The Importance of Community and Culture - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2024

all right so I'll present with you guys uh some uh an interesting thought to start this off in uh in crypto I think we're super tech oriented and I actually want to present a challenging question for all my tech Maxis out there I said the question I want to ask and it's rhetorical because I'll answer it for you you it is what is your Moe if in an AI dominated World 99% of your Tech can get easily competed away now this is a question that I think is going to be more relevant today and tomorrow and the days preceding it uh than it is necessarily today now it's important to note that Tech already is competed away uh there's an interesting thing that's going viral right now uh across social channels and that's really uh a a thing with Mark Zuckerberg basically talking to a CF and he spoke and he said when Instagram was first coming out you know what is the difference between Facebook and Instagram and essentially said there really was no difference outside that they had basically tooken this core functionality uh on swipes and that they needed some time to basically get there and they didn't want to lose their moat and they ended up buying Instagram for a billion dollars the point that I want to get at is today you're seeing this uh current Dynamic with l1's and l2s you basically can stand one up in 6 to 12 to 18 months depending on exactly which Tech stack you're building but uh it's going to get a lot quicker so my next point the X variable to the success of your company isn't the tech it is community and culture so I'm actually a community culture and distribution Maxi I actually believe there's a new era uh in crypto that is going to be less Tech dependent and more dependent around community and culture uh your community are the custodians of your narrative and if you have narrative you will win I think this is something that uh goes pretty underestimated when people are talking about you know their product uh at the end of the day if you understand crypto and you understand crypto markets you understand that narrative uh is everything and so so the question becomes how do you Foster Community the first one that I think is really important is leading by example uh at pudgy Penguins I think uh from an executive standpoint and obviously from a leadership standpoint I think we do a pretty good job at that the next one is communication and transparency over the last couple of years uh we've spent uh hundreds and hundreds of hours communicating and being transparent with our community when you are doing the back and forth I think it's really important uh that you have a clear line of communication with your group to kind of uh prevent any discourse and any negative feedback and then of course set core principles and values I think this is really important what are people rallying behind what is the community and what is the culture around these principle and values uh at the end of the day if you set those values people will come and so this is kind of an example of what ultimately setting these things will do uh it creates a network effect and community members Inspire other community members if you set the foundation create the right core values communicate and become transparent the rest will kind of do itself the next one is how do you create culture encourage discourse fud builds culture a lot of people hate fud uh but I actually embrace it uh fud I think is one of the pinnac TOS to kind of weed out people who are here for the wrong reasons and uh a lot of people don't embrace it the way that they should and so I'm a huge fud Maxi and you should be too I think one of the great Parts about the pudgy penguin story is that we love fud and there's been so much fud throughout our journey the next one is let people build freely I think this is really important if you understand crypto crypto is a contrarian culture people are here for a reason and that reason is not to be boxed into some sort of frame that you want to put people in and so let people build freely let people do what they want and don't necessarily tell them otherwise I think the best communities and the best cultures in crypto are the ones that let people build freely I think this is super important and last but not least resonate with your community a rallying cry memes a common message again you will hear this more from me community culture and distribution I think are the differences between the projects that fail and the projects that succeed community and culture being at the backbone of that obviously it's not a conversation about distribution uh but when it come comes to culture these are the things you guys are probably most familiar with obviously memes bring Community together a common message brings Community together uh you see every nft project or every protocol have some sort of underlying rally cry something where they tie in the name of their protocol with GM or something along the lines of that uh but these I think are really ultimately super important and so building community and culture in web 3 can give you the edge that traditional Brands don't have and so to give you uh an example of this here's kind of in a comparison uh to the pudgy penguin stack compared to the traditional stack and so if you notice community and culture if Done Right trickle down and create two layers that I think ultimately beat the left and so on the left side you have brand consumers in community everyone understands that and on the right side you have brand participants participants come from community and culture Community which obviously the left side has consumers and then ultimately Builders Builders are the most important variable whether you're building an nft project an L1 and L2 any protocol in the space uh your protocol is going to live and die ultimately by its participants and ultimately by its Builders and if you can't curate a good community and a good culture neither of those two things will come and so on its face we're at a conference where a lot of people are going to sell you on the tech and I'm here to tell you in an AI world three years from now my AI assistant will be able to outperform most senior Developers and so it is not about the tech you're shaking your head and it's true I promise you it is I've seen it it's about the community and culture and I think participants Builders are the key underlying variables you're seeing this in the space you're seeing this with memes you're seeing it when you walk in you're seeing things like bar chain uh you're going to see more of an emphasis on participants consumers Builders and ultimately I think all of those things stem from from community and culture this was a little bit of a rush presentation but that's why I think these things are ultimately so important and uh that's it I think it's a couple uh a couple minutes early it was a good one it was a rushed one and I was late but uh that's it on my end and maybe if anybody has any questions I got three minutes left um if not I'll probably walk off here going once no question going once question in the back hey you can come up next Bull Run ah strategic Partnerships over the next Bull Run so for those yeah go hey Vic from alium here um we we love you guys um I want to know what strategic Partnerships you have contemplated for the uh cycle again for the topic of this conversation I think when I look at strategic Partnerships I look at mutually beneficial relationships and ultimately things that bolster community and culture right and so the one thing that I think we have at pudgy Penguins is I think we have one of the best communities in the space and so I know that when I point that community in a certain direction it reciprocates huge value for protocols and so right now you're seeing like this meta with nft projects that Protocols are air dropping to these communities and it's because again they have the tech but what they don't have is they don't have community and culture and ultimately what you'll find is this space has an abundance of Great Tech Great Tech is all over the place but there's only so many projects that are top of mine and that have the narrative and that narrative is driven through our community and culture guy over there was shaking his head I don't think he agrees with me uh at least on on the tech side but again it's it's abundance you you can walk through this conference specifically and see amazing Tech innovations that you've never seen before but nobody's talking about them ultimately because they don't have community and culture so when I'm uh looking at strategic Partnerships I'm looking at how can you fill the void and provide value for us for the value that we reciprocate which in this case is our community s uh can you hear me yeah I can hear you microphone M's not working so if you would create your uh collection today from the scratch uh what narratives would you use and what exact steps would you make like if you would make it today I think if I was going to start something today um my Pro my priority would be bringing it in a group that believes in the vision that is not predicated so there's an interesting thing that I think is going on with the space where you have really two two audiences on one side you have an audience who's very monetary value driven and on the other side you have a very emotionally value-driven audience I would always try to optimize for the value driven audience and those that are not driven necessarily for monetary game obviously the elephant in the room is this is crypto and everybody wants monetary game uh but really being able to weed out the two it's important you have a really strong nucleus and a strong Foundation again pudgy penguin success I think at the root of it was the fact that when I took it over so many people had already lost so much money that it wasn't about the money anymore it was about again the community the Friendship the camaraderie and ultimately this creates the base that goes further than what the market will allow it at the end of the day when you take things with utility or uh you know certain price expectations there's a ceiling there's no ceiling when the penguin is the Penguin and when the Community is the community that has an endless ceiling that could be a million dooll floor one day and there is no price expectation outside of that uh and I think a lot of people have a I'm an anti- utility Maxi so the probably the best advice I should actually give you is utility is a death sentence so don't give it to them uh and why I say that is because again utility creates a ceiling you don't want a ceiling on your brand on your product on your protocol on your chain ceilings ultimately cave in eventually and there's no blue skies when you have a ceiling you want to optimize for blue skies and so uh I think that would probably be the best answer to your question so if I were to start a new nft project today I would say no utility utility is a death sentence thank you guys I'm sorry for starting out a little rough there