Collab🤝Community: Member Spotlight with Marketing Maven Michaela ✨

Recorded: March 28, 2024 Duration: 1:06:30

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GM GM can
All right, I think we've got it sorted.
So let's get kicked off, we'll add Chibi to the space here, hopefully she's good.
Chibi is in the space, but she is going to be hanging out in the audience today.
And we will kick off our space with the introduction.
I would like to welcome everyone to Collab Community.
Thank you all for joining today.
We do have a POAP available that will be able to be claimed starting at 3.30 p.m.
So if you're interested in catching that, you should have your POAP app ready.
Before the mid phrase, when we get there, I will tell you that you will enter it,
you will play the whack-a-mole game of the numbers,
and then you will get a fabulous space to commemorate today.
On the stage, we are excited to have, as I noted, Angela Young, who's the CCO
and co-founder of Abridged.io, the creator of Collab Live.
She is in the audience, she's not on stage today, but she's still here to support.
And then we have Chibi as well, who is our Discord mod lead and fabulous Comm Teams member.
And most exciting for me, I think, today, we have a very, very special guest.
I am super excited to introduce her to you all.
She is a Web 3.0G since 2017, so even predates me a little bit in the space.
She's the former CMO of Cool Cats and Neopets, a super early adopter of crypto kitties,
and is one of the first and most impactful women that I was lucky enough to connect with
in the space when I first landed here.
So I'm super honored to introduce Michaela today.
Thank you so much for joining.
Oh, thank you so much, Moose.
First of all, I don't know what I should call you.
Should I call you Rude Moose or Moose?
You could do Rude Moose, Moose Candy.
I respond to all of them.
All right, all right.
Sounds good, sounds good.
Thank you so much for the very sweet introduction.
It is just as much an honor to be here and chat with you.
And I know we have personally gone back quite a few years.
I'm actually surprised to hear you're not from the 2017 crypto kitties era,
but I guess we will get into that.
But yeah, thank you, everyone who's joined.
And I see some familiar faces in the chat.
I'm very grateful and happy to see my friends here supporting as well.
Yes, it is amazing.
And I will say I was close to 2017.
I was like January 16th of 2018.
Ah, but not a true OG, not a 2017 OG.
Not quite as fancy.
I still have much to learn.
But it is amazing to have you here.
And it's been so long.
Oh my goodness.
I know, I know.
Six plus years, like math is weird.
So like Web3 Elderly, for sure, for sure.
Let's start with a little bit of backstory for you
because I know that some people are familiar with you
and some, this is their first time meeting you.
So let's hear you behind the scenes.
What did you do before you got involved in Web3?
You know, what were you dreaming of doing?
And, you know, what led you here?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's quite a story.
But I'll start off just by saying, you know,
I've always been the kind of weird, derpy, nerdy, quirky kid
that loved learning and growing.
And I always dreamt, you know,
even from a young age of being a lifelong student.
So I, being a very naive person at the time,
thought the only way to achieve this
was through literally studying.
And I chose to dedicate my life to science and medicine.
And I became a pre-med student,
which I realize, actually,
we were chatting a little earlier, Rigmas,
that you kind of resonates with you too, right?
It sounds like we had a very similar path
because I was, as a little kid,
I was like, oh, you're so smart.
You should be a doctor.
And I was like, well, of course I should be a doctor.
I should make everybody proud.
I should help people and learn how to do all the things.
And it turns out, mostly,
I just like to learn how to do all the things.
I totally feel you on that one.
Totally, totally.
Yeah, I wanted to be a neurologist
because I thought that was the cool thing,
like be a brain doctor.
But yeah, so also being kind of a nerdy, derpy, quirky kid,
I was also a huge, huge neopian.
I was a player of the game Neopets,
which is a digital pet game
for those of you who are unfamiliar
and not as nerdy as we are.
Some of my pets had not made it
because I forgot to take care of them.
You have to visit them, you know what I mean?
And we'll just put them in the cockroach towers
and they'll be fine.
They're still alive.
They'll be okay.
But yeah, that was, I think,
one of the first things that you and I connected on
because that's a throwback.
And I guess that really dates us
if you were playing Neopets back in the day.
But oh, yeah, yeah, the internet was fun.
Oh, yeah.
Well, so my passions pretty much,
I mean, for Neopets, for gaming,
for all the nerdy things, being a pre-med student,
they all kind of came together in this really weird way.
I began producing a genetics-based digital pet game
in my early 20s.
And I had my first foray into the world of marketing
by bringing the game to Kickstarter,
which was miraculously crazy.
It was just crazy that it was successfully funded.
And it was my first real foray into the world of marketing.
I don't know how it happened,
but I absolutely fell in love with the world of marketing.
I realized I had a knack and a passion for it,
as well as some more entrepreneurial things.
So yeah, I became a marketer.
And down the line,
I became a specifically gaming industry niche marketer
and have really never looked back.
I like to call it my Bob Ross happy accident, if you will.
All the best things really happen that way.
It's hard to plan for stuff,
but when it happens, it's magic.
Yeah, I would certainly call it magic.
It had a spark.
Sparks are fun.
And speaking of sparks,
how did you end up in Web 3?
What was the thing that,
because I know I started in Cryptocities
in a very ridiculous sort of way,
but how did you end up in Crypto in Web 3?
First of all, can't wait to get into the ridiculous way.
You got into Web 3,
or into Cryptocities specifically.
But yeah, to answer your question,
so Cryptocities first came out
in I believe it was November 2017.
At the time, I was a little marketing manager
at a cute little venture capital firm.
And the partners of the firm were discussing
how do we get in on the action?
Because Cryptocities was going viral.
I mean, I think it made, what,
20, $40 million in the first month.
And it broke, Eve.
Yeah, it was crazy.
I mean, that was the day, man.
And I saw, well, rather,
they saw an opportunity in me
because I was still working on
the genetics-based digital pet game
that I mentioned earlier.
It also happened to be a potentially great framework
for what could potentially become
the next Cryptocities competitor,
which was music to the partners ears
at that venture capital firm.
So yeah, and going from marketing manager there
I was thrust into the other side of venture capital.
Going from working there
to being an inventor or entrepreneur
and meeting with investors
and having these crazy conversations
with incredible people.
I will say Tim Draper's firm was among them.
They used words, phrases thrown around
like $20 million.
It was a time, I'll say.
I actually met up with a group of investors
at this little winery across the street from my house.
And they threw all these words around.
They were all very encouraging and excited
and getting me all amped up about this.
And I walked back from that winery to my house
and my mom was waiting for me inside.
And she was like, yeah, how'd it go?
You know, was everything, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Was it okay?
And talking to me about maybe what we're having for dinner.
And I just looked at her.
I was blue in the face.
I was like, mom.
They're talking about investing $20 million into my game.
Which, wow.
A big thing to face.
Those are not things that you, as a kid,
when you're like, oh, I must study
and learn how to do all the things.
Like, that's not something you put on.
You're like, this is what I'm going to do, checklist.
No, it really just hit me out of nowhere.
It was absolutely one of the coolest experiences of my life
to be able to even just have those kinds of conversations
and to be exposed to those awesome entrepreneurs.
I will say the investment never came to fruition,
which is a very, very, very common story
in the venture capital world.
But it did lead me to doing a deep dive on Web3.
This was back when Web3 wasn't even called Web3
and when NFTs were not called NFTs.
I guess they weren't NFTs till they ever named them.
Yeah, exactly.
Man, that goes back.
So, yeah, I was absolutely interested
in the potentials of the space.
I started researching Cryptokitties even more extensively.
I was so drawn to the entrepreneurial nature of it all.
And in December 2017, I believe December 11th specifically,
because I looked recently, I bought my first Cryptokitty,
which was the very first NFT I've owned.
And it's been a journey since then.
Man, I think I made the tweet about it back in January,
celebrating my six-year anniversary
of my first kitty I purchased,
which, by the way, I bought it,
and then I sold it to the Valentine's...
Well, I bought it,
and then I sold it to the Valentine's whale
that had happened.
Remember, because they were just auto-accepting kitties,
Gen Zeros, as long as they were above the certain price point,
which is wild.
So I used that ETH to fund most of my future gaming.
And then had, a couple of years later,
ended up buying it back.
So I do have my original very first Cryptokitty.
I bought her back.
But selling her part a couple months in
was the catalyst to give me more ETH to play.
So it's been a fun ride, for sure.
No, that's awesome.
You got to use the Cryptokitty
to essentially spur your further investments
into the space,
and then you ended up coming full circle
and buying it back.
I love that story.
And I have like 9,000 more kitties than that.
Ill bullish on Cryptokitties, by the way.
Let's see it happen.
We've got...
There's definitely nostalgia there, for sure.
There's potential,
and some of the OGs like Poppa and Kitty International
are still working on doing updates to the site
and trying to move the kitties forward.
So they've been doing a lot of really good work,
and I love it.
Love that.
Love hearing that.
I'd love to eventually see my Gen-O go up in value, too.
That'd be super cool.
That would be...
Oh my goodness.
So we had...
Let's see.
We've got 12 minutes until the Poops.
I think we have time to cover this before we...
But at some point, I may interrupt us
and go, hold on to the Poops slide.
So fair warning there.
That'll happen.
But you and I, we first met in the Cryptokitties community
over six years ago.
So I want to talk about that
because it's really interesting to me
that a very large number of people in this space
started in Cryptokitties.
And I think that's not an exaggeration
if you look at people who have built stuff,
whether it was like Jimmy with Avastars
and Jiho with Axi.
The common thread is Cryptokitties.
We build and stuff, but they all started.
This was kind of like the thing that...
I don't want to say kick-started their entrepreneurialism
because it most definitely didn't,
but they were the type of people
that were drawn to this product.
And so that was really interesting.
I loved it.
And it really is kind of the start
of Web3 entrepreneurialism.
Sorry, entrepreneurialism.
There we go.
That is a word, guys.
It is a word.
I said it.
I'm going to stumble through this one.
Entrepreneurship, rather.
So anyway, yeah.
Yeah, I remember befriending
some early Cryptokitties players
that have ever since, you know,
like Jiho become Web3moguls.
Jiho in particular
was a friend of mine back in the day.
We would talk about Neopets
he went on to launch Axie Infinity
in 2018, 2019, something like that.
He also...
The thing that when I first joined
the Cryptokitty server,
I connected with him
because he frequently referred
to Diablo and World of Warcraft.
That's kind of where I came from.
Like I did Neopets, you know,
as a browser game,
but like the only like real video games
I played have been Blizzard based
more than CSGO.
But like Blizzard is like my franchise.
My whole wall has Blizzard art on it.
And I love that.
Like I super nerd out about that.
So when he was talking about,
you know, Diablo and how for a while
they had the real market auction house.
And then, you know,
he was like farming things
making money there.
And Web3 is like an extension of that
because it takes it to that next level
where when you have the assets,
they can't be taken away.
Your account can't get banned.
Like this stuff is yours.
And I was like, man,
like that's like clicking in place.
This makes sense.
Like there's some appeal to that for sure.
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the greatest
use case of blockchain technology,
in my opinion.
So yeah, I think he was a really
interesting guy then
and a really interesting guy now.
And someone who has really blossomed
in this space.
And I just have enjoyed cheering him on
watching, you know, as he's grown.
I will say one of the other people
I feel that way about
is actually you, Rudemos.
Absolutely adore you.
We kind of gravitated towards each other
in the early days
in a really kind of funny way.
You know, as the only two,
I wouldn't say the only two women
in the Cryptokitties discord,
but we were very, very few and far
I'll say that.
Yeah, so and an interesting,
I was just telling Anjali
about this the other day, right?
Because, you know, she was excited
that and Chibi's here too,
to, you know, do these Twitter spaces
because Anjali was like,
hey, we're like kind of like this
women in web tree,
like it's all women on the panel.
And I was like, yeah, that's cool.
And when I first joined
Cryptokitties, there were there were women,
you and I being some of them, right?
But like I have always been Rudemos,
which is a very ambiguous name intentionally.
And, you know, my avatar is not gendered,
So for the longest time,
and it's funny because even though
I was doing the Twitch streams
for Cryptokitties,
if people didn't come to the stream,
Oh, my gosh.
I kid you not.
Like people just assumed
I was a dude and that was fine.
But, you know, like We're Kitty,
for example, like was very,
you know, ambiguous about,
you know, answering questions,
avoiding, you know,
the topic in general,
because it maybe wasn't as welcoming,
depending on how you were presented,
you know, and we had
Queen Cryptoria for sure.
And Jodi back in the day.
Jodi, I love Jodi.
So, you know, so there were,
but I mean, the fact that
you can count on one hand,
like the number of women
that were active and making themselves
visible in the space,
you know, is really telling.
Yeah, telling is a is a good descriptor.
Because yeah, in the early days,
like those little in groups
already were starting, you know,
and it was all it was all
it was all the guys.
And they were they were these little,
by the way, for everyone in the chat
who is unaware,
this predated Twitter spaces in Clubhouse.
There was something called a Kitty Club,
which was a spinoff Discord server
from the Cryptokitties server.
And they were the OG alpha groups.
They were very selective.
And they were predominantly,
if not exclusively male.
So one day you and I,
Rude Moose, we're like, let's
let's just create our own Kitty Club
just for women and non binary people.
And we're going to sarcastically call it.
Not a ladies Kitty Club.
And then I think it's hilarious
because they're inappropriate
and I love it a little cheeky,
which is the thing, though,
that going back to the
how I got started in web three.
This is exactly how it happened
where Cryptokitties on the website
said, and I don't know
if you remember this,
but the FAQ literally said,
yes, these are kitties that are DTF.
And I was like, you know what?
Like it used to say it
and they took it off.
But I think that like that hundred percent,
like no question is like
the thing that I was like,
look, I know nothing about crypto,
but I will figure out
how to give you my money
because I need to make these kitties smash.
Like this is the most ridiculous thing
I've ever heard of.
And at the time, like my well, my now ex,
he was the one who like,
you know, mentioned that he heard
about this really stupid website.
And I was like, I'm gonna check it out.
And that's what I saw.
And I was like, man,
like I'm gonna give him my money.
I'm gonna do it.
And that's how I started.
And web three was literally
because the crypto kitties website
was cheeky.
I had cat puns
and it said they were DTF.
And I was like, you know what?
I will give you the dollars.
Figured out.
So like I made a meta mask.
I had to figure out
how to get Ethan first.
You know, onboarding is still
not the smoothest process,
but it was like, rough back then.
And I was like, I'm gonna do it
and figure it out.
Because man, like, this is silly.
So then, yes, the, you know,
naming of our club was,
I think very fitting.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it just, you know,
going off of what you just said,
like the space really was
not very inclusive
to new people either.
I'd love to kind of explore
that a bit too in our,
in our chat here today.
But like, yeah, I mean,
the fact that we had to create
Nada Ladies Kitty Club
was kind of, I don't know.
I mean, it was hilarious at the time,
but now I look back on it
and I'm like, I'm so glad
that doesn't exist anymore.
You don't have to create
as many exclusive safe spaces
because the wider space
is a little bit safer.
Exactly, exactly.
I mean, it's a little bit
more inclusive community
slash alpha group slash
entrepreneurial think tank.
And we ideated spin-off games,
you and I, Rudemus,
like Katopia.
Remember Katopia?
So it was, oh, go ahead.
I was going to say,
I want to pull Chibi into this
because she has commented
on the Twitter replies
that like she used to play Neobets.
So she knows.
I think I gave you
your first Crypto Kitty
and I just want to get
your opinion on this person
who's like so far removed
from these old days
of this weird stuff we were doing.
But like, if you could do Neopets
with Crypto Kitties,
how do you feel about that?
I would absolutely love that
and I spent so much time
on Neopets.
I adored it.
And I'm so sad
because I love my account
because I had an account
with my best friend at the time.
And so we would play together
and get everything together.
And it was such happy days.
If I could do anything
like what you're describing nowadays,
I would be so happy.
I mean, because the magic
of Neopets, right,
was like you built
an emotional bond
with these little pets.
You wanted to come back
every day and do these things.
And it was really gamifying habits
that could have translated
so well to Crypto Kitties.
And I think it's really useful
in the Web3 space in general,
just that gamification
and the building habits
giving people a reason
to come back and do the thing.
And maybe you get something,
maybe you don't.
It's a gamble.
Spin the wheel of fortune
and see what happens.
I feel the same way, honestly.
I personally wouldn't say
that Neopets itself really
belonged on Web3 in any capacity.
But I will say that the ideas
behind it, the very entrepreneurial nature
just led to, I think,
some of the things
that make Web3 very special.
And if more creators
took inspiration from it,
I think there could be
a lot of really cool projects
out there in the coming years.
That would be super exciting, I think.
And that's the cool thing about,
back when we were looking into this,
there's so much potential for this space.
And even now, six years later,
this is still an idea
that would be pretty groundbreaking
if you could pull it off
because it's complex,
but it gives people something
to do with their NFTs
because you've got
so many collections
here, these 10K collections.
And you get the thing
and you're part of a community,
but the community has to create,
in a large part, the narrative itself
and keep it going.
And so if you were able
to have shared experiences
for people to participate in
regularly like that,
that's a game changer.
Heck yeah, I completely agree.
So we had
Catopia, you know,
it didn't make it to the world.
Yet, I would say yet
because there's always potential,
like one day we'll be ready
and it'll be ready
and magic will happen.
I mean, I'm always down
to explore ideas
and I would always,
always love to work with you.
Good news.
Get ourselves in trouble
and start making stuff.
Exactly, exactly.
I'm not sorry.
So we have,
I know there's less than a minute,
I think, at this point
for the POAP to be claimable.
So I want to get us started
on that here
and then we'll go into
the next question.
So on your mobile POAP app,
you should be able to,
if you open it up,
select the Mint button
in the bottom right corner.
You're going to put Mint
as your option,
select it,
and then secret word.
And your secret word for today
is MAVEN.
M-A-V-E-N.
It is in the title of the space
if you need help.
It's the second to last word,
M-A-V-E-N.
It is all lowercase.
There are no spaces.
You just enter MAVEN
and then you,
so, you know,
number whack-a-mole game,
Mint's your POAP.
And that will be,
you know,
available for you to commemorate
attending this event today
with the amazing Michaela
and Storytime,
which is, you know,
really exciting for me.
If you have questions
about the POAP,
you can also DM us,
collabland,
or chibi in the Discord,
and we will get you hooked up.
But you can Mint again
with the word MAVEN.
M-A-V-E-N.
That being covered now,
I want to move into
one of the things that,
you know,
we connected on,
which as noted was Neopets,
but also kind of bringing
more of that type of world
and that magic to Web3.
And I know that you actually
had experience with Neopets,
maybe beyond that of a normal user,
like Chibi and myself.
So how did this Neopets
thing happen for you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So for those in the chat
who do not know,
I did serve as CMO of Neopets,
and I do have a cool,
somewhat cool story.
You know, I actually started
playing the game
when I was eight years old.
That probably dates me a bit.
I've never stopped
since I was eight years old.
It's kind of wild.
I've always just been
really interested in it
from a very different perspective,
I think, for most people.
And in case you don't know,
I will repeat again,
it is a digital pet game,
the first of its kind.
It launched in 1999
and is very much
still going strong today.
I would even say it ushered
many a millennial
into the modern internet.
Oh my God, it totally did.
And then so people
will ask, you know,
well, you know,
why Neopets?
What's so special about it?
And I will say, like,
those who think it's a great
or attractive game
because the art is cute
are missing the point.
That's my hot take for the day.
I feel like there's
an entrepreneurial side
to Neopets that's special
and has never really
ever been replicated.
I mean, think about this.
Like, I was an eight year old kid, right?
Imagine an eight year old
restocking her player shop,
advertising her guild,
collecting interest in the bank.
I'm talking about like,
oh, we even did creative things
like coding.
Remember coding your user lookup
or like designing art
for your pet pages.
taught a lot of so
it was interesting, right?
Because it taught a lot of
real life transferable skills
and a way
it didn't feel like you were learning, right?
But then you get out
and suddenly
when you're talking about interest,
you're like, all right,
well, now that I'm adult,
like, I understand this
because I can relate it
to how it worked
and how I used to claim it.
Now people are claiming it for me
and that sucks.
But, you know,
you could do the things
with like the user shop
and translate that to Web3,
translate that to the makers
of the world
and starting with Neopets.
Yeah, dude,
so many people.
I mean, not just me.
I mean, it 100% inspired
my future career
in marketing and game development.
But like so many artists,
programmers, game devs,
writers and creative types,
they all got their start
playing Neopets.
And so it has been such
a cool experience
and an honor
to get to work with them.
And I'll just say like the other
thing about being an eight-year-old
playing Neopets
is just the idea of like,
okay, being exposed to ideas
like the stock market,
for instance,
like there's literally a stock market
in this children's game
and there's this rich lore
and there's this kind of cheeky humor
that really existed
in the early days.
And well, I could go on
and on about how much I love Neopets,
but the matter of the fact is
I'm just very grateful
to have been able to
been exposed to it at a young age.
And it's funny
because it did come full circle for me.
I became their marketing lead in 2021
and then CMO
in early 2023 and onwards.
I will say major shout out
to that marketing team.
They pull off some incredibly
cool campaigns.
I'm no longer with the Neopets team,
but I will be forever cheering
them on from the sidelines.
So I have a question about that,
which isn't...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry, it wasn't on the list
of questions I submitted to you before,
but it just popped in my head.
But like, obviously as a kid,
you were like playing Neopets
and that was like,
you know, not the thing
that you planned on doing, right?
Because like, you know, dream of like,
let me work at Neopets
the place that I love the most.
But also you do kind of
fantasize about it a little bit.
Yeah, of course you do.
So now that you've done it
and kind of like checked
it off your bucket list,
how has that made you feel?
And I ask this
because I had this experience
where when I got hired in at DAP
or like as a kid,
you know, I was like, I'm a doctor,
except that when I switched
my major in college,
I switched to communication
and my mom was like really disappointed.
She was like,
what are you going to do with that?
I don't know.
I was like, I like football
and I like concerts.
Maybe I could do something
like promoting them
or something in that range
because like stuff that I love.
So when I got into web three
and worked at DAPR,
I actually got to launch
the NFL all day community
and interview NFL players.
Oh, heck yeah.
And being involved
in the whale community,
I got to interview rock stars
and you're like Ryan Tedder
from, you know, One Republic.
So here I am going like,
shit, I've checked off
all the things on my bucket list.
Now what do I do?
So did you have an experience
like that in Neopets?
Like what are you Oh,
what are you going to do?
I feel I absolutely feel that way.
Like I said,
it was a full circle moment.
The moment I found out
that I would be working there
and I don't know,
to be honest,
like I don't have a good answer to that.
Like I just think about
all the things ahead of me
and it could go
so many different ways
like creating, you know,
something myself,
being a part of something
really awesome as like another CMO
or, you know,
just personal goals too,
like in my life,
like I love my family.
I love little entrepreneurial
cute things that I do
as side hobbies
like TikTok accounts
and stuff like that.
I am an indie game producer
on the side.
I don't think we talked about that,
but I do.
I do have a little game
inspired by Neopets
that is still running
and, you know,
there's a bunch of things.
So I'd say like,
there's really,
there's no one thing, right?
I just I like to get
my hands in everything.
I feel it.
I feel it.
And that's something like,
I almost ran into this like,
I don't want to say
an existential crisis,
but kind of because I was like,
man, like I checked off
my God, like if I could do anything,
what would I do?
And now that I've done it,
yeah, I guess I can do anything now
because I've done the things.
But like,
that's a really interesting
side effect of what Web 3
has produced in a sense
is being able to connect people
much more closely
with goals that they either
didn't think were attainable
or didn't even know they had.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I love that.
I love that the space is so,
has become at least so inclusive
and that it is such a safe
environment now to be
like a pioneer or a forward thinker
or somebody coming forth
with a new concept
and just to be embraced
by this community.
I think it's amazing.
Super good.
And speaking of,
I would say other amazing
opportunities and digital cats,
you as a community builder and marketer
also were the CMO for Cool Cats,
which must have been a super wild ride.
Can you tell us about that?
Because we love the cats.
We've made tweets about the cats.
We love the cats.
Yeah, it was a wild ride
and it's such an incredible honor.
I will say that.
I absolutely adored my time at Cool Cats
and I remain so incredibly bullish on the team
and especially the founders
who are my close friends now.
You know, I follow their projects,
whether they are, you know,
still working on other things
like Ilu's ghost boy and et cetera.
I've always wanted to support them.
They're such great guys.
I will say some of the coolest things
that I had the privilege
of getting to work on at Cool Cats
were the rebrand campaign
was super cool.
That was something that,
oh, I see Merv is in the chat.
Hi, Merv.
He's giving me hearts right now.
Big shout out to Merv.
He was the community manager at Cool Cats
and is one of the coolest,
ha ha, coolest people I've ever met
and we have met IRL
and we are good friends.
So I worked on the Cool Cats rebrand campaign.
I worked on the Cool Cats FC product launch.
Getting Blue Cat featured as a balloon
in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade last year.
That was awesome.
That was so wild.
Like there was an NFT giant one
in the Macy's parade.
That was awesome.
And it was part of a campaign
where just all of our holders
were voting, you know,
to see something so incredible happen.
And that campaign was led incredibly well
by my friend Jarvis at Cool Cats.
He knocked it out of the park.
I feel honored to have worked with him
and to have been able to support
that campaign with my marketing as well.
And, you know, I led a lot of,
you know, partnership opportunities,
biz dev, et cetera,
in collaboration with people
who would become what I hope
would be my lifelong friends,
Laurie Harding and Pete Williamson.
So yeah, I mean, it was one
of the coolest experiences ever.
Again, not knock on wood,
but what's the phrase?
Cool, quote unquote,
you know what I mean?
I'm trying to be funny
and I'm just too quirky
and weird to pull it off.
Here's the problem I found
is that when I am trying to be funny,
I tend to use a lot of like,
general gestures and like facial expressions
that come across in spaces.
So like you're missing half the content
as I'm like waving around my office here.
So I'm doing it too,
but my hand is in a brace.
My hand is in a brace right now.
So I'm kind of like equally awkward
in person at the moment.
So here's a question too,
because, you know,
as you're talking about doing
the marketing for Cool Cats,
which is a very interesting thing, right?
Because marketing traditionally
does not translate as nicely
to web three as one would think.
So like, how did you deal with that?
Like, I guess did you have any like,
you know, weird learning curves
where you're like, man,
like this is this is not the thing.
And then we had a whole new approach.
Yeah, yeah.
So I will say I've been in web three
as a marketer beyond just Cool Cats,
but throughout my experience,
I've really learned that community is key.
But at the same time,
I will put an asterisk.
You have to know when to listen
and when to, you know,
move forward with your professional
understanding of, you know,
how things should work,
how to build a brand,
how a lot of the audience
is not going to know
the inner workings
of what's going on behind the scene.
And sometimes you may have some,
you know, criticisms
or people in the comments
who are saying, well,
we don't see anything happening.
But the truth is,
yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure you know.
I mean, it's something every
literally every founder experiences.
The truth is like,
it's it's not so hard,
like, just listen to the community
within reason, again, asterisk.
And I know that may not
be a popular opinion,
but also like create
really cool content.
That's something I don't see
in the space very often.
I see people like,
people like Zane
in doing klanosaurs right now.
He's doing really cool content.
And just like, I don't know,
like I want to see more stuff
on Instagram or Twitter
or well, obviously Twitter,
but I mean, TikTok and,
you know, more innovative ideas
that we are not used to seeing
regularly, you know,
like actually branching out
of what's normal.
And who's been killing it?
There's Pudgy.
Oh, yeah.
Pudgy penguins.
I'm also really interested
in what's going on
in wilder world.
I love pixels right now.
I've been really getting
into pixels, you know,
and many other projects
at this moment,
but a lot of them
have been quietly building
this whole time.
And, you know, you won't really
know until a few months from now,
maybe how much they have done.
And that'll come through
with the marketing.
And marketing is just so important,
not just in for any industry,
but like in Web3,
marketing is king.
And you really did hit the nail
on the head saying
it's very different
for for Web3 marketers
as opposed to Web2 marketers,
because it's just a different,
it's a different nature,
you know,
there's a different community.
It very much is.
And that's something
that I've seen right
in the different organizations
that I've been in, right,
is you get, you know,
people who are hired externally,
right, like not from
because a lot of my like,
yes, have a com degree,
but a lot of my marketing experience
was like direct experience
because learning like
on the fly here.
And so for people who have like
a bunch of marketing experience
externally,
and then they try to come
into Web3.
And like there's so much
flabbergasting.
It's wild.
And it's one of those things
where you're like,
let me explain to you
how it maybe needs to be adjusted.
Like, no, no, this works.
And I'm like, okay, well,
we'll see.
But also things are on fire now.
And that's, you know,
that happens sometimes.
And that's really interesting,
I think, because on, you know,
the surface doesn't seem like
it would be that different.
And yet it very much is.
Web3 favors the scrappy
kind of get your hands dirty
kind of marketer,
which I very much consider myself
one and I align with.
So yeah, I mean, just being able
to like you said,
if there's a fire,
being able to just jump on
and be boom, boom, boom,
you know, able to address
problems head on
because this space is
constantly moving,
constantly growing,
and that and honestly,
like going back to the beginning
of our conversation,
like working with
the cool cats team
really allowed me to flex
that creative marketing muscle.
And I again, I'm so forever
grateful for that experience.
You know, it was it was an absolute
honor to get to work
so closely with Colin slash,
I guess I call him Colin,
but he's he's known
in the space is Klein.
He's he's just such an inspiring
artist slash entrepreneur.
And one of the best things
I got to do at cool cats
was kind of create and nurture
the narrative of his journey
from a struggling independent artist
to what I would say
is one of the most renowned
and esteemed artists
in web three today.
So yeah, I will say like,
to your point early on,
we love the cats
and especially we love the Klon.
We do indeed.
My goodness.
So since you covered this a little bit,
but I want to hear more about it, right?
Because I was going to ask originally
if your web three adventure
has remained solely digital,
which mine has I to this day
have not actually in person
met anybody from web three.
It's I think at this point
an impressive feat,
given how long I've been here.
But what I want to know is like,
have you gone to IRL experiences?
I know you've mentioned,
you've kind of curated some
and mostly we just want to live
vicariously through you.
So tell us stories, please.
Okay, well, I come with stories.
Let's see.
My first web three event IRL
was at NFT NYC
and I believe it was in 2022?
2021, 2022, I think something like that.
The years kind of blur together at this point.
But I went on behalf of the Neopets team.
I went as a person at the company
who knew a lot about web three.
Although I never had any involvement
in the Neopets metaverse project.
I just kind of went to be a rep
essentially to talk about Neopets
and have people geek out about it with me.
And I will say shout out to my mom,
a fellow Deejin at Leslie Thompson.
Yeah, she also went to support me
at my first web three event,
which was NFT NYC
and she even reps Neopets there as well.
And it was crazy.
It was crazy because like I got to meet
a lot of my web three heroes IRL,
which I mean,
I highly recommend it.
And it was so cool.
It was so fun.
It's so cool to just get to see these people
and be like, Oh my gosh, you are,
you are really for a physical.
You are a person.
You are a person, a human being.
Not a monkey avatar.
The highlight actually was meeting my friends
from my alpha group method to the mythos,
which I will say we got a,
we got a really cute picture
in front of a sign at NFT NYC
and I'll definitely share it later on Twitter.
But the other thing at that same
kind of NFT NYC event,
although it was an offshoot,
was I got the chance to visit
the IRL Kultopia activation that year,
which was like the coolest web three experience.
I think I'm biased,
but like it was incredible.
It was so cool.
And I had the funny story
that I always tell people
I had already accepted my new role
as CMO of cool cats by this point,
but I had not been announced yet.
So when I was there,
like undercover.
Oh, I was totally undercover.
In fact, I introduced myself
to all of my new friends at Kultopia
as the new intern at cool cats.
That's fun.
I know I, I, I thought about
kind of like what those people
must have thought afterwards
because it was announced
like a few days later.
Oh man, it was just,
that was such a blast.
I also say not a web three event,
very much a web two event,
but the Neopets activation
at last year's San Diego Comic Con
will absolutely go down in history
as one of the best fandom experiences
I've ever gotten to manage.
Um, yeah, essentially,
the team and I pulled off
this incredible,
if I do say so myself,
a con after party.
It was at a private venue
that we rented in downtown San Diego.
And it was a 90s slash 2000s party
with, you know, like Britney Spears music
booming over the loud speaker
and everything.
Oh man, as the cool kids say
it was bumping.
Back when we were kids and cool.
Yeah, exactly.
We're still cool.
And the crazy thing is the line
to get inside the venue
wrapped around several blocks.
And I felt so bad at the time.
I was like, oh my gosh,
these people have been waiting in line
for hours.
So me and a bunch of my teammates
actually ended up running over
to a pizzeria across the street.
And we bought a bunch of pizza boxes
and brought them to the line,
which was,
I mean, sometimes the things
that never get any press
or social mention or media,
like, sometimes those are the most
special niche moments with the fans,
you know, because we just sat there
and we ate pizza on the floor
on the street, on the street in New York,
basically just chilling and talking.
Amazing though, because that gives you
and the people, you know,
who are waiting in line to do this thing.
Even though they might have to wait
forever and not even get in,
they still got to participate.
And in this case,
in a way that is even maybe
more intimate than had they gotten in.
Yeah, I mean, they actually got to meet
members of TNT.
That's the Neopets team face to face.
We got to chat and bond
and talk about our favorite Neopets.
It was really cool.
And I will say, luckily,
we did end up getting everyone
in the line eventually
through into the party.
And the crazy thing is,
we had people coming into the party
and they were like,
wow, this is better
than Disney's Comic Con after party,
which, I mean, as a marketer,
I was like, wow, what a moment.
I've made it.
What a highlight of my career.
I can retire now.
I've made it.
That's exactly, exactly.
But overall, you know,
meeting and mingling with the fans,
the holders, team members,
players, the list goes on.
The community is, by far,
the best part of this biz.
It really is.
I could not agree more
like that is the thing,
I think, that has kept me
in web 3 so long are the people.
There are ups and downs
as with anything,
especially with web 3 being
very closely tied to markets.
What you're into,
whether it's NFTs or coins
of any sort,
the market's going to market.
And if that's all you're here for,
it's going to be real stressful.
But if you are able to connect
with the people
and kind of build that community
and have these extra sorts
of ways to experience it,
I think that's where the magic happens.
Yeah, stay for the experiences,
the people, the community,
the opportunity.
That's what I'll say.
Yeah, so speaking of that,
I think that gets us
to our last question
that I had prepared for you.
Which is,
when I first met you,
as we talked about earlier,
web 3 as a community
felt like really new
and small and closed off
and there weren't a whole lot
of lady folk being out visibly.
I said maybe there were many
that were being more anonymous,
but out visibly was a thing.
So looking at that,
I want to know if you have
any insights to share
about how this space
as a whole has evolved
or even still needs to,
since the 2017-2018 era.
Yeah, that's a good question.
I would say the biggest difference
between the web 3 of yesteryear,
as I'll call it,
because again, I'm super cool.
And now is really how accessible
the space used to be
to new entrepreneurs.
And I've touched on that
a little bit in this space.
But back then,
we'd hear of new projects
and we'd be completely chomping
at the bit to support
and to get involved.
And obviously,
that's not always a good thing.
That also led to
some unfortunate early stage rugs.
And rugs, the pomos.
Oh, yeah, wag me.
But in general,
I will say it was such
a welcoming space
for new ideas and people.
And while I still think
there's a lot of opportunity
to be had,
if I had any advice
as a web 3OG,
start opening your hearts
and minds to new creators.
And I will say LGBTQ,
BIPOC and neurodiverse creators
to the front, please.
Yes, and support them
with your words, your actions,
and your money.
And that includes creator royalties.
Oh, my God.
I'm gonna make a brief will here
because collab land,
what you've said is
very much collab land values.
And eventually, we're on stage,
she would be very much
guessing right now.
But collab land specifically
has actually built into our TGRs
the ability to flag
for creator royalties.
So you join a community,
you apply to get roles
based on tokens you own.
But if you,
as a community creator,
wanted to give people special roles
for only having also paid royalties
because we know
that the marketplace
has kind of rugged everyone
and took that away.
We have enabled it,
which directly supports the creators
because now you can reward those
who are participating
in a very authentic way
and kind of making sure
that the creators
are getting taken care of.
So that's I think something
that is really important
to point out.
Just as you said, supporting
all of the folks
who don't normally see
that type of support.
Yeah, absolutely.
And kudos to you guys for that too.
I do think that as a space
and a community,
we are on the right path today
There's just so much
opportunity in the space right now.
We just need to continue
to support and nurture it.
What we absolutely do not need
more of are more reasons
to start communities,
sub-communities
like Not A Lady's Kitty Club.
I think it's time to retire,
Not A Lady's Kitty Club.
This is true.
This is true.
That definitely was
at the time it felt necessary,
but it's nice
to not need that, right?
It's nice to be able to engage
super openly.
And where is it?
I'm going to find it
because speaking of things
that are relevant to that,
Collabland and Anjali
have just supported a,
actually a no bros allowed
brunch during NFT NYC.
So let me drop that in here.
Relevant, right?
But like, you know,
supporting the women of Web3
being able to get them
together,
not that we're trying to,
you know, as you said,
try to create these spaces
where people can then start
and branch out of.
It's not where you feel
like you need to be all the time,
but rather a starting point
to then branch out of.
That's the important part, I think.
Yeah, 100%.
I agree with that.
And also, that's super cool
that you guys are doing that.
I wish I were going to NFT NYC
this year.
That'd be so fun.
Yes, I am not,
but I will be living vicariously
through everybody who is.
Anjali will be there.
So I always tell her,
I'm like, please take more pictures
so then I can post them
from the Twitters.
So that's how that goes.
And it's exciting, though,
to see all of these,
you know, different initiatives
that are happening both,
you know, at the IRL events
and kind of leading up to them.
And it's just really exciting.
And I like how things have grown,
for sure.
So with all of that,
Michaela,
were there any questions
that I have not asked you today
that you absolutely
would love to discuss?
Yes, it's a big one.
It's a question for you, though.
I'm ready.
All right.
Have you ever tried hearts of palm?
What is that?
This is obviously a no,
but like, what is this?
I'm interested.
I will take that as a no.
It is like, it is like,
yeah, yeah, look up Google images.
It's a like part of a palm tree.
It's very similar.
It's a food.
It's very similar in taste
to like an artichoke heart.
And it is my,
it is by far my favorite food.
And I am very weird,
but I will continue to,
you know, love this food
and eat it almost every day
for the rest of my life.
Just a fun fact about me.
And how do you eat it?
Do you have to cook it?
Do you prepare it?
Do you just like, can you YOLO?
It looks like I'm in a little jar, maybe.
Normally people will cut them up
and put them into salads.
But for me, I will just go rogue
and eat them out of the can.
It's pretty gross, but it's awesome.
Looking at it,
because a lot of things I'll do
because it looks similar to,
as you said, artichoke hearts
and also like a water chestnut, maybe.
I like to throw those things
into a pan and just kind of stir fry them.
So could this also go in there?
I highly recommend it.
There's so many things you could do
with it as a part of a recipe.
And yeah, I would just say
there literally are communities on Discord
and even Slack groups,
like the Neopets Slack group
that have hearts upon cans
as their emoji reacts,
essentially because they know
that it's just my thing.
So yeah, essentially,
I just really recommend
anyone in the chat
who likes briny, yummy foods to try it.
It is very understated.
People don't know what it is,
but it's very good.
Look at this.
You come for the marketing advice.
You also get awesome food advice.
Like we are 100% covering
all the things today
and that is amazing.
Yeah, yeah.
And now I have a mission
to go obtain some of these.
You won't be disappointed.
Fabulous.
I'm always a big fan of new food.
I'm making chicken marsala tonight.
But ooh, love it on the list for later.
Very good.
Well, I know we are surprisingly
just about at time.
Like we've only got over a couple of minutes,
which I know we were very unsure
if we were going to be able to stick to it
or be here forever,
which I'm not supposed to be here forever
because story time is always fun.
But I know that people have things
they need to do.
So maybe we will close up the space for today
unless there's anything else.
And we could definitely recap
or do another one of these later on.
If you want to come back
or if anybody in the audience
wants to come share story time
during Clap Community,
send me a message
or Anjali or the Clabland account.
Let us know because,
man, it's just fun to hear
about people's experiences
and learn from all of the cool things
that people have done in the space.
Like Michaela has been
an absolute marketing rock star.
And I'm really looking forward
to seeing all of the things
that you continue to do
because it's amazing.
It's been six years of fun
and I'm looking forward
to the next infinite number.
Oh, thank you so much, Rudemus.
Thank you to Chibi and Anjali as well.
I really appreciate you guys
having me on today.
And it's just been such an honor
and a fun experience.
I haven't been on a Twitter spaces in a while.
So I was like,
oh my gosh,
this is such a cool opportunity.
So yeah, thank you guys so much.
So thank you.
It has been amazing.
You've shared a lot of really awesome
experience and insights
about marketing
and the Web3 space as a whole
and things that I think
are really important
for people to be able to see.
Because it's one of those things.
I think unless you can see yourself
doing things,
it's hard to put it as a goal, right?
So you are out here doing the things
that people can now dream about
and kind of put themselves in your shoes.
And that's really, really cool.
Role modeling, yay.
So you've got that.
I want to thank our audience
for being here as always too,
because they are amazing
and it's awesome of you
to spend your time
hanging out with us,
having the conversations,
hearing the stories,
supporting collab land.
Anjali and Chibi,
as always,
for being the most awesome
comm teams member ever.
And I think that's all I have.
But Mikayla,
I am super looking forward
to following along on your journey.
If you all have not yet,
I would give her a follow
as well as the collab land account
Chibi, we have Town Hall tomorrow, right?
That's at 1230 p.m. eastern
on our Discord server.
So if you're not there,
make sure to join.
You can find a link to it
in our Twitter bio.
Yes, I will be putting a tweet
out about that here
in a little bit too.
So come join us for Town Hall tomorrow
in the collab land Discord.
With that, again,
thank you, Mikayla.
I'm going to close up the space
and we will see you all out there
on the interwebs.
Stay safe, friends.