Talking to Regular People About Your Community Coin
All the backlash recently against Mozilla and Twitter with their crypto-moves makes me think back to the early days of the web.
My wife's uncle told my dad that I was stupid for getting involved with the World Wide Web because it was a fad and I would be begging for my old job back within a few months. Someone else told him they had heard "on good authority" that I was in fact returning to my old job. He wondered who it could be that knew me better than my own father ...
Obviously, that didn't happen. Funnily enough, a lot of those same people now say they knew the internet would blow up and be a massive success.
There was a time we were careful if to use the word "blog" because some audiences would react highly negatively to it, which was a distraction usually from the point I was making.
Back when "Bloggers" were mentioned in mainstream articles, it was usually around people complaining about things they knew little about, narcissistic journaling, and armchair quarterbacking. Similar to how "Influencers" are mentioned now.
"Business Blogging" therefore was tainted by the furries, political, and celebrity gossip sides of things.
When I talked about "Content Marketing" instead, there was a lot less kneejerk negativity. Same thing, different label.
How to talk about your crypto-related business with regular folks
A solid business idea is usually based on strategy, not a specific technology.
Even more important, the person you are talking to needs to know why they should care in terms meaningful to them.
Before crypto would you mention to prospective customers which specific database software you were planning to build with?
If the only differentiator you have is that you are building with the blockchain, and can not point to a specific advantageous benefit to the end-user, then you might have come up with a bad idea.
I suggest therefore a lot of us should talk more about selling and buying "Resealable Memberships" or "Digital Licenses" as a substitute for the buzzword-that-sounds-like-'nifty'.
When you mention that word people immediately say:
- Block! You are destroying the planet!
- Criminal! Don't talk to me about your Ponzi scheme!
- Sucker! Why would you pay all that money for something you can copy and paste?
And you know what? There is some validity to these objections!
Just because there are some valid criticisms does not mean your idea is evil, however.
As technology progresses, and business models evolve, all of those objections will go away, and the people putting them forward will need to adjust to their new reality.
Don't fight it, work around it.
Judo, not Karate.
Ponzi or Legit?
A way to tell a Ponzi scheme from an actual business is where the value comes in. If the value is "selling to another sucker for a higher price" then it is probably triangle-shaped.
If you buy a pass that gains you access to a club/community though, the value is in the membership and whatever rights and services that membership grants you.
Paying with PayPal, US Dollars, Canadian Tire money or Airmiles does not make something a scam or legit, it's where the value lies.
Blockchain Asset as Membership
In my business, I run a mastermind membership program that costs $30/mo right now for early members. There is a real cap on how many people I can handle therefore there is some actual and not artificial scarcity. Not least because I am an introvert, but also there is only so much time and energy I can spare.
You don't get a fancy profile picture as part of the deal in my membership program, but what if instead of paying a monthly fee you could buy a one-time lifetime ticket? And what if, as the price of that lifetime membership went up, you could sell your spot in the membership to someone else at a profit?
The membership could be a unique access code, whoever possesses it gets the membership benefits?
Perhaps there could be tiers, from entry-level to premium VIP, with different reward levels associated with each? For example, entry-level could be free access to live streams, all the way through to the top VIP getting physical small dinners and meetups (after the pandemic, naturally).
Maybe the higher tiers get an actual, physical, quality printed membership card bearing a unique id number? There could be a digital version too for people to show they are part of the club, with a QR code to link to their profile. There might be a cache for having a low membership number like there was with ICQ user id back in the day.
Portablility
Could there be a way for members of another club to transfer membership to mine?
I don't see why not - I moved gym, I moved martial arts class ...
There would just need to be a way to figure out the difference in today's value. Some way to measure the "exchange rate" as it were.
OH boy do I remember the days of the sceptics about the web and what it could do. I think some thought I was certifiable.
Was just talking to @bluefinstudios today about the different ways NFT could be used in a practical way other than art.
I've been sharing this one around to people who are new in the space and very excited. I had already been careful to avoid buzzwords when talking to people who haven't started down the rabbit hole yet. It was nice to read about someone else having the same instinct.
Just mentioning crypto or NFTs on twitter gets me a ton of unfollows, I figure it will only get worse before it gets better!