Audrey joined to share valuable insights on building composable dapps including monetizing with token-gating, discovering target markets via token-ownership and why wallets are the new email. Recorded on June 30 18, 2022 for Crypto Packaged Goods Genius Call series.
Audrey is CTO at Black@, a community is for Black founders, funders, creators, and community builders.
Follow Audrey at https://twitter.com/0xOddrey and read her blog at https://oxoddreyblog.herokuapp.com/
Follow Club CPG at https://twitter.com/CPGCLUB
To learn more about Crypto Packages Goods, visit https://www.cryptopackagedgoods.com/
Mikey Piro (MP)
Welcome, everybody. We are so excited to have all of you join today. We've got Audrey. We are going to go and cover a ton of stuff. But she is the CTO of blackhat, right?
Audrey Akwenye (AA)
Yes.
MP
I should have this prepared. I'm going to do that again. And also is the creator of Gated. So today we are going to explore building DApps. I'm going to tell a little quick story before we roll into it. So Audrey and I met for the first time through CPG and we started chatting and it was mostly around coordinating meeting up at south by Southwest. And this is part of what I love about this community and I think it was embodied in our NFT NYC event, but it was happening well before that. And that's why the folks that know when you meet a pop holder or a genesis holder, in real life, there's something special about everybody thinking the same way about really interesting things and being super supportive. And so we had this south by southwest chat in telegram. People were trying to coordinate moving zipping all over the place. And we all settled on breakfast on the Wednesday of the Tuesday of Southby and we were able to link up, six of us and just share what's going on. And since then, we've all asked for feedback. Elliot was there, who else was there? We had a bunch of other folks, but Audrey and I got to talk and we have since continued through Telegram, connecting, getting feedback, talking back and forth. And as she started to roll out Token, I was just so stoked to just watch it and have sort of like an insider's view of how she was thinking about it. Token is not the only thing she has built or is working on, but we're going to talk about all of that together. And I'm just so excited and thankful that she could join us today. And so, Audrey, I would love for you to just give us a quick what you're doing, what you're about. Let's start with your basic intro. Take it away.
AA
Okay. Hi, everybody. Yes, thank you. Mikey. Ever since we met in south by, you just been so awesome. I love communicating with you. We both bounce ideas off of each other and like you said, it doesn't body what the special sauce is when it comes to pop and CPG. So definitely really awesome to know you and to get to know you more. So I'm Audrey Taylor or Audrey Quinn. I'm originally from Mississippi in the south, but I lived twelve years abroad in Namibia in Southern Africa with my husband. I started my career as an educator and I did that for 15 years. I started a school, a private school in South Africa, which is still going strong. And then I started my tech journey about five years ago when I wanted to build an AI software that helps teachers plan more engaging lessons with students. So I went on this journey of trying to find like a CTO and someone that could help me build this platform that I wanted to build. And it was extremely difficult and challenging for me to find someone. So I thought, okay, let me just take like a year off and just throw myself into coding. And I quoted for 16 hours a day for a year straight learning data science and Python. And I just realized like, wow, I love it so much. I love coding, I love solving problems with code and I really like, found my calling and I haven't looked back since. So I started out as a data scientist, working mainly in Python and then eventually going to JavaScript. And then about a year ago is when I started building on the blockchain using Solidity. And then I've been a full Web Three DJ since like middle of last year. So that's the quick rundown of me.
MP
Wonderful. And there's so much to unpack there, I don't think we have enough time to go through it all. Just meeting you in person, you're so warm and thoughtful. I think we both bonded that were both parents and also Djens to a certain extent. I think I'm like a lot less dgen than most people, but it's inspiring to talk with you and understand how you think about these problems from this very rich tapestry of your background that you always bring both your authentic self to it and also these really amazing insights. But I think at the root of it is like, you always wanted to start with helping people and I think that's really a beautiful part of what Gated is. Gated was not like a lot more at its core then how can we help people keep track of all the stuff that's going on and make their life a little better? And that's what's so beautiful about it. So in terms of how do you want to start, I think you had wanted to talk a little bit about how Gated came across, so let's go there.
AA
Yeah. So just before I talk about Gated, one of the reasons why I really love or dove into Web Three is this idea of community. So before that I was like a solo founder with Antique and it's like challenging and you feel so alone sometimes. So then when I moved to where Three, I wanted that community and I kind of thought if I'm going to build anything, the next thing I'm building, I'm going to build it with people that are like minded, where I can enjoy and kind of build something as part of the community. So basically everything that I've built since going to Web Three has been around like a group of people that I really vibe with, that are really dope and that I can really enjoy building stuff with. So fast forward, I think it was maybe February of this year, Chris Cantino just like posted in the chat like, oh, I wish someone would be able to build something where our Pin messages get sent daily to our email. And I was like, wow, yes, that would be really helpful because I'm drowning. And all of this alpha that's coming down the pipeline and I can't keep track, so let me just try to build it. So I didn't like, hey Chrissy, I'm going to build it. I just went and started tinkering and exploring and just kind of doing it as a side project. And then probably like two or three weeks later, I finally got it to work after some nights and then I just kind of put in the chat to say, hey guys, you remember you wanted this email of Pin messages? I created like a first version of it, like, sign up and try it out. And everyone loved it. Everyone was like, wow, Token kidding newsletters. And this is awesome. And I think with CPG Club there's like 300 people and more than I was in, more than 60% of them actually signed up for the email. So they really enjoyed it and involved with it. So I thought, let me develop it more because obviously if it helps me with DPG Club, it will help other communities, token gated communities as well. So that was part one. And then second part is now I have this great idea about like, I want to build this Token gated newsletter. I think it's going to be really awesome. But then I made a promise to myself that I'm not going to build anything by myself anymore. Going back to itay, going back to being a solo founder. So then I was like, oh crap, okay, so I'm not going to build this by myself, so who can I build it with? So since I'm the CTO of Black Hat and I have these amazing co founders and Chandra and Harold, I was like, hey guys, I want to build this, but I don't want to build it alone. Can we build it together so that it can be like a stronger product? And that happened and it was awesome. So I build it. I'm bouncing ideas off of them. They're putting all of the marketing behind it and the finance behind it and all of that. So it's really been an amazing journey, like building this together with the blackout community.
MP
100%. Another shout out to Harold and Chandra. It's been fantastic to watch the team gel further, especially behind this project. And I think it's just really the thing that I want to highlight is like, this is the expectation about how Pop works. We have all these fantastic people. I have experienced that loneliness myself of being a founder. I have a team too, but I really look and reach into the Pop community to get feedback, hear things out. And I think what we want to do is to encourage that same type of dynamic of like meet people, understand the different specialties that they bring and the strengths they bring to the table and then bring it all together. Because if you try and hire somebody from a web two that is not interested in web three and also try and catch them up, it's a much different starting point than going to this group who are part time Djens, full time web three lovers to say like, this is what I'm thinking. And they get it and they go, oh great, what have you thought about X, Y and Z? Or oh, I saw this other project you might not have been aware of. Have you done that? That's where this Pop community really gets to shine. And we know this is like one of our first examples and one that we're all rooting for you. So let's talk a little bit more into the weeds about what is your experience with token gating and with Gated specifically.
AA
Yeah, I'll talk about Gated specifically, but I also wanted to talk about this idea about token gating because I think that there's a lot of services that are thinking about token gating content. I'm sure like in Pop there's a lot of people who are content creators and they're thinking about how can they token get their material or their content so that they can actually monetize it. For example. So I want to kind of weave both to say this is what we're doing at Gated. But then this is also kind of the overall change like benefit of token gating and how you can monetize just a brief overview of Gated. Gated is basically I would consider it like a membership type of system where you connect your wallet and you have access to this information for as long as you own the wallet. Right? Okay, I think I have a slide. Wait 1 second, let me go over here. Okay, so there's different types of token gaining and I just wanted to kind of break it down. So the first one is like the membership or subscription, which I feel is what type of token gating we're doing with Gated. This is where you verify your information, that information is stored and there's kind of like this background test going where like every periodically it's checking to make sure do you still own the token? If not you kind of get kicked out similar to Colette Land. So this is one form of token gating and this is what we use. We use AWS in twelve to 24 hours. It's checking to make sure to use the on the token. If not it's removing the community. If you sell, there's another type of token gating which is kind of like a pay wall where let's say you have a website, the person goes connect wallet, the wallet checks, you check to see if there's a token. If there is, then the information is revealed. So this one I think is like an easier mechanism to Token gate, especially if you're just like you want to maybe token get your website or something, then it connect the wallet. If the token is verified, then you get to see the content of there. Another interesting type of monetization is not like primary monetization, but it's like using Token gating as market segmentation. So let's say for example, I want to have a website or email that's targeting women. For example, maybe I'm a woman's health brand and then I say, okay, if you have a world of women, if you have XYZ, if you have a BFF, you get access to my content because I know that I'm really able to give content to a specific market based on the tokens that they own. So these are like three examples of how you can use Token gating to find your market, sell to your market, or monetize your content, if that makes sense.
MP
100%. I think it's really fascinating from my perspective that market segmentation becomes almost like the other intersectional community that you can build around it. Right. And I think there's a lot of ways to lead with that as a market. Like I'm going to go specifically Pinpoint or it's like we're actually doing a collab mash up and it generates this other synergies. This is fantastic.
AA
Yeah, the market segmentation is actually really interesting because it also goes into this idea of like this blockchain data, right? So when you have a company, you can only see the activity of your users on your company, like on your servers or on your database, but with the blockchain you can actually see a pop holder. Were they in NYC? Did they go to our base on the PO app or the poet that they might have? So you can actually weave this activity of your users not just on what they do with you, but what they do with their wallet. So there's a lot of data that people can get similar to like Netflix knowing what did you watch on prime video, for example.
MP
It's fascinating. It also raises up this we've talked about a couple of things and it's probably not for here, but it raises up like pseudonymity versus anonymity versus how you bring your personally identified information forward. There's lots of things that we're all still trying to sort out here, but I think it's a really great environment to kind of learn and start moving those things forward.
AA
Yeah. So like the next thing, one of the things is decentralized identity going back to what you said, because what I like about Gated is that when you sign up for your emails, you're not actually sharing your email with the community, so you're just sharing your wallet. And I believe this is where it's going to go. So one of the things I talked about is like having your wallet address via email. So like, let's say you sign up to buy something and you have to put in your email to verify yourself. But then now you're getting spam because you had to put in your email or they sell your email to an email list. But now if you just give your wallet and you're actually in charge of the content that comes to you then you don't have to unsubscribe from a list and hope that they remove your data or you don't have to worry about someone selling your mailing address. I think there was an instance for example when if you order through DoorDash and it gets delivered to your house then the next thing you know you're going to be getting like spam because they can actually sell your address that was delivered to. But let's say you are only giving your wallet as your decentralized identity and they don't actually have access to the address, your physical address. So these are kind of things that can happen where you have more control over what data you share with companies. So it benefits the individual user as well.
MP
Totally. And I don't know if anybody was a subscriber to the Nftnyc email list but they definitely were sending a lot of emails for your sign up. So I think this is to your point 100% a mindset that folks are going to have to get into. Like my e address is my name so it's like if it's in there it's mine and you can do a lot of information searching about that. But I have other wallets that let me be more, I have more wallets that let me be anonymous or have a pseudonym and so those are the things that I think people should start exploring. If you haven't considered it and this is a beautiful way to frame it, what do you think is the most pressing issue with getting people this type of information to then set themselves up in this way?
AA
Well, there's a lot of really interesting theory around decentralized identity or decentralized society but I think that saying like we're early is so true. It's like there's this kind of idea of what it could be but there's so many steps that have to happen in between of here to there. So this is why the builders, the people with the ideas we come in because we're able to say like I feel like everyone is able to get a little piece of it creativity, creative task that does a little section of this overall goal of this decentralized web three. So we all just have to pick a little place and build and create and be creative and innovative and then eventually we become closer to the goal. So there's a lot of things that are just in theory but there's not really the infrastructure or the SaaS products or whatever that actually will allow that to happen, like right now. But I think for example with Gated we're thinking through these ideas to say, like, okay, so with Gated, we're allowing you to connect your wallet into an email. What does that mean for the user? How can we allow the user to make potentially, instead of signing up for MailChimp where you have to give your email, maybe you're just putting in a wallet address and you're able to manage your subscriptions of whatever newsletters you have from there. And then so that's from the user side, but then from the content creator side, it's saying, okay, if you want to sell, let's say you do tutorials, and instead of you selling through you to me, you're actually selling NFT membership to your tutorials, and then you're able to monetize in a way that's direct to your users. But then there's also a secondary market. So maybe as your tutorial becomes more popular, people can actually resell something based on their initial investment. So there's so many different things that can happen when we're talking about allowing your content to be gated behind a token. So those are the things we want to start with newsletters, but that's definitely not like the last part or these automated newsletters. That's not the last part of what token will be.
MP
100%. So I just want to take a pause here for folks that are listening. We have a couple of ways where once Audrey is finished with her preso, we'll open it up for Q and A. So two ways. One is once we get to it, you can raise your hand and I can unmute you. And the other way is start dropping some comments in the chat. There's a lively chat going. Harold, I don't know if you saw it, asked for you to stop giving away the whole roadmap. Maybe not. He's just laughing there. But I think it's great to see folks participating in the chat. And let's keep rolling.
AA
The last thing I wanted to talk about, or I have a site for I don't have that many sizes, but it's just talking about Pop or CPG Club, because I do think that my journey into Web three has been, I wouldn't be where I am now without CPG Club and without now Pop, especially all of the wonderful people that supported me, they gave me advice inside. Chris, Cantino you, for example, mikey so I wanted to give tips to other builders because I know Pop is filled with builders, and I just wanted to kind of give some thoughts. So the first thing is, I moved from web Two to web Three, and what I realized is the best way to do that is web Three is really about trust and it's about your portfolio. It doesn't matter where you graduated from. It doesn't matter what your origin is. It just matters, like, are you capable of doing the job? So you have to kind of have your portfolio where you can say, I can do the job, which is really awesome because I don't come from like an Ivy League background. I don't even come from a traditional coding background. But if I can prove that I can do the job, then I can make my mark in, what, three. So I moved from personal projects like Gated as a side project to doing some kind of volunteer work, helping here or there to pay projects. So I think this works for me. So I would recommend anyone who wants to learn about Web Three, jump in just with a project start. Tinkering is the best way to learn. And I always think if you're part of a community like Pop, I always look for gaps and try to fill them. So if I'm in a community and there's like a problem and I think that I can solve it, then I try to solve it because I feel like if you make yourself useful, then it's like more opportunities to come to you as well. The next one is I always try to offer help before I always try to offer help before I ask for help. And the first thing that for me was to realize that even though I might be new in Web Three or might not have a lot of experience, you always have something that you can offer and something that you can help in a community like Pop. And then it's easier to ask for help when you've offered to help somebody. And the last thing is just about being in a token gated community like Pop or what, I realized I'm your social person. I'm actually socially awkward if you guys can't tell from this video. But what I realized is like, if I'm going to hold this token and not sell it, then I actually have to participate to actually get the value. If I'm not going to participate, then I might as well sell it because then what is the use of it? I'm not getting any utility from it. So holding the CPG and the Pop has pulled out of me to be more active in the community because that's really the only way that you can really get value from a community like the chat and all of the networking. So those are just kind of like my tips on how to build and create and really benefit from a community.
MP
This is brilliant. I love it. And 100% the last point of token gated communities only have value when you participate in them is the underlying thesis of what everybody should be thinking. I think as we get into Crypto Winter, you're really going to find that the more you participate in a project, the more value you're going to be able to create in it. I think these are great ideas. Thank you so much for sharing them.
AA
You're welcome. So that's all I have kind of organized, so if there's any questions and I'm all ears.
MP
I think we have a couple of questions. We have one hand raised and we have some questions queuing up. So I saw NATO was raising a hand. Let me allow them to ask their question. NATO, if you want to I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. If you want to ask the question, go for it. And then I'll queue up the next one.
GUEST
Hey there Audrey, could you hear me?
I accidentally pressed the button, but I figured I'd say hello and show my appreciation for all the work that you guys are doing. I think it's very interesting that creative route that you've taken, Audrey, especially coming from your background as an educator. I'm currently an educator. I'm actually a counselor at a university and I've just been slowly easing into the Web Three space and I've always been very interested in business and I don't know, just overall creativity. So this space has definitely been very fulfilling in that sense. So if I could ask, I actually run a mentorship program here on this university campus and just thinking about ways to create community and culture and maybe finding ways to maybe even use newsletters or some sort of token system. I'm very curious as to maybe some thoughts or ideas that you may have with incorporating something like this.