Believe’s Go-to-Market Strategy | Round Table Clip

Transcript

Let's talk about that. Like that's what I'm pretty interested in here. Um I think that the go to market is very interesting on the supply side. Um where you're kind of targeting these web two founders where like a quarter million dollar equity outcome would be a fantastic outcome. I do think that there's a really good story where it's an underserved niche in capital markets and ex, you know, and the reason it's underscerved is because venture market structure just isn't there. like you're not going to be impactful impactful to a portfolio at that size. Um so who should fund that? Arguably it's retail and arguably they cannot because of current regulations. So like believe like really like I think steps in like has an

interesting wedge to and like could be very success successful on that thesis. Um but I don't know do you guys see problems with that? Um because at the end of the day like there are a lot of indie devs out there and none of them make money. So are there are there going to be enough interesting new web 2 indie devs coming to market that you could keep people interested? I think that's a big open question. Bach, you're you're dying. You're itching. You're raising your hands both of them over and over. I think I think on the retail side it makes more sense for them to like use something like Echo or Legion to invest. Like I think your returns are

I think being able to invest on the retail side like on a smaller ticket size it makes more sense to invest in like I guess more established or like legitimate founders. Although I don't know what it's going to look like in six months. Like the the indie devs that might become might be amazing and choose instead race through other platforms. Um on the supply side that's the difficult bit like the thing is that crypto has historically pulled um and Ryan you know when you say like we don't need ideal ideologues like people who are like maximally decentralized. The thing is that crypto appeals to that niche and it's very difficult for us to pull in devs who don't appeal to that niche who are also

like going to stick in it for the long term. I think we're just getting there now because people still haven't recognized how much money there is in crypto. Like like you said, retail should fund it and they can like in crypto historically retail just doesn't mind spending money on dog Um but we just haven't gotten that like flow in yet from from founders and devs. And the flow that we have gotten is from like ideologues who have very like clear opinions on decentralization and who are like very privacy oriented maybe um who don't like the way that the governments operate etc etc. And those people like the top class of those people if they

have the ideology that like they want to pursue decentralization they'll come into crypto. But apart from that, we usually just get like mid mid developers um or like lower tier developers because the better ones will I don't know they'll they'll they'll get funding in like the traditional world or they'll take a 800k TC at Meta and not do any work or something like that if that makes sense. I I think that there are but again I think that that's backward-looking. I think that things are changing. I I would say over the past, you know, greater than 18 months, especially on Salana, you're seeing web 2 people come poke around. And like I think the market's coming to this realization that like you don't really need to make your

app on the blockchain. You probably just need to issue the token or like perhaps if there's if you want like US USDC deposited into your app, then you use the blockchain. But like perhaps you should just put a token on the chain and let people trade it and either collect trading fees or raise capital or whatever. like and I think the Salana folks are embracing that reality um which is a much which is I think a more sellable and realistic um framework around why to use a crypto thing than the decentralization thing because clearly that didn't work for many many years and still isn't really working today. Well, I'd say the best product that we got this year happened because

it's some guy who could have made a lot more money doing what he used to do, but instead was like, I want to build a decentralized alternative. Oh, what was that? Hyperlquid. That's it. Like Jeff went on multiple podcasts and said, I just wanted to build something decentralized on chain as an alternative to centralized exchanges. And that like I feel like that's the guy you now that this is a very but he didn't need funding. So, I don't it doesn't really feel like it fits the bill here. I don't think he made something decentralized either. I think it was more like a regulatory ARB thing.

Who's to say? Who is to say? I I just feel like it's outside the argument because he they didn't need the funding, right? That was that was self fun and then they launched a token. I'm specifically discussing the profile of the guy who's coming in like what he is as a person which is like somebody who has some form of ideology that relates to decentralization and has to build on the blockchain. Um and Ryan I agree with you like eventually I think the ideal goal is that just assets are issued on chain. You don't need to make everything um on chain. Um ideally you do like yes trustlessness is good um permissionlessness is good but like if we can also just get people issuing assets on chain like people issuing

their equity on chain I think that's already it and we're seeing more and more of this like settlement is now the thing as opposed to decentralization like you said so I think eventually it'll just turn more and more into that to that point like believe feels like a necessary step in that direction not not that it had to be this app or this founder or this thing, but they're they're making that bridge of, you know, Nikita Beer is pulling up his web two, you know, tech founder contacts list and saying, "Hey, come la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la launch token on Salana from from a bunch of guys who probably never would have done it

previously." So, they're kind of doing their part to try to make that a reality. It doesn't I would I would agree with you like it's not just going to happen all at once like we won't just get this wave of like now every company launches a token on chain but you don't get there by not doing anything. So I think this is kind of like the necessary one of one of the necessary pieces of of going like one step further. I do think the longer term question of like do these always have to stay meme coins or like do regulations need to change and like these can have you know future upside via conversion to the equity or something like that. That's been a big question as well. It's like these are just meme coins so it's like you know that's that's the common criticism,

right? It's stupid because these are just meme coins again. Well, it's like that's kind of the point initially, right? Like just bet on the reality of the idea or whatever. Um and people in the trenches just want to hit 100x so they don't really care. But on a longer term basis, then it definitely matters. Yeah. I just wonder if it's going to become instead of doing something like this, we're going to get more loose regulation on Echo and Legion style products and we just instead focus more on that to fund like these indie developers. We'll see. I think it's easier for the founder if it's the just launch a token way, but I think it's better for retail if it's to just use like

something that resembles a traditional structure but onchain such as Echo or Legion. One thing I will say is that they also kind of brought up that whole memecoin thing on themselves because they they wrote that this doesn't represent equity which I don't know why they did that. I feel like they could have just avoided that language altogether if it's like a legal thing. But I'm not smart enough to be a lawyer. So not good. [Music]