[00:00:00] Donny: The world is waking up to the power of crypto. And we are seeing this with new NFT and token launches every day, all using blockchain technologies. We’re also seeing huge marketing spends by crypto exchanges and platforms. And so this season we are speaking to the marketing leaders of those crypto companies hosted.

[00:00:19] I brave software in me, Dani, Devon. You’re listening to a new episode of the brave marketer podcast. And I think you’re going to really like this one because we feature J crew or has Shea stuff away, which is two Japanese last names with a hyphen. He just told me that. And he is the VP of marketing at Ava labs, a web three organization building avalanche and avalanche has been a big supporter of brave.

[00:00:44] So you’ve probably seen their ads. If you’re a brave listener. Prior to . He was the head of marketing at fluidity and air swap. And also as a strategist at Ogilvy where he co-founded its first blockchain marketing group. Jay is also the co-founder of block marketers, a [00:01:00] virtual and in-person community for marketing executives in the blockchain industry.

[00:01:04] He knows a lot of people that are doing blockchain and marketing, and we were having a great conversation about the different names that he knows and people we should have on the show. So stay tuned for that. And outside of Avalara, A photographer and a music producer. So lots of cool stuff in his background.

[00:01:21] You’re going to really love this episode because we discussed his brave marketing moment, which is how Avalon’s disrupted the event experience and the recent avalanche summit in Barcelona. And they had a lot of different risks that paid off and they had musical guests and celebrity athletes, and they talk a lot about that.

[00:01:37] And even the way that they set up the conference is really different in the fact that they started at noon, which is cool, not 8:00 AM, like at least some of the other conference. And then we also talk about avalanches marketing strategy and their funnel and how they get in different people at different levels of the marketing funnel.

[00:01:53] But before we get into today’s episode, we want to highlight our brave pick of the week. So every episode we choose a brand. Ad campaign [00:02:00] brief and our pick of the week is actually moon pay. And I know I’ve been over there and they’re great friends of brave and move. He launched in 2019 with a simple aim to increase cryptocurrency adoption in November, 2021, they closed a series, a funding round, which is, I think one of the biggest series, a rounds at 555 million.

[00:02:21] And that brought their valuation to $3.4 billion, the largest and highest valued series a for any bootstrap crypto company. So that there you go, indeed. And then moot pay, ran, sponsored images with brave to increase brand awareness and drive users to their website. And we love having them on the platform and with no further ado, here’s today’s episode of the brave marketer, Jay, welcome to the brave marketer podcast.

[00:02:52] How are you doing?

[00:02:54] GUEST: Doing really well. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Well,

[00:02:56] Donny: thanks for coming on. So you’ve had a long [00:03:00] history in the crypto world and you come from the agency side at Ogilvy. Can you share kind of how you got involved in blockchain technology and.

[00:03:11] GUEST: I got involved in crypto before my agency experience, I was already trading and using Bitcoin, I guess, using is probably more of a better way to describe it.

[00:03:21] And then eventually started to figure out a little bit of the trading, but at the end of the day, I’m not a trader. I’m not very good at it, either for what it’s worth. And so I kind of leave that to the pros. And as 20 14, 20 15 came along, metallic was starting to really evangelize Ethereum, someone who didn’t have a finance background.

[00:03:39] Bitcoin made somewhat of a sense, but it didn’t make complete sense to me just simply because I didn’t understand how traditional finance worked. And so instead, the applications that could be brought on Shane was something as a technologist. I was saying, okay, well, this actually makes a little bit more sense.

[00:03:55] And so as I went to Ogilvy, started to. Focus in on a little bit of my interest. And [00:04:00] I think that professional interest and also the personal ones kind of merged. And that’s where I kind of followed that, that trajectory where, where I started an agency at Ogilvy or consultancy rather, and really focused on crypto and blockchain brands at that time.

[00:04:13] Got it. And

[00:04:14] Donny: what was some of the type of work that you were doing on.

[00:04:16] GUEST: It was mostly, early stage work, I would say, mostly on the branding side, but also could be on the go-to market side, specifically with digital channels, social search display at the time. I think all these companies were saying, all right, well, let’s reach out to a full service shop like Ogilvy.

[00:04:32] And I think we were saying all right, well, yeah, that’s a good place to start, but also target your niche, target where your users are crypto in 20 15, 67. Wasn’t even close to being where it’s at now. And so to address a global market, it wasn’t quite right. So I think it was more just figuring out what the best strategy was for these projects and companies.

[00:04:53] Got it.

[00:04:53] then in like 2017, I basically got the edge and then also was thinking to myself, [00:05:00] I think being an operator is probably what I really want focusing on a brand, really seeing that through end to end. Also just being in the inside.

[00:05:09] I know agencies are technically on the inside. I attended. Being more so like one foot in one foot out. So I kind of want it to have both feet in, in the doors and, and led marketing at, at fluidity where we focused on two things, a decentralized exchange called air swap, and then, security tokens. That was kind of the era of security tokens.

[00:05:26] At least the first wave didn’t really go that far, I would say, but was, it was an incredible experience.

[00:05:31] Donny: That’s amazing.

[00:05:32] And so for our listeners who don’t know avid labs or avalanche, can you give an overview?

[00:05:38] GUEST: I have labs is a technology company that provides solutions for avalanche and also Maine currently maintains the avalanche blockchain.

[00:05:46] Avalanche is a smart contracts enabled platform where you could deploy decentralized applications. And the main value propositions is it’s super fast settles transactions under one second, and also is cost efficient, very low [00:06:00] cost where transaction fees are in the cents to a dollar at most. The fees are dynamic based on demand as well.

[00:06:05] Similar to.

[00:06:08] Donny: That’s interesting. So it’s similar to Ethereum. It sounds a little bit like Solano. How do you differentiate from both of those companies?

[00:06:16] GUEST: The differentiating factor is really the transaction funnel. The speed in relation to the number of nodes that are running the platform. The number of nodes for people that might not know really is important for distribution of the net.

[00:06:31] In centralized systems like AWS or digital ocean, basically that one entity runs all of the nodes effectively. But what you have in decentralized systems like Selana Ethereum, avalanche, you need people and institutions to basically run the node. And the more nodes you have, the more distributed the system is.

[00:06:47] So avalanche currently has 1300. Running and processing and validating transactions on the network. It’s a proof of stake network. So you’re just locking up funds kind of like a CD into the traditional world. And then you’re [00:07:00] earning earning rewards as you’re basically getting incentivized to process those transactions.

[00:07:05] So comparatively to eat now, which isn’t proof of work and Selana now, which is more optimized on the hardware. You can actually have much higher degrees of decentralization and security within avalanche because of the way it’s designed. So 1300, now we can really have as many nodes as, as the system can really handle, which is a pretty high amount.

[00:07:28] It’s actually, I guess, not really determined until it’s actually happening, but we are confident that the count can continuously go up quite aggressively

[00:07:37] Donny: or people launching.

[00:07:39] GUEST: Yeah. So because it’s a smart contract platform. As long as the application, the innovator who’s behind the application, the team behind the application is creating that use case, whether that’s game fi web three gaming.

[00:07:52] NFTs then the subsequent products can exist. So there are plenty of NFTE marketplaces and there’s NF [00:08:00] trade and Colau, those are kind of the biggest ones. I would say. It’s relatively early on the NFT space in relation to Ethereum, but I think we’re, we’re getting that going pretty nicely. And there’s also a new project called open that we’re pretty excited about, which is kind of like a.

[00:08:17] And FTE marketplace that allows artists to create membership passes for certain experiences, depending on what you want. And it’s all without the complexities of blockchain tech, meaning like you don’t have to fumble with kind of like the, the more advanced tools like Metta mask or some of the wallets that you’re used to.

[00:08:37] Donny: That makes a lot of sense. What’s the biggest use case of avalanche right now? Like why are people.

[00:08:43] GUEST: Defies by F by far the biggest sector. I think it’s probably because the early team, including myself, we all had pretty strong DFI backgrounds. And so we just lean into our strengths and then also just kind of chase also the market strengths too.

[00:08:59] Cause DFI is also [00:09:00] the most mature out of the rest of the categories and the main value proposition that I highlighted before, which is transaction finality. That doesn’t mean that much to most people. It almost doesn’t even mean that much. Either sometimes, but what it does mean for the end user is that the applications will run at high performance speeds and it just works.

[00:09:19] It’s kind of like if you have a webpage that loads, you would prefer one that loads under one second, then one that is 10 seconds long. Right. So similar idea. So it’s like brave versus Chrome. Yeah, exactly. Just this the speed. Exactly. And so I think speed is all. As long as it’s not compromised by security or anything, malicious or negative speed is always something that users will care about.

[00:09:41] And so I really think that that’s something that will carry avalanche forward and perhaps even other blockchains that are trying to optimize for speed. And that’s really what creates the excellent experience with defy. Because if you want to, especially if you’re moving into. Orders on a defy protocol.

[00:09:59] The [00:10:00] last thing you want to do is wait 30 minutes to an hour and have the transaction fell later. Or even if it gets stuck, like that’s also another issue that people have with other chains.

[00:10:08] Donny: Yeah. I think, speed and costs seem to be like the two things that keep people care most about, especially because of their frustration on Ethereum.

[00:10:16] Yes. Ethereum’s the biggest, and they’re the biggest NFTE marketplaces. A lot of people say, if you’re going to launch an NFT. You know, dude on Ethereum, that’s where all the people are, but the benefits of, you know, an avalanche or Selana are just so much greater in the, in the fact that, of the speed and then the cost to launch it is just so much less.

[00:10:34] You have to worry about all those high gas

[00:10:35] GUEST: fees. Yeah, exactly. And, and cost is exactly the other point too. It’s it’s like, I mean, even when Keith was really clogged, it basically was only consisted of. The whales are the people that have been in the ecosystem long enough to really stomach the 50 hundreds of dollars in U S dollar transaction fee costs.

[00:10:54] Yep.

[00:10:55] Donny: All right. So let’s get into your role. We were talking earlier before we started about your brave [00:11:00] marketing moment. Can you talk about that conference and how you flipped it on.

[00:11:05] GUEST: The brave moment. And it’s funny, like I was trying to think about this before and we waited and luckily the conference had happened and as you asked me, or just now is like, I think this is it is, is really the concept of taking a step back.

[00:11:18] Actually it’s about avalanche summit. This is the most recent event we’ve held. It was held in Barcelona, in. And the overall goal for our events strategy is really to flip events on its head because the bar for crypto events is extremely, extremely low. And maybe that’s a challenge for people that’s listening, but I do really think that that is low.

[00:11:39] And I think we can all do a better job with creating a better experience for everybody and not just like a hotel lobby and a, and, and some tables and chairs and things like that. And that’s kind of seemingly what it is so far. And so what we had to do as we have. To put together a summit from Janie. To March mid-March we also had to do it in [00:12:00] another country.

[00:12:00] And we also had to try and convince at the time 3000 people to come to the event from all over the world. And also then the last component is to create this experience again, that people really walk away from. And they’re like, wow, because if you have that, wow, this role, emotional experience, it doesn’t matter.

[00:12:19] Anything else that happened. Whether you have a keynote speaker or you had a surprise. That’s the key to people’s hearts and they’re going to come away and say, that was the best experience that I’ve had in this space. And that’s almost invaluable marketing for us. So just some quick touch points on how we really try to flip it on its head.

[00:12:37] We completely redesigned the booth experience. We built it from the ground up with a fabricator locally, instead of the table and chairs. We said, why don’t we create a table in the middle of virtual screen or. To create virtual content and then actually kind of like diner booths all around it so people can sit around.

[00:12:55] And so it’s more of like a dynamic feel and not just, seller versus buyer [00:13:00] interaction where you’re kind of standing across the table and we put it in a circular formation with all these different triangles, because that’s what the tables were shaped like. And you created this more fluid environment where instead of just walking in kind of like a maze formation, you could really take whatever path.

[00:13:14] And truly be a kid again, almost in and explore. That was kind of one example. Another example would be programming. This is kind of a silly one that CoinDesk and, and, and I think the other publications ran with, but we started the event at noon, which most events don’t do, but it’s just the most practical way to do it because people stay out late.

[00:13:35] No one wants to be at as a segment at 8:00 AM the speakers also get kind of get short in the stick cause of the ones that start early, don’t get as much exposure, et cetera. And I can’t think the last one holistically was really not just having a focus on programming and then happy hours. That’s kind of the model.

[00:13:52] It seems so far really trying to put in all these different types of activity to create a festival like. So [00:14:00] again, you’re exploring and you feel almost new to the experience. Some things we put out there, we put a Zen garden that was a whole build out. You had massages, you had meditation, you had smoothies, like really just a fun little area.

[00:14:13] You also had one massive dome, which is where the booths were, where we incorporated our sponsorship with formula E. So we had formula E similarly. We had the actual car in place. And then I think the last thing within that category is really trying to connect culture within crypto. Everyone in crypto, the last two years seem to be screaming culture on Twitter and on their talks.

[00:14:34] But I, I don’t think they tend to practice what they preach. They don’t say it often. So for us, we were like, well, let’s put our money where our mouth. And try and merge culture as much as possible with announcements with prominent cultural icons, like Grimes and a few other vocalists like Ava, max is another name that we had also then having musical performances on site.

[00:14:53] We had some of the best underground DJs come through to the venue to really bring forth what they have [00:15:00] to offer to the ecosystem and kind of create this social vibe. And, and one of the things that was amazing to hear was people were like, this is cool music, but I actually don’t know who they are, but it’s kind of a vibe.

[00:15:09] And that was kind of. It’s kind of hard to really quantify, but that’s really what we were looking for. And you can see on, on the, on Twitter, mostly the chatter, a lot of people are super excited to be there. I had a lot of positive feedback about the events.

[00:15:24] Donny: That’s great. And I kind of see some of your ads.

[00:15:26] They remind me like of like GoPro ads where they’re a little bit like, you know, surfing or whatever. Is, is that part of like the avalanche culture to be into like, you know, action sports. I think of like X games types of.

[00:15:40] GUEST: The approach is really trying to break into the top funnel, kind of the branded layer in creative ways and not just saying, Hey, this is a crypto coin, go buy it.

[00:15:50] The latter usually never works, especially in the sea of noise that we have to face with all these different brands, basically doing that, or a lot of them doing that. [00:16:00] And so with these new verticals, this is also where likely we’re taking risks. Formula E we ha we did a bunch of research and found.

[00:16:08] Crypto and tech people more or less highly index within motor sports. And because we’re environmentally friendly with proof of. Then we were saying, well, how do we flex that a little bit to bring it to the surface? And we thought, oh, well, there’s actually a leak that is run only by electricity and no gas.

[00:16:25] And that’s actually a better step forward than perhaps maybe like formula one, two or three, which is, used using fossil fuels to power their cars. And similarly with the X games, we actually have this avenue it’s program where we have Alex for he’s a skier Olympic skier. He’s a bronze medalist. He’s one of our first avenue.

[00:16:42] Basically an ambassador program where the one way direction towards him is how can we educate you on crypto and bring you more into this ecosystem that makes most sense to you. And then for the reverse is how can we then benefit from your experience, your spheres of influence [00:17:00] within something that likely crypto has almost no place in.

[00:17:03] and we can try and figure out what that relationship, what looks best when it comes to the activation.

[00:17:09] Donny: That’s great. how did you get the Olympic skier into crypto? Like what was his name?

[00:17:14] GUEST: We honestly, it just took a lot of conversations. We have a bunch of other ones with different athletes right now as well.

[00:17:19] I tend to find right now we’re in a really good moment in time where people are receptive to at least opening the doors to a conversation. So that’s really how we started to get into it. And then Alex, he’s, he’s a young guy. He’s also just at a point where he. Still trying to gun for the goal then, and he truly believes that he can do that.

[00:17:39] And so there’s a lot of the energy behind that. He’s very, accomplished, but also still has so much more to go. And so that kind of potential, it’s kind of like the avalanche story, the avalanche story, at least the last, the first year or almost even the second year or two of Postmate net launch avalanche was kind of the underdog.

[00:17:57] Like everyone’s saying great, you guys are doing fantastic [00:18:00] now. I tend to find it to be, yeah, we just hit over. We’re doing great relative to before, but we still have a lot more to go. And so I think those stories aligned quite well to

[00:18:10] Donny: that makes a lot of sense. So let’s get into, you know, some of the marketing tactics and strategies that you’re doing.

[00:18:16] We talked about the conference. What is your marketing plan look like? Or what type of tactics do you use today?

[00:18:24] GUEST: Right now we’re focused mainly on two priorities. One is user acquisition onto the platform in however way possible through apps, through tooling developers, any type of angle. And then the second one is winning the brand wars, which is the upper funnel activations that we were talking about.

[00:18:41] And so the last year and a half or so, it’s really just a bit about customer identification, who do we think are probably the reasonable targets to go after and then creating funnels after. And once you have those funnels, then activating on the channels that are most obvious, all the digital stuff, all the digital [00:19:00] community channels as well, and then start folding and paid.

[00:19:03] And as we’re starting to build out our toolkit, then we’re going to start experimenting more with other other platforms that may not be at the core. So some of the brand activations, like I mentioned, we also did more experiential activations on the events. Testing new channels as well. Like we’re testing almost every single channel, a social G major social channel.

[00:19:24] And we’ve, we have some sort of presence, maybe not a major one, but one where we’re trying to really figure out our footing. And so that’s really how we’re methodically kind of chiseling away at. And hopefully in a, in maybe six months to 12 months, we’ll be much more comfortable with going horizontal with those channels, as opposed to continuing to discover and experiment.

[00:19:44] I think there’s always going to be. percentage of experimentation, but I guess what I’m alluding to is maybe it might be a little bit smaller than right now where we’re just getting excited and trying everything.

[00:19:53] Donny: Yeah. Have all the social platforms, relax their rules on crypto or what’s what’s the sentiment.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] GUEST: They say they relax their rules. But I think the biggest issue is a lot of these social platforms have thousands, if not tens of thousands of people within a certain products or work streams. And so if the policy is mentioned, let’s say publicly on an FAQ portal or an advertising portal, it’s not always adopted organization wide, which is the.

[00:20:22] Point of friction that I think we’ve run into and I’m sure other marketers have run into. So that’s where it’s really this like kind of frustrating handholding situation where we need to have an account rep to basically say, Hey, we got banned again. I don’t know why we got banned. We didn’t break any rules, but we got banned because whoever was screening the ads at the very bottom, just didn’t have the complete visibility or the knowledge to on what they needed to do.

[00:20:45] And usually it’s gotten on banned because we haven’t done anything that breaks their kind of. Right. And

[00:20:50] then

[00:20:51] Donny: you can’t like, there’s no like, oh, this person banned you. So you can’t like go out and have a conversation with them. If it was just clean to like a board, you know, it’s like, [00:21:00] oh, that’s so frustrating.

[00:21:02] GUEST: Yeah.

[00:21:03] Donny: Where do you think like crypto advertising and marketing is going? Is it, is it more events like in summits, like you’ve been doing or is like, where’s the big opportunities for. You to get your name out, we’ll stick in two-folds to developers. And then who’s the other target market. If it’s not

[00:21:20] GUEST: developers, it’s kind of split into four verticals, actually.

[00:21:23] So developers and users are kind of the persona types, but then you also have defy as a pillar culture, which has NFTs gaming and another pillar, then institutions and enterprises, and then the kind of the last bucket. What we’re calling our core users, that’s where the devs and users fit in.

[00:21:40] Donny: Okay. So what’s the big opportunity to reach out like to those target markets, you know, tactically.

[00:21:48] GUEST: I think the biggest opportunity is really all across the funnel. I think at the bottom and middle is really about fine tuning. The strategies that you have, and really like testing and iterating, like the example I gave with [00:22:00] the, social platforms and, and those paid avenues. And so I think right now, especially like pick organic Twitter, for example, there’s still a huge issue with spam fake accounts.

[00:22:12] Fake followers engagement. But I think the industry as a whole is maturing where if you have an account with 500,000 followers and no engagement, there’s something fishy there. I think maybe during the ICR, or even before that, it wasn’t as clear across the board. I think people sometimes fell for that and that was a huge issue.

[00:22:32] And so I personally like to not take shortcuts, if it is detrimental to the brand, it makes no sense. Long-term. Because eventually you’re going to have to pick up the pieces for those mistakes, or you’re going to have some sort of issue that was related to those shortcuts that you took. And so I think it’s really just about continuing with conviction about kind of the traditional marketing strategies that we all know, and we’ve all been trained to follow, but also then being open a little bit for like the 10, [00:23:00] 5% of the remaining strategy to still take those risks, but in, in less than.

[00:23:05] Less of a Yolo way and in short cut away, but more so with, with conviction. And then I think on the top funnel, the opportunity is really about how do we bring this to the mainstream people for the last, I don’t know, even the last five years probably have said crypto is mainstream because of the ICO.

[00:23:21] Boom, because of the NFT BIM. I don’t think it’s mainstream at all. I think it’s visible to the mainstream, but that’s a clear distinction visible to mainstream, but the mainstream that doesn’t necessarily use it. We as a team, building a layer, one protocol at the very bottom of the base effectively, it’s really important for us to try and maximize our opportunities with that visibility.

[00:23:45] That’s where all of the branded activations that they come in and some might work, some might not.

[00:23:50] Donny: Do you need to market to the mainstream? Like I think of you as more of a B2B platform, like why would my mom need to know who you are?

[00:23:59] GUEST: Yeah, I [00:24:00] think it’s hybrid B2B B to C and. People don’t likely need to know about avalanche or its value propositions.

[00:24:07] They need to know about the applications on avalanche, but similar to the apps. It’s like, you know, iOS and Android. So I think it’s that type of visibility where it’s more just about funneling people into the ecosystem. And hopefully the app ecosystem is robust and useful enough where then the users end up staying and engaging.

[00:24:24] That’s kind of the very similar strategy to the mobile app stores. And also any of the other ecosystems with applications that has existed in. Right.

[00:24:32] Donny: I hear you, but they’re not going to go to like the avalanche store, right? Like they’d probably go to, let’s say a brave if we had a marketplace for all the different depths and then maybe there would be like, oh, here are the avalanche dApps.

[00:24:44] Or maybe we didn’t even need to say that here. Just the dApps that you could use more by category, like here are the NFT marketplaces. Here’s the gaming ones like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. I mean, I could see a world where they really don’t need to know who you are,

[00:24:58] GUEST: but maybe you disagree. [00:25:00] That’s a good point.

[00:25:01] And I think I totally agree with that statement. So yeah, you don’t probably need to know, like here’s an AMM on avalanche that, that branding, it doesn’t really do that much. And nor does the mainstream care probably, but I think the tricky part. Which complicates everything I think in our spaces are the tokens, the token, the Abbox token on avalanches, the native token, that token is used as the unit of account and also used for fees.

[00:25:25] And so you kind of need to know that where it’s it’s it’s like teaching people, a new system. Imagine if any time you used like Facebook or WhatsApp or Twitter on your iOS store, you almost had to pay a fee and you knew. I dunno, it was like apple money or something. It’s kind of the similar, like thing that doesn’t really exist, but almost exists.

[00:25:45] Right, right, right, right.

[00:25:46] Donny: That makes total sense. Or like, it’s almost like I’m in the game roadblocks there’s like know or something like that. Yeah, exactly. Do you need to know the nomination of the. When you were talking about like the, not [00:26:00] specifically the website, but like making sure that it has credibility.

[00:26:02] It made me think of a story of two jobs ago. I was in like edit TSP and we were taking ads and it was during the ICO craze of like early 2017. And there was this one company. Oh, we’re all legit. Like, look at our website. There was like YouTube videos of their founders and they were like LinkedIn’s of their founders.

[00:26:22] And it looked like, looked like really, really legit. So we started running ads for them and it was like net 30. And then we ran the ads. They ran their AC ICO. We went to collect them. And literally like the website was shut down. The LinkedIn was removed the videos of their founders, like totally gone. And so it’s actually hard.

[00:26:43] I mean, now it feels easier to know who’s legit because like, if you’re in like the. 20 tokens. You’re probably Git because people have done their research, but when you’re not, when you’re token number like 550 or whatever it is, you can create a really [00:27:00] robust marketing plan or what looks like it’s legit.

[00:27:03] But man, can you remove it in two seconds,

[00:27:06] GUEST: right? Oh, totally. I, I guess maybe the revision of the statement is it’s gotten easier to identify it, but do I think everyone’s on board with. Worldview. Definitely not. There’s just the internet complicates everything because there’s so much material true or false.

[00:27:24] It’s really unclear until you put in more effort to really understand. And even then you can still get fooled. And I I’ve, I’ve definitely like had issues on, on the web three side. I’m sure. Even web two sites. Can’t possibly remember just cause there’s still probably a fair amount, but I just always think it’s a time thing.

[00:27:42] So I think it’s about moving kind of like literacy and digital literacy and that needle a little bit forward. I don’t think we’ll ever be at a hundred percent. Maybe we will. I don’t know. Maybe that’s too pessimistic, but I think it’ll take some time. Yeah. If it takes

[00:27:56] Donny: some time, if this was a baseball game, [00:28:00] For a web

[00:28:00] GUEST: three.

[00:28:01] Yeah. We’re like, I think we’re like in like aiming two or three.

[00:28:06] Donny: Yeah. That’s what it feels like. That’s what it feels like. Like two years ago, people may have said two or three, but it was really like inning one, like it takes,

[00:28:17] GUEST: it was like the team was just like swinging their bat and like doing singing the national Anthem.

[00:28:22] That was like the ICO craze was the Anthem.

[00:28:26] Donny: What’s the hardest part of marketing avid labs or avalanche.

[00:28:30] GUEST: The hardest part probably is, is just the new risks that you have to take. I really like, and I think anyone that’s been in the space long enough has kind of been trained to take the risks in a, in a, in a positive way.

[00:28:44] So it’s not as, as I guess, risky or the risk isn’t as large as maybe when we, when you first started out and you were like, oh my God, how do I. Implement this traditional marketing strategy, but all of a sudden like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, they all ban my paid ads. So now what [00:29:00] now, what, and how can we circumvent that?

[00:29:02] Or how can we creatively still get paid ads on those platforms? And that’s really kind of the overarching sentiment. I think one also example from that is how are people behaving with these new channels? Telegram discord? I don’t know of single person who. Is in crypto marketing, myself included that says, yeah, telegram.

[00:29:24] I got that down, pat. It’s something that I know, like I know really well. And is, has that completely controlled? The reason why no one can say that is because it’s truly the wild west. It’s basically one single chat feed with potentially tens of thousands of people. And how do you really create community?

[00:29:41] Like community gets thrown around a lot too in our space. I also personally do it maybe unintentionally, but I think a real community is engagement and people that are able to give back. So it’s a two way street and not just one way. I think telegram has that two way street for smaller groups or discord has a two way street and in [00:30:00] smaller channels.

[00:30:00] But as, as like a main channels, it’s really just kind of like a troll box that you find in like gaming and streams. It seems a little bit chaotic.

[00:30:09] Donny: Yeah. Speaking of chaotic, you know, I feel like discord is so chaotic. Like I open up this and I’m just lost, at least in telegram, it feels more like signal it’s like, you know, one-to-one messages

[00:30:18] GUEST: are great just because it’s one channel.

[00:30:20] Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:22] Donny: This court

[00:30:22] GUEST: is, is too much for me. Yeah,

[00:30:25] Donny: exactly. And have you looked at the performance of brave? Are you fan of brave average?

[00:30:31] GUEST: Yeah, we, we actually are a huge fan and I think it’s to, to tie it into the risk-taking, it’s really a chance for us to get in front of a niche. Also flip the advertising model on its head before I was a, at fluidity, even I think I saw a brave, like 2016, I think Brendan had a, had like ICO, like promo video.

[00:30:53] And I remember thinking, all right, this is actually cool. Like the first underlying concept he described was how do you change incentive [00:31:00] models? And I was like, all right, well, it’s not just, re-skinning a front end or re-skinning a browser. And calling it a day, these guys, you guys are considered. At the very bottom level, how to flip it on set and also that may or may not work at the time, right?

[00:31:13] Like no one knew, but you just at least try it. And then as you tried, you go, all right, well, I remember the trajectory. It said, okay, well, brave is now going to block ads for you. And that was an amazing play because that’s what got me hooked on brave initially at that time. And I was like, well, I just need to block all these ads.

[00:31:30] Even though I’m a marketer, like it’s a little bit too spammy and I’ll turn it on just to do research, but I’ll turn it off. I’m trying to be a user. And I think that’s where it kind of continued. And then eventually, you know, I dunno when it got really it’s probably a few years ago, but then you guys started testing out the incentive model versus creators with YouTube.

[00:31:46] I remember that was like 20 17, 20 18. And then now it’s more about testing out with brands like ourselves and how can we get the most value? Yeah. The new system that you guys have created, does it work? Is it something that makes sense for the [00:32:00] end user? And I think we’ve found that to be positive in the right direction.

[00:32:03] And funny enough, we were also, I think maybe it was with air swap actually, but we were the first pilot tests for the brave ad units and we got like a free three months or something. I remember that that was like 28.

[00:32:15] Donny: Yeah, that was early on. It was maybe like two months before I even started in the role.

[00:32:19] And yeah. And we ever going is, is like, you know, we have these 55 million users, hopefully we’re, you know, a hundred million users by the end of the year that really understands and FTS web three blockchain crypto. And so you don’t have to like reteach them about like something like avalanche or avid labs, like.

[00:32:37] They should, if they’re not familiar with your brand, they should are understand the concept of it. Huge. And the nice thing is they’re like unreachable in other areas, like maybe you could hand them up on Twitter or telegram, but they may not be on Facebook. They’re cord cutters. So they’re not watching TV.

[00:32:53] They’re not seeing programmatic or display ads because they’re using brave. And you’re like you said, that. We blocked the ads. [00:33:00] So it’s really hard to reach this audience. And I think where we were studying kids to get into, it was like we have three ad products. Now there’s push notifications, they’re sponsored images.

[00:33:10] And we recently launched brave news and a month we’ll be launching search. So to be able to do like real SCM on the platform, and everybody knows like SCM is the best performing, you know, media tactic out there. So now you have like this full suite that you can get them from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel.

[00:33:26] So I think that. Really all, comes

[00:33:28] GUEST: together for us. Yeah, definitely. I’m excited for certain sounds cool. Any last

[00:33:33] Donny: words to the audience?

[00:33:35] GUEST: I mean, I guess whoever’s watching, like, if there’s any interest in connecting or just chatting about marketing, like my dams are open. I tend to find that the marketing Crip web three marketing circles is relatively small, especially those that have stuck it out for longer than a year.

[00:33:50] So it seems like it burns a fair amount of people, not just in marketing, but in, in the across all functions. Make sense too. I mean, it is a pretty exhausting industry to be in, but my [00:34:00] handles J Y K S 17, if you want to put in the show notes,

[00:34:03] Donny: Yeah, we will.

[00:34:04] Great. Well, Jay, thank you so much for coming onto the show was really a pleasure having you.

[00:34:09] This is our, actually our final episode of season four. And so, you’re like our finale. We’re actually talking about what we’re going to be our theme for season five right now, but hopefully you’ll come on at a later

[00:34:22] GUEST: episode. Let me say, thanks for.

[00:34:24] Donny Dvorin: Thanks again for listening to the brave marketer podcast, to stay up to date on all things brave, sign up to the brief ads inside a newsletter@brave.com forward slash add news.

[00:34:36] You’ll get tips for advertising on the cookie lists, world exclusive content industry. Best practices for consumer privacy and more. If you’d like to get started on your brave ads campaign or speak to someone from the team email ad sales@brave.com. That’s 80 sales air, brave.com. And finally musical credit goes to my older brother.

[00:34:56] Ari divorce provides inspiration [00:35:00] every single day until next time.