Growing Up On Our Playground
By Matthew Shuey
Who are we?
A busy lawyer named Raul leaves his office Friday evening, puts on a leather jacket and jeans, and rides his motorcycle to meet his buddies at the bar. They throw darts and have chicken wings and beer for dinner. Raul has worked very hard to become a successful courtroom attorney, but he likes to unwind from the battle on a regular basis.
Raul is well aware of one important fact: His fat paycheck this week wasn’t a result of how rowdy he gets on the weekends.
Each morning in Florida a man named Jamie who grew up skateboarding and listening to punk-rock puts on a long-sleeve dress shirt to cover his tattoos and turns the key to open his barber shop. He knows that respect and trust can be quite valuable in business.
Keeping the floors and mirrors clean as well as his appearance are just small efforts that add up. He likes things that “add up”, especially when they fund his SOL wallet.
What are we doing?
How do you define this digital asset space that we all work in? A party? Some days, sure. A culture? It’s absolutely a culture. But what it really boils down to is that we are thousands of small businesses operating in a particular industry. In our case, we’re operating within the Solana Ecosystem, within the Digital Asset industry.
Solana has survived the trial-by-fire, gained the respect and trust of the industry, and the Foundation does a wonderful job of fostering growth and innovation. We return the favor by contributing and collaborating for the greater good, and occasionally making fun of ETH users’ gas fees.
Who are the “customers”?
If you hang around Discord or X for more than a few minutes, you’ll quickly learn the term “degen”. You’ll see more “LFG” than “NFT” most days. Not that we at all intend to repulse anyone, but we are largely a sub-society that has built a fascinating and well-functioning financial system outside of traditional banking and fiat currencies. And that is quite punk-rock.
But the fact remains it is a business and we hope to have perpetual growth of customer base and revenues.
Here’s an interesting statistic: According to Triple-a* it is estimated there are “over 420 million crypto users worldwide”, and 71% have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Maybe our demographic isn’t as degen as we think… (Yes, I see the number 420 and yes, it’s quite ironic considering the previous sentence.)
Who do we want to reach?
OK, so 420M is a small fraction of the global population, but it’s still a substantial number. So why does it seem, some days, that there are only a few of us all trading crypto and NFTs with each other, and there is no new money coming in? This may have been more obvious during the bear market doldrums than now, but it raises the question: Who are we trying to reach? Ourselves?
Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it?
If “degens” are already here, already picked the stray coins from the couch cushions and car console, and spent nearly all of their extra money on jpegs of drug using creatures, why do we seemingly continue to try to appeal to them (ourselves)? It doesn’t matter how many people are in the circle. We won’t see growth until we open the door and invite the outsiders to come in.
Who do we want to exclude?
Ummm… Nobody..?
Cathie Wood of ArkInvest attributes being professionally marginalized to her “contrarian views”**. Sounds pretty “degen” to me.
So how is it that people trust her to manage over $20 billion of their money, and mainly in traditional finance?
From what I’ve seen, she is all business. When I listen to her talk, I conclude that she is smart, professional, and dedicated to her business and her clients. She gives her investors and potential investors as much confidence as possible, and she’s certainly not exclusive of people who don’t share her “contrarian views”.
“Potential” is the key word here. Should we appeal to a rural mom with 6, 8 and 13 year-old kids? How about a 22 year old bartender in Phuket, a stodgy old Birmingham couple who think their stuff don’t stink, or a 79 year old widow from Delhi? The list can go on and on.
The smart business person appeals to, and even tries to cater to, every potential customer.
So how do we accomplish our goals?
If we want to survive and thrive in the new frontier of Web3, we need to clean up our act. Sure, Jamie the barber could wear a t-shirt to work and possibly still have a successful barber shop, provided he does good work. But he knows that the small American barber shops with nudie mags strewn about and barbers that cuss like a trucker (yes, there were “degens” long before crypto) have fallen victim to the wave of cleaner, more professional corporate franchise shops over the last few decades.
Jamie figures putting a little effort into presentation is worth it.
How about Raul? Does he really need to wear a nice suit and have great hygiene? Jamie’s haircut fee is $18. Raul’s retainer fee is in the thousands. We’re hoping people invest, potentially, much more than that. Accordingly then, what level of professionalism should we try to display? Keep in mind, most of our public impression is made online, unlike our two examples.
Maybe we can try not to lose any business because of frivolous reasons, like being a bit too coarse and boorish with our space, suffering from the result of poor first impressions. WAGMI, and I’ll buy the first round when we get there.
Our Playground
The creators of Solana may or may not have developed the blockchain specifically with ESG in mind, but as this topic continues to rise in popularity, so it seems Solana does too. What a great bonus. There are many reasons why we have a truly unique opportunity to emerge far above other blockchains and reap the harvest of hard work and dedication.
Let’s open up a virtually limitless future.
We just need to figure out how to appeal to literally everyone possible, and gain their interest and their trust (and their investment).
I’m a maxi mostly because of the robust, super fast, and super cheap Solana blockchain, but over the years I’ve truly made this my home because of the wonderful culture that they’ve built and continue to serve. As new investors poke their heads through the door, hopefully they will see the same thing.
Remember, the mom, the bartender, the older couple and the widow are all visiting. As they stroll about the space and open more doors, let’s try to make sure they feel comfortable enough to sit down and chat with us, rather than wanting to find an exit and not touch any surfaces on the way out.
*Triple-a article about crypto statistics
triple-a.io/crypto-ownership-data/
**CNBC article on Cathie Wood (interesting read):
