Raquel Ramirez on running an NFT project and a community DAO in Mexico City

Transcript

what's up friends welcome to web3 academy a place for entrepreneurs creators and marketers to explore and learn how to use web 3 to transform business models and create thriving communities enjoy this next episode [Music] all right welcome everybody to the web3 academy podcast super excited to be here today it's uh tuesday march 1st wow can't believe it's march 1st already 2022 is flying by and it's just beginning uh super excited today uh to have uh an awesome guest on the podcast uh we have raquel ramirez um raquel is somebody that uh kyle actually met first in mexico uh and i heard that there's apparently a funny story

uh to that so we'll see if uh if we can get into that at some point during the podcast um raquel lives in mexico city uh where she's a legit community queen community builder extraordinaire um she's running weekly web 3 and crypto meetups uh she's got telegram and whatsapp groups that she's running she's really bringing the community together both digitally and in person and a lot of it is around web3 and crypto in the space uh and then currently she's also working on an nft project uh as well as launching endow for the community so uh we're super excited to have her on the podcast raquel welcome thank you so much shay uh glad to be here thanks for having me on

awesome uh well my intro probably did not really do justice for all of all the amazing things you're going got going on so um why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background yeah sure so i am actually originally from california um so i grew up in l.a moved up to the bay area expected to be in the bay for five to ten years uh at minimum and then covet hit um i ended up coming out to mexico city for what was supposed to be a month in november 2020 and i never went back so that's how i ended up here in mexico city um i think a little ahead of like the major expat wave out here

and um in a few months after i landed here i started hosting um just social events i started one called thursday night social club that got really popular i would do that every thursday um that got really popular and i started another event a spin-off called tuesday night dinner club that i actually still host to this day um and thursday social club used to be 20 to 30 people over at my apartment every single thursday which is crazy now that i think about strangers and yeah now like the um tuesday night dinner club is a dinner series i host where anywhere from 30 to 90 people come out

to dinner at different restaurants around mexico city to just meet and hang out and make friends outside of the nightlife scene so that was kind of how i got my start here in mexico city um at least in like the in terms of like being a community organizer um i didn't come here meaning to do that but um it's kind of become my thing here um at some point uh it was funny um my friend started calling me the mayor of mexico city and i was like it feels very political and one friend said you know you're not the mayor of mexico city you know you're really more of the la cones of the la comasa and la condesa means countess and i was like oh

my goodness yes i like it so um yes so since then kind of that that name has stuck and um and i have kind of taken on this role as lachlan organizing events and building community um i actually started um around that time that i started that first uh that first event uh thursday social club i started my first what's up group and now i host i have i think 13 whatsapp groups and a like 600 telegram group so these are these are not easy whatsapp groups to get into by the way because i

was in mexico city for a bit trying to get into like i don't know if i was trying to get a place or trying to whatever and it was like they were all full i was like you need to delete people please [Laughter] yeah yeah it's um yeah it's pretty great um like people are so active in these that it's actually hard to get to delete people because people they haven't been acting in like a week or two um just depending on on how um on how active that the particular group is and in a lot of groups it's like i can't delete anyone or like i can get rid of like one person every two weeks because everyone is active everyone's reading messages they're writing in them um so i mean it's great it's it you know it

really means that we've got a very vibrant um and like thriving community here but uh it also means that i might need some more some more what's up groups um or what i'm really trying to do is um trying to see if there's other tech that is better for this because um a while a network of whatsapp groups is you know it it's functional enough um it doesn't really have a lot of the tools that i wish it had it's like it's not really ideal for building community um which is actually part of the reason why i'm now looking to um uh foreshadow um uh i'm really looking to build out a dow and and use some other better tools for that

but um let me i guess rewind a little bit um and then talk about how i got into kind of like the running kind of like um at least a bit a portion of the crypto and web 3 community here in mexico city so back in october so i um there was another crypto like small crypto meetup that that happened here um and i took over hosting those and kind of like the way they were run was kind of like us just like social events essentially of people who were into crypto and i thought you know it's a shame that we get all these smart people in the same room and there isn't a a structured way to

like exchange information and exchange ideas and like how people like teach others about what they know because there's so many experts here um so we just like changed it to a new format where now every week um i find i get a couple speakers to come out and um they can be anywhere from you know people who just aren't aren't haven't really been in crypto that long or went through that long but have really like deep dived into like some topic you know i what i tell people is like if they have rabbit holes for hours in the dark of the room um and they can talk about a topic for for 10 minutes like they're welcome to come and speak my events um like you

don't have to be a top expert in the field um in order to come and share knowledge and to exchange ideas and expertise um especially in in like the web 3 worlds where everything is changing so quickly and there's so much to learn um from anyone because what was true today may not be true in two weeks heck it may not be true tomorrow right um and so so i really invite everyone from like um from like beginner level all the way to expert level we have really had some like true experts um come in like just last week um one of the like core contributors true

and andromeda and um and i think it was erc f21 like that protocol like one of like the like original like um contributors to that came and did a talk on like defy and nfts um we've had like some nft experts like some of like um like oh geez from back in 2015 when people didn't even know what an nft was um have come out and and and talked um so we've really had everything from like the expert of the experts to you know people who who are like hey i'm working on this project and a month ago i didn't know what what um what the blockchain was and

now i've got um uh this guy came in and built something he called um uh friender so it's like he originally called the tinder coin um and then he uh he ended up changing it to like friend or coin i think um and like the whole idea is like hey this is a web 3 uh application where you could go on and like okay he's like i don't think anyone's going to use it i didn't actually build it for anyone to use but it is something usable that in a month um went from you know having like zero knowledge to building something that is like like applicable and useful potentially useful for the community um

and so yeah so it's just it's been really it's been really cool to to be able to like have all of this um [Music] like all of this engagement with community and mostly with the with the foreigner community who is who settled here in the last year where most people didn't move here with a lot of friends they didn't move here um you know with a huge community they've like come here they've settled here they've realized like how much they love mexico city um and then have kind of like stumbled across one or some of my groups um ended up at a crypto event and now have a community of of web3 and crypto enthusiasts um that they're now building projects with that they're now you know

like they're going and getting lunch and like exchanging tips with and and like they're you know they're really doing something here um and we're building up a now this like international community um that's not just people who are here in mexico city and it's not just um expats either it's like it's the locals it's expats it's it's you know the people who are here temporarily but it's also people who are just passing through um so we've got this really beautiful mix of people from around the world um and people here who are here for different lengths of time um all being able to like intermingle and like you know i've been able to see i remember one of

the first ones that you ran i saw just like how many people were there i think it was on instagram you you put out a story and then now i'm seeing them and i'm like oh my god they're massive compared to what they used to be so it's really really cool to see the growth and also last night in medellin there was a crypto meetup uh and it's really interesting you go into a place you don't know anyone uh but you all share like a an interest right and people who like web 3 or crypto they really like crypto web 3. so like you walk in and there's just a bunch of people like shaking hands like they're ready they just want to talk like what do you do i want to learn more um so crypto events are actually amazing and anyone who's listening if you if you

haven't gone to one i'm sure there are some in your uh in your area go check them out because they're awesome but raquel i'm curious what's what got you interested in web 3 in the first place like why did you even start to make these well i mean i was in the bay before i came here and being in the bay area like you can't really stay away from it um i like to say i was a fly on the wall for a couple of years while i was out there while i saw my friends build crypto companies or web 3 companies um one of my friends um uh started mobile coin which is this um this privacy coin that is now the um the coin on signal that you can like and

it's it's just some it's just amazing right so it's like i've been kind of sitting around as i've watched my friends like do these really really amazing and incredible things trying to really change the world um with this technology that i didn't really understand because while i'm a little bit technical i was i was a data analyst back in the bay um i wasn't like a computer i wasn't a software engineer right and so i just kind of like left that too to my friends who were far more technical than i was um but then when i got out here and i started going out to to like these different meetups these different like crypto events um and um and like i'm a community organizer first and foremost um

i just kind of like stepped in and was like well i may not know a lot about this this particular topic but i know how to gather people who do and i know how to bring in people who are experts in this um and as i did that and like as i like started to like i started the group said i started um i started like these these uh talks um every week i started to learn a lot more and then it became less and less scary and it was like well wait actually this is pretty pretty accessible it's way more accessible than i would have imagined um like i think when people think about web 3 for the most part they're thinking about um like trading in crypto right which is like it's it it moves so much like you know you you buy

you know if you buy you know 100 i don't know 100 in crypto today you might lose 50 of it tomorrow like you don't know you may also win you know you may also that may also like triple in in a month or two but but it's it's so very speculative that a lot of people just don't have like i don't know like like they don't have the um i say like emotional emotional endurance for it um and i i honestly feel a little bit like that too right like i i i try to just i i only um really invest in like projects that i'm like okay these are moving slowly but surely i like i kind of i understand the project i've read a lot about it like my friends have told

me about this and so like i know but that takes a lot of time takes a lot of effort and um and unless you're really paying a lot of attention to it um it can be hard to make a lot of money in that right um without without like the risk of losing everything or losing a lot of it on the other hand when i think about web 3 web 3 it's that web 3 is just blockchain anything like related to blockchain technology right and so it's like the application of this new technology and these new types of tools on everything else in our lives right so i i think like two of the

biggest and most interesting applications of this are one in nfts um which like is just i i think like people right now think about nfts just in terms of art but really an nft is just online like digital um it's just uh it's just something that you can own digitally right it's like these online contracts that are like set in the blockchain um which goes so far beyond the applications and just art right like right now a lot of people think about about nfts like oh yeah let me buy these like crypto punks or these like gorillas or these eights or what

whatever you know like what is this what is this set of jpeg what is this jpeg or like this like you know little like 3d animation um but i think um what we're really going to find to be like really interesting is is um is nfts as they relate to physical goods right like connecting them like these online contracts um or these contracts that are on the blockchain you know when applied to okay let's start with physical art right like okay we have a physical piece and now this is the the nft is the the contract or like the the um certificate of authenticity let's say right that like is combined with that piece um

uh looking down the road like um nfts for purchasing items um other items right like i went to i went to an nft workshop last year and afterwards you know we're all sitting around talking about like like what we're the future of nfts are going in this guy goes you want to smoke some nft weed what i don't sell i don't sell weed but i sell nfts of weed and i gift the weed and i was just sitting there like oh my god oh my goodness like this is crazy like like but he's like it's a legal loophole and it's

[Laughter] it uses the same kind of loopholes as um as like these these religious exemptions right like these these churches that are able to um not sell whether it's mushrooms or you know any of these different plants um but instead are using them as part of their um religion right and they are gifting um any of these plans whether that that's marijuana or it's mushrooms or it's like different things um as like to the members of their church and so so i just thought that was like really interesting it's like okay well this is this is the coolest thing for me

is that um i i think humans have just like this like this unlimited capacity for cleverness and web3 technology is just this like conduit for like being able to apply the this cleverness um to all these different to like this this tech that we now have access to um so i'm really i'm really interested to see like um i'm really excited for for where nfts are going to be going um but then there's other things like there's like dows right like like what are we seeing with dallas like we're saying um communities being run off of dallas and we're starting to see even like um like religion dows um uh and and like we're

the the interesting thing about dallas is that you can incentivize people um you can incentivize community members to be the kind of audience or participants in your community that you want them to be right um like you can you can do this with just clever tokenomics um and so like that's what i'm trying to think of that's i've actually got um a governance group for um for coindesta uh we we minted a hundred million coindesa coins um about a month ago at another like dao workshop um and now it's like okay well now that we've minted that now we're kind of gonna we're taking a step back and we're

now thinking about okay now that we've we've got this community right we've got like this this webview community in mexico city um we've got this like non-web3 community also that's here in mexico city in total we're looking over 2 000 people that are based here um and whatsapp doesn't really do the community justice right so now we can start to think about like how do we systematize um incentives um in order to make people feel like they are [Music] part of something that is even more than

just like a bunch of random groups on on their phone on whatsapp um how do we get them how do we um reward them for being like being active participants um in our events in our groups um for for creating new events themselves and essentially being ambassadors how do we incentivize people um to go to local businesses um to be responsible community members beyond just you know people who want to go to party and go and make friends like how do we like we can use um tokenomics in order to even get people to like to incentivize people to go and volunteer or you know be the kinds of guests like in the city that we want them to be um and so like that's really what i'm thinking about with with the

dao one of the things uh i love everything you're doing by the way and and i want to dive deeper into this dow concept um so i get a lot of people asking like how do i start a dow what do i do what how do i figure out my tokenomics for dao and i mean i think the the answer is we don't know yet everyone's experimenting but i'm interested to hear uh i don't know how big the team is like it's you and whoever else like what are you guys thinking of doing or what have you already done um like are you air dropping tokens to the community that's like showed up to events are you using it to like gamify people to do certain things or like what's your strategy if you have one yet yeah so to start we so like i said this

dow or at least like the initial set of of tokens was minted um during a workshop and so during that we actually airdropped ten thousand tokens to uh or queendessa's um to anyone who's in the audience and set up a wallet um and we we did this on um oh i'm linking right now but yeah but but we we airdropped everyone 10 000 tokens um and so we've given out of the 100 million coin or coindisa tokens um we have given out about 30 wait 300 000 okay

um and so the plan um is currently to um essentially like do that for a second like a second like wave of like entrance into this um into the dow so we'll probably have people um apply maybe maybe uh via a google form or something something along those lines um you know it's like are you part of community just you know something to to just verify that they aren't just some random stranger on the internet who just made it into the telegram group um and uh and once they do that and we like have verified who they are you know that they're connected in um we have like

maybe maybe something um we probably will ask a question about like what their interest is and maybe like what some of their ideas are for the dow um and then once we get that they're verified we'll airdrop them tokens right so that'll be kind of the first way um what we're thinking about for future waves is um one having an ft that people can purchase um in order to get access into the dow um and then the third would be um as people go to events and get airdrop tokens um for going to events um they would be able to invite like x a number of guests and this would be probably more for like some of the bigger events like maybe maybe not for

like the the regular ones that happen every week um but like let's say we throw a big event right like a big let's say it's a big party and you need and tickets are i don't know ten dollars twenty dollars something like that right where it takes a little bit more effort to go um uh what we can do um is uh give anyone who goes to this to this event tokens and any of their guests who go to this that they can also get tokens and then have that be their entry into the dao um because like we've i mean we've done a good amount of studying of other dows there's like friends and benefits there's um oh gosh there's there's on party dow

there's i mean we're looking for yeah there's so many different dials right now right now there's um a ukraine dow um like raising money for um you know for the effort out out there in ukraine so like really raising support for that um so as we look into this it's like okay well how like one of the questions you want to ask is like how exclusive um and exclusionary versus inclusionary do you want on the access to be right so for some dows you want it to be super exclusive and you only want people to be able to enter um if they have you know bought something really expensive or like you know have like some kind of hat um like

some kind of large gesture to show that they really want to be in because it's like it's a cool down you you know you it's like you want soho it's like it's like a membership right yeah exactly and then there's other ones where it's like like when i think about like the community here in mexico city it's like i want there to be a filter to some extent because i don't want just any random person off the street you know coming in like i i do want to maintain a culture but at the same time i want it to be accessible to you know the the vast public you know the vast majority of people um like if people have the right um the right attitude that they care about the right things if they you know if they want to

like show up and participate and and they like what we're doing like yeah absolutely you're welcome to come in um so i always want there to be a path to enter um that is not just um that does not feel like it is it is like uh um whether there's a bar that's too high right because it is like this is supposed to serve the community and and when even when i think about that it's like how many people um know enough about web 3 in order to even like get a wallet and have the right tokens right um in order to even um for this to even be accessible to

them at all like how many people are that technical or have that much time to learn how to how to do that even though it's not it's not actually that difficult um it does take some some you know it takes some setting up and if if you're already busy and you already have a lot of hobbies and you're already making friends and you're trying to do all this stuff and you're trying to explore the city um not everyone is going to do that right um so so i am i'm trying to be cognizant of that um as we build this out um and and make it as easy as possible for people who who are motivated um to join to actually join um interesting i love the sort of like the

idea of making sure that they not pass a test to get through but like that they show that they're interested in the community because if anyone joins it kind of gets washed out right or watered out um i'm curious though what's the utility of the token so like people are getting air drop tokens for showing up which is all in well what what other than getting access into it is there more things that the token does is it for governance is it do they get i don't know discounts on merch or like what are your ideas there what this what this token might do yeah so the ideas are kind of three-fold so one is um getting access to like exclusive events um so you know you have x number of tokens you're in like the top i don't know 10 50 whatever um and now you can come to these special

events that we throw that are um that way we know that it's really just like the people who are like in the community who are like awesome and they can invite um and like and we can have like a tiered system um where the people who have the most tokens have like the most invites right so the people who are the most engaged um have the most influence over who else gets to go to you know who else gets to show up so that's the first thing um and and really it's like they have the most influence over like shaping the audience right like shaping their community that's the first one um so access um in terms of like themselves going to events and like being able to bring friends um

so the second one is um working with um with local businesses um in order to get discounts to different places um so that it takes that really now you start to get into like the actual economics of like well what is this worth to different businesses right and and if they're giving discounts um like how do they verify you know that people have like a certain number of tokens and like why are they going to like put in the effort to do that um like do they even understand what um what web three is you know you know so so there's there's challenges around that but the idea would be to um to give people who are part of of the

dow um you know access to different types of discounts um around town um so that's the second thing the third thing is just being part of a community and we'll probably end up starting a discord for this as much as i don't want another um that's another tool yeah i mean i'm already between like 13 what's up groups um a telegram group um to also have a discord it's like i have to like meditate a little bit to like to to like before i make my final decision over like if that's gonna be the tool but um but yeah so so really would be um you know like this like kind of greater

access to um to like a more of a community on on that um but also what what we're talking about doing is having like the the dao um that is really trying to focus around culture and and trying to incentivize people for coming out to things and for um and for like um hosting events um you know like really like yeah incentivizing um the culture that we want um that being like kind of like the web 3 side but then also um having that being attached to something else that we're

working on which is kind of like this like membership type community here based in mexico city where people when they get into this um they can uh it basically acts as a way to better connect people um over what they need what they want um and and like what they are you know kind of just like what they can offer um so like one one of the big challenges we've run into here is like we've got this amazing community and like people are so talented and they have so many resources and they want to there's all these things that they want to work on there's like all these things that they that um that they should be connecting on but like there's like

these basically misconnections because people don't know what other people do or what they need um it's like hey somebody over here runs like a talent agency and someone over here runs um uh i don't know the engineering department um for some big company and is looking to hire 100 new engineers and if we knew that we had that information collected somewhere um i could be able to match them but certainly we don't right um so so i'm working on on like putting together a system where um like a membership type system um where we can match people on those things right um we can match people on the fact

that they're looking for apartments other than the fact that they're looking for new remote jobs on the fact that they're looking for podcast gas they're looking for you know you know like what they're looking for and what they can offer um and then having that kind of be like the core like web 2 solution and then the web 3 solution on top um that also services that web 2 solution that that like doesn't that doesn't need to be in web 3 right and i think there is um like with technologists it's really easy to get excited that we have this new technology and then try to make um like that technology fit everything and i think um that doesn't always need to be the case like we like web 2 still works web 2 actually works better for

you know a lot of things until web 3 has come come and like really proved that it works better um you know that it's five times better at doing something right and so i i want to be able to use um utilize web3 um for the things that i think it can do well which is like you can incentivize people with tokens right you can um you can use tokens to build a like a strong um community that you know that eventually can actually be worth something like you know you then like later on down the line like we start to get liquidity pools and like now people can like you know buying in and like you know swapping their tokens for eve um if they move or they can sell their tokens

um and so like that that would be really interesting down the line but until then it's like okay well how do we like build that up with community that we already have um and i think the answer to that is like using web2 um using web3 kind of on top of that because people all like because people are like hooked in with with you know the community and the technology that's here um and then kind of like elevating that and kind of like using it as like it's like really making it this like like it's like the frosting on top right then it's like the frosting and the cherry that can actually like something like really cool right it's like we've got a cake what level are we going to take it to i want to take it to cake boss and i think

last level i i i like it i think you have some questions about the dow but before we get i just want to ask what or i just want to say a couple things one i love the idea of hey we can still use web 2. i mean if you think about it in web 2 like we still use web one stuff like email websites that's web one right and we all still use those and so web three i think a lot of people get focused on oh this web three thing like everything has to be a token or an nft and like the whole business is the token nft and it's like no no build a normal business or a normal community or whatever it is you're doing and that can be web 2 or real world or whatever and then you use a token like you said to incentivize or

like bring the community together um so i love i love that you guys are doing that we're going to bring you back on once you like get to the point where you have liquidity and people can buy and sell that we're 100 gonna do that there's one other idea that last night when i was at this um this crypto meetup in medellin i think this might be really useful for you guys is someone built a it's like a speakeasy almost like a bar but it's only for crypto people and in order to get in you have to hold a specific nft so it's like a membership so like kind of like soho whatever and uh and it's kind of exclusive and it's quite expensive it's a really nice place and you can go there you can work it's a bar restaurant whatever um and like literally the nft scans this like

thing on the door and then the door opens so you don't even like need anyone there it's really cool but what they did last night is every week they have like a public night where anyone can come and you just need to like sign up and say who you are whatever and they gave me an nft not the membership nft but this like other type of nft that proved that i was there and if i went to at least i think it was three or five i think it was three within one month i would get another nft that i could then attend one of their like actual events where it's members-only events uh and so it's kind of like their business models like you come for free they hook you in with the nfts then you get to go to the next thing it's almost like a sales funnel

this way i think of it as a marketer um but it was really really cool and then you get to kind of mingle with the real members and then like if you want in you got to just buy the actual uh nft and now you're a member and it's like your spot super super cool um and that's like the only purpose of this thing is just for all the crypto members so um i i really enjoyed it and maybe it's something you want to you want to try out with with what you're building yeah that's really that's really fascinating so if i get this right there's two ways in you can either buy the nft or you can go to like three events within a month well if you go to that you can't you're not in you just get to go to an actual

members-only event because the monday night event was just public and then like if you want to go to one of the real like members ones which is when they have like big names come in and speak and stuff there's like more going on this was just kind of a everyone shows up and just meets each other um but the other events you get to go to one of them a special one if you've gone to three of the free ones and then if you want to go to all the events you have to buy the nft brad and then they're also looking at launching a token as well that will like i don't know it was for some governance stuff and then like potentially to like pay your bill at the bar and things like that so i don't know very interesting anyway that's really cool yeah jay any

questions in the description did you get a chance to go to uh bitcoin embassy that's the bitcoin bank where is that in mexico city or medellin yeah yeah and yeah and roman north ah no way no i did not that's cool yeah yeah next time you're out here you should uh we should go get a drink there it's cool i mean i don't know that it makes the most sense to you but you can pay in bitcoin um get a couple gotta get a couple beers paying bitcoin um it's like you're in el salvador yeah yeah right what what i find really interesting raquel about what you've done is it's so grassroots right like you started out you know not even the web two way you

started out the i don't even know the the 100 years ago way of building community which is just local meetups right uh and and so it's it's amazing because i think that a lot of people get caught up in um the the complexity of building a dow or the complexity of building um something around web3 when really all you need to do is build community the way you know how right and for you you know sure maybe whatsapp isn't the best tool you mentioned that earlier right there might be better a better option but it works right you've gotten to this amazing community of 2000 people just off of of that and the one note i have about that

is like whatsapp isn't the ideal tool right but it's the tool that people use here like and i'm sure there's there's a lot of um listeners here who are not based in latin america are not based in specifically mexico city um mexico city runs on whatsapp and i think most of latin america runs on whatsapp and it's it's actually funny to me when i go back to the bay and it's like nobody uses whatsapp there frustrating i'm messaging you and it's like if you're not imessaging like they almost won't text you or like they'll use they'll use facebook messenger and so different communities use different um methods for for communicating and here

it's it's what's up so i i think an important note is like you you should use the the methods of communication that the community actually uses right so like the part of the reason i use telegram instead of whatsapp for my crypto group is well for one i mean there's like a much larger limit but the second reason is that there's a lot of crypto people who don't actually want to be on whatsapp um i've had people in the community who said who when i said like oh yeah add me on whatsapp there you said like i don't use whatsapp it's like that's not encrypted enough and it's like oh wow okay like this is different um or or when i go to add people i say like okay yeah here what's my here's my

whatsapp or use my telegram here's my instagram and if they're people in crypto um they're more likely to say like oh like i don't really use instagram what's your twitter right so it's like you want to use the method of communication um of that of the channel of the people that you were trying to to you know contact or group or you know um bring together because it's actually very difficult to get people to switch platforms um and so if i had tried to get everyone from the beginning onto telegram i think i would have had far less success um than just like using what is needed to them um and then trying to work within those within those like constraints

well it's a great reminder to the the doer side uh and at web3 academy we really like to congratulate celebrate the doers right because that's those are the people that we need more of in order to jump into web3 because as you said earlier web3 is not necessarily easy sometimes people don't even understand the basics of it right and that's that's fine like there's that there's that learning curve um but don't you know if you're out there and you're thinking about starting something in web 3 or even starting a business that's not in web 3 quite frankly if you're thinking about starting in anything don't get caught up in the perfect and in the the end result like do the simple thing right do the simple

things first and that's that's what builds and grows to you know you saying you started up just having people over to your house for dinner and now it's a weekly thing that happens all around mexico city right i'm sure that wasn't your intention off the beginning um one one question i do have uh about you mentioned that when you were thinking about starting your dow and you know through the work that you've done and um you mentioned some other dows that you looked at i'm curious to know um was there anything any themes or any frameworks or anything that you saw from looking at friends with benefits or party doubt or any other dows that you were like oh that's a good idea i should keep that in mind uh anything any examples that were interesting well i think um

one of like the the key things that i just saw over and over again is really thinking about um tokens as a kind of like like three i think it's three main um like uses for them like utilities one is access so access to whatever it is whether it's a discord or events or um or information right um or like new types of tokens right so so access um being the first one the second one is um its utility um tokens utility as um like to reward right um and and really thinking about like tokenomics around

that it's like and um and and you don't have to do everything within just one type of token right so you can create new types of nfts like like kyle was saying about um that that crypto group um where it's like okay well they've got like the nfts for going to a certain event um they have other nfts if you go more more times than that they have another type of nft um and remember nfts are just other types of tokens they're just non-fungible tokens right um so it's like they have other tokens that are um that are that are your access for um going to like uh you know your access tokens to be part of you know the group right so um so so thinking about um the second thing like how to reward um

using tokens and and remembering that that there's not just one kind of token you don't have to just you don't have to like like we've got the we've got a hundred million of these coin deci coins but that doesn't mean that we can't create a second type of coin or you know or or work with other types of like nfts and things like that right um those are kind of the two main ones and then um there's another one um and and then the third really just thinking like trying to think holistically about like what you're tr what do you really want to do like what your goals are for the community um so like for different like for for some communities it's like um

like what what i'm trying to do is really focus on the audience right and like the culture um and trying to shape that um like having utility for for the you know for the community um via a dao um but for other ones it's going to be like like let's say like this ukraine dow right like like the like what is the goal behind that it's probably to like raise money um and to probably like disseminate information um back to the people who have like probably contributed the most i haven't actually looked that much into it but um but i would imagine it would be something like that right um there was like the constitution now um where like they were raising money to like try to

buy a copy of the of the constitution and ultimately failed um by a dollar but um but you know like there's things like that and so so really it's like what you want to think about is like one what is your goal like what is your short-term goal for the dow right like what do you want for the community for um anyone who has bought in has been rewarded in has you know like what are their um what are their avenues to to enter and like what are they going to get out of it in the short term but then also long term like thinking about like okay well what happens in six months or in a year when people like like

aren't don't have that initial excitement about this now anymore like um what happened like one how do you keep them engaged um how do you keep it relevant for them that so that they don't just like forget about it or sell their tokens or or if they don't if they're not worth anything they just like leave um and they just become kind of these ghost members um that are that are holding on to tokens like like how do you avoid those kinds of pitfalls um so that you have more longevity because like realistically like dao's nfts like a lot of these things are having a moment right now um and everyone's super excited about them um but like

really like if if we want this to be sustainable like we need to be thinking about like what this looks like in one year in five years in 10 years um and obviously like not planning for 10 years if we haven't got six months out planned right but um but having that be part of like of the longer term thinking um and and thinking about how to keep everything um sustainable and like and moving along right and like one thing is like maybe as people leave like maybe you burn tokens right like but how do you how do you keep it so that it's like relevant and you don't have like too much slack um as as things start to change and just kind of keeping up with it with everything

right the other piece of utility just to add in there is governance as well right people like to make decisions or vote uh and so tokens are great for that um and and they can help guide or give ideas but they can help guide the you know the events you're going to throw or the direction that your dow goes or the products you build or whatever or your treasury uh which is is very common um the interesting thing to me about tokens and as we talk about all their different utilities is when you think about it all of these things do sort of exist in the web 2 world like you talked about getting discounts at different stores i forget what this card was jay maybe maybe you remember this i don't know it's just in canada in the us too but like you could sign up for this card

when we were younger and it would get you with a lot of likes the student card yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah student card that gets you discounts and then there's like the incentives where when you do things you get rewards that's like credit card points or air miles right and then there's governance which is just like i don't know voting which obviously we have things that we do voting in um and so it's like it's combining all of the different like web 2 tools but the token can do it all right and then it's also what's even better is like in some cases once it gets this point it's also liquid so the moment you're like i don't really want to use this thing anymore you can just sell it and get into another group or do whatever you want and that's to me is like the most

beautiful thing about web3 um now you also started nft project and i want to also talk about that unless jay you have any other questions about the the dow or raquel you want to share any other thoughts about the doubt yeah i was thinking about the nft project too so you nailed it that's right but at the same time i actually just quickly i i looked up the ukraine down because we're talking about it super topical so let me just run this down quickly for everybody here uh so you can check out the ukraine dow you just google ukraine dow but the actual link is ukrainedow.love uh and essentially it's a um it's one nft that they are auctioning off the auction ends in 14 hours and they're

using party bid so on party bid you can join a party to bid on um a an nft without being you know you don't to be um you know whale here to throw down uh you know hundreds of eth here the current highest bid um so the winning party right now is up to 1200 eath which is 3.5 million dollars that would be donated to um to ukraine so it just gives you like wow like what a what an incredible very quick way to fund something but also have everyone have an opportunity to be a part of it that's you know so and not only to mention me a part of it though also the funding of this because

it's using crypto will be so so much more direct to the people that need it versus losing it in you know the payment processing and whatnot so um just uh if you want to check that out ukrainedow.love really interesting example awesome so cool let's get back to the nfk tell us about your nfc story or what you're what you're building right now yeah so um i am currently working on the first of a what i'm looking to be a kind of a series of um nft collections um and this one is the the fiero viejo nft project

so um here in mexico city like it started here in mexico city um but you can also hear this around latin america um there is a sound that um that trucks will drive around the city playing off of their off of these speakers and um excuse me for my terrible rendition of this to start but again anyone who's been in mexico city longer

than like 12 hours knows this all day if you're trying to record a podcast you can't because no matter what it's coming in the background like jay i'm surprised you haven't heard this song in my mic before we're just on our meetings and stuff all day oh yeah like people who like work here like that's like one of the like if they're working remote like that's one of the complaints it's like it's like you know this is not a quiet city you all day you hear the sounds like second bra okay okay so we've got this sound how does this translate into an nft yeah you got this sound and um on twitter a few months ago um somebody uh what had this conversation

they were asking like you know i hear this all the time um has like has like the lady who like originally recorded this like has she ever been paid on this and like um and so uh so i was tagged and christine chang who runs uh uh this week in fintech she was also checked and they said like would your web three communities be able to like help like i don't know like start a dao or an nft for this and i just might like the cogs in my brain just started just started running because i've also got a podcast called cdmx expats where i just interview people who have moved to mexico city and

when i started this last year i thought like oh well you know i've got to have an intro song and you know hilarious if i found like a remix to that song so i did and so that's been my like a remix to second or it's called um has been um the intro to my podcast for like you know over six months and well i was like yes i do crypto liar i do like what three i like i'm like i are i love this song already like i've listened to every remix of it like on the internet like many times over um like when i was when i was like searching and i was like searching for like the perfect clip to to to make the intro of my

of my podcast so like i know this so intimately like yes let's let's do this so i i what i started doing is um putting together a um like an nft superstar team um and what i eventually got was um what i put together was this this project where um i have tapped where i'm tapping artists um mostly based in either mexico latin america but even if they're not based in in mexico um if they have like if they know the sound if they like they have some kind of connection to it um then uh and they are either nft artist or

digital either audio or visual artist um i'm tapping them to create um art based on fiero viejo where when they are sold as nfts approximately a third goes to um marianco maria del mar is is the girl who originally recorded this um approximately a third goes to the artist and approximately the third goes back to the project um you know to to be able to do this to continue getting artists on board um to continue like basically raising money um with you know by uh by tapping the community to create art based on a given theme right um and

what's interesting about this um that i haven't seen really done anywhere else is that it's it's an ongoing social benefit um project right so most nft collections that you see it's like you know you see like there's some artists they like make a bunch of faces a bunch of different eyes a bunch of different arms a bunch of different eyebrows um and then they're they're for the most part they're using um scripts to combine them into all these new variations and then they sell those as um as an nft collection or it's a single artist who's got um like there's some artists that are doing um collections based on physical work that they do so here in mexico city or i guess he's actually based in

tulum alejandro blot has feel the fruit and crypto papayas um and he makes these like he takes these um slices of fruit um dehydrates them and then he like encases them in acrylic sells them as necklaces or has these mandalas um and then he sells them as collections on openc right um so it's like all one artist um and selling actually with a physical representation but this is this is just completely changing that right it's like this isn't just one artist it's one theme um where the goal is you know like raising money um via the sales of these nfts um to go

towards a social like a social cause right so in this case it's it's to maria del mar so she and her father um recorded um fiero viajo about 20 years ago um and what they're doing is they're buying uh used appliances and steel and all of these things like junk essentially um and uh and it's just become it's like it's become this like real-life meme right um which is kind of why it's so perfect as the first nft because nfts are based on memes like like the the origin of them back in you know back in the mid 2010s um was on memes

like so like if you look at at the original nfts it's like there's like the rare the rare pepes um and and it's just like it's all it's all meme-based um this is mexico city's like most famous meme and it's really like one of latin america's most famous memes um transformed into um this like this nft collection that is based on these memes um in order to raise money for uh not only it this is for maria the motherboard we're also earmarking um um some percent of this to go to um social benefit organizations um that

are like social organizations that are uh supporting art technology job skills um and culture so you know it's like it's like what we're basically creating is this machine that can create art that can sell the art and then that can continue supporting um these causes that we care about right so um i mean now that i'm thinking about it like heck we could like this could be something that even works for like ukraine right like anything that you have that um like imagine if we have big ukrainian artists um you know all come together create really amazing art um and then in a way they're kind of donating their their art their time um but they're still being

paid something for it right because like however much that their art sells for they're getting a portion of that um and and also people know like hey i'm not just buying this person's art but i'm also um i'm buying this as part of like almost like a bigger fundraiser and we know that like like this is something that like in the web too or what you know real life um in real life auctions we know that people will go and they will pay more for something that they know has social benefit right we can do the same thing in web 3. um and so uh what's really cool about this project is um so for the primary nft i got um the basically og

nft artist of mexico so gus griasca gus gg um on twitter and on openc and around like around the interwebs um so he is one of like the og nft creators in the world um so he's been creating nfps since before they were called nfts um back in like 20 i believe it was 2015 2016. um in 2017 he co-founded one of the first nft marketplaces um in the world and he's from mexico city um he's like from here right he's chilling and so being like one of the first in the world um being one of the first pioneers in the world he's definitely like the

pioneer of mexico so i got the pioneer nft artist of mexico from mexico city um and the uh the the meme lord the ot voice like be the original voice of the most famous like um sound in mexico city and across mexico um and i brought them together for this and uh gus went so we went and met with maria and her family about a month ago and the following week gus went out to visit uh to visit her again and recorded a new

version of this and you guys want you guys can see it yeah set it up yeah sure yeah so just to put this in the context of what this song is it's literally a couple guys in the back of a truck and they just drive around the city playing this song out of a speaker and just like blaring it so that people in their house can hear and if you have an old i don't know dishwasher or an old like whatever appliance you like run out and you yell at them and then they'll come in and they'll take it from you and they're all over mexico that's why i love that this is being built around this it's so funny yeah so have you launched this yet or it's still it's still in the works it's so the artwork is it's still in the works it's still not working um so we're

looking at launching on super rare um and the timing is tbd um but um but yeah it is in the works right now we're in talks with super rare to um potentially have this be part of one of their first editorials um like like like print editorials it should be super awesome um and yeah and then it would launch on there and then after that we'll we'll do the rest of the artist collection um so this is like the principal one and then after this it'll be um the rest of the artists that we bring in to to make art for this and then that might that may end up being an ongoing um project that like doesn't really it doesn't really need to stop um it can just be something

that you know it's like it's a theater vehicle like collaborative arts collection so um yeah so um so a little the last bit of context or um for this one is um it's maria and her dad um so her dad is the one who originally recorded it but she was a voice right um and uh it's been 20 years and she's become the most famous voice in mexico and so uh this is um imagining in the future um when we have um when we have uh really moved into space travel and this is maria and her dad traveling through space picking up space junk

so uh really listen close to the look to the words here but this is a new recording here we go oh hold on hold on oh sorry this is going to be so good this is [Music] hmm [Music] disintegrators

bazookas [Music] or any kind of crew petroleum that you're selling so for the listeners right now she had her screen up and it's like is that an nft what you were showing there like the little video or not yet well that is um and it loops three times and it like it like um the audio gets modified on the different ones but yeah are you gonna turn this into a music nft because that's the big rave right now and i feel like this is perfect to become a music nft this is you know what like that will probably be for some of the future ones um like like uh where we'll do we can do collaborations with like big um like djs

um but uh but we are going to sell we're going to auction this one as a um as like a video essentially like it's like a minute long video unbelievable unbelievable what a great project oh thank you yeah so so that's that's the first one um and then really what i'm looking at doing um kind of down the line like in the pipeline is doing a very similar project but for the ritual artists in mexico um so we chole if you don't know it's um they're the people who do um the chakita art which are like the they do like these sculptures sometimes

they're like jaguar heads or like different types of animals um where it's like all this tiny little beading um in these like really gorgeous geometric shapes um so if you look up chucky i think it's x x i see message me it after and we'll put it in the show notes yeah yeah yeah so and and we joel is h-u-i-c-h-o-l we chill people um yeah but if you just look up like mexican bead art even um or like bead statues like you'll just see them they're these tiny tiny tiny little beads um and this is like this is like an art form that goes back hundreds of years and it's from this indigenous p people

that um are like they're they're losing this this bit of their culture right because like their kids are growing up they're moving away they're moving the cities they're getting into tech um and so a lot of these cultures are are really at like they're at risk of losing um a lot of their like native arts and so um so what i what i want to do for the next project is um is get these artists um like collaborate with these artists and other big artists um to really bring more exposure to them one um and then two to raise more money to be able to to um support like the the organizations that are doing a lot of

work um to support you know the culture and the art um that they're trying to save there so like these are like ongoing projects that now we can help support um with the creation of new art and like the selling of new art um and what's also kind of cool about this is that it doesn't have to just be um digital nfts right um like we know that we can connect we can have like physical pieces um and have nfts that also that they sell as nfts you know as part of that then they come with a physical piece um so like the second artist i have on for for this current project um is this brazilian artist nando prado and he makes these like really cool like

collage splatter paint art um and then he then he does acrylic that he prints on and he puts that on top so it's kind of like a shadow box so we need two of those for this project already and um and so when those sell um when those sell as nfts the you know the purchaser will end up with also this really cool painting in real life um that i think also gives gives nfts a lot more value so i love how much you're tying culture in the real world uh to web 3. like typically it's like web 3 culture is becoming like super popular and it's the thing and you're like no no we're going to bring the history like the old

culture back from mexico and we're gonna bring that to web3 uh and i absolutely absolutely love that um i think we gotta slowly wrap up here but jay i think you're gonna do um i think we wanna do a speed round if you're okay with that request yeah i just got one question actually even though yeah we're we're already well over time raquel sorry about that uh but there's just so so many great stories i just got to know what was it like when you first told maria del mar and her dad that you were doing this and that they were going to get funds from this like you know what it was actually more difficult to convince interesting um that this was not like it wasn't a scam and it wasn't um like it was it's like

trying to explain crypto to somebody who you know who has built an entire um career an entire life like buying things in person and like you know like you like with their hands like in person you know selling that flipping that um it's it's very tangible right like you know you deal with cash you deal with all this stuff um and to say to go to them and say like hey we want to create art based on this thing that you did um and like they have the copyright too it's like and like we want to like get your permission use the copyright um in order to [Music]

um sell these these pieces um to raise money for you that you can you will can get we'll get royalties for like forever and um and by the way it's all going to be in this other kind of money that you don't actually know they kind of and they're they're like who are you and i'm like i'm like they're like who are you this white girl and i'm like no wait i'm mexican i promise [Laughter] i love it here like i think it's so interesting like this is my hair like this is why i think it's like i i think it's like such a part it's like such an integral part of like the fabric of the

culture here it's like one it's obviously this meme of mexico city but also beyond that it's like like these are um like maria and her dad you know like the sound it's like it's like an icon of the working class here right and so it's like we want to celebrate that it's like it's it's this isn't like this new tech money where like you know people like they like get lucky they buy a few doge coins back you know in 2013 and now they're millionaires that are retired it's like no look this is like this is people working like this this is bringing together people to like create real art um and to it's like it's tangible right um and and we want to celebrate that um like i think this is something that's

important um i think it's important like to the culture i think it's important um even to like i don't know potentially like to like nfts like i really would love to see like the um kind of like the ideas around what nfts are um as just being like this like these like kind of like like lofty i like crazy ideas that like that nobody really like has any grasp over um and kind of like bringing them back down to the world a little bit on being like look we can use this technology um and apply it to to create like new um new channels um for

for like the things that we know already whether that's cultural whether that's art whether that's um buying and selling things that we know in the real world right um and just just thinking about like what web3 and what what nfts can do better um and then just like applying that and and just like bringing it back down right and and i think i think like for me it's like like i said like i'm not that technical um but i i see these tools as like these really cool new possibilities for what we can do in the future and um and and i think like if we make them more accessible to kind of like the

everyday like the every man you know every woman um then then we can do a lot more with it because it's not going to just be constrained to like the tech bros um who who are doing things that like that don't necessarily um uh relate to people who are you know living in web 2 every day i love it i love it inspiring too uh your your honesty that you are not the tech person i think is something you don't get a lot of in web3 you know i think a lot of people um ego gets in the way sometimes and everybody's trying to you know one-up and it's tough to be vulnerable and to admit that uh so i think that's great for a lot of people in the community to hear because a lot

of people get turned off by feeling like they're not the most technical person in the room i certainly i'm also with you on that one raquel uh okay i'm just gonna wrap up we like to wrap up with a couple sort of speed round lightning round questions um raquel you got a couple more minutes for us here yep cool awesome uh okay um favorite person to follow on twitter or whatever platform you choose um for uh the comedy's sake kind of um i've got to say the president of el salvador his tweets that are like el salvador don't give a it's just like

crazy amazing amazing okay um that's a good one uh favorite nft project uh mine [Laughter] me too i love it love it yeah this is it mine too holy geez um weirdest dao that you've heard about weirdest tao or or most most interesting dao recently and like any anything that stood out to you [Music] you know what i think um

maybe not most interesting but like my favorite um or one of my favorites is developer dao um partially because i had um one of the members like come to a talk and he was talking about just how nice they are and like he's like he's like this is like the nicest group of people you will ever encounter like they're they're all midwesterners and so they're all they all have like this like midwestern like cheerfulness and they're like like like like someone new comes in and everyone's like oh howdy like how's it going so it's it's not it's not gm it's howdy it's just like it's just like there's no like they're so like overly like sweet and nice and like friendly um and if

you've ever met any with midwesterners um it's like i could just imagine like an entire discord full of them and i'm just like this sounds like the greatest like place on earth i love it i love it well before we let you go raquel where can people find you online where can they learn more about your projects yeah totally so um number one is you can find me on twitter at crypto underscore deathless that's e-o-n-d-e-s-a condesa um or uh on link tree um it's link tree which is like l-i-n-k-t-r-e-t-r dot e-e slash cdmx it's super simple so um yeah once you get to link tree just

slash cdmx and um all my groups are there um anytime like there is if i'm in an article my podcast is there uh yeah that's that's the easiest way to get in touch with me my twitter my instagram my telegram groups um meetup groups for tuesday night uh tuesday night dinner club thursday night uh crypto meetups all of it if you're in mexico city make sure to reach out to raquel and she will have something for you to do i promise you that raquel thank you so much for for coming on web3 academy this was so much fun and it's great to hear all about what you're doing in web3 uh because what you're doing is is pretty amazing

and very different from i think a lot of people so it's very very interesting um but uh yeah thank you again for coming on and we'll put all the links and stuff in the show notes so everyone can um can find that there uh for everyone else the listeners um by the way this was live in the discord i don't even think we mentioned that at the beginning but uh you can jump in and you can ask questions uh we do this every week and we will take your questions and ask the guests uh if it's a good question and so you can do that any time but uh anyway thanks everybody and uh all the best have a great week cheers thanks guys thank you for listening to web3 academy we hope this helps you along your 3 journey if it does please share this episode and subscribe so you

don't miss the next one by the way if you have yet to join the discord community you are missing out this is where all the magic happens this is where we learn where we ask questions where we network uh you want to be in there the link to join is in the description below and finally a quick disclaimer nothing in this podcast was financial advice crypto and web3 can be risky you can literally lose it all in fact if you invest on account of what we say you probably will lose it all so don't do that in all honesty the point of this podcast is to remove the noise of markets and price and focus on utility and implementation anyway so you should not take any of this as financial advice thank you friends and see you in the next one