JB Carthy: 0:00

Welcome to Helios Horizons, episode 16. And today we're chatting to Hany Rizk of no BS Studio. Did I get that right?

Hany Rizk: 0:09

Absolutely right.

JB Carthy: 0:11

Beautiful, beautiful. So, hany, if you wouldn't mind, would you be able to just introduce yourself, maybe share a bit about your background and give people a bit of an understanding about who you are, what you come from, what you do and a bit of an understanding about who you are, what you come from, what you do, absolutely.

Hany Rizk: 0:30

So, first of all, thank you for the invitation tonight. I'm really happy to be here. It's always a pleasure, you know, having to do something with the Helios team. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, so my name is Hany. I'm based in Berlin.

Hany Rizk: 0:39

I'm the founder of no BS, which is a product design and experience studio with a very big focus on Web3, I would say we're a remote team of designers and researchers and strategists spread across different countries in Europe and the Middle East and some other countries. I would say. Let me see, this is a very broad question. So my background, my personal background, is in user experience and product strategies. I've been doing this in this particular space, mostly in the startup space, for the past 16 years. I've been in Berlin for the past 12 years and most of my time in Berlin has been spent in and around startups. I've worked at a couple of them in leadership positions in UX and product, and I founded a startup like almost 10 years ago, or actually 10 years ago, called so Much More that was acquired by Urban Sports Club, if you're familiar with that in Europe and I've done a couple of other gigs Down the line, I I realized you know what I really want to do, um, is bring my expertise and my knowledge in one the startup world and the reality of the startup world, to be very honest, like to be very precise, um and translating that to design.

Hany Rizk: 1:59

So what we end up doing, what I like to call us at no BS, is like the anti-agency agency, if that makes any sense and meaning. We do design the startup way. We care about validation, early and rapid validation, we care about prototyping and iteration and really, you know, figuring out what exactly the challenges that we're trying to solve. Does it really exist? Do enough people face that challenge to make it something worth tackling? And then, what is the best way to design a solution for that? And how do we move forward with certainty and with pragmatism without just investing a lot of time and money into something too uncertain? So I hope that puts things in a nutshell. I mean, I'm trying to keep it brief just to keep time for some other questions, but if you'd like me to go deeper in any of these points, just push for that at least.

JB Carthy: 2:50

Oh for sure, man, we're definitely going to dive into many of those things and I think like even chatting about like a fully remote team and then talking about how maybe you prioritize and maybe the tagline of the no agency agency and how you focus on lean building and fast iteration massive things to jump into there and discuss. But I know you were saying you were in Berlin for 12 years and I actually saw that. I saw you meeting up with Lucas the other day for the spot on your Twitter.

Hany Rizk: 3:17

Yes, sir.

JB Carthy: 3:18

So a little bit about your background, man. Where were you before Berlin? Or like, how did you even end up in Berlin?

Hany Rizk: 3:25

Long story. I first visited berlin um, what is that? 16 years ago I was 19 years old, young, carefree, no, but um, I was here for a whole summer doing an internship at one of those early startups in berlin. Um, and it was a definite um. You know, this is one of those experiences that leave a stamp on your life somehow. So I realized during those two months that, you know, this is one city that I absolutely love. I would like to move here at some point and eventually that just happened.

Hany Rizk: 3:58

Basically, if you've been to Berlin, you probably understand this charm that I'm talking about. It's a very cool, very progressive city, lots of fun things happening, lots of like culture and music and art and all sorts of stuff that I'm really into. And, at least back then, the general mantra, the general um, um I hate the word, but that's the best I could think of right now like, the general vibe of the city was just live in that live like you just do whatever and nobody cares what you're doing or you don't really care about what other people are doing. So it was really free in that sense, which was pretty nice to experience, and I just realized I want to move here. Um, we're slowly becoming, you know, startup hub and and um, you know what, what's? It's mostly been compared to, I would say, new York in the 70s, where it was mostly creatives moving over from all over the world, and that's what it's been. So I've been here ever since. It's a great city, I love it, great people. The weather sucks.

JB Carthy: 4:59

I can definitely associate with that man. I'm from Ireland. I'm based out here in Ireland.

Hany Rizk: 5:03

now at the moment, and weather is not the strong point of there you go, the weather sucks, especially for you know somebody coming from the mediterranean. I'm from lebanon originally, so I've been born and raised by the beach and then, uh, you know it's, it's, it's a great trade-off. I would say the weather sucks, service industry sucks, but other than that it it's such a great place to be. It's really balanced, it's really relaxed. For a capital city in Europe or even in the world, like if you compare this to London or to Paris, or like to other major cities, I don't think any of these cities can offer the same breathing space let's say that Berlin gets to offer, and the same kind of balance. If that's what you're seeking, that Berlin seems to offer. So, yeah, definitely a great place to be recommended. Plus, we have lucas here too.

JB Carthy: 5:49

So you know can't can't be that bad no for sure, or maybe it can, who knows? I only mess and only mess and love you, lucas. But I was actually just gonna say, like I know what you're talking about with Berlin and saying that it's a little bit of a culture mixing pot, intersection of a lot of different types of people living over there. I was actually over there a couple of times. I definitely feel what you're talking about. I actually went to the World Cup in 2006 and then you had the Euros on again, so that was obviously super exciting. Would you like football? Were you supporting anyone?

Hany Rizk: 6:26

I'm the kind of person who watches football I would say, every second summer, so I watch the Euro Cup and I watch the World Cup and that's about it. But I mean, I'm a German citizen so it goes without saying that I support Germany. But it was a very nice tournament this year, I would say, and I'm always for the underdog as well. So I think it was a very nice tournament this year, I would say, and I'm always for the underdog as well. So I think it was a very exciting tournament, some really good matchups, and it was a pretty nice, pretty fun month.

JB Carthy: 6:52

I would say Definitely, I'd say over there it was like a little bit of a carnival atmosphere and loads of different people coming and visiting and like getting into the different cities and seeing what everything's about. And what was the transition like moving from lebanon over to berlin initially?

Hany Rizk: 7:08

um, so I I was in sweden in between, so I moved there to finish my studies, um, and I think the transition there was much bigger, like you know, moving from lebanon, which is a very moderate climate, four seasons, and then, like I, literally moved in sometime in August of 2010,. You know, from like I don't know 30-something degree weather and sun and beach every day to welcome you're hitting winter next month the climate, the general climate, the general weather, the culture, all of that moving to a huge university town with around 200,000 students I think it was 200,000 students. So that was a big change. I had already been to Berlin before that.

Hany Rizk: 7:56

I found that even different from Berlin. I found Berlin way more easygoing than Uppsala, where I was in Sweden. So that was a big change. But to be fair, I was there for maybe one and a half years in total, and out of the one and a half years I was probably in Berlin like at least seven or eight times. So it's pretty clear that you know this is a stop, an academic stop, I would say. And then I just moved to Berlinain right after.

JB Carthy: 8:25

So here I am no 100 man and I actually was looking. I was looking at your linkedin obviously before we hopped on and I saw so maybe it's a nice time to segue into maybe your educational background and maybe and your history in the space and your history in a ux and product design and all these things. But I actually saw initially that you had an educational background in computer space and your history in UX and product design and all these things. But I actually saw initially that you had an educational background in computer science and then a master's in human-computer interaction.

JB Carthy: 8:52

So I'm interested to take us on the journey of how you went from this point to the point we are currently at, where we're in UX and design and building products in Web3.

Hany Rizk: 9:04

Yeah, I mean, like growing up I was always the sort of the computer guy in my circles, right, whether it's with family or friends. I love, you know, the whole tech space. All sorts of new updates coming out, all sorts of new, you know, whatever software and apps and products and hardware and stuff coming out. So I always knew I'm going to be doing something in that space. I went for computer science and it was sometime like halfway through my second semester of university that I realized, you know, as much as I love this space, as much as I love tech and computers and software and all of that, the programming part and the code debugging part wasn't exactly my strongest passion. I would say, um, I'm more. I've always been somebody who's more interested in talking to people. I'm more interested in, you know, making things simple. I would say that's that, that's the best way I would define that, not just design things to make look, make them look nice. I'm not a ui designer, I'm not a visual designer, but I really care about making things simple. I really care about making things or building things that people care about. So, um, you know, initially I was freaking out like I always thought it's what I'm gonna study and work in for the rest of my life. Now I realize I don't like it, but I like to give myself credit from time to time and say you know what I like? The space. I don't like this particular branch of it. I'm pretty sure I can do other things that match my passions, I would say, and that was back in 2007.

Hany Rizk: 10:34

I started looking into you know what can I do in tech that involves design and people, but isn't graphic design or GUI design as it was called back then, and I started learning more about something called user experience, which was brand new to me. But even back then, like the industry was so young, um, and I realized, you know, this domain is what I've been somehow doing informally this whole time, even with freelance projects back in the day, and this, okay, this is a very clear sign to me that this is something I could be pursuing. So I made that my focus during my undergrad studies, that which were mostly focused on, you know, group projects and group work that I was usually taking on the role of the person who's defining what it is that we're trying to build, the person who's talking to people, the person who's looking at design and usability, and all that. So after graduating computer science, I found a really nice HCI Human Computer Interaction program in Sweden at a very great university called Uppsala University, like one of those really old universities, very prestigious in that academic sense, and the program was mostly focused on, you know, as human-computer interaction is mostly focused on, I would say, psychology, cognitive psychology, usability, and you know that non-really visual design aspect of tech. So we do a lot of research, we do a lot of social science, what it means, you know, when it comes to privacy and social networks and ethics and social media and ethics and tech. So lots of like really broad but very multidisciplinary, let's say, topics within that one program.

Hany Rizk: 12:20

So it gave me a very well-rounded academic edge on UX. In that sense we didn't really do wireframes in college because that's one of the easiest things you can do if you understand the foundations of this discipline. So we did a lot of research. I remember one of my capstone projects was redesigning the display of the cockpit for the swedish army's fighter jets which they say back then they were telling us were only used for recon and not for, uh, warfare in that sense. But um, you know, we were talking to jet pilots for two or three months doing research on them, talking to them, understanding. You know their context when they're flying at mac one, mac two, mac three speeds in space and what it is that they have difficulty with, what it is that they're trying to achieve, to achieve and what it is that we can do to optimize. You know their whole experience while they're up there. So it was very well-rounded, I would say as a program and it was just a natural, you know, very logical progression into UX as a career.

JB Carthy: 13:29

I suppose there's probably no few times that like usability, like interface design are more important than when time is of the essence and you're like thousands of feet in the air and you have like a few seconds to make a decision and needing to know like where all the things are around you exactly.

Hany Rizk: 13:48

You have a few seconds to make a decision and you have like micro seconds to just glance at your display to understand what it is, what it is that you're in the middle of right now.

JB Carthy: 13:56

So, yeah, it was a very interesting approach, that's for sure and I'm sure, man, that, like those sorts of projects that you took on and I know earlier on you were saying, driven by, maybe, a desire to make things simpler, to reduce things to their most fundamental and purpose and to, like, really emphasize and bring that to the, bring that to the fore, but I'm sure, like all these experiences, and it's probably a nice time to transition into, like, because I know you touched on earlier talking about no BS studio. Obviously, in the name itself, no BS studio, um, talking probably implies simplicity and lean building, like, like you touched on earlier, fast iteration. So maybe, yeah, taking us through that journey of how you decided to start it up.

Hany Rizk: 14:40

Um, yeah, sure, so I. I, um, I had been in the like working full-time in this space for I don't know, maybe six, seven years when I decided to start an obs. I have done lots of working startups. I had my own startup. It worked at some others. I even worked at folks 5m for a year and a half. I just wanted to experience what the corporate life is like and and Very even also.

Hany Rizk: 15:05

Yeah, and like to be more specific. Like you know, when you're doing, let's say, let's keep it simple. Like, well, if you're working in UX at a startup, half of what's on your mind, or even more than that, is, hey, we barely have any money, we barely have any time, we barely have any users, but we're trying to build something to attract some users and try to make it grow with the limited resources that we have. So, you know, as fun as that is, I really just wanted to explore things from the other side of the spectrum, which is this massive, almost 100-year-old corporate. We've been producing cars for almost 100 years. We have endless money and we have our customers already and we just want to keep pushing stuff out there. So, like, what is it like to build products when your audience is already out there, right? So that was my main intention and we ended up working on some really cool stuff, like mostly future mobility solutions for VW cars and all that. But it was just at some point where I realized I'm the kind of person who likes to jump between different projects more often than usual, and I had had some experiences with typical old school design agencies, with consultancies, with the corporate world, even with startups. I mean, who are we kidding?

Hany Rizk: 16:24

There was this whole glamour around startups back in the 2010s, which is basically everybody just wanted to be a startup founder and CEO because that's just the cool thing to be. Everybody was just looking at Steve Jobs and being I want to be the next Steve Jobs, but there was very little focus back then. I would say, on what problem are are we solving? We just have the tech and we can build something with the tech. That's cool, but then you know, maybe you're just creating a little project, you're not creating a business. So, um, what I wanted to do with nobs is, um, act as a design and product team for companies, but work like we would as a dedicated team in a startup, right?

Hany Rizk: 17:06

So what we wanted to do is cut out all sorts of processes that we don't need to be doing. I don't want to be selling you packages of services when I know for a fact that what you need is one particular thing. Maybe all you need is to validate your business model. All you need is to validate your USP. I don't need to sell you branding. I don't need to sell you branding. I don't need to sell you market. You know landing pages and websites and all sorts of stuff to do that.

Hany Rizk: 17:31

And I'm more of the opinion of let's, you know, cut down on what you want and let's focus on what you need right now and what the business needs. Let's really understand where the challenge is, let's really understand what the best kind of solution to build would be and let's find the best way to scientifically push that product out right, like pragmatically, step by step, iteratively, all while validating in the background. So that is what I wanted to do and I think, like all of these together. You know, when you think of all of this together, it just makes the name really reasonable. When you think of no BS, it just speaks to you.

Hany Rizk: 18:06

When it comes to that and I'm that kind of person too I just like to cut to the chase and hit the nail on its head whenever possible. So, yeah, that's how we got to start no BS, and it's been six years. I can be very upfront and honest and say that I've been very true to those principles. Be very upfront and honest and say that I've been very true to those principles. I tend to lose out on lots of money every month and every year because teams, existing or new clients would come to me and ask for stuff and I would very honestly and straight up tell them you know you don't need that right now. Save your money. Let's focus on this particular thing and if we realize that what you initially came for is what is actually needed or also needed, then we'll tackle that when the time is right. So in most cases it's simplifying what they want to get done and offering them the most simple solution out there to just get them to results and to value right away.

JB Carthy: 18:56

And that probably makes a lot of sense in relation to what you said at the start, like a remote team of team of designers, researchers, strategists, so it probably just all leads into like really getting to the heart of the problem as quickly as possible.

Hany Rizk: 19:07

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. Plus, again, I'm from Lebanon, which is very famous for its tourism and its service sector. So to me, like I see this as a service business, I see this as nurturing relationships with the teams that I work with, and you know I can you can make a quick buck of upselling some random project to a company, but down the line you know people tend to meet multiple times in life is what I believe. So I try to keep things. I like to keep things honest and straight up and upfront and just have everybody happy and just everybody feeling comfortable and build some sort of trust. I think that's the most important thing that you can have in business is to build trust between between entities, right?

JB Carthy: 19:49

no, absolutely. It's just that integrity, that honesty and, just like, the common sense. Purpose, I think, is just and maybe people understanding and maybe trusting that, like each other, have their best interests at heart. I think it's something that's often lost in a lot of interactions, whether in business or outside of business, these days.

JB Carthy: 20:06

Like you know, and I suppose that's part of the core ethics of like, why cryptocurrency blockchain was essentially created was to solve the trust problem and between like and not having to rely on intermediaries or having to rely on, um, anything except code and numbers to like for finality, and it's very true if that makes sense that's very true um, for sure, man, and like, let's say, I actually looking through and like you talked about volkswagen, and another thing that actually kind of caught my eye was like I probably had a very different avenue, going from like a, a business that were heavily profit driven, to maybe being partnered with the United Nations, and I'm actually interested to hear a little bit about like a bit a bit about that and a bit about some of the like UX problems, that and some of the things that the United Nations might've been trying to like implement, if that makes sense.

Hany Rizk: 21:03

Right, that's. That's the pretty interesting um time period. I would say um, but maybe just to clarify, so I what we were doing with the un. So we were mostly working with the un in the middle east um, and this was back in 2020, if I'm not mistaken, or 2019 2020, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you your background man. So 2019, no it was 2019 20 not 2020. I'm sorry, it was 2020 or it was. It was covid, that's very true. We were all working from home and stuff to be fair, I have your.

JB Carthy: 21:36

I have your linkedin here as well don't trust anybody's linkedin you know it's 99% bullshit.

Hany Rizk: 21:43

No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, so what we were helping out with was, you know, this was the year of COVID and prior to that, you know, lebanon had gone through a massive financial crisis and financial collapse which is a great crypto use case, by the way, but we'll get to that later so the banks shut down. People were on the streets, the banks shut down. It was on the streets, the banks shut down. It was sort of an unofficial capital control. Nobody had access to their money anymore. So everything we warned about when it comes to financial freedom and crypto and why traditional banking sucks, that literally happened all within the span of a couple of months, and this was also COVID. So everything was changing. And this was also COVID, so everything was changing.

Hany Rizk: 22:26

So what we were doing was we set up a program for the United Nations that focused on sustainable innovation. So, over the course of one one and a half years, we were helping the UN basically work with local and regional corporates to help them nurture internal innovation, right With a focus on sustainability, of course. So this could be stuff that the companies could be producing internally for their own teams and employees, and stuff or which is, in most cases more like outward-facing products or services to hit the market. So some of them have to do with you know creating. You know some parallel support to firefighters or fire. You know the fire brigade know some parallel support to firefighters or fire, you know the fire brigade or something else had to do with what if we, as whatever corporate, can use our non-taxable money to spend it on fixing potholes, that people would just report on the street.

Hany Rizk: 23:18

So it was really like a time of very terrible you know social breakdown. In that sense, maybe social breakdown is too harsh. You know it's more like you know social breakdown. In that sense, maybe social breakdown is too harsh. And it's more like you know things. Things were just looking bad. The economy was down, um covid, lockdowns, protests, everything was going bad. So like, what is this? What is it that we can help?

JB Carthy: 23:37

maybe an institutional breakdown, more so like definitely an institutional breakdown.

Hany Rizk: 23:42

we can talk about a lot of that, um, but the focus was really on, you know, we need to start creating some new initiatives, some new innovation that can provide value to people right here and right now.

Hany Rizk: 23:54

And we're not talking about moonshots, we're talking about tangible, valuable services that we can produce. So we worked with the UN, we designed this program for them and then we ran it together, while working with, if I'm not mistaken, around 10 to 15 teams from corporates in the Middle East, mostly in the MENA region, mostly in the Levant region, which is Lebanon and surroundings and we just got them through. You know, we were talking about people who could be working in banks and TV stations, so you're not talking about our typical, you know tech bubble, right. So all of this stuff in many cases was very new to most of these people, but still, by the end of the program, they had all come out with validated concepts and validated products and services that they were using internally or externally, just to, you know, put some good back out there. So that was a great, that was definitely a great time and a great experience, I would say.

JB Carthy: 24:48

And what would be some of the like key examples of some of the kind of the those projects that would have emerged from that sort of program.

Hany Rizk: 24:56

Right, so this again. This was a while back and plus, I think some of this is under NDA, but like one that I mentioned was.

JB Carthy: 25:03

Yeah, the fake NDA.

Hany Rizk: 25:06

for sure man no no, that's fine, that's fine. Something that I could mention was for a fact that back then you could assume that government services were almost obsolete. Government was almost non-existent at that time because everything was up in the air. And so you have basic infrastructure problems that somebody needed to take care of, and the logical or the first thing that comes to mind would be to privatize and create private services to make up for what the government is lacking or not being able to offer at the moment. But when it comes to social stuff, privatization isn't always that great.

Hany Rizk: 25:42

So what we ended up doing was, yeah, let's privatize it, but keep it non-profit in that sense. So, um, if a company can pay off some of its expenses by saying, you know, I'm going to be producing asphalt, or like I'm going to be, uh, purchasing asphalt and then just using it to cover potholes, that citizens could just take a picture off on an app and upload it with a jail tag, we get it it, we go fix it. So we're sort of stepping in for the government and just keeping things running. So that was one example.

Hany Rizk: 26:13

Another one had to do with, you know, mental wellness within institutions. When your whole country is collapsing, when your economy is collapsing, when you no longer have access to your money, when you have this crazy pandemic going around you and people being clueless and not knowing what's happening next and being stuck at home and all of that. So, um, yeah, so it's like some of the projects were again, as I mentioned, like internal, within these companies, things to make their performance better, things to improve the morale and the quality of life and the balance of their employees and their staff, and some were more socially, you know, outwards facing, I would say and I suppose, like thanks for going into detail on that, and I suppose it's definitely a great segue into maybe chatting a little bit about blockchain, crypto, web 3.

JB Carthy: 26:55

You already touched on how it's such an it's such a great use case, like in the example that you were talking about, where, when banks are failing or when, like institutions and people aren't able to get their money because they're relying on a third party to hold their money, give it to them and then, like, there's certain terms and conditions, stipulations and that are put on top of it and eventually you realize what you thought was yours isn't actually yours, it's just being being held.

JB Carthy: 27:18

We actually have a tv show over here in ireland and like there's a called father ted and there's like a famous, a famous piece on it, like where someone put money he had money in his account but it was meant for someone else and the money went missing and then, like the famous tagline was the money was just resting in my account. But it's a little bit like that, you know, where no one really knows where the money is resting like or who truly owns it at any one moment. I suppose that's where, like crypto kind of comes in and solve some of these things and I'm sure some of those experiences that you had may have had an influence in you starting to explore this space a little bit deeper. So it's probably a nice, a nice place to start the journey. Or how did maybe you go from ux and some of these more traditional companies to maybe exploring web three and ultimately eventually being being ingrained in the kind of UX design in the web three space?

Hany Rizk: 28:13

Right, so, um, yeah, that's a very good transition. Kudos to that.

JB Carthy: 28:19

I've been planning that.

Hany Rizk: 28:23

Um, yeah, so I've been. I've been, like, really interested in crypto and like the philosophical, political, social promise of blockchain technology, right like beyond the hype. What is it that initially attracted all of us to the space? Um, there's always the appeal of making fast money, but if we go a little more, you know, profound. Let's say me personally, what really brought me into this space was this promise of, uh, financial freedom, in that sense, you really owning your assets, you owning your intellectual property, if you have to your digital property, um, the fact that everything could be transparent, um, you know how how much of a role that could have in fighting off corruption and fighting off all sorts of piracy and all sorts of shady shit that happens in different countries and different governments. And two, again, I still find it ridiculous how we still haven't had a proper alternative for the current banking system that we have in the world. And then it needs to go into the details. 'm sure everybody here is, you know, aware of everything there when it comes to that. But, um, to me, that was my main attraction is like, wow, that the promise, um, and the potential of this thing is huge. Um, this was back in. I would say, at least for me, this was 2015,. When I really started getting into it, I think around 2015, 16, I started buying my first crypto and I just was in the space, right Like I was in the space. And when I started no BS, I mean, actually, the last role I took on before no BS was an interim head of UX role at a crypto company here in Germany, was an interim head of UX role at a crypto company here in Germany, and then at Nobby. Yes, I took on some different projects in Web3 or in blockchain back then, or crypto, and it was around early 2021. Where I was, I had this idea in my mind that this is a space that basically brings together everything that I would want to be working in. One, it's something that I love, something that I'm really passionate about, something that I believe in. Two, I love working with startups but, to be very honest, usually one of the main challenges with working with startups is funds, which are very limited. In Web3, that wasn't really an issue. And three, and most importantly, was that the general state of design is terrible. So we had this at the moment. We realized we need to be focusing way more on Web3. We love that it's going to come to us more naturally. We believe in that space and it just makes a lot of sense to be focusing on design and product thinking within web3. Um, when we set up the first website or the first landing page for our web3 services, like the first tagline we could think of is that no bs, where three ux is bs. You know, like it's obviously bs, let's work on fixing that. Um, so that's really what got us there. I mean, I had been into web3 before we started working in the space. Then at some point I just realized like all the dots connect and we should be tripling down on our efforts within the Web3 space. And it's been great ever since.

JB Carthy: 31:35

No for sure, and I think, like we're definitely going to touch on, I think you're very well placed, obviously having maybe an interest in the space from such an early point in like 2014, 2015, through to having your role as the head of designer in the crypto payments company and back in 2018, so probably well placed to maybe chat about what you see as the like evolution or the changes that you've seen in the landscape over that time, if that makes sense yeah, I mean, I don't think we need to be talking about market trends, about, you know, crypto infrastructure.

JB Carthy: 32:13

Yeah, probably more, so like more about the markets more about the products and the usability.

JB Carthy: 32:20

So, like for example even like when I was in like, let's say, when I would have like bought my first crypto around like 2019, 2020, and the likes of metamask, from both a ux perspective and from a fundamental kind of technical perspective, was just fundamentally like lacking a lot of user friendliness. So it's like the very infrastructure itself was not cost efficient and and like was not fast, and then it's like the user interface to use this not cost efficient and slow. Infrastructure was very, very poor. So it's like very easy to see how like and I think it's a case of at different moments, people may have tried to onboard themselves onto crypto or on chain, but may have actually been scared away by the, the ux design, or the, the speeds or the transaction costs, and may have just not come back since, or have been scared away by different like kind of complexities.

JB Carthy: 33:17

And I think there's a lot of different like, I would say, great solutions being built these days to address some of these challenges from, obviously, on the fundamental technical level. You know you've got all the like the launch, the continuous launch, or like never-ending stream of like um, high speed, low cost, layer one blockchains that are launching, which are ultimately like the layer upon which the products can be built and then it's like you've got products that are being built with um far greater consideration to the user experience and obviously trying to less so, just like they're putting more consideration to the art, the usability and the customer journey. Institutional onboarding that's coming these days and like even if you look at like we were talking about payments and you talk about the likes of Circle getting into the space, paypal getting into the space I think it could. There could be a catalyst for, like ultimately, people coming back to crypto for the very thing it was initially and built for, which was payments more efficient payments you know.

JB Carthy: 34:29

I think we don't value it as much as we should, because obviously we're in an area, we're in areas where, like, the monetary situation is at least relatively stable compared to other places.

JB Carthy: 34:36

That's true, but it's like if you're in a place where your currency is hyperinflated and like there's nothing, you have no access to transferring value globally, you cannot interact with the global economy because your currency is worthless. But the financial, the only financial institution you have access to, a won't let you hold a different currency and b won't let you transact internationally. And then being able to go, I can just access a tokenized, a tokenized um, a tokenized euro or tokenized dollar, and there's, there's transparency and trust that it's backed one for one and with the asset itself and from circle or tether or whoever the providers are. And the ability that's in, the versatility and the freedom that's going to give people to start interacting in the global global economy from less advantageous regions, is just like it's. It's amazing to think about and I just don't think we it's it's talked about enough or appreciated enough, because it's the very essence of what everything was built for true, that's very true.

Hany Rizk: 35:38

Um, yeah, I don't know what to say.

JB Carthy: 35:40

I totally agree with everything that you said there, john um but let's say, for example yeah, so you obviously maybe came in and we're going like okay, you, how do you think yourself? As from a ux designer perspective, things are right now compared to when you first entered the space much better.

Hany Rizk: 36:00

obviously, I mean things have matured. Sorry about that. No, you're too much. They've definitely matured, but what I don't appreciate is people shitting on things just for the sake of shitting on things. I don't like complaining too much.

JB Carthy: 36:20

I agree man.

Hany Rizk: 36:22

Maybe a direct side effect of me having been in Germany for the past 12 years, but you can easily blame the space for being non-design driven, not user focused, not user centered, not really building things that people understand how to use, and that's a very justified stance. But if we were to tackle things a bit more rationally, a bit more pragmatically? To be fair, this industry is extremely young, as we all know, and this industry is extremely new. We're not talking about, hey, we've built tech and we've built these sort of you know whatever kind of features, and now we can apply this to health and we can apply this to finance, and this is something like all the paradigms, all the patterns, all the usages, the understanding of how you interact with this technology is much, much, much, significantly way different than how we've been, you know, dealing with let's call it, web 2 technologies so far. Um, and to give credit, or like to to, to, to keep things in context and perspective, let's not forget that. One again, the industry is extremely young, which means that it's still being built up from the ground up, which means that I mean, and two, it's a very tech, techie, techie, techie, techie, very advanced tech kind of industry. So, logically speaking, and what is to be expected, obviously, is that you mostly have engineers building this technology for other engineers to use it, and that's completely normal and that's completely fine in any sort of new technology cycle, right. So there's still things you can consider that R&D right, like when biologists work on some new technology or some new medication or some new vaccine or what have you. Like what the fuck are we expected to understand about in the first few days? Right, like it's mainly for them to understand, for them and by them. Right.

Hany Rizk: 38:17

And that's how tech has been in Web3 and blockchain, I would say, in my opinion and slowly but surely, you see things starting to get easier to use. You see things starting to look nicer, although 99% of our space today is made up of black websites with gradients on them, which is a little sad, but still, things are way nicer today than they were two years ago, way nicer than they were in 2018, and much nicer than they were in 2014, right. So I think we just need to give it time. I understand the frustration with why things look and function so terribly, and that's completely fair, but I also want to give that counterbalance, which is that it's so far been called a research project for engineers by engineers. So it's only bound to get more user-centered once that bottom layer technology is mostly built up.

Hany Rizk: 39:04

And now you're focusing on solving consumer problems, right? The best example I can always give is I cannot imagine that as casual users today in blockchain or in Web3, that these patterns and these paradigms that we are dealing with me having to think about connecting wallets am I on the right chain? Do I have to disconnect and use another wallet, or what do I need to do All of these thoughts that come into our mind when we're using this technology today in a perfect world, will be gone. The best example I can give is, let's say, I mean, we are on X right now and there's eight people with us in this room. I'm pretty sure if you're not an engineer who's interested in this, you probably wouldn't even know what sort of languages are used to build X, what sort of databases are used behind X. Same goes for Spotify. Same goes for all these technologies that you know mass, consumer or mass market kind of technologies that everybody uses In a perfect world.

Hany Rizk: 40:08

I don't really care about what chain this app that I'm using runs on. I don't really care about where my wallet is. If I want to be very fair, what I care about is I have this particular challenge that I'm trying to solve, and your solution is going to help me solve it, so let me get to my results as fast as possible, right, so, and your solution is going to help me solve it, so let me get to my results as fast as possible. So that's where I like to see things going, although things are getting much nicer and much better by the end of the day. For more people to be using this technology, it just has to be ubiquitous and just has to be as seamless and hidden as possible. Same could be said about databases 20, 30 years ago. Same could be said about all sorts of technologies, when they first come out, that offer a new interaction paradigm to people. So, yeah, definitely, things are getting better.

Hany Rizk: 40:57

I see that there's even more thought being put into design, into product, into user-centeredness, on many, many, many apps and many products and many services within the space, but we're still a far way to go, for a very simple reason, in my opinion, is that and I hope this actually no, I don't hope this doesn't bother anybody, I don't care we're yet to find use cases. The technology has a huge promise, but we're yet to find use cases that we would tend to use every day. And so when we realized that if you look at the market right now, you see that most of the funding, most of the development work, most of the business, most of the innovation is happening on an infrastructure level, which is something that maybe 90% of the market will never have to deal with, directly at least. So I feel like we're still like some people used to describe this as it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I wouldn't say so. I say the problem already exists.

Hany Rizk: 41:59

We talked about banking. You can talk about transparency in voting systems. You can talk about transparency and what have you? Supply chains and all of that, but what is it that we're really trying to build that people really see the value of this technology behind? Because in many use cases, we can still be using relational databases. The promise is there, the value is there, but is it enough for people to make the switch, for all industries to make the switch?

JB Carthy: 42:27

I still don't think I think, personally I agree entirely with you and, like the little bit of experience and longer I spend and gradually begin to see more and more things in the space, it just the things you're saying just make complete and utter sense in terms.

JB Carthy: 42:41

I think we're reaching kind of this tipping point where at least the underlying infrastructure is now good enough to start building significant use cases on.

JB Carthy: 42:54

I think that's kind of come a certain distance and now it's like okay, now the infrastructure is good enough, we can build things on top of this and we can rely on it to be fast, to be cost efficient and to be usable, to be reliable, all these things. But I think the payments, the payments piece, um is the first piece and then the second piece is the smart contracts right, I think it's just they're the two pieces that I think have the most um ability to transform or at least start integrating themselves into um maybe more traditional um sectors, traditional institutions, and the ability for, like, if we think of payments, the thing we just touched on earlier, like it's actually revelationary to be able to permission the city, hold and send money anywhere in the world for fractions of a cent, like I just don't think, like my girlfriend's actually in africa at the moment and she's not she's not mad into crypto, like you know. She just kind of knows about it because I, I like talk about it all the time, as you're, as you're probably becoming aware of what it's like, and she was like, oh, it would make like they could really. She actually just said to me the other day on the phone and she was like oh, like they could really use it over here. Do you think it would be useful?

Hany Rizk: 44:12

and I'm like yes which is, to be honest, which is also why you see a huge adoption of crypto coming out of africa, and I see that and I'm keeping things very simple when it comes to design whenever I have a job posting, I have so many applications and so many letters of interest from candidates from Nigeria and from other African countries who are Web3 native, and this is a younger generation, and I think that speaks a lot, right. When you're really tackling those use cases, there's this one statistic that I gave in a talk I was giving at a conference last year, where I told them that you know, payments under the value of 20 cents aren't exactly profitable for banks, right, but at the same time, you have around 2.2 billion people today that live on less than a dollar a day. So how do we bank, how do we bank those 2.2 billion people? And that alone is a very valuable use case for crypto, right? I mean, that's what crypto is all about.

JB Carthy: 45:13

And not only then bank them, but how do we give them access to the global economy, to? Be able to increase their earning power outside of the direct region within which they are placed by their choice or otherwise that's very true.

Hany Rizk: 45:29

I can give another example about you know, after the banks collapsed in lebanon, people started resorting to crypto, like those who had some knowledge of crypto.

Hany Rizk: 45:37

Um, if you can use your credit card anymore, if your funds are all locked, there was a new class of people that came out which I'm not really a big fan of, is quite utilitarian, but, um, people who are crypto native were basically taking people's money, taking your cash, let's say, the local currency or us dollars, and then setting up a wallet for you and just giving you their equivalent in usdt, right, so people were sort of, in a way, funneling their money out of the system into crypto because they knew okay, this is one of the few ways where we can actually have money that we can take with us anywhere in case we need to leave. That's a value, big use case. If you think about the last couple of years, or like two years ago at least, when there was this huge boom in web3 gaming in southeast asia with axi, infinity and all these other games, where you have people in villages just playing their video games and making thousands of dollars a month, which was otherwise that was wild man like I.

JB Carthy: 46:28

I listened to some interviews with people and it's like there was actually infinity farms like going on yep, and I think that speaks.

Hany Rizk: 46:35

That speaks volumes, right, when you realize who is this benefiting, right, and who is this helping out the most. And like, what does this say to about, about, you know, the usp? What does it say about the potential of the technology and what sort of value it could bring? So, yeah, that's a long story. Long, I would say.

JB Carthy: 46:54

No, definitely, and I like 100%, and I still don't think people have grasped, like Bitcoin's true value proposition as in simply it's too much, still too much focus on what will the price of Bitcoin be, when in reality it's too much. Still too much focus on what will the price of bitcoin be when in reality, it's simply the fact that bitcoin exists and it is like it's just so decentralized, so robust to like control and manipulation, because it's just it's so, it's proliferated, like most corners of the globe now, at this stage, there's nodes running probably in every, almost every single country in the world, or most regions in the world. It's you.

JB Carthy: 47:26

You cannot shut it down unless you shut down the internet and pretty much, and it's like simply the fact it of it existing holds governments accountable because now there is an alternative, kind of neutral, overarching currency or store of value that people can very easily flee to, to like preserve their value when there is like fiscal mismanagement in a particular country or region, and simply the fact of it existing is the purpose of it or not the complete purpose, but it is a it.

JB Carthy: 47:59

It has a massive value to like the world and to like, let's say, holding governments and like people who control money and money supply and money policies accountable to manage them better, because otherwise people can vote with their capital and leave the systems. But I do think there's probably there's probably going to be a problem. Like you know, we talk about all these things of adoption and ultimately, probably some of the things holding back adoption is like trusted inverted commas institutions illegitimizing crypto and blockchain because it does not suit their narrative or is not favorable for them for people to actually know how powerful it could be like until such time. And it speaks volumes that, at the same time, they're researching how to integrate and implement things like cbdc's and whilst, like off the other side of the mouth, talking about how it's and how it blockchain is unsafe and how crypto is unsafe, if that makes sense absolutely and I think it's, it'll get to a point, you know where, like we talk.

JB Carthy: 49:02

Smart contracts is the other one, and I just think they I'm not sure at what point they'll start to come into play or when like more institutions and more sort of like sectors will begin to integrate them more, but like the amount of like, I would say intermediaries that, like big businesses and big corporations require to like, make sure that like, logistically, legally, things are operating in a certain way and it's just smart contracts make so much sense because they won't have to pay teams, corporations of lawyers, of like accountants, like money to just sift through the data because the like transactions won't execute unless they are meeting certain conditions and it's simply by that fact everything will be legal, legal, everything will be transparent.

JB Carthy: 49:46

So it'll just reduce the need for like, like, providing like, um, like, like I'm looking for the word but looking back on things and making sure they are above board. Instead, nothing will happen. That is not above board because smart contracts will be integrated into the layer of everything that happens in in an institution, if that makes sense, absolutely, it absolutely does. It's what? So I won't. I'm aware, man, that you have to. You're kind of pressed for time, but like, let's say, as the last question before, and no worries, I'm just to, just to clear the air.

Hany Rizk: 50:24

I I was pressed for time yesterday and for some reason I thought the space was yesterday. So I'm quite flexible. But you know, no pressure, I know you do. You, man, I'm here, I'm happy to talk.

JB Carthy: 50:34

No, I appreciate it, man, thank you, and I'm like, yeah, I'm actually interested here. Like we chatted about some of these, some of these issues, and then we were saying, like what do you see maybe as yourself, as kind of the a couple of the key things that this space could do to improve the overall user experience and bring more people to use what is being built on chain, aside from just building better things on chain?

Hany Rizk: 51:02

Cool, that's a great question. I think I'll talk about two different things, but I'll just merge them into one answer. One is about bringing in more people and two is about how to improve the UX. In Berlin, which is like mostly dev and engineer hobby, like some really big, really big names, really great people working there, and they're mostly like very senior engineers. And I was just talking about very simple product thinking and about very simple, you know, user-centered design and tech, about tech as a tool to facilitate building solutions for problems that we identify.

Hany Rizk: 51:46

Right, just like to me, design isn't about making things pretty. It's not even to me, that's the objective explanation. Design isn't defined as something that makes something pretty, but rather is solving problems or solving challenges, and I was, to be honest, extremely surprised to realize afterwards that some of these very famous engineers were hearing for doing is like running around in circles or like just sort of this with it. So let's build something out of it and then we see how to get people to use whatever we built, which is very opposite or very anti-logic in my mind. I'm more of the very traditional school of hey, let's identify a challenge, let's find people who have particular challenges, or let's talk to people, see what kind of challenges they have, let's see if that's a sizable business market and let's build a solution for that.

Hany Rizk: 53:13

And that alone was such a huge insight for many of these very smart people that I realized, like this is one of the main issues in this space is that we're still within this mindset of look at all these things that we could be building. Let's just build stuff and see what sticks. We're not building, or I don't want to generalize, obviously, but we need to be focusing more on building solutions to real problems, and we have discussed, you and I, some of these problems so far. Some of these could be banking, some of them could be transparency and corruption and what have you. But even when it comes to assets assets, even when it comes to digital art, when it comes to fractionalization of shares of real life token or, excuse me, like real life assets, when it comes to, uh, uh, supply chains and all of that stuff, like, let's look at problems that blockchain, as a technology, is very unique and very capable of solving and let's go for that. That, to my, in my mind, is like the first place.

Hany Rizk: 54:10

I would start from right otherwise what's the point in building stuff if we're not, if we're not providing any value with it? Um, two is, you know, again, when it comes to design, designing the solutions for challenges that people want, on the one hand, but two, trying to make it again, it depends on who your audience is. Maybe let me take a quick step back here is that we get a lot of flack in the web space about how it's so techie and how it's not easy for your casual user. But, to be fair, if you're building a solution or if you're trying to solve a particular challenge that very technical people suffer from, if techies and engineers and devs and degens are your target users, then you don't need to build the solution that your grandma could use or an app that your grandma could use, right? It's really about understanding who you're building for. So that's another point. But otherwise, if you're trying to build something for a broader audience, it's going to take some time until people learn to use new patterns and people learn to use new types of interaction, right? Or new models of interaction. So why not try to, you know, build a technology that obviously is unique and what it is trying to solve, but at the same time, make it easy and familiar for people to use, right, like you don't need.

Hany Rizk: 55:35

I remember the first time I was buying, the first time I was buying crypto, I hit the buy button and then nothing happens. I just get this same page with no change whatsoever. I'm like what the fuck is going on? So I hit refresh a few whatsoever. I'm like what the fuck is going on. So I hit refresh a few times. I'm like, okay, there's something happening. Like where's my crypto? Did I just get scammed? Then I realized this is also happening in the background. But not in one place on the website was I given a message that says, hey, we're transacting, we're processing your transaction in the background. This might take, I don't know, let's say, half a minute to a minute and soon enough. We'll give you an alert once we know if this comes through or not.

Hany Rizk: 56:16

And, funny as it is, I believe that a lot of the challenges in Crypto UX or in Web3 UX today and also this is one of the things that sort of get me these smaller scopes of work and projects is that you can solve many things in very simple and elegant solutions, and the main thing is wording and communication, if you know how to communicate in a simple and clear and timely manner to your users, you're solving a big part of the misunderstanding that people have when it comes to using Web3 products.

Hany Rizk: 56:50

If you know how to send the right status message or the right error message or the right success message at the right time, you're already solving a huge chunk out of it, funny or not. We're not talking about redesigning patterns. We're not talking about visual design and doing more user research. We're just talking about sharing the message that people need to see right now to understand what's happening when it comes to the status of the system, when it comes to the status of their transaction, when it comes to whether they were or were not successful in finishing their task. Just communicate that the right way in the right place so that you make sure that they see it and they understand it and they know what's happening in the background.

JB Carthy: 57:27

Here or not.

Hany Rizk: 57:28

We can go much, much more deeper and much more technical on on things that could be done to solve, to solve problems and stuff I think, man, like, I'm actually going to invite.

JB Carthy: 57:38

What we always do on all the spaces invite. If anyone wants to request to speak, they can come up and ask um hanny a question, but on that, while while we're waiting to see if anyone wants to come up and ask um honey a question amazing. But on that, while while we're waiting to see if anyone wants to come up and maybe ask a question or um say a few words, um, on some of the things we were chatting about today, um, I, we, I, 100 could chat for a really long time and about all of these things, because it's just, it becomes more and more apparent to me and it's like, but I do think, like, let's say, what you said about solving real problems with blockchain, with crypto, with Web3, is the key thing to unlocking adoption and growth, because it's just a case of right now people are misunderstanding that the price is not the technology and it's just it is not. It can be used as a speculative asset, but it is not meant for speculation. It's like the technology is not the price of a lot of, I would say, just the mistrust about, like a misrepresentation of what blockchain is and what cryptocurrency problems cryptocurrency and tokenization could solve, and as opposed to simply viewing it as something to want the price to go up on so you can sell it for a higher price at a future, at a future moment, and I think that's. That's a massive piece and it's like it's.

JB Carthy: 59:14

It's kind of led to a lot of like the mistrust and people not wanting to engage with it because they just are so afraid that, like they are going to, it's like they're afraid of being scammed.

JB Carthy: 59:23

I'm going to buy this thing and it's going to be worth less than I paid for it today, without realizing that it's like you're just paying for an asset that you're holding. And I suppose there's probably just it's multifaceted like a lack of education and a lack of, I would say like like where people consume their information, for, like lack of accurate information, and then maybe the sources people usually um consume their information from, or the most of the people would consume their information from, kind of reinforcing that sense of skepticism and like then reinforcing that unwillingness to try and see what the technology has to offer. But I do think solving those real world use cases, starting with things like payments, like you were touching on, like tokenization of real and like fractionalization of real world assets. We didn't even get to touch on man and your when you were designing for the metaverse and designing and framing in the metaverse, but we'll probably.

JB Carthy: 1:00:20

We'll probably have to come on another time and discuss that man, because I have no worries. Yeah, I'd like to hear a little bit more about it. I'll be happy to anytime for sure, man um, but it was genuinely a very interesting episode, was fantastic to speak to you. Thank you so much for coming on and really appreciate it. And maybe just a little bit about what is going on with no bs studio or yourself. Is there anything anyone listening should be looking out for or keeping an eye on from you?

Hany Rizk: 1:00:48

guys. Yeah, business as usual for us. I mean, it's a very exciting and interesting time in general, within tech, let alone, you know, crypto and everything happening there. I love the fact that you know when things are quiet, when things are bearish. I think it's a great time to be building. That's not my own wisdom, that's very common wisdom, but I do believe in that. So that, on the one hand, is really interesting and, two, everything we're witnessing in AI right now is absolutely great. So another thing that I'm busy with at the moment is basically integrating AI into all of the services that we offer at no BS, for the purpose of accelerating processes and being able to deliver valuable results faster and cheaper. I wanted to write something on LinkedIn about this. I still need to sit down and find the right wording.

JB Carthy: 1:01:47

Maybe AI will help you describe why AI is important. No, no, no, no, I'm creative enough. I'm creative enough.

Hany Rizk: 1:01:54

No, I mean, but I also. I mean, obviously you use AI for just creating stuff to help you get started. So that's what we're doing, whether it's about creating the right questions to be asking in a workshop or creating, let's say, 10 or 20 different initial designs of something to start with, it's just a great stepping stone. So the point I was trying to make is that there's this thing in design, when it comes to micromanagement, which was very common in design, that the senior designer or the lead designer would go to the junior and be like make this button bigger, and how about you move it two pixels to the left and change the shade of red? Go to the junior and be like make this button bigger, and how about you move it two pixels to the left and change the shade of red to something darker, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. So this sort of micromanagement no creative could ever handle, and I feel like there's something like some sort of silver lining there is that with generative AI, you could say, or like using generative AI in your design process is like hiring a junior designer who is extremely creative, extremely fast and productive and could just churn out tens of ideas in a second and, you know, have no guilty conscience when it comes to micromanaging them, right. So I think there's a lot of value there.

Hany Rizk: 1:03:03

I think the way we've been using AI in our projects have sped up delivery, have sped up ideation. In a way, it shortens the amount of time spent on execution and gives us more time to spend on strategy and on validation. So I'm putting a lot of time and effort into that and I see that there's a huge concern about AI and design. It's there. We can either hide behind our fingers and try to fight it off or realize like there's so much value to be had from this. So let's leverage that. You know it's not going to make us less creative. It's not going to make come up with perfect designs and great designs. You're still going to need to go through and tweak and stuff.

JB Carthy: 1:03:51

I just feel like you, you know, being more strategic and being more of a creative director, is going to be a bigger and bigger role to come in the future, and that's what we're shooting for at no bs. And I think, like, let's say, I I agree with you. If people are not using ai, if, like companies, individuals are not leveraging ai at some point of the process, they're going to be left behind by people that are that are leveraging it, like you know. They're going to be left behind by people that are using it that are, oh, sorry, um, he is, haney is gone and haney has left the building and but yeah, like I think, oh, he's back, he's back. Invite to speak. We got, we all, I think we almost got rugged man no, no, no, no we got unrugged.

JB Carthy: 1:04:31

I was actually. I was just saying like I think if people don't use ai, find a way to integrate it, find a way to leverage what I can offer.

JB Carthy: 1:04:37

They're going to undoubtedly be left behind by people who embrace it by people who find out and explore the power that it can bring. That's right and for sure. But I think, man, that's a, that's a great note to leave it on and let I've won. I've one last question for you and if it's a little bit too long to answer it, like we can leave it. But on your experience, when you, um, were designing for the metaverse and designing the nft framing for the metaverse with the tram, and let's say that, like at the time when the metaverse was becoming a big like it was, there was a lot of hype. It was like this is the next big thing. We were like looking at literally the biggest company in the world, integrating it and actually I would say, arguably renaming, or like redesigning their brand around, a little bit as in facebook, changing into meta like definitely there.

JB Carthy: 1:05:26

There has to have been some metaverse influence in that. What do you think has meant that it has died off a little bit, and do you see that sort of meta inverted commas coming back around again in the future?

Hany Rizk: 1:05:38

like I think it was too much hype, that was too premature, to be honest. I mean, I was building something in that space and you know, you're like. You're like that is too far out of a vision. It would be great, it would be very nice, but that's too far out and got overhyped and, just like with anything, it could be really easily, you know, taking advantage of just for quick monetary gains, right, um, what we were trying to do, and maybe another thing before I get into what we were trying to do, and maybe another thing before I get into what we were trying to do. But is that like at a conference I was speaking at to designers, a crowd of designers who are, in most cases, non, you know, web3 native? I just tell them, you know I start my first slide was a compilation of headlines about all sorts of scams and frauds and rugs and sort of projects failing within the space.

Hany Rizk: 1:06:29

This is the common sentiment that we all see and know, the first thing that comes to mind. But what I want from you for the next 45 minutes is just to give me an open mind and the benefit of the doubt and we start talking about. You know, crypto could be great for scamming, could be good for piracy and I don't know. All sorts of illegal shit that could happen on the Internet could be facilitated with crypto. Or, at the same time, you can think about places where people no longer have access to their money and how crypto can give them ownership, true ownership of their money. That's one, and I gave a whole bunch of examples about that, about NFTs. Then I come to the point of the metaverse about that, about NFTs. Then I come to the point of the metaverse and then somebody was like but isn't the metaverse? You know this vision where all of us are going to be unhealthy, sitting on our couches, being lazy, doing nothing?

JB Carthy: 1:07:18

just putting on some goggles and you know Sounds great.

Hany Rizk: 1:07:23

Playing games or doing whatnot, and I'm like, yeah, you can always like, that is definitely going to be there, that is definitely going to be something that we'll experience. You can't just, you know, throw that out of the picture, obviously, unfortunately. But you can also think of the metaverse, at the space where this one very specialized surgeon in one corner of the world is the only person who could perform surgery on somebody on the other part of the planet to save their life. And if you can do that through virtual reality, through live virtual reality, with interaction, with haptics and all of these technologies that already exist, how would you feel about the metaverse then? So I think it's just a matter of perspective and it's just a matter of how things get framed and marketed and hyped up. Um, definitely, facebook changing to meta was a huge, was a huge, huge, huge moment. Um, I'm not sure how they feel about that. Uh, right now, when it comes to us at from. Um, so from is a digital art project that that I co-founded and our belief was that, I mean, this was at the peak of, you know, the nft art. So we're talking generative art. We're talking, you know, even one-on-ones, even scanned physical art that's just being sold as a digital copy.

Hany Rizk: 1:08:34

Our very strong belief was that digital is the next frontier for art. You know there's no way around that and you know, for all the obvious benefits, nfts would be very helpful when it comes to digital art. And we got to this point where we're like okay, if you buy a piece of digital art, where do you show it? Like, where do you display it? How do you show it off? How do you show it to friends? How do you exhibit it? You know, if you have art that you really love, that you buy and you want to, you know, hang at home, you frame it and then you hang it in your living room and then your guests can see it and you can talk about it and all that. If you're a bigger fish, then you probably have a whole collection that you can donate to a museum or what have you. But how does that work in the digital space?

Hany Rizk: 1:09:21

So what we wanted to do was build frames for nfts for digital art, and those frames themselves were 3d nfts too. So we were able to validate that there's a small market out there, like there's a small niche in the market for, you know, digital artists or digital art collectors who want to find a way to be able to very nicely display and and and exhibit their art pieces or their art collections. So far, or at least back then, you have platforms like on cyber, like spatial, which are like 3D spaces for people to meet in or to hang art, but none of them were doing anything around framing and we know from the traditional framing market that the proper frame for the art piece, like the right frame for the right art piece, can increase its monetary value by 20%, let alone its aesthetic value. Right Could make things look nicer. So that was our thesis.

Hany Rizk: 1:10:21

We validated it through user research and market research and then we started building that project and we ended up building a whole suite of tools around framing. One was, or at least, we first dropped a collection of frames that we had generated using our AI algorithm, randomly generated collection of two or 5,000,. I need to remember that people could just use to hang their own art in or to frame their own art in or their nfts that they own. And then from there we evolved that we built this whole online software where anybody could really design their own 3d frame and tokenize it, reset it if they want to.

Hany Rizk: 1:11:01

We're doing commissions for artists, special limited editions too, and then we also built a tool which is like a very simple. Think of it as your profile page on a social network, but in fact it's more like your gallery page where, hey, check out my page here, this is where you can see all my art. So we have like sort of your customized 3D space where you can hang up your art and your NFTs and your frames or your framed NFTs, and that's what we did. So we managed to sell a decent amount of frames when the first collection came out and just went on, you know, validating and figuring out what needs to be built next. So we built this whole suite of of products, um, uh, and that's. That's where we are sweet man.

JB Carthy: 1:11:45

No, I I think when you're saying about, like digital art being the next frontier and where things are going, I agree with you and I think a lot of experiences, even real life experiences, will start transcending and intersecting the physical and the digital organizations. For example, you talked about like, let's say, you talked about like a massive use case which is like if, with like motion sensor technology combined with like virtual reality, combined with like someone's specific knowledge in one part of the world, can they apply that specific knowledge to another physical part of the world. Actually being there is just absolutely massive, but it's like you know, sporting events and how, like attendance at some of these big events and like experience of the of the event itself in a 3d like, in a visceral sense, is limited by capacity and limited by um restrictions, and like an inability to travel or maybe a lack of mobility and being able to travel to these things, and then, obviously, financially, like being able to like offer that experience to more people and like. Imagine, like if 30, the 300, the hundreds of millions of people that watch the super bowl could watch it as if they were sitting in the stadium, and the revenue that could generate for the nfl. And then if you could obviously like transfer that or like um, like uh, transfer that concept across, like concerts, across other sort of like that have like either limitations of capacity or and people being able to get to the specific location at that time and the possibility things like that would bring.

JB Carthy: 1:13:25

And then I think it's obvious that things are going to go a little bit more digital in the art sense. When you see the popularity of like social networks and how almost it's got to the point where digital interactions are becoming more valuable or and more valued than than like physical interactions, because proof of them last longer and obviously then that's social proof of someone's like popularity or like um status, like you know, um, and it's kind of sad that it's getting to that point. But also, like you were saying, I think from our frame is like going. It has a really strong base and I think you're solving a problem that is going to emerge in the future, which is when people buy these digital artworks, how do they, how do they show them?

JB Carthy: 1:14:11

for clout it's very true and I think things do go to the metaverse man like. There's no doubt that people will be seeking status and clout there too. So, and I think you guys are well positioned, I will. I will genuinely leave it on that now, because I actually wanted to ask that question before you hopped off, because I was interested to hear your, your take on it. But no, thank you really appreciate you coming on and hopefully we get to chat again.

JB Carthy: 1:14:31

Hopefully we get to meet at some point and in the future be a great pleasure and to work together again with helios was an absolute pleasure working with you guys previously oh, 100 man, 100 and like appreciate, appreciate your good work and appreciate you coming on and chatting with us this evening my pleasure and yeah, no doubt that we'll cross paths again in the future. And thanks to everyone who joined us as well in the audience. This was Helios Horizons, episode 16. And we had Hany Risk on today and chatting about everything from his own background in in a ux and product design and to how he got into web 3 and some of the challenges we see in the space and then where he thinks things are going in the future. And thanks to everyone for listening and and, yeah, see you again next week take care.

Hany Rizk: 1:15:22

Thank you so much.

JB Carthy: 1:15:23

Thanks again for hosting john no problem, take it easy, my friend all right, you too.

Hany Rizk: 1:15:27

Thank you everybody.