Speaker 1: Afro Tech is back in Austin, Texas. This November is
Speaker 1: the place for all things black tech and Web three.
Speaker 1: The in person afro Tech conference experience is bridging the
Speaker 1: worlds of afro technologists, innovators, investors, corporations, musicians, and everyone
Speaker 1: in between. So pull up, grab your crew, and grab
Speaker 1: your tickets and join us at the largest black professional
Speaker 1: conference of the year. This experienced the afro Tech Dot count.
Speaker 1: To learn more, I'm Will Lucas and this is Black Tech,
Speaker 1: Green Money. I'm gonna enter this. You to some of
Speaker 1: the biggest names, some of the brightest minds and brilliant
Speaker 1: ideas I feel black in building were simply using Texas
Speaker 1: Secure your back. This podcast is for you. Shanja Washington
Speaker 1: worked in financial services in New York to she learned
Speaker 1: corporate finance and financial modeling as a technology investment banker
Speaker 1: at one of the fastest growing investment banks in the
Speaker 1: World's teen She co found the TBC Capital and Education
Speaker 1: first investment firm. Today, she's on the own demand CFO
Speaker 1: and strategist for early stage companies and its co founder
Speaker 1: at black at, which is building a token gated community
Speaker 1: of black creatives investors in entrepreneurs. I asked Chandra, who's
Speaker 1: deep in the throws of building a community on the blockchain,
Speaker 1: what is the fundamental difference between building a web three
Speaker 1: community versus building and I r L community. So, I
Speaker 1: actually don't think there's a difference between um web three
Speaker 1: community and I r community. The only thing is the
Speaker 1: mechanism in which community is being delivered. So typically with
Speaker 1: I r L you may be doing text messages to
Speaker 1: find each other and then you're getting involved or you're
Speaker 1: getting together um and you're meeting I r O the Well,
Speaker 1: the one difference I would say, I guess, um, I'm
Speaker 1: going to backtrack a little bit, would be that we're
Speaker 1: like on all the time. So there is no all
Speaker 1: on um web three communities. So with black at were
Speaker 1: literally texting. We're texting Sunday evening about like what movies
Speaker 1: we had seen as like children, so like there's always
Speaker 1: somebody talking about something. Uh. And so if I did
Speaker 1: have to choose a difference, it would definitely be that
Speaker 1: you're always on. You don't have to wait to schedule
Speaker 1: to see your friends. They're just always there. Somebody's always
Speaker 1: there and they can be a lot bigger. I said
Speaker 1: there's no differences, and then here I am, they can
Speaker 1: be a lot bigger, right, Like you don't have to
Speaker 1: um coordinate schedules, you don't have to UM fly to
Speaker 1: see your friends like in digital in the digital world
Speaker 1: and web three, your friends can be anywhere. We have
Speaker 1: people that are in London, we have people um that
Speaker 1: are on the other side of the world and on
Speaker 1: the other side of the country, and we're all up
Speaker 1: at different times um communicating and having fun with each other.
Speaker 1: So I think that points to an interesting thing I
Speaker 1: was gonna bring up later in this conversation, but it
Speaker 1: makes sense to bring it up now. And when I
Speaker 1: think about platforms that I'm a part of, like Discord,
Speaker 1: for instance, I get that a discord can be very
Speaker 1: intimidating just for the amount of information coming through for people,
Speaker 1: especially people were trying to understand what the heck you
Speaker 1: know the blockchain is, what n f t s are,
Speaker 1: what you know dows are, And so when you think
Speaker 1: about this thing is never really off. How do you
Speaker 1: manage the flood flurry of information coming at you when
Speaker 1: you're just trying to figure out, you know, where the
Speaker 1: bathroom is. Yeah, so that's actually really fun that you
Speaker 1: brought that up. So a couple of things. They're one.
Speaker 1: I think we did my team did research and we
Speaker 1: found that people were and it's a crazy number. I
Speaker 1: think people were involved with about forty different communities. Whether
Speaker 1: you're checking all of them, whether you're talking and all
Speaker 1: of them, that's a different story because you're most likely
Speaker 1: a thousand percent not but being a part of forty communities,
Speaker 1: you are going to miss something UM and typically what
Speaker 1: we're seeing is that people are finding the communities in
Speaker 1: which they UM either are getting the most alpha, so
Speaker 1: where they're getting the most information that will make them money,
Speaker 1: whether it's in Web three or investing or whatever UM
Speaker 1: or they're they're involved in the communities in which they
Speaker 1: are finding their friends and like they have some type
Speaker 1: of shared interest, so they could be social communities. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that we did at black at
Speaker 1: is we took on that problem head on. So our CTO,
Speaker 1: Audrey Taylor Quinnya started and we were in all three
Speaker 1: All three of the co founders of black at are
Speaker 1: part of CPT, which is another token gated Web three
Speaker 1: community UM and the messages were moving very fast. It's
Speaker 1: about six people in there at one point, and messages
Speaker 1: were moving so fast. So Audrey took it upon herself
Speaker 1: to create this UM this product. It was an m
Speaker 1: v P where she said, how do I get the
Speaker 1: best information to the people that aren't able to talk
Speaker 1: or aren't able to check all of these UM discords
Speaker 1: and all of these telegram messages is And so we
Speaker 1: created a product black ats first product product, which we
Speaker 1: launched in June called Gated to solve that exact problem.
Speaker 1: So basically, what we're doing, we're going into these discords,
Speaker 1: We're going into these telegram groups, and we're finding either
Speaker 1: the penned messages, so a message that is penned is
Speaker 1: something that an administrator says, hey this is important, let
Speaker 1: me pin it to the top of the chat. Or
Speaker 1: we're looking at the engagement. So how many people, how
Speaker 1: many different unique emojis were did people give to this
Speaker 1: one UM this one message because obviously it's important. So
Speaker 1: we're going into these group messages or these group chats,
Speaker 1: and then we're taking the most important information and sending
Speaker 1: it directly to your email. So we're making it easier
Speaker 1: for people UM to get that information because it's super
Speaker 1: super hard to catch up, especially if you're in forty communities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go in a little bit further there. Because you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about traditional social media, as we thought
Speaker 1: about community in Web two, UM they have evolved to
Speaker 1: um innovate on their algorithms to help you determine what
Speaker 1: you should see, things that you know you missed while
Speaker 1: you were offline, right, And so how do you imagine
Speaker 1: because you just kind of touched on this and go deeper,
Speaker 1: I'm asking, how do you imagine in Web three, things
Speaker 1: may be curated so that inside of that forty different channels,
Speaker 1: I'm a part of the things I should see. It's
Speaker 1: still going to determine, Okay, Will needs to see this.
Speaker 1: So I think it's it's it's dependent on the cut
Speaker 1: type of community. Right. So there's a lot of these
Speaker 1: communities in which you guys are in this community because
Speaker 1: you own a certain n f T And if you
Speaker 1: own these n f t s, then there's typically some
Speaker 1: utility that you get from owning from having this shared
Speaker 1: experience of owning this NFC and that utility could be
Speaker 1: a party in New York or at a conference, or
Speaker 1: it could be a discount with a retailer. There's all
Speaker 1: types of things it could be contract tickets. You just
Speaker 1: never know what these um what the utility is that
Speaker 1: that these n f T communities are bringing to their
Speaker 1: members UM. But basically, you know, depending on the community,
Speaker 1: the type of community you're in, your administrator or the
Speaker 1: person that's kind of running the community, or the or
Speaker 1: even the community members, which is something we can talk
Speaker 1: about later about like decentralization and empowering the community members
Speaker 1: to decide what's most important. But it depends on the
Speaker 1: type of community. Because if you're in uh an n
Speaker 1: f T community where their utility, you want to make
Speaker 1: sure and your administrators want to make sure that you're
Speaker 1: not missing any messages, right, that you're not missing any
Speaker 1: of that utility, any of that UM any of the
Speaker 1: perks for joining that community, because that's why you're there, right.
Speaker 1: That's yes, you bought some beautiful art maybe UM, but
Speaker 1: part of the reason why you're there is because there's
Speaker 1: all of these different perks that you can get if
Speaker 1: you're in more of an alpha community, which is a
Speaker 1: community in which you're talking about different plays that you
Speaker 1: can UM invest in to get money or to UM
Speaker 1: join other communities. So an alpha community uh there there
Speaker 1: there may be perks. There may be allowed lists and
Speaker 1: other ways that UM, you can benefit from being in
Speaker 1: that community, But the most important messages maybe those allow lists,
Speaker 1: maybe the opportunities for you to learn about other projects
Speaker 1: in which you could potentially make money. So I think
Speaker 1: UM determining what who determines what the information UM that
Speaker 1: you need is is the manager and in other cases,
Speaker 1: which is what we're kind of playing with now and
Speaker 1: looking at the emoji reactions and the unique emoji reactions.
Speaker 1: So if you go into discord now there's messages that
Speaker 1: could have ten, twenty who knows, you know, unique a
Speaker 1: different emoji so hard eyes, um, heart fire. There's all
Speaker 1: these different things that people are responding to messages with
Speaker 1: and so we're right now we're playing with an algorithm
Speaker 1: that will show us what's most important based on how
Speaker 1: the community quote unquote voted. So they didn't necessarily go
Speaker 1: in and put a poll in, but they voted by
Speaker 1: their engagement. UM. That's something we're trying to play with
Speaker 1: a little bit. We just started, and we're noticing that
Speaker 1: each community is so different communities. Some communities are faster,
Speaker 1: some communities right really long messages. Some communities have thirty
Speaker 1: emojis like it's it's really interesting to see the difference. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think what we're talking about now about letting
Speaker 1: the community decide and looking at the unique reactions and
Speaker 1: how people are reacting, letting that be what's most important
Speaker 1: is the next phase. I think that. So I'm a
Speaker 1: part of a community which hasn't been released publicly, but
Speaker 1: as part of building that community, it was built for
Speaker 1: a specific audience, particularly Black people. And um, your mission
Speaker 1: was to help black entrepreneurs, black creatives, you know, black musicians,
Speaker 1: what whatever type of creative you are a black entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: as well at Black at And one of the conversations
Speaker 1: we have earlier is how do you protect who this
Speaker 1: community is for? Because the point of you know, cryptos
Speaker 1: like anybody effectively can get in. You can have the
Speaker 1: allow lists, you know, but at resale could potentially be
Speaker 1: to anybody. So how do you protect the community this
Speaker 1: mission ultimately? Or is that even like a fair question
Speaker 1: you know to be asking? So it's it's a fair question.
Speaker 1: I mean, like if you're saying a community is for
Speaker 1: a certain type of person, then you would assume and
Speaker 1: and that is like the shared vision, then you would
Speaker 1: assume that that is what you're getting when you buy
Speaker 1: this community. So I think it's a fair question, and
Speaker 1: it's a question that I've gotten before UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's not to be honest, like to be frank and transparent.
Speaker 1: There's not a this technological way for us to figure
Speaker 1: out UM how to protect that right. There's in terms
Speaker 1: of service. There are UM rules that you're expected to
Speaker 1: follow before joining this joining our group chat, but that's
Speaker 1: really other than like self governance. That's really all that
Speaker 1: we can do to make sure that we are protecting
Speaker 1: that space. We are bay very very alert though, and
Speaker 1: very much looking at our members and the new members.
Speaker 1: But a couple of things that we're seeing, uh is
Speaker 1: that so every UM large conference, I would say, or
Speaker 1: not even not even large, but there are different conferences.
Speaker 1: Were Black at Travels and UM either we have experiences
Speaker 1: or we create content such as, UM, you know, a
Speaker 1: day of panels and maybe a closing party or whatever
Speaker 1: it is that we're doing at that conference. Uh so
Speaker 1: at Black Tech Week and Aren't Bossel and south By
Speaker 1: Southwest and Consensus, we created these group chats for black
Speaker 1: folks that were traveling to these different conferences. And it's
Speaker 1: specifically for black That is why it's black AT. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people think I'm saying like black hat
Speaker 1: are black, app it is black and the AT sign
Speaker 1: UM meaning we are black at south By Southwest or
Speaker 1: Black at Bossel. And so there's one time recently where
Speaker 1: we were at tech Week and there's somebody in there
Speaker 1: we were we were all like, I don't know, y'all,
Speaker 1: I am not bored, and so we had to like
Speaker 1: we just we went in, asked some questions and then
Speaker 1: we decided like, this is not UM a person that
Speaker 1: will be a part of our community, and so we
Speaker 1: let them know and and uh they were kicked out.
Speaker 1: So you know, we are vigilant UM and we're definitely
Speaker 1: making sure that we are checking to make sure that
Speaker 1: this is a space for black folks. UM. The other
Speaker 1: thing that we're doing for people that want to support
Speaker 1: black AT without them being black themselves is we are
Speaker 1: partnering with different communities to UM purchase a black AT
Speaker 1: token and then allow them to give them to their
Speaker 1: community members. We've had a couple of communities UM do that,
Speaker 1: and we're hoping to partner with more. UM. We think
Speaker 1: that's one of the best ways of getting your giving
Speaker 1: your community OUTPHA is giving them a place where they
Speaker 1: not only be a part of whatever community that you created, UM,
Speaker 1: that our partner has created, but also wait for them
Speaker 1: to get further into Web three. Right. That only increases
Speaker 1: the value of their of their token UM by allowing
Speaker 1: them to be part of other Web three communities UM.
Speaker 1: And then we're also having we have sponsor token. So
Speaker 1: we have some sponsors that have said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I got some black folks. If I'm not black, but
Speaker 1: I got some black folks in my network that I
Speaker 1: think would be great for this, And so they bought
Speaker 1: tokens and then gifted them to others. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of how we're we're maneuvering. But everybody knows this is
Speaker 1: like a black black black space. Yeah. So I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this, UM because there's so many people who
Speaker 1: who get excited about the implications of what Web three
Speaker 1: can do, and some people just here all the time
Speaker 1: and like, Okay, something cool is happening over here. And
Speaker 1: I think about this quote that Steve Jobs had put out,
Speaker 1: you know, several years ago obviously, and I'm on a paraphrase,
Speaker 1: but he talked about how how technology is nothing but
Speaker 1: what matters is you know humans, and that people are
Speaker 1: basically and smart and then if you know, if you
Speaker 1: give them the tools, will do incredible things with them.
Speaker 1: And so I think about how the story that I
Speaker 1: read about how you and Harold and somebody else had
Speaker 1: had had thought about this idea for a black at
Speaker 1: and and I wonder how you would admnage people to
Speaker 1: build these communities, whether they're just interested in the technology
Speaker 1: and what it can do, um, you know, technologically, or
Speaker 1: that they see a larger mission that is more effectively
Speaker 1: reached by employing Web three technology. So number one, how
Speaker 1: do you think about the Web three or is it
Speaker 1: was the technology is super cool and you was like
Speaker 1: I gotta do something here, or you're like, okay, I
Speaker 1: got my people and how can I best help them?
Speaker 1: How do you think about that when you're building these
Speaker 1: toctal technologies? So I think there are a lot of
Speaker 1: communities and companies whoever creators that are just like jumping
Speaker 1: into Web three because it's like the new thing, which
Speaker 1: it happens whatever, um. But for us, we were thinking
Speaker 1: about a couple of things. One we were wondering, how
Speaker 1: do we token gate this so that the value isn't
Speaker 1: on us, right, We don't just own the value, but
Speaker 1: our community members owned the value. And so that was
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we decided to have to
Speaker 1: make it token gated, right, Like, we wanted to create
Speaker 1: a token around this so that it wasn't just us
Speaker 1: owning the value. So what I mean by that is like,
Speaker 1: if you are a member of Soho House or another community,
Speaker 1: I don't know, think of something. I'm sure you're part
Speaker 1: of something, and you decided to get a membership. Um,
Speaker 1: you buy the membership and you invite all your friends. Uh.
Speaker 1: And as your friends come and become members, then it
Speaker 1: becomes more valuable to you, right Like you're like, great,
Speaker 1: you know, I can go get launched, I can do
Speaker 1: my work whatever you're doing. But once you leave, that's it.
Speaker 1: The value stays with Solo House. You no longer hold
Speaker 1: that value, you no longer get to interact in that
Speaker 1: way with your friends. Um, and you don't really get
Speaker 1: any um. Uh. You don't really get any um return
Speaker 1: on your investment once you leave. Obviously there may be
Speaker 1: relationships and things that you've built there. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: because this is a token gated community, there's also a
Speaker 1: monetory monetary value to this, right, Um, as you bring
Speaker 1: in more friends, and I'll go into kind of the
Speaker 1: mechanism of how we priced our tokens in a second.
Speaker 1: But as you bring in more friends, and as the
Speaker 1: community gets larger, and as we build more products, and
Speaker 1: as more people hear about what we're doing at black
Speaker 1: at UM, the value of the community collectively goes up.
Speaker 1: The value of the community goes up. But but the
Speaker 1: fact that you're part of it collectively, we're all bringing
Speaker 1: we're all raising the value of the community together. And
Speaker 1: in order to show that, UM and really UH used
Speaker 1: token omics to kind of highlight that point. We didn't
Speaker 1: reverse touch auction, which means the first d and twenty
Speaker 1: five tokens that were sold, we're at point one eight.
Speaker 1: So you got in early. It was point one eight.
Speaker 1: I think, I don't even know what it was at
Speaker 1: that point. I don't know, maybe four thousand, maybe a
Speaker 1: little less, I don't know. Whatever. It wasn't in February.
Speaker 1: So you got in at point one first, the next
Speaker 1: fifty we're at point three, the next fifty we're at
Speaker 1: point five. The next fifty will be out I think
Speaker 1: point seven five, Uh and so every fifty, every um,
Speaker 1: every incremental of fifty, there's an increase in the value
Speaker 1: literally in the value of the coin based on the
Speaker 1: mechanism that we used. And so there are some people
Speaker 1: when you leave right you can undercut the market. You
Speaker 1: right now, the only way to get our tokens is
Speaker 1: by going to our website and minting the token there UM.
Speaker 1: But if you have you bought the token for point
Speaker 1: one and you for some reason have to leave or
Speaker 1: whatever we decided to sell, if you can go to
Speaker 1: our if someone could go to our our website and
Speaker 1: buy it at point five and you could sell it
Speaker 1: for point four, then you've made you know, three times
Speaker 1: what you paid for it. UH. And so there's inherent value.
Speaker 1: And one how we did the token onyx and to
Speaker 1: UM what happens when we all come together in the
Speaker 1: black at community UM UH is more known and UH
Speaker 1: is built out. And so you got me thinking about
Speaker 1: a couple of different things. And I am a firm believer.
Speaker 1: I think it was like Napoleon Hill or Dale Carnegie
Speaker 1: or somebody. And he said, you know, if I can
Speaker 1: help enough other people get what they want, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get everything I want. Right, And so I think about
Speaker 1: that and this is ongoing battle in my mind about
Speaker 1: that concept and competition, like I'm a competitor to and
Speaker 1: most business over the last particularly in tech over the
Speaker 1: last decade maybe two was like I want to own
Speaker 1: the whole thing. You've got this Peter Teal like competition
Speaker 1: is like for suckers or whatever, like they want to
Speaker 1: just own everything. And then you have what what you
Speaker 1: talked about this shared value? And so how in in
Speaker 1: web three can you go into more deeply the philosophy
Speaker 1: of how value gets created when you're not talking about competition.
Speaker 1: You're not talking about the people at the top get
Speaker 1: the most. You're talking about all of us are going
Speaker 1: to win together. Yeah, I mean that that is That's
Speaker 1: that's the ethos, Like that's literally it right, like you
Speaker 1: here's the thing. And I think about this a lot
Speaker 1: because there's different projects that have PfP drops or a
Speaker 1: thousand drops. We only chose five hundred UM and and
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot to our community. We just had
Speaker 1: one of our first local events in d C where
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of us were there, maybe
Speaker 1: eight UM and we talked about like what makes black
Speaker 1: at special to them? And a lot of them said
Speaker 1: because it was a it's a smaller community in which
Speaker 1: I know everybody. I feel like, um, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's a we're a family, And I think you have
Speaker 1: to understand that there's different places that you can play.
Speaker 1: This is something that I've been really thinking about because
Speaker 1: those larger communities are not what we're doing, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's so much uh specialization I think that can come
Speaker 1: from these really small communities that there I don't the
Speaker 1: ethos is shared like that's literally the ethos of like
Speaker 1: Web three is shared ownership, shared value. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if there has to be competition because they're so
Speaker 1: many ways that we can go where my community can
Speaker 1: overlap with your community, right, Like, my community can provide
Speaker 1: something completely different. My community can be a community of
Speaker 1: black builders, of black collectors. Your community could be folks
Speaker 1: that have never heard of Web three that are brand
Speaker 1: new to the space and need, like you know, complete
Speaker 1: education on what it is and there and we could
Speaker 1: we could both have people in all communities and that
Speaker 1: it's really interesting that you say that because a lot
Speaker 1: of these larger communities when we were building gated we're
Speaker 1: still building it obviously, but as we're building Gated, um,
Speaker 1: we're going to these very large communities, so CpG pop
Speaker 1: um wow cool cats like all these larger communities um aku.
Speaker 1: And my question is like, well, wait a minute, guys,
Speaker 1: Like there's so much overlap here, how are we going
Speaker 1: to make money? Like we if somebody is only buying
Speaker 1: one token to get onto Gated and there's five of
Speaker 1: their communit, he's on this platform, we're losing out. But
Speaker 1: the but the thing about that is is that the
Speaker 1: more communities that are on that platform, the more value
Speaker 1: the product becomes. Um. So what we're seeing is that
Speaker 1: like that overlap is actually bringing more value to the platform. Right,
Speaker 1: The more eyeballs is bringing more eyeballs to our platform.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that it's like, yes, it's a
Speaker 1: competition thing, but I think that there's so much specialization.
Speaker 1: And think about it, right, Like what n f T
Speaker 1: s are right now is art essentially, right, Like it's
Speaker 1: collecting art. But if you think about like art in
Speaker 1: and of itself, it is very subjective, right, So I
Speaker 1: may like something for some completely different reason then my
Speaker 1: best friend over here, who may hate it, right, And
Speaker 1: so a community of a certain type of art maybe
Speaker 1: for me. And there's so many iterations to art in
Speaker 1: general that like there's not competition necessarily between artists. I
Speaker 1: don't know, like I'm not an artist, but like it
Speaker 1: is it is a creative endeavor in which it appeals
Speaker 1: to your emotions. Where is there is there competition there
Speaker 1: or is it just like what is the emotion that's
Speaker 1: I'm that's being invoked evoked from me from buying this
Speaker 1: piece of art. And I think it's the same thing
Speaker 1: with these communities and buying these Yeah, but like a
Speaker 1: lot of artists are broke. This is a way for
Speaker 1: them not to be. This is this is another way
Speaker 1: for we're empowering the creator. Yes, artists are broke, but
Speaker 1: like I think that's a separate topic, right answer, complice.
Speaker 1: But I also think that like this is a way
Speaker 1: to put if we're talking about shared ownership and ship
Speaker 1: and shared equity, like this is another way that we
Speaker 1: can empower creators to create community around their art so
Speaker 1: it's not just somebody consuming the art. Right, So we
Speaker 1: just had I'll give you an example, hopefully this is
Speaker 1: an example. We just have the artist Nick Davis, he
Speaker 1: apparently was a star on Instagram, had never heard of
Speaker 1: him before, and one of our community members, he has
Speaker 1: an n f T collection with House of First dropped.
Speaker 1: One of our community members dropped his collection in our
Speaker 1: in our group chat. The collection is called Black is Beautile.
Speaker 1: It's like black is Beautiful, I need if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it there there are pieces for sale on open Sea.
Speaker 1: They just sold out last Friday. Um, but she dropped
Speaker 1: the pieces in there. The whole community, all of us
Speaker 1: in this subchat, the n f T subchat, were like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, who is this man? Where can I
Speaker 1: buy his stuff? We all went, We all bought all
Speaker 1: of his all not all, but we bought all of
Speaker 1: these artworks were the single largest holder. And from there
Speaker 1: right I said, guys, we need to be celebrating more
Speaker 1: black artists. We need to be supporting more black artists.
Speaker 1: And let's talk to this man. I am so touched
Speaker 1: by his work. I need to talk to him. So
Speaker 1: now we had a Twitter spaces and we got to
Speaker 1: hear about his story. He got to tell talk to
Speaker 1: us about um, why he made certain pieces, the feelings
Speaker 1: that he was having behind those pieces. He had been
Speaker 1: creating this collection for three years while he was going
Speaker 1: through some health stuff and it was kind of his
Speaker 1: way out, and so he was able to create community
Speaker 1: right by drawing these beautiful pieces of art and then
Speaker 1: dropping them as an n f T collection. And now
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was broke before. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he was, but like, I'm not saying that at all, guys,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying that, you know, allowing uh this new medium,
Speaker 1: uh is a different way of interacting with the art
Speaker 1: and the artist, which I don't know if that was
Speaker 1: there was a way to really do that before. I
Speaker 1: love that. Um there was a quote I read that
Speaker 1: you had said this the following, UM, I'm excited to
Speaker 1: be behind creating his space for us to learn about
Speaker 1: the new frontier of Web three unquote. And that might
Speaker 1: be an odd place to unquote something, but there's a
Speaker 1: point there. And what I found interesting about that quote
Speaker 1: was it implies that I'm in the community to learn
Speaker 1: about how the community works. So I'm gonna read the
Speaker 1: chord again. It says, I'm excited to be creating behind
Speaker 1: creating a space for us to learn about the new
Speaker 1: frontier of Web three, and I gotta get in to
Speaker 1: be a part of this learning opportunity. Towards a lot
Speaker 1: like college. You know, I gotta get in to get
Speaker 1: the education, and so so I guess is that correct?
Speaker 1: Is the implication that I gotta be in web three
Speaker 1: to figure out what the heck is going on over here?
Speaker 1: Or that I can learn from the outside and figure
Speaker 1: out what's going on? Or is it that I just
Speaker 1: gotta get in. What's the best way to learn here? Listen,
Speaker 1: I said it for a reason. I think people think
Speaker 1: that they can just read up about this or watch
Speaker 1: a lot of YouTube videos, but like the best way
Speaker 1: talk to anybody, I'm serious, talk to anybody in web three.
Speaker 1: You know what they're gonna say. They're gonna say, jump in,
Speaker 1: h go to your spaces, follow your people on Twitter,
Speaker 1: buy some crypto by an n F T D y
Speaker 1: o R, do your own research, and jump in. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I think that UM doing it within
Speaker 1: a community is because, especially a community like black at
Speaker 1: is because there are people that UM, I know nothing
Speaker 1: about literally will come in there and be like I
Speaker 1: am still learning, uh, But there are people that have
Speaker 1: that are like djents, like are really into it, and
Speaker 1: the conversation will fluctuate right between what did you mean
Speaker 1: by that? Here's a podcast to listen to. UM have
Speaker 1: you heard about this? Read this Twitter thread to give
Speaker 1: you information about x y Z. It's much easier to
Speaker 1: do it with folks that are doing it than trying
Speaker 1: to do it on your own, and so like, yes,
Speaker 1: I think the way to learn is to jump in.
Speaker 1: You don't have to start with an n f T
Speaker 1: that's worth you know, two fifty or whatever the cost is.
Speaker 1: There are much uh, there're n f t s that
Speaker 1: are m worth you know, point zero five ether or lower.
Speaker 1: There are ways that you can get in, but I
Speaker 1: think the best way to learn is to get in
Speaker 1: and jump in. These communities like black At and others
Speaker 1: can quickly turn into very rich prospects. And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is, you know, it can start at
Speaker 1: very low ethan because of the value being created, shoot
Speaker 1: up quick. And so, because part of your mission is
Speaker 1: to educate but also create values, how do you balance
Speaker 1: the value increase in the tokens and still keep it
Speaker 1: accessible for people. It won't always be as cheap as
Speaker 1: it is right now, and it shouldn't be. But how
Speaker 1: do you still balance the educational component and getting more
Speaker 1: of us in when there's only you said five hundred
Speaker 1: you know, p FPS five hundred tokens, and over time
Speaker 1: those are going to be very rich prospects. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you know that is another question that I asked myself
Speaker 1: a lot, Like literally just had a conversation with our
Speaker 1: co founders with my co founders and said, guys and
Speaker 1: I need to think about this, like, how are we
Speaker 1: reaching past the five hundred people that we are going
Speaker 1: to bring into this community? Uh, you know, what are
Speaker 1: the ways that we can make this more accessible so
Speaker 1: that people don't think that this is an exclusive community.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things here. UM. One, we just
Speaker 1: started our series and we restarted our series about um
Speaker 1: we call them black at community chats where we bring
Speaker 1: in community members to come in and educate us about
Speaker 1: different things. So they may educate us on UM, they
Speaker 1: may educate us on security. On There's one community member
Speaker 1: that educated us and gave her gave us her I
Speaker 1: guess she created an n f T project and then
Speaker 1: turned that into an animated series. So she talked to
Speaker 1: us about how she did that. UM. There's all these
Speaker 1: different ways that our community members have come in and
Speaker 1: so we're opening that up to a larger audience. UM.
Speaker 1: So that will be those those Twitter spaces where anybody
Speaker 1: can join UM, so you don't have to be a
Speaker 1: part of the black community to UM get those education
Speaker 1: content at education content. UM. The other thing that we
Speaker 1: are doing is we're making sure with artists too, Like
Speaker 1: we're making sure that we're bringing them in so that
Speaker 1: we there are other people that can um that can
Speaker 1: UH support black artists. And so we're doing a whole
Speaker 1: initiative around UM, not just us supporting them, but let's
Speaker 1: have uh community and conversations with people that may not
Speaker 1: know this artist so that we can we can have
Speaker 1: our community support them, not the black out community, but
Speaker 1: black folks in general. UM. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: is is that you know, and this I don't know,
Speaker 1: this maybe a little controversial, controversial, but like I think
Speaker 1: there are certain communities in which there will be a
Speaker 1: certain bit of like it's it's it's just a smaller community, right,
Speaker 1: And there's purpose behind that because we want, like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, we want our members to feel like there
Speaker 1: are family. We want them to be able to ask questions.
Speaker 1: We're in the process of building products and so like
Speaker 1: you know, the people that we want to help us
Speaker 1: build we don't. We can't at this point, Like I
Speaker 1: don't even know if I'd be able to manage thousands
Speaker 1: of people as we're trying to build out these products,
Speaker 1: not right now, right UM and so just thinking about
Speaker 1: where black At is, it is a token gated community,
Speaker 1: but it's also a tech company, UM and so we're
Speaker 1: trying to be very pointed in how we are moving forward,
Speaker 1: not with our community members were not exclusive at all
Speaker 1: to like who we want to bring in, but more
Speaker 1: so like this is what we're trying to do, and
Speaker 1: so we have a we have a different mission right
Speaker 1: Like our mission is we're creating products. We are creating
Speaker 1: I r L experiences, and those experiences are ways that
Speaker 1: you can learn more about UM web three. But like
Speaker 1: the community is small for a reason because we wanted
Speaker 1: we want our members to feel close to each other. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that there's not products or not products
Speaker 1: projects in the works that will allow us to reach
Speaker 1: more people. That's definitely something that we are definitely keen
Speaker 1: on doing and on the roadmap UM. But right now,
Speaker 1: we're just trying to keep it small and create different
Speaker 1: entry point or not entry points, touch points where people
Speaker 1: can interact with us and interact with UM what we're teaching.
Speaker 1: So we have a Black Tech Week we Data three.
Speaker 1: We did three panels. One of the panels was wtf
Speaker 1: R n f T S and there are so many
Speaker 1: people that we partnered with Ledger for that, and there
Speaker 1: are so many people that came up to us. You
Speaker 1: people learned how to get their first wallet downloaded, their
Speaker 1: first n f T and then the first fifty people
Speaker 1: got a Ledger right and so UM. There are all
Speaker 1: of these different touch points that don't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: you have to be part of the community, UM, but
Speaker 1: we are helping to educate more and more people onto
Speaker 1: what web three is. And so one of the things
Speaker 1: I hear most often when people are creating communities is
Speaker 1: the value of that token. And one of the first
Speaker 1: things you hear is like meetups and other than meetups,
Speaker 1: what are some innovative value propositions a token holder might
Speaker 1: find interesting when they join a community like this. UM,
Speaker 1: I think, what value have I found outside of the meetups?
Speaker 1: Which to be honest, like you know, being a thousand
Speaker 1: percent honest, I'm kind of over it. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: over the meetups. I think that that is something that
Speaker 1: we will always do because it is ingrained in us.
Speaker 1: Will always be half digital half I r l UM.
Speaker 1: But I think there's a new frontier right UM. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is, and I've been racking
Speaker 1: my brain about around it because I think people are
Speaker 1: moving out of I think people are even moving out
Speaker 1: of just alpha chats. It's like I don't, I don't
Speaker 1: and I don't know what's next. Um. I can't even
Speaker 1: I can't even predict what's next. But it's something that
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about. UM. I don't think meetups are
Speaker 1: going away. I think the word to use maybe experiences.
Speaker 1: I don't think meetups are going away because we all
Speaker 1: still have to live in the world. Like we also
Speaker 1: have to actually live in a world in which we
Speaker 1: are interacting with people person to person. I also think
Speaker 1: that there's so much value that you get from interacting
Speaker 1: with someone in real life and that energy exchange. UM.
Speaker 1: And so you know when you when you think about when.
Speaker 1: So we just had our We've had all these different
Speaker 1: meetups and irrelevance, but we had our first local meet
Speaker 1: up last week. It was a completely different experience. And
Speaker 1: then when we got on the chat, we were closer,
Speaker 1: like it was a dip that that meeting people are
Speaker 1: folks in person translated into a better community online. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think what's going to happen is that outside
Speaker 1: of just us meeting up UM and talking to each
Speaker 1: other and saying like oh your x y like, instead
Speaker 1: of doing that stuff, I think that there will be
Speaker 1: a way for us to have shared experiences in which
Speaker 1: that will be the genesis of the conversation and not
Speaker 1: UM just like where do you live, how are you feeling?
Speaker 1: I love what you have to say, um, And then
Speaker 1: those will kind of be the through lines within the
Speaker 1: community to make the community closer. I don't think the
Speaker 1: community continues to grow at the rate that it does
Speaker 1: without those meetups, but I do think there's a next
Speaker 1: step to this. I just don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: One of the best definitions of a job description of
Speaker 1: a CEO I ever heard was set the direction and
Speaker 1: make sure we don't run out of money, right. And
Speaker 1: so I wonder how in a in a web three community,
Speaker 1: when you think about there's so much shared value, they're
Speaker 1: shared governance in so many ways because you know, tokenholas
Speaker 1: can vote and all these different things. How would you
Speaker 1: define the job of a Web three CEO. Oh, that
Speaker 1: is a good question. Um, you're still setting the vision
Speaker 1: in some cases. Right. There are cases in which it
Speaker 1: is a doubt, in which um, it's shared governance. It's not.
Speaker 1: You know, there's someone that's kind of leading the things
Speaker 1: and moving things in the right direction, but you know,
Speaker 1: the whole community is setting the direction. Uh. Then there
Speaker 1: are some cases in which, if you are not a doubt,
Speaker 1: it is still the role of the CEO to set
Speaker 1: the direction. I think the Web three CEO though, where
Speaker 1: and and I listen, I tell my folks this is
Speaker 1: that are the most important person to me. I don't
Speaker 1: care what you want, don't care what you want talking
Speaker 1: to the leaders on my team. I only care about
Speaker 1: the community members. I don't care. I don't care about
Speaker 1: anything else. Literally, I do not care about anything else.
Speaker 1: If they are not being heard, UM, taken care of, UM, nurtured,
Speaker 1: like all of the things, then we're not doing our
Speaker 1: job as leaders of this community. And so I think
Speaker 1: that the difference of a Web three CEO is that
Speaker 1: it is the you, which is similar to a web
Speaker 1: to CEO, except it's just like employees. But in this
Speaker 1: case it is our community members are the most important,
Speaker 1: and I have to open myself up to them as
Speaker 1: well as I have to open up myself up to
Speaker 1: the people that are on the team helping me build
Speaker 1: this life. Black Tech Green Money is and production to
Speaker 1: black of the Afro Tech When Black Effect podcast Network
Speaker 1: and Nightheart Media. Was produced by Morgan Dubon and me
Speaker 1: Will Lucas with the disital Productive supported by Love Beach
Speaker 1: and Rose McLucas. Special thank you to Michael Davis. If
Speaker 1: that's a serranto. Learn more about my guests and other
Speaker 1: tech instructors and innovators at afro tech dot com. The
Speaker 1: video version of this episode, we'll drop the Black Tech
Speaker 1: Green Money on YouTube, So tap in, enjoy your Black
Speaker 1: Tech Green Money, share it with somebody. Go get your money.
Speaker 1: Piece of love.