This is a premium-only piece, but not your average premium piece 😉
This is the first time I’ve done this in lieu of a regular piece and I want to strike while the inspiration iron is hot.
Let’s go through some context, my favorite!
The history of Web3 with TPan Premium
September 2022
TPan writes his 100th piece and launches a premium subscription option.
September-November 2022
TPan plays around with a weekly ‘Below the Fold’ edition only available for premium subs. The content focuses on the personal side of TPan and what is on his mind related to the Web3 space. Here’s an example if you forgot or were a premium subscriber after the fact.
I even tried a couple editions of this on Paragraph.
The value of these weekly premium newsletters didn’t sit right with me, and I don’t think they were that valuable to you.
September 2022-February 2023
TPan stresses out about how to provide meaningful value to his premium subscribers beyond more newsletter content. He doesn’t want to just ‘write more content’.
March 2023
TPan hit inspiration after some conversations at ETH Denver! Begins work on a project for premium subs.
April 2023-August 2023
The excitement around the ETH Denver idea fizzles. TPan knows he’ll get back to working on it…eventually.
The pressure of providing value to premium subscriber fades, but doesn’t leave. TPan knows that something will come, and he’ll know when it does.
Premium subscribers slowly churn (understandable!) but everyone that’s left is a sincere supporter of TPan and his work, viewing it more like a Patreon subscription of sorts.
August 2023
friend.tech arrives.
TPan gets caught up in the FT hype and plays around with it. Realizes there is something more to it than the financial speculation, for him at least.
He makes the argument that FT is interesting.
^Please read this piece if you haven’t. It will help you understand the rest of this
After writing the piece, TPan realizes there is a way to bring value to his premium subscribers through FT in a way that complements what he’s looking for.
And that brings us back to this piece
So why are we here?
I’m going to bring all of you onto my friend.tech.
🚨If you are already on FT, feel free to skip over to “Wait a second…”
Why friend.tech?
If you read my piece on FT, I shared that I have a LOT of content in the backlog. This content has sat around my Notion and after several months of inaction eventually moved over to the graveyard to rot.
Oftentimes, there are some good nuggets in these items:
I don’t want to let these ideas, thoughts, and resources rot. At the same time, I don’t have the time or energy to package these thoughts into something formatted and Substack-ready.
This is where FT comes in:
Web3 native
I could go with Substack chats or a token-gated Telegram or Discord group, but those aren’t web3-native. FT is.
Payment will still go through Substack because this is the hub for people of varying web3 knowledge to come and consume content. I want my Substack content to be free (which is why I don’t want to do Substack premium content).
Simple setup
By the simple act of signing up, I created a token-gated Telegram chat. Terrible UI, which will incrementally improve quickly IMO. It better…lol.
Access to TPan
You get the direct access I always wanted to provide, but in a way that makes sense to me. I can share my raw thoughts, and you can chat with me about them or other topics.
This is why I believe FT is a great fit for me and for the premium value I want to provide.
It’s raw
FT is raw. My backlog of content is raw. This is product x content fit.
Some of the content will be refined and turned into Substack piece. As you saw earlier, a lot of it doesn’t make it that far though.
This way you get it all:
Raw, unformatted brain dumps, links, etc. (FT)
The polished publicly published product (via Substack)
Access to TPan in the chat
It’s fun
We’ll go on this weird FT journey together 😂
How do I get on friend.tech? What do I need?
If you need help or if this is confusing, please reach out. I will work with you to get on FT.
You will need ETH (~.04, or $65 at most, if you’re unsure how much you’ll need please contact me).
Depending on how familiar you are with web3, onboarding is (sorta) easy:
Go to friend.tech on your phone on Safari (iOS) or Chrome (Android) mobile browser.
Turn the website into an app, below is what the process looks like on iOS
If you do not have ETH on Base: Use the Base bridge to move ETH from Mainnet to Base.
You will need Base ETH and deposit it into the wallet address provided by FT. It’s safe, I’ve done it as well as 100k others. If you want to know how much to bridge, please reach out and coordinate with me.
Unfortunately, there are no other payment methods currently. The team is considering credit card onramps in the future.
You will need a referral code. I will provide these to you if you need one.
After connecting your Twitter/X account to FT, revoke app access
Find me via the Explore tab
Click ‘Buy’ on the top right and the option to buy a key will pop up.
Click ‘Complete Purchase’ and you will have a TPan key in a few seconds, woohoo! 🎉
Now you can chat with me. Say hi and enjoy the ride.
Note that currently chat is ‘one way’ for you. I can see all messages, key holders can only see their own messages and mine. I hope this changes soon or could be toggled.
Wait a second…
Yes.
And I will refund you the amount that you paid to purchase the TPan key. The price is dynamic so I will verify with you the amount you paid and refund you the appropriate amount + more because of gas, bridging, etc.
Let me know how you want to be refunded (ETH on Base, ETH on Mainnet, USDC, a blurb on the newsletter, etc.).
Ok that’s great. But why do I have to buy and then get a refund? Why can’t you buy your own keys and then send them to us like NFTs?
I tried…and halfway through learned that keys are not transferrable (currently). Womp womp.
Because of this, I need your cooperation to make this happen. And I hope to make this worth your while!
What else do I need to know + FAQs
Help!
Please reach out! I will do everything I can to help you onboard. I mean it. Ok, well maybe not everything, lol.
Do I need to do this?
No, this is voluntary. I’ve shared what I plan on doing though, so I hope these incentives encourage you to join me on FT!
Is this an experiment?
Yes, an experiment of sorts. Who knows, FT could implode in a month. I don’t think so though…
If I don’t do this, will I get that refund?
No, silly.
How long will this offer last?
This offer will be valid for 2 weeks, expiring September 8th when I finish the work day (I’m on PST). I might be nice and provide a bit of a grace period, but I think 2 weeks is enough time to get on FT if you are interested.
This is dumb, I’m canceling my premium subscription.
I respect your opinion and appreciate your support up to this point!
I’ve always wanted to do things a bit differently, so I understand if those realities haven’t met your expectations.
Will new premium subscribers get this ‘benefit’?
Nope. This offer is only available for all active subscribers as of today.
I want to sell my FT key.
You can do whatever you want with the key you purchase. I will not sell shame.
I want to provide you access, but if you believe selling that access is more valuable than the access itself, do it! I encourage you to do what you believe is best.
None of this is financial advice (duh). These keys are meant to be access to me and effectively my thoughts as I shared above.
Are there any risks to participating?
None as far as I can tell, especially since I’ll be refunding you the price of the keys you purchase. Be sure to revoke app access after signing up.
Wait a second, who are these other TPan key holders?
As of this writing, there are 14 TPan key holders. They are not aware of what I’m doing and I have not shared this plan with anyone. I hope you don’t either.
I guess it’s a bonus that they bought keys when they did. I think some of them will sell as the price goes up 🤷♂️
I plan on publicly sharing this initiative once the deadline passes to inspire other creators and show what you can do with FT despite the spotlight on the financial aspects of the product.
Are you going to do more of this?
Probably. If a better alternative to FT pops up, I will let you know and migrate you over.
If there are future interesting tools that help me provide more value to you, I’ll bring you along and subsidize it like this if I believe it makes sense to. As long as it’s not prohibitively expensive 😂
I hope you join me on this weird and fascinating friend.tech journey. Some of you have supported me for a while and some of you have just started supporting (what great timing, lucky you!).
As always, feel free to reach out by replying to this, or DM me on Twitter.
