From Pixels to Narratives: Exploring the Impact of Storytelling and Community on Web3 | KBW2023

[Music] that way your there wow that was a quite a scary movie before our session made me sweat a bit goodness well Daniel thank you so much for coming all the way to Korea we're very excited to host you uh during your Asia tour um why don't you give a little bit quick uh you know background of yourself and how you uh became a new CEO of yalp were in president of global retail at Google uh president of activism in bage art right before ugal Labs you know you've been through scaling Global International businesses both in you know Commerce gaming entertainment you know I'm curious what you have Vision in youbs today sure um well thank you thank you for inviting and I appreciate it Beck and um you know I've I spent a lot of time here in Korea in uh I joined Google in the very very early days when it was it was was still a very small company and we built out our bus business in Asia Pacific so I would come to Korea pretty much every other week in the it's like 2004 2005 so uh it's uh and I ran I ran Google Asia and very very passionate about developing the the Asian market and uh and happy to be here um yeah to to your point I've been throughout my entire career I've been involved in really building large consumer facing platforms whether it's uh Google search uh was involved in Chrome U Android mobile and then moved to Activision Blizzard to run the uh the the company and has actually here in Korea some some very well-loved names like uh Starcraft and World of Warcraft um and for me what gets me really excited is about bringing media and epic entertainment to Consumers globally and when I joined activist Vision um I realized something that was very obvious One gaming was becoming a truly social platform that's where players are not only playing a game but they're actually connecting with communities um but as gaming becomes much more social you need to have a way to connect with your identity and with your friends and gaming in themselves are very siloed approaches you know you play uh Call of Duty and you got your community there you play fortnite you got your community there and there really needed to be a way to connect across communities across gaming platforms and that's where web 3 really comes in where you have your identity you have your social network and being able to build that and connect that is what really excited me and this why I actually made it here to Yuga Labs as CEO that's amazing um you know we were sitting down uh in August uh uh April uh in Austin for breakfast and talking about you know Yuga labs's expansion to Asia and you know it's a quite important you know strategy decision for you guys to expand outside of us and Go Global and also address a lot of fan base you know that are growing in Asia so you've been in you know Japan Hong Kong Korea now going to Singapore afterwards you know what what's the vision in you know Asia Market for you you know why is it important you know especially for Korea you know why do you guys see you guys can do in this market to collaborate sure uh first what I love about Korea and the Korean market is it has always been at the Forefront of so much uh social networking really globally was started here in in Korea very few people know that and that level of connection and Forward Thinking is what what brought me here to Korea and I'm so so excited to have hashed as as partners and and to engage with uh many of our community members but to your your specific question what is it about Asia Pacific that that we love one um for whatever reason uh our Our Brands whether it's cryptopunks mbits Bard ape mutant ape um has connected very very strongly with the asia-pacific communities we have some of our strongest communities we have some members here from our our Japan uh board ape club that uh that are are passionate about what what they do and bring so much love and excitement to to the EOS system uh Korea Hong Kong so we really hadn't had much of a of a connection here to Asia Pacific Physical connection yeah I was asking a lot of ugf people last year that you guys got to bring a to Asia you know not just New York yeah that's right so we're we're still a relatively young company we're only two years old I guess only in uh in in the crypto space that's probably ancient but um we we've had our ape Fest which is our annual Gathering of our ape Community uh we've had them both in the United States and one of the first things I I said to the to the team when I became CEO on April 1st of this year was Asia Pacific has to be a place where we do eight Fest so we announced that we're doing eight Fest in Hong Kong at the beginning of November and I hope I get to see I know I'll see you there uh see many of you out there in uh in Hong Kong that's awesome um another uh curiosity I had was uh you know how can we make with aest coming to Asia and you know the brand and the physical presence coming here you how can you make the uh boic and overall Yuga left's Community more accessible you know what are some of the efforts you guys been doing in Asia you know to make it you know more engaging I think you know for me for my personal experience I live in us but and I've been exposed to a lot of my friends and events locally uh but I think it's still a little bit limited but growing and I think there's a lot of hidden you know AP holders and you know people that are more of anons in the community you know what are some of the ways you guys been kind of you know fering that here along with the aast yeah sure well what what I'll say what I love about this community um that that we have is that aside from from very being very passionate and having a close identity connection to what we've been able to uh to build um they're they're very uh connected globally and um our communities will connect through Twitter through Discord but also have in-person events in every single City where our our holders are and it's been very important for us to actually be physically present so we had a great event in Tokyo about a month ago uh we're going to have one later later this week here in Korea and and uh glad to have you all is as partners here um so actually just being physically present and connecting is an an important piece but we want to take it one step further and that is why we're building our other side metaverse platform and that's uh one a way for our Global Community to be able to connect in one central place we've had a number of experiences where we've actually been showing the development of our of our other side and the feedback that we got from community members was fantastic you know this is a a great place for us to be able to connect virtually uh in the same way that they connect in person City by city and we're going to be building more and more experiences not only to bring our Global Community together but also to be thinking about how do we make it more local you know how do you make it so that the Korean experience is something that the Korean holders really love J Japanese experience Etc so that's an important component of how we're thinking about the development of our platform awesome um you know as a Korean I've been very proud of a recent you know growth of a K-pop and K culture and a lot of the content that's been coming up from Korean uh you know shops uh that are going global through Netflix and a lot of different channels uh and what I noticed was that it's been very dominated by few of the large public uh companies here that are producing contents from top down right obviously these are amazing quality you know everyone loves it and it's going global making a lot of revenue from it uh but I think you know that's not the only way that we've seen historically how the contents get developed and how the community gets formed uh and I thought Yuga Labs is quite different it's extreme you know other Spectrum uh where Yuga lab started as a you know byc community that didn't have marketing team didn't have sales you know didn't have like production team but you know with small idea with small you know Community with nft it started growing like a snowball and it became International IP and as a person who grew up with a lot of games and watching anime and you know movies um you know I don't think there's been that many cases in my lifetime where there's a new type of IP emerging as a global icon because I grew up with you know Pokemon you know like marble and all these and a lot of these are kind of recycle of same license in a different variation into different you know um demographic or different style but I haven't really seen anything in my My Generation grow up thing like you you got left that just come out of nowhere and became in a billion dollar business and platform so could you share a little bit more about you know why it's so important to have more of this bottom up community building around IP development yeah look I I'm going to go back in a little bit of history and tell you why it is that that uh I think this is so amazingly powerful um you may remember in the old days when you were lost You' stop off at a gas station and you pick up a paper map right and those paper maps had one two maybe three providers Who provided the data and you can never figure out how to get somewhere and um this is this dates back to my experience at Google back in 045 uh what we we created was Google Maps and Google Maps uh licensed data from third parties but the most powerful component of Google Maps was when we actually created a tool and we let users actually put information into the maps and we were able to essentially map cities that were never had any information not only in terms of the streets The Monuments um you know where the restaurants are and that user generated way of creating the most robust map information was a big aha moment for me because that basically said you know if you tap into community and Community element you can do something that has never been done done before um and now like who has a paper map right you actually rely on on Google Maps to to get you anywhere and a lot of it was actually created by by people you know by by uh um by users themselves so if you go now to IP you know I've been in the media business most of my life you know 30 30 plus years and the business model of Ip holders in the past was I create IP I invest hundreds of millions of dollars in creating IP and then I try to generate as much revenue from that IP as possible so I licens it to a very specific use case you know if you want to make a t-shirt you can only make the T-shirt with this logo and this is what you you're going to do and what Yuga Labs did what I which I thought was was truly revolutionary was it turned IP on its head and basically said we're going to create the initial art and then we're going to seat it to the community and the community can decide how they're going to build build the brand and build businesses off of it and you think about the evolution of something like uh you know a brand like Mickey Mouse which took decades to gen to to become a multi-billion dollar brand and you think of something like uh like The Bard AP yach Club it really went from an idea to a globally recognized brand in a matter matter of weeks you know for forget about years or decades matter of weeks and why that happened was it was a community-based brand building and the community embraced it they personalized it you know this is actually my my own ape this is Captain Poncho um and what's interesting about this is not only that the community helped me named uh Captain Poncho but also that I'm wearing a t-shirt made by Dan GT who's actually a board ape holder who has a clothing company where he's now making a business off of it and we have now over 900 made by Apes businesses accredited by us where people are using their their board apes and they're building businesses off of them so not only it's a digital brand building yeah but they're also building businesses with those Brands it could be from uh apparel to spirits and beer and water to coconuts to you know embroidery and it's just fantastic to see how powerful if you put the community in charge of brand building what you can do and that's that's what I think is the most powerful thing about web 3 and what Yuga Labs is really passionate about and I think the something that really allowed that to happen is also that you know the holders own that IP and are able to do business around that IP rather than just you know asking permission from you you know like asking permission by from yalf coo can we use this in know logo can we use this picture in my shirt or like my restaurant there's like a Sandage shop I go in Los Angeles that has like a big uh you know AP uh logo on it you know these things I think only is possible because it's started as kind of bottom up where the holder itself owns that and a business uh you uh around the IP that it has I I think it's absolutely right like so I I use the example of of Mickey Mouse I think Mickey Mouse is now public domain I believe oh yeah recently yeah quite recently but before that you know you go to Bob Iger you know the CEO of Disney and you say hey I want to I want to create a Mickey Mouse uh water and they say okay you have to go through this vetting process and talk to this attorney and this other attorney and this other attorney and this other attorney and you know before you know it's like it's not worth it I'm not I'm not going to do it um you're talking with more of a lawyers than designers about your business that's right and and you know understandably companies that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars building those Brands they say I'm not going to license it out in in uh in in any way that I can't control the brand um and this is where I say it it upends the whole concept of brand building because in this one we say all right you know we're actually going to seed the community with this initial idea and then figure out what you're going to make of it and we'll support you we'll be there for you you know that this is why why I'm I'm present here in APAC why I I go everywhere around the world meeting uh ape holders because I really want to support them and help them build businesses and that idea of you're now an entrepreneur you know you're not only a a board ape holder and a Community member you're essentially now an entrepreneur and now you're building a business off of it and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with actually just having it and being your identity and and being a member of a community where you can actually participate in so many of our events or uh participate in some of the games that we've that we've launched and the other side experiences that we have but on top of that you can also say you know what I do want to do something different you know I I want to create a business off of it and the community has helped me get a jump start on something that's recognizable you may have noticed this uh in San Francisco yeah when you land in uh in San Francisco Airport they have an automatic uh coffee maker yeah and you know it's like a robot that that makes them and I didn't even realize this I was walking walking there with my kids and one of my kids said hey Dad a board ape you know and I was looking everywhere to see like where's where's the board ape and actually this coffee maker has a board ape brand on it and and the board ape holder actually did a deal with the the coffee maker where he or she is licensing the board ape to to the coffee maker I actually had no idea I I fly that airport almost every other V yeah it surprised me I I didn't realize it wow and that's and that's the beauty of this where you know again if I'm the CEO of Disney and I walk by a coffee machine I go wait uh you know why is uh why is why is Mickey Mouse there you know attorney did you license this but here it's like no this actually I'm excited I'm excited that someone is actually building building a uh a business off their pfp it's I think it's a great concept that being nfda holder now you are also technically business owner yourself that's right around it wow um so you know throughout the growth of uh you know Apes community and boic and yugal Labs it's been not just the bottom up community and individual holders but there's been a lot of the brands and also the top done uh the Publishers and the production companies that I mentioned that wanted to partner with ugps you know what are some of the synergies you're seeing uh there and also why are they trying to work with you know ugal laps which is a very different uh model that they have uh historically in their business right well look um when I met the founders of Yuga labs this was uh late last year in uh in 2012 and um I'd been working on the Diablo four game that just got released at Activision you know and if you look at the the economics of gaming you know this um uh particularly in a free-to-play game you end up having a very large user base but the the the commercialization comes down to a very very small number of whales you know you refer to in in game um and those whales are The Big Spenders they're the ones who are you know spending thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands and sometimes even more than hundreds of thousands of dollars on on a game and um after I met with the founders of yugal labs I actually looked at the demographic of our community holders and um you ended up having uh aside from the passion people who were 100% committed to the space and um and as a result from a brand partnership perspective you know we have a a a a great community that Brands would love to connect with you know whether it's Gucci whether it's Adidas um you know these are these are some very well-known reputable Brands um who would love to be able to connect with our community and our community loves those Brands so the way I look at it similar to what I talked about in terms of the social network platform um that uh that Yuga is building I'm finding ways to connect brands with Community affinity and that's a that's a unique opportunity where you have as I said like we have a a deep partnership with Gucci where they've had a great experience and they build unique experiences for our community our community has has embraced those but where where I really want to take Yuga labs and this is I think where where you're talking about is we're very good at storytelling community building and art you know our our our creatives that we have at Yuga labs are second to none and you know you look at some of the Artistry that that came on uh the development of other side or even just the artistry for uh for the board Apes um and our community holders of Crypt punks and Mi bits um they're they're really really good at at connecting and and uh storytelling and what I want to do is I want to bring this community that is so strong and and the strongest in the web 3 space and then be able to create create a partnership ecosystem where we create unique experiences so it's not not necessarily just brand connections like like the Gucci that I that I talked about but also how do we bring these unique web 3 experiences through a partner ecosystem where our community and other communities can can uh can benefit and find great epic entertainment and um you may know in addition to having run Google Asia I was also responsible for Google's Global Partnerships and I I I love Partnerships I love the power of you know one plus one equals 3 yeah and that's why in gaming we've built some gaming experiences ourselves but we're also partnering with third parties who have great experiences and some great gaming companies here in Korea that I'm going to meet uh later this week um I want to be able to create this unique ecosystem where build on build on web 3 we can open the aperture and have new users understand the value of web 3 just like our original Community holders have benefited so much from that's amazing um you briefly touched on some of the you know products and the platforms that are coming out from ugal left's ecosystem I think you'd be great for you know people to understand a little bit better about what are some of the ongoing projects that are getting built uh the games and where they are and you know what are some of the you know initiative that we'll be launching in the later year that uh can people can try and experience sure well um look for me the priority is to continue to connect our communities globally you know our mission at yugal Labs is building culture on the blockchain and we really we really care about that but um the the next phase of development is not only nurturing the existing Community but as I said is building out our other side platform yeah and we recently AC acquired a company called blur Studios and uh the COO blur is now the general manager of other side and he's the one who's actually um been tasked to build out the the very expansive Vision that we have for other side so if you think about web 3 and the evolution of web 3 like I'm preaching to the choir here I think all of you are participating here once you experience web 3 experiences it's hard to go back to web 2 you know whether you're in art whether you're in gaming whether you're in music so what we're doing at U laabs is we're going experience by experience and bringing those um to to our web 3 platform so that the type of experiences that have the greatest Affinity are the ones that we're starting with so art obviously was was the first the second is gaming you know if you look at Gamers it's very easy for a gamer to understand the value proposition of web 3 you know you you you can participate in the economy of a game of course you want to do that if you're going to spend thousands of hours and playing a game you want to be able to actually reap some benefit from it or actually trade some Assets in the game um your identity to be able to have your identity go from game to game and the interoperability of your persona and your social networks and games it's a slam dunk for for a gamer so that's why we're building these gaming experiences on top of what what what uh we want to do with other side because we know that our community wants it but it's also a way for us to expand the funnel of potential web 3 consumers and as an industry I think the biggest challenge that we have is how do you make web 3 experiences easy for the consumer to experience that's the hardest part you know it reminds me of the internet back of 1993 94 where internet was hard right you had to get a modem you had to connect it to your PC then you had to call your your telephone company and hopefully they had an expert who understood the internet and it was all complicated and you know then came companies like America online that basically said here stick a disc in and here's an experience and and and you can uh you can benefit from it that's what we're trying to do with the experiences with other side not only are we connecting our communities and bringing unique experiences to them but we're also trying to make it a lot easier for you as a new entrant into web 3 to understand how you can participate explore and benefit from these experiences and that for me is the biggest challenge like we all know it you try web 3 you're going to love it like the value proposition is crystal clear for a consumer which is why I I I came to yugal Labs it's crystal clear to me once you once you have have a taste you know it's hard to go back the real question is how do you expand the audience so you can actually get from a universe of hundreds of thousands to Universe of millions um to experience and that's uh whether it's on other side whether it's on other platforms that is for an industry that to me I think is the biggest challenge as well as the biggest opportunity yeah I'm very excited about you know the contents and the experiences that yalp is bringing to the web industry because you know even though I've been a venture investor in crypto space last 6 seven years uh it's pretty sad to me that the only consistent content in the space that people look for and consume today is mainly the price volatility you know that's the main content of this industry where people watch the price and make action on it which is trading and you know doing different activity in the financial site and there's been lack of this cons uh you know contents really consuming EXP experience uh you know or socialize with people in the industry to stay and continuously grow this engagement in that metaverse or physical events and I think some of the products that you guys will be releasing and in opening up and the events offline events that you guys are doing uh hopefully I think we're building up and accumulating a lot of good case study of you know contents in the web 3 space to make this industry more sustainable and you know grow continue to grow yeah yeah look be you and I have been involved in early stages of of so many different uh digital businesses this is normal right no when you're in a new space you're going to get volatility up and down you know uh go back to 1997 1998 people thought Amazon was going to go bankrupt and Jeff Bezos didn't know what he was doing right and now look look at what Amazon has become and you know it it it happened in 98 99 it happened in 2004 it happened in Mobile in 2008 when people are questioning really I'm going to be using this for more than just a phone and I'm actually going to uh you know explore the world and you get all these ups and downs but the the True Value in the space is when you recognize that the experiences matter and that all these roadblocks of how you going to get on and creating a wallet and be careful that if you burn you know in the wrong way you may lose but all those things are eventually going to be figured out just like dialup to broadband was figured out right you know the early days of broadband with the exception of here Korea uh you know you're so so so far Advanced from everywhere else in the world I think Silicon Valley has the slowest internet as a resident which is very surprising and ironic but but look but look at what happened here in Korea for instance you know the Innovations of content creation was built on a backbone of a really good infrastructure with great partnership with the government and uh and and investment in infrastructure so which is why I'm also very passionate about Asia Pacific is governments here understand the value of a close Partnership of building infrastructure because if you build the infrastructure you're going to actually create new businesses new opportunities for small medium and large but you you know you were saying earlier it was only the large companies but no now it's actually anyone can build a business on the internet and what we care about is well how can you create great experiences whether it's a Creator whether you're a business owner on web 3 and that I think is something that you know marked my words three years down the road five five five years down the road you're going to look back and go yeah you know web 3 was in its infancy and all these up ups and downs were noise because the value is there and if you build it they will come awesome thank you Daniel you know it was a great message I think Korean community on enthusiasm to Korean market and also the community here to bring together to a community so thank you so much today for joining us I'm so happy thank you very much I appreciate it thanks be thank we