Fork the Product

In this episode, we sit down with Jaye Harrill, Communications Manager at Quantstamp - a leader in blockchain security, offering smart contract and front-end audits to enhance the security of decentralized applications.  Passionate communications manager for blockchain security company Quantstamp, Jaye has a long leadership history in blockchain and Ethereum community spaces. She has dedicated her life to bringing broad visibility to the transformative changes this technology is expected to bring. Currently, Jaye is most known for her marketing, community events and security standards work. She is committed to bridging as many blockchain newbies together with as many vets as possible. Long term, 1 doge will forever be 1 doge.  Enjoy! Links Jaye’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/JayeHarrill Quantstamp Website: https://quantstamp.com/ Quantstamp Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantstamp Quantstamp Blog: https://quantstamp.com/blog Quantstamp Medium: https://medium.com/quantstamp Quantstamp Github: https://github.com/quantstamp

In this episode, we sit down with Deniz Omer, Head of Ecosystem Growth at Kyber Network - an on-chain liquidity protocol that aggregates liquidity from a wide range of reserves, powering instant and secure token exchange in any decentralized application.  Kyber is a on-chain liquidity protocol that anyone can tap into for a wide variety of inter-token use cases. For example, vendors are able to accept payments in multiple tokens on their e-commerce platforms yet receiving in their preferred token. In addition, dApps can allow users who are not their token holders to utilize their platform and services with other tokens, and decentralized financial projects have the means to rebalance their portfolio instantly. Enjoy! Links Deniz’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/denizomer Kyber Network Website: https://kyber.network/ Kyber Network Twitter: https://twitter.com/kybernetwork Kyber Network Telegram: https://t.me/kybernetwork Kyber Network Medium: https://blog.kyber.network/

In this episode, we sit down with Mo Dong, co-founder of Celer Network - a leading layer-2 scaling platform that enables developers to build highly scalable decentralized applications through fast, easy and secure off-chain transactions.  Graduated with a Ph.D. from UIUC, Dr. Mo Dong has been applying his research and engineering experience on networking protocol design, distributed systems, formal verification and Game Theory to scalability challenges of blockchain systems. Dr. Dong led projects revolutionizing Internet TCP and improved cross-continental data transfer speed by 10X to 100X with non-regret learning algorithms. His work was published in top conferences, won Internet2 Innovative Application Award and being adopted by major Internet content and service providers. Enjoy! Links Mo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/no89thkey Celer Network Website: https://www.celer.network/ Celer Network Twitter: https://twitter.com/CelerNetwork Celer Network Telegram: https://t.me/celernetwork Celer Network Discord: https://discord.gg/Trhab5w Celer Network Medium: https://medium.com/celer-network Celer Network Github: https://github.com/celer-network

In this episode, we sit down with Michael Sena, co-founder and CEO of 3Box - a company aiming to be the shared backend for web3 by making it simple for developers to store data securely with their users. 3Box makes it simple to store data securely with your users, letting you focus on building great products.  Enjoy! Links Michael’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/somemikesena 3Box Website: https://3box.io/ 3Box Twitter: https://twitter.com/3boxdb 3Box Medium: https://medium.com/3box 3Box Discord: https://chat.3box.io/ 3Box Github: https://github.com/3box

In this episode, we sit down with Jack O’Holleran, co-founder and CEO of SKALE Labs - a company building a modular protocol that allows developers to easily provision highly configurable blockchains so developers can focus on building scalable decentralized applications. Jack is a veteran Silicon Valley Technology entrepreneur with a deep background in machine learning/AI technologies, security, and blockchain. His resume includes co-founder of Aktana, co-founder IncentAlign, and executive positions at Good Technology, and Motorola. His first work with Digital Currencies was in 2008 building a digital currency platform for Enterprise Resource Allocation. He has been an active Cryptocurrency investor and an evangelist for decentralized systems since early 2013. Jack's passion for decentralized systems and blockchain led him to join efforts with Stan to solve the blockchain scalability problem. He is a veteran Silicon Valley Technology entrepreneur with a deep background in machine learning/AI technologies, and blockchain. His resume includes co-founder of Aktana, co-founder IncentAlign, and executive positions at Good Technology, and Motorola. His first work with Digital Currencies was in 2008 building a digital currency platform for Enterprise Resource Allocation. He has been an active Cryptocurrency investor and an evangelist for decentralized systems since early 2013.Enjoy! Links Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackoholleran SKALE Labs Website: https://skale.network/ SKALE Labs Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkaleNetwork SKALE Labs Telegram: https://t.me/skaleofficial SKALE Labs Discord: http://skale.chat/ ConsenSys Codefi Announces SKALE Network as the First Project to Launch a Token on the Activate Platform: https://consensys.net/blog/press-release/consensys-codefi-announces-skale-network-as-the-first-project-to-launch-a-token-on-the-activate-platform/

In this episode, we sit down with Bradley Kam, co-founder and Head of Business Development at Unstoppable Domains - a company focused on helping make crypto payments simple and enabling anyone to create censorship-resistant websites with blockchain domains. Brad is a serial entrepreneur from Atlanta. Unstoppable Domains, a registry business building domain names on blockchains. In May, Unstoppable raised $4.3M led by Draper Associates. Previously, he co-founded Talkable, a YC backed marketing software company. Enjoy! Links Unstoppable Domains Website: https://unstoppabledomains.com/ Unstoppable Domains Twitter: https://twitter.com/unstoppableweb Unstoppable Domains Telegram: https://t.me/unstoppabledomains Unstoppable Domains Medium: https://medium.com/unstoppabledomains Unstoppable Domains Forum: https://community.unstoppabledomains.com/

In this episode, we sit down with Elena Sinelnikova and Natalia Ameline, co-founders of CryptoChicks - a self-financed non-profit changing the lives of women and youth around the world through education and mentorship around blockchain and AI. Elena and Natalia started CryptoChicks after getting a huge turnout for a blockchain meetup they organized in Toronto in 2017 to help other women to navigate through Blockchain technology. CryptoChicks supports women and youth in Canada, USA, Bahamas, Pakistan, Switzerland, Dubai with education, hackathon events and mentorship. They also created mentorship programs, such as CryptoChicks Hatchery to help women start their own businesses. As a result of their fantastic work, CryptoChicks was nominated for the Blockchain Company of the Year Award at the Canadian FinTech and AI Awards in 2018 and 2019 as well as the Diversity Initiative of the Year at the inaugural Women in IT Awards Canada in 2019. It was fantastic to hear Natalia and Elena describe their journey to get CryptoChicks to where it is today and what their efforts look like at hackathons such as ETHDenver.  Enjoy! Links Crypto Chicks Website: https://cryptochicks.ca/ Crypto Chicks Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/crypto_chicks Crypto Chicks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CryptoChicksOrg Crypto Chicks Slack: http://cryptochickshackathon.slack.com/ Crypto Chicks Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/cryptochicks

In this episode, we sit down with Shiv Malik, Head of Growth at Streamr - a real-time data protocol for the decentralized web focused on data monetization and exchange. Shiv is the author of two books, the co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation think tank, and a former investigative journalist for the Guardian. In his role with Streamr, he evangelizes about a new decentralized data economy and is completely psyched about bringing data unions to the world. Streamr aims to replace centralized data brokers with an open source, decentralized peer-to-peer network for real-time data exchange by relying on cryptography instead of trust. It was started in reaction to the dominance of the Big Five tech giants, with the core belief that decentralized infrastructure can deliver a healthier distribution of money and power, as well as unlocking brand new use cases. Shiv walks us through the origin story of Streamr, the components of their network and how different participants benefit from their token economic model. Enjoy! Links Shiv’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/shivmalik Streamr Website: https://streamr.network/ Streamr Twitter: https://twitter.com/streamr Streamr Telegram: https://t.me/streamrdata Streamr Medium: https://medium.com/streamrblog Streamr Github: https://github.com/streamr-dev Swash Telegram: https://t.me/swashapp Swash Github: https://github.com/swashapp/swash.git Swash Twitter: https://twitter.com/swashapp

In this episode, we sit down with David Gold, Founder and CEO of Dapix, a venture-backed company launching the Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO) Protocol aimed at revolutionizing blockchain usability. David brings decades of experience as a successful entrepreneur, venture capitalist and angel investor to this ambitious project. The Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO) is a consortium of leading wallets, exchanges, and crypto payment processors supporting the FIO Protocol. The usability problems they are trying to solve include readability of addresses, confusion when sending transactions, and lack of context within transactions. We had a great time hearing David’s compelling vision for FIO, how they’ve been able to succeed in building a very strong ecosystem and what the business model is for FIO. Enjoy! Links Dapix Website: https://dapix.io/ FIO Website: https://fio.foundation/ FIO Twitter: https://twitter.com/joinFIO FIO Discord: https://discord.gg/pHBmJCc FIO Medium: https://medium.com/fio-blog FIO Telegram: https://t.me/joinFIO

In this episode, we chat about highlights and insights at ETH Denver 2020 and NFT.NYC. We also dig into what the future might hold for crypto as we find our way through a global crisis.

In this episode, we sit down with Rori Knudtson, the CEO and Founder of Infinite Seed, a decentralized entertainment world building ecosystem that incentivizes people to adopt new behavior patterns with a positive impact on environmental disruption. She works in the spaces between art, architecture and film. Infinite Seed aims to unlock the profound power of embodied storytelling through present and emerging media platforms to encourage, educate and co-create. Engaging the emotional attention of audiences in a way that is both familiar and new, Infinite Seed aims to provide the tools to write a new reality into existence, problem solving together. We had a fascinating conversation with Rori who is bringing a multi-disciplinary approach to solving some of the worlds biggest problems. Enjoy! Links Rori’s Website: http://www.rknudtson.com/bio/ Infinite Seed Website: http://infiniteseed.is/ Infinite Seed Twitter: https://twitter.com/infiniteseed_is Infinite Seed Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/infiniteseedis/ Infinite Seed Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infinite_seed_is/

In this episode, we speak with Tarik Bellamine and Kevin Kim, co-founders of Gossamer. Tarik is a full-stack and Ethereum developer who was previously at Capital One and Pace Harmon and passionate about personal finance, DeFi, and building cool things. Kevin is a product manager, designer and front-end developer who was previously at Quartz and Facebook. He has a passion for applying research and user experience to product development. Kevin and Tarik met and became good friends at the University of Pennsylvania. They are passionate about DeFi, but are tired of it only being accessible to a few thousand people. To change that, they started Gossamer with the mission of making earning interest available to anyone with an internet connection. We discuss what they feel is inaccessible when it comes to DeFi today and how they are utilizing user research and user experience to solve those issues with Gossamer. Enjoy! Notes [0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro. [1:12] Episode intro. [2:16] Overview of Gossamer. [4:12] How Kevin and Tarik are positioning Gossamer and what macro trends influence that. [7:41] Origin of the name Gossamer. [8:40] Background on Kevin and Tarik. [9:21] The importance of decentralization as part of Gossamer’s value proposition. [11:46] Approach Kevin and Tarik take to user research and who Gossamer’s target users are. [16:10] Overview of Kevin’s user research and user experience talk at the last DevCon. [18:28] The approach they are taking to take Gossamer to market. [21:05] How Tarik and Kevin think about community development and why they are focusing their efforts elsewhere for the time being. [23:36] Biggest challenges Tarik and Kevin are tackling right now. [29:08] What skills they believe are most important to have on a team to be successful in crypto. [31:57] How Tarik and Kevin carve out space for deep work. [34:33] Where they stand with regard to funding for Gossamer and their perspective on the evolution of funding in the space. [36:04] What keeps Kevin and Tarik up at night. [39:28] If we fast forward five years from today, how is the world different with Gossamer in it. [40:20] Where listeners can go to find out more about Gossamer. Links Tarik’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/tarikbellamine Kevin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevin0kim Gossamer Website: https://www.usegossamer.com Gossamer Twitter: https://twitter.com/UseGossamer Recording of Kevin’s talk at DevCon about dApp UX: https://slideslive.com/38911919/guerrilla-user-research-for-dapps-step-1-to-mainstream-adoption Blog post from Kevin about blockchain design principles: https://hackernoon.com/6-principles-for-designing-dapps-for-regular-people-from-a-consensus-18-hackathon-winner-134cdb881cc1

In this episode, we speak with Alan Carr, co-founder of KittyCalc and Product Lead at CryptoKitties, and Bryce Bladon, Director of Communications at Dapper Labs. In addition to his work as a game designer and product manager for CryptoKitties, Alan also contributes to other projects at Dapper Labs. He is a Jack of all trades, master of dragons, and previously worked on entertainment experiences everywhere from Blizzard Entertainment to Asterism Books, his own self publishing imprint for young adult fiction. Bryce is an award-winning writer and content designer with a background in emerging technologies and helping people understand them. While at Axiom Zen, Bryce was a part of the team that brought CryptoKitties to market. CryptoKitties is a game centered around breedable, collectible, and oh-so-adorable creatures called CryptoKitties. Dapper Labs is a company aiming to reshape how we use and interact with digital worlds with projects including CryptoKitties, Cheeze Wizards and NBA Top Shot. We have a lively discussion with Bryce and Alan covering a lot of ground to unpack how Dapper Labs and CryptoKitties have been so successful in kicking off and driving the NFT and crypto collectible ecosystem. Notes [0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro. [1:12] Episode intro. [2:23] Background on Dapper Labs. [3:30] Alan’s background. [4:48] Bryce’s background. [5:26] The origin stories of CryptoKitties and Dapper Labs. [9:24] How the user base of CryptoKitties and Dapper Labs has evolved over time. [15:25] Overview of the markets for Dapper Labs, CryptoKitties, Cheeze Wizards and NBA Top Shot. [19:54] Approach to community governance and management to cultivate a following for each project. [22:31] Team organization across the different projects and how cross-pollination occurs. [28:03] Perspective on what the most critical skills are to have on a team to build successful products. [31:15] How the different teams run experiments, analyze results and communicate them to the rest of the organization. [37:12] Strategies for taking products to market. [41:48] What keeps Alan up at night with regard to CryptoKitties? [43:38] How is the world different five years from now because of Dapper Labs and CryptoKitties? [47:01] Where listeners can learn more about Alan, Bryce and the projects they work on. Links Alan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alanfalcon Bryce’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/BryceBladon Bryce’s Personal Website: http://brycebladon.com/ CryptoKitties Website: https://www.cryptokitties.co/ CryptoKitties Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoKitties CryptoKitties Blog: https://medium.com/@CryptoKitties CryptoKitties Discord: https://discord.gg/cryptokitties CryptoKitties Open Positions: https://www.cryptokitties.co/careers Dapper Labs Website: https://www.dapperlabs.com Dapper Labs Twitter: https://twitter.com/dapper_labs Dapper Labs Blog: https://medium.com/dapperlabs Dapper Labs Telegram: https://t.me/dapper Cheeze Wizards Website: https://www.cheezewizards.com Cheeze Wizards Twitter: https://twitter.com/CHZWZRDS Cheeze Wizards Blog: https://medium.com/@CHZWZRDS Cheeze Wizards Telegram: https://discord.gg/6RxgZrZ NBA Top Shot Website: https://www.nbatopshot.com NBA Top Shot Twitter: https://twitter.com/nba_topshot Flow Website: https://www.withflow.org/ Flow Twitter: https://twitter.com/withflow_ KittyCalc Website: http://kittycalc.co/

In this episode, we speak with Sean Papanikolas, founder and CEO of Cargo. Sean has extensive experience as a developer as well as a founder of various businesses. Frustrated after being shut out by a payment processor he was trying to use for his crypto project, Sean founded Cargo to solve the problem himself. Cargo is a service platform that securely tokenizes tangible and digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain, allowing anyone to buy, sell, auction, trade or transfer those assets in a decentralized way to unlock new economies and let users keep more of what they earn. We speak with Sean about the experience that drove him to start Cargo and how he has bootstrapped Cargo and extended the solution he built for himself to the developer community. Enjoy! Notes [0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro. [1:12] Episode intro. [2:10] Overview of Cargo and use cases. [4:25] Sean’s background and journey that led Sean to start Cargo. [9:30] Insight into how Sean is approaching validation of Cargo’s target market. [10:57] Evolution of go-to-market strategy for Cargo and understanding potential users. [12:49] Examples of the types of developers building on Cargo, their use cases and some of the unique features Cargo provides. [16:26] Biggest challenges Sean is working through to get Cargo off the ground. [18:15] Overview of the approach to take Cargo to market and drum up interest. [20:07] Tools Sean is using to build Cargo and the challenges with using them. [23:33] Sean’s thoughts around bootstrapping Cargo and potential funding in the future. [25:13] How Sean has leveraged contractors to get support building out the product and what steps he has taken to vet them. [28:21] What keeps Sean up at night. [29:03] Trends around Ethereum standards that are interesting to Sean and why. [30:52] If we fast forward five years from now, how is the world different with Cargo in it. [31:47] Where to find out more about Cargo. Links Sean’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-papanikolas-940150154/ Cargo Website: https://cargo.build Dolli Website: https://www.dolli.io

In this episode, we speak with John Crain, co-founder and CEO of SuperRare. John has an extensive background in product consulting for fortune 500s like Coca-Cola & AT&T before taking the leap and working on products in the e-commerce and crypto space. SuperRare is a marketplace to collect and trade unique, single-edition digital artworks. Each artwork is authentically created by an artist in the network, and tokenized as a crypto-collectible digital item that anyone can own and trade. We speak with John about how SuperRare has been able to create a community of not only collectors but also forward-thinking creators. Enjoy!   Notes [0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro. [1:12] Episode intro. [2:02] Overview of SuperRare. [2:48] John’s background and how he came to work on SuperRare. [4:18] Lessons John learned from working at BlockApps. [5:13] Genesis story for SuperRare. [7:28] SuperRare’s discovery process to understand the opportunity to solve problems for digital artists. [8:59] Why having SuperRare on a decentralized protocol is critical. [10:46] What target markets SuperRare is focusing on right now. [12:20] Who typical SuperRare users are and how the team does user research to learn more about them. [13:41] Opportunities John sees with the blending of the digital and analog art worlds. [16:31] How the SuperRare team thinks about and builds for the social experience around digital art. [18:36] The team’s approach to market development and taking SuperRare to market. [19:58] What opportunities John and the team see given technical developments in the crypto space such as re-fungible tokens. [22:08] Differentiating between the concepts of fungible and re-fungible tokens. [23:28] Challenges the SuperRare team is dealing with. [25:36] Breakdown of the team. [26:32] What John believes are the most important skills a team needs to succeed in crypto. [28:08] The team’s process for conducting user research and synthesizing feedback. [30:43] How SuperRare has been funded thus far. [32:09] The team’s current approach to their business model and thoughts about the future. [33:09] What keeps John up at night and how the world will be different five years from now with SuperRare in it. [35:04] Where listeners can learn more about SuperRare. Links John’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/gnarzly SuperRare Website: https://superrare.co SuperRare Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superrare.co/ SuperRare Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperRare_co SuperRare Blog: https://medium.com/@SuperRare_co SuperRare Telegram: https://t.me/SuperRare Pixura Website: https://pixura.io Pixura Twitter: https://twitter.com/pixura_io Pixura Blog: https://medium.com/pixura Pixura Telegram: https://t.me/pixura

In this episode, we speak with Leighton Cusack, founder and CEO of PoolTogether. Leighton was previously the co-founder and CEO of Kindrid, a company dedicated to increasing generosity through technology. PoolTogether is a no loss lottery built on Ethereum leveraging Dai and Compound. Their mission is to create financial security by offering a healthy alternative to lotteries. We explore how PoolTogether started as a hackathon project at ETHDenver and what Leighton has done to transform it into a high growth project in such a short period of time. Enjoy! Notes [0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro. [1:12] Episode intro. [1:52] Overview of PoolTogether and history of the idea. [3:33] Cusack’s background and what prompted him to start PoolTogether. [5:38] Why PoolTogether is better done on a blockchain as opposed to using the traditional financial system. [7:39] What concepts inspired the thinking behind PoolTogether. [8:45] PoolTogether’s total addressable market and target users. [10:38] How Leighton thinks about user research and driving user adoption. [14:04] The challenges in conducting user research given the anonymous nature of crypto. [17:33] PoolTogether’s approach to community outreach and development. [19:19] What Leighton’s experience has been using Aragon and the incremental approach to decentralizing governance of PoolTogether. [21:30] Team breakdown of PoolTogether and challenges they’re dealing with. [24:08] The skills Leighton thinks crypto startups need to be successful. [26:22] How Leighton and the team prioritize their time given how small the team is. [28:12] Story behind how Leighton started PoolTogether at ETHDenver 2018, funded its initial development and secured a grant from the Maker Foundation. [31:55] What about PoolTogether keeps Leighton up at night. [32:56] If we fast forward five years, how is the world different with PoolTogether in it. [33:28] Where you can learn more about PoolTogether. Links Leighton’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/lay2000lbs PoolTogether Website: https://www.pooltogether.us PoolTogether Twitter: https://twitter.com/pooltogether_ PoolTogether Discord: https://discord.gg/hxPhPDW PoolTogether Blog: https://medium.com/pooltogether MakerDAO Website: https://makerdao.com/en/

In this episode, we speak with Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea. Before OpenSea, Devin worked at Pinterest and Google, and sold his previous company to Credit Karma. OpenSea is the world’s largest digital marketplace for crypto collectibles and non-fungible tokens (NFT's). Users can buy, sell, and discover exclusive digital assets like Gods Unchained Cards, ENS names, CryptoKitties, Decentraland plots and much more. We discuss the evolution of OpenSea with Devin to understand how he and his team have succeeded in bringing together developers and users to create a thriving ecosystem centered around their marketplace for crypto collectibles. Enjoy! Show Notes [0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro. [1:12] Episode intro. [2:01] Pitch for OpenSea. [3:24] Devin’s background. [4:51] What led Devin and his co-founder to start OpenSea. [9:00] The thesis that drives OpenSea’s strategy. [10:53] The tools OpenSea offers developers to open a storefront and how they assess which projects get whitelisted and make it onto OpenSea’s marketplace website. [14:06] Explaining the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards and how OpenSea views each standard from a strategic perspective. [18:13] How OpenSea is thinking about target users and markets. [21:13] What OpenSea has done to navigate the UX challenges inherent in crypto. [25:45] How the OpenSea team leverages great developer documentation and smart contract capabilities to enable them to do business development with such a lean team. [29:01] The biggest challenges and opportunities Devin sees for OpenSea to ensure it becomes a sustainable business. [33:40] What Devin believes are the skills teams need to be a successful crypto startup. [41:43] How is the world different five years from now with OpenSea in it? Links Devin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfinzer OpenSea Twitter: https://twitter.com/opensea OpenSea Website: https://opensea.io OpenSea Blog: https://medium.com/opensea OpenSea Discord: https://discord.gg/ga8EJbv

In this episode, co-hosts Nick and Zach chat about a new approach to releasing episodes, this season's focus on NFTs and DeFi projects and episode highlights. Enjoy!

In this episode, we speak with Jayson Hobby, Head of Design at Compound. Hailing from Stumptown, Oregon, Jayson has deep design experience, previously leading pro and institutional Product Design at Coinbase including Coinbase Custody, Pro and Prime. Before diving into crypto, Jayson cut his teeth on product on the founding team of Uber Freight by way of Otto. In his free time he's listening to obscure music or casting cardboard spells in Magic The Gathering. Compound is an open-source, autonomous protocol built for developers, to unlock a universe of new financial applications. The mission of Compound is to unlock the significant portion of cryptocurrencies that currently sit idle on exchanges and in wallets, without yielding interest. We dive into how Compound has leveraged great design to drive adoption and become one of the most prominent DeFi projects in the space. Enjoy! Notes [0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro. [1:12] Episode intro. [2:19] Overview of Compound. [3:45] Description of the target user types for Compound. [5:01] Jayson’s background and the path that led him to Compound. [11:38] The origin story of Compound and how it’s evolved over time. [13:15] User research and discovery challenges within DeFi and how they overcome them. [14:52] How Jayson and the team process the user input flowing from the various channels it comes from. [16:35] Jayson’s design process and how the team uses the Compound interface to validate assumptions. [21:31] The team’s approach to user testing and feedback. [24:00] How Compound takes new products and features to market. [25:24] The emphasis the Compound team takes to shipping code at the protocol level. [27:00] Challenges the team faces on a day-to-day basis. [29:21] Breakdown of the team and how prioritization decisions are made across the team. [32:10] Jayson’s view on what skills are most important to have on a team to succeed. [34:34] How the decentralized ethos informs Compound’s community development. [39:03] What keeps Jayson up at night and how he thinks the world will be different five years from now with Compound in it. [42:13] Early thoughts about decentralized governance for Compound. [44:07] Where to go to find out more about Compound. Links Jayson’s Personal Website: https://jaysonhobby.com Jayson’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaysonhobby Compound Website: https://compound.finance Compound Discord: https://compound.finance/discord Compound Blog: https://medium.com/compound-finance

In this episode, we look back on the first season of Fork the Product to chat about lessons learned, patterns we've observed across projects and what's ahead for the industry. In the next season of Fork the Product, we'll be digging even deeper into specific aspects of UX and product strategy. Stay tuned!  

In this episode, we speak with Katy Jeremko. Katy is a designer who has built and launched successful products for the last decade. She is known for her work with NASA’s open government initiative, and as a co-founder of re:3D, the manufacturer of the Gigabot 3D Printer. Katy is also a partner at Two's Complement a Colorado technology studio that harnesses the power of complimentary design and development for high-caliber teams. Links https://www.twoscomplement.io/ https://www.twoscomplement.io/web3-accessibility-playbook/ https://www.katyjeremko.com/ https://twitter.com/twos_complement https://twitter.com/KatyJeremko https://twitter.com/nico_valencia https://open.nasa.gov/ https://re3d.org/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/re3d/gigabot-3d-printing-this-is-huge https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/ http://rhok.cc/

In this episode, we speak with Doug Petkanics, co-founder and CEO of Livepeer. Livepeer is developing open source video infrastructure services on top of the Ethereum blockchain. For those interested in learning about how a project tackles the huge challenge of designing token economic systems to properly align incentives of different groups in a network, this episode is for you. Doug describes what it was like in the early days when he and his co-founder were trying to prove to themselves that it was possible to solve this problem. He shares how they spent time developing unrelated projects on Ethereum to learn what it was like and to understand the limitations of the technology. We also delve into the lessons they learned around things like fundraising from their previous experiences as startup founders. One of the most interesting topics we discussed was how they are using staking and slashing in their protocol. Overall, it was a fascinating discussion. Enjoy! Show Notes [0:31] Show intro [0:48] Quick overview of Livepeer and Doug's background. [2:35] When Doug and his co-founder Eric realized they wanted to build for the decentralized web. [4:27] The frustrating web2.0 experience that inspired them to make the jump to web3. [8:22] The problem Livepeer is aiming to solve and how. [13:19] How they identified the problem and why they felt it was the right one to solve with decentralization. [16:08] What their 6-9 month research phase was like for them. [19:42] How Doug and Eric's long history of working together enabled them to move quickly through assessing feasibility of Livepeer. [24:45] When they took on pre-seed funding, why and how that was informed by past lessons learned. [26:42] Overview of Livepeer's token economics and their process for designing the incentives. [31:17] Why they chose a target participation rate of 50% in the protocol. [34:19] How staking and delegated proof of stake are used Livepeer. [38:05] The importance of balancing participating nodes and delegating nodes. [41:54] The business model for the Livepeer team. [44:16] Who the different user groups of Livepeer and how the team thinks about designing for the different user experience for each. [49:23] Lessons learned designing for users early on. [52:09] Overview of Livepeer team. [55:07] The value of forking from Doug's perspective. Links https://twitter.com/petkanics https://twitter.com/LivepeerOrg https://livepeer.org/ https://www.swarm.fund/ https://truebit.io/ https://medium.com/@petkanics https://medium.com/livepeer-blog https://github.com/livepeer https://www.reddit.com/r/livepeer https://discordapp.com/invite/RR4kFAh

In this episode, we speak with Annie Brown, founder of Lips. What started out as an assignment for an Introduction to Women’s Studies class has evolved into something much bigger over the course of ten years. Their aim is to carve out a space for open and honest expression of sexuality through stories, poetry, and artwork. We had a fantastic conversation with Annie exploring how Lips sits at the intersection of sexuality, feminism, technology and community. The Lips team is doing really important and beautiful work to support and empower vulnerable populations, and we can all learn a lot from Annie and her team. Unlike other projects today, the Lips team is planning to build on a private blockchain. Given many people they are building for are vulnerable to attack, this is a very important decision for them. It was great to hear how Annie and the team are thinking through that decision, and we suspect other projects may learn something from that as well. Lips is a project that is a bit atypical in comparison to most projects in the blockchain space, but a critically important one. We really appreciated Annie sharing her experience building Lips with us. We learned a lot and hope you will as well. Enjoy! Show Notes [0:31] Show intro [1:05] Annie's background and crypto origin story [7:31] Story behind the founding of Lips and the problems it aims to solve [13:19] Interesting use case for using cryptography to publicly broadcast an encrypted claim and reveal it at a later date. [15:54] Current state of Lips product and team, and where it's headed next. [22:14] Digging in on their approach to technical roadmap and considerations they're taking into account. [29:07] How the team is approaching validating assumptions around business model and value propositions. [35:12] Given Annie's experience of going through Y Combinator twice, how has their guidance been helpful or lacking as she pursues her own startup. [40:28] The design process for Lips and the inspiration for that. [47:08] The importance of setting the right tone for your community and culture. [51:30] Day-to-day experience and team processes of Lips. [54:42] Current plans for the Lips roadmap. [58:38] Annie's perspective on competition and why the community and philosophy they've built the project around mitigates risk of being forked. Links http://lipszine.com/ https://www.instagram.com/lips_zine/ https://www.bitcot.com/ https://www.hyperledger.org/announcements/2018/10/01/enterprise-ethereum-alliance-and-hyperledger-to-advance-the-global-blockchain-business-ecosystem https://dada.nyc/home https://www.ycombinator.com/ https://qz.com/933681/start-ups-shouldnt-try-to-be-unicorns-they-should-be-zebras/ https://backstagecapital.com/

In this episode, we speak with Anne Griffin, Lead Product Manager at OpenLaw. OpenLaw is a ConsenSys spoke that is building next generation smart legal agreements. We cover a lot of great topics in this discussion such as how the OpenLaw team is trying to build a Wikipedia-like community to drive contract law forward, what their business model is, how they overcome being such a geographically distributed and remote-first team, and much more. Like in many industries, the legal community still uses incredibly outdated technologies such as Microsoft Word and track changes to work through long and complex legal agreements. Anne walks us through how she and her team are trying to push against that inertia and bring law into the 21st century. She also gives us her perspective on why OpenLaw will supplement rather than automate law and replace lawyers. Particularly interesting is hearing how incredibly distributed the OpenLaw team is with employees in Thailand, India, the US and Europe, and how they overcome the obvious challenges that presents. Some of their tools and tactics they use to mitigate those challenges are really interesting and well worth considering if your team is struggling with being remote-first and highly distributed. Enjoy! Show Notes [0:31] Show intro. [1:02] Anne’s background and path to crypto. [8:51] Description of OpenLaw and the project’s history. [16:09] If OpenLaw is GitHub-ifying contract law, how do courts view enforceability of smart contracts? [18:29] How blockchain technology may or may not affect the job of lawyers. [19:50] The origin story of OpenLaw and background on the founders. [23:41] How the OpenLaw team validates assumptions around solving customer problems, target market, users, etc. [32:50] Current state of OpenLaw products and the business model. [34:50] Where and how OpenLaw connects to the Ethereum blockchain. [36:13] Verbal walkthrough of OpenLaw user experience. [40:11] Areas of friction within the OpenLaw user experience and how they’re trying to overcome that. [42:22] Division of responsibilities for design across the OpenLaw team and process for getting design work done. [46:03] Where do ideas for the roadmap come from? [46:54] OpenLaw’s use of personas to support user research. [49:15] How does OpenLaw quality control contract templates that make it onto the platform? [51:30] Team dynamics, composition, geographic distribution and culture around coordination across the team. [55:09] Tools and tactics OpenLaw used to support remote-first team. [57:01] How the team captures knowledge to be shared internally. [1:01:08] Ways to overcome the tight market for hiring blockchain engineers. [1:03:13] Measuring success at OpenLaw. [1:06:43] What is and is not open source within OpenLaw and how they defend their business given what is open source. [1:08:26] Personal tidbit about Anne. Links https://openlaw.io/ https://github.com/openlawteam https://consensys.net/ https://twitter.com/openlawofficial https://medium.com/@OpenLawOfficial https://docs.openlaw.io/#overview-of-openlaw

In this episode, we get deep and philosophical with Bobby Dresser, Technical Project Manager for MetaMask. For the uninitiated, MetaMask is the gateway to Web3 enabling you to run Ethereum dApps right in your browser. We had a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation with Bobby discussing the dynamics of working on a remote-first team, the fuzziness of competition and collaboration, and so much more. One of the most interesting aspects of our discussion with Bobby was hearing his perspective on his title at MetaMask. During his career, Bobby went from working as an engineer to a product manager to, now, a Technical Project Manager at MetaMask. His thoughts around the meaning of his current role are important and instructive for those in the crypto world, particularly those working on open source projects. Another incredibly interesting aspect of Bobby’s experience is that prior to joining MetaMask he worked on the Uport team, another project under ConsenSys. We discussed how those projects may intersect in the future, as well as how MetaMask views potentially competitive projects like Status. If you’re like us, you’ll find the answers to those questions fascinating and you’ll see how they may apply to the other projects in the space. We highly recommend you check out this episode. Enjoy! Show Notes [0:57] Bobby's background and path to crypto. [2:50] What MetaMask is and what it enables. [7:37] History of MetaMask, how it has evolved and exciting projects in development. [11:45] Bobby's role and how it is different from previous roles he's been in. [15:30] The most important aspects of Bobby’s job and a peak into what it's like working on an open source project. [17:52] Favorite tools and tactics the team uses. [23:06] Example of how the team validates assumptions around what problems to solve. [26:37] How the team is thinking about business model. [29:13] Competitors, or partners, in realizing the crypto vision? [32:33] Are different projects like MetaMask, Uport, Status, etc. converging on the same problem and solution spaces? [38:16] MetaMask's user research and experience process today and where it's headed in the future. [40:25] Current focus of user research and a good example of the UX challenges of the crypto space today. [44:13] User research and testing approaches, as well as data they can and can't use to inform product development. [49:28] Biggest differences between developing products in crypto versus traditional products. [51:23] Breakdown of MetaMask team and process. [56:35] How the team determines the roadmap and the challenges of remote teams. [1:00:35] As the gateway to Web3, how do you take into account what dapps MetaMask may be the gateway to? [1:05:15] How the team communicates progress to the community and within ConsenSys. [1:07:46] What is success for MetaMask and how are they or will they be measuring progress towards it? [1:11:58] The dynamics created by people forking MetaMask’s code. [1:14:01] Interesting tidbit about Bobby. [1:16:05] Plug for open positions at MetaMask. Links https://metamask.io/ https://consensys.net/ https://www.uport.me/ https://status.im/ https://infura.io/ https://gitcoin.co/ https://www.musteka.la/ https://consensys.net/open-roles/team@metamask.io

In this episode, we sit down with Amy Ngai, Product Designer at CryptoKitties. If you’re living under a rock and don’t know CryptoKitties, it’s one of the first Ethereum-based decentralized apps to gain some degree of mainstream adoption. It’s a game developed by Axiom Zen centered around breedable, collectible and adorable cats that are one-of-a-kind and 100% owned by you. In our conversation, we get an inside look at how the team behind this early success is tackling the challenges of designing intuitive experiences on top of blockchains, and get a peak at what is coming in the future. Amy has been at Axiom Zen since before CryptoKitties was born, so it was great hearing what other things they work on at the company. It provides some good insight into what ingredients are good for fostering the type of environment where a project like this can come to fruition. We also really enjoyed getting a chance to hear what it’s like behind the scenes of a project like CryptoKitties and how the team has grown and evolved over time. Hearing from user experience and design folks like Amy is critical at this stage of the crypto community’s development. We learned a lot from Amy about how the team thinks about user experience and design, as well as the approaches they are taking to overcome the notorious challenges of working with this technology. Check out this great discussion with Amy. Enjoy! Show Notes [1:07] Amy's background at Axiom Zen and how that led to crypto. [2:36] Overview of Axiom Zen and origins of CryptoKitties. [5:27] What is CryptoKitties and what inspired it? [9:03] How Amy's view of blockchain and design for blockchain has evolved as CryptoKitties has grown. [12:18] Big opportunities and challenges from a design perspective in crypto. [14:28] UX patterns and best practices Amy's observed thus far. [18:03] User research and testing at CryptoKitties. [22:31] Challenges with requiring users to interact with third parties like Coinbase and Metamask to use CryptoKitties. [24:17] Recruiting and running user tests given range of regulatory environments and technical aptitude. [26:20] Areas that CryptoKitties is looking to expand into in the future. [30:53] How CryptoKitties thinks about competition as well as community. [33:36] Team process and how it's evolved as team has grown. [36:57] Amy's day-to-day. [39:44] Size, composition and responsibilities of pods. [42:42] The role of community managers for dapps. [46:00] Tools used internally and externally. [46:48] How the team thinks about the regulatory environments. [52:03] Roadmap planning. [54:37] User tracking and metrics used by the CryptoKitties team. [57:09] Dynamics of open sourcing the CryptoKitties codebase and debating what is “decentralized enough”. [1:00:08] Interesting tidbit about Amy. Links https://www.cryptokitties.co/ https://twitter.com/cryptokitties https://discordapp.com/invite/cryptokitties https://www.zenhub.com/ https://www.axiomzen.co/

In this episode, we dig in with Vishakh, the co-founder of Cryptonomic. Cryptonomic is NYC-based startup building developer tools to enable decentralization and digital sovereignty in a multi-chain future. Vishakh gives us the inside scoop on how his team has grown and evolved, why he believes in a multi-chain future and how Cryptonomic is helping build towards that starting with the first Tezos wallet. While working at J.P. Morgan for several years, Vishakh found himself spending more and more of his time outside of work exploring the crypto world. The ethos of the community and the opportunity to help shape the future reminded him of the early days of the internet. Seeing how difficult it is to develop anything useful due to the lack of infrastructure and tooling drew Vishakh and his co-founders to leave their jobs and start Cryptonomic. The open source-first mentality of the Cryptonomic team and their involvement in the early days of the Tezos community led to them receiving a grant from the Tezos Foundation to develop the first Tezos wallet. It was really interesting hearing about that, as well as how they’re navigating the design and user experience challenges of the crypto space. We had a great discussion with Vishakh and can’t wait to check back in with him in the future. Enjoy! Show Notes [0:54] Vishakh’s background and path to crypto. [6:38] Origins of Cryptonomic. [9:18] Problems Cryptonomic is aiming to solve. [11:22] Team overview and how it’s grown and evolved over time. [16:45] Current work on Tezos and rationale behind chain agnostic philosophy. [19:05] Thoughts and approaches for picking blockchains to develop on. [25:49] How Cryptonomic decides what to build. [31:47] Story behind Cryptonomic’s involvement in the Tezos community and how it led to them receiving a grant from the Tezos foundation to build a Tezos wallet. [34:26] Cryptonomic’s design-first approach and lessons learned. [36:499] Backgrounds of original designers at Cryptonomic and what their first 30 days looked like. [40:54] Advice for putting together teams for crypto projects. [46:27] How Cryptonomic has run user testing and challenges of doing it in the crypto space. [53:03] Team composition, skill sets, process, and the challenges of distributed teams. [59:33] Dynamics of open source development and Cryptonomic’s business model. [1:06:02] Plans for release of Tezos wallet and measuring success. [1:11:29] Interesting tidbit about Vishakh. Links https://cryptonomic.tech/ https://tezos.com/ https://twitter.com/vishakh https://twitter.com/CryptonomicTech https://tezos.foundation/news/tezos-foundation-is-issuing-a-grant-to-cryptonomic-project-for-wallet https://medium.com/@CryptonomicTech https://medium.com/@CryptonomicTech/setting-sail-2035e609a609 https://github.com/Cryptonomic

In this episode, we sit down with Justin Hunter, founder of Graphite. Built on Blockstack, Graphite is an open source, decentralized and encrypted replacement for Google G-Suite and Microsoft Office. We explore Justin’s interesting path to blockchain, what problems Graphite is solving, why he chose to build Graphite on Blockstack and much more. Justin has a somewhat atypical background and path to crypto compared to others in the space. Up until a year and a half ago, Justin had only dabbled with HTML and CSS. After several unsuccessful attempts over the years to learn how to code, he mixed up his approach to learning and it finally stuck. That led him down the path of developing a token portfolio app called Coinicle and now Graphite – both on Blockstack. His passion for solving real problems is evident and refreshing. Despite keeping the team very lean and working on this outside of his full-time job, Justin has developed Graphite into one of the few truly usable and functional decentralized apps out there. Hearing about his experience developing on Blockstack and interacting with the Blockstack community is incredibly interesting and exciting. Enjoy! Show Notes Intro and path to crypto [0:53] The origin story of Graphite [6:39] Why put this on a blockchain? [8:01] Development timeline for Graphite [9:49] Biggest hurdles throughout the development process [11:27] Why Justin chose Blockstack versus other blockchains [13:40] Validating assumptions around target market and business model [18:05] Justin’s process for understanding user pain points [23:03] How Justin prioritizes his time and what features to build [25:56] Tactics for measuring adoption of features and getting user feedback [29:55] Key challenges building on top of blockchain [34:21] Benefits of engaging with the Blockstack team and community [39:47] Evolution and future of Graphite team and roadmap [42:01] Team planning and development process [46:35] Funding and upcoming launch [49:31] How future Blockstack token launch may affect Graphite and its ambitions [51:19] Measuring success in the world of blockchain [54:15] What gets committed to the blockchain when using Graphite and why [59:31] Personal tidbit about Justin [1:03:35] Links https://www.graphitedocs.com/ https://blockstack.org/ https://matomo.org/ https://contribute.blockstack.org/ https://oslofreedomforum.com/ https://github.com/Graphite-Docs/graphite https://twitter.com/graphitedocs

In this episode, we speak with Evin McMullen, CEO and Spoke Lead at Stow Protocol (formerly Linnia). Stow Protocol is a web3.0 backend-in-a-box that helps developers build decentralized applications without knowledge of cryptography or solidity, and gives end-users control of their data. We cover a lot of big topics in this discussion such as how the Stow Protocol team uses design thinking for building a backend protocol, how they are thinking about business models, their approach for roadmap planning, and much more. Evin and the Stow Protocol team have taken a really interesting approach to prototyping and validating assumptions. With an emphasis on building enough to host hackathons, they are planning to use those events as a way to get concentrated user feedback. For those trying to understand the challenges of developing more infrastructural and backend products like Stow Protocol, this will be a particularly interesting deep dive into that world. We also spend a lot of time hearing from Evin about how the team has confronted and pushed through tough decisions about strategy. Having worked at companies trying to make the most of user data, we really had a great time exploring how Stow Protocol is trying to make a more equitable web by giving users control over their data and better, more secure access to developers. Enjoy! Show Notes [0:31] Episode intro [1:24] Evin's background and path to crypto. [4:35] How Evin's experiences growing up ultimately drew her to the philosophical aspects of crypto. [11:25] Overview of Linnia protocol, history of the project and what problems they're aiming to solve. [18:52] Where the name Linnia came from. [19:24] The team’s perspective on tokens and the potential for a Linnia token in the future. [21:47] Evolution of the problems and solution space Linnia is focused on. [26:00] Who was involved in honing the problems to focus on, what we're their roles and what did the process look like? [27:57] How does the team handle conflict and pivots in strategy like how much decentralization is ideal? [30:50] The team's approach for validating who their ideal users are and market sizes for each. 35:18] Thoughts on evaluating the competitive landscape and the fuzzy line between competition and collaboration. [39:27] Perspective on business models in the crypto space. [44:39] Approach to validating assumptions. [48:15] Linnia’s application of user experience and design thinking process. [55:24] Prototyping tactics. [57:55] Challenges that are unique to blockchain from Linnia's perspective. [1:05:44] Team size, composition and responsibilities. [1:09:02] Stakeholders in the Linnia ecosystem. [1:14:05] The Linnia product roadmap and process for putting it together. [1:17:27] Interesting tidbit about Evin. Links https://stow-protocol.com https://github.com/ConsenSys/stow-resources https://github.com/ConsenSys/linnia-resources https://consensys.net/ https://truffleframework.com/ https://medium.com/linnia/linnia-f4f139a795ef https://twitter.com/linniaproject https://twitter.com/StowProtocol

This is our genesis episode. Rather than interview a guest, your co-hosts Nick and Zach introduce themselves and interview each other. Since typical episodes will mostly cover the people we interview and their projects, we felt it was important to share a bit about ourselves and the reason we started Fork the Product. We also get into what we hope to get out of this project, what we hope the crypto community gets out of it, why we chose to do a podcast, and how we want our listeners to engage with us. We hope that you enjoy this and that it inspires you to listen to more episodes and help us form a community around Fork the Product!