Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome everyone to Helios Horizons, episode 40. Today we're joined by Corina, our Cori Eth marketing expert, who runs her own consultancy, beehive Consulting, helping brands grow in Web3. So thanks so much for joining us. Yeah, appreciate having you here.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Thank you so much, hi, everyone.

Speaker 1: 0:26

So yeah, to jump into it, maybe what we'll do is to get to know you and obviously this is the first time we're having a chat as well. So we'll say, if you'd be able to just introduce yourself, maybe a little bit about your background inside and outside of Web3, a little bit about Corey Karina.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Yeah, amazing, of course. So, yeah, I'm in marketing. Actually, I've had a lot of different roles within marketing and growth, so I've been doing marketing for over eight years now. I also studied marketing and I studied another degree in business administration and programming, so I actually know how to code in Python and do machine learning, but it's not like something that I enjoy doing, so I decided to focus on marketing Before.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Well, I've been in the crypto space for around four years full time, and before that I worked at a couple of fintech startups as well, so I was always like really interested about the financial revolution really. So it started first with, you know, fintech disrupting, or me finding out about fintechs disrupting the banking industry, and then later finding out about crypto disrupting the banking industry. So my focus is in DeFi. It has been for the past four years. I'm obviously very curious about other niches and I like to research what else is going on on the infra side for, for example, or just other niches in crypto, but my focus has always been pretty much DeFi and sorry, one more thing from where I worked and these four years in crypto. I started by being full-time at the growth team at MakerDAO, which is now known as Sky and then contributed to a lot of projects on the side, also worked at the Defiant as head of growth and most recently I was the CMO for Venus Protocol.

Speaker 1: 2:38

No, unreal. I'm looking forward to chatting about all those things, all those experiences and maybe what you learned from them and, yeah, hearing some insights. But if you take it back even a little bit further, so you were saying maybe you got into crypto four years ago. Whereabouts are you calling in from at the moment, or are we chatting from?

Speaker 2: 2:58

Oh, so I'm a nomad. Actually, the last four years I didn't really have a home, so I was just traveling. Traveling wasn't really based anywhere. Right now, I am in Moldova. This is where I'm from and, yeah, just trying to spend more time with my family this year actually.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Oh, incredible. What's it? What's it like over there at the moment? I've actually I've never been and what's the what's the capital of Moldova? I shouldn't, I should know, I'm usually good with capitals, but I just can't remember the capital yeah, that's.

Speaker 2: 3:30

That's totally fine. It's a small country and a lot of people don't even know about it, so the capital is Chisinau. And now I actually yes, I was.

Speaker 1: 3:38

I was, I was going to say Chisinau, but I was just like a little bit unsure and I didn't want to seem stupid to like the three other people. That's amazing. Are you? Are you in Chisnow at the moment?

Speaker 2: 3:51

Yeah, yeah, I'm right here, yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Incredible, incredible. So where are some of the places that maybe you've been working from over the last, over the last few years? And obviously and that's one of the benefits of this industry and it being like kind of global and like remote most of the time, and people working over computers is you can kind of travel around and see the world. So what are some of the experiences that you've had over the last few years traveling around?

Speaker 2: 4:15

oh, I love this question. I mean, I've had so many. I think I visited around 25 countries in the last four years. I like to to follow the conferences. I'm a big conference goer so I think well, from the more you know, unique places where I don't know if I would have been otherwise without a conference would be like Colombia, when we had DEF CON in Bogota. When we had DEF CON in Bogota, that was a great experience and also getting to meet, I think.

Speaker 2: 4:46

After Bogota I went to oh, I forgot the name of that city, it's something with an M there's another city in Colombia that's very popular and they had like another smaller EVE conference there and I went there and I got to meet a lot of the local builders in crypto. Also, thailand there was a more recent DEF CON in November. Istanbul a lot of different places really. Even I will tell you, I traveled quite a bit through the Central Europe sorry Central America and I remember being in Guatemala where, honestly, don't really have much internet most of the places around the country, but there are so many little shops that accepted Bitcoin, so I thought that was really interesting.

Speaker 1: 5:40

No, that's incredible and I'd say like, as you were traveling around, obviously, and being in the industry, you probably saw the technology being used in a lot of different ways, especially like having the interest being so deeply involved in DeFi, with MakerDAO and the Defiant. So, yeah, like I'd love to. But did you go to college? We're going to dive into all that, but did you go to college in Moldova before you, um, before you went on your journeys?

Speaker 2: 6:06

no, so I studied in Denmark. I moved at 18 to study in Denmark and I spent, I think, five years there, four or five years, uh and that's where I studied um the secondary education, or what do you call it, but yeah, the college, the university incredible, incredible.

Speaker 1: 6:26

So yeah, like, let's start from even the like going to college in Denmark and you studied, so obviously we were chatting and you were saying you were in, like you got into fintech before coming into DeFi and but what, what was the degree that you studied in college in Denmark?

Speaker 2: 6:41

yeah, so first I did like a two-year degree they have this thing in college for marketing management and then I went on and did like a full three-year university degree in business administration and it was called digital management. So we were studying to code and we were also studying like the broader impact of digitalization in all kinds of organizations. It was, yeah, more of a 21st century degree.

Speaker 1: 7:12

No, 100%, and that led you then into working in fintech. So maybe, like even in that little gap between maybe going to college and getting into crypto, and yeah, like, maybe a little bit about your fintech experience and that might then lead us into maybe some of the thoughts that got you into crypto, if that makes sense yeah, no, um, so actually I have a fun story here.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Um, I started working straight from being at university. I think in denmark is a very common thing to be a student assistant in an office, so like, get a part-time role and work I don't know 25 to 30 hours a week in some corporation or just you know smaller company. What I did is first I studied marketing in a college, but my dream was to go to Copenhagen Business School, which was another school it's still, I think, in the top 10 business schools, I think, in the world or in Europe, I'm not sure and I really wanted to get in, but I applied, I think, three times and they wouldn't. No, I applied twice and they wouldn't take me because it was very hard to get into that school. So for the third year, I decided to apply again and to make sure that they're going to really take me this time, I went and found a course offered by this university and they only had this one course. That was called the Financial Revolution, I think, and I took it, and this is where I learned about fintech and also blockchain. There's very little about blockchain and Bitcoin, but it was mostly fintech and I thought that was super interesting. So that's how I got into all of this overall. And I got in and they took me.

Speaker 2: 9:06

I got into the university for this course and the very first thing I did when I started the uni was find the teacher who created that course. I went to him, to his office and I said hey, you have this like 20 minutes dedicated in the course to Bitcoin and blockchain. Can you tell me more about that? And he was a man of a few words. He didn't really say much, he just asked me for my email and sent me around 800 pages of all kinds of white papers and articles on this topic. So he told me, just read all of this and then come back and we'll discuss. One of those white papers was actually the MakerDAO white paper for a single collateral DAI. Back then, dai was called SAI. So yeah, that's the story and that's how I got really interested in crypto as well.

Speaker 1: 10:03

So incredible. So were you coming to the teacher, the professor? Were you coming from the perspective of you had heard about Bitcoin and you knew about Bitcoin and were like trying to maybe tell him about it. Or was it more so you were looking for guidance, if that makes sense?

Speaker 2: 10:21

Yeah, that was the very first time I heard, I think, anything about bitcoin actually. So, yeah, I went to him because I wanted to learn more and I didn't really know. You know the best source of information, so I was looking for guidance, for sure no for sure.

Speaker 1: 10:39

And then like, obviously that's. That's actually really interesting, because at that moment there was this in what year would this have been in?

Speaker 2: 10:47

um, oh, that's a good question um 2018 2019. I think 2018 yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:55

So that's actually super interesting because you're going to um a really like high level university and doing a like a financial revolution degree or course and there's very little on the technology that really now it looks like is is shaping um a lot of the financial infrastructure of the future or at least is going to have a significant impact on how things are done. Um, so yeah, like maybe did you you feel that maybe the teacher or the professor was interested in it himself, because obviously he provided you with all like the white papers and things like that. But it just was a case where at a university level, at an institutional level, there just wasn't really that interest in exploring it and exploring it.

Speaker 2: 11:48

um, I think he was definitely because he was also a researcher and he was writing a lot of research papers on it too. Um, but I think what I noticed eventually, like I joined we, we created a um, uh, blockchain society, kind of like university club for students and I was running events there and gathering, making seminars. We also had, actually, I think we had Rune back then come and speak and we had other people from Maker, because Maker had an office in Copenhagen as well. So we were trying to sort of raise awareness and also learn more about this topic. But overall, I think at the university level, what I noticed is, back then at least I don't know how it is now they were much more interested in like private permissioned blockchains, you know, like IBM type blockchain products or using blockchain for like supply chains. They weren't that interested in crypto or DeFi, I would say.

Speaker 1: 12:52

That's amazing. I suppose you can get that sense now in terms of like, let's say, some of the technologies and the way they've evolved. There's a big focus around how blockchains are going to become like regulatory compliant and how they're going to adopt and integrate with institutions Obviously, how there's kind of how they're going to blend the permissionless nature with, like, sensitive industries where they want to have some degree of control over what people are doing. So it's definitely super interesting to hear you say that, like, even back then, that was one of the considerations that people were thinking about. And so that that brings us into another thing of like, where you mentioned there founding the blockchain society, so that, like at that time, obviously I'm like imagining 2018, 2019, and it wasn't necessarily that cool to be like into crypto, into blockchain, and so, yeah, like a little bit about like. I'm interested to know more about like, how, how you came about founding the society and what your experience was like and running something like that and in around your college at that time.

Speaker 2: 13:58

I think when I started there was already found it like it was already there for maybe half a year or a year, but I definitely wanted to come in and make sure that we have more events and I recruited actually some people from my own course at university. That was really fun. We did a lot of fun things. I think they're still active. But I think they're still active, but I don't I think they're still just doing, you know, educational events and things like that we would get. We would do actually the typical thing that we already do in web free. So we would go to companies and get some sponsors and make some educational events with some panels and you people presenting their products and so on to the students and then also presenting a way for these companies to recruit students as interns or student assistants as well.

Speaker 1: 14:57

And how did you, how would you compare, maybe, the sentiment back then and like because not a lot of people may be in the space now, like that's seven years ago, it's a it's a good amount of time to have been in the space. So how would you compare, like the sentiment um around the industry from back then and how you've seen it evolve through to now?

Speaker 2: 15:17

I mean 2018. It was so, so new. Still. I don't think we already. It was also very new to me. I would have to say that it's been. It's grown a lot, definitely grown a lot. Right now, even when I'm thinking about when I actually started working in crypto, that was already 2020 or even 2021.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Like I got deeper into DeFi, got a full-time role. There weren't that many experts in crypto. Hiring was pretty much there were no, there weren't many job boards. There weren't many specialists that know anything about crypto, so people would just hire other people who you know, just know anything in their own niche. Like you know, they can code or they know marketing, which is my case. That's what I can talk about more of and then you kind of join this DAO or this protocol and you learn about crypto on the way. But it was fine because everybody was extremely helpful. I mean, my experience at Maker was absolutely incredible. I learned so much. I worked with some of the best people, really. But now we can really see that through a lot of educational initiatives, the space has expanded enormously, not only in resources and people, but also in some way I don't think that's so good that it has expanded into more and more deeper, complex topics and complex tools, so I think things were a little bit simpler. 2018, if that makes sense. What?

Speaker 1: 17:06

they could do and like the principles they were built upon.

Speaker 2: 17:30

Whereas now it feels like probably everyone is competing for like slices of the pie, if that makes sense. Yeah, can I add something?

Speaker 1: 17:33

more here, a hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Something I've been thinking about recently, which to me, it's a little bit disappointing. But you know what. You have to sort of adapt to the different changes in the in the market. But back then it was so much.

Speaker 2: 17:49

Defi, specifically, was so much more about this narrative of banking, the unbanked and the arguments. It was much more anarchist driven, if you know what I mean of like we have to disrupt the current system, we have to disrupt the banks, we have to have ownership of our own money and it was all about that and decentralize everything. That that's why everybody was building DAOs and very excited about DAOs, but after we a few years, we've seen that there's a lot of issues with managing an organization that's so decentralized where everybody has an opinion, um. We've also seen that you know you have to have product market fit, which is a quite a struggle to reach. Um. We've also seen that for these companies and projects to survive, they need need money and they need VC funding and for VC funding, they need to release tokens and it has to be a bit more about money, unfortunately. So the narrative has definitely changed a lot. That's one of the big things, I think, compared to 2018.

Speaker 1: 19:03

No, definitely, things I think compared to 2018. No, definitely, and I think like a good place to start about how maybe you've experienced that is obviously with your time at MakerDAO. So I'd love to. Obviously I know MakerDAO was was one of the earliest DeFi platforms I think founded was it like 2014-2015 and something in that region, and but I'd love to know more about, maybe, how you got in. I know obviously you were saying MakerDAO came to your blockchain society and they were based in in Denmark as well, but I'd love to learn more about your journey into MakerDAO and maybe, yeah, your experiences there and love to hear, hear about that and dive into that a little bit more now yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:41

So I don't think I actually, um, I don't think I met many people at maker during university years. What happened is that I started getting deeper into research in crypto and I thought, okay, I have to, I have to start my career, I have to start working in crypto, get an internship or something. Um, and that was only my second year at university and I had this mentor assigned from the university like a career mentor and I remember he knew nothing about crypto and would have calls with him and I would say, Ken, I really, really want to work in DeFi, and every time I would have to explain to him what is DeFi, but he knew nothing about it. So he was giving me you know, tips on doing my CV and things like that, and I had determined that as a goal I want to work in DeFi. So he gave me a very good tip of you know going on LinkedIn and messaging people, me, a very good tip of you know going on LinkedIn and messaging people that I know work in DeFi and ask for some guidance. And I did.

Speaker 2: 20:50

I think I messaged around 30 different people and very few replied to me and but one of the people who replied was Jocelyn. She was a was the BD lead for Asia or the APAC region at Maker and she agreed to have a call. We had a call. I didn't really ask for anything, I just asked for, you know, I was trying to learn about crypto but there was so much information out there and I didn't know what's right and what isn't, what's legit, what isn't what's legit. So she told me she was the one who told me about, like the Bankless podcast and the Defiant newsletter and the Infinite Machine book and all of those resources you know. So at the end of the call I said you know, if you hear of anybody hiring an intern, you know, if you hear of anybody hiring an intern, even for free, like I want to work in DeFi, I'll take the internship. And she also told me about EFCC, this conference in Paris.

Speaker 2: 21:56

Please note I was a very broke student, Like I studied in Denmark for free and my parents didn't have much money to send me to, for me to pay my rent and other things, so I had to work the whole time that I was a student and I learned about the conference and I said, OK, I really have to go to this conference. And I bought a student ticket, which I think was 100 euros for me as a student at the time, and I bought some cheap flight from Copenhagen to Paris. That was another I don't know 150 euros, and I got the shitty hotel room close to the venue and I literally spent my last money to go on that trip and go to FCC. And I went to FCC and, coincidentally, around the same time, Jocelyn came back to me and told me that her team needed an intern in marketing. So I started interviewing already with them and I went to FCC and I didn't know who would be there. I literally didn't know anyone there.

Speaker 2: 23:10

Very lucky for me, I'm a very bubbly person, very extroverted, and I don't have trouble meeting new people or, you know, making new friends. So it was extremely easy for me to make friends and connect with people immediately. Actually, the very first person I met, I flew in, I left my bag at the hotel room and then I went to a side event immediately and the very first person I met was wearing a Maker t-shirt. So I met them, this guy named Andrew and I told him I was interviewing to work at Maker and he was like okay, that's amazing, If you need anything I can help you. And then I met the whole team. I met everybody who eventually I would end up working with. So that's what I did. I basically spent all my money to go on that trip and I got an internship with Maker. That's how my journey started.

Speaker 1: 24:18

I'm glad. I'm glad it worked out and I'm sure, like you're glad it worked out as well. Now, looking back, and I'd love to maybe learn a little bit more. Obviously, you were saying you had a bit of the educational background in marketing and maybe then how was that transition into? Now? Ok, and we're at MakerDAO and you're interning in marketing, and how was that early experience? What were some of the tasks you had to do, some of the challenges you faced? And, yeah, what was? What was the experience like as you dove into and as you dove into the role?

Speaker 2: 24:53

so I think the marketing side itself was not that hard at the beginning. As I said said before, like I joined an amazing team. People were extremely helpful to explain to me what I had to do. There was a lot of for me, for my role. There was a lot of doing events, especially like in other countries, something that I haven't done much in the past, also working with all of the partners on cross-marketing campaigns and co-marketing campaigns.

Speaker 2: 25:30

But I think the hardest, or like the more challenging part of Training Maker was I joined when the foundation dissolved. It dissolved in July around EFCC. I remember the year, probably 2020 or 2021, um, and the foundation dissolved and they started having these core units, which was like a first mover thing in crypto. Back then, everybody eventually followed the maker path of creating a DAO. So I had to learn that I have to be active, or at least not post, but just read the forum to understand what's going on. I could go to my managers to ask about the different updates, but it would be much less time consuming to just go on the forum and read stuff for myself.

Speaker 2: 26:24

So I think there was this part of joining a DAO as opposed to like a little startup that has a small team. That was the more challenging part of the job, but I got used to it very quickly. I mean, I think it's generally like looking at DAOs or being involved a lot in DAOs gave me some kind of a thicker skin, if that makes sense, because there is a lot going on in DAOs. There's a lot of people with so many different opinions and you learn how to keep your eyes on the prize, um and like stay focused on the work you have to do, even though you have to be very involved in different discussions and and how.

Speaker 1: 27:13

Um, that's actually really interesting. And obviously you're coming to work at maker dow probably one of the first big dows that went through that process of maybe dissolving the foundation, really going after decentralization and you're working in essence for the DAO, for the community, as opposed to for a person. Am I kind of right in that?

Speaker 2: 27:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:36

Yeah, and so what was the? What were maybe like, what was that like? Because obviously there that's probably one that was a unique, unique, a very unique circumstance. That still would be a very unique circumstance at this time, but, um, would definitely have been a very unique circumstance at that time. So what were some of the? Yeah, how did the process of dissolving the foundation, moving into a dow, and yeah, like, how was, how was it? How were the challenges, what, what, how did it leave you feeling about the future of DAOs?

Speaker 2: 28:06

You know, the dissolving part and becoming a DAO has much more to do with, like legal structures and financial structures. So, you know, instead of you having some bank account as a company and paying people from your bank account, um yeah it was because, like, yeah, no, it was because am I right?

Speaker 1: 28:28

and it was because they had achieved their, like, their purpose of getting to the point where they wanted to decentralize. It wasn't because they had to, it was because that was part of the goal yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, I think the transition is more already.

Speaker 2: 28:44

we've seen in the past years that happens most often in DAOs is deciding on the different budgets and doing the reporting for each team, because now, as you said, you're not reporting to a person, you're reporting to the whole community and you're reporting to the whole community and it is complicated and difficult for DAOs to be super efficient in that sense because you have all these people that have high standards, we have to admit, in crypto.

Speaker 2: 29:37

If you work in crypto, you expect a pretty good salary, right, and you expect this flexibility to work from anywhere, but there's also very high expectations on you, especially in a DAO. So the token holders, they want to see a lot of adoption of the product. They at the time, I would say, by the way, another difference between that time I, for us, our token holders, cared the most and even if you look at it today, the token holders cared the most about the adoption of DAI and the number of users and vault owners in Maker and didn't care much about the price of the token owners in Maker and didn't care much about the price of the token. I think nobody cares about the price of Maker anymore or OpenSky. But nowadays a lot of DAOs or a lot of people who come into these communities and become token holders and they vote. They get too much into the discussion of the price of the token, which I think can be a little counterproductive for what the mission of that project is.

Speaker 1: 30:53

No, I agree. I agree because, by essence, the design of the protocol, the design of the token should, theoretically, if it's used enough, if there's's used enough, if there's enough adoption, if there's enough usage of what they're, what they built, it should have some sort of flywheel that generates revenue. And it should be. It should be a buy. The token price or the value of the token should be a byproduct of the token being integrated in a very successful like protocol. And.

Speaker 1: 31:21

But there's a lot of times I agree with you entirely like trying to artificially inflate the valuation of a token to maybe encourage farming on a protocol or encourage artificial demand as opposed to just authentic demand, and I definitely think that's a huge challenge and a huge problem. But I do know DAI, obviously, obviously, and that's probably why MakerDAO and you're saying back then people were most concerned with MakerDAO and just the adoption of it is because obviously I'm assuming, like, let's say, when people borrowed DAI or minted against their collateral, a certain amount of fees or interest would go back into the treasury or go back into the product and then the maker token would obviously be, um, very correlated with that. So, like, maker day was one of the earliest days, maybe didn't have as much of it of a of competition to navigate and therefore could just really operated from first principles rather than operating from just trying to beat everybody else, if that makes sense yeah, yeah, uh.

Speaker 2: 32:24

Well, maker definitely had the first mover advantage um yeah, no, yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1: 32:33

But like, yeah, there's no, no issue with that. But when you were, when you were were working with maker down, um, and you were maybe getting paid, would it be that you would have to and put a proposal to the community that like, oh, this is, this is the team's budget, this is what we're using it for, this is how these people are getting paid, or how does, how would it, how would a team, a centralized team, form from a DAO, if that makes sense?

Speaker 2: 32:59

yeah, yeah, exactly. So, um, our head of growth would have to say you know what this is, how many people we hired. This is what we're planning to do. This is the budget that we need for the different activate, like marketing activations, and for salaries and all of that. So, um, then, you know, time would pass. We would have to do reports every three months on, like what we have been able to deliver, and all of the budgets would be, you know, approved or disapproved or discussed based on what we delivered. I mean, my team didn't have any issues with that, really, but we've seen at the beginning when all of these core units would form. We've seen a lot of new core units come up and ask for bigger budgets and then maybe not being able to deliver, or that's subjective, or just not meeting up the community's expectations, and then the core unit would have to dissolve.

Speaker 1: 34:12

Now I'd say it's definitely a challenge, as you were saying earlier, to try and manage expectations of a lot of people who maybe all don't fully understand the objectives and things you're trying to achieve with your proposal and then maybe, um trying to, yeah, like it's. It's a different challenge than, like, let's say, having one or two highly experienced operators in marketing deciding the direction when you're pitching an idea, or to 5 000 people and a lot of them might not really fully understand what it is you're trying to achieve, or have enough experience of the, the task you're trying to tackle, to really um, to really vote in a way, and that that, like they, they understand the challenges and that like helps the pro, if that makes sense yeah, yeah, definitely like, obviously, at make after maker dow and you were saying you moved on to the defiant as the head of growth um and that's a pretty big I know a pretty big news outlet um in the defy world.

Speaker 1: 35:16

So how was that? How was that transition from maybe working or working with a DAO or working from an or decentralized organization in DeFi or a DeFi protocol itself to working in an organization? That's kind of like reporting on DeFi and a more traditional media outlet yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:34

So, um, let me just give you more of a timeline here. So what happened is, you know, the foundation dissolved at Maker and Roon basically left, like stopped getting involved in Maker because it had to be a, you know, an autonomous, like organization, and basically left us to do the work. And then, I think, based on some more politics, that came out like based on what we just discussed, you know, in the community, ruhm came back, I think late 2022. And he had a new plan, which was the endgame plan, which is now pretty much implemented implemented and it's a very long and complex thing. But an important thing here to say is that one of his ideas was that the DAO is missing the A in DAO at Maker. So we are decentralized now, but we're not autonomous enough and there's too much politics going on. So he decided that it makes more sense to reduce the number of people to the minimum required just to run the protocol in case something happens with the protocol, but basically all of the other activities should, like, people running the other activities have to leave basically.

Speaker 2: 37:07

So this is why I left and many people left, like we basically had to leave the project. Some of them stayed within the Maker umbrella, like someone else started their own protocol. Like Spark was started by the engineer, sam, who was at Maker, and then Chronicle it's like a spinoff of the Maker Oracle started by Nick. So I thought about what do I want to do? And I decided I was already quite a bit involved in different projects and hackathons in crypto, so I thought it would be interesting to work with startups.

Speaker 2: 37:50

So that's when I founded my consulting company and I started doing some consulting and seeing you know if I can help any DeFi startups with their marketing strategy. I would say it was pretty hard, and something I learned from this experience is that it is very, very hard to like deliver something through just consulting. I think that the crypto space is way too way too green to be able to have all of these consultants, including me, so I think that you have to. Sorry, I'm like going on another direction, but I didn't forget your question no, no, this is.

Speaker 1: 38:40

This is great.

Speaker 2: 38:41

Like I, I'm really interested to hear your thoughts yeah, I just want to be like chronologically accurate with everything, um. So, yeah, uh it's. I think that in the crypto space still, like it's so early that if you really want to have an impact, you have to roll up your sleeves and do the job yourself, um, and execute as, at least as a marketeer. I don't really know about the other niches, but yeah, I did try, like I started consulting, I got into a DeFi accelerator where I teach, still up until now or to this day, and and then, uh, camilla, uh, the founder of the defiant she reached out to me actually and she said you know, we we need a head of growth. Would you be open to this role? So we had some calls, some interviews, um, they liked me. I absolutely love and respect Camilla a lot and I respect the Defiant, so that's how I joined.

Speaker 1: 39:47

No brilliant, and so obviously you were saying, maybe like you were trying the consulting game a little bit, but it just and I agree with you Obviously, myself I have a little bit of experience working with different teams and it's I think it's probably teams are too small and they're not very like. They often, like you know, it's it's just a lot of startups trying to find their way and it's very hard to like. I think the most effective thing you know when you go into like a big company and web to like, let's say, just inverted commas, there's often a lot of systems in place, a lot of people in place, a lot of things, and you can just go in and make some suggestions and there's people there to execute the suggestions, whereas it's very hard as a consultant if you make suggestions but there are not people on the ground to implement.

Speaker 1: 40:35

It. Is that fair to say? Yeah, yeah, I fully agree with that so the more effective thing in the web3 space at the moment anyway, is people who are on the ground and just try their best to get stuff done, and those roles are right now more valuable, probably with smaller teams, than oversight roles.

Speaker 2: 40:56

Yeah, I agree with that. I think crypto just needs, like crypto marketing at least just needs execution. And I think, for the better of the space, I thought to myself, if I really want to contribute, instead of consulting I could just do content that explains the thing that I would rather like otherwise consult on. You know like right now I'm writing a blog on um the first things that you need to do as a first marketing hire in a startup so I think, oh amazing I'm, I'd be very interested to read that.

Speaker 1: 41:38

But, um, yeah, maybe you could, from your, from your experience, give us some early insights as to what you think are the most important skills, are the most important things for companies to think about when making their first hire. Well, that's getting early insights into the blog.

Speaker 2: 41:55

Yeah, I will have to keep it a bit more mysterious so that you guys go and read my blog when it's up.

Speaker 1: 42:05

That's okay. That's okay. I'm looking forward to reading. I'm looking forward to reading it. But when you so obviously maybe you founded the consulting, had a few chats and then you joined the, the defiant, because obviously you were saying, maybe, and working in education and working in, like making the content that would have the most impact, was the next best thing for you. So how was that experience at the Defiant and what were some of the? Yeah, how did things go? What were some of the challenges you faced and some of the successes you had?

Speaker 2: 42:35

um. The biggest challenge that I faced was working in a media outlet in the bear market.

Speaker 1: 42:43

Uh, that was it's probably very hard to get people enthusiastic when their defy their. Their investments have gone down like 90 percent like yeah, that was.

Speaker 2: 42:54

That was incredibly hard. Um, because, if you think crypto is struggling in a bear market, like you should see, I mean the media companies in crypto, because people are not like the people who otherwise come during a bull run and read more and more news about the different tokens, or like Bitcoin and reaching some all-time high, or even people who were airdrop farmers or like trying to get their foot in the door, like none of those people were here in the bear market. I think that was when did I work there? A year and a half ago, so I would say 2023. Yeah, um, that was the biggest challenge. Uh, because, I mean, did you find, had I'm not sure I can say a lot of things that don't want to like, just share whatever.

Speaker 1: 43:53

Like you can share like, there's no issue.

Speaker 2: 43:55

Yeah, I think, generally it's like in terms of growth for the media outlet that was, that was the main issue because, um, we'd have, we'd have a lot of sponsors, uh willing to sponsor the defiant, but growing the actual numbers and the engagement was incredibly hard. Um, so actually, what happened there is that Camila well, the company basically ran out of money and had to also, unfortunately, lay off most of the people in the team, so I wasn't at the Defiant for a very long time, unfortunately, just for the record.

Speaker 1: 45:11

So I have a lot of respect for her and her uh show of character and integrity no, I think it's something and I'm I'm super happy that you say that because I think it's something in media and obviously now with maybe like everyone having their own media platform, there is like a little bit more forced accountability in media and forced transparency and with like more freedom of speech and everybody being able to share their side of the story. But it's great to hear that, like media outlets or some media outlets and people who take their responsibility for reporting and giving information to people and seriously and value, and that people might um act on the information and giving people the truth as best as possible.

Speaker 1: 45:54

So that's yeah no, 100% and I think yeah 100%. I think, like you know those challenges and anyone who works in this industry is no doubt going to know teams and like there's plenty of great teams and great founders who have tried incredible things, but maybe they just didn't either the market conditions weren't right or they just didn't work out quite as they would have hoped at that moment. But the most important thing, if we go back to the start, that you talking about at the start how and you applied for the course like multiple times and then eventually found the way through, and just that perseverance and that determination is probably like the most important thing. Um, if you'd agree yeah, exactly I.

Speaker 2: 46:38

Third time was a charm. I there's a piece of me that loves being rejected, apparently.

Speaker 1: 46:46

I know, I know that feeling. It's okay, yeah, um, no, but I I'd even love to know, because obviously you're saying at the defiant that there was plenty of teams that maybe wanted to advertise and but it was very. It was harder to find the readers when the price, when the markets were not going a certain direction. So what do you think we're missing, like in marketing and web3 at the moment? Like what? Where is that disconnect between all the things that are being built and finding the users to come and use them, if that makes sense?

Speaker 2: 47:16

yeah, you know what I really believe that. I know everybody says this I feel like, but I made a video recently about how different other Web2 companies are jumping on trends in social media and are getting a lot of views and a lot of likes and a lot of users. Oh yeah, Thank you for pulling that out.

Speaker 1: 47:43

No problem, no problem.

Speaker 2: 47:44

Yeah, so it's eight minutes, but I promise it's like good quality. There's good content in there.

Speaker 1: 47:50

Yeah, I'll share it with everyone after as well on our on our page.

Speaker 2: 47:54

Thank you. Yeah, so I think that we're really lacking the going mainstream with the right narrative. Okay, so going mainstream, not for the crypto prices. This is why we are so, so dependent on the bull and the bear market. If you look at the stock market, it's not that dependent on it Like if, of course, it like performs good and bad, depending on the crisis that's happening and the different times. But no matter when you look, if you look anywhere online, everybody says you know, if you want some financial stability, just like, start investing in stocks, no matter where we are at the bull or the bear market. So I think we need the same in crypto.

Speaker 2: 48:43

Um, in a sense that just the same way, like me and you and other people in crypto are staying regardless of the bear, the bull, the same way we would have our users stay because we are building the right narrative and we are managing to express why this, these specific products, are important. So why it? Why is having a non-custodial DeFi wallet important? Why is it important to like use Web Free Social like Farcaster and Orb? Why is it important to use decentralized storage, like IPFS and so on, or like? Why is it important that you have this option. So I think we're really, really lacking like going into the mainstream population you know, mainstream users with the right narrative. I haven't seen enough marketing done towards like directed at the normies, and if I've seen some, it's usually centralized exchanges, it's usually like Binance and Coinbase, and it's content that's related a lot more to the prices of crypto as opposed to like why you should use a certain product.

Speaker 1: 50:08

So I think that's what we're lacking no, I I actually agree with you entirely about the narrative and about maybe not having a strong enough narrative and maybe not having the um, creating the reach or getting in the right, finding the right messaging that appeals to people.

Speaker 1: 50:27

But to me, like and I don't know if you agree with this or not, but like I don't even think you know you look at lending platforms. You look at the likes of Aave, you look at the likes of there's lending on Solana, there's lending on Ethereum, there's lending on there's lending on all the lending, on all the blockchains and all the ecosystems, and oftentimes stablecoins can pay like 10, 15, 20% APR just for lending. And obviously, like we being in the space know there are still some risks with stablecoins because they are just representations of dollars. They are not actual dollars. So if treasuries go wrong, are these things in the back end and there can be issues with that. But on the whole, if you assume that a stable coin is a dollar, I'm imagining there are many people investing in the stock markets who are expecting the returns that are the advertised returns generally is 8% a year.

Speaker 1: 51:21

And if you told them you could get 10, 15, 20 percent a year in state, like in stable coins, like for lending them out.

Speaker 1: 51:30

I'm I'm sure that would appeal to a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 51:32

So I I just feel there's so many angles that we haven't really fully explored and found the right, as you said, messaging and narrative to bring in the mainstream population.

Speaker 1: 51:43

And I think we get a little bit complex sometimes and we get a little bit talking about all these like really advanced topics that even the the most intelligent people who've been around a really long time can struggle to understand and wrap their head around sometimes, rather than just going oh, do you have like a hundred dollars? Do you want to 20% on that? Rather than leave it in the bank and earn like 0.00, many more, 0.5, 5%, um, and I just think like sometimes we we overcomplicate it and in reality, like there are probably some really simple and compelling use cases DeFi has that we could push a lot harder as a collective industry if everybody was not so focused on getting their own slice of the pie and competing with each other, if that makes sense. It's like everyone is too busy competing, telling everyone why they are better than each other, rather than just telling people why they should be interested in the entire industry and the entirety of DeFi as a whole, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 52:48

Yeah, I fully agree with that. Actually, something I learned from that fintech course when they were talking about fintech disrupting the banking system, they introduced this word called competition, which is a combination of collaboration and competition in which, because of the regulation, like banks would basically have to do both with fintechs. This is what you just reminded me of and this is what we need to do, for sure, in DeFi. But I think the reason we're going so complex or we like, as DeFi companies or projects, I think, is because they keep talking to the same crowd of people, and it's usually people that already know crypto very well, have made some good money in the last bull run and are looking to multiply that money even more. So I think this is why, and I think another issue is that um, another issue with you know, explaining to a normie, a regular person, about the aprR that they get, is that number one.

Speaker 2: 54:03

Most people don't even know how the banking system works. They don't really see the appeal even to put their money in a bank. They maybe think more about stocks because that's a lot more advertised, right, if they want some passive income. So the regular person doesn't really understand how lending works. And another reason is that which now, finally, we're tackling so much easier.

Speaker 2: 54:34

But back like just a couple of years ago, most of your options to make some income in lending was on Ethereum, and Ethereum has insanely high gas fees, or used to have insanely high gas fees. So you could put $100 into your wallet and put them in a lending protocol, but you would spend like 30 dollars on gas fees. So it wasn't very convenient for the average person that puts in small amounts, but it was much more convenient for somebody who puts in, you know, tens of thousands of dollars. But now we're starting to see this change a lot with the different chains and the different options, like different products are trying to compete by, um, removing the gas fees as well. Uh, we have account abstraction and chain abstraction, so there's a lot of good stuff. Uh, changing the system right now.

Speaker 1: 55:37

No, I agree Everything you said there. I agree with entirely things like the account abstraction. That's actually something I thought about as well.

Speaker 1: 55:43

It's like when you log into Facebook or you log into Twitter or you log into your banking app. You don't have to be prepared to log into those apps. You just have to turn up at the door and they guide you through the experience. You're not expected to prepare by having gas fees or knowing about self-custody or knowing how the bank keep your funds. So that abstraction piece and that like abstracting gas fees and then being subsidized by either chains or protocols for users to come and use the app all those things are definitely going to have an impact on the less friction points you can have between telling the user about the product and the user actually getting their first win on the product. I feel is a massive point of retention, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 56:27

That that I think crypto loses a lot of with gas fees and self-custodial wallets yeah yeah for sure, and like a hundred and like, if we can, if we can find those ways like you were talking about, to just make that easier for users like to still maintain self-custody without making people have to like memorize or find a way to keep safe 24 word path, phrase, key path or seed phrases, like we have with account abstraction and cloud encryption and some of these things, and that's only going to lead to probably better adoption overall.

Speaker 2: 57:03

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. But well, wallets are now making it easier. Some wallets are making it easier, like the Clave wallet on ZK-Sync you just basically log in. You don't need to store any keys anywhere. I think they store it in your cloud Not sure but it's becoming a little bit easier. But let's also not forget, if we talk a little bit more about future, let's not forget that everything we're doing here is pretty much still capitalism, and the more users some of these products get, the more they're looking to gain more and more revenue from the users, like nowadays.

Speaker 2: 57:49

You know, I think one of my favorite products is to be matcha as an exchange, because they would remove the gas fees. They don't do that anymore, but that was a couple of years ago, I think. Now I use cow swap more. But if, if you take any normie and you say okay, so they start doing the research right on how to uh, put some money into ave, right, uh, or or into sky and earn something on their stables, they have to go for an exchange. So they made a. They have to go for an exchange. So they made a wallet. They have to go for an exchange. And without knowing anything, they would go online and look for the best decentralized exchange, and the first one would be Uniswap. Obviously very trusted, we love Uniswap, but Uniswap is also very expensive because, on top of the gas fees, you're also paying some fees to uni swap and it's more expensive than like cow swap or a few others. So I think, as we're growing, we will see a lot more of this. Um. So yeah, just wanted to say that no, definitely, definitely.

Speaker 1: 58:58

I think exactly like you said. Now there's more infrastructure. Like you were saying, earlier, eth was expensive, eth was slow, it wasn't very good for users. Now there's better infrastructure, better chains, faster, cheaper, easier for users, easier for products to attract users because they don't have to make the users jump through gas fees and things like this. So it's only going to get more competitive and innovative, which is definitely exciting.

Speaker 1: 59:25

I love DeFi. I think it has potential to change the world or it's a very foundational piece of where we're going in the future. Like tokenization, on-chain, bringing assets on-chain, making markets accessible 24-7, permissionless, decentralized, don't have to like, don't have to like go to a broker or don't have to rely on a bank, or, if you're from a country where the banks are not so efficient or there's hyperinflation or things like, you can still access like a global financial infrastructure and economy, um, without like, with only the internet, which is like amazing sometimes. I think, obviously, um, you were in denmark and you're in moldova and I'm in ireland and I'm living in abu dhabi actually at the moment, but we sometimes forget when you're from countries that have stable infrastructure and what it is like if you don't have. What if you couldn't send money to anyone anywhere in the world what if?

Speaker 1: 1:00:22

you weren't allowed to open a bank account. How important would these things be to you then? And I think people like a underestimate how important they are to those people and then be underestimate how many of those people there are in the world. And that's where, like, defi is going to dwarf, like the traditional financial system, in terms of, um, probably, the amount of people that it can, like it can reach and that it benefits, like you know yeah, I fully agree with that.

Speaker 2: 1:00:48

I mean, we can take argentina as an example, right? Um, incredible level of adoption. Well, besides, if we remove the recent events with libra token and the president kind of, you know, promoting something that rocked people, I'm very sorry about that Argentinians, but Argentina has had a lot of adoption from the early years. Actually, I think they were the biggest users of DAI from the very beginning as well. But I was thinking about this too, because Denmark definitely isn't into crypto at all. Like they have already regulated it in some sense. Like they know about bitcoin, they, you know they made it easier for you to do your taxes when you report your crypto gains and all that. So it's regulated.

Speaker 2: 1:01:45

But people don't care about DeFi, and it's for a good reason. It's because the financial system works very well in Denmark and people are able to get loans on houses on very, very small interests something like 1% a year. So that's, you know, amazing. But yeah, I think you're completely right. Just wanted to give these two examples like that are completely opposite that we will definitely see more and more adoption. Number one in countries that really need it, that don't have a very stable currency or a stable economy, and people are really looking to regular people are looking to make some kind of.

Speaker 1: 1:02:28

Therefore, by adopting and being open to crypto attract, trying to attract more crypto startups, because they would eventually bring in more money and help the economy no 100 and I think, exactly like you said, there in the emirates or the uae, like it's a very obviously very attractive environment because of the overall like taxation and focus on like capitalism and if they're not worried about taxing, like crypto gains and not worried about what goes on on chain, but just worried about attracting investment and people who are going to and bring their capital to the country, yeah, and in the first place, it's going to like probably breed a lot more innovation and be a lot more attractive for these companies to set up, as opposed to countries where they might have to worry about some of those things a little bit more, like you know.

Speaker 1: 1:03:31

So it'll be interesting to see. Obviously, the US as well are making big moves to try and like position themselves. So it's clear that a lot more countries, a lot more governments, a lot more governments, a lot more people with decision-making power seem to see the value, or at least see that other people see value in the technology and want their piece of the pie as well. So, like maybe to finish off, a last question is what excites you most about the industry? A couple of things in the next year or two that you're really excited to see how they evolve and grow from here, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 1:04:09

I'm really excited about all of these marketeers entering the space. We started seeing a big shift on this side, where it's been a big problem for crypto for the last few years, like we talked about it already. Right, we're not going mainstream. We're not going mainstream for the right reasons and there just wasn't enough marketing. Like recently, there was so much discussion around ethereum basically not doing enough marketing and the community being unhappy with it.

Speaker 2: 1:04:47

So now I'm seeing a lot of big crypto community, crypto marketing communities that came out um marketing, hackathons and crypto uh all kinds of marketing focused events. So I and am definitely more of the Gen Z coming into this space Like I'm Gen Z too, so I'm really excited that we've built so much so far. We have to start to get the users. We have to start getting people excited and interested in crypto for the right reasons. So that's definitely what I'm most excited about. Also, a little note I can't believe we spoke for an hour and we didn't talk about the usa and they're new, but we'll leave this for the next, next, next space yeah, 100, like I'd love to.

Speaker 1: 1:05:43

Um, obviously you've got like your blog post, you are regularly making content, obviously keeping up to date with everything that's happening, and I think we'd love to have another conversation, um, at some point soon and maybe there'll be more topics to kind of talk about and and discuss, you know, but no, it's 100, 100. There's so much, there's always so much going on and it's sometimes hard to keep up with. It feels like sometimes it feels like a week is like a year in this space, like you know. It's like, oh my god, that only happened a week ago yeah it feels like a year because so many things happen.

Speaker 1: 1:06:15

But yeah, the us there's. How do you, what do you think? Like briefly, like, what do you think of everything going on in the US at the moment?

Speaker 2: 1:06:24

Well, I mean, I don't think we have enough time for this. Well, it's bullish for crypto.

Speaker 1: 1:06:31

Yes, no for sure, A hundred percent. We'll leave it like bullish and everything is bullish. Like you know, the technology is bullish and every everything is bullish. Like you know, the technology is bullish and like there's a clear, clear reason for it to be adopted, and a lot more companies and institutions are adopting bitcoin, recognizing it, and then you know like defi is growing as well, and in terms of the integrations with traditional financial um sectors and things like that and markets, and and then obviously it gives more people the opportunity to access it, because all you need is your self-custodial wallet. So, no, but thank you so much for, thank you so much for coming on, genuinely, really enjoyed that, and we'll be publishing this on spotify, on youtube, all those places as well, so people can catch up. I'll share your video here on our, on our twitter or x feed after, and. But thank you so much, karina for joining us and really appreciate it thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:07:28

It was a pleasure to chat with you and thank you for everybody listening. Feel free to dm me any questions also, I'm open.

Speaker 1: 1:07:35

My dms are open no famous words in in like web 3, it's like dms open novel um, pleasure, pleasure. And this was hideous horizons, episode 40. And we chatted to karina today. We chatted about growth in web 3. We chatted about her journey and working in the space and how she sees defFi evolving and from her experience with MakerDAO, with the Defiant, and founding her own consulting company. Yeah, it was a great episode, lots of insights for anyone who was in the audience or listening, I'm sure, and see you again next week. Everyone. Have a great day.

Speaker 2: 1:08:17

Have a great day, bye.