Building Trust in a Trustless World | Daria Volkova | ETHWarsaw [4]

So I'm happy to see you today and uh today we're going to talk about the most valuable currency in web 3 trust and uh how to build trust in a trustless decentralized web 3 world. So uh my name is Daria. I'm a builder of trust. I'm builder of brands and uh communication strategist. As Stas mentioned, I'm the organizer of Shifi Warso.

I'm also the host of the centralized voices podcast and I'm a speaker and uh attendee and like community contributor and ambassador to its uh towo. Yes. Uh yeah, a few words about my podcast, this the centralized voices podcast and I already uh recorded more than 50 episodes with different great people from the industry uh talking about product and human sides of the web 3 and actually Karsten was my one of my first one of my first uh guests on my podcast. So I'm super excited and uh super happy. And if you want to scan the cure code, you can do that uh now.

Okay. So let's let's move forward. Come come come. Yeah, just join us. Uh we just started.

Uh so actually our we all like to say don't trust verify like we all are super security here. Okay. Okay. Okay, I will be here. Yeah.

So we all like to say that uh don't trust verify like we are super cool guys in security but actually our super secure industry already lost about 80 billion in total value lost and uh we all have like a lot of rag pools and scams in the industry and it doesn't help to increase trust uh from the people uh like from from people from web two industries or even inside of the industry. And I really recommend you to check the website like web 3 is going just great because they publish a lot of scams and stuff happening around and it's super funny. Uh it's super sad and super funny at the same time. Uh so uh when you build your project you might think that everything is going just great but actually it's not. And uh if you don't use trust signals and if you don't build trust with your community part with your community with your partners with your investors uh you might look like a scam or like at least suspicious uh and I talked to more than 50 people uh asking them what trust means to them and uh hi please take a seat uh and uh there were like two groups of answers.

First group asked answered that trust is about uh product about security decentralization and all like tech and product stuff and the second group as answered that it's about branding communication reputation a good UX and everything connected with marketing and and communication but these both groups they are right they both right because trust builds on like two uh two big pillars let's Okay, let's call them like this. And let's uh have uh Joe uh Joe is the user and he wants to use a product and he has a choice to use a product A or product B. Both of them have great tech inside and solid security but one product has trust to founders, clear product message and attractive UX and UI and the second one doesn't have all these um things. So it's not a surprise that uh Joe will use the product A because it has this trust signals and probably product A will earn more because more people like Joe will use that um product. Uh and uh speaking of uh Roy of trust, we don't uh like I don't want to miss also the excitement and the loyal users uh long-term attention, user engagement, business longevity and all the things that are connected with trust when you have it as a project.

Uh and uh speaking of psychology of trust um we have two um dimensions or like two groups of uh things that make our brand trustworthy and it doesn't um like it it works for both for personal brand and for brand of the company and uh the person or the brand should be competent like skilled bold experience experienced and everything like let's call them hard skills and also friendly ready to help creative good in communication and only when you are uh the person who are skilled and um I don't know good-looking and friendly or if your brand is uh like strong and good-looking and friendly only these things can help you build trust uh in general not only in the web3 world and uh I I want to share with you five principles of building trust in a trustless world. And first uh principle is tech awareness. People don't trust things they don't understand. And I'm sure that you all like I'm sure that many of you are builders or founders or people who who need to explain difficult things in more um engaging and more simple way. And uh you can see that people uh often over complicate some explanations.

And here are the example of a good communication and good thing when the brand explains uh difficult tech like zero knowledge technology in very simple way and actually Martin he will be speaking tomorrow uh and he is the author of uh the book for L5 from Zik Sync uh and it became very good merge uh last year at ICC and other conferences because he expl he has three or four kids I guess and he explained it like like five like uh like to his uh people to his kids. Uh the next one is also from Zin but like uh don't uh take it uh very serious but I really like uh the how the team explained their new air bender function uh with the help of game to show that air bender is super fast and you can be faster than air bender but actually you can't be faster than air bender and it also helps to uh engage people and be more open and be like be yeah like be more interesting to your audience uh compared to um documentation like very u boring documentation. Uh the next one is alchemy. They have their university and actually uh this university helps them to find more developers and more people uh to engage with the brand and with the help of this university where they teach people solidity uh JavaScript and other blockchain languages and other blockchain knowledge uh they increase their visibility and they increase this uh trust in their brand and educate others. Uh the same thing for Centrifuge.

Centrifuge uh work with RBAS with RA tokenization and uh they had a film about tokenization and also they organize RVA summits that can help increase their visibility as a brand and establish them at the leader in the market uh with the help of this educational stuff. So that's very interesting. And the second principle is clear product message. You have to be more clear than clever or creative especially when you talk about some uh complex technologies. Uh and uh probably this thing is very um like you know all uh this stuff like all this like bootstrapped s disrupt disruptions and all these technologies they can be overwhelming to everyone and uh like to be honest I don't like all these like frictionless token velocity guys what are you talking about we don't understand this like please explain it in normal way like in simple way uh and that's why we should avoid using these buzzwords and we should explain it in more simple and more clear way like what are you doing actually and to build uh this uh clear message um you have to use three main um principles.

Uh first of all it's product vision and narrative. So product vision helps you to build your narrative and uh it's the answer to the question what do you do and what's the benefit from your product to your audience. The next one is values and mission and it helps to build storytelling and make uh people more engaged and fell in love with your brand and you can you can share everything you want that can highlight the value of your brand but make it like in compelling and very um like um interesting way and the main thing is product market feed. Uh this is the pain point like the the pain thing for every startup at the beginning especially because everyone tried to find this product market fit and uh actually the question like how many people would use a product for its value without token incentives and if your answer is zero or like almost zero it means that you don't have product market fit. you just spend your money and like making making fun in this world but not building a business like normal business.

So that's three like uh core principles uh to build clear message and to build uh to make your product more understandable and more clear. And the example of good product messaging is ledger. When you close your eyes, you think about security. When you think about ledger, you think about security. You don't think about I don't know French croissants or uh I don't know wars of weather.

You think about security because ledger is security. Uh the next thing is ZK passport. ZK passport is the um tool to verify your identity without revealing your uh like um without revealing other um information about you and giving up your privacy. And when you think about zikk passport, you think about privacy. That's this uh shifi.

Uh when you think about shifi, you think about community. You never think about like some other stuff or you you don't think about zk. You think about community. You think about women community. So that's the thing that these brands uh built uh and um they have very clear message and they have like one or few words that explain what they do.

Uh the third principle is memorable visual identity design branding and everything around this what makes your product sexy or can make it um look cheap. Uh and uh you all know unis swap. Unis swap is super cool like brand and uh it doesn't need uh intro as Paulina mentioned uh few minutes ago and it has consistent and very strong uh brand among different channels. So uh but unis swap is not the one unicorn in the market. There is one inch.

Yes. But they h they have um the same characters in their logos but they have totally different moods and experience of using and everything different. So it means that even if you have something similar with other brands it doesn't mean that you have to copy paste them. It means that you can find your way your own way and I'm sure like one in didn't try to copy paste unis swap or u vice versa. Uh the same thing for Rava.

Rava is very popular uh party and uh this um ghost like Ronny is the most famous ghost uh in the uh in the ecosystem and they have very uh flexible and interesting branding and it changes from event to event but there they they are consistent in their using their um character in their some illustrations and other stuff communication style and everything uh makes it memorable and makes it consistent. Uh so uh when your design is not clear, when your design is broken like there is no accessibility, there is bad UX and everything uh works not as good as um as normal let's say. uh it makes it it can make your brand cheaper uh in feelings and it can build not very good um impression uh about your brand. So just uh don't copy paste copy paste other brands. Don't make it inconsistent.

Work on your branding and try to find the best uh designer, the best marketer, brand strategist, copywriter that can help you to build really cool brand. Uh the fourth principle uh is uh you cannot buy trust but you can buy attention obviously. Uh and uh I really like this picture because it reflects how all brands are acting uh on on X and when everything looks super fancy on on X on LinkedIn on your white paper and everything but then on the mindet we have this or even we don't have like like here can be empty space uh and uh it means that you can hype like endless endlessly But if you don't deliver, it doesn't make any sense. And I do believe that transparency must be visible and you have to give regular updates on your product. You have to meet your users.

You have to ask them questions and you have to eat your dog's food. uh like be a user of your product because I know that many projects uh uh like for example um the product team uses the pro the project and other team doesn't use and uh especially marketers or people who are not uh like let's say technical but uh all team members must use the product and be uh it it works it works oh my gosh uh Ah, no, I don't want to. Okay. Uh, yes. So, that's that's was clear.

And, uh, we have a brand, we have Ethereum. And, uh, Ethereum is the reason why we're here all today. And we have Ethereum Warso. And Ethereum is super cool and u brand with heritage and um, it's it has 10 years history. And in web 3 it's too much.

and uh it it's consistent and uh people recognize it among others. Uh Farcaster is the one more example of um uh clear communication and regular updates as I mentioned in previous in two two slides before. So Dan Romero um update do regular updates and explains what's happening with forecaster and uh the same thing for bass ji you know all of that all of you know him I'm sure and uh some people think that he's annoying some people think that he's proactive and he's like acting as a as a god of socials uh everything is right about him and it shows that uh the base team bets on uh public persons and uh base team does everything to be as visible as possible and build this trust through personalities including Jesse and other team members of the uh other team members. Uh and the fifth principle is reputation first like number of followers is u good but engagement is better. Uh and uh we all know Kaya platform.

Raise your hand if you know this platform and if you not many. Okay. Uh okay. So uh this platform reimagined the economy of attention and uh like uh they paid you for for mentioning them for using like uh other uh for mentioning other brands and it's like when you post about something you're earning money and actually uh at the beginning it was very uh nice idea but now a lot of uh brands and a lot of people try to like it's it became overwhelming and uh people became not like K opinion leaders but smart followers but actually it doesn't uh is the same thing and uh the thing is that for example this is like my um uh profile and uh like seeing to this numbers can I say that I have more trust now um yes and no because I have like more trust uh according to Kaio online on X that's it like if I don't post something, if I do if I don't do something online, it doesn't mean um like according to Kao that I don't earn trust but actually I earn offline with my friends, with my partners, with people I interact with. So I uh the thing is that you can uh build trust online and uh it counts but you always have to think about like offline world and about interactions with people and how you treat them and how you communicate with them and not focus only on online things.

Uh, and uh, that's I really like this meme that all industry like builds on one centralized social media that depends on one weird guy with like a lot of things in his head. Uh, and uh, I it's so funny when you see accounts with five00K or like 300K and two, three, five likes with no interactions, no comments, but they think that they have community, they have audience and they have people to uh, engage with them and they pay these people for being with them like uh, so I I do believe that we can change this and consistent communication ation and consistent brand building can help to earn more loyal people uh and less bots or people who here just for earning some tokens. Uh and one uh more thing that team le marketing more like more important than having ks and as I mentioned on the slide with uh Jesse and um uh with Farcaster founder like when you use your team for uh promoting your product and when people see that this guy works at this company and this girl builds brand in his in this company, personal brand, professional brand uh and everything like like this company helps its employees to build their careers and helps their clients to do some good things. Uh it works always better than some co from outside can say something good about your brand uh without using it in general. Uh and your personal brand like as a founder as a builder you have to be present uh online.

So you it's not it doesn't mean that you have to be like um I don't know like yapper uh 247 but you have to be present and now I hear a lot of stories from people who uh lost like three five years of their career without being public uh and now they try to like to to gain this visibility because they want to build something they want to uh uh build their products or join the company and they understand that it's much more difficult uh to build this without having this personal brand. Uh and actually being nice and reliable person always helps. So please be nice and reliable person people. Um yeah and uh to wrap up I want to highlight like these five principles uh of building trust like you can be like a spider building your web and like your trustworthy relationships between you uh employees your team your um I don't know people around you and uh it trust always helps to make your project more um like like increase longevity uh build awareness and uh build clear product message and uh consistent branding and everything around this trust. Uh yes and actually you can trust you can build trust in a trustless world.

So it's not easy uh it's not fast but it actually worth it and it actually helps. So thank you for your attention and let's connect. Sorry.

I I don't understand.

No, I hear you. But I I

The question is is how do you protect the trust that you build? Um there are a lot of things uh using on uh sorry web two and web three instruments. For example from the web web two world you can use like trademark and everything related to this. If we talk about brand and when we talk about web three you can use different onchain uh databases and put like your brand or your posts onchain and it will be more um protected than without this. So there are a lot of things but actually if someone wants to steal your uh I don't know uh content or steal your brand it it can be like like it can be especially now we have AI instruments that can do a lot of things with uh like deep fakes and copy paste and everything.

So now we don't have so many things to protect our uh brand if we talk about brand but if we talk about trust like in general as a philosophical thing I don't know like I don't have u answer to your question

does anyone have any more questions?

Yeah maybe something more more more practical. Uh what what do you mean like what how to how to deal with them and how to Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. um KS I I guess that the era of KS now is like going down and now uh more people more and more projects use this like team le marketing and try to uh attract more people uh who already um who already collaborated with them for example or interacted with them like for example ambassadors and I do believe in more in ambassadorship programs for example than ks because ks are not users of your product in most cases of of course they could be but in most cases they are not users of your product they don't know you your you like a person for example and if you attract to be well your friend it should work because there a lot of context behind but if you attract someone like from Twitter and you pay them I don't know like $1,000 for post or something, they will do it to to earn your money, not to make not to give you more value.

And I do believe in this ambassadorship programs and uh uh at it war. So for example uh I led the ambassadorship program and it worked well because these people were very um engaged and interested in being specifically with this brand and they had like a lot of u like much context behind uh behind this. So I guess that like team le marketing, ambassadorship programs and trying to find people who already engaged with your brand is more profitable, more interesting, more um successful strategy than paying for kos with the uh bots in in subscribers.