Reflection After 5 years of Community Building in Crypto with Erica Kang

good afternoon everyone I hope you're ready for another amazing speaker bright lights today all right so next I would like to introduce Erica Kane she is the founder of crypto soul and today she's going to be talking to us about five years of community building and crypto thank you thank you hello everybody hi how are you doing oh the noise is pretty loud outside so I'm going to speak pretty loud okay can you hear me it's good okay all right hi my name is Erica and I am from kurtoso I'm the founder and um obviously I'm from Seoul South Korea as you probably see you by the name so I came you know all the way 16 hours of flight but all good it's my second East Denver it's so great to be on this stage thank you so much for that and I'm going to talk about my five years in crypto community building experience and what I've gone through and what I learned from the process so let's go so who am I um I've been building crypto Soul since March 2018 so it's a more of a personal brand and I started very small but I'm doing all all kinds of things since 2018 and it's now sixth year in the making so pretty much everywhere doing all kinds of events I'll explain later what I do um it's been creating a lot of organic Community brand from scratch so it's been quite a journey for me um to kind of be in the community and kind of starting from zero and then going up so I'm the host of middle Asia eat Seoul and the Erica so I'll explain later about that so what I create is I organize these types of events but of course in a smaller scale this is pretty huge but mostly in Seoul South Korea where I'm based but I host technical conferences like eat Denver and Builder focused events so I really relate to what eat Denver is doing and I've been helping on the East Denver front as well so um you know it's a very good experience for me to learn from East Denver but you know also deliver the Biddle spirit all the way to Asia and then I also hosted each Soul since last year um so everyone who's interested in like Seoul and who's an ethereum you know please do come to eat Seoul to check out the Korean community and yeah last year it was a blast and so you know you can see yeah vitalik was there and he was happy to give an opening speech and you know it was a very meaningful experience we had a great project lineup and it was just amazing and then I was also based in Vietnam once so I you know Vietnam is a rising region um in Asia so I started to create little Vietnam why not create another conference brand uh in Vietnam and to deliver the Bittle spirit and so that was my first conference last year in Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City and it was a blast as well we were on National Television so that was pretty uh exciting experience for me coming from South Korea hosting a conference in Vietnam but it was very technical also project focused and Community Driven as well so it all aligns together and also I not only do conferences but also create events worldwide so I also did an event in Denver um for East Denver and also all over Bogota Lisbon Tokyo New York it's all over um and so I use the crypto Soul brand to host my curated events with Founders Builders Community leaders and so it's been quite a blast so far and not only that but also host regular meetups in Korea and you know as you can see it's been quite diverse range of like size so big to small and um that I also collaborate with libraries layer ones out there so ethereum Cosmos Solana near polka dot etc etc so my role since 2018 was to help layer ones and layer two projects to enter Korean market and to kind of EX kind of share what they have developed to the Builder community over there so it's been quite a blast so far and not only offline content but also online content and since covet has been pretty you know tough on all of us so I've been also dedicated to building out the YouTube channel as well so I hosted the Erica show and you know we had 51 episodes so I interviewed like 51 Founders and this is just an example of one speaker over there um but you can check out the YouTube channel for more details and good content hopefully and I did it only in English so people Koreans were part of they wanted more Korean content so I also have a Night Live show in Korean um just kind of talk about what's happening around the world and what's kind of you know the macro Level news and so it's been very popular in the Korean community and with Steve Lee from block tower Capital so um doing yeah offline online a mixture of that so it's been quite a blast and and then I decided okay well I do so many activities I have a community brand and I have you know I want to connect them all um so I was looking into the concept of social tokens from like 2819 and I was not very I don't think I was ready for that at that time I was kind of new so I decided to kind of see how it's going and then on last year 2022 I was like okay I'm just gonna do it and I launched Eric a social token on optimism which was a very interesting try and a lot of Koreans were like very blown away and they're like oh what the heck that's very cool um why optimism and so now optimism is definitely popular but back then it was kind of like new and everything was like um Koreans didn't know optimism that well so they're like why optimism so it caused kind of quite a stir and they asked me a lot of questions actually a lot of Social influencers and celebrities they reached out to me and asked me like how it's going like you know they wanted to explore the social token narrative as well so um yeah it's going pretty well so far like I'm I'm pretty laying low on that it's kind of like constant just gradual activity so it's more organic but I'm not trying to pump it or anything like that so it's not a pump and dump token it's more like a membership token so it's kind of helping so for EST holders I just want to you know give more care support and help to the members and just kind of you know integrate I've so I do so many things for the community and I just want to integrate all of that into one by having the token and create a more tighter relationship with my holders and just kind of a regular activities with them so that's the reason behind the launch and so basically holders get access to like exclusive regular meetups like private meetups and also like mentorship opportunities so I've been helping a lot of younger women who want to get into the space who's kind of like timid to get in like who's kind of afraid right and kind of help them guide in the right direction and also I do many events anyway so I just wanted to give discounts to my EST holders so that's what I'm trying to use the social token concept um to the community so hopefully it's useful it's been very successful so far and so what I care about so it's more of this topic it's more like a personal talk so I just wanted to kind of share my experience and what I really believe in so I really care about bridging promising projects and to Builder communities so and I have a fortune in South Korea in the Asian market in general so why not kind of use my forte in like Bridging the Gap between the east and west and also introducing really good projects out there to the South Korean community so I really care about that it's been like six years and it's been very consistent and then also building a strong community that is independent and neutral so it's not biased towards one protocol it's very neutral platform agnostic and Technical as well so I really care about having that balanced community and I think it really works in the longer term as well it's very unique too I think you know by keeping that uh Forte it's been very helpful for me to organize more diverse events so I really like that and then also so I really love education inspiration and mentoring especially to younger women as I mentioned before and I I'm from a Women's University in South Korea so all the you know aspiring uh women fellow students they come up to me and they ask me how to come into this space so I actually like some of the graduates are here uh to uh to look into eat Denver but I'm very proud of them by the way they got a scholarship to come but yeah as for me I really want to help them to grow and to navigate find right projects to work with and so that's my job and I I really care about that and I stay away okay so this is a very important part so you have to stay away from certain things right um so I get just people think of me as like an influencer or like um you know a marketer so they you know they kind of sell these opportunities to me with an enormous chunk of money but I don't sell my soul to meaningless promotional activities and you know it's really hard to say no to these things because I know like money's tempting and everything but I know it's like it's not right for me and I don't feel comfortable doing it so I just deny all kinds of you know activities like that and that's really helped me so far actually so at back then you know I I didn't I'm not a billionaire so I guess I'm not you know I'm not I'm losing in that sense but reputationally I gained so much a stronger reputation so I think you know I did the right thing by not selling my soul uh so that's good and then also I was being swayed by many many uh powers in this space such as I don't want to say it I want to name people but like you know Media or certain media part media companies or even politicians or all sorts of companies in Korea who really you know want to sway me in certain direction and who want to like destroy my community power in that in a sense so it's been very you know bizarre in the past five years but I stay independent as I said and I really want to stay strong to what I believe in so I was not swayed and I just kept to my roots and I just wanted to keep going with what I'm doing and it can be Community can be looked down upon to some it can be weak to some people because it's not earning money or it's not you know having political power or Media power but you know I stayed really strong and defiant and I think in the longer run people started believing in me now they you know trusted my instincts and they respect me now so that's it really worked out well for me so two things that you have to stay away from and then people always ask me why do you do all this all these activities and pour my soul and effort and time into it and doesn't it doesn't make like humongous amounts of money right why do you do that and they think many people think that I have some kind of internal intention or like ambition or like long-term you know uh money making goal or something they always ask me every day when I when they reapproach me and like why do you do this like this is too much like this is like labored for you why do you do it what's your grand plan right um and I know that community building is really really hard and everyone doesn't have an answer so it's real I know it's hard even for me it's like still a question mark to be honest and especially if you want to do it right I mean go step by step it's so so hard it takes a lot of time and your effort and your passion um and especially in Asia I mean I don't want to generalize regions but South Korea and you know Vietnam they're very price focused right they want to ask like why you know when moon right that's the first question that everyone asks and so it's really hard to persuade them to focus on the project and to learn about the project in the longer run it's really hard um but so I've been facing many challenges in that sense and also from Bridging the Gap between the East and West well Asia non-asian regions so it's so hard to introduce in the right direction with the cultural Gap language Gap and everything you know there's a huge gap actually and um and for me it's been very it's a huge challenge to main remain local but also being Global at the same time it's it's a hard hard job and I think that's why I'm here is to really like you know put myself out there in the global scene but also going back to Korea do my local stuff and then you know coming back outside as well so it's like simult it's like two jobs basically going back and forth back and forth so it's really hard like how many building in the right direction it's so hard but but I realized that efforts did pay off like it really it really did and you know year by year is getting better I'm getting more recognized and I guess respected in that sense and sincerity really pays off passion really pays off um and for me like I've learned to be really really patient um and build one relationship at a time so as you know like there are many chat rooms or like 14 000 people like they talk about the price and like everyone's just like kind of like swearing and whatever and it's not very healthy right but they care about the number like 4 000 people how many people are in the room I don't really I don't think that's really the key I think like a small room with like 100 people with good discussions I think that's more valuable in the longer run than having like you know 40 000 people in one room but not talking anything about the project um and not learning from each other so um for me when I approached projects when I approached Founders it's like one-on-one relationship and is one at a time so it takes a lot of patience a lot of sincerity a lot of communication but it you know I really enjoy doing it and I've been doing it for six years now and it's really paying off I really assure you it's really paying off and they do scale eventually they do so and there are people who are trying to do the right thing especially Denver stewards you know I want to give like huge shout out to everybody here like they're doing the right thing I think people are sacrificing like their time and they're pouring everything into it to making this community event a success and there are people like that it's very rare but there are people like that and as for me I'm doing the same thing for Asia and for Korea and for Vietnam uh we're all in it for the soul-touching experiences like you know it's really like it fulfills your soul like it makes me so happy to see people being inspired and learning and connecting with the right people and so and that keeps me going and I think I'm in I'm doing the right thing right um and as you probably know community building is pretty underrated um people think it's easy to run an event like this and it's so so hard as you if you do it once you're gonna realize it's so hard to run an event to keep get people engaged and to communicate with them and to sustain that activity like year by year right it's so so challenging but it's underrated it's very underrated and especially like you know a strong Community it's so hard to maintain so um you have to realize that a strong Community does shape the crypto industry and it will expand it to a bigger ecosystem so it is definitely the key people say community is important it's important but who's really doing it right and people behind the scenes being like down there like really like organic growth like you know people here they're really doing the right thing but they're really um contributing to expanding the ecosystem to organic growth so um yeah there are people like that um I know I'm doing something right and I realized this uh year by year it's like growing incrementally but I'm making meaningful connections um without intentionally so one example was that after each Soul so my friend she came up to me and she's like oh you know I'm in fintech but I met this founder in the space and he's really cool and they kept in touch for five months and then she got a job at the foundation as director as a result so I'm like okay well and she thanked me so much after being connected like that and that was very organic I didn't plan this I didn't connect them but they met at my event and they got connected and they led to a very beautiful business relationship right so they these things happen more and more so I really feel like okay I'm doing the right thing right and also like they people thank me for organizing a good event or having a really good initiative and so these things really make me feel like okay I'm I'm doing something right after all these years right and yeah I'm trying to make a positive impact and I think it's working um and especially to the Korean community and also to the global community so I'm trying to be the bridge and so um what it takes to build a global authentic Community brand so I try to think because I usually execute rather than I don't really give talks I usually I'm probably on the ground working so I try to think what it what does it take um to build this brand of course my brand is not as huge or strong in the global sense but I think it's pretty pretty tight so um I was trying to think what it takes to do that number one is cross-cultural communication um I should probably know it's either like English friendly areas or non-english friendly areas it's very different French and out there million languages in the world and it's so hard to bridge that Gap in language culture Etc and for me I'm bilingual so I do like Korean and English like back and forth but that is very important to understand each other's cultures and to kind of try to bridge the gap so I think that's really crucial number one number two is consistency so one large event doesn't really kill it all you have to do like every every year or do it very consistently especially meetups as well because I used to do monthly meetups and that's a very big job to do you have to plan every month if one ends then you have to start another one so it's kind of back and forth so being consistent really paid off it kind of made my portfolio and also really made me like oh she's a very passionate consistent person so it kind of made me proof that I am doing really consistent work number three is create creativity when you're planning events or when you're like doing community work you have to make sure that you are unique you're doing something that's unique that stands out that's very helpful and so I am using all my creativity skills to plan events like this and also create content and I've never been creative in my life but I think being in crypto has really helped me be like use my you know create creative side of the brain basically and it really helped me to gain That Brand Power and number four is curation um I think like who's in the group who's in the you know conference who's like attending it it's so important I mean of course it cannot be a private event but I think the teams that are surrounding you or supporting you they are making the event a success and I think especially eat Denver I think it's a very good case of like that but um being able to curate in the right direction and making sure that you have solid partners and really like helpful supporters it's very very um useful and I think I've done a lot of curation on my side and it's been it's been paying off so yeah and um some word of advice um yeah just find what you're best at I think like finding your Forte is very important you can't do everything I'm not a developers but I'm good at what I do which is like planning events and like curation everything so and what makes you happy basically I love Community work I love building a community I love like connecting with people and so yeah I'm a people person so I guess this is my job right is it meant to be um and also you have to develop your Sixth Sense which is finding like solid projects kind of it either to discover the right people for you it's really really important um and in order to do this you have to meet a lot of people you love to meet a lot of projects to get that Sixth Sense when I look at projects I can kind of sense now by just looking at them like if they're good people or not good people I mean I'm not judging too much but still I can get a sense if their intention is right or wrong right and you have to remember as you as I stressed uh before that company does expand the ecosystem so it's very very important and you're being you're like you should be overrated basically very very important skills and right now some people say oh you know I got first mover Advantage by starting the community early but not really I think it's still early so it's not never too late to to start yeah so please start small and then scale up and and then you can money can follow later and yeah so you can build your own brands okay as for me I'm everywhere on Twitter um Erica king.eap as well and I have a YouTube channel crypto souls to check me out and it's in Korean English so you can check that out too you can contact me here uh telegram you can come up to me as well and join my event in June in South Korea and Vietnam thank you so much [Applause] foreign [Music]