Some of you have asked me for advice on entering web3 and finding a job in this chaotic industry, and to be totally honest, I’m probably not the best person to ask.

But I thought I’d outline my somewhat unorthodox journey in a blog post, so that other people who are going through what I went through 2 months ago, don’t feel too alone.

Let’s get started!

1. Triage your skills and tell a compelling story

I started learning about crypto and web3 more generally in around later December 2021/early January 2022.

https://twitter.com/meowllark/status/1496516483249319936?s=20&t=BhnsZXnLmSN8ybz4__-h1w

Prior to that, I had absolutely zero specialized or technical experience. My last and only full-time job was at a Chinese social media and e-commerce startup that was failing massively, and before that, all my work experiences were public-sector internships at nonprofit policy think tanks, a law firm, and the ACLU (cool, but totally unrelated job).

No way I was immediately getting a job by presenting myself as a former-aspiring lawyer interested in Chinese startups.

I needed to triage my skills and determine what made me a compelling candidate to web3 companies.

So I filtered my skillset according to the following buckets:

• As a political science and philosophy major, I was interested in the ethics of emerging technologies like blockchain

• As the former VP of Philanthropy in my college sorority, I knew how to invigorate a community without any significant financial incentives

• As the only American employee at a Chinese startup, I was ambassadorial, adaptable, and knew how to navigate confusing and fast-paced markets

• As someone who spent all their time on internet forums as a kid, I lived and breathed internet culture

Build out your narrative and relate it to your past experiences in a compelling way, no matter how irrelevant you initially think your experiences might be. Which brings me to my next point…

2. Build in public by learning collaboratively

Getting started in web3 is really fucking confusing. Sometimes we don’t remember this because it was so long ago or because we’re in the bubble—but typically, there is a massive learning curve to even buy crypto, much less work in web3.

To overcome this hurdle, I decided to create a Twitter mostly as a means to track my learnings, and also a way to connect with others who wanted to learn about web3. I made sure to structure my threads and tweets in a way that would be akin to taking notes at school, so that others could learn with me, too.

I entered web3 with a beginner’s mind: I’d embraced the fact that I was a complete beginner, and knew that it wouldn’t hurt me to do this in public.

My first tweet was explaining my experience with the first DAO I had joined in simple terms. The DAO, Invisible College, RT’d me and welcomed me with open arms.

https://twitter.com/meowllark/status/1480053942671200260?s=20&t=BhnsZXnLmSN8ybz4__-h1w

This feeling of inclusion allowed me to become more daring and open in asking questions, reaching out to others, creating my own content, and expanding my network within the DAO. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was slowly building my reputation (and audience in web3), and learning while doing it.

Build in public by means of becoming an unofficial contributor to the communities you’re involved in, and it will pay dividends!

3. Fail fast by doing, and fail often

I am the type of person who has to fully commit to something in order to learn it. So I didn’t wait until I had enough “web3 experience” to apply for jobs—I just went for it from the very beginning, with the hope that I would learn on the job.

Here are some of the jobs/DAOs/collectives I applied to and got rejected (or ghosted) from at the beginning:

• Uniswap Labs (Social Media Manager)

• Gnosis Safe (Social Media Manager)

• Arbitrum (Community Manager)

• A GameFi Company (Marketing Manager)

• Tally (Marketing Lead + Communications Lead)

• Syndicate (Didn’t see my role, never got a response)

• Seed Club (Applied to be a contributor, never got a response)

• Forefront (Applied to be a contributor, never got a response)

• Braintrust (Got told they were looking for mostly dev + design freelancers)

• Web3 Baddies (Never heard back)

Turns out, spraying and praying without specialized experience isn’t the best strategy. But from all these interviews and applications, and many more from smaller companies and startups, I was able to decipher and analyze the main needs of web3 organizations that I wanted to work for.

In the end, I didn’t work some magic to get my role at Layer3. I actually was rejected from my current role after three rounds of interviews, and I was crushed.

https://twitter.com/meowllark/status/1492683075343753223?s=20&t=BhnsZXnLmSN8ybz4__-h1w

But I was determined to work in web3, and after having interviewed at multiple web3 companies and going through all those applications and rejections, I realized that web3 was missing marketers. And having been at a startup myself, I knew it was difficult for startups to commit to full-time hires unless they had a demonstrated history of incredible results within the industry.

I needed to follow my conviction that my talent was needed, but I also needed to be flexible. So I countered Layer3’s rejection, offered to become a freelancer content writer, delivered results, and within 2 months, I was offered a full-time role.

The lesson? Being adaptable in this market and failing fast will help you tremendously.

👋

That’s it! Thanks for reading — and feel free to DM me if you have any thoughts or feedback.