One Big IdeaWho Can We Trust on Social Media?
Humans are hierarchical by nature. Our instinct is to classify out of self-preservation. We are status-seeking. We look for indicators of where we stand on the totem pole of life by comparing our position to others. We are influenced and subconsciously (or consciously) mirror those we believe to be of high status. In Robert B. Caldini’s Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, the author breaks down the six principles of influence. They are:**Reciprocation - **we hate feeling indebted. If som...
One Big IdeaNFT DAOs Are Terrible
DAOs. If you’ve spent enough time in or around someone in the space, you’ve heard the acronym thrown around. During the bull market, it seemed the “solution” to every problem was to just DAO it (you can have this one for free, Nike). DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, promised a future in which entities became unstoppable. Governed by smart contracts. All you had to do was set up some initial rules and let Ethereum take the wheel.Set It And Forget It GIFs - Get the best GIF on G...
One Big IdeaA Beginner's Guide to Cosmos 2.0
The Scalability Trilemma & Cosmos The perfect blockchain would be decentralized, scalable, and secure. It is decentralized to be credibly fair and censorship-resistant, scalable to handle the masses, and safe from exploitation. Unfortunately, the perfect blockchain does not exist. Instead, what we have is the scalability trilemma. The tradeoffs required to develop a blockchain necessitate deprioritizing one of these pillars to benefit the other two.Bitcoin and Ethereum have prioritized decent...
One Big IdeaWho Can We Trust on Social Media?
Humans are hierarchical by nature. Our instinct is to classify out of self-preservation. We are status-seeking. We look for indicators of where we stand on the totem pole of life by comparing our position to others. We are influenced and subconsciously (or consciously) mirror those we believe to be of high status. In Robert B. Caldini’s Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, the author breaks down the six principles of influence. They are:**Reciprocation - **we hate feeling indebted. If som...
One Big IdeaNFT DAOs Are Terrible
DAOs. If you’ve spent enough time in or around someone in the space, you’ve heard the acronym thrown around. During the bull market, it seemed the “solution” to every problem was to just DAO it (you can have this one for free, Nike). DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, promised a future in which entities became unstoppable. Governed by smart contracts. All you had to do was set up some initial rules and let Ethereum take the wheel.Set It And Forget It GIFs - Get the best GIF on G...
One Big IdeaA Beginner's Guide to Cosmos 2.0
The Scalability Trilemma & Cosmos The perfect blockchain would be decentralized, scalable, and secure. It is decentralized to be credibly fair and censorship-resistant, scalable to handle the masses, and safe from exploitation. Unfortunately, the perfect blockchain does not exist. Instead, what we have is the scalability trilemma. The tradeoffs required to develop a blockchain necessitate deprioritizing one of these pillars to benefit the other two.Bitcoin and Ethereum have prioritized decent...
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Subscribe to One Big Idea
Subscribe to One Big Idea
Hi Friends 👋🏽,
A warm welcome to the 117 new subscribers who joined us last week! If you haven’t subscribed, join 998 crypto-curious members by subscribing here:
Some quick housecleaning:
Let’s get into it
With 30,000 podcast downloads per month and 50,000 newsletter subscribers, Adam Levy’s Mint is one of the most successful media companies covering the Web3 creator economy.
This past week I had the opportunity to participate in The Vault, a collection of pieces from content creators curated by Mint. This content was not immediately available to the public. Instead, it was token-gated, with individuals needing to RSVP for a free token to commemorate the finish of Adam’s latest season of the podcast.
nineIn total, more than 45,000 people registered for their Season 6 commemorative pin before Wednesday’s deadline. Given my newsletter is about to cross 1,000 subscribers(!), this represented a significant awareness lift for yours truly.
I’ve been fascinated by Adam’s success and those like him who have experimented with various NFT classes to build, retarget, monetize, and reward their audiences. So much so that I recently had him on the podcast in the hopes, he would divulge his secrets. He did; if you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s worth a watch.
Building off the knowledge I’ve absorbed from Adam and other successful creators in the space, today’s One Big Idea is a synthesis of what I’ve learned about cultivating an audience and converting them to collectors in Web3.
Within the traditional web2 total addressable market for a creator lies two cohorts of audiences: passive and active.
Passive audiences are your top-of-the-funnel lurkers. Whether through algorithms, retweets, or shares, they know your content but have not yet taken action. The goal is to increase the size of this funnel as much as possible through marketing and content and continually increase your efficiency in converting them to active audience members.
Active audience members take action. They interact with your content. Whether that is listening to your music, commenting on your socials, or signing up for your newsletter. These audience members have gone from passively receiving your content via algorithms and shares from people in their network to making a conscious decision to engage. The objective with your active audience is a combination of increasing engagement and monetization (either directly or indirectly via avenues like advertising).
Within each of these cohorts are multiple segments. For example, passive audiences could be broken up by channel (TikTok, Twitter) and level of passive engagement (impressions, likes, retweets). Similarly, active members range from tourists (occasionally listen, read, etc.) to fervent super-fans (never miss an episode, share with all their friends, etc.).
With Web3, a new class of audience members has emerged. Token collectors.
Tokens unlock:
Provenance: proof of participation. Audience members can verify their support and be rewarded for being early.
Liquidity: Tokens can be sold to anyone with a crypto wallet through marketplaces, exchanges, or direct listings.
Utility: Tokens can be granted additional rights like access at any time. A free token you received for listening to an episode could become your key for access to a future mint, partnership, or group.
Value accrual: Tokens can accrue value as the creator grows in influence or utility, is added.
Tokens can be segmented into free and paid.
Free tokens are like badges. They can be earned through engaging with content. Mint, for example, releases “pins” at the end of each season. These pins are earned by listening to the podcast to learn where to claim and submit an email and wallet address. For collectors, these pins prove they were there and unlock access to exclusive content, allowlists for future drops, and bonus materials released at the end of the season. Due to their permanence, Adam can always choose to add more utility to them over time or have unlocks gated by the ownership of multiple pins (e.g., owning the first six seasons).
Paid editions introduce monetization for token collectibles. To incentivize someone to pay, creators need to create a net positive return on investments. This can but does not have to be a financial return.
Examples of paid utility are:
Speculation: The ability to sell your token for more than you purchased it for down the line. In Cooper’s recent thesis on Music NFTs, he made the analogy of collecting rookie cards. The bet is that owning early editions from artists will be worth something in the future. We are already seeing that thesis validated with secondary sales at multiples more than mint for early Music NFT vanguards like Latasha, Daniel Allan, and Reo Cragun.
Access: Particularly access you can not give everyone in your audience. While a free mint may make sense for content, it doesn’t make sense for entry to an intimate dinner or concert.
We Do A Little, a crypto podcast hosted by prominent influencers Deeze and Andy, released two paid NFTs: Base and Premium. Base NFTs were limited to 10,000 and priced at 0.042069 (we like the memes) and gave holders early access to episodes, a private discord server, bonus content, and airdrops of art from some of the guests. Premium NFTs were limited to 12 and auctioned off with a reserve price of 0.2 ETH. Those who won the auction are invited to a 20-person dinner during Art Basel.
1 of 1’s represents the top of the collector pyramid. These should be reserved for moments or experiences you want to be immortalized as premium. For example, there may be thousands of Michael Jordan rookie cards but only 1 Michael Jordan championship ring from 1996. Another analogy is a physical painting to its prints. The 1 of 1 is your collectible’s digital fingerprint on chain. For example, the musician Verite mints her songs as 1 of 1’s on Catalog, with the most recent song having a reserve price of 5 ETH. In another example, photographer Braden released his “seasons” photography collection as 1 of 1s on SuperRare. Lastly, Kevin Rose dropped his inaugural episode of Modern Finance on Zora. It sold for 3.5 ETH. Often collectors are looking to own a piece of history singularly. While additional utility can be given, it is usually enough to be a cultural artifact's sole owner.
So we’ve identified two separate funnels: a Web2 audience funnel and a Web3 collector funnel. A union of these two funnels would have some overlap but more likely looks like a Venn Diagram.
Your crucial data tools for building an audience, and engaging collectors are emails and wallets. Emails help you cut through social algorithms to reach and retarget your audience directly. Wallets help you define who your audience is. Knowing what they collect makes you better positioned to create content that resonates. Additionally, collecting wallets can give insight into what you should price your content, who would be a good fit to sponsor your content and any guests/collaborations that fit within your collector base.
As a creator, your goal is to leverage data to grow your audience and convert them down the funnel to collectors. The easiest way to do this is by using email-gating free collectibles.
Going back to our Mint example, Adam has his audience RSVP for a free pin with their email address. When it comes time to claim, they receive a link to that email address, prompting them to connect their wallet to mint the pin. In doing so, Adam has not only converted his audience to collectors but also linked the two data sets.
As a creator, your goal is to leverage data to grow your audience and convert them down the funnel to collectors. Emails and wallets are your key tools for engaging and monetizing your base.
Thanks for reading. See you on Wednesday with a new episode of The One Big Idea Podcast.
austin
Hi Friends 👋🏽,
A warm welcome to the 117 new subscribers who joined us last week! If you haven’t subscribed, join 998 crypto-curious members by subscribing here:
Some quick housecleaning:
Let’s get into it
With 30,000 podcast downloads per month and 50,000 newsletter subscribers, Adam Levy’s Mint is one of the most successful media companies covering the Web3 creator economy.
This past week I had the opportunity to participate in The Vault, a collection of pieces from content creators curated by Mint. This content was not immediately available to the public. Instead, it was token-gated, with individuals needing to RSVP for a free token to commemorate the finish of Adam’s latest season of the podcast.
nineIn total, more than 45,000 people registered for their Season 6 commemorative pin before Wednesday’s deadline. Given my newsletter is about to cross 1,000 subscribers(!), this represented a significant awareness lift for yours truly.
I’ve been fascinated by Adam’s success and those like him who have experimented with various NFT classes to build, retarget, monetize, and reward their audiences. So much so that I recently had him on the podcast in the hopes, he would divulge his secrets. He did; if you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s worth a watch.
Building off the knowledge I’ve absorbed from Adam and other successful creators in the space, today’s One Big Idea is a synthesis of what I’ve learned about cultivating an audience and converting them to collectors in Web3.
Within the traditional web2 total addressable market for a creator lies two cohorts of audiences: passive and active.
Passive audiences are your top-of-the-funnel lurkers. Whether through algorithms, retweets, or shares, they know your content but have not yet taken action. The goal is to increase the size of this funnel as much as possible through marketing and content and continually increase your efficiency in converting them to active audience members.
Active audience members take action. They interact with your content. Whether that is listening to your music, commenting on your socials, or signing up for your newsletter. These audience members have gone from passively receiving your content via algorithms and shares from people in their network to making a conscious decision to engage. The objective with your active audience is a combination of increasing engagement and monetization (either directly or indirectly via avenues like advertising).
Within each of these cohorts are multiple segments. For example, passive audiences could be broken up by channel (TikTok, Twitter) and level of passive engagement (impressions, likes, retweets). Similarly, active members range from tourists (occasionally listen, read, etc.) to fervent super-fans (never miss an episode, share with all their friends, etc.).
With Web3, a new class of audience members has emerged. Token collectors.
Tokens unlock:
Provenance: proof of participation. Audience members can verify their support and be rewarded for being early.
Liquidity: Tokens can be sold to anyone with a crypto wallet through marketplaces, exchanges, or direct listings.
Utility: Tokens can be granted additional rights like access at any time. A free token you received for listening to an episode could become your key for access to a future mint, partnership, or group.
Value accrual: Tokens can accrue value as the creator grows in influence or utility, is added.
Tokens can be segmented into free and paid.
Free tokens are like badges. They can be earned through engaging with content. Mint, for example, releases “pins” at the end of each season. These pins are earned by listening to the podcast to learn where to claim and submit an email and wallet address. For collectors, these pins prove they were there and unlock access to exclusive content, allowlists for future drops, and bonus materials released at the end of the season. Due to their permanence, Adam can always choose to add more utility to them over time or have unlocks gated by the ownership of multiple pins (e.g., owning the first six seasons).
Paid editions introduce monetization for token collectibles. To incentivize someone to pay, creators need to create a net positive return on investments. This can but does not have to be a financial return.
Examples of paid utility are:
Speculation: The ability to sell your token for more than you purchased it for down the line. In Cooper’s recent thesis on Music NFTs, he made the analogy of collecting rookie cards. The bet is that owning early editions from artists will be worth something in the future. We are already seeing that thesis validated with secondary sales at multiples more than mint for early Music NFT vanguards like Latasha, Daniel Allan, and Reo Cragun.
Access: Particularly access you can not give everyone in your audience. While a free mint may make sense for content, it doesn’t make sense for entry to an intimate dinner or concert.
We Do A Little, a crypto podcast hosted by prominent influencers Deeze and Andy, released two paid NFTs: Base and Premium. Base NFTs were limited to 10,000 and priced at 0.042069 (we like the memes) and gave holders early access to episodes, a private discord server, bonus content, and airdrops of art from some of the guests. Premium NFTs were limited to 12 and auctioned off with a reserve price of 0.2 ETH. Those who won the auction are invited to a 20-person dinner during Art Basel.
1 of 1’s represents the top of the collector pyramid. These should be reserved for moments or experiences you want to be immortalized as premium. For example, there may be thousands of Michael Jordan rookie cards but only 1 Michael Jordan championship ring from 1996. Another analogy is a physical painting to its prints. The 1 of 1 is your collectible’s digital fingerprint on chain. For example, the musician Verite mints her songs as 1 of 1’s on Catalog, with the most recent song having a reserve price of 5 ETH. In another example, photographer Braden released his “seasons” photography collection as 1 of 1s on SuperRare. Lastly, Kevin Rose dropped his inaugural episode of Modern Finance on Zora. It sold for 3.5 ETH. Often collectors are looking to own a piece of history singularly. While additional utility can be given, it is usually enough to be a cultural artifact's sole owner.
So we’ve identified two separate funnels: a Web2 audience funnel and a Web3 collector funnel. A union of these two funnels would have some overlap but more likely looks like a Venn Diagram.
Your crucial data tools for building an audience, and engaging collectors are emails and wallets. Emails help you cut through social algorithms to reach and retarget your audience directly. Wallets help you define who your audience is. Knowing what they collect makes you better positioned to create content that resonates. Additionally, collecting wallets can give insight into what you should price your content, who would be a good fit to sponsor your content and any guests/collaborations that fit within your collector base.
As a creator, your goal is to leverage data to grow your audience and convert them down the funnel to collectors. The easiest way to do this is by using email-gating free collectibles.
Going back to our Mint example, Adam has his audience RSVP for a free pin with their email address. When it comes time to claim, they receive a link to that email address, prompting them to connect their wallet to mint the pin. In doing so, Adam has not only converted his audience to collectors but also linked the two data sets.
As a creator, your goal is to leverage data to grow your audience and convert them down the funnel to collectors. Emails and wallets are your key tools for engaging and monetizing your base.
Thanks for reading. See you on Wednesday with a new episode of The One Big Idea Podcast.
austin
<100 subscribers
<100 subscribers
No activity yet