
and some of the early like, you know
mobile apps and services whatever like how did they
Initially build their brands like they took vc money and use that vc money to subsidize their customer acquisition
gave away half the company and more than half the company in order to
You know give stuff away for free to customers until they stuck long enough that they had a moat and then they like, you know
whatever turned on their business model and figured it out and
You know failed their way up and broke the regulators until they could finally succeed and go whatever go public and make their money
Um and could you know kill the competition or whatever?
Like web3 says, you know, if i'm going to give something away either to you know investors or to the bank or whatever
Like why don't I just give that to my customers?
If if you do your tokenomics
You want to give the majority away to your community
And and that'll just like what that will return to you will be more than if you'd held on to yourself
To me a truth in this universe that when you give something away you get back more than you gave
And and like if we take that radical position of generosity and bring that into web3 and incentivize that through
tokenomics and digital assets and you know tokenized communities and um community first brands like
And you know what we have to do is like not stop ourselves from like infighting and tearing each other apart and greed and all that stuff
But I think if we can do that we can build some really powerful and incredible brands
can break out beyond our tiny corner of the world into
Hopefully, you know early supporters getting to see the benefits of that
Man, you walked josh that you know
Our core kind of belief behind everything we do at alphi is the more you give the more you have
And so that's why you know, our goal is to
Pretty much catalog all the information the metaverse and to make it free and open for everyone
It's it's that same exact. I mean, it's so well said
It's actually the letter neemoid that said the more you give the more you have and I love that web3 is kind of the embodiment
Of that because I don't think you could really pull off something like that without that kind of shared understanding and belief
Uh echo boy you had a question for josh and then we'll wrap it up because josh has already given us
We're already five minutes over for him
No, just uh, first of all, thanks for having me here. Yeah, I really didn't have the question, uh before
I just saw ashley with her hand up. So I was messing with her when you gave me the stage, you know
But uh, yeah now that's just easier. Uh, let me just say that I really appreciate the spaces that you have been hosting with alphi
People have to understand as well that
Having you as a person that is so well connected in this space
Hosting spaces like these with persons like josh and other people that you know bring so much value and insight to to the community
Is another added value to you know to alphi and to the entire community that uses alphi as well
Because people learn a lot in these spaces
So I really appreciate it
And let me just share that I also shared the same opinion as you guys regarding the nfts right now
To me I completely changed my my perception around nfts, you know, i've been in this place for such a long time
Um and at the beginning it was everyone looking just for flips and making profits, right?
And right now I really see nfts as like a ticket an entry point to a collection to a brand
Uh, where you connect with other people to you know, uh, get more resources for yourself
Meet new brands connect with other people to you know
Get more for your value, uh in terms of knowledge as well
And not just you know, make a quick buck by flipping an nft
So I shared the same vision and that's pretty much what I have to say
I don't want to take too much of people times. This place is almost at its end, right? So
Thanks a lot. Jess for hosting this space and thanks. Josh for also taking this time to be here
Got it. Thanks for coming up, man. Hey, congratulations on the project. I'm glad ghost lives is doing so well, man
And so I wish you guys nothing but the best right? Um
Yeah, this space I you know, the funny thing too is what people are missing. Josh threw this awesome party and his uh
At their office in new york a few weeks ago, and I was telling alan who's running their spaces right now
I'm like the best thing about a bear market like this is you have access
Right, like just wait a few years when the market's ripping. It's gonna be impossible
To get time with some, you know people like josh and other really people in the space
Um, you know because they're all so busy and that
Right now the fact that so many people left the people that are left here and they're still active and engaged
now is your chance to kind of shoot your shot and you know, ask them to if you can interview them or pick their brain because
The most valuable thing you can get from folks is always wisdom, right?
And so we thank josh for coming here
I know that it's late for you out in new york
And I know that you know, obviously, uh, this is time away from your family and the kids and all that stuff
So thank you for your time. Josh
Thanks for dropping some wisdom on us as we think through how to build brains and web3 ash as always
Thank you for being here. Alan. Thank you for running spaces. I appreciate y'all
Lajama everybody from the academy. I see down below jd
Thank you for being here. Uh, you know victor
Just really appreciate the community also congrats to everybody this week as we passed our 300th project
It took us about two and a half months to get our first 200 projects added to alphi
And in only two weeks we've added another hundred and so shout out to everybody all the volunteers in the alphi community that have been building
In the same way that josh said he's terrified of a future where we're renters
I'm terrified of a future where all information you need to make well-informed decisions is behind pay falls
Uh, and so we're trying to make sure we're capturing all this information
Making it open available for anybody who needs it
So just all the volunteers and community making that happen
Thank you for showing up and taking time out of your busy day to hear us
Talk branding and uh, I hope everybody has a great week and thanks again, josh
Cheers, thanks for having me and glad to be advising alphie
Yes, absolutely josh byland seeds has been helping us a ton. So thank you for that. All right, cool
All right, alan till next time. Thank y'all