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Let’s Talk: Blockchain Conferences
Recorded: June 13, 2023 Duration: 2:14:24Space Recording
Full Transcription
Hey, everybody.
We're going to be getting started shortly, just waiting for my co-host to join in.
We're going to be getting started really, really shortly.
In the meantime, just hang tight, vibe out, go walk, get yourself a glass of water, take
your time.
It's a 5 p.m. Tuesday show, so we're keeping it chill.
Go get that glass of water that you're contemplating, and we'll be getting started shortly.
While we wait to get things started, if you haven't already, feel free to go over and just drop a retweet for the spaces.
I'm going to just pin the link here while we're all just hanging out here.
I just shared it above. If we could all just drop that a like, comment, and retweet while we wait for everyone to join in, we'd greatly appreciate that.
We've got a good conversation today. We're going to be talking about blockchain conferences. Hang tight while we get started.
Okay, perfect. I just got word that our co-host is popping and had a little technical difficulties.
In the meantime, while we wait to get things started, if you'd like to, shoot us a request to join us up on stage. We'll be bringing everybody up here shortly.
I guess first things first to get things started, I just want to say thank you, everybody, for taking some time out of your schedule, for joining us for our second episode of Let's Talk.
Let's Talk. My name is Kalen, founder of InPublic. We're behind some of the coolest Twitter spaces in the ecosystem, and today we have a pretty cool show talking about blockchain conferences.
I think this is a good topic because I think there's a lot of interest around how people leverage blockchain conferences to effectively grow their business network and effectively collaborate.
I think it's really cool to leverage conferences in a lot of different capacities.
We have a few questions for our panel today on how individuals are leveraging conferences to grow their project, grow their network, and effectively grow their project's footprint.
So first things first, I'd like to kick it off with our dear friends at WhaleCoinTalk.
First off, thank you for joining us. You don't need much of an introduction, but if you just want to give us a quick 15-second, 20-introduction to the panel that might not be familiar with you, we'd love that.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me on, Kalen and Kerry. Thanks for organizing this.
My name is Noah. I'm CCO of WhaleCoinTalk, and we are a Web3 media company focusing on news and educational content through AMAs and various other promotions and content creation.
Love that, brother. I appreciate you joining us today. We also have some other awesome panels joining us today as well.
We have Andrew Campbell. Appreciate you for joining us today. If you could drop us a quick 15-20 intro, it'd be great.
Totally. Online, I'm known as Zyori. I'm 33, graduated with a degree in entrepreneurship and computer science way back in 2012.
And ever since, I've been in eSports mostly as a play-by-play commentator, event organizer for Dota 2.
Then I got into Axie Infinity right before the bull run 2021.
I was the director of eSports and the program lead over there for about almost two years.
And then recently, I joined Crypto Unicorns. They're like a farming sim game on the Polygon blockchain.
And now I'm working in product, community, all that cool stuff.
Love it, brother. Super appreciative of you joining us today.
We've got some more amazing panelists, Footprint Analytics.
I really love your enthusiasm for joining us today, man.
I think you've sent like the most emojis of anyone we've ever hosted before.
What do we got from the team? And why don't you give us a quick intro?
Hey, everybody. My name is Alex. I'm the community guy, North America guy at Footprint Analytics.
So in case you guys don't know Footprint, we do everything kind of blockchain data.
We've got 26Change covered. We've got some really cool tools.
We've got like a Web3 CRM tool.
And we also just recently added in the same vein of the AI hype,
but we recently added a SQL assistant so you can just write a prompt.
And it will write the SQL for you so you don't have to.
That's a dub, man. I hate writing SQLs.
So anything to make my life easier, that's about it.
But I'm really happy to join this conversation.
I got a lot of cool little alpha tips and tricks regarding some blockchain conferences for you guys.
So stay tuned, and I'll go to the other speakers.
Hell yeah, man. We're super interested to hear what you have to say regarding that.
Actually, not to be like, oh, I have alpha for conferences,
but we've been leveraging conferences for really all of our companies,
and I can't really just stress how important they are.
We're going to get into it, though.
Slow Miss team, super grateful for you joining us today.
Who do we got from the team? Want to give us a quick 15, 20 second?
Hey, guys. How's it going?
My name is Jin. I'm head of U.S. operation at Slow Miss.
I'm super grateful to be here today.
And pretty much a little background about Slow Miss.
So we're a blockchain security company.
So we pretty much do everything related to security, A to Z, that's related to blockchain security.
So some of our clients are exchanges, wallets, even blockchains, and, of course, obviously, like smart contracts.
We also have another program called Mistrack.
Essentially, we kind of just help victims of theft or hacks, like recover stolen funds.
Hell yeah, man. Well, that's hell of fire.
You should reach out to Aaron Nito. He's trending across Twitter today.
Poor guy, man. It's fucking brutal.
Let's keep the party rolling, though.
We also have on stage with us Cosonomics.
I'm sorry if I mispronounced that.
Supergirl, for you joining us today, my friend, why don't you give us that quick 15, 20 second?
What's up, everybody?
I guess the short, I'm just a market technician that specifies strictly in human behavior, finance, and studying human behavior and price.
Pretty much known for a lot of very accurate calls that eventually put me on, like, you know, CNBC for being in front of Bitcoin from a long time before many people in the 15th cycle.
And I'm a relic from the 13th era of crypto.
So, I've been in front of many different ties before they happened.
Metaverse, you know, before it became the rage in the late 21, and crypto from that time period.
And, you know, have one of the first real Bitcoin-based businesses that's still standing a decade later.
Hell yeah, man.
That's an old claim to be able to fucking make.
Well, we're super grateful to have you on stage.
I'm curious what your thoughts are on blockchain conferences.
I think you'll bring a unique perspective, given your background.
We got some other people on stage with us, too.
We got our friend, the DJM boy.
Super grateful for you joining us.
Interesting.
I know you have an opinion on conferences, for sure, given the fact that you are the COO for Decentral Con.
So, why don't you give us a quick intro?
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, I'm COO for Decentral, kind of like do crypto-based-only conferences around the U.S.
So, we have Miami, Austin.
We just recently did it in L.A.
We're doing Tokyo now, so we're expanding over to Asia.
So, our core business is just worrying about kind of like breaking down the silos for companies that are entering into the crypto space or already currently in the crypto space.
Hell yeah, brother.
Well, we're super grateful for you joining us today, and we're all grateful for you not chilling right out the gate.
I'm just joking, though.
So, grateful for you to join us today, my friend, and we got a good conversation coming.
And last but not least, we have Mark on stage with us as well.
Actually, not last but not least.
We got one more after you.
Why don't you give us a quick 15-second 20-er?
All right.
What's going on, everybody?
My name is Mark, working with the Fuji Finance team, building the first cross-chain money market aggregator.
And, yeah, big conference goer and happy to share some tips and tricks in terms of what I've learned.
So, thanks for inviting me and happy to chat.
Love it, brother.
Well, we're grateful to have you as well.
And last but not least, actually, we have Jack Gale.
So, super grateful for you joining us today as well.
Why don't you give us a quick 15-20, and we're going to get right into it after that.
Yo, yo.
Thanks so much.
Yeah, so I'm Jack.
I'm a core contributor at Beefy.
We are the multi-chain yield optimizer live on 20 different chains.
We automate the process of yield farming to make it super easy to get more of the tokens that you love through providing liquidity on DEXs.
So, yeah, super happy to have you today.
Oh, yeah, brother.
Well, we got a packed panel today, and we got an interesting conversation to get into.
So, I guess I wanted to start this panel mainly because, you know, when you're first getting into blockchain, and I feel like the first thing you learn about is conferences, one of the first aspects that you learn to leverage networking.
And I think for a lot of the people here who have been around for original bull cycles or maybe around for the bear cycle previous to this one as well, I think we've all learned the value that conferences during the bear cycle actually have a huge upside.
And that's just that there's not as many active people going to conferences.
So, you kind of have what would have been like 20 gatekeepers away from the top founder of an exchange or 30 gatekeepers from the top founder of Animoca Brands.
You're now really three steps away.
And I think it's a really great conversation to have right now, especially when we're at the dippity-as-dip-dip that we're going to see for a while.
For example, literally, we have the – we literally, as we speak right now, have the SEC suing every major exchange in the U.S.
So, I mean, we're at peak bullshit right now.
And, you know, to shoot us straight, I think it's a good time for us to have this conversation.
And I just – first things first, you know, of course I want to get into the cute strategies.
I want to talk about hosting networking dinners.
I want to talk about, you know, how we can leverage, you know, networking at these capacities.
But I first would like just to kind of open the panel up with something a little bit more lighthearted.
And I'd like us to – everyone kind of maybe share an experience you've had that blockchain conferences, that was either positive or negative.
And I just kind of want to keep that just really quick out the gate.
I want to share some positive or negative experiences around blockchain and just kind of start the original debate around there.
And I'd like to maybe throw it over to footprint analytics.
And also, shout-out Bankless Dow.
Appreciate you joining us today.
Thank you for joining the convo.
Hey, yeah.
So, I guess it's a little bit of a positive and a negative.
So, I was chilling at East Denver this year.
And I'm, like, chilling by the Doge McLaren, you know, stunting up.
And all of a sudden, I looked to the left of me, and these guys are kind of getting into it.
I was, like, man, these guys must be boys, you know.
And then all of a sudden, the one guy slaps the other guy across the face right in the middle of the conference.
I was, holy smokes.
Holy crap.
Right?
So, I get in there.
I'm, like, okay, you guys, not the time.
All right?
Not the time.
At least bring it outside if you're going to be getting all in beef, right?
I break this thing up.
And then I just couldn't believe it.
Just an unprecedented moment for me.
And then after that, like, I start talking to the guy, and then we start doing business together.
Like, I mean, I guess it's kind of a dub in a situation, making the boast out of the negative.
But holy smokes.
Guy straight up got slapped in the middle of the conference.
He's, like, yeah, we just bad.
We just used to be business partners and, I guess, just some bad blood.
The guy that got slapped, completely shocked, too.
It's just unbelievable.
I guess that's my kind of cool story of recent conference that I've been to.
But I'll let it go to the other panelists.
That's so fucking funny, man.
You know, I used to hear this.
That kind of goes quite on pace with this story that I used to hear Function would tell me that there's a time period where you could go to a conference and throw a rock and land a $80,000 deal with anybody in there.
I guess that's kind of similar, but not exactly the same.
Next up, we have Andrew.
Andrew, thank you for joining the convo again, my friend.
What do you got for us?
Totally.
So I was just on the run.
I was in the Philippines for Conquest, which wasn't exactly a Web3 conference, but it was run by Ekaterina, who did the Web3 Fest in Philippines last year.
And now they turned it into, like, a lifestyle anime thing.
Good side, they really sold a lot of tickets.
The footprint was huge.
Bad side, it was oversold.
And people had to wait in line.
It was super hot.
And that part really sucked.
You know, I had a media pass, so we may do, but really brutal for the people that didn't get to make it in or see the people they wanted to meet.
After that, I went to L.A.
I was just at that 3XP conference in Pasadena.
It was really billed as the first eSports Web3 conference.
Maybe a little early.
You know, these games don't have that hardcore following yet, but I appreciate the energy there.
It was really cool to see devs that really give a shit about their games talking to the audience.
There were some legit hardcore eSports people there outside of Web3 and obviously a lot of the current, like, Web3 eSports folks.
So, you know, positives and negatives from the conference.
I'm sure they didn't make too much money on ticket sales, but for those of us that were there, it was kind of a badass VIP event.
So, as you said before, like, prime networking in a good way.
No vultures.
Everyone I talked to was legit, really cared, interested in learning, and that was fucking awesome.
I think this is a really great way to open the panel up because I think this is going to be a really great segue.
Michael, you're up next in Bankless style, but I actually want to move to the next topic right after that.
Michael, the floor is yours.
Yeah, I was hosting the Decentral Stage at 3XP, but I'm glad you liked it.
Kind of like a positive moment would probably be in 2021 when we did Decentral Miami.
We had, like, 5,000 people show up, and I threw Polygon, Mobile Network, Chainlink, and I believe it was Harmony at the time onto a panel.
Each one of them were separate silos, and they're working in their own verticals, but after the conference, after that panel, actually, they got together and created a Web3 fund to invest into multi-chain infrastructures that are going to be across all of their networks.
So, that's kind of, like, the positive side for me.
The negative side would kind of be there are some other events that I used to go to.
It was more of, like, suit and tie, and we didn't want that as a feel for Decentral.
We say, come as you are.
Don't come as, you know, it's going to be for business and everything, but just come as you are.
Like, we have people that are coming in, you know, with sweats and everything, and it should be that type of vibe to where we're coming in, and everyone's open.
Everyone's learning.
Everyone's kind of, like, going on the basic building blocks of learning about crypto.
But the support structure that we kind of built at the conferences is what's the most important thing.
All right.
Now, but before you go, I mean, dude, you're involved in conferences.
You've got to give us one negative.
What happened at DecentralCon that was hush-hush that you're not allowed to talk about?
There's got to be something.
All right.
I'm pretty sure everyone's seen it on YouTube.
This is, like, last year's portion.
But there was a panel with content creators, the content creators coming together.
And I guess BitBoy wasn't, you know, was talking.
And then there was an audience member coming in and asking questions.
For me, as an event organizer, I need to make sure that things are being pushed through quickly.
So we felt like it was going to be a security risk at one moment.
So we had to kind of, like, usher him out and go through other, you know, go through the other areas of the conference just to, you know, escort him out of the building and then escort him back into the building and everything.
So it's, like, one of the things that we really don't like for that.
But basically the negative portion on that side is basically, hey, look, we are going to be bringing in really cool speakers, whether it's going to be for, like, major layer ones, major layer twos, major companies.
Just please be respectful of them because, like, everyone has, you know, everyone has their shot on stage.
And if you want to ask them something, you know, ask it after the conference or, you know, while they're off the stage just so that us event organizers can continue on pushing through the shows and giving, you know, all the content out for all of the speakers to have a fair time.
Hell yeah, man.
Well, hey, by the way, real quick, before I move forward, we have a couple of people who are requesting to come up on stage.
I may move one or two people down.
Real quick, please stick around.
I'm going to absolutely bring you back up to the stage.
I just saw you didn't raise your hand a little bit.
I'm going to push a few people down a little bit to bring some others up.
If I move you down, don't take it personal.
It's just because we have a packed panel, I'm going to be moving speakers around a little bit.
Bankless, I see you've joined us as well.
By the way, feel free to give your quick intro.
Who do we got from the team?
15, 20 seconds on the intro.
And then why don't you share with us?
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Thanks for having us along today.
My name is Chris.
I go by TheNFThanker on Twitter, or if you know me in Discord, just NFThanker.
And, yeah, I'm part of quite a few different projects within Bankless DAO.
If you're not familiar with Bankless DAO, we're working on decentralized on-ramps and trying to make Web3 easier for everybody to get involved.
Anybody interested in that, come along and join us.
Yeah, so, again, thanks for having us along for this conversation today.
Conferences are something that we're really passionate about because we're such a decentralized community.
We've got thousands of people all over the world.
So, in terms of positive for me personally, I've been to maybe four or five conferences, and the most positive thing I could say was meeting all the people who I work with on a regular basis from day to day.
There was a huge meetup last year at Permissionless in West Palm Beach, and we had about 60 people from Bankless DAO who all met, and it was surreal.
It was crazy getting to know the people behind the PFPs and behind the pseudonymous names.
You know, you think you know somebody, and then when you meet them in real life, it's just mind-blowing.
And in terms of negative, I haven't had many negative interactions with people, but the hardest thing that I had to deal with personally was coming home with 40 new Telegram chats that I had to sift through and try and figure out,
holy shit, who do I contact, who do I have to not contact, if any of you are out there and thinking, we met, and you never contacted me, I'm really sorry.
I just had to basically pick and choose between, you know, it was like a coin flip.
So, that's really the hardest thing for me is to sift through all the information and try and onboard as much as you can without losing your mind.
I'm also going to ask you to be so kind of, like, candid with us.
Who did you end up messaging from, like, those 50-plus Telegram, 100-plus Telegram?
Like, what's the alpha?
What should we be putting on our Telegram handles to get a response from Bankless DAO?
Well, you know, it's about personal connections, and don't forget, like, I'm just the person who happens to have access to the Bankless DAO Twitter.
So, you know, it's not about how to get involved with Bankless DAO.
And also, bearing in mind, for those who don't know, Bankless DAO is a totally separate entity from Bankless HQ.
You know, we're not really much to do with David and Ryan.
They run their own show over there.
So, make a personal connection.
That's what you need to do.
And don't think about, you know, who can I get in touch with to get to the top of Bankless DAO?
Or who do I need to speak to to get in touch with Ryan and David?
Just go out there and do your own thing.
And if it sticks, it sticks.
If it doesn't, try again.
All right.
Well, I was hoping for the alpha.
I was hoping you were going to say, fill in your bio.
Make sure your photo is more personal, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
Contact hello at BanklessHQ.com.
Yeah, or I guess those selfies, they don't hit as good as I thought they were going to.
But good to know.
Good to learn here today.
Oh, I do love a selfie.
But yeah, those do last.
Okay, good, good.
WhaleCoinTalk.
Floor is yours, my friend.
Hey, I'm going to focus on the last conference that I went to, Bitcoin Miami, and piggybacking off of Bankless.
One of the cool things for me was meeting IRL.
Some of the folks that I've been working with in crypto for two years for the first time in the flesh.
So that was one thing that was really positive for me.
Another was getting to meet Michael Saylor.
I was not expecting it.
He was on a panel the first day, and he just came down onto the floor and started shaking hands.
So I've been following him for a couple years now, or rather, ever since he came out in support of Bitcoin.
The way that he breaks things down and the way that he breaks down Bitcoin is really – it's very fascinating to me, especially if you think about how his brain works.
I've learned a lot about being able to educate others just by listening to him talk about Bitcoin.
So that was very cool.
And then the third thing, I'm going to try to pin it to the space, was there was a real-life DeLorean replica at the beginning – or rather, at the entrance of the conference.
So being able to sit in a DeLorean was a childhood dream of mine.
I'm a big fan of Back to the Trim.
Pinned above, folks.
Pinned above, for the record.
Oh, thanks.
Thanks, man.
Yeah, that was awesome, too.
So three positives.
I don't have any negatives, no exciting fistfights on my end, but I'm sure that I'll probably run into something negative in the future.
I've been going to a lot of conferences over the last year.
I feel like people really leverage conferences to roll up on those agencies that scam them.
I just feel like that's your shot right there.
You know what I mean?
Oh, man.
But let's keep the party rolling.
I know I said I wanted to move forward after Bankless, but I'll let one more go.
So I want to go into the next topic.
I, of course, wanted to keep it a little bit lighthearted, but I think the next thing, and, you know, don't pay favoritism to DecentralCon because they're here, but we're grateful they are.
Which Blockchain Web3 conferences do you prioritize every single year?
What is the conferences that, like, you know, and you can separate.
I'll even ask you two questions.
Which is the ones where you catch up with your buddies and, you know, you kind of have your degen fun things to do and you just catch up with your friends?
And where's the one where you're trying to network, where you're trying to BD, where you're trying to make relationships?
Where you're trying to, you know, just make new connections?
I'd like to hear what everyone's thinking, like, what they're prioritizing.
And I, of course, I have some as well.
I'll let Just Ape start.
I kick it off.
Yeah, thanks.
This is Groovy.
I'm the founder here at Just Ape.
But, you know, you touched on a good point is, like, which blockchain specifically?
I tend to find value more in going to, like, these bigger conferences like ConsenSys or NFT NYC just because there's a variety of different blockchains there.
It's not really about one specific blockchain.
You just have a bunch of different communities coming with a bunch of different use cases, right?
Like, you have DeFi.
You have NFTs.
And these are typically the ones that I've personally found the most value when you're networking, right?
Because at the end of the day, you want to cross-pollinate as much as you can.
And these are the kind of conferences that really provide that kind of value.
So that's just kind of my take on that.
Really good feedback.
I think I have to agree with you on that, too.
As much as it is fun to kind of go to, like, a maxi group, nothing like a good old circle jerk.
But I agree with you that it is a lot more fun to go to these, like, larger, you know, type of blockchain, you know, types of conversations.
I think, actually, Charlie Oracle's actually originally raised up their hand first.
I want to go over to you.
You know, obviously, you're part of the Cardano ecosystem.
Let me ask you directly, do you yourself find yourself, like, enjoying the other conferences that are not Cardano-focused?
That's fair.
I mean, most Cardano people are very maxi in our own way.
Just, could you allow me to give a quick intro?
Because I didn't get my job.
For sure.
15 seconds on the clock, my friend.
Go ahead.
That's sweet.
So my name is Damon.
I am co-founder of Charlie3Oracles.
We are doing an Oracle-esque, Chainlink-esque, I guess, to keep it easy and understood, on the Cardano network built in Plutus and everything.
So talking about the conference situation right now, I mean, I agree with consensus being a great spot.
I think it's very professional and good to, as you say, have that cross-pollination to different spots.
So I go with that one.
But I think it also really depends on, like, what is your business?
Do you need to cross-pollinate that much?
Like, we are very focused on our customers, which are Cardano projects.
So we need to make sure that we know all of those people, and especially my job in marketing and communications and business dev and stuff.
I need to know and meet all of those people that I am going to be selling our product to.
So I don't need to have too much outside of that.
However, you know, I do go and I get asked to speak at different conferences, and I've gone to many different spots that aren't Cardano-based.
But I think we get a lot of value from seeing what's going on in other ecosystems, understanding what the market sentiment is, even on how Cardano exists.
And then on the other side of that, the ones I prioritize are the ones in our own ecosystem, like the Cardano Summit and Rare Evo is another big one that we have for the Cardano side, which is now going more cross-chain and actually more of a focus on real world.
We've got people from Blizzard, Activision, Nickelodeon, and stuff coming to that one this year, too.
So that's my big take on why I prioritize different ones.
But again, I think it really depends on what is your business.
Do you need that or do you not?
Interesting take.
I think I have to agree with you on that in some capacity.
Bennett, are you going to say something?
Yeah, no, sorry, guys.
It's been a little MIA.
I've been working on the back end.
It's great to be up here with all of you.
Really glad with the turnout already.
Charlie, no, I appreciate that insight.
What I've been hearing from a lot of these conferences is it is becoming a lot more mainstream with a lot of these bigger brands joining in with these conferences.
I'd love to hear if, you know, obviously I'm going to go around with the hands, but as well as like what has been your experiences with some of the booths you've been to, some of the cool brands you've seen getting involved with these crypto blockchain conferences, and just, you know, more experiences in that and on, you know, more of the bigger business side.
But I might be going out of order.
I kind of missed the hands.
I'm going to go to Michael.
Slow miss.
Yeah, you read my mind.
I was about to say I think slow miss was next.
Oh, slow miss.
Perfect.
We'll go to slow miss first and then we'll hop around.
Michael can go first.
No worries.
Okay.
All right.
I'll just stop.
Yeah.
So like we recently just came back from two trips and one in Hong Kong and then one in like Tokyo.
So our approach is a little bit more traditional.
It's just like, hey, during the day you work hard and now you play hard.
Just got to make sure you wake up early for the, we have a speech the next day.
But yeah, it's been great.
Right now, as everybody knows, kind of like the Asian markets kind of like booming in crypto and in the U.S. markets kind of like slowly just getting regulated to death.
But yeah, it's I love the energy at these events and it's all been amazing experiences.
I have to second that, man.
I mean, everyone is like making fun of people about, you know, going to crypto conferences.
We're a bunch of nerds.
A lot of guys.
It is a more male presence.
But there are definitely some very strong female figures in the blockchain space.
But, you know, I love to see that everyone's getting more positive energy towards these conferences.
And like you said, work hard, play hard.
Love to hear it.
I'm going to toss it over to Michael and then Footprint.
Yeah, I think, of course, I'm not going to say my own, but of course, my own decentral.
But in terms of you looking for networking, I would say consensus.
And if you're looking at the Asia market token 2049, the reason why is like as event organizers, we have to look at all of the different events across the entire world to see which ones will fit our dates.
Make sure that there's no conflicting events and everything.
And which one's also good for us to have a presence in just so that we can kind of reconnect with a lot of people.
In terms of the U.S. portion, NFT NYC is a great one as well.
Jody and the team over there is doing a really good job.
Someone was talking about Kevin's from Arcadia earlier from the Philippines as well.
What he's doing over there is like onboarding like the play to earn ecosystem and kind of like the newer gamers that are going to be overseas.
So I think that's a great one, but that one's more like consumer facing.
So if you're looking to like activate a crowd there, probably like a booth or something like that, that one's more for like consumers.
While if you're doing more networking, business, trying to get deals, definitely permissionless.
So permissionless consensus and token 2049 for the Asia side.
Yeah, token 2049 is definitely like on the list for me right now.
I think I'm going to try to make it out to there.
I've never made it out to there before, but I'm genuinely interested just from like what I'm hearing from the from the goers.
I don't want to be the, you know, another American fuck who doesn't know a lot of other languages and go somewhere and be very obviously that.
But I'm also very interested in seeing what I find over there.
I think we had footprint next.
Is that right?
Yes, sir.
So, you know, I, you know, talking about the DJing side of things, I really DJing out at East Denver.
I really just went hard toward DJing out at East Denver.
But going to consensus, I was all straight business.
And I got this strategy that I always do whenever I go to a conference like consensus.
And I spend the first day, I hit every single booth, every single booth.
They're going to know about footprint, right?
Because I'm kind of in a unique spot, right?
If you're in Web3, chances are you probably want some Web3 data, which I provide, right?
And then the second day, I am a name tag hunter, man.
I'm a bloodhound for these name tags.
I look at everybody's name tag walking around, and I say, what up?
If I think it's relevant to footprint, I say, what up?
I stop people in their tracks, and I say, hey, yo, I like what you're doing.
So, I mean, truthfully, for networking-wise, it's actually been really great.
And I've got a lot more business deals, name tag hunting, than straight up just going to boost.
I'm just sold talking to you, man.
If you came up to me and spoke to me, I'd be like, whatever the fuck you're doing, dude,
I want to check it the fuck out.
I like you a lot.
I just want to hear you just get into a debate with somebody, honestly.
I just like your tone.
You should talk more, man.
Seriously.
It's just a Canadian coming out, boys.
I'm surprised you don't even understand what I'm saying.
You don't have the Canadian niceness about you, though.
I don't know what it is, man.
I feel like you got cut from a different cloth, honestly.
But I would not have guessed Canadian one bit at all out of you.
I just actually just want to hear you argue with somebody, truthfully.
But no, honestly.
I wouldn't guess it either, and I'm Canadian.
Yeah, boys.
Maybe it's just too many locker rooms.
I don't know.
But yeah, that's kind of like my strat.
You know, it's all about like, especially these big conferences like this.
I really think name tag hunting is a huge strat, and it can really expand your network, right?
Because you can find, boys, exactly what you're looking for, right?
And with boosts, you're just limited to the boosts.
So with that, I'll pass it on to the other speakers.
Hell yeah, man.
Well, I appreciate you sharing.
I hope you keep due.
Andrew, the floor is yours.
Yeah.
So I want to talk about the boosts specifically.
I was just at Conquest at a Cat Arena event, and there were probably 10 blockchain games
there, something like that, varying from these little tiny tables up top where people just
had laptops with very simple demos set up to people with these mid-tier, pretty built-out
booths all the way to Riot with a mega build-out, this really cool, like full-size, and then
some Baron and really big Valorant display.
I think that makes sense for somebody like Riot, where they're really trying to, sorry
about that, capture that market and go big.
But I think for these smaller games, the really efficiency setup makes sense if your product
can speak for itself.
I don't know what it is about Southeast Asia, but it seems like everything is really loud,
and it drives me crazy.
So I just like to have a spot where I can talk to people that are knowledgeable about the
product.
There's a lot of opportunities that I see for game developers where people want to sell
you a booth and then people to staff it with.
I think that's almost always a mistake.
You need people that can actually talk about your product and answer questions.
If they can't do that, then the whole thing's kind of a double waste where you're paying
for a booth and you're irritating people that don't get answers to the questions.
You know, if you're like, can't answer shit that's in your white paper, come on, man.
That's like reading from a script.
Then we can't even really talk about anything interesting.
So, you know, on the game developer side where I work, I think being scrappy makes a lot
more sense and focusing on your game and really like scrappy marketing activations where you
can actually talk to people makes a lot more sense.
For unicorns, we got these little plushies and went around and handed them out to people
and said, hey, you get a free plushie if you talk to us and, you know, let us pitch you
for two minutes or whatever.
And ideally take a picture.
That's the real dream to try to get a little social media buzz going.
But that was much more engagement.
And we just did that by attending.
We didn't rent a booth or anything like that.
So just my two cents.
There's beauty in minimalism unless you're really at a scale where you can go full send.
I got a lot of follow-up questions here that I want to ask everybody here.
And it's interesting because they're like, I have a whole list of questions I want to ask
this panel.
I'm just going to spit a few off.
I'm going to kind of let the panel just bulldog this.
You know, I got like, I got a bowl of oatmeal of questions.
I'm just going to let whatever bulldog jumps into this first get at it.
A couple of questions I have.
How do you get the most out of a blockchain conference?
That's a good question.
The other questions I had written down were, do blockchain conferences have a huge return
on investment?
I think that's another damn good question.
And another one that I had here was like, you know, what makes like a really good exhibit
at a conference?
And lastly, is speaking on stages a strategy or is this something that we think is required
of a founder?
Is this like when, is this like kind of something that should be a goal, a requirement?
Is this like part of your marketing strategy at large?
I just kind of want to throw some of these questions out there to kind of get the panel
buzzing a little bit.
Michael, I'll throw it to you because I know that you have a, you have a strong opinion on
a lot of this.
Actually, before I actually throw it to Michael, Sanjay, you've raised your hand and unraised
it three times now.
I got to throw it to you.
The floor is yours.
Whatever you want to talk about, dude, you can talk about it.
You can just change the topic completely if you want.
Yo, sorry about that.
You know, like I'm driving, so I'm just kind of like figuring things out.
You know, first I want to talk about like, you know, like footprint because he's Canadian,
I'm Canadian.
So, I mean, hopefully you have like a nicer Canadian on the panel here now, like, which
is me, I hope.
And I don't know, there's like a lot of going in my head, but yeah, just happy to be here.
Sorry I'm late.
I'll let go.
I'll let Michael go first and then I'll jump in.
All right.
We're holding you to Sanjay.
I'm serious.
If you raise and lower your hand again, you're leading the class.
OK, so Michael, the floor is yours.
All right.
I think there was like three questions.
So like, how do you get the most out of a blockchain conference?
It depends if you are going there as a consumer or if you're going there as a company, right?
So like whenever you're going there as a company, you have to make sure that whatever objective
you're going there for is whether it's going to be user acquisition to onboard, whether
it's going to be for business development deals, whether it's going to be for funding,
you have to come with a strategy or else you're just going to be coming and enjoying
the event, which is totally fine as a, you know, as an attendee as well.
But if you're coming as a company, I would say like probably get your BD leads.
If you're going for sales portions, you need to make sure that you have your marketing ready.
You need to have your marketing great pictures, you know, be really, really communicative
with them, you know, to really actually make it to where it's like a call of action so
that later on you can convert them, whether it's going to be a business deal, whether it's
going to be, you know, funding as well for VCs.
When you talk to them, get their contacts, get their information.
And that's how you get like the most out of that one as like the business development
side.
Now, as a consumer, the way to get the most out of it is literally get as many shirts
as you can because it's like all the merch that's there is like it supplies your wardrobe
flex gear.
And then it's ROI positive.
Yep.
Yep.
Anything that's some Asian.
So it's kind of like when we go to a buffet, right?
It's like you eat as many things as you can, the most expensive things in the beginning
and then carbs and water last, right?
So you want to make sure you maximize your experience.
I mean, you're going there.
Have you got it?
I'm so sorry.
I hit the mute all button.
The floor is yours, Michael.
I won't do it again.
I'll leave if I do it again.
I'm so sorry.
Yeah.
Sorry, Michael.
I can't kick them as hosts.
So yeah, I'll just leave.
Honestly, I'll just see myself.
Mike, Michael, you have to unmute and mute again just to start speaking again.
I know that's like not okay.
Oh, there we go.
Well, yeah, welcome back.
I'm sorry about that.
I'll just see myself out.
No worries.
No worries.
Yeah, it's like just maximizing your experience, right?
So like if you're there and kind of like meeting other people, meet other people.
See who's your group, whether you're interested in NFTs, DeFi, whichever.
Another portion is you said do blockchain conferences have a huge return on investment.
So it is a huge return on investment if you come with a purpose, right?
If you come to make friends, make friends.
And those friends will actually reward you in the bear market, bull market, whichever.
If you're coming as a company, same thing.
You're flying the whole team in.
You're flying everyone in.
You're having hotels.
You're getting like paying for a forum.
Wait, people are getting flown in?
How the fuck do I get flown in?
Wait, I need to get flown in.
It's company expense to be part of a team.
Part of a team.
It's a company expense.
Be like, hey, look, I'm going to be going here because I need to get leads or I need to get deals or I need to get this, this and that.
But I mean, the best return on that portion is just making sure that you find out how it's worth it for the company to expense it and make sure, you know, get you to go there.
Let's see.
The next portion is you said what makes a good exhibit at a conference.
So I always see kind of like the early stages versus the late stages, right?
Like how he was saying, like a huge, huge riot booth compared to someone that just has like their laptop out.
But the difference between both of them is like the company scale.
So in order to kind of like get the a good exhibit out of it is I always think of like gamification ways of how do you onboard the guests, even if you have a small activation.
So instead of competing and saying, hey, I'm going to spend 300 grand on a huge, huge, like 60 by 90 activation.
How do I do that to where I could probably use the same budget, convert more users, even if it's a smaller booth, whether it's going to be merch, whether it's going to be giveaways, whether it's going to be campaigns.
You know, you want to have your your marketing intact.
So whenever it comes to, you know, someone does come to the booth and has a good experience and you're able to convert them.
Now, you know, everyone always has its word.
Hey, I'll hand out flyers.
Like, but how do you convert them?
That flyer better have a fucking ETH attached to it some way, somehow.
I do not want a flyer.
Like, please don't give out flyers.
Yeah, you're competing against everyone else.
So it's like, how do you stand out whenever you go to like a good exhibit, right?
You want to make sure you stand out or else you're just going to be lost in the sea of all the other booths.
Now, I mean, I've seen booths where they would literally just have like a really just a table and then they'll have like crazy activation term, like their branding, their logo.
They'll have like some unique design.
Like there was one at 3XP that had a, it's like a VCR type of TV portion to play their game, right?
It was unique compared to someone that was like, hey, I'll just have it on a computer.
So I think the good exhibits make it to where, you know, you just got to be creative with it, have fun with it, but also at the same time, make sure it fits your brand.
And then speaking at conferences, so that part, we declined 99% of the people that apply with us just because we don't vet them.
Because like, of course, like we want to make sure we have quality speakers on stage and also that they actually understand what the hell they're talking about.
Like how someone was saying earlier, you can't read your white paper and don't understand it.
Like, I don't want you on my stage.
Michael, it sounds like the office is getting media passes.
How the fuck do we all get media passes, dude?
Tell us how to do it.
You got to qualify for media passes.
So for media passes, it's basically, hey, look, you're coming there.
You're going to be interviewing people.
You're going to be interviewing speakers and everything.
Once again, people are flying in from all around the world.
So we don't want to fill up one of their spots and say, hey, look, they're stuck in an interview for an hour.
And, you know, the channels aren't going to convert for them.
There's no kind of like call to actions for them to follow up afterwards.
They didn't get a prep with their PR team.
So it's kind of like we want to make sure that especially the bigger speakers, you know, they are on a tight schedule.
And sometimes they literally have to come in and then, you know, do the rounds.
For example, we had like Charles Hoskinson at one of our stages.
It literally was like kind of like come in, walk around the booth areas.
And then afterwards, he can hang out for a little bit.
But the press portion was probably like limited to only like one or two and they actually choose.
So it's kind of like you could be on the list.
But if you don't get chosen, that's kind of up to the speakers as well.
So maybe reaching out to them prior is a better way because then you get cleared with PR.
You get cleared with marketing.
You kind of like have a plan of when to, you know, come in for an interview and kind of during the event.
And I think, oh, first and foremost, I don't think anyone's going to be as qualified as Michael here to answer all four questions.
So I just also want to clarify, don't feel the pressure of answering all four questions unless you're Michael and you happen to be the COO for an entire fucking conference company.
So just clarification there.
And I just want to reiterate a couple of those points as well to the panel as well.
You know, feel free to take any of those ones that you feel like you can bring the most value to the panel on.
I'm going to go over to Sanjay because, you know, you raised your hand.
So, I mean, you're first, dude.
Go ahead.
Yeah, you know, I just wanted to add a little bit on how you can make the most out of a conference.
And I think like, you know, like if you're a BD or something and you just want to like make some connections and you want to network, check out Twitter.
Check out LinkedIn, you know, keep an eye out on who is going there, what type of people are going there.
And if you resonate with somebody and if you want to connect with somebody, leave a nice little comment or, you know, shoot them a DM.
Be like, hey, excited to see you over there or something like that.
Just have a little, give them a little heads up that you might see them there.
I think that could be beneficial.
So like when you actually see them in person, you can just directly be like, hey, you know, like, hey, Michael, I saw, I texted you.
I don't know if you remember me or blah, blah, but glad to see you here, you know.
Like, you know, this is what I do and, you know, like excited to maybe we can work together or something.
Right.
Like just just in a BD point of view, because I'm like a head of partners to the double.
So I really focus on like, you know, making those those working connections a lot, a lot rather than consumer connections.
So, yeah, I just wanted to just give my two cents there.
I love it, Sanjay.
Your two cents are always welcome here.
Whenever you raise your hand, you're first.
Bankless, the floor is yours.
Yeah, in terms of getting max value for for going to an event, I just have to agree with whoever speaking earlier.
So I didn't catch whoever said this, but go to the main things that you want to see first, like put in the big things first and then go around and catch all the other little things.
Because, A, you're going to miss out on all the good merch if you don't do it that way.
And B, you're just going to fill up with so much information that you're not going to remember what the good stuff is.
In terms of speakers, if you're going as an org and you have a message to get out, then becoming a speaker is, I think, a fabulous idea.
Bankless DAO, we have this project called Bankless DAO Global Events.
And what we do is we send local teams of people out to different events.
And we basically represent ourselves, and we're also working on representing other organizations as well.
And applying for speaker spots at panels has been really successful because we're able to get on stage.
We're able to talk about the things that we're passionate about, the things that we're building, and also represent our sponsors as well.
So, yeah, I would have to say that being a speaker, if you get the chance to be a speaker, A, be prepared, and B, take them up on it.
Love it, man.
I appreciate your feedback.
And you're also going to be kind of fucking giving us bangers today.
Wait, who do we got behind the account today?
Who is this?
This is the NF Thinker.
You can find me on Twitter as the NF Thinker.
Or I go IRL as Chris B.
Hell yeah, brother.
If you could actually reply to the post with your handle, I'll pin it above.
I'm going to fucking follow you, dude.
You're fucking replying with bangers.
I actually kind of want to skip real quick to have my friend Lena actually just join on stage.
Lena, I wanted to give you a chance to join the conversation.
What's fucking up?
How you been?
Oh, my God.
Hi, Callan.
And thanks so much for having me.
Excited to be here.
How are you?
Same old fucking good old.
I kind of feel bad making everybody listen to our banter.
But things are good.
Things are good.
You know, it's good.
It's been a bear market.
It's been good, surprisingly.
But no, we got everybody.
We're talking about conferences.
I know you got some fucking shit for us.
You've been running an awesome fucking company.
You know, you guys have been securing some fucking crazy customers.
I know because I see you out here in the field.
Walk us through.
How the fuck are you getting all this business from these conferences?
Bennett, fucking pull out your notepad, dude.
Seriously.
Take notes.
Where do I start?
I mean, first and foremost, I had my first conference circuit this year.
I've been going to NFT NYC the last three years.
But I had the privilege with my team of going to East Denver, ConsenSys, NFT NYC, a few others.
We helped 3XP with PR this last weekend.
So it's been a really exciting time.
But I would say, first and foremost, like, you know, it's an overstated statement, but your network is your net worth.
And every single person that you meet boots on the ground in every single way possible, whether it's an IRL event during the week, whether it's a conference circuit event, one-off event, like, those are truly the best relationships that you will foster across the board.
Even if it's at a weekend like Art Basel or a music festival like Coachella, there's so many amazing opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals across your space, whether you're in music, whether you're in fashion for Fashion Week, and so forth.
So really finding your place and what your niche is is key.
So whether you're a gaming expert and you want to go to GDC, that's your home base.
Whether you are a fashion officiant, you know, New York Fashion Week is a great other avenue.
So additionally, I mean, honestly, like, press passes, because we offer PR, has been a godsend.
I highly, highly, highly recommend applying for press passes when you can, because if any one-off events, if any, you know, companies see that you have that on the floor of the conference and so forth, like, they will treat you like celebrity.
You will automatically cut the line, you will automatically get in, you will automatically, like, get free drinks.
Michael's about to fucking blacklist you right now, by the way, just so you know.
We got to get blacklisted by giving out the alpha today.
I literally said that earlier.
I was like, what's the alpha, dude?
Should I get a media pass?
Media passes are the way.
So don't sleep.
Start a blog.
Get on there.
Consensus is the best conference, though, if not going to lie.
So that's all I have to say.
Hell yeah.
Well, I appreciate you joining us in, and we just learned now today that that actually is the complete fucking alpha.
But no, jokes aside, though, I do want to keep passing the conversation around a little bit.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to bring back up our welcoming talk friends.
Footprint, floor is yours, my friend.
Actually, matter of fact, I'm sorry, Footprint, if that's okay.
I'd actually like to let Kazanomics go, because he hasn't shared too much just yet.
And I'll let you go.
Let's let him go.
Let him go.
Well, my question is a little dated.
Somebody had mentioned that, you know, AI conferences are booming in Asia and they're building over there.
And I was kind of curious because, you know, in the crypto circles that occupy, we don't really hear too much about what's coming out of Asia as far as what they're working on and what differences the East is, you know, putting their energies towards versus the stuff we see coming out of the States and Europe.
So I was wondering if that person that mentioned that would like to expand a bit on some of what is coming out of the Asian conferences and what you guys are building on, what things new and solutions are coming from the Asian blockchain ecosystem that we don't know about.
I mean, it's just the entire fucking Asian market.
I mean, it's just an entire other world that exists that doesn't, you know, that doesn't doesn't speak English.
I mean, I feel like the, you know.
You want to know what they're doing, right?
Don't you want to know what they're doing?
The same ship, just in Asia, my friend.
And that's the best part, you know.
And, you know, of course, there's innovation coming out of there.
I mean, look, Animoca Brands is literally based out of the Asian market.
So it's just like, you know, it's just the same market.
You can say the same thing about like the, you know, you can say the same thing about like the, you know, South American market.
It's just, you know, just a different market.
But it's, you know, they're producing relatively similar products, but it's just for a different audience group speaking a different language, you know.
Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Anyone can feel free to speak in here.
I think, Andrew, you raised your hand a little bit right after that.
If you wanted to jump in on that topic, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it kind of feels like, you know, I'm sure Michael can speak to it as well.
But, Andrew, Michael, if you want to tackle that, feel free.
Yeah, I just had two quick, like really basic but powerful notes.
If you're traveling solo, be really bold about approaching people and making value of your time when you're at conferences.
And if you're with a group, make sure your group is either very diligent about accepting other singles that you spot out and engaging in conversations or breaking apart and being a bunch of singles to go engage.
Number two is just keep track of the people you talk to literally on your phone.
Just write down name, org, whatever their username is.
And just if they are remotely interesting, just send a quick follow up.
Hey, what's up?
How are you?
And that's the key to make value out of networking in your time.
Yeah, I just want to follow up there, Andrew.
From your experience, what do you recommend as a method of contact?
Do you recommend Telegram, numbers, emails, Twitter accounts?
I'm just kind of curious for the audience.
I'm sure they're wondering as well.
Yeah, I keep it open, but generally Telegram and Discord are the two big ones.
Email still comes in handy for a lot of things, but on the gaming side, Discord is immensely popular and it's almost like a gut check.
If somebody says they work in gaming, if they're not on Discord, that's like a little bit of a red flag.
So be prepared for that if you're looking for gaming specific.
Oh, man, I hate talking to people on Discord messages and I am into gaming, but I don't know.
I just feel like I just get slammed with Discord messages and so many scammy messages.
I honestly, as a company, I've moved all conversations to Slack and like Telegram.
Telegram's like the exception.
But the other part that I hate about blockchain and communication is that I hate live chat support conversations and Telegram.
And that whole aspect just communicates that I need to be available 24-7.
And if anybody is OCD about responding to messages as me, it's really unhealthy.
That's like its own conversation that needs to be had and maybe we'll host that one.
But honestly, you just triggered me with that message about Discord, man.
Because I probably have lost so much business and opportunities because I'm just completely unwilling to have these conversations through Discord.
But I really need to be.
I feel like that's like the message I needed to hear today.
But I do want to continue the conversation.
And I'm actually just going to real quick reiterate and kind of reset the panel and just kind of reset with the conversation we're having.
Effectively, the conversation I put out was like a threshold of three questions.
It was like, how do you get the most out of blockchain conferences?
Do blockchain conferences have a huge return on investment?
We got some feedback regarding if you're going personally or as a business.
I asked what makes a good exhibit at a conference.
I think those are great points as well.
I think that's the next thing that I want to go over is, you know, have you ever hosted a private dinner at a conference?
How was it?
I think that the reason why this question got asked is because I think that that's been like my primary angle for business development.
And my primary angle for generating, you know, business opportunities is by hosting a couple of high value people in the ecosystem and bringing other people around or working with our clients and networking them through dinners and private, private, I hate to say private VC dinners.
But, you know, just hosting dinners to network people around.
I just wanted to ask the panel, have you ever hosted a private dinner or, you know, I guess the other follow-up question would be like after parties and how do you navigate those as well?
Do you BD at like these after parties?
Are you taking telegrams down while you're slamming shoeies?
Like what's like talk, talk me through this real quick.
We'll go to footprint.
Yo, yeah, okay, let's go, guys.
I'm about to drop some shit for you guys.
So, regarding how to maximize conferences, absolutely after parties, any kind of after events outside of the conference.
You should see my calendar three days before I go to any conference.
I've signed up for every single event possible.
Is it just me that he's breaking up or is it everybody else?
No, he is breaking up.
All right, copy that, copy that.
Footprint.
You're slamming too many shoeies, my friend.
I need you to slow down for me and come back to us.
Can you hear us?
Or we've lost footprint to the fucking shoeies.
I just want a quick side note for the nine plus requests we have right now, guys.
We're going to have you up at 6 o'clock.
Just give us five minutes.
We're going to figure a way out to cycle in some more speakers.
But let's toss it over to Michael, Lena, and then Andrew.
I think for private dinners, it depends.
Once again, it depends on your narrative.
If you're looking for investments portion, yeah, get a whole room full of VCs.
But honestly, it's going to be a little bit of a waste of time.
The reason why is because if you're going to whine and die in them just to get a deal, that means your deal isn't good enough.
So if you kind of place down and say, hey, look, if you guys are going to invest into me, you invest me as a team, instead of making it to where you pay for investments portion.
Now, that's different if it's going to be for business partnerships, right?
So if you're hosting it for your investors that are already invested into you, then yes, that's kind of like a thank you for taking care of me, making sure you believed in me and everything.
Or just trying to connect companies together.
But usually with the sponsors of those dinners as well, they're trying to find whether it's A, B, D, whether it's going to be development deals or whichever deals.
So it's like you as an organizer have to make sure that you're routing the right people there instead of just filling it out.
Because it's not like inviting 100 people.
You're inviting like 10 people, 15 people to make it more personable.
But there's also ways for the companies to also maximize that portion as well.
One of the things is basically having between, I would say sitting between the tables instead of sitting all in one corner.
So basically throughout the table, you have to have at least one person that's your team, one person that's not.
One person that's your team, one person that's not.
Just so that they can kind of talk and interact with each other.
And at one point, you probably have two people trying to close in on one lead compared to all of the leads are on one side of the table talking to themselves and you're just on the other side.
Now for after parties, it's there to party, right?
You guys are there to relax.
You guys are there to have fun.
No one likes to talk about business deals during an after party.
Everyone's just trying to enjoy, relax, and finish up the day.
I think that connecting with them and kind of getting drinks with them and getting to know them a little bit better is always good.
But not saying, hey, let's go ahead and go into business mode and go into close mode.
Towards the nighttime, everyone's just trying to say, hey, look, we're finished with the day.
Don't push too much into it because if you push deals during an after party, most likely you're not going to get a response afterwards.
Just because if you look at a lot of the ways that are in Asia as well, Asia is all about getting to know the person first before they go into the business talks and everything.
So they'll take you out, you know, you go here, get some coffee, get dinner and stuff.
You get to know the person, get to know the companies that you're going to be working with and potentially collaborating with.
And then after parties is always a great way to network as well because then you can actually see, you know, some of the companies that you're working with.
If they're actually going to be, if they're actually going to be good people.
But after parties are meant to party and meant to have fun, not just to close deals.
Make genuine and realistic connections and, you know, mutual blackmail.
I feel like it's a great way for us to hold each other accountable.
I don't know about the blackmail part, but just, you know, like, hey, like if someone's on a, you know, someone's like 10 drinks in and everything, take care of them.
Because they're going to remember that the next day compared to, hey, you took pictures of them.
Good point.
Or maybe they won't.
Maybe they won't.
But very good point.
Very good point.
Lena, the floor is yours.
Okay, so unpopular opinion.
I find that most of my business relationships happen during the day.
I think after 8 p.m. it goes downhill.
However, this is not concrete and it's not something that is, I guess, it stays true and stands true across all factors.
For example, I met my business partner at a cocktail event hosted by Mythical Games.
Like, that is the power of going to an intimate gathering.
On the other side of it, I do think after parties are more so opportunities for major organizations to flex, aka sponsorships, people to have title sponsorships and so forth.
But on the other side of things, intimate dinner parties are the new social clubs.
And it's all about curation, to Michael's point.
It really comes down to, again, seeding.
It comes down to, okay, what's the end goal?
It really comes down to who is the crowd?
Is it an open mixer?
Does it really make sense if it's, you know, a party crowd with a NFT crowd with a, you know, DeFi crowd?
Everything has to be really well thought out from the invitation to the planning to even the venue and where it's located because even then that really throws people off.
So, I don't think there is a right or wrong way, but it's really finding out what works to your strengths and playing on them.
I do want to take the conversation into more business development related as well, but I want to let Andrew finish up this topic before we move into it.
Just one quick.
David as well, I apologize.
We'll have David go afterwards.
One quick note on the after-party side from a gaming lens.
Historically, that has been the time when the most networking has happened by virtue of that's where there's the most broken hearts and everybody is kind of pouring their heart out and teams start to shuffle and everyone realizes, man, I didn't actually win because you have to believe you're going to win to have a chance to win going into it.
So, that culture has definitely stayed true in terms of after-parties being a place where people network, not necessarily saying that's a good thing, but it is definitely a place where bonds can be forged is the way we've always described it.
So, gaming always has that little tweak of look out for the social hours, but it's also not a time to do anything too deep because, you know, it is party time.
It's so funny because I feel like the new standard of a successful blockchain company is if you got a yacht at Art Basel.
But anyways, let's keep the conversation flowing.
I'm going to bring some more speakers up on stage as well.
While we kind of cycle through here, I may have moved a few of you down.
I want to clarify we have every intention to bring you back up.
We're going to be here for a bit.
But I think the next conversation I want to talk about is business development from conferences.
This isn't really much of a question, much more than I want to go over.
Really best practices for actually generating meaningful connections.
Bankless Dell has already let us know that my strategy of just approaching you at an after party to try to get you to, you know, be my customer apparently isn't the good strategy.
So, I think we'll be able to hopefully learn from some of our panelists here today on the best practices and best approach angles.
I'm really interested to hear best practices on actually generating a meaningful connection at a conference with the intention of some type of like fiscal or business or even media relationship.
Now, I'd like everybody to kind of get into it.
You know, I'll go over for me.
My main angle that has been for conferences, and I know I'm kind of acting like a bit of a DJ on this call today, but it's my fucking show.
Just to keep it more polite and fun, though, when I'm usually hosting or usually when I'm going to conferences, my main angle has always been hosting lunches and dinners nearby the conferences from my relationships.
Now, I do have like a few, you know, venture relationships because I originally was in venture capital and blockchain before I kind of moved over to my own startup in the ecosystem.
But, you know, effectively what I've been mainly doing is just hosting intimate networking events.
But mainly that's been my main strategy for it, mostly out of pocket myself.
And then if it's not out of pocket, you know, occasionally I'll get someone to sponsor it or just kind of everybody pay for themselves.
That has generated me far more ROI than kind of like going through the actual conference and going through the waves and waves of people and waves and waves of flyers.
So, I'm actually really interested to hear the way other people kind of approach this.
I actually pinned a hilarious fucking tweet from Striking, who was actually in the show earlier.
He said, name tag hunting at trade shows is called badge, being a badge whore.
So, I'm interested to hear like best practices for business development or relationship building from conferences.
Floor is yours, everybody.
Don't be afraid to give out the alpha.
Michael, floor is yours.
I think, once again, it goes back to the team and coming with the purpose.
So, like if you're going and you're going to be targeting in a Mocha, you know, learn about James, learn about Yatsu, learn about what they're going into, like what their current ecosystem is right now.
They open for investment.
And then also at the same time as well, it's like learning to provide value.
I feel like there's been multiple conversations to where they're like, hey, we would like to partner with Eccentricon.
And I was like, okay, well, what can we do together?
And the conversation drops off from there because, once again, value has to be a two-way street whenever it's a partnership, right?
Whenever you're going into it, it's like I will be able to get a benefit for my community, my companies.
And then I also want to find a way to provide value back because if it's a one-way street, those relationships usually get cut off pretty quickly.
So, it's like how do you value extract from each other in a meaningful way?
So, you're coming at it at a targeted angle instead of saying, hey, let's just partner, right?
Like actions speak louder than words.
And also, like whenever you're having your BD team go do your rounds as well, it's making sure that they have an objective and they know what to do.
So, for example, if you're like looking for guests and kind of like customers, you could go up to the badges and say, hey, look, these are the people that can potentially convert.
Or if it's going to be a better way to kind of like usher them into that certain area, whether you have a booth where you have like, hey, look, come to our after party, come to our networking party.
We'd love to have you there.
Things like that would make a better conversation to kind of, you know, close the door a lot quicker than compare it to, hey, look, here's a QR code, scan it, join, you know, join my Telegram and things like that.
Like those types of things, like whenever people hand me cards, it's kind of like I'm not obligated to do anything because it's like there's no value for me to do it unless you're an interesting company.
And I've talked to you a little bit before about it.
Really good points.
Dave, we actually haven't heard from you yet.
I'd like to give maybe a quick 15, 20 second intro from you before you answer the question.
You are on mute, my friend, if you can hear us.
Hey, David, if you're there.
All good.
He's running to the bathroom.
Jody, floor is yours.
And by the way, 15, 20 second intro.
Thanks.
We haven't heard from you too.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I'm loving this conversation.
I'm Jody.
I'm the co-founder and CEO of Spiritual Beings, bringing spirituality into Web3.
I was on the founding team of Boss Beauties and worked as chief of staff with them.
So I'm just really interested to, yeah, navigate this journey.
My very first blockchain conference was NFT NYC in 2021.
I went to an Adam Bomb Squad event and I just saw a line of black hoodies, guys in black hoodies.
And I'm just like, oh, my gosh.
Okay.
This is it.
This is, you know, all these friends and people I'd met online.
And it was just amazing to actually, you know, meet people in the flesh.
And I think for me, the overarching thing of not only business development, but just for conferences in general, is just authenticity.
For me, it's just being authentic to who I am.
You know, it's not about going out and grabbing a black hoodie so I can be part of the crew and just wanting to be what people, what I think people want me to be.
It's actually about just being really authentic.
And this is who I am and this is what I bring and this is what my team's about.
And if people then can actually make an authentic connection with you.
And for me, I feel like that is where the best business development has ever happened for our team.
And, you know, our company has been through those authentic relationships and those authentic connections that know what they're getting into,
that really like who we are and what we stand for and not me trying to pretend or be something that I'm not at any of these events.
Really good feedback.
And I really appreciate your insight from joining us.
We have some other new panels that have joined us on the stage.
I'd like to hear some of their feedback regarding best practices for conferences.
We have JRP who's joined us up on stage.
I appreciate you joining us.
And why don't you give us a quick 15 second before giving us some best practices for conferences?
Dude, yeah, of course.
First of all, my name is JRP, head of partnerships at ReNFT.
We provide rental infrastructure for Web3 projects, specifically focused on Web3 games.
Whenever I go to conferences, it's really just a delight to be able to meet people in person.
And I think approaching it in that way with that passion of I've been talking to you for a year now online.
Let's make sure to meet up and just create a genuine connection in person is something that's super special.
And to make sure I do that with as many people as possible, my calendar is filled from 8 in the morning till 12 at night with events, meeting people one-on-one, which can be both kind of business-related or just kind of personal.
And in general, just being able to go to a booth and actively listen to them and say, like, what is the value that you can provide to me?
What is the value that I can provide to you?
And just, again, create that general connection.
When you go up to someone, starting to talk about business, like, right off the bat can sometimes just be kind of iffy.
But if you're genuine, like, hey, how's the conference been with you?
Who is a person that you've connected with that you've really enjoyed?
Just, again, trying to be human with people in a real-life setting is always great.
But this panel has been great already.
I've learned a lot myself that I hope to implement.
And so looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.
And thank you for having me.
Excellent, my friend.
I appreciate you joining us today.
We obviously have some more hands raised.
I want to go to some of our newer guests that have joined us.
This is Wenzel.
Grateful for you joining us today.
15-second intro.
And I'll let you take over, my friend.
Hi, guys.
I hope you can hear me.
I'm Wenzel from Germany.
I recently started to run, like, a TMZ crypto newsletter.
This is, like, once per week a newsletter on Twitter where I cover all the rug pull scams and all the bad things that happen.
And this is also, like, my agenda that I had when I went to NFT Lisbon, a non-fungible conference.
Just, I think, it stopped two days ago.
And I already heard a lot of good stuff here and a lot of good tips.
And just a small thing that I think nobody mentioned so far is, like, to do a, like, reconnection with the person.
It's, like, to take a selfie, which I started to do.
And a lot of big accounts actually did it as well.
So, you talk to the person and then you try to take a selfie.
I mean, it depends, of course, on the conference.
And I personally only have been to NFT conferences, which are a little bit more laid back.
So, I don't know how it is, like, on a super strict business blockchain conference.
That might be a little different vibe.
But those are pretty decent.
Like, everybody is chill and it's not that strict of a business thing.
So, you actually talk to the person and then you, if you have, like, a good conversation, obviously.
Otherwise, you probably don't want to take a selfie with them.
But just take a selfie with them and then send them, like, right away on LinkedIn or Twitter.
And send them the selfie and maybe say, like, hi.
And another thing is, like, maybe you have, like, a CRM actually set up.
One guy I talked to had this in Paris.
And he had, like, a CMR set up, which automatically integrated, like, the LinkedIn profile, Twitter profile and everything into one Notion file.
And then he could even add, like, notes to himself.
So, if you had, like, some interesting notes about the person, what he does or something special.
So, that helps a lot if you have another talk with them and then you know, ah, we talked about this or, I don't know, this was your birthday or your dog's name or something.
Little small things like that help a long way to leave a positive impression.
So, that would be, like, the one little tip I have.
And awesome to have me up and really nice space so far.
Wenzel, I appreciate it.
Yeah, I love Web3 culture.
I feel like that's, I mean, I haven't been to any other conferences outside of, you know, blockchain.
And what I've noticed is, like, everyone is so friendly.
Regardless of how well or poor the conversation goes, I take a selfie every single time.
And, you know, I write something, you know, nice back and be like, it was great to meet you.
I really love the culture that we're building here.
I think we're really pushing forward in that sense in blockchain conferences.
But I'm going to toss it over to Footprint.
Footprint, go ahead.
And then we'll go over to Ovation.
Hey, guys.
So, I'm not rugging this time, am I?
You guys can hear me?
You're good now, Footprint.
Love to have you up here.
Let's go.
Okay.
So, like, you know, I always like to approach talking to people just as I talk to anybody else, right?
Everyone is human, right?
I actually, before I do BD, I just actually want to be your buddy.
Simple as that.
I love talking to a lot of the great – there's a lot of great thinkers in the space, a lot of really smart people.
Truthfully, a lot smarter than me.
So, I love just, you know, going up and talking to people, networking.
I guess I also want to talk about a little bit of Alpha.
Remember when you said it was some Telegram Alpha?
I seen someone the other day put his time zone in his name on his Telegram.
That's huge, boys.
That is – I'll drop that as some Telegram Alpha.
I thought that was sick.
And then regarding to, like, these after parties, I think it's a great space to really just talk to people and connect with them.
Again, I agree with everybody, you know.
After eight, boys, I'm off the clock at conferences, you know.
So, it's always nice to relax and unwind a little bit.
And, you know, just like what everybody – I just – I kind of want to be a little bit of a broken record.
But with everybody, I just echo what everyone is saying, right?
Especially if you're going solo.
I – you know, me, I have no problem going up to people and saying, hey, what up?
It's your boy.
And getting to know them.
But, you know, I think what Andrew was saying earlier, like, when you're solo, you got to be real bold when you talk to people, right?
And I think this is another one people really kind of skip out on.
But I think it's really great to have really good energy, right?
I think having the energy and being really happy and energetic really will set you apart from networking and will get you – be memorable, right?
You'll be a memorable person where you can step yourself out from the crowd, right?
I think, you know, just how I'm talking right now, even then, it kind of brings great energy.
And it makes people, you know, remember what you do and what your product is.
And, you know, Michael is going to fucking hate me.
He's going to fucking hate me for this one.
But – and like Lena said, press passes.
They are the move.
Last two conferences, Bitcoin Miami, even 3XP.
God, Michael's going to hate me.
I got press passes.
Gam, Michael, as much as you can.
Just lie on your press pass.
Do what you got to fucking do.
But get your fucking press pass, folks.
All right.
This is a little note fact, but Footprint actually has some banger articles.
Some of these articles absolutely slap.
So I can get away with the press pass a little bit.
And then another one, asking about questions, right?
Speaking.
I think speaking at a conference is a hugely powerful tool.
But if you can't speak at the conference, don't be afraid to go and grill the boys speaking, right?
When it's question time, don't be afraid.
Go up and ask some questions.
That's another way to get noticed and stand out from the pack, right?
I mean, I remember at East Denver during the Gamer 7 conference, there is DFK Kingdoms going up there.
And I just went up.
There's no questions.
I still ask questions.
And I grilled those poor guys.
And you know what?
It was great, right?
It actually opened up the room to another different kind of conversation and really kind of hit some good points that either the audience wants to know or you just want to know.
So let me pass it to the other speakers there.
But just a little bit of alpha I wanted to drop.
Sorry, Michael, about the press passes.
I even got one for 3X.
I'll give you a little note on press passes.
So since there's less applications for press passes, we actually look at them more thoroughly.
So if you got a press pass, that means that we actually like your shit.
Well, maybe because I did a workshop in the Game 7 community, you guys like me.
So but yeah, let me pass it over to the rest of the speakers.
Yeah, we'll toss it over to Ovation next.
But you're right, Mike, Footprint.
It's about that energy you're able to bring to the conference.
And it's about being interested in what the other person has to say.
I cannot tell you there has been a number of people I've spoken to who are just not super interested in the conversation.
It really is a major turnoff.
It's going to be less, you know, I'm not going to be connecting with that person further.
And that's OK.
So you just move on to the next person.
But yeah, we'll go over to Ovation.
Yeah, right on.
I appreciate you guys having us on.
Just do a quick intro.
My name is Grant, co-founder of Ovation.
Essentially, we're an NFT social platform we're building.
You know, the best way to think of it is take Twitter, Discord, OpenSea, mesh them all on the one platform, and you have Ovation.
So yeah, that's what we're working on.
But, you know, give some insight, you know, in our viewpoint on the best practices at conferences.
You know, everyone's kind of touched on, you know, the big main points, you know, how important it is to be genuine, be interested and curious at these booths.
I think it's really important, you know, whenever you go up to these people, you know, whether you think when you go to a booth, you know,
oh, this, like, doesn't relate too much to me and what I'm doing or what I'm interested in.
You know, I think that's the wrong mindset going into these because there's so much, a plethora of knowledge or a plethora of different things that these projects and different companies are doing that, you know,
that might, you know, click a light switch in your head and, you know, start making you think in a different path, different direction, you know.
So I think that's really important as well as, you know, creating connections within the space, really diversifying yourself.
To add on to that, I think it's really important, especially if it's a multi-day event, is to go up to those same booths both days.
One, it just leaves a better impression on these people and makes it a lot more genuine, these conversations you have with them.
And, you know, on top of that, if they give you some free merch or something the first day, you know, the second day, they might have some other stuff.
So, you know, it's kind of a win-win there.
You get some free swag.
And then lastly, I think something super important, which people are touching on about, like, taking photos with people and drawing down notes,
is, you know, really debriefing during lunch or immediately after these events, you know, with your team or just if you're there at that event yourself,
with the people that you spoke to, with the projects that you spoke to, all that stuff.
You know, you really want to, like, get all this information down when it's fresh in your head and, you know, you have the, you know, the brain juices still flowing.
You know, you're not too tired yet.
So, you know, those are our three main tips, you know, that we use, especially when we were at NFT NYC a couple months ago.
So, yeah.
I'm going to second that ovation.
I really like that.
So, debrief with your team because you want to move with intention when you're at these conferences.
You know, one, you know, thought that could slip out of your mind could be costing you a lot of business.
And you want to make sure you get the most of it.
Me and fucking Bennett are a fucking militant.
We are a fucking militant when we go to conferences.
That's right.
Fucking move.
Like, either I push and he trips or I trip and he pushes.
But we always get the fucking job done.
Yo, Kalen speaking of facts, that is how we move.
And I just really want to preach that for the rest of you guys as well.
So, for some of the people who haven't been to conferences as much, really, really, that is such a key point.
Move with intention.
Take as many notes as possible.
And make sure you get to know as many people as possible.
And take some selfies while you're at it.
Fuck it.
We're going to toss it over to Footprint, though.
Back to Footprint.
And I just want to let AZF, we're going to get you up.
And Slow Mist will get you up shortly as well.
But Footprint, you're going to go.
I wanted to mention, if anybody has a time restraint, they can drop down.
I'm going to bring some more people up.
So, if you have to run, probably be a good time now, I'm going to bring some more panelists up.
So, grateful for you all joining us.
And if you want to give us the old Irish goodbye, you're welcome, too.
But Footprint, the floor is yours.
Yeah.
I also wanted to kind of touch on the importance.
This is going to sound weird.
The importance of a little bit of flexing.
You're allowed to do a little bit of flexing at conferences.
Now, I don't know what was up.
Me and my boy, we went to Consensus last year and we had a taxi fund, right?
But we just decided, yo, let's pool our taxi fund.
Don't tell the bosses this.
And then we rented a Porsche instead.
And I did so many VC pitches in that goddamn Porsche.
Then, like, you know, I'm going out to 3M karaoke.
The fucking Alpha from Footprint, folks.
I mean, fuck.
Media passes, renting Porsches and pitching VCs.
Who are you, bro?
You're fucking stupid.
You're just a man that likes to have fun.
And I never got to drive a Porsche before.
So it was mainly for me, but it turned out pretty good, right?
For example, like, I've met B-Man.
He's the founder of ABCDE Fund with Du Jun, who's the co-founder of Huobi.
And they had, like – and I met B-Man.
He messaged me on WeChat.
He said, yo, come over.
Bring the Porsche over there.
WeChat is the Alpha right there.
That's the fucking Alpha right there.
Yeah.
Well, they don't like, hi-ha.
Now, in case anybody ever knows or anybody here knows Chinese.
But it was just crazy kind of, like, the impression that people got about Footprint just with renting a Panamera, guys.
It was a little – now, I don't know if this is going to happen every time.
It really depends about how you go up and approach people.
But I really think, you know, just a little bit of flexing can definitely get people's attention, right?
And you just need a little bit of attention before you can just, you know, go all out.
So there's a little bit of Alpha, too, I wanted to drop.
Bankless, do you have any comment on this?
Bankless, can you give us some feedback regarding his points?
Yeah, I was driving up to the coast.
I live in the U.K.
You can't tell by my accent.
I'm from the States.
So I live in the U.K.
It's been really hot this summer.
And I was driving up to the coast, and I thought, shit, I really wish I had a convertible Porsche right now.
So, Footprint, you're speaking to my soul.
And I'm getting on to car rental sites right now.
I'm looking up Porsche rental in Barcelona because that's my next conference.
That's the one, baby.
You get the nice cars for the low, low.
Well, nobody can say they can't get any fucking Alpha out of this Twitter space.
I mean, now we know we've got to scam.
We've got to get media passes.
You've got to save all your VC pitches for when you can rent the Panama.
We've got to.
So, I mean, listen, you know, we're serving the people here, you know.
I don't know if you guys are all tipping me right now, but you should be.
Yeah, no, I heard if you spam Michael's DMs, he tosses you free tickets and backstage access.
So make sure you guys do that after the space.
Michael's never joining us again on a Twitter space ever again.
He's over it.
He's over it.
I'm just messing, guys.
Definitely don't do that.
Jody, tossing it over to you.
Messages are coming in.
Let's go.
Oh, my bad, Michael.
Messages are coming in.
What did you say, Michael?
My bad.
I was like, I just got four DMs from that.
Just keep it up.
Keep it up, guys.
Jody, you're good, though.
Fucking Alpha.
Yeah, awesome.
Look, I just wanted to just add one other thing in.
And for me, just a little tip that makes a huge difference for conference experiences is just at the start of the day, just kind of think, all right, what's my goal today?
What do I actually want to see?
What do I want to achieve today and get to the end of the day thinking, that's good.
I hear that it's what I wanted to do.
And whether that's how many connections I want to make or a style of what that might be, whatever it is, I kind of get a bit preemptive and just really think that through.
And I've just experienced that when I do that, it just has a way of like you get to a point and you're just like, oh, great.
And it's almost like you can, you know, if you can achieve that even by like the lunch session, it almost like takes this weight off your shoulders because you're like, you know what, I'm just going to enjoy the rest of this day because I've been really productive today.
It's been awesome.
And then just magic happens sometimes after that when you can just relax and just lean in and have some of the most amazing conversations and connections.
So that's always something that I try and do as well.
AZF, the floor is yours.
Awesome.
By the way, feel free to give a quick intro to my friends.
Your first time on stage with us.
Quick 15, 20 seconder.
Absolutely.
Well, really excited to be here.
I'm Albert.
I'm actually running NFT product for ConsenSys or Infira for some of those who may know Infira.
I have two tips that I haven't heard yet.
First one is if it's a multi-day conference, wear something that stands out and is consistent.
So something that you could wear on all three days so that someone could recognize you're like, oh, like it's not just the classic, you know, black hoodie.
But I wore like a Basquiat hat for three days at VCon and people kind of recognize that because it was a unique hat, right?
So something that stands out so people kind of see you because you're walking around, people see you.
That's the first one.
I think the second one is lines are the alpha.
So if you're, you know, waiting on a long line for activation, waiting on a long line for food, for drinks or whatever, that's where you can chat up the person next to you.
And they kind of have to talk to you.
It's not like you're just talking to them while they're going somewhere.
It's where they're actually trying to go in the same place that you're going.
And you ultimately have the time to actually talk about who you are and learn about who they are as well.
So those are your main tips.
I think there's a good angle here to stalking just the right people until they get into a line, guys.
There's a lot of alpha here being shared from media passes to stalking your favorite influencer until they get into a line.
A lot of angles here.
But no, but jokes aside, I appreciate the feedback.
I'm just trying to keep it lighthearted.
But no, I think that's a really good point.
Like I think for one, definitely lines I can see is a great way.
I didn't ever think about that, but now that I think about it, some of the best, I guess, channel partners I've ever built for even what I do has always been kind of built by me waiting in some line for some installation.
Or I'm at some trippy event and I'm in line to get in, even though I'm there, supposed to be there.
There's still a line to get into it.
And I'm meeting all these different people that are there.
But let's keep the conversation going.
The swap, I'll throw the floor to you.
Hey, thanks for having me.
So yeah, our first time up here.
Real quick, we are doing a digital magazine that will connect into the Metaverse and you'll be able to see our events from there.
Eventually, we will have our own events and conferences.
So that will be all tied into our magazine and into Metaverses as well.
But yeah, a lot of people mentioned that the press pass is the alpha.
But what they didn't say is that press pass will also get you invited to so many different after parties.
So you'll have like a full schedule of events and stuff to to go and hit up.
Obviously, that will get you a bunch of interviews with with projects, founders, all that.
So that's obviously a huge point to touch on outside of, you know, getting a free entry to the conference.
You have all the free entries to all the after parties and you might not always get that.
But in some cases, like we were just in Miami, there was events that were $200 a pop to get in.
We didn't have to pay that.
Then we met other like consulting managers.
We ended up at Legion and that was $300 ahead to get in.
And I rolled nine deep.
They let us in.
So that was a $2,700 fee.
We, you know, didn't have to pay just because we met someone.
So like stuff like that, like I wouldn't definitely have your your team like prepped and ready to, you know, do the things that you need to do.
For instance, we roll three deep with our media passes.
So we do interviews, take photos, all that post that later on.
One of the things that actually stuck out at Bitcoin conference, we were riding around on bikes in the back.
They let us pretty much do whatever we wanted and that stuck out to other people.
So we met more people after using the Bitcoin hashtag.
So that was cool.
Do stuff that is different.
People will always be gravitated towards that.
If you're doing what everyone else is doing, you know, you're just blending in with the crowd.
So try to be different with everything you do.
Just like what you just said, the swap, a private event isn't truly private.
You can always get in.
And that's that's what I'll put out there is alpha.
So definitely always make an effort to make the event show up at the door.
You'll find a way and you'll make that connection that might make a huge, huge difference.
And not only your life, but your company and your, you know, your fellow employers, employees.
Huge, huge alpha right there.
I'll let Kaylin, I'll toss it over to Kaylin real quick.
And Sheba, we're going to get you up in a moment as well, man.
I love seeing you in the audience.
It's been a minute.
Hell yeah, brother.
No, no, but I'll let you I'll let you take it back over, my friend.
Let's get some more.
Word.
Let's go over to I think footprint had his hand up and then we'll go to slow miss and then Wenzel.
Let's get it.
Well, I just wanted to echo what Albert was saying.
Like, he's 100% right when it says wear something, you know, every day that's recognizable.
For example, when I went to eat Denver, you know, I collect starter jackets, right?
I got a fuckload in my closet just collecting dust.
And I was like, you know, what would be great is I bring out my Colorado Avalanche coat and wear it every single day when I go to Denver.
I thought, great idea.
Another one, you know, be different.
I went to this conference and it was a Santa Clara blockchain conference and they had this event at the pool and I knew I was going to be the only guy to jump in the pool.
I was going to be the only guy hopping in that pool.
I can't prepare swim shorts.
Guess what?
I was the only guy that hopped in the pool.
That's how you make waves, baby.
Bro, you're my fucking spirit animal, man.
Can you just join any fucking space I host, please?
And can we go to every convention together?
Like, we got to go in matching, like, fucking dinosaur suits to every convention together.
We'll social hack and manipulate our way into every single event together one by one.
We'll fucking hold up Michael at gunpoint and get into every convention with media passes.
Like, we got this, man.
Like, I feel like we can really do it, you know?
But Slow Miss, back to you.
I love that.
Hey, thanks again, guys.
So, this is more for, like, overseas.
So, recently I was in, so, for people that don't know, like, WeChat is, like, a big app in, like, the, mostly in China and Hong Kong, too.
So, like, before, like, you're going to a different country, like, download whatever, like, the famous app is that they're using for communication.
Like, when we were in Japan, I downloaded Line just because that was the, that was, like, the more famous app there.
And then, like, right now, especially with ChatGPT, it's so easy to just translate whatever, like, you want to say over to their native language.
And it sounds pretty good, too.
Like, that, that's, like, one way we realize, hey, like, even though we don't speak Japanese, like, it was a lot easier for us to communicate with them because we can translate everything with, like, ChatGPT.
Wenzel, the floor is yours, my friend.
Yes, so, just one thing.
What I heard, because of the alphas, so, some people said I had enough of those press passes.
I have to say, from now on, I have one, definitely have to get one.
Not sure where, but I will figure out a way.
And so, another option is, like, to get plus one opportunities from people in NFT Lisbon.
I had the opportunity to join the PunkDAO branch through a friend and through WhatsApp groups or Telegram groups.
And you just join those groups.
They are often shared on Twitter.
And those, this is also, like, an opportunity to get in on events, which is, which are really hard to get in because you, they require, like, a 50 to 100k NFT.
And for me personally, the Punk branch in Lisbon was probably the best event of all events.
It was kind of small.
There were, like, just 50 people.
And you can imagine, there were only, like, punks and plus ones.
So, everybody, yeah, was fully loaded.
I talked to a couple of guys.
This was, like, the one downside, I have to say.
You talk to them and then you ask them, okay, so what do you do?
And he just looks at you and thinking about his bag of 1,000 EVE and basically replies, nah, I don't do that much.
Yeah, you know, living.
And, yeah, I'm here and there.
And I say, okay, that's probably not going to happen so much business with them.
But, of course, this is, like, just an exception.
But, yeah, trying to get a plus one on through WhatsApp groups or Telegram groups ahead of them.
And a side event is also, like, a good option to get in on events if you don't happen to have a press pass, which apparently everybody here has besides me.
But, yeah, that will be my next thing.
Wenzel, I think you bring up an excellent point just in general.
Where, what are your, like, I guess I'm going to go interrogate some people.
What are your sources to kind of see, well, number one, for the list of all blockchain conferences, is there any, like, database you guys use or, you know, some document that you guys kind of keep organized to understand, like,
Oh, we have this event, you know, this month or this day, et cetera.
And then for the side events.
I mean, we just got to get Michael's comparative analysis, like, his, like, his competitor marketing analysis.
He probably knows every single convention in the entire ecosystem.
Michael, share the alpha, dude.
Where are you hunting for all the conventions?
I'll send you guys the list.
It's a list that is separated between North America, Asia.
I know you have it.
It's your business to have that.
Yeah.
You have to have it.
It's also, like, vetting them as well, right?
Because, like, some of them are going to be, like, 50, you know, 50 people meet up.
Some of them are up to, you know, 10,000 person conferences and everything.
But whoever brought up the line portion, that's a really great thing as well.
It's like, especially if you go into, like, international events or you're doing, like, a tour circuit, especially, you know, going into, like, even if you go into, like, Asia areas, you know, making sure that you find out what is their preferred area of communications.
And then for line, I think line and WeChat, you can't get it unless you have a SIM that's going to be within that country's number.
So right after you get the airport, eSIM, log in, and make sure that you follow up with that.
Because, like, for us, whenever, like, we're hosting the central Tokyo in September.
So, like, September 19th and 20th in Tokyo and Shibuya Square.
So it's, like, us communicating with our vendors, us communicating with everyone.
It's, like, a straight through line, just making sure that we can kind of have an area for them.
And then also, like, Telegram.
Some of them are on Telegram, some of them are not.
But just keeping communication lines open.
But I'll send you the list.
I'm seriously going to follow up about that list, by the way.
No, send me the list, too, please.
Yeah, please send him the list, too, Michael.
If you guys DM, just follow me in the DME, and then I'll send you guys a list.
Thank you, Michael.
That's really appreciated.
Actually, that was, like, the highest ROI Twitter space I've probably ever hosted, is getting a custom.
I mean, I imagine your list of conferences is probably well fucking thought out.
I mean, it's, like, it's your business to do a comparative analysis of every other product in the ecosystem.
So I imagine you've done your research, and you seem like you're pretty well versed.
I mean, the fact that, like, I always, you know, our company in public is all about, like, building in public and working with blockchain companies that build in public.
And one of our core things we always talk about when we work with people in our ecosystem is, like,
your COO should be talking on Twitter spaces.
Your CEO should be talking on Twitter spaces.
They should be representing your company and speaking publicly about them and building it public.
And, I mean, to kind of give my credit here to Michael, you've been kind of the foot of our joke the entire time, but you've maintained being professional.
But also, like, damn, I feel like Decentral Con's got a good fucking team, man.
I mean, fuck, you guys are, like, out here in the crypto world.
You're out here, like, representing.
You're answering these questions.
And, like, you know, at the same time, you're taking the butt of the joke, but you're also, like, providing a lot of value back, man.
So I just want to kind of give you your credit and your flowers.
And fucking let me know, dude, if you're ever on the job market.
Fuck me sideways, dude.
You're good.
It's always about having fun, right?
Because if you can't have fun on the job, then it's kind of, like, you're in the wrong job.
So it's, like, how you make it, you know, have fun and also interact with the community is because we started with the community.
And, like, community is everything to us.
So, like, whenever, even, like, our Telegram and before, like, members would reach out to us.
But, like, yo, we kind of need help on, like, do I go here?
Do I go here?
But, like, for events, it's, like, it's our thing.
Because, like, for me, when I started out, I started actually in, like, I did Polygon's marketing.
So, like, going to, like, 100 events, going into, like, all of these, I'm, like, what's the next step of marketing?
The next step of marketing is hosting in-person events.
So that's where it's kind of, like, the next evolution of marketing comes to play.
Love it, man.
Well, we have some new panels that have joined the stage with us today to kind of talk about best practices with conferences.
We've just now welcomed up C-Swap.
We've also welcomed up, and I'm kind of, oh, I'm not going to butcher your name, Dorothy.
I appreciate you joining us.
We also welcomed up GR Bizzle.
Super grateful for you joining us today as well.
Let's go in that order, C-Swap.
Why don't you give us a quick 15, 20-second intro and give us some best practices for conferences?
Hey, guys.
I'm CEO of C-Swap Dex.
We're a kind of NFT-5 Dex hybrid building on Cardano.
And in terms of best practices for conferences, like, I definitely like to get around and talk to people as opposed to just, like, staying at the booth or whatnot.
So it's generally good to have, like, a couple of key players there with you, someone that really knows the tech, someone that's, like, super extroverted and outgoing, and then someone to kind of build connections with other projects, investors, potential vendors, and other relationships.
So that's kind of my key point.
C-Swap, give me your spice, though.
Like, what has your experience been at conferences?
Maybe give me one positive experience that you've taken away from going to a blockchain conference.
I mean, definitely, like, after the conference, like, having dinner and making friends, you know, we did some interviews with, like, some YouTube influencers and stuff like that.
I mean, those are super helpful.
I mean, it's, like, a lot of free publicity for your project.
So those are some highlights, like, outside of the actual conference itself.
Yeah, no, 100%.
You're providing value.
You're giving these YouTubers a platform, and you're able to get that publicity in return.
No, definitely appreciate your insights on that.
I want to go over to, we got grbizzle.eth.
How we doing?
Great to have you on stage.
Feel free to drop some thoughts on some conferences and maybe, you know, talk about one positive experience you've had.
Hey, thank you for having me, guys.
Yeah, I just want to kind of give a brief intro to who I am because, like, who am I?
I joined this space about a year and a half ago, and I've had the pleasure of working with so many different DeFi projects.
And I was able to work with Coindesk twice at their ConsenSys.
So I feel like going to all these different blockchain conferences, I was once there for, like, working with a brand and a Web3 agency as their head of social media management.
And so I was, like, promoting the brand.
Then I left there and began doing freelancing.
So I went as just, like, a consumer and just someone in the space who wanted to connect with my Web3 friends.
And then I also went there as, like, a worker with Coindesk or ConsenSys twice.
So I feel like I've been in very different roles throughout all of these conferences.
And I would say, like, I think we've talked about so much, right, during this whole entire space so far.
But I think the one thing I have to say that kind of encompasses everything from, like, the positives, the negatives, the booths, the being just, like, an everyday person going who wants to connect with people is just being really genuine and organic and, like, not overthinking it.
Because I think when, like, we go up to these booths and, you know, you ask them, like, you know, show me, like, what are you guys talking, like, what are you guys doing, what are you guys building?
I'm, like, they're, like, shocked or, like, they're caught off guard or they're, like, not ready to, like, give an elevator pitch.
I'm, like, immediately not interested anymore because I'm, like, how are you not prepared?
Or if you go up to a booth and they're, like, sign this QR code, like, give me your email, your name, you're this, you're that before you can even have a conversation, it doesn't really feel like you care about me as a person or a potential consumer.
You kind of just care about, like, my data.
So I think just being really genuine when it comes to, like, being a business or even just being a person that's there to connect, like, it's not weird to walk up to people and say, hey, who are you?
Like, what are you building?
This is who I am and what I'm doing.
It might seem weird maybe in the real world, but I think, like, at blockchain conferences, that's why we're all there.
We're all there to connect, so don't be afraid to do that because I've definitely stepped out of my comfort zone a lot by doing that and it's always been really beneficial to me.
I would also say, obviously, other people spoke about this too, is definitely get all the free merch because it's amazing.
Like, it definitely fills up your wardrobe, especially if you go to the gym.
It's, like, the perfect gym wear, so definitely take part of that.
And I know Andrew said earlier, like, minimalism is, like, literally the key.
Like, don't overthink it.
Like, when I want to talk to someone either on a personal level or going up to a booth on a more business, like, professional level, it's just being really just, like, genuine and being who you are.
That's kind of, like, my main note that I wanted to discuss here.
No, 100%.
Love it.
We're super.
Oh, you're good, Caitlin.
You got it.
You got it.
No, we're really grateful to have you up here.
No, I cannot stress enough.
Please don't go up to people and try to sell them something right away.
That's not what anyone wants to hear.
We want to connect.
We want to get to know you.
We want to, you know, become, you know, who knows, friends.
You know, it's Web3.
I feel like everyone's very friendly in the space.
And it's, you know, it's really important not to go in from the jump just for a goal.
You should not really look at it in that perspective.
You should look at it into, you know, a chance to get to know someone, potentially do business for sure.
But it's about being a nice person at the end of the day.
And I can really appreciate that, G.R. Bizzle.
I want to jump in real quick, too.
I also know we have one other guest that's joined the panel recently.
Dorothy, super grateful for you joining us today.
Why don't you give us that quick 15 to 20 second intro?
And how about you give us some of your best conferences, best practices?
I'm sure you have some experience given the teams that you've worked on.
I mean, you're in head of growth.
So I imagine you're doing a lot of networking, formerly head of growth myself for an accelerator.
So I'm curious to hear your angle.
Thank you for having me today.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Dorothy.
I'm with Outlayer.
We're providing roll-up as a service to help project scale.
I've been traveling around quite extensively over the past five years since I got in crypto.
But definitely, I feel like the ROI for attending crypto conferences have definitely diminished over time.
And for a lot of the conferences, I normally would only attend the after parties or dinners, which are more exclusive and cozy,
rather than just walking around in a conference, especially most of the conferences charge incredibly high prices for tickets,
which is not really acceptable for me because I normally wouldn't pay for anything.
So I just either not attend the conference at all and just attend the after parties or I would try to get a speakership or something else that could get my team in in a more productive way.
The other thing we noticed is that having a boost at conferences is also not as productive as before.
Five years ago, when the crypto industry wasn't as big as now, having a boost at conferences like ConsenSys could really help you to get more clients
or speak to more people that are meaningful, but nowadays, we feel like it's no longer relevant.
It's so much easier if you can just host a side event, for instance, a workshop or a meetup that you co-host with a few other partners.
Or you can just do an after party, I have to say Ravi is one of the best crypto parties I've ever attended.
They have this amazing brand and amazing merch and they always throw the best after parties.
And the other one is one inch, one inch through a few big parties in this museum in Paris.
It's amazing.
This kind of event can really boost your brand image and help people remember you in a very positive way.
And of course, I would not recommend everyone to do too many conferences.
I attended like maybe 20 conferences last year.
I was traveling for 10 months and I felt like it was really tiring and it's a bit too much.
So this year, I tried to travel a lot less and focus more in Asia.
Last year, I spent four months in New York, one month in Paris, etc.
It was really exhausting.
But overall, the experience is great.
I want to talk about Zuzalu because it's definitely one of the best crypto events I've been to.
But it's not really an event.
It's a pop-up city organized by Vitalik.
Maybe I can talk more about it after this because I know I'm running out of time.
Well, Dorothy, you actually are on stage with someone who is the COO for a conference.
I kind of want to hear Michael's rebuttal.
So, Michael, I mean, we've heard some interesting things from Dorothy.
And I got to say, I can't completely disagree with her in the fact that like the value proposition
for the average goer for conferences has gone down and decreased in value.
How do you feel like you're kind of overcoming that?
I mean, I imagine a lot of people have hit you with that.
And I'm sure you've seen a decrease in interest.
And maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'm completely way off here.
But, you know, even when I was in the, you know, the VC world of Web3, woo, you know,
a lot of them were telling us like, hey, let's just go to these after events.
You know, let's just go to host some after parties.
Let's go house after dinners.
The conferences, let's not weed through the cattle, you know, the cattle of the conferences.
How do you respond to that, Michael?
I think it's like kind of a kind of a kind of a tough point to make.
But I'm curious how you're how you're kind of trying to solve that problem.
Yeah.
So kind of like growth scaling polygon since since 20, 2019 and everything.
Here's one insight I kind of give you during the bear market.
It's always better to market because you have no competition and it's going to be cheaper.
During a bull market, you want to cut back on spending because your name is already out there
and you're able to get more freebies.
So, for example, like if you're if your company is first starting out portion and you're going
for a mass consumer market, majority of them won't convert because your product's not ready
for it.
If you are going into it headstrong and during a bear market, you're able to make more meaningful
conversations because basically what I what I would say is basically the froth is gone.
Right.
You're now at a conference with builders that are going to be there and the average person
is going to have a higher, higher percentage of converting compared to if you look at the
analytics of someone that's going to be during like the height of the bull run portion.
Right.
The height of the bull run portion.
Even if you go to like some of these conferences, they're like, what is an NFT?
I'm just here to party.
The chances of you converting them as a meaningful customer or a meaningful partnership is goes
down significantly.
The ones that are there during the bear market is the ones that like the relationships you
do want to create.
And then especially for that, too, it's like don't overspend and go like, hey, I'm going
to throw 300K on a on a party and convert probably a thousand people because then you're
spending around thirty dollars, you know, thirty to three hundred dollars, depending on like
how much you spend per person.
It's like, is that mean, is that conversion actually going to be justified in a marketing
sense or is it going to be better if I hold something smaller or if I have a booth
area and I'll still be able to get onto the list with all the other sponsors?
And now I get to network to an entire conference, whether it's 500 people, a thousand
people, your your cost spend is going to be less, but the conversion rates are going
to be a lot higher because you're targeting quality compared to quantity.
But I really got to hop right now and everything for another meeting.
But I hope you guys got some insight from that and hope that rebuttal is, you know,
the central fucking con COO, everybody.
Can we give him a fucking round of applause?
Like, seriously, like he really held it together.
I mean, we're kind of grilling him.
You know what I mean?
So let's let's let's give him the round of applause.
He's the resident expert on the panel today.
So let's give him a quick round of applause.
We're grateful for you joining us, Michael.
I know you got to run.
Let's not keep you here.
I hope you hope you have success with Tokyo and thanks for the list of all the
conferences.
I do appreciate that.
He did honor that, by the way.
He sent it out.
Thank you for coming up on stage, Michael.
We really appreciate it.
We have a few more speakers with their hand raised as well.
Just a heads up, we're probably going to wrap this up in 10 minutes or so.
So I want to make sure everyone has their final thoughts and concerns and, you know,
any questions they want to toss up on stage.
But other than that, we're going to toss it over to Wenzel.
Wenzel, feel free to take the stage.
Yeah.
So I just wanted to say one thing about the rebuttal.
And if the value is going down or up, I would say that it's super dependent on the
conference itself.
So you can't say it for all conferences for us.
Like a lot of people said, New York was kind of a cattle show.
And I have to agree.
I've been there last year.
I didn't even have a ticket because it was super expensive.
And everybody ahead of the conference told me, you don't need to go.
You just need to go to the side events, which I did.
And those were, I mean, it was the bowl run.
So it was amazing.
Moonbirds probably spent like two, I don't know, a million on the event, I would say,
because it was free food, free drinks, free everything.
In New York, we all know how expensive this is.
But on the other hand, like NFC Lisbon, everybody agreed.
Like everybody went to the conference, the conference was cheap, everybody enjoyed it.
It was all like a tight-knit venue and everybody stayed there.
A lot of stuff happened close or around the venue.
And yeah, everybody said it was dope and yeah, absolutely worth the 70 bucks.
So I think it 100% depends on the organizer and you can do a good and a bad job as with everything.
So I would say just try to pick up a good conference and then you will have a great time
and get something worth of your money.
Well said.
No, I agree with you.
New York is very expensive.
I'm a New Jersey resident.
Stay over here and take the train and get over there.
I'll tell you, it's easy.
It's very, very easy.
Please DM me if you have any questions.
But we'll go over to Footprint next.
And then I believe we haven't gotten to Natalie yet.
So I want to make sure Natalie has a chance to speak as well.
Yeah, I just wanted to echo what GR Bizzle was saying.
Regarding the merch, definitely scoop up as much merch as you can.
Shout out to Game 7.
They got the best merch.
And when I wear it at the gym, it makes me look big.
So that's a double whammy.
And what else was I going to say?
One more.
I forgot the second point I was going to make.
So pass on to the other speakers.
I quoted you in my tweet, by the way.
Just a heads up.
I mean, fucking A Footprint.
The fucking alpha you're giving away today, dude, has been crazy, man.
Like, from the gym shirts to the jumping in the pool, man.
Like, fuck.
Anyways, I'm so sorry about that.
Please continue.
GR Bizzle, I'm sorry.
I cut you off.
That was rude to me.
Please continue.
Oh, no, that's fine.
I was just saying he really brings the energy.
One fucking hundred percent, man.
Seriously.
Yo, yo, Footprint.
Seriously, we're having you back.
The swap.
The floor is yours.
Hey, yo.
I don't know if anyone's seen, I think you should leave with Tim Robinson, but I think
Footprint's here for the pool and the making the waves and maybe the zip line.
But, yeah, no, I wanted to echo what Michael said real quick, just because, like, this year,
obviously, with being a bear market, it was more so focused for builders and people actually
doing stuff versus, like, the people that are just there trying to curiously learn a
little bit more about the technology.
So, it was great for business development if you were at some of the events.
It was at NFT NYC.
ICP Community Conference was a very small conference.
It was the first, but that's the network that we're in.
Got to meet, like, everyone we work with, so that was really cool.
Very electric with the smaller conferences compared to the bigger ones.
Although, the bigger ones are where you're going to find a lot of your business deals
and new, I guess, new paths and new partnerships and stuff because you're branching out of your
own ecosystems and stuff.
So, definitely try to mix up and be open to new conferences, events, and stuff because
they will open up your world for blockchain.
Let's turn it over to Natalie.
We haven't actually heard from you yet.
Welcome to the stage.
You want to give us a quick little intro, and the floor is yours.
This has been a very interesting conversation, to say the least.
So, thank you for spending time because I know Twitter space would be Twitter space.
And I'm Natalie.
A lot of people know me from the early days of NFTs and onboarding everybody in their
ground line to NFTs and hosting and having one of the biggest clubs on Clubhouse at one
point.
Rest in peace.
And so, yeah.
I was...
Sorry.
Can you hear me?
Somebody was calling me.
I'm good now.
I can hear you now.
Okay.
This person keeps calling me.
All right.
I said Clubhouse.
I said Clubhouse.
Now everybody's calling me.
So, yeah.
People know me from the early days of NFTs and also the Metaverse Music Festival, which
is one of the largest music festivals in the Metaverse.
We started that probably three years ago.
So, I've been here for way too long, maybe over a decade.
I don't know.
Anyways, what I would say is I think it's important to hold space for like what Dorothy
said.
I think a lot of times that I'd be super spicy here is that our perspective and how we engage
at some of these conferences are very much shaped by who we are.
And so, like I am Black but also like mixed.
And so, I've experienced a lot of...
And I'm just trigger warning to y'all in the audience.
There's a lot of harassment.
There's hella racism at a lot of these conferences.
If you...
Consistence, just like two years ago, had like one Black person speaking at their conference.
And so, we talk about the high price tickets.
Like maybe I can afford it.
But most people who are building in this space can't.
So, you get a certain demographic that are showing up at these conferences.
And that also expects the experience and like who gets visibility and like who doesn't.
And so, that's gotten even worse over the years.
And so, what Dorky talked about in terms of return of the investment, a lot of us don't
have to think about how much money we're spending to go to these conferences and events.
We also have to think about, like myself, we produced Disrupt during NFTLA because we
got sick of NFTLA in particular.
I'll just be very spicy here.
For years has platformed a bunch of like grifters and problematic folks.
And so, I think it's important to really think about who you're programming at these events.
Are you programming a sea of like white men?
Like we honestly need to really think about equity and diversity, accessibility.
A lot of the events that I do, we have a bunch of like ASL interpreters.
We have folks that for doing virtual events that are translating and interpreting in different
languages.
Some of us don't think about that because we don't come from that perspective.
Are we platforming people that are from the global south?
Are we just platforming folks from the states?
Are we platforming folks who have different and wide ranging experiences here?
Are we just platforming people who have 100,000 bots on their Twitter account and sit up in
Twitter spaces all day?
And so, are we platforming the same people who speak all the damn time because they have
huge PR agents or agents at WME or like insert thing here?
Are we platforming people who are actually in the trenches and have been doing the work?
And so, I'm not saying that these people aren't, but like there's a huge discrepancy between
who gets visibility off these spaces and who doesn't.
Also, if you're having a booth, like great, amazing.
But one of the, and I'll land here is that one of the dopest events that I went to during
NFT NYC and I literally went there and I spoke and I left.
I went to like one thing to go show some support and nobody showed up there because they had
too much shit going on at the same time.
So it wasn't very intentional.
But I was the only person there except for their producer and like some of their friends
that showed up.
There was probably like six people.
And that's a huge issue.
And so, one of the dopest events I did go to was Miss O'Cool Girls and it's this dope
organization.
I don't work for them, FYI, but they program a lot of stuff for girls and NFTs and they had
a cool pitch-a-thon.
They had a cool, they had some great snacks.
Y'all, these events be lacking on the food.
And so, they had great, it really displayed what equity can be and they had a dopest venue.
There may have not been a million people there, but the intention was there and they really
understood how to program that space and really think about how they want to utilize the space.
And when you're programming and producing events, I think everybody's like, win Lambo and you're
throwing a lot of money at the same event producers, but not thinking about how you actually want
to onboard people onto your projects, how you want to program with intention.
And if you can't do that, get some people who can and really think about that.
There's so many people building in this space.
I just keep seeing the same sea of folks and it's kind of disgusting.
I'm going to keep it funky with y'all.
And so, that is it.
I mean, honestly, too, you've grabbed a lot of great points.
And I think most importantly, shout out NFT now.
I feel like they're really bringing the top 100 people out and really, really supporting the real
people who are building here.
But no, but seriously, jokes the fuck aside, I completely agree with you, Natalie.
And I appreciate you bringing on with your actual perspective because that's not something that was
actually really discussed on this panel at all.
I have some other people who actually raised their hand after you spoke.
So, I'd like to give them a chance to follow it up.
David, I'd like for you to follow that up.
Hey, man.
Sorry, I've been dipping in and out.
I appreciate you guys having me on this stage.
Great conversation.
So, I mean, I guess I'd give you a brief sort of rundown of some of my experience.
I mean, speaking of NFT now, I've been, you know, gifted with the opportunity to be nominated
by the NFT 100 two years in a row.
I have.
That was backhanded, but I hope you're a nice person.
I've noticed that NFT now has kind of platform.
Sorry.
I hate to be that way, but NFT now has kind of platform a lot of known grifters, but I
don't think the only platform grifters.
And I hope that that's not the case with you.
Sorry to cut you off, David, but the floor is still yours.
Oh, and I mean, look, it is what it is.
I mean, to be quite honest, I mean, look, if you really want to look under the hood,
there's a whole, this entire ecosystem is full of fucking grifters.
Let's just not get it twisted if you really want to be honest, right?
But it is good to be recognized for my work, and I look at it from that perspective.
And I do think that, you know, to stand up for Alejandro and to stand up for Medved, those
guys are really genuine human beings that lead with really, really warm and high intentions.
And I think they do give a podium to some very, very important and interesting artists
in the space.
With all that being said, I've spoken on some of the biggest stages in the world as it relates
to Web3.
Last year, I was performed on the main stage of the Debussy at CanLion alongside Michael
Casey at CoinDesk, discussing sustainability through NFTs and blockchain with some members
of the United Nations Climate Fund.
I have spoken at VCon, I have NFT NLA, NFT NYC, MidwestCon, and so on and so forth, ad
nauseam.
I think there's been a lot of discussion here about how to be effective.
Like, the most important thing that I think about being effective at these events is just
be genuine.
Be who you are.
Walk into the room with a smile.
Carry yourself without the weight of the world.
Like, engage people.
Look at them in the eyes.
Like, I don't have a great memory, for example, but I'll tell you right now, I keep a list
of everybody that I come in contact with, and then I send that off to my assistant to
make sure that they're being scheduled on follow-ups and they get logged into my Monday
account.
Making sure that, you know, you lead with good intentions.
And there was a lot of discussion earlier that if you're going into a pitch, knowing who
you're pitching to.
And just, you know, being the genuine soul that you are, I think, really, really gets
you much, much further.
Because we work in an ecosystem that is full of grifters and not everybody is trustworthy.
And I like to come from a place of working with people that I like before working with
people that I think have something that I want.
Because if I lead with trying to get something that I think that they have that I think that
I want, I'm leading with a place of scarcity, leading from a place of me needing something
as opposed to somebody meeting me where I am, right?
Because I already bring enough to the table.
I bring David Bianchi to the table.
And before I had, you know, prestige and actor credits and blockchain credits, I was still
David Bianchi and I still brought that to the table.
So I think frequency is really, really important because you are going to attract like-minded
people.
Having a good barometer of suspicion, you know, and, you know, understanding when to disengage
a conversation.
The, well, you want to, I mean, not to be, I guess, fuck it.
It is, it is sort of culturally biased and had the Irish goodbye or whatever you call
Like that's, that's the winning way to network.
Like you don't have to say goodbye to people when you leave, you just leave because the
time that you spend saying goodbye to people, you've lost that at the next event.
Right.
I mean, also, I'm not so sure that I'm convinced that business doesn't happen at after parties
because.
I have to agree with you there, David, for sure.
A lot of business happens there.
1000%.
Absolutely.
Now I do, I do concede a gentleman spoke earlier about, you know, you don't want to
be shilling, you know, while dead mouse is DJing into someone's ear.
Right.
But you do want to create a human connection with someone so that when you see them the
next day at the conference, that at least there's some common ground to maybe build that
business relationship.
You know, I'm current, I'll give you a great story.
This is true story.
You know, I, I entered the blockchain space and NFT space in March of 2021.
I minted the first ever spoken word film as NFT.
I donated all the proceeds to the George Floyd Memorial Foundation.
Forbes picked up the story.
That was the impetus of me entering the NFT space.
And philanthropy is a big part of who I am and what I do.
Social consciousness, social currency.
I was at VCon, not this last VCon, but the VCon the year before.
And a friend of mine, Ross at Culture 3, threw a party on a rooftop.
That was a satellite event at VCon.
I'm walking into the room and I just had a smile on my face.
It was just, I just felt good.
You know, I'm walking through and I met this lovely blonde woman with short hair, didn't
know her from Jesus.
And we just smiled at each other.
We just engaged in this conversation.
She was this lovely British gal.
So I started talking about what I do and she was talking about what she does.
We didn't know each other.
We didn't know which was resumes.
I showed her a recent project that I had directed, a cinematic series that was on Super Rare
and explained to her that I was at Art Basel and the things that I had done and what I had
been doing.
And I explained to her that I was fundraising for my blockchain extension of my film production
company.
And she says, no, no, no, no, no.
She's like, I love what you're doing.
I love what you're talking about.
She's like, let us fund your project and then you keep your equity.
And I was like, huh?
She's like, yeah.
Well, it turns out that was Sarah Buxton, who at the time was a COO of Gala, who's now the
CEO of Gala Film.
And we literally met on an open air rooftop event outside of VCon.
Two months later, we ended up shaking hands.
And now, 11 and a half months later, I'm in post-production on the first ever Hollywood
produced streaming series starring myself, Meena Suvari, Danny Trejo, Richard Cabral.
It's called Razor, and it's the first property that's going to drop on Gala Film.
Now, that is mind-blowing.
And the ability to work with Gala, to me, is an incredible honor.
And I hold it as a very high distinction.
And I take my work and I take my relationships with them incredibly seriously.
But that's just a great example of me just walking into the room with a smile, you know, showing
a whole bunch of teeth and just having a good time and meeting someone at 12.45 at night
in Minneapolis.
And so you never know when the relationship is going to happen.
And that relationship became full of nutrition because my body of work takes itself very seriously
and I take my work very seriously.
So when I presented myself, I was already a force to be reckoned with, even though we
didn't know each other's resumes.
So I say all that because lead with your best foot forward.
Lead with your best work.
Be conscious of energy.
Be conscious of how you speak to people and just be kind.
And I really, really believe what is for you is for you, you know.
And I think if you think about it in that sort of context, all the other things will fall
into place.
What platform?
Should I be at this booth?
Should I stage this dinner?
You know, I think, Kaylin, you mentioned a dinner, right?
I think those are great tools.
But if you're the host and you don't lead with a high frequency, nobody wants to come,
right?
And if you're thanking people for investing in you, you want to lead with graciousness
and gratitude.
Those are the things that I think are really the nutrition, you know, of business and final
thought.
You know, Tony Robbins said something fantastic that sits with me.
He talks about entrepreneurship.
His success is literally 20% know-how and 80% psychology.
80% psychology.
You have to have the utmost desire to push forward, to persevere, to see obstacles, to
move through obstacles.
What is getting you out of bed on Monday?
The small things have to be done in order to complete the big things.
This is the psychological components of entrepreneurship are what's going to propel you to the next level
of your success.
My name is David Bianchi.
Thank you for having me on the stage.
I'm done speaking.
David, no excellent points there.
I can't express that enough in the sense of you have to be conscious of your surroundings.
You have to be conscious of the people you are speaking to.
You got to, you know, read their body language and see how they're reacting to, you know, what
you're talking about.
And like you mentioned, with Go Gala Films, that is an inspirational story right there.
And that's how one after party, one moment, one conference can really just change a life.
And I'm really thrilled to hear that you're in post-production and would love to learn
more about what you are currently producing.
And, you know, feel free to share anything on the top of the, you know, pin it on top of
the Twitter space as we're going to wrap up here shortly.
But David, really appreciate you coming up here.
Thanks, man.
And something else just came to mind really quickly, too.
The art of networking.
If you can, go to events by yourself.
Don't go with a best friend.
Don't go with someone that's going to make you feel comfortable when you're not talking
to someone.
Because when you're not talking to someone, you default to the person you came with so
you can feel comfortable.
When you go to an event by yourself, you're forced to connect with people and you're in
a place of discomfort.
And how do you break that discomfort?
You start talking.
So, you know, travel light and be nimble and lead with high frequency.
And thanks.
I'll pin a tweet.
Thank you, guys.
Stay uncomfortable, people.
I went to a conference with a friend, a Web3 after party.
I got to know barely anybody.
I was way too comfortable in my own shoes.
And it's really important to jump outside that comfort zone and, you know, get to know
other people.
So I'm going to go to the rest of the hands here, guys.
And then we're going to wrap up the space.
I'm going to start with Salsa.
And then we'll go to Footprint and GR Bizzle.
So Salsa, go ahead.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Yulia.
I'm the co-founder of Salsa Valley.
This is like the Silicon Valley, but in crypto.
A short intro.
It's an entire ecosystem based on the Salsa Valley stories, funny meme cartoon series about
crypto world.
And we united the crypto projects and communities to help them with the long-term interaction,
help them to create their own crypto history in our series, crypto board game and the metaverse.
And personally about me, I'm in crypto since 2016.
And I saw a lot of conferences, a lot of events during this period.
And, of course, six years ago and seven years ago, it was too small.
And for now, I'm based in Miami now.
And I attended a lot of conferences here in the U.S., the Consensus in Austin, the Miami
NFT Week, NFT Extroverse in LA, Bitcoin 2023.
And on two of them, we had the booth with our project.
And I want to mention one thing, which nobody mentioned yet, that they're very important to
understand when you attend any of the event, doesn't matter you have the booth or you attend
like the, personally, all the events have the cumulative effect.
You never know when the network, when the networking, when the people with whom you're connected
will give you the value.
And that's why, to my opinion, we should attend the much conferences we can, the more conferences
we can, and to make these connections, even to make the friendships, because from each event
to each event, you get to know more people, on next events, you meet these people, and you
understand that, oh, I know you, and we already met a lot, and you are like the friends, and
it's more like the, it makes more close connection with that people.
So, that's why, like, the cumulative effect from one event to another, for these connections
are too important, as for me.
And, of course, don't be shy and feel free at all the events.
So, I got one question for you.
What has been one event that you prefer over the others?
What has been your favorite one?
During this year, it was Austin, as for me.
It was consensus.
I've heard a lot of similar things about consensus as well.
So, I really appreciate your...
It was, after this event, I went from, I left this event with 90 contacts.
It was too much of the three days, but it was really very productive.
That is a lot of people you've been talking to and connecting with Salsa, so I do appreciate
that and your insights.
We're going to go over to Footprint next, then GR Bizzle, and then we're going to close
this out.
Yeah, I just want to echo what David was saying.
You know, believe it or not, guys, I'm the king of rolling to events solo dolo.
Now, if that's because I'm the only guy in North America there to do it, that's neither
here nor there.
But, it's absolutely, he's 100% right, you guys.
It's like, going out and you're forced to interact with people, right?
You're not getting too comfortable.
That is huge, right?
And, I think another really great point, just echoing what David said again, is, you know,
when I go to these events, I go there to have fun, right?
And, when you go there to have fun and you have a good energy, that rubs off on other
people, right?
I'm always smiling, dancing, having a great time.
And, this is the way, and people will naturally be attracted to that energy.
They'll come by, they'll want to, of course, who's seeing some people have fun and not want
to have fun with them?
I mean, so, David has just really hit the nail on the head and I just wanted to echo that,
what he was saying, because I think it's really, really great advice, you guys, right?
And, maybe just because, again, I'm just so extroverted, I have no idea what to do,
right?
I've got my hand up, I'm just shaking, ready to talk to you guys.
But, you know, like, I just want to say, like, amazing points, David.
Thank you so much for bringing that up.
You couldn't have been more clear and concise about the points you were making.
So, yeah, I just wanted to echo that and it's really just, everybody, just take notes on
that.
And, yeah, GRBiz.
Yes.
Do you, like, take any, like, energy drink or anything?
Like, are you drinking some C4?
Because the energy is unmatched, okay, Footprint?
Like, what are you doing?
I'm just having fun.
I'm just having fun.
I love it.
I absolutely love it.
Yeah, I just kind of wanted to close out because we spoke about so much.
Like, there is a lot of bullshit, immaturity, drama, grifters, scammers, like, all the words
we all like to talk about in this space.
But a lot of it is just Twitter bozos.
Like, there are a lot of people behind the scenes building some really, really amazing
tools for this space.
And we're all in it for a reason.
We obviously love it, whether it's investing, whether it's trading, whether it's just connections
or the technology, whatever it is.
Like, we're all here for a reason.
And just remember that.
Like, don't get lost in the Twitter sauce.
And just going back to the kind of point I made earlier that David and Footprint also
talked on is just, like, being genuine.
We're all humans.
Like, just connect.
If they like you as a person, they'll be interested in what you're doing and what you're building.
So go in there with the intention of meeting another human and just talk to them and everything
will flow naturally.
Thank you all for having me.
GRBizla, I appreciate your insights.
And thank you for coming up.
Everyone here, I just want to give a huge, huge round of applause.
Let's everyone throw up the clap emojis.
It's been an awesome episode about blockchain conferences.
I cannot express enough that how much alpha was just dropped tonight.
Please, this is recorded.
If you missed the first half of the conversation, make sure you go back and listen to it.
Because I will say, Michael has dropped so much alpha for all of us.
And I've been taking notes this entire time.
So thank you to all the experts on the panel.
Make sure you guys are shooting follows.
Shoot follows to each other.
DM a single person from this panel that you met today and connect with them.
That is what it's all about.
But I'm going to toss it over to our host, Kalen, to close it out.
No, no further notes needed.
I learned so much from this space today.
I'm super grateful for everyone taking some time out of their schedule.
I know it's Tuesday after 5, depending on where you're at in the world.
It could be a different time.
But I just want to say, I really am super, super, super thankful for having hosted all of you today.
That's going to be it for today, folks.
Really grateful for you all joining in.
Enjoy the rest of your Tuesdays, everyone.
Thanks, guys.
It was awesome.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
I don't know.
Speaker
BanklessDAO 🏴
from
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