Uniting Web3 Communities in 2023 with Zoe Wei, Diana Bogdanova & David Morrison

hello everyone should we test this does it work yeah it works is it working for everyone the microphone check yeah seems good yep so I think we'll do a quick run of a of introduction uh first myself I'm the moderator but I work for informal system which is the core contributor to Cosmos so we manage the the cosmos Hub um and we have a team of about 60 people working on formal verification um and we also validate for a bunch of network within the cosmos ecosystem hi I'm Kara I'm a developer relations engineer at third web so third web is a web 3 development tooling it's a framework um so we offer solutions for end-to-end developers and um we have solutions for developing smart contracts all the way through to your front end along with managing your smart contracts through a user interface hi I'm Diana from the BNB chain uh the largest one of the largest layer one protocols here and yeah excited to see you guys hey guys I'm seraphim from Euler we're lending practical um probably one of the largest on-chain marketplaces for trading osds so uh we're gonna do a bunch of cool things like oil swap baby oil a bunch of projects this year and we're going to BNB soon so that's cool all right my name is David or Dave whatever you prefer um from the Nia Foundation I do all things social media if you don't like our social media presence then actually I'd lie to you and it's like that guy over there um we just released the blockchain operating system yesterday if you haven't checked it out follow us on Twitter um let's do it guys I'm super excited cool so I think we want to talk about Webster communities and how we build them and how we know to build them and I think um so I think we're going to start with with you um so maybe you can tell us like when you look at a successful community which one that comes to mind like maybe give me your like your top three community in web 3 in crypto in with great in web 3. okay um I think firstly unlock protocol have a really great Community it is very um self-sustaining so they all help out they're kind of like part-time employees and it's just one devrel managing the whole thing she's called Angela and she is absolutely amazing um so unlock um also chain link um shout out to Patrick in the crowd um I started my web 3 career um doing hackathons with chain link and the community is just like a little family all of the devrel and everyone is just so supportive and the third one would probably be um probably lens I think they do a lot of good Outreach for um getting like developers on board everyone's sort of like chatting about you know lens and connecting with different people and they've got a lot of hype around it as well and I think that that gets people on board and they've become quite loyal to lens and I think that they've done that really well yeah I agree yeah do you have some thoughts about who are the best communities yeah I there is one of the how many Builders I hear how many different events are across the globe and what they do for the community and not only in the web 3 but they're actually doing really great job on boarding web 2 people to the web three so we are closer to one billion users all together yeah I think the uh anime Community is the best one in crypto but apart from that I think I'm not licking ass now BB has got a really good Community actually because whenever I join Twitter spaces with them I get like a thousand followers they're not even Bots they're like real people so it just shows that there's real attraction there which is really rare to see thank you what do you think uh BNB did right to build this community I'll be honest there's lots of freebies which always helps so you give away tokens but I think you have a big focus on retail which really helps it's funny though I had this Twitter space and there was like a q a and you would get tokens if you asked the right questions I noticed there were five people and they had exactly the same voice and there was one guy he was just playing the system in there but the point is my point is not that my point is that the community is so engaged everybody wants to get the freebies everybody wants to post like it just creates so much traction I haven't seen anywhere else you know that's I'm just joking like there's there's actual organic stuff going on there obviously what about near what do you think uh are the best communities well I would probably get sacked if I didn't tell you that Neo is the best community in the world right but it's but it's more than just a community it's a community of communities and I think what sets it apart and it grinds my gears a little bit but it's the most open honest and transparent community that I've ever been a part of not a [ __ ] dagos am I allowed to swear yeah I said well I've done it anyway not a [ __ ] day goes by when uh I don't get let's call it critical feedback from community members regarding how the foundation operates and that's how it should be right that's exactly how it should be um we've just uh organized the NDC which is the near digital Collective which is a a novel where of governance right and and that is really stemmed from the community and it's Testament to what they can do what strategy did you employ that to build this community what what do you think worked the best and what do you think works the least out of everything you tried yeah that's it's a good question so when I first first started many moons ago at the near Foundation uh what the community team did is really get their hands dirty we didn't sit on an ivory Tower and said this is what we're doing this week we're going to have an AMA with these guys and you're going to attend we gotta we got in there we got with the community we spoke to them and found out what they wanted to hear what they wanted to see and then gave them that right and then took the feedback that they gave us and continue to iterate on whatever strategy we we used to implement in order to engage and when you engage it grows so the answer is like engaging with your community right right but on a Grassroots level you can engage with the community by [ __ ] wanking yourself off and sending a lot of tweets but it's not the same as being in the Discord and talking to them saying GM etc etc how many uh followers do you have have on Twitter we have 1.472 million and when I took over as uh social media we had 500 000 but I'm yeah I'm not [ __ ] no no one's counting or anything so out of everything you tried or you did to you know get to that number why was this on Twitter I mean like what was the specific thing that you think brought the most results so I think we changed our tone a little bit on Twitter um I'm very much a part of the you know quote-unquote djend Community right and I feel like I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of what people like to see and what people like to read so I tried to strip away some of the I don't want to call it corporate [ __ ] but that's what I mean um yeah yeah yeah right and like [ __ ] the culprit side of it we can follow up I don't know FedEx if you want a corporate Twitter feed um so I really tried to connect with people uh on on the level uh that I'm on and I think it's something that everybody in this room shares as well yeah so BNB and Jenna uh so you guys have a very International Community I think you must be like one of the projects that has like a large number of people in Asia many people in North America how do you manage that like making sure that you don't have you know like two separate communities to manage and like you bring all of them under the same the same BNB community um first of all how do the manage that is we actually listen and as David said we talk to them a lot and the goal for us is to understand what the community wants and you know collect that feedback and being consistent in disciplining disciplined in delivering what they want and giving them a chance and the tools to to be a part of that too because you know um I'm somewhat a data person so you know just collecting information quantifying that and we see already not just the community but we see the data points they want this they want that they want you know something else and then we have a pro product roadmap and then we have um different activities scheduled and it's basically backed by data too and I want to say I love how BNB Community is um is open to many different things yeah uh Euler right you you um sorry if I need your name servant seraphin you um so where did you guys start building Euro so we are lending protocol which by definition is not sexy at all so creating a community is really hard around it and what you do is you focus on the users of lending posts of course which tend to be whales so the community approach is a bit different it's more like um it's more like you need to know what exactly these people on the trade and give that to them so products that they actually care about like no one really wants to borrow usdc against link like very few people do but people want to have stake teeth as collateral to borrow Eve so they can do the trade and then we found out people want to do the same with sea beef so we listen to that and we got money because of that you know and as you just create you just have to list products that people want to trade actively and you do that by asking the whales what do you want to trade and you give them that so that was our approach yeah so when do you guys get started like when was the project created initially so we launched um literally a year ago uh yeah like a bit more than that like of 400 days ago yeah so I guess my question like since it's a rather new project right like near and BNB they've been around for for much longer time like how do you make a space for yourself when you have like all these other projects that already have millions of followers like people that are already pay attention to them how do you make sure that you grab a little bit of that attention and make sure that you have some you know you can kick-start the development of the community yeah it's the same you have to go to the users and ask them what exactly they want and give them something that oh they compound don't have so we were the first guys to list um so are they were the first to list staked Evas can natural we were the first to allow two-way markets there so basically you have additional yields from borrowers to lenders that created a huge market then we were the first guys to list CBE and that created another big market for us so just being first is key I think and how do you how do you make sure that people knew about it in the first place um yeah you tend to partner up with like CBE is coinbase Led right so we tap into their Network to promote this um we just try to be smart around Partnerships with you know people that have Outreach so you piggyback on them pretty much yeah okay third wave so you guys have a very technical product right like you have a framework for application maybe you can describe the product first and then explain how you know it must be like way more difficult for you as a technical framework for exclusivity for developers to get the DJs to get like the people that actually like and retweet and you know quote Retreat and comment on your post so how do you manage that yeah so um so we offer so I'll just briefly say like what we do again um just like a little bit more in detail um so we offer the way to go from your smart contracts all the way through to our front end I don't know if any of you in the crowd are developers but the process of learning to become a blockchain developer like full stack developer is extremely steep like even with the most amazing tutorials there are so many different tools to learn there are so many different languages and Frameworks and different things that you need to piece together and it's not streamlined at all so what we have done is we have streamlined this process Us by only having to go to one place third web to sort all of your development needs and even if you aren't a developer we do have a solution for you so we actually started as a nft platform with pre-built contracts so we we sort of have this um it's actually been a bit difficult in the community because we pivoted from like a pre-built contract solution targeted towards you know the artists and the people who aren't developers and then pivoting towards this developer Community has been quite challenging and the way to do that is just to talk to as many devs one to one just getting down and talking to people and asking them what they need finding what the problems are and then solving those problems because people aren't looking necessarily for a community they're looking for a solution to their problems and then when it solves their problems they then become loyal to that solution and then they are going to want to improve that product for their own projects and then they become active participants in the community themselves and then the community itself becomes self-serving and they refer more people and if they then contribute to the project then they have they're invested in the success of that project and it sort of goes from there and I think you said something about commenting on social media it was mostly like as a technical product how difficult it was to you know get get your message across and make sure that you were attracting like people no developers like maybe they are not that inclined to like build the community with you like they got to focus on on on their own develop on the work on the developer and the development work the people that uh you know actually are very engaged are usually like the end users the details like keeping them engaged keeping them engaged yeah I think it's just making sure that they are um you know actively participating in the growth of third web so we are listening to their feedback constantly we are in the comments we are in the comments of our videos in in Twitter and all of these places and we want to know what's wrong with our product what don't you like that is music to my ears if someone says I don't like this I'm like great that is something where we can improve and I think then that makes them feel part of the community it keeps them engaged because they want to keep on top of this and they want to know that their voice is heard and that we are going to continue to solve their problems okay and now I want to talk about the big mistake like the stuff that you shouldn't make uh I want to start with the near protocol you know you you have a platform of 1.7 billion people how do you make sure that uh you you say the right things uh you know like be professional but at the same time funny you know that's that's what you're going for right like this organic kind of Vibes um to be perfectly honest I say the wrong things a lot of the time and getting a lot of trouble for it but give us some examples of the wrong thing you did uh I can't think of things on the top of my head I think sometimes I swear too much I've been told off for [ __ ] see there you go um for using memes inappropriately um but hey we're all adults here right and I think uh you know people people in the Neo community which like I alluded to before is more of a community of communities that really like Vibe with that but we also have the capacity to split ourselves between okay there is this sprinkling of Degen dust so to speak but we can also put our [ __ ] Christ we can also put our suit and tie on and uh you know shake the hands of whomever we have to shake the hands off and give them the wink and the nod but then when you know all that's done then we go back and put our [ __ ] tracksuit on and chill out I know that was a weird metaphor I hope you got it so what are um So to avoid this mistake maybe you like you said you made a couple what are the processes that you guys have have put in place like is there like a when you go to post something like you have a you have an idea how do you make sure that you know easy to prove by someone uh what's what's the process of you know deciding how to communicate listen man there is no process right there's no process to anything here I just [ __ ] wake up and say what am I going to Tweet today and we tweet it right yeah um but to be perfectly honest I do have I do have and I probably have to say this strict guidelines from the legal team who I love dearly um to ensure that I don't post anything that would either get was sued or get me sacked um but you know as the head of social media I'm the one to approve and write and do everything actually give me pay rise okay what about the BNB chain so what's uh what do you think what mistakes were made what's the question which mistakes we do what mistakes you know should you avoid like what mistake maybe you guys did in communicating with the community in managing your community they're putting a message out there like in communication in general um I absolutely agree that we communicate with web 3 in the Muse language but I also want to add a point that we need to educate the community as well education is so important to make sure that we don't only you know just like randomly talk to them but we bring value actually and maybe carefully like inject the content that can bring them to the next level share the best practices with the community and as as I said earlier give them voice give them an opportunity to speak to engage with other protocols for example I think it's just um you know it's amazing with five of us are sitting here talking about our experiences and um it's kind of like you know cross um cross communication maybe we have so yeah education um and again consistency I think the message has to be consistent and memes so a healthy mix of memes um education and just hey GM guys cool so I come from Cosmos in Cosmos one way we keep the community engages through drama so we have a lot of drama in Cosmos there was a big fight initially between two Founders and since then there's been a lot of uh like people we have like the highest rates of governance voting across all of crypto um and even though like that sometimes the tensions are very high that is something that make people like pay attention and care about what's going on and so we see that over and over again where we get proposal from the core developers including us sometimes rejected by governments um and so I was wondering like uh the role for for you guys uh in you know governance like is it something that you use is it something that is important maybe we can start with your yeah it happens naturally like no one cares about oil governance until somebody walked in and said we want two million dollars grand for some whatever it is you know and then people started giving a [ __ ] because they're just going to take our money away so this you see these processes only after someone tries to raid your treasury or promote something some [ __ ] token is collateral so it it happens out of need really but do you have a governance process at the third web um [Music] developers and yeah what about near protocol like did you have any controversial proposals or you know was there an example of a governance that you yeah can talk to us about okay let me I'll give you one right firstly [ __ ] web 3 governance right now in its current state because it's a bollock and secondly we have uh uh well it's almost an organization of dows so we have a marketing Dow creatives Dow developer Dao members of the Neo Community who can go there and say Hey I want some money to do XYZ uh this is the benefit to the near ecosystem some [ __ ] person comes to the marketing now and says I want 75 000 to open a restaurant what kind of restaurant or intimate I said jog on um but what I will say is despite web 3 governance in its current form being a pain in the neck um the NDC which is the near digital Collective if you haven't checked it out please do is a novel where of uh evolving governance in the world of web3 and really involving and engaging the community and actually a big part of what the Nia Foundation does right now will in all likelihood be passed over to the NDC as we continue to decentralize and I'm super excited about it just as the as the official near person like if someone puts a puzzle for a restaurant like what's your what how do you react do you say like please vote yes please vote no yeah so so actually it's not that granular at the moment right so there is no on-chan uh voting for it there's no Unchained governance yet um we essentially have elected and trusted community members who act as council members in these Dows and they review the proposals on the governance Forum anybody is free to comment and say hey this is a load of [ __ ] [ __ ] why would I pay 75 grand for a restaurant which a lot of people did um But ultimately it's at the discretion of the of the council members for now until we move into uh the world of the NDC and it becomes a little bit more nuanced makes sense uh okay the question for Diana for from BNB so what about Partnerships like how do they how can you use partnership to build up your community like what are the for BNB for instance what do you think was the well the major partnership that you guys managed to manage to get that took the community forward Partnerships I think this is one of the amazing things that happens in the workflow right now because we wouldn't be here without our amazing Partners actually and I like to see the structure of the Partnerships as decentralized as well as decentralized and connected as possible and actually I was personally sometimes introducing protocols to each other and like hey guys you need to talk to each other you can build together you know because what I've seen the value that different products and tools bring together is Multiplied you know in comparison to if you just you know go one by one and stuff and speaking of the big ones um happy to see Euler here uh you probably know that um there are a few bigger proposals uh on on a few decentralized Finance protocols too so we are waiting them on BNB chain as well and you know Partnerships are such a it's a thriving ground to to enhance everyone to educate both communities so you if it's like three-way partnership to bring more users to both um you know in three ways as well and to listen again just find out and to let them build new things too because sometimes you wouldn't know what can you else do you don't know what you don't know but just by talking to them you'll find new use cases you'll find new products you'll find new Amazing Ideas and that's really beautiful to see what people are building right now I'm I'm super excited for 20 and 23 and 20 and 24. so and I just want to mention we guys have the uh Zero to Hero program so if anyone wants to build something really amazing for the BNB chain we uh we we're so welcome you to you know to join us we'll do our best now personally walk an extra mile to help you guys so yeah what about you without web what uh what partnership do you guys sign that made an impact yeah Partnerships is super to provide community but I just want to reiterate what you said I think that that is the great thing about web3 is that everybody knows everybody right like we're still such a small bubble and I think sharing across communities sharing the knowledge and the technology and the user bases is just what makes it so streamlined and if we if we communicate across protocols and tooling um then that's when there's the real power to build something really really cool and really useful I think that the communication between those different protocols and companies is Paramount to the growth of web3 overall I want to reiterate that point really strongly right now um so yeah so we put a lot of emphasis on building really strong Partnerships and also listening to our community as to what they are using and what is going to be useful for them and then making sure that we prioritize those Partnerships first and just keeping open-minded about who we want to create Partnerships with because we want to create Partnerships with everybody to be honest but like obviously you've got let's be careful because you know there's only so much capacity but we're so excited to partnership with all these different companies and excited about everything that everyone's doing and yeah thanks so I think we are close to the end of the battle maybe uh some final remarks from for from each of you starting with near like is there anything that you didn't ask that you think should be addressed um to be honest I think you've done a wonderful job but I'd just like to take a moment to Shell near as the blockchain operating system um it's about to change the face of web3 I would love to tell you more but I don't want to take up all the time so if you want to have a [ __ ] chat and a beer or whatever come find me I'll stand over there for 10 seconds um but you can find me at the booth Au over there at some point but thanks so much for coming guys thanks so much for listening have a good day and I hope you're dealing with the hangovers all right yeah I think Crypt being in crypto is a statement for a lot of people so the best advice for communities probably don't be too corporate that's what I found out to be the most useful advice if you're to corporate people are just not going to use you because if you because again being in crypto at this moment is kind of like a statement of [ __ ] you you know so you have to you can't be corporate okay is it my turn to show um yeah I just want to say hey guys please come uh to us we have the booth here at the BNB chain we recently really published the white paper for the BNB Greenfield it's a decentralized storage and we're building the entire ecosystem on top of that and so if you would like to know more um please come talk to us and we're expanding the validator set so BNB is going to be more decentralized so we are looking at 100 validators at this point so yeah come talk to us I just wanted to mention that it's a great project it's built on the cosmos SDK so it's very much approved for my site yeah so I just want to plug we released um think yesterday or the day before our collaboration with Shopify so we've got Karma's kit Commerce kit which makes it easy to build web 3 Shopify apps so I encourage you all to check that out I will also be around afterwards if anyone has any questions and our Discord is always super Lively we've got loads of people from the third web team who will answer at any time any day and those guys are the real heroes so I want to give them a massive shout out as well um and also we like to empower our users to create their own communities we offer a governance um pre-built contract as well like it's called a vote contract and it enables you to create your own Dao as well so rather than I just on the question that you asked me earlier we don't have our own governance we more Empower other communities to create governance because that's how it would work yeah awesome thank you very much for coming yeah how brilliant are these guys right thank you so much for having me thank you they're all incredible yeah come on [Applause]