When Community Becomes the Brand: How Web3 Is Redefining Marketing | Karolina | ETHWarsaw [4]

afternoon. Welcome to uh the stage. Excited to have you all. I'm just curious how many people are from Poland. Okay, a lot.

Good. So, I don't even have to Well, I will I will continue speaking in English. Uh okay, so the next talk is about web 3 marketing. We're going to talk about how communities, memes, and culture are shaping the marketing in the space. And we have Karolina with us.

Uh she's a growth manager at uniquely.

Welcome her.

Thank you. So um there has to be at least one um at every conference there has to be at least one uh talk about community building. So here we are. Thank you all for coming. So today um I will tell you more about a community building and yeah we have many talks about community building and about marketing and still we have many projects that are faking stats fake faking comments faking likes and paying other people to comment and using this whole infoi and so on and so on and they are thinking that this is a community building and that this is a proper way to do it but well we actually know that uh it's not and uh this talk is not a tutorial.

It's not a guide. It the title is not a community building um tutorial. I don't even think that a perfect guy um exists. So uh what I want to do today is I want to challenge your uh thinking uh about communities in web 3. Um so I want to talk about how the real communities are born, what unites them, how they grow into a brand and if you have a brand then you can basically sell anything so how they enable monetization.

Okay. So before we start I want to ask you a question. Uh if you are a part of any community in web 3 and if yes then raise your hand. Okay great. I think the majority of you is a part of any any community and I have now a follow-up question uh which is um which uh community are you in?

So maybe you guys your hand was Yeah.

Yeah. I think Mog for sure a bunch of others maybe more technical one like symbiotic as well.

Okay, great. Any other examples?

Terra Classic but you may know it as Terra before. Okay.

Actually, we are both of us are part of a a community called Book of Ethereum and we are aligned exactly with what you're about to talk about. So, thank you for doing this.

Final one.

Great. Okay.

Three auditors.

Okay. Great. Great. Thank you all for those um little insights. So, yeah.

Um now I have like a follow-up question, let's say. So are you part of a community of a unis swap or dex screener or jupiter? Not so many, right? I think no one. But we actually use those products.

We use those products daily or bi- weekly. And we are users. We are an audience. We are using those um those products, those protocols and so on and so on. But we are not uh in the community of them.

We are not uh writing tweets. I mean if something frustrate us then of course we can we can post some tweet but we are not in the community we don't know any like other users and so on. So it's just an audience. So what is the difference actually? So if you're a an uh audience then you are just a uh listening you know.

So for example, you are my audience right now and um for the community um you have to talk to each other like people are talking to each other. They have common like ideology, common uh topics, they talk um daily and so on and so on and they are like a part of something bigger. They are not only using your product but they are talking about it, posting about it and it's like a culture. Sometimes um it's even like a sect but we will talk about that later. Yeah.

So um at the very beginning I told that some projects didn't um succeed in this community building and they took some shortcuts and what did the projects that succeed? Well they understood that in order to build a brand you have to build a community first. So in order to have like engaged users, engaged community and so on and so on and later you can monetize it but you cannot um do it the other way around and um I don't want uh to just like talk about some obvious stuff. So um I want to uh tell you a free case studies today about the projects that in my opinion built a very very great community and I divided in into three categories. So the first category is personal brand and the first example is React project.

Um so you may know uh React from the Rectgate NFT collection or from the rect drinks or you may know the founder who is OSF. They are also very present on many NFT conferences. So you may recognize this project for from this but um it didn't start like uh instantly and uh the founder first was a top trader at a trading desk at Barclays which is one of the top banks in England. For those who are not familiar with traditional finance being a top traders means that um this is a very competitive job. This is a job that is very stressful and the competition there is huge.

So as you all may assume uh he burned out pretty quickly and during his boring uh meetings he was drawing an art. So this is one of the pieces that he drew in his notebook and also during his work uh because he was a trader so he was of course interested in making money. H he found out about NFTTS and uh when he was drunk uh he saw on Twitter that people are minting Bayc which is um board AP yak club and he also minted that he minted 150 pieces. So he made a lot of money on that and uh he also started to uh post uh daily on Twitter. He started to make his personal brand.

He started to gather people around him and people started to actually like him as a trader as a person and they basically liked his story. And what happened next? He saw a potential in this whole NFT stuff and he decided that well maybe he will try to sell something. and he turned that um turned that doodle into like this NFT collection, but it was only like a one piece. So, it was one-on-one NFT collection and it sold and he saw a bigger bigger potential.

But, um what he did differently is he didn't rush anything. He was doing things very very slowly and after one year he did a drop of his own collection. And what is very very important is that he had a initial people that were very very interested about him about his personal brand and then he decided to make this mint and this mint was free which means that um people don't have to pay for having those NFTts and right now they are worth around 10 um,000 bucks. So it was worth minting that. And um he did it for free.

So he didn't make any money. So as you can see, he was in this space for a very long time. And he wasn't making money on the people that were following him. He didn't monetize it instantly. And of course, um after he did that collection, Snoop Dogg bought it, for example, and any other and many other uh influencers.

and it became viral and it became very recognizable in the space. But what is interesting here um is that uh people were tweeting about buying those pieces of art not because it's great or something but because this is a bet on a person. So they were um tweeting something like yeah I like the vibe I like the community but what I like the most is the OSF in general which is the founder. So he was a very um recognizable person. He cared about his community and people were betting on him by buying those NFTts.

And one year later he decided that this is the right time to start making money on the community that he grew. So he announced a wrecked drinks which is like drink without alcohol, without sugar, without caffeine and so on very healthy for let's say dions. And um after a year of working on that product, he finally dropped a um those drinks. So uh from the time that he did an NFT collection and here we have two and a half years. So he wasn't rushing anything.

He was doing things slowly. And um if you uh may maybe you saw some of those cans on Twitter. He did a great um he did great partnerships for example with abstract, openc, jupiter, binance and bass. And what is interesting uh here is that those for example Jupiter that I mentioned at the beginning or for example Binance or OpenC those projects don't have like their own huge community. They have a huge audience, but they don't have like engaged people.

They have a lot of money, but they don't have like a people that will be very very interested about every aspect of it. And by doing a partnership with Rect drinks, they could actually gain some of that attention, some of that attention that was already in the community of Rect. So, it was win-win for the both sides. And of course, um, Rect team and OSF could make a lot of money on it. and he did some um great partnerships.

Now you can uh buy it in 7-Eleven for example. They made like millions of dollars and they finally after also at the end of the 2024 did a token which also took uh a lot of time. It wasn't like a TGE in one month and let's go. Uh it was very well planned and uh and this token actually um was a present a gift for the community because everyone who had an NFT got this token also. So it was like a present for them.

We as uniquely also did a um partnership with them but I will explain you later what we do as uniquely. So the key thing that I want you to understand from this case study is that you can actually build a brand from your um personal brand. But you cannot monetize too quickly. You cannot make cash grabs. You cannot take money um too aggressively.

You have to build a brand and then um people will buy everything that you will do. If OSF right now will do make a drop of t-shirts or he will make a drop of shoes or cars or anything, people will buy it because they trust in him. All right. Now, a second example which is a pajy penguins. This is um my favorite example.

So, Py was kind of a random collection. uh they um they appeared in the middle of um in the middle of crazy uh bull market on NFTTS and it of course went pretty good at the beginning. Founder also take a lot of money on that collection. They were on New York Times and so on. But um and people really really like the art.

They liked those penguins. They like um the the vibes and the positive you know impact but um founder wasn't um taking let's say good steps because uh he was um making another project dur during that project he also made another mint of little pudgies. So this is another mistake. He took more money from his community because he made um made money on that. And then later he made another collection that was a supposed to be a gift for the community and it was going to be a present.

Uh it was a egg with a ribbon and people were expecting something very very uh unique and they were actually disappointed because it was just a fishing uh rogue and they were like what is this? And also um instead of rod they um had a mis misspelling of rogue and rogue is very very similar to rag and like there was a huge fad. community felt ragged and the vibes were actually awful and everyone expected Py to like be dead in few months. everyone um was thinking that everyone will sell and also Zach XBT I think you may know it he's like a analyst let's say he tracks some bad characters on crypto market um so he also wrote a thread about him that he had some other projects and that he's not very honest that he's taking another break and another break he doesn't have any clear road map he took so much money and he will just disappear. And you may think that this is the end of the collection.

This is like a rag and that's it. But it didn't happen. And there are many reasons why it didn't happen. And one of them and I think like the biggest of them is that um people actually fell in love with um with the art but also with a community that uh was building during those times. So when you look at Apache, it is very very universal.

So it doesn't have any skin color. It doesn't have any like specific traits. It can be both for people of any age. Oh great. It can be for people of any age, any like skin color, any um like just it can be for everyone, for women, for men, for children.

And uh this is the thing that uh Luca um uh also um saw and he thought that he wants to buy a collection but by buying collection you do not buy any NFD but you only buy like IP of this collection like you buy basically pretty nothing but you can uh let's say manage the whole collection. So, he made an offer to buy it for $2.5 million, which is a lot. And you may think why he wanted to buy it. Um, like why?

Because he could do it from the scratch and with those money he could do great marketing and um and so on. But he didn't do it because he saw a potential. He saw that art is very very unique and also universal. He saw that this is very inclusive um community that everyone can be there no matter what and also he saw an opportunity that this is very very universal um very universal IP and that literally he can do anything with that. So he can do web two products, he can do digital products, he can monetize it and so on and so on but first he needs to rebuild the trust and rebuild the community.

So he dropped a uh he al of course the deal was signed and he bought the whole um company he made a clear road map and he started achieving it one by one. So what we have here are the toys that are I think two million of toys two millions of toys were sold and for example they are in Walmart they are in Amazon so it's pretty great success also people who has a pajy that was trans uh transformed into a plushy they can make some royalties on that so it's also rewarding a community so this is one of the first like monetization steps that he did and made a lot of money on that also So they um didn't forget about the digital space and about web two space which is very um important to remember. So they did a gifts but they also did a uh viral uh Instagram where there are many many reals and um they are very universal. There is nothing there about crypto. Even my mom once sent me this and she didn't know what is this but it was just cute.

So um yeah and this is one of the latest uh I would say achievements because many brands uh thought that they will um PFP this art. So they started to make a penguins with their own logo and it was like a huge huge trend and every other company has it and it was uh very cool to have it. So of course the floor of pajy went up and floor of token went up. Another project and another uh monetization strategy was at their own chain. So they did a abstract chain and uh it's more for gamers and so on but they can also uh make money out of fees because when you have a group of believers then you can basically make anything for them and they will be happy.

So that's what Luca did and they also at the end of 2024 did a Pangu token um and rewarded everyone. This this was one of the biggest airdrops all time. Uh so they didn't uh only give out a tokens to uh their own community but they also gave those tokens to uh people who used for example Solana and so on. So uh every other crypto user was um could um could have this uh token. So they actually um bigger do their own community.

Yeah. And this is the latest news. So they made it even to Wall Street. There will be an ETF on NFTs and on Py. And this is the sentence that I think described the best this whole community is that Py Penguins is more than a brand.

It is the face of crypto and I think that even from the fud even from even if the project is near of collapse even if founder doesn't care if you have a few peoples that believe in you and that like the project then um it is actually um it is possible to recover and to be even the best community in um web 3. Uh so if you think that a project is equal to founder then you're wrong because communities sometimes can take over a whole um project and uh change everything that they don't like. Okay. And the last example because I know that um some of you may think that yeah only those uh crazy images and NFTs and uh yeah uh okay and uh so Hyperlquid uh Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange they dropped a product first and they um they uh didn't have any investors any VCs. They wanted just to let in the community.

So of course yes they dropped the product first but they didn't do any aggressive marketing then they only did like um few they have only few people few testers then then more and more and more and it started in 2022 and I think that most of you learned about it in 2024 so it was also very very slowly and there was this ideology kill all taxes so people were very very frustrated um about uh taxes about locking some funds and they didn't like the this centralized um way of doing things. So um so this is like a third category third category that I have it's ideology. So of course it can be a personal brand, it can be art or something but ideology is also like a strong uh thing that is keeping people together. So um people thought that no it has to end we have to have a decentralized space. They also did a very big airdrop and it changed the life of some of my friends and some of your friends uh also.

So on this screenshot you you see like one reaction and um yeah so they um built a trust by giving out so much money. So they have um even more and more and more users and they had a token that is going very very well and they even did a EVM chain that has many projects and what is very very interesting is that um is that this uh chain um there are builders and builders are making money in like revenue and instead of buying their own token they are buying hype token because they are so convicted about hyperlquid. If you have Twitter and you're in this community, then it's all the time like g hype, g- hype, hyperlquid, hyperlquid, hyperlquid. It's almost like a sect. So it's of course a great product, but people are also very very convicted.

So uh you don't have to have a um so you you have to have a great product of course, but if there will be no um ideology that people can relate to, then uh it doesn't make any sense. And now I have 1 minute. So I will briefly tell you about uniquely. So this is a uh product and this is a product and uh this is our product. So um if you have any item and uh if you want to give uh some items to your community then you're just giving for example t-shirt and it's very very like boring.

You lose a contact with your community. And if you want to stay in touch with your community all the time, you can give out a fidget which is an item made by Uniquely. So, uh basically how it works, you scan uh your um NFC tag and uh you can um put there anything. So, for example, you have an event and uh event um is over and uh and it's done. Yeah.

And you give up some merch. But if you give out our merch then um you have a contact with your community all the time. You can uh put them like for example some photos from the event or one month later you can say okay so everyone who has our merch now has u $10 worth of tokens and so on and they have to scan for example once a week once a day once a month and they are checking if there's something new. Yeah. And you scan it with a your phone.

you don't have any you don't have to have have any app uh these are some of our clients and if you are interested in um any like partnership with us then I am um open to uh help you and uh this is um my Twitter and I will be very grateful if you will give me a follow because um I I am only 20 followers away from 1,000. So please scan this QR or text web free Carolina Karolina and if you enjoyed this talk then it will be a reward for me. Yeah. So thank you so much and I hope that you learned um anything.

Thank you. That was great. Do we have any questions? Like we don't really have that much time but if any questions are here I can I can give one. Yeah there is one.

Okay. So I firstly I appreciate you taking the time to speak about this particular subject. I think it must be addressed much more in the wider uh crypto community. But do you see a sh a a sort of trend shift towards building organically building the right way sort of focusing on the right path to take or are you still seeing personally

that people are basically paying for likes and clicks?

Okay. So uh obviously I think that the infoi meta is hurting everyone. So um you can have those yaps or snaps. I really like personally cookie free project but um you have to earn some you have to for example like comment and write a chat GPT um posts and you get rewards for that. So it is um in my opinion very very hurtful and and this is happening all the time right now.

So I would say that the meta is not going to build communities organically but I think that those projects that are using those let's say tools they are uh in the long term they will not make um anything good like the token won't go up like the app won't will not be used and they eventually will not make any money and in my opinion uh building organically and building like from a scratch building u from a long time and also for a long term it's the best way to do it and uh other ways are just the wasting of time of everyone.

Fantastic. Thank you. Do you think um just on top of that that maybe the focus is simply too much on number go up in the immediate term

because people have far too much of a a sort of dopamine

I think rather than let's build something for longevity.

Yeah. Many people have like a talent vision. They have only one goal and they don't see that if they will do things like let's say differently that they may achieve more they may they can make more money because at the end everything here is about making money

more people make more money rather than they get top very quickly.

Yeah. Yeah. And the community will feel like um they are rewarded and they are happy and they are not like um only uh cash grab uh victims. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Awesome. Thank you so much.