June 23, 2025 • 41 mins
Building a Strong Community in Web3: Insights from Bearish's Carlo Garcia
This episode of 'Everything is a Game', sponsored by Drip Rewards, features a comprehensive discussion on community building in the Web3 space. Hosted by Phil from Drip, with guests Mike, head of partnerships at Drip, and Carlo Garcia, COO at Bearish, the conversation delves into Carlo's journey into crypto and community management. Carlo shares his experiences from entering crypto in 2017 to becoming a key leader at Bearish. He highlights the essential elements of successful community management, including empathy, active engagement, and the strategic use of tools like Drip. The discussion also explores the differences between NFT and meme coin communities, the importance of rewarding active participation, and how brands in both Web2 and Web3 can benefit from a strong community focus. Mike and Carlo offer practical advice for startups and established brands alike to foster genuine, long-lasting connections with their communities.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Background
00:15 Carlo's Journey into Crypto and Community Building
03:10 Differences Between Meme Coin and NFT Communities
04:34 Maintaining Community Engagement in NFTs
07:16 Using Drip for Community Engagement
09:02 Empathy and Genuine Connections in Web3
13:32 Building Community in Web2 vs Web3
25:02 Strategies for Rewarding Community Participation
34:22 Final Thoughts and Advice for Community Building
40:44 Conclusion and Farewell
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Phil (00:00):
Welcome back to Everything is a Game brought to you by Drip
Rewards.
My name is Phil, I work inoperations at Drip.
I'm here with Mike, the head ofpartnerships for Drip and Carlo,
the COO at Bearish.
Carlo, can you give us a littlebit of background as to how you
got into this world of being aCOO and doing a lot of community
(00:23):
stuff for Bearish?
Carlo (00:24):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Now I've been, you know, I kindof got into crypto back in like
2017, just kind of likecollecting coins and stuff like
that.
I think the pandemic reallyopened up a lot of time for
myself, with the shutdown andthings like that.
And I kind of got deeper intodefi, setting up my own wallet,
you know, shit coining ondifferent chains from, you know,
(00:44):
Binance to ETH, found my wayinto NFTs in late 2021, early
2022.
Started collecting NFTs.
Really gravitated towards thecommunity aspect of what a lot
of projects were building.
Probably one of the communitiesI'm still a part of, is the
Plague.
The Plague NFT, so Plague ofFrogs.
I've been part of that communityfor over three years and, really
(01:08):
met a lot of great folks throughthat.
So I've always been a bigproponent of community and the
power that it has of just, youknow, kind of uniting voices
around a common cause orpurpose.
Even before Web3, I was doingstuff like that with community,
whether it's through theater andfilmmaking or through
philanthropy and charity.
(01:28):
Back in 2010, I started aTwitter trend called, Cyber
Giving Monday, which is allabout uniting communities to
donate to different charitiesaround, right after Black Friday
essentially.
and then continued at the secondyear in 2012, it became, a,
rebranded as Giving Tuesday,which is now a multi-billion
(01:49):
dollar day of giving globally.
Billions of dollars are donatedthrough that hashtag.
I've seen firsthand the power ofcommunity, of uniting voices and
bringing people together.
When I saw these microcosmswithin Web3, especially in NFTs
of people banding around wearingthe same PFP, supporting each
other and, having a good time,that's what drew me in, deeper
(02:10):
into, into Web3 into NFTs.
Started veering away from memecoins in crypto and focused
mostly on NFTs, even though alot of the communities that I've
supported the years are eithernot around or they've kind of
merged into others, but there'scertain people that I've met,
you know, four years ago thatare still here and, and some of
(02:31):
them are in Bearish.
And, I think it was in, late2022, I started working with
Scotty, Scott Mitchell.
Who was the dev and founder ofBrawler Bears and I was doing
some community work with them.
he was working with Toli on Dripabout a year and a half ago.
They both were kind of leadingtwo bear themed projects and
(02:53):
decided to like, why not mergecommunities, merge teams and
launch a new ip.
they brought me in, about threeweeks before mint, to help out
with community and operations.
So that's how I got fromdabbling in crypto, to being now
part of the team of Bearish.
Phil (03:10):
As you were going through your journey in crypto and you
were going through, you know,meme coin communities and NFT
communities, are thedifferences?
I'm interested in maybe youropinion on the differences
between NFT communities memecoincommunities, is there a
difference?
Or if there is, what do youthink it is?
Carlo (03:33):
You know, it's a lot harder to build a community
around a meme coin, a token or ashitcoin.
reason for that is there's a tonof excitement around the
presale, around the initiallaunch, but at a certain point,
it loses momentum unless itbecomes like a billion dollar
market cap, it loses momentumand people sell out and as they
(03:55):
sell out, they're leaving thecommunity.
So it has a, degradation overtime.
Unless it gets super hyped up,has a lot of stuff on the
timeline.
Like Pepe for example, like Pepekind of launched really high,
died for a little bit, launchedup again, and it's, I think it's
maintained a sense of community,but for the most part, a lot of
the tokens that launched at thatsame time are probably zero.
(04:18):
Right.
they've gone to zero.
That is 100%.
You know what happens themajority of the time with meme
tokens, and I've, I've seen itacross a lot of tokens that
I've, participated in.
Now, it doesn't mean that thatcan't happen for NFT projects.
You have those like excitementaround mint, the hype around
mint around reveal.
(04:40):
It's what you do to maintainthat after reveal.
Whether it's through things thatyou're releasing or other ways
to engage your community, yougotta maintain it because again,
there is a degradation cycle forNFTs as well.
People get bored and there'salways in the, Web3.
Anything that I've learned isthere's always going to be a
brand new shiny object that'sgoing to draw attention, that's
(05:03):
going to pop.
For however long it pops, peoplewill change their PFPs.
Right.
And, you know, that will be likethe mind share for a period of
time.
Could be a couple weeks, couldbe a couple months.
but unless the team and thecommunity work together to kind
of maintain, the messaging,maintain the energy, it will.
fade, it will tend to fade iffloor price will start to drop.
(05:26):
and people will leave thecommunity as they're dropping in
floor price.
Community members are sellingout of the community.
So, the one thing, the oneadvantage that NFTs have over
meme coins is that.
if you could provide value toyour community members, have the
ability to keep them fromselling out, right?
It's like, how do you add valueso that like, alright, holding
(05:49):
this and making this my PFP hasmore value than if I sell it,
right?
if you can maintain that typeof, valuation for your NFT
project, then you're going tomaintain that community a little
bit longer than.
who has a meme cone, you know,they can't PFP it necessarily.
And they're looking for theirout, right?
If it's a little bit higher thanthey went in, they're gonna
(06:09):
sell.
maybe they keep a moon bag, butfor the most part, they'll move
on to the next meme coin becausethat's the trader mentality,
especially in dent's trenches,is that you're moving from coin
to coin to coin.
Catching that pre-sale, catchingthat, pre release to a liquidity
pool and then trying to sell.
and get to the next one, right?
You're just trying to compoundyour profits.
and hopefully get a nice take atwo x into a five x into a 10 x,
(06:32):
hopefully for that, hundred x.
and hopefully it's a token thatactually has a liquidity pool
that you can realize thoseprofits on.
'cause that's not always thecase either.
So it presents its challenges.
Yeah, I think NFTs have the,have just a little bit more
advantage.
And that's why a lot of memetokens will launch A NFT
alongside of it, because theyneed that identity aspect of it.
(06:55):
How do I represent thisparticular token, this
community, with my PFP on X ordiscord or telegram?
So those are important aspects.
The is the identity, you know,kind of just this as I'm a part
of this community, I'm a memberof this community.
Phil (07:11):
that makes total sense.
I wanna shoot it over to Mikereal quick.
as you've been working withpeople who use Drip on different
levels of smaller projectsversus, huge enterprise level,
customers, are some of thethings that you've seen done
using Drip to help keep thecommunity engaged and provide
(07:34):
value?
Mike (07:35):
Yeah.
I think that a lot of it comesfrom the gamification, the
ability to create virtualcurrencies so that they can have
an economy, it allows you tohave what Carlo said about with
the memecoin without thememecoin existing.
You're able to create aneconomy, but instead of having
no use other than the nextperson, you know, the greater
fool theory, they're able tocreate economies where they can,
(07:58):
buy and, you know, earn whateverthe, the code token coin is and
sell it and use it for, for anobject to buy whitelists, buy
PFPs, to buy NFTs, to buy merch,whatever the, the community
wants to have.
So that part as well as theification, the playing games,
the concept that you can earnaround your NFT and the NFTs
(08:19):
themselves can generate pointshas been a really important
piece of the equation.
It's just giving peoplesomething to do and giving them
value for doing so.
Phil (08:29):
Carlo, coming back to you, before we get into Drip and how
you've used Drip and Bearish,was curious about when you first
started as your COO role anddoing a lot of community stuff
for Bearish, was your mindsetgoing in?
And what were some of the thingsthat you did like from the get
(08:50):
go where you just thought, youknow what, we need to do this,
this, and this, and this willkeep our people engaged and here
instead of wanting to go over tothe next hot thing that's
happening?
Carlo (09:02):
Yeah, I mean, so I think it's really important if you're
gonna be on a team, is to neverlose the mindset of being a
community member first.
I've been in a lot ofcommunities.
I know what I like personally,when it comes to that.
and you've always gotta kind ofkeep them at the forefront.
it's not an us and themsituation.
it's more of like, we're all inthis together.
(09:22):
We're all a part of the samecommunity.
I'm just helping kind ofmotivate or move around roadmap
items or working on operationalthings or, community efforts and
things like that.
But for the most part, Iapproach everything that I do
from a community firststandpoint.
So I'm a community member first.
I know that, having used Driftin the past in various ways I
(09:44):
know what I'm looking for.
I want to, you know, I wanna beable to earn, I wanna be able
to, to spend it.
I think Drip has a great,setting up that economy is a
great kind of precursor to evenhaving your own meme token,
right?
It allows you to explore tokenomics with an off chain currency
that allows you to see what theuse is within your community.
(10:04):
Then also like how much valuecan you add to it with this off
chain token without having to,set up a liquidity pool and
things like that.
it has its inherent benefits todo so.
I think it's important to listento your community members, stay
active in the chats, whetherit's on Twitter, whether it's on
Discord.
Because that's where you'regonna get a sense of the
temperature of the community.
what are people thinking?
(10:24):
what are people feeling?
is there no news?
what's the reaction to that?
What's the reaction to theannouncements?
everything that happens withinthat discord, every single
interaction is importantinformation and data for you as
a team to analyze and to takein.
If you ignore.
requests or you're ignoringtickets, you're gonna miss
something.
(10:45):
And that might just be one vocalperson, but more than likely,
there are probably like 10 to 20other people who are thinking
that same exact thing, who arejust not vocalizing it.
Right.
So you're most vocal, communitymembers, they are a barometer of
sorts that lets you know, whatthe community's feeling, what
they're vibing.
one of the things that we'vedone, especially on x, is, we
(11:08):
have a DM campaign that we do.
if we notice someone's posting alot about bearish or they just
joined Bearish, we'll send'em adm, welcoming them for one, but
then asking'em how they foundout about bearish, what are they
into, just to start thatconversation, letting them know
that they are a part of thiscommunity.
We're a community of builders,and whatever that means to you.
it's important for us to connectand find out who you are.
(11:30):
there's a channel in the Discordthat's like introduce your
bearish.
We want to know if you have anyinterest in building or art or
tech or whatever it is.
we want to know who's behind theB-R-P-F-P, right?
How can we help each other grow?
How can we, connect?
What is it that you value, sothat we can kind of understand
and hopefully find ways toprovide that value back.
(11:50):
utilizing the tools that areavailable, listening to your
community, being an active partof the community is very
important.
those are kinda my threepillars.
And also just kind of leadingwith empathy.
obviously people are here tomake money, but there's also the
human aspect of things.
people have a hard time, dealwith a lot of, drama whether
it's weather related, familystuff, there's a lot of stuff,
(12:12):
that happens in our everydaylives.
we can be there as just an ear.
we don't have to providesolutions, other than just being
there as someone who listens.
Right?
Like, giving your time,listening to hearing somebody
out is like even more valuablethan saying like, this is how
you fix it.
Right?
So, and a lot of people don't goto therapy.
They don't have, maybe they,they're here in Web3 because
(12:35):
they're looking for thatcommunity aspect.
Be genuine.
Phil (12:38):
Yeah.
And I love that you're sayingthat about, it's all about
making real connections, beingempathetic with people.
I mean, like you said, a lot ofpeople in Web3 in particular,
like they live in Web3.
this is their people.
I mean, I'm pretty much one ofthose people.
I've got maybe one close friendoutside of Web3 and a few
(13:01):
associates, but everyone that Iactually hang out with and talk
with are pretty much Web3 peopleat this point.
so having that empathy, makingthat real connection, like you
were saying.
that makes sense.
it's the core of building acommunity, you know, a real
community where are moving inthe same direction, maybe
(13:23):
depending on whatever projectthey're in, or NFT collection
they're a part of, but also,interacting and having a good
time and making friends.
Bringing this idea of communitywith this amount of depth to web
two.
Okay, so a lot of web two, youknow, real quote unquote, real
(13:44):
world people.
The companies there, they viewtheir customers as well.
You're just the customer.
You pay us this amount ofdollars, you buy a$10 combo
meal, we give you a hundredpoints, and once you get a
thousand points, you can get afree burrito or something.
and even in the more likebusiness to business or broader
(14:06):
enterprise level kind ofbusinesses in web two, how.
Let's say I'm like A CMO or amarketing guy for one of those
businesses, and I'm just like,yeah, the people, they spend the
money, we give'em points andthey come back and there's a
drop off rate and blah, blah,blah.
(14:27):
How would you communicate thisidea of actually treating your
customers as like real people,building a community instead of
just customers that.
they give you money, you givethem points, and at some point
they drop off'cause they're notinterested anymore.
Carlo (14:49):
Yeah.
I mean, think at a certainpoint, some companies don't have
to do that.
They don't have to think in thatway.
I.
doesn't mean they shouldn't, itjust means they don't have to.
you know, Coca-Cola, doesn'tneed somebody to be rocking a
Coca-Cola, PFP on X and Facebookto sell Coke, right?
I mean, people see it in thestore.
(15:09):
They're, it's been around forhundreds of, hundreds of years.
Plus, people will drink it ifthey want it, right?
are certain products and, andthings like that, that they
don't have to think about it inthat way.
And that being said, I thinkthere are microcosms of
communities that have formed,and a lot of them kind of happen
within the entertainmentindustry, especially with like
up and coming.
bands and artists, right?
(15:31):
You know, the idea of a fan clubis probably one of those, you
know, one of those bestrepresentations of a community
and web two, some of them haveeven started using Discord a
little bit for their communityengagement of just like having
forums and chat channels andstuff like that.
I think there's like anuntapped.
You know, market in terms ofbands and up and coming artists
(15:51):
to utilize these tools a littlebit better, for their Web two
crowd I mean, and like, I mean,I've, I've said this, a lot of
people have said this, likethere's no delineation between
web two and Web3.
It's all internet.
so for my mindset, I've justlike, okay, why don't you just
use the tools that areavailable?
To build and engage and interactwith your community, and see how
(16:16):
it goes.
I just don't think there's aneed for folks to, you know, at
a certain level on certainbusinesses and companies to even
think about that.
Right?
It's those growing businesses.
Those growing products, thosegrowing bands and artists.
need to really kind of engagewith their communities and
really build them.
I think there's a lot of toolsthat are available, to do so.
(16:38):
I would say that getting outtathat mentality of like treating
all of your fans as consumers isprobably a good idea.
you should be treating them as,fellow members of your
community.
the way that you're connected isthey like your product or they
like your music, or they likeyour art.
engage and create experiencesfor them that kind of just
(17:00):
continue to highlight thatconversation, to carry through
that conversation, acrossdifferent channels.
maybe you'll have a communitymember or a fan for life.
Phil (17:09):
that makes total sense.
Mike (17:10):
Yep.
Phil (17:10):
think?
Mike (17:12):
I got a counterpoint, to some of that, and, I agree with
a lot of it, but I think thatthere doesn't become a time in
which the community wouldn't beextremely valuable.
You know, I look at companieslike Apple, where community
evangelists are what broughtthem to where they are now and
where it has become thatcultish.
This is.
My brand and I identify with it,you know, an iPhone has an
(17:36):
identity around it.
I think that Starbucks is thesame thing.
You know, there's an identitywith I'm carrying a Starbucks
cup and who I am and what I'mdoing, and I think that if they
went to the next level.
And where the brand started tospeak back with them is where
you got the evangelists, toreally help the brands and to
really bring it forward.
I think that it can also helpgain market share.
(17:58):
it can, protect brands fromrecession where, you know, if
I'm choosing which discretionaryitem to cut, you know, I'm
probably not gonna do the onethat I feel a kinship to.
I agree that they don't need torock the PFPs and don't
necessarily need to go that way,but I think that the community.
Remains important.
it might not be reflected asmuch in the share price as it
(18:22):
necessarily is for a lower endbrand, but I think that there
becomes a time when it becomeselastic to, the user's
discretionary spend.
Phil (18:33):
Makes sense.
And as both of you were talking,I was thinking in Carlo's
situation that he outlined, likefor me, this makes total sense
that a growing brand, a growingentertainment, especially like a
singer or a band, like theyshould lean into this community
aspect instead of just like, oh,I've got 10,000 listeners on
(18:55):
Spotify, like turning.
And maybe this is going forwardbecause of the internet, because
there's so many people doingdifferent things now and trying
to make it, maybe this is adifferentiating factor that.
Can turn a, you know, standardentertainer or brand, a band,
(19:19):
even a startup business intosomething that people actually
care about instead of just likeusing the metrics that we've all
used for the last 20, 30 yearsof, you know, everything.
and then to Mike's point, Ithink what you brought up is.
Basically doing the same thing,like we're using community as a
(19:43):
way of turning either newcustomers, new listeners, new
followers into evangelists, orfor something like Starbucks,
maybe establish customers thatare already like diehard and
loyal to you.
How do we switch that so thatthey go from loyal customers to
(20:05):
hardcore evangelists and maybethis community aspect and this
nurturing the community aspectis that missing piece for, for
bigger established brands even,and then they go out and market
for you.
You know, it's.
And it's organic andeverything's great.
Everyone's happy.
They're happy, you're happy.
(20:25):
I think the community aspect,all across the internet, I think
is the next level of marketinghere.
Carlo.
Oh, Carlo, did you havesomething to say or.
Carlo (20:36):
No, I was just gonna say on, on Mike's, kind of like
Apple example, you know, a lotof that community was built up,
before, even the iPhone, right?
I mean, people were hardcore Macusers, the whole Mac versus PC
conversation.
but they also spent a lot ofmoney on advertising to, you
know, kind of convince people,right?
(20:59):
And I think.
what got into that cult statusoutside of the product was those
evangelists, right?
Those hardcore Mac people whowere talked to their friends or
have that flex of like, I gotthe first iPhone.
you don't have one of these,you're gonna want one of these.
but they didn't reward.
the people who purchased it,right?
(21:19):
Like there was no consumerrewards for that other than
like, I'm better than you.
with those Mac versus PCcampaigns.
maybe the reward is the productis a little bit better, right?
but no actual reward, a lot ofthat was built up prior to even,
some of the social media stuffthat has happened.
and maybe it's kind of createdsome Facebook groups where like,
you know, I'm a Mac but again,that's done organically.
(21:41):
That's just people, trying tofind like-minded individuals.
that's the same thing thathappens within NFT communities.
You have people trying to findlike-minded in individuals.
What are you in, what are youinto?
what can we build together?
Like those types of things thathappen.
and we've just gotta need toencourage and, and empower that
type of, that type ofinteraction, in whatever ways
(22:01):
that we can.
Mike (22:04):
that's awesome.
Phil (22:04):
Yeah.
Mike (22:05):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And when you were talkingearlier about the.
Empathy perspective, of thecommunity, that is one I feel
like goes unnoticed and isundervalued.
being empathetic and reallytalking to the person and
learning to know who they are.
I was wondering a lot of thetimes, community floor price,
you know, if PB floor price isdriven around announcements or
(22:26):
events, you're talking to a wayto push that aside and go, Hey,
it's not about that.
It's about who you are and whowe are, the actual community,
not just community as a concept.
So I think that's reallyvaluable, what you brought up
there.
Phil (22:45):
It.
Carlo (22:46):
It was one of the first like.
One of the first things that Inoticed a lot when I, when I
first entered into this space,one of the first things that I
noticed was the, that empathywas missing because it was such
like an anonymous space.
A lot of people are wearing PFPscartoons or whatever, animals,
you would just see interactionson the timeline of people just
(23:07):
being very, just kind of mean orrude because they could, I would
see people even in somediscourse, you know, someone
would come in, some of thatmaybe I had an interaction with
or whatever, would come in andbe like, I just got drained.
my wallet just got drained.
And there'd be people who wouldjust be like, oh, sucks to be
you.
you learned a lesson.
but showing zero empathy.
I'm sorry that happened to you.
(23:27):
I have no means to kind of,correct that situation, but that
really sucks, Be safer nexttime.
If you ever have any questionsabout a link or something like
that, you know, reach out to me.
instead of using that instanceas an opportunity to connect and
deepen a relationship.
People would just dismiss andscold somebody who's just gone
through, a somewhat traumaticexperience, right?
(23:48):
You don't know how much they've,committed dollar wise into
whatever assets they had, but itmight've been a lot for them.
And instead of seeing thosemoments as opportunities to
connect and show empathy.
people are really quick to justadmonish them, and that just
makes people feel worse, Sowhenever I have witnessed that
over the course of three years,I would show empathy for it.
I've been there.
(24:08):
I know what it's like, you know,if I had the opportunity to,
like, hey.
if you set up a new wallet andit's secure, let me know.
I'll send you a little somethingjust to get them going again.
a lot of people, once they getto that point, they're gonna be
like, you know, why am I evenhere I'm leaving.
And then you've lost a potentialcommunity member as opposed to
being like, Hey, I'm sorry thathappened to you.
stick around.
(24:29):
Hopefully things will get betterfor you.
So I think those are importantthings to pay attention to.
Phil (24:35):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Especially in crypto, there'sdefinitely a lack of, and it
seems to be, depending on thespace you're in, maybe the
sub-community of crypto as awhole.
some of them are very ruthless.
But then some, especially amongNFT communities, it feels like
some have a lot more, they're alot more likely to be more
(24:56):
empathetic, filled with realpeople who are actually trying
to connect.
So I love that you brought thatup.
I did want to go into Carlo,your experience with The bearish
NFT collection.
So what are some things thatdone to keep people engaged and
excited?
(25:16):
And then also on the rewardside, what they can spend,
berries on.
What, what's like the, thinkingprocess on like, oh, people will
be interested in this, or maybewe'll do a raffle versus like a
straight up, you know, buy itfor this many berries.
give us a whole overview on allthat.
Carlo (25:37):
Yeah, for sure.
So I know everybody.
Who uses Drip is gonna use it ina different way.
there's a lot of different, youknow, tools within Drip, that
can be utilized and how you setit up is up to you.
one of the things that I, havingbeen a part of communities that
use Drip, having used Drip priorto bearish myself, as a team
(25:57):
member and as a communitymember, one of the things that I
wanted to put a focus on wasrewarding.
Active participants in thecommunity.
And the way that we'veconfigured the drip bot in our
discord is we didn't enablepassive earning for just holding
an NFT.
That is an option.
Some people like that.
(26:18):
It's great.
they can go and claim daily ontheir dashboard, you know, of
the off chain token for thatparticular discord.
we have a two currency economywithin bearish, which is the red
berry and the blueberry.
for the most part, people willearn the red berry by doing
actions, doing quests.
we have regular quests for themain account, the bearish X
(26:39):
account, and then we have sidequests.
The side quests are veryimportant for us because we use
those to highlight importantposts from community members,
especially new members who arejoining.
Hey, I just bought a bearish,here's my post on x.
We want people to engage withthat.
We want people to welcome in thenew members, to make them feel
(27:02):
at home and also get them intothe discord so that they can
learn about the ecosystem, wealso have a channel in the
Discord called Bear Post, wherewe encourage people to post
anything that they see thatmaybe it's a new member that we
missed, or maybe it's justsomething that they've created.
Content-wise just using thoseside quests as opportunities to
highlight current communitymembers, new community members.
(27:24):
maybe there's an occasional raidof somebody of like, what should
I buy on abstract?
Of just getting the presence onthe timeline known.
And if they go and complete thattask, whether it's a like or a
comment or a retweet, then theycan collect that red berry.
Sometimes I'll just do anoccasional drop of, see who's
active in the Discord.
I'll be like, Hey, here's, youknow, claim five Red Berry right
now.
(27:45):
If you're in the Discord, Iwon't tag anyone.
It's just people who are active,right?
So you want to kind of rewardthose who are actively checking
in.
sometimes I'll do Holder only,prizes and like, I've also kind
of, hidden raffles throughoutthe discord.
So sometimes there's a channelthat I might want someone to
look at.
I'll just say, Hey, I'verandomly put like.
Three raffles and differentdiscord channels or forums.
(28:07):
Go try to find them and enter.
you can utilize the, the raffleprize system, like the create a
prize system, to engage withinthe discord as well.
Right?
maybe you just have a channelthat has all the store items and
all the raffles.
That's great.
But maybe there's a channelthat's new and you want to them
to engage in it.
a question or drop a raffle inthere.
(28:29):
We don't use the store items alot.
we use the raffles because it'seasier to get more people to
participate.
not everybody has, a bunch ofberry to spend on a store item,
but they would be willing tokind of gamble on a raffle
entry.
because we don't havenecessarily an inflated economy
from passive staking.
(28:50):
the amount of berry in theecosystem, is pretty controlled,
which I think is important.
Sometimes if you have passivestaking on and you don't have
the bandwidth or the ability toprovide constant, sinks, people
will just rack up a bunch oftokens, and then if you do do a
prize.
You have to put the entry sohigh up You're trying to like,
(29:11):
just pull back all of thosetokens and it becomes, it just
be, it, it craters itself,right?
so that's one of the things tokind of avoid.
and just learnings, you know,learnings that you have from
just being in different discordsand stuff like that.
So for us.
The quests are very important.
Obviously, I want to kind ofcontinue to, you know, expand
that out.
Obviously I've been talking tothe drip team about some other,
(29:33):
you know, potential sites, touse.
there's also kind of the gamesthat are built in, you know, the
blackjack, the poker, the bear,the, the, the drip shooter game,
drip combat like that people canuse and spend berry on and or
spend the token on.
hopefully try to get more.
but yeah, for us, like theraffles are, are, are pretty
popular.
(29:54):
we do raffles for red berry andblueberry because we're trying
to kind of the amount ofblueberry in the ecosystem as
well.
and you know, it's usually a lotof NFT prizes, things like that.
We've had some meme meme tokensin there, some physicals.
we had, Some like, tradingcards, physicals that were in
the shop, that you could buy.
(30:14):
we've had custom bearish PFPsthat you can kind of design your
own.
so it's just kind of like apiece of art.
we've, we had some light boxes,so like 3D light boxes that you
can get of your PFP.
merch socks, things like that.
You want to kind of just put asmany different options in there
as possible.
Some people might want a digitalcollectible, some people might
want something that's just alittle bit more physical.
(30:35):
and if you partner with anyother projects, those are great
opportunities to say, Hey, I'vegotta shop.
You've gotta shop.
Let's just do like a little bitof an exchange.
that could be merch, that couldbe NFTs, that could be whatever,
and help each other out.
then you have a variety of stuffwithin your store, within your
shop, and it's a really greatway to grow and also kind of
co-brand with stuff.
Like, we do stuff with HadiThoses all the time.
(30:56):
they're one of our partners, soif we want gift cards or if we
want soda or IES or somethinglike that.
know, we can ask them, we cangive them something for their
shop.
we have this kind of like, youknow, cross-cultural exchange if
you will, cross communityexchange.
and it just makes things moreinteresting, for the shop and
stuff like that.
But most important, you know,really, and it's kind of almost
(31:17):
like a full-time job to behonest.
you've gotta be aware of thetimeline.
You've gotta know what yourcommunity is doing, what they're
posting, who's joining.
And engage with them.
And you could use Drip as thetool to help get the community
to follow along with you, toengage with those folks.
So if you're a founder or a teammember, and if you're not liking
(31:37):
and replying and welcoming newfolks, you're, you're basically
doing yourself a disservice.
because one of the things thatyou've just psychologically,
that people enjoy is being seenand being heard.
And being welcome into acommunity.
And if you do that, you do thatenough, it creates this, this
atmosphere of like, this is howwe're supposed to act as a
(31:59):
bearish, we're supposed towelcome everybody.
Then the community, communitygets on board and they start
welcoming everybody.
And that's kind of how you buildand grow, is by having those
kind of initial interactions tobuild a relationship.
And you never know, like we'vegot other stuff going on, like
the hackathons and stuff likethat.
Where these people can then cometogether and join a team and
then build something together,right?
(32:20):
That deepens that relationship.
or they're connecting on being,being parents, or they're
connecting on listening to acertain band, or they're
connecting on, you know, adifferent, a certain sports
team.
Finding all of those, connectivetissues and giving them an
opportunity to combine them,just helps deepen those
relationships, makes them feelpart of the community, makes
them want to stay a part of thecommunity.
(32:41):
And I think that's the mostimportant part.
Phil (32:43):
and the, the idea of having you either as the founder
or the chief community officeror CMO or whatever, set the tone
that helps build the culture,which then helps build strong
community members.
Which then eventually will turnat least some of them into
(33:03):
hardcore evangelists that aregoing out there repping your
brand all over the place forfree.
Just'cause they love being partof the community so much.
I love that.
And Mike, I was curious on yourtake, so we've been talking a
lot about using Drip in Discord.
What are some other ways thatbusinesses can use Drip outside
(33:26):
of just using it in Discord?
Mike (33:28):
Yeah, so Drip can be used to build requesting websites and
the storefront and everythingthat Carlo talked about.
That is a really key feature ofwhat Drip can do.
Can be built off discord, andyou can have a dedicated site
for those.
Everyone that's not in Discordhas a place where they can
gather, they can Quest, they canbuy, they can earn.
(33:51):
But it also provides reallystrong opportunity to bring
people into the Discord whereyou can say things like, Hey,
there's five quests here, butthere's another 20 in Discord.
You know, you wanna enter thatraffle that costs 40 if you only
have 10.
Come into discord, earn therest, and then go spend it on
the raffle.
So there's a lot of ways thatyou can really draw people into,
(34:11):
the discord through the outside.
one of the great ways issue theTwitter range and doing all
those quests.
But the other really strong oneis by building questing sites
around Drip's API.
Phil (34:22):
And just before we go, Carlo, I wanted your take, if
someone is new to building thiscommunity, you've already
touched on empathy a little bit,what would you say to someone
who's like, okay, well, youknow, I'm, I'm hustling, I'm
trying to do this startup, ortrying to bring our business to
the next level.
how do I do this whole communitything?
(34:44):
Gimme an elevator pitch onhere's what to do, think like
this, go do these things andyou'll be on your way.
Carlo (34:50):
If you're starting up from scratch or you're, you're
stumbling a little bit withbuilding your community, take a
step back.
Take a look at what you'reoffering and is it something
that you want?
I think the best thing you cando is put your, put yourself in
the position of a communitymember.
And see if you're providing thevalue, the experiences, the
(35:13):
conversation, the discord thatyou would want to participate
in.
Ask yourself that question.
Would I want participate in thisproject?
Would I wanna participate inthis community?
If the answer is no, then you'vegot a lot of rethinking and
retooling to do.
If the answer is yes, and it'sjust more of a, you know,
getting the word out problem,then what I would say at that
(35:35):
point is, listen and look at whoyour most active community
members are.
Who are the people that areshowing up every day saying Good
morning?
Who are the people who areposting about the project on
Twitter every day?
And talk to those individuals.
Ask them what is it that theylike about this community?
(35:59):
and ask them for advice.
Ask them, what do you thinkwould help make this community
better, make this projectbetter?
You can create sort of like thiscore think tank of community
members, say a communitycommittee, that you could use as
a resource.
And as you engage with thesekind of core members, they start
(36:22):
to become and feel moreempowered.
Like, oh, the founder, the team,they notice that I'm really gung
ho about this particularproject.
I'm gonna step it up anotherlevel, right?
You have this core, this core,committee that you can then
bounce ideas off of, then alsocreate campaigns or quests that
(36:43):
are more geared towards them.
Give them a role in the discord,and then within Drip, give that
particular role a boost inwhatever token that you're
offering, right?
So if I, I've got a communitycommittee, I know that they're
gonna go out and do every singlequest.
If I post a new quest, I'm gonnagive them, one and a half
percent, multiplier onengagement when they do that
(37:04):
quest, within the first hour,that is that the quest is
posted, right?
That rewards them for beingactive.
Then other people see that,like, what's that role?
do I get that role?
Well, you've gotta participatein the same way, and we have
these examples of our communitycommittee.
All you have to do is, you know,kind of follow their lead.
(37:25):
They're just fellow communitymembers.
And then you start to kind ofgrow this, this core, you need
your strong vocal core to grow.
and then they'll start to kindof bring in more people and then
they'll start to be hostingspaces or talking in different
DM groups or different channelsand stuff like that.
Sometimes in, even in differentDiscords and say, Hey, I love
(37:45):
this community.
You should join it.
Hey,'cause everybody has atleast five to 10 friends in
Web3.
that is, you know, exponentialgrowth if you allow and empower
your core community members togo out and essentially talk
about why they are part of yourcommunity.
Right.
So, take a look.
(38:07):
They're there.
And if they're not there, thenyou've got more work to do, to
bring in those folks.
But if they're there and they'reshowing up every day and posting
and, and you see them active andyou're not saying hello to them.
Or asking them, you know, about,you know, like what they're
doing, how they're feeling, thenyou're, you're doing yourself a
disservice because those, thosepeople will be there through
thick and thin usually, and evenwhen there's lulls in the
(38:29):
project, they're still gonna bearound and, um, they're your
most important communitymembers.
so just engage with them.
that, that's, that would be my,my advice because, they're gonna
be, they're gonna be keys toyour growth, for your community.
Phil (38:44):
some sage advice from Carlo
Mike (38:46):
Yeah, like, you look at this stuff from a much deeper,
more human level than mostpeople in our industry, and, I
really appreciate it.
Carlo (38:55):
that's just always how I've been.
It's just the human aspect ofthings.
Mike (38:59):
I think you're right.
Carlo (39:00):
other people in your community as, as human beings,
you are completely overlookingthe entire reason for community.
And, and I mean, this is, theseare social platforms.
Social networks.
You have to be social on them.
starts by creatingrelationships, and that starts
by acknowledging that the otherperson on the other side of the
keyboard or on the other side ofthe phone is a real person with
(39:22):
like, their own struggles, theirown goals, their own dreams.
And you know, that was one ofthe things that I noticed like
early on is like a lot ofprojects or tokens or things
like that, they basically justmanipulated and took advantage
of people's dreams.
And a lot of people's dreams isjust to better their lives a
little bit, right?
Just make a little bit of money,pay off a bill, things like
that.
(39:43):
Try to live comfortably.
that's the core dream for a lotof folks.
A lot of projects took advantageof that by selling them this
idea of their dream and thenrugging them, right?
Or just giving up whatever thecase may be.
But those people are stillthere.
Their experiences, their dreams,their hardships are still there.
(40:04):
those don't go away.
So while community members maycome and go, the thing that is
constant throughout all of thisis that human aspect.
it's those relationships thatyou build and that you nurture
'cause you have to nurture ittoo.
You can't just say, Hey, talk toyou one time, now we're friends.
And never talk to him again.
Like, that's not how it workseither.
(40:25):
takes time, it takes commitment,and you've gotta put in the
work.
And if you do that successfully,then yes, you can have a core
group of people.
'cause you can't expect everyoneto be there 24 7, but they'll be
there most of the time becausethey know that you care if you
really do care.
Phil (40:43):
I love it.
Thanks again, Carlo.
If anyone wants to follow you onX where should they go to follow
you?
Carlo
Carlo (40:50):
You can follow me at @CarloLGarcia.
That's my name.
Phil (40:56):
Thank you all listeners, watchers.
We will be back again withanother episode soon.
And this has been anotherepisode of Everything Is A Game
by Drip Rewards.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome back to Everything is a Game brought to you by Drip
Rewards.
My name is Phil, I work inoperations at Drip.
I'm here with Mike, the head ofpartnerships for Drip and Carlo,
the COO at Bearish.
Carlo, can you give us a littlebit of background as to how you
got into this world of being aCOO and doing a lot of community
(00:23):
stuff for Bearish?
Carlo (00:24):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Now I've been, you know, I kindof got into crypto back in like
2017, just kind of likecollecting coins and stuff like
that.
I think the pandemic reallyopened up a lot of time for
myself, with the shutdown andthings like that.
And I kind of got deeper intodefi, setting up my own wallet,
you know, shit coining ondifferent chains from, you know,
(00:44):
Binance to ETH, found my wayinto NFTs in late 2021, early
2022.
Started collecting NFTs.
Really gravitated towards thecommunity aspect of what a lot
of projects were building.
Probably one of the communitiesI'm still a part of, is the
Plague.
The Plague NFT, so Plague ofFrogs.
I've been part of that communityfor over three years and, really
(01:08):
met a lot of great folks throughthat.
So I've always been a bigproponent of community and the
power that it has of just, youknow, kind of uniting voices
around a common cause orpurpose.
Even before Web3, I was doingstuff like that with community,
whether it's through theater andfilmmaking or through
philanthropy and charity.
(01:28):
Back in 2010, I started aTwitter trend called, Cyber
Giving Monday, which is allabout uniting communities to
donate to different charitiesaround, right after Black Friday
essentially.
and then continued at the secondyear in 2012, it became, a,
rebranded as Giving Tuesday,which is now a multi-billion
(01:49):
dollar day of giving globally.
Billions of dollars are donatedthrough that hashtag.
I've seen firsthand the power ofcommunity, of uniting voices and
bringing people together.
When I saw these microcosmswithin Web3, especially in NFTs
of people banding around wearingthe same PFP, supporting each
other and, having a good time,that's what drew me in, deeper
(02:10):
into, into Web3 into NFTs.
Started veering away from memecoins in crypto and focused
mostly on NFTs, even though alot of the communities that I've
supported the years are eithernot around or they've kind of
merged into others, but there'scertain people that I've met,
you know, four years ago thatare still here and, and some of
(02:31):
them are in Bearish.
And, I think it was in, late2022, I started working with
Scotty, Scott Mitchell.
Who was the dev and founder ofBrawler Bears and I was doing
some community work with them.
he was working with Toli on Dripabout a year and a half ago.
They both were kind of leadingtwo bear themed projects and
(02:53):
decided to like, why not mergecommunities, merge teams and
launch a new ip.
they brought me in, about threeweeks before mint, to help out
with community and operations.
So that's how I got fromdabbling in crypto, to being now
part of the team of Bearish.
Phil (03:10):
As you were going through your journey in crypto and you
were going through, you know,meme coin communities and NFT
communities, are thedifferences?
I'm interested in maybe youropinion on the differences
between NFT communities memecoincommunities, is there a
difference?
Or if there is, what do youthink it is?
Carlo (03:33):
You know, it's a lot harder to build a community
around a meme coin, a token or ashitcoin.
reason for that is there's a tonof excitement around the
presale, around the initiallaunch, but at a certain point,
it loses momentum unless itbecomes like a billion dollar
market cap, it loses momentumand people sell out and as they
(03:55):
sell out, they're leaving thecommunity.
So it has a, degradation overtime.
Unless it gets super hyped up,has a lot of stuff on the
timeline.
Like Pepe for example, like Pepekind of launched really high,
died for a little bit, launchedup again, and it's, I think it's
maintained a sense of community,but for the most part, a lot of
the tokens that launched at thatsame time are probably zero.
(04:18):
Right.
they've gone to zero.
That is 100%.
You know what happens themajority of the time with meme
tokens, and I've, I've seen itacross a lot of tokens that
I've, participated in.
Now, it doesn't mean that thatcan't happen for NFT projects.
You have those like excitementaround mint, the hype around
mint around reveal.
(04:40):
It's what you do to maintainthat after reveal.
Whether it's through things thatyou're releasing or other ways
to engage your community, yougotta maintain it because again,
there is a degradation cycle forNFTs as well.
People get bored and there'salways in the, Web3.
Anything that I've learned isthere's always going to be a
brand new shiny object that'sgoing to draw attention, that's
(05:03):
going to pop.
For however long it pops, peoplewill change their PFPs.
Right.
And, you know, that will be likethe mind share for a period of
time.
Could be a couple weeks, couldbe a couple months.
but unless the team and thecommunity work together to kind
of maintain, the messaging,maintain the energy, it will.
fade, it will tend to fade iffloor price will start to drop.
(05:26):
and people will leave thecommunity as they're dropping in
floor price.
Community members are sellingout of the community.
So, the one thing, the oneadvantage that NFTs have over
meme coins is that.
if you could provide value toyour community members, have the
ability to keep them fromselling out, right?
It's like, how do you add valueso that like, alright, holding
(05:49):
this and making this my PFP hasmore value than if I sell it,
right?
if you can maintain that typeof, valuation for your NFT
project, then you're going tomaintain that community a little
bit longer than.
who has a meme cone, you know,they can't PFP it necessarily.
And they're looking for theirout, right?
If it's a little bit higher thanthey went in, they're gonna
(06:09):
sell.
maybe they keep a moon bag, butfor the most part, they'll move
on to the next meme coin becausethat's the trader mentality,
especially in dent's trenches,is that you're moving from coin
to coin to coin.
Catching that pre-sale, catchingthat, pre release to a liquidity
pool and then trying to sell.
and get to the next one, right?
You're just trying to compoundyour profits.
and hopefully get a nice take atwo x into a five x into a 10 x,
(06:32):
hopefully for that, hundred x.
and hopefully it's a token thatactually has a liquidity pool
that you can realize thoseprofits on.
'cause that's not always thecase either.
So it presents its challenges.
Yeah, I think NFTs have the,have just a little bit more
advantage.
And that's why a lot of memetokens will launch A NFT
alongside of it, because theyneed that identity aspect of it.
(06:55):
How do I represent thisparticular token, this
community, with my PFP on X ordiscord or telegram?
So those are important aspects.
The is the identity, you know,kind of just this as I'm a part
of this community, I'm a memberof this community.
Phil (07:11):
that makes total sense.
I wanna shoot it over to Mikereal quick.
as you've been working withpeople who use Drip on different
levels of smaller projectsversus, huge enterprise level,
customers, are some of thethings that you've seen done
using Drip to help keep thecommunity engaged and provide
(07:34):
value?
Mike (07:35):
Yeah.
I think that a lot of it comesfrom the gamification, the
ability to create virtualcurrencies so that they can have
an economy, it allows you tohave what Carlo said about with
the memecoin without thememecoin existing.
You're able to create aneconomy, but instead of having
no use other than the nextperson, you know, the greater
fool theory, they're able tocreate economies where they can,
(07:58):
buy and, you know, earn whateverthe, the code token coin is and
sell it and use it for, for anobject to buy whitelists, buy
PFPs, to buy NFTs, to buy merch,whatever the, the community
wants to have.
So that part as well as theification, the playing games,
the concept that you can earnaround your NFT and the NFTs
(08:19):
themselves can generate pointshas been a really important
piece of the equation.
It's just giving peoplesomething to do and giving them
value for doing so.
Phil (08:29):
Carlo, coming back to you, before we get into Drip and how
you've used Drip and Bearish,was curious about when you first
started as your COO role anddoing a lot of community stuff
for Bearish, was your mindsetgoing in?
And what were some of the thingsthat you did like from the get
(08:50):
go where you just thought, youknow what, we need to do this,
this, and this, and this willkeep our people engaged and here
instead of wanting to go over tothe next hot thing that's
happening?
Carlo (09:02):
Yeah, I mean, so I think it's really important if you're
gonna be on a team, is to neverlose the mindset of being a
community member first.
I've been in a lot ofcommunities.
I know what I like personally,when it comes to that.
and you've always gotta kind ofkeep them at the forefront.
it's not an us and themsituation.
it's more of like, we're all inthis together.
(09:22):
We're all a part of the samecommunity.
I'm just helping kind ofmotivate or move around roadmap
items or working on operationalthings or, community efforts and
things like that.
But for the most part, Iapproach everything that I do
from a community firststandpoint.
So I'm a community member first.
I know that, having used Driftin the past in various ways I
(09:44):
know what I'm looking for.
I want to, you know, I wanna beable to earn, I wanna be able
to, to spend it.
I think Drip has a great,setting up that economy is a
great kind of precursor to evenhaving your own meme token,
right?
It allows you to explore tokenomics with an off chain currency
that allows you to see what theuse is within your community.
(10:04):
Then also like how much valuecan you add to it with this off
chain token without having to,set up a liquidity pool and
things like that.
it has its inherent benefits todo so.
I think it's important to listento your community members, stay
active in the chats, whetherit's on Twitter, whether it's on
Discord.
Because that's where you'regonna get a sense of the
temperature of the community.
what are people thinking?
(10:24):
what are people feeling?
is there no news?
what's the reaction to that?
What's the reaction to theannouncements?
everything that happens withinthat discord, every single
interaction is importantinformation and data for you as
a team to analyze and to takein.
If you ignore.
requests or you're ignoringtickets, you're gonna miss
something.
(10:45):
And that might just be one vocalperson, but more than likely,
there are probably like 10 to 20other people who are thinking
that same exact thing, who arejust not vocalizing it.
Right.
So you're most vocal, communitymembers, they are a barometer of
sorts that lets you know, whatthe community's feeling, what
they're vibing.
one of the things that we'vedone, especially on x, is, we
(11:08):
have a DM campaign that we do.
if we notice someone's posting alot about bearish or they just
joined Bearish, we'll send'em adm, welcoming them for one, but
then asking'em how they foundout about bearish, what are they
into, just to start thatconversation, letting them know
that they are a part of thiscommunity.
We're a community of builders,and whatever that means to you.
it's important for us to connectand find out who you are.
(11:30):
there's a channel in the Discordthat's like introduce your
bearish.
We want to know if you have anyinterest in building or art or
tech or whatever it is.
we want to know who's behind theB-R-P-F-P, right?
How can we help each other grow?
How can we, connect?
What is it that you value, sothat we can kind of understand
and hopefully find ways toprovide that value back.
(11:50):
utilizing the tools that areavailable, listening to your
community, being an active partof the community is very
important.
those are kinda my threepillars.
And also just kind of leadingwith empathy.
obviously people are here tomake money, but there's also the
human aspect of things.
people have a hard time, dealwith a lot of, drama whether
it's weather related, familystuff, there's a lot of stuff,
(12:12):
that happens in our everydaylives.
we can be there as just an ear.
we don't have to providesolutions, other than just being
there as someone who listens.
Right?
Like, giving your time,listening to hearing somebody
out is like even more valuablethan saying like, this is how
you fix it.
Right?
So, and a lot of people don't goto therapy.
They don't have, maybe they,they're here in Web3 because
(12:35):
they're looking for thatcommunity aspect.
Be genuine.
Phil (12:38):
Yeah.
And I love that you're sayingthat about, it's all about
making real connections, beingempathetic with people.
I mean, like you said, a lot ofpeople in Web3 in particular,
like they live in Web3.
this is their people.
I mean, I'm pretty much one ofthose people.
I've got maybe one close friendoutside of Web3 and a few
(13:01):
associates, but everyone that Iactually hang out with and talk
with are pretty much Web3 peopleat this point.
so having that empathy, makingthat real connection, like you
were saying.
that makes sense.
it's the core of building acommunity, you know, a real
community where are moving inthe same direction, maybe
(13:23):
depending on whatever projectthey're in, or NFT collection
they're a part of, but also,interacting and having a good
time and making friends.
Bringing this idea of communitywith this amount of depth to web
two.
Okay, so a lot of web two, youknow, real quote unquote, real
(13:44):
world people.
The companies there, they viewtheir customers as well.
You're just the customer.
You pay us this amount ofdollars, you buy a$10 combo
meal, we give you a hundredpoints, and once you get a
thousand points, you can get afree burrito or something.
and even in the more likebusiness to business or broader
(14:06):
enterprise level kind ofbusinesses in web two, how.
Let's say I'm like A CMO or amarketing guy for one of those
businesses, and I'm just like,yeah, the people, they spend the
money, we give'em points andthey come back and there's a
drop off rate and blah, blah,blah.
(14:27):
How would you communicate thisidea of actually treating your
customers as like real people,building a community instead of
just customers that.
they give you money, you givethem points, and at some point
they drop off'cause they're notinterested anymore.
Carlo (14:49):
Yeah.
I mean, think at a certainpoint, some companies don't have
to do that.
They don't have to think in thatway.
I.
doesn't mean they shouldn't, itjust means they don't have to.
you know, Coca-Cola, doesn'tneed somebody to be rocking a
Coca-Cola, PFP on X and Facebookto sell Coke, right?
I mean, people see it in thestore.
(15:09):
They're, it's been around forhundreds of, hundreds of years.
Plus, people will drink it ifthey want it, right?
are certain products and, andthings like that, that they
don't have to think about it inthat way.
And that being said, I thinkthere are microcosms of
communities that have formed,and a lot of them kind of happen
within the entertainmentindustry, especially with like
up and coming.
bands and artists, right?
(15:31):
You know, the idea of a fan clubis probably one of those, you
know, one of those bestrepresentations of a community
and web two, some of them haveeven started using Discord a
little bit for their communityengagement of just like having
forums and chat channels andstuff like that.
I think there's like anuntapped.
You know, market in terms ofbands and up and coming artists
(15:51):
to utilize these tools a littlebit better, for their Web two
crowd I mean, and like, I mean,I've, I've said this, a lot of
people have said this, likethere's no delineation between
web two and Web3.
It's all internet.
so for my mindset, I've justlike, okay, why don't you just
use the tools that areavailable?
To build and engage and interactwith your community, and see how
(16:16):
it goes.
I just don't think there's aneed for folks to, you know, at
a certain level on certainbusinesses and companies to even
think about that.
Right?
It's those growing businesses.
Those growing products, thosegrowing bands and artists.
need to really kind of engagewith their communities and
really build them.
I think there's a lot of toolsthat are available, to do so.
(16:38):
I would say that getting outtathat mentality of like treating
all of your fans as consumers isprobably a good idea.
you should be treating them as,fellow members of your
community.
the way that you're connected isthey like your product or they
like your music, or they likeyour art.
engage and create experiencesfor them that kind of just
(17:00):
continue to highlight thatconversation, to carry through
that conversation, acrossdifferent channels.
maybe you'll have a communitymember or a fan for life.
Phil (17:09):
that makes total sense.
Mike (17:10):
Yep.
Phil (17:10):
think?
Mike (17:12):
I got a counterpoint, to some of that, and, I agree with
a lot of it, but I think thatthere doesn't become a time in
which the community wouldn't beextremely valuable.
You know, I look at companieslike Apple, where community
evangelists are what broughtthem to where they are now and
where it has become thatcultish.
This is.
My brand and I identify with it,you know, an iPhone has an
(17:36):
identity around it.
I think that Starbucks is thesame thing.
You know, there's an identitywith I'm carrying a Starbucks
cup and who I am and what I'mdoing, and I think that if they
went to the next level.
And where the brand started tospeak back with them is where
you got the evangelists, toreally help the brands and to
really bring it forward.
I think that it can also helpgain market share.
(17:58):
it can, protect brands fromrecession where, you know, if
I'm choosing which discretionaryitem to cut, you know, I'm
probably not gonna do the onethat I feel a kinship to.
I agree that they don't need torock the PFPs and don't
necessarily need to go that way,but I think that the community.
Remains important.
it might not be reflected asmuch in the share price as it
(18:22):
necessarily is for a lower endbrand, but I think that there
becomes a time when it becomeselastic to, the user's
discretionary spend.
Phil (18:33):
Makes sense.
And as both of you were talking,I was thinking in Carlo's
situation that he outlined, likefor me, this makes total sense
that a growing brand, a growingentertainment, especially like a
singer or a band, like theyshould lean into this community
aspect instead of just like, oh,I've got 10,000 listeners on
(18:55):
Spotify, like turning.
And maybe this is going forwardbecause of the internet, because
there's so many people doingdifferent things now and trying
to make it, maybe this is adifferentiating factor that.
Can turn a, you know, standardentertainer or brand, a band,
(19:19):
even a startup business intosomething that people actually
care about instead of just likeusing the metrics that we've all
used for the last 20, 30 yearsof, you know, everything.
and then to Mike's point, Ithink what you brought up is.
Basically doing the same thing,like we're using community as a
(19:43):
way of turning either newcustomers, new listeners, new
followers into evangelists, orfor something like Starbucks,
maybe establish customers thatare already like diehard and
loyal to you.
How do we switch that so thatthey go from loyal customers to
(20:05):
hardcore evangelists and maybethis community aspect and this
nurturing the community aspectis that missing piece for, for
bigger established brands even,and then they go out and market
for you.
You know, it's.
And it's organic andeverything's great.
Everyone's happy.
They're happy, you're happy.
(20:25):
I think the community aspect,all across the internet, I think
is the next level of marketinghere.
Carlo.
Oh, Carlo, did you havesomething to say or.
Carlo (20:36):
No, I was just gonna say on, on Mike's, kind of like
Apple example, you know, a lotof that community was built up,
before, even the iPhone, right?
I mean, people were hardcore Macusers, the whole Mac versus PC
conversation.
but they also spent a lot ofmoney on advertising to, you
know, kind of convince people,right?
(20:59):
And I think.
what got into that cult statusoutside of the product was those
evangelists, right?
Those hardcore Mac people whowere talked to their friends or
have that flex of like, I gotthe first iPhone.
you don't have one of these,you're gonna want one of these.
but they didn't reward.
the people who purchased it,right?
(21:19):
Like there was no consumerrewards for that other than
like, I'm better than you.
with those Mac versus PCcampaigns.
maybe the reward is the productis a little bit better, right?
but no actual reward, a lot ofthat was built up prior to even,
some of the social media stuffthat has happened.
and maybe it's kind of createdsome Facebook groups where like,
you know, I'm a Mac but again,that's done organically.
(21:41):
That's just people, trying tofind like-minded individuals.
that's the same thing thathappens within NFT communities.
You have people trying to findlike-minded in individuals.
What are you in, what are youinto?
what can we build together?
Like those types of things thathappen.
and we've just gotta need toencourage and, and empower that
type of, that type ofinteraction, in whatever ways
(22:01):
that we can.
Mike (22:04):
that's awesome.
Phil (22:04):
Yeah.
Mike (22:05):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And when you were talkingearlier about the.
Empathy perspective, of thecommunity, that is one I feel
like goes unnoticed and isundervalued.
being empathetic and reallytalking to the person and
learning to know who they are.
I was wondering a lot of thetimes, community floor price,
you know, if PB floor price isdriven around announcements or
(22:26):
events, you're talking to a wayto push that aside and go, Hey,
it's not about that.
It's about who you are and whowe are, the actual community,
not just community as a concept.
So I think that's reallyvaluable, what you brought up
there.
Phil (22:45):
It.
Carlo (22:46):
It was one of the first like.
One of the first things that Inoticed a lot when I, when I
first entered into this space,one of the first things that I
noticed was the, that empathywas missing because it was such
like an anonymous space.
A lot of people are wearing PFPscartoons or whatever, animals,
you would just see interactionson the timeline of people just
(23:07):
being very, just kind of mean orrude because they could, I would
see people even in somediscourse, you know, someone
would come in, some of thatmaybe I had an interaction with
or whatever, would come in andbe like, I just got drained.
my wallet just got drained.
And there'd be people who wouldjust be like, oh, sucks to be
you.
you learned a lesson.
but showing zero empathy.
I'm sorry that happened to you.
(23:27):
I have no means to kind of,correct that situation, but that
really sucks, Be safer nexttime.
If you ever have any questionsabout a link or something like
that, you know, reach out to me.
instead of using that instanceas an opportunity to connect and
deepen a relationship.
People would just dismiss andscold somebody who's just gone
through, a somewhat traumaticexperience, right?
(23:48):
You don't know how much they've,committed dollar wise into
whatever assets they had, but itmight've been a lot for them.
And instead of seeing thosemoments as opportunities to
connect and show empathy.
people are really quick to justadmonish them, and that just
makes people feel worse, Sowhenever I have witnessed that
over the course of three years,I would show empathy for it.
I've been there.
(24:08):
I know what it's like, you know,if I had the opportunity to,
like, hey.
if you set up a new wallet andit's secure, let me know.
I'll send you a little somethingjust to get them going again.
a lot of people, once they getto that point, they're gonna be
like, you know, why am I evenhere I'm leaving.
And then you've lost a potentialcommunity member as opposed to
being like, Hey, I'm sorry thathappened to you.
stick around.
(24:29):
Hopefully things will get betterfor you.
So I think those are importantthings to pay attention to.
Phil (24:35):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Especially in crypto, there'sdefinitely a lack of, and it
seems to be, depending on thespace you're in, maybe the
sub-community of crypto as awhole.
some of them are very ruthless.
But then some, especially amongNFT communities, it feels like
some have a lot more, they're alot more likely to be more
(24:56):
empathetic, filled with realpeople who are actually trying
to connect.
So I love that you brought thatup.
I did want to go into Carlo,your experience with The bearish
NFT collection.
So what are some things thatdone to keep people engaged and
excited?
(25:16):
And then also on the rewardside, what they can spend,
berries on.
What, what's like the, thinkingprocess on like, oh, people will
be interested in this, or maybewe'll do a raffle versus like a
straight up, you know, buy itfor this many berries.
give us a whole overview on allthat.
Carlo (25:37):
Yeah, for sure.
So I know everybody.
Who uses Drip is gonna use it ina different way.
there's a lot of different, youknow, tools within Drip, that
can be utilized and how you setit up is up to you.
one of the things that I, havingbeen a part of communities that
use Drip, having used Drip priorto bearish myself, as a team
(25:57):
member and as a communitymember, one of the things that I
wanted to put a focus on wasrewarding.
Active participants in thecommunity.
And the way that we'veconfigured the drip bot in our
discord is we didn't enablepassive earning for just holding
an NFT.
That is an option.
Some people like that.
(26:18):
It's great.
they can go and claim daily ontheir dashboard, you know, of
the off chain token for thatparticular discord.
we have a two currency economywithin bearish, which is the red
berry and the blueberry.
for the most part, people willearn the red berry by doing
actions, doing quests.
we have regular quests for themain account, the bearish X
(26:39):
account, and then we have sidequests.
The side quests are veryimportant for us because we use
those to highlight importantposts from community members,
especially new members who arejoining.
Hey, I just bought a bearish,here's my post on x.
We want people to engage withthat.
We want people to welcome in thenew members, to make them feel
(27:02):
at home and also get them intothe discord so that they can
learn about the ecosystem, wealso have a channel in the
Discord called Bear Post, wherewe encourage people to post
anything that they see thatmaybe it's a new member that we
missed, or maybe it's justsomething that they've created.
Content-wise just using thoseside quests as opportunities to
highlight current communitymembers, new community members.
(27:24):
maybe there's an occasional raidof somebody of like, what should
I buy on abstract?
Of just getting the presence onthe timeline known.
And if they go and complete thattask, whether it's a like or a
comment or a retweet, then theycan collect that red berry.
Sometimes I'll just do anoccasional drop of, see who's
active in the Discord.
I'll be like, Hey, here's, youknow, claim five Red Berry right
now.
(27:45):
If you're in the Discord, Iwon't tag anyone.
It's just people who are active,right?
So you want to kind of rewardthose who are actively checking
in.
sometimes I'll do Holder only,prizes and like, I've also kind
of, hidden raffles throughoutthe discord.
So sometimes there's a channelthat I might want someone to
look at.
I'll just say, Hey, I'verandomly put like.
Three raffles and differentdiscord channels or forums.
(28:07):
Go try to find them and enter.
you can utilize the, the raffleprize system, like the create a
prize system, to engage withinthe discord as well.
Right?
maybe you just have a channelthat has all the store items and
all the raffles.
That's great.
But maybe there's a channelthat's new and you want to them
to engage in it.
a question or drop a raffle inthere.
(28:29):
We don't use the store items alot.
we use the raffles because it'seasier to get more people to
participate.
not everybody has, a bunch ofberry to spend on a store item,
but they would be willing tokind of gamble on a raffle
entry.
because we don't havenecessarily an inflated economy
from passive staking.
(28:50):
the amount of berry in theecosystem, is pretty controlled,
which I think is important.
Sometimes if you have passivestaking on and you don't have
the bandwidth or the ability toprovide constant, sinks, people
will just rack up a bunch oftokens, and then if you do do a
prize.
You have to put the entry sohigh up You're trying to like,
(29:11):
just pull back all of thosetokens and it becomes, it just
be, it, it craters itself,right?
so that's one of the things tokind of avoid.
and just learnings, you know,learnings that you have from
just being in different discordsand stuff like that.
So for us.
The quests are very important.
Obviously, I want to kind ofcontinue to, you know, expand
that out.
Obviously I've been talking tothe drip team about some other,
(29:33):
you know, potential sites, touse.
there's also kind of the gamesthat are built in, you know, the
blackjack, the poker, the bear,the, the, the drip shooter game,
drip combat like that people canuse and spend berry on and or
spend the token on.
hopefully try to get more.
but yeah, for us, like theraffles are, are, are pretty
popular.
(29:54):
we do raffles for red berry andblueberry because we're trying
to kind of the amount ofblueberry in the ecosystem as
well.
and you know, it's usually a lotof NFT prizes, things like that.
We've had some meme meme tokensin there, some physicals.
we had, Some like, tradingcards, physicals that were in
the shop, that you could buy.
(30:14):
we've had custom bearish PFPsthat you can kind of design your
own.
so it's just kind of like apiece of art.
we've, we had some light boxes,so like 3D light boxes that you
can get of your PFP.
merch socks, things like that.
You want to kind of just put asmany different options in there
as possible.
Some people might want a digitalcollectible, some people might
want something that's just alittle bit more physical.
(30:35):
and if you partner with anyother projects, those are great
opportunities to say, Hey, I'vegotta shop.
You've gotta shop.
Let's just do like a little bitof an exchange.
that could be merch, that couldbe NFTs, that could be whatever,
and help each other out.
then you have a variety of stuffwithin your store, within your
shop, and it's a really greatway to grow and also kind of
co-brand with stuff.
Like, we do stuff with HadiThoses all the time.
(30:56):
they're one of our partners, soif we want gift cards or if we
want soda or IES or somethinglike that.
know, we can ask them, we cangive them something for their
shop.
we have this kind of like, youknow, cross-cultural exchange if
you will, cross communityexchange.
and it just makes things moreinteresting, for the shop and
stuff like that.
But most important, you know,really, and it's kind of almost
(31:17):
like a full-time job to behonest.
you've gotta be aware of thetimeline.
You've gotta know what yourcommunity is doing, what they're
posting, who's joining.
And engage with them.
And you could use Drip as thetool to help get the community
to follow along with you, toengage with those folks.
So if you're a founder or a teammember, and if you're not liking
(31:37):
and replying and welcoming newfolks, you're, you're basically
doing yourself a disservice.
because one of the things thatyou've just psychologically,
that people enjoy is being seenand being heard.
And being welcome into acommunity.
And if you do that, you do thatenough, it creates this, this
atmosphere of like, this is howwe're supposed to act as a
(31:59):
bearish, we're supposed towelcome everybody.
Then the community, communitygets on board and they start
welcoming everybody.
And that's kind of how you buildand grow, is by having those
kind of initial interactions tobuild a relationship.
And you never know, like we'vegot other stuff going on, like
the hackathons and stuff likethat.
Where these people can then cometogether and join a team and
then build something together,right?
(32:20):
That deepens that relationship.
or they're connecting on being,being parents, or they're
connecting on listening to acertain band, or they're
connecting on, you know, adifferent, a certain sports
team.
Finding all of those, connectivetissues and giving them an
opportunity to combine them,just helps deepen those
relationships, makes them feelpart of the community, makes
them want to stay a part of thecommunity.
(32:41):
And I think that's the mostimportant part.
Phil (32:43):
and the, the idea of having you either as the founder
or the chief community officeror CMO or whatever, set the tone
that helps build the culture,which then helps build strong
community members.
Which then eventually will turnat least some of them into
(33:03):
hardcore evangelists that aregoing out there repping your
brand all over the place forfree.
Just'cause they love being partof the community so much.
I love that.
And Mike, I was curious on yourtake, so we've been talking a
lot about using Drip in Discord.
What are some other ways thatbusinesses can use Drip outside
(33:26):
of just using it in Discord?
Mike (33:28):
Yeah, so Drip can be used to build requesting websites and
the storefront and everythingthat Carlo talked about.
That is a really key feature ofwhat Drip can do.
Can be built off discord, andyou can have a dedicated site
for those.
Everyone that's not in Discordhas a place where they can
gather, they can Quest, they canbuy, they can earn.
(33:51):
But it also provides reallystrong opportunity to bring
people into the Discord whereyou can say things like, Hey,
there's five quests here, butthere's another 20 in Discord.
You know, you wanna enter thatraffle that costs 40 if you only
have 10.
Come into discord, earn therest, and then go spend it on
the raffle.
So there's a lot of ways thatyou can really draw people into,
(34:11):
the discord through the outside.
one of the great ways issue theTwitter range and doing all
those quests.
But the other really strong oneis by building questing sites
around Drip's API.
Phil (34:22):
And just before we go, Carlo, I wanted your take, if
someone is new to building thiscommunity, you've already
touched on empathy a little bit,what would you say to someone
who's like, okay, well, youknow, I'm, I'm hustling, I'm
trying to do this startup, ortrying to bring our business to
the next level.
how do I do this whole communitything?
(34:44):
Gimme an elevator pitch onhere's what to do, think like
this, go do these things andyou'll be on your way.
Carlo (34:50):
If you're starting up from scratch or you're, you're
stumbling a little bit withbuilding your community, take a
step back.
Take a look at what you'reoffering and is it something
that you want?
I think the best thing you cando is put your, put yourself in
the position of a communitymember.
And see if you're providing thevalue, the experiences, the
(35:13):
conversation, the discord thatyou would want to participate
in.
Ask yourself that question.
Would I want participate in thisproject?
Would I wanna participate inthis community?
If the answer is no, then you'vegot a lot of rethinking and
retooling to do.
If the answer is yes, and it'sjust more of a, you know,
getting the word out problem,then what I would say at that
(35:35):
point is, listen and look at whoyour most active community
members are.
Who are the people that areshowing up every day saying Good
morning?
Who are the people who areposting about the project on
Twitter every day?
And talk to those individuals.
Ask them what is it that theylike about this community?
(35:59):
and ask them for advice.
Ask them, what do you thinkwould help make this community
better, make this projectbetter?
You can create sort of like thiscore think tank of community
members, say a communitycommittee, that you could use as
a resource.
And as you engage with thesekind of core members, they start
(36:22):
to become and feel moreempowered.
Like, oh, the founder, the team,they notice that I'm really gung
ho about this particularproject.
I'm gonna step it up anotherlevel, right?
You have this core, this core,committee that you can then
bounce ideas off of, then alsocreate campaigns or quests that
(36:43):
are more geared towards them.
Give them a role in the discord,and then within Drip, give that
particular role a boost inwhatever token that you're
offering, right?
So if I, I've got a communitycommittee, I know that they're
gonna go out and do every singlequest.
If I post a new quest, I'm gonnagive them, one and a half
percent, multiplier onengagement when they do that
(37:04):
quest, within the first hour,that is that the quest is
posted, right?
That rewards them for beingactive.
Then other people see that,like, what's that role?
do I get that role?
Well, you've gotta participatein the same way, and we have
these examples of our communitycommittee.
All you have to do is, you know,kind of follow their lead.
(37:25):
They're just fellow communitymembers.
And then you start to kind ofgrow this, this core, you need
your strong vocal core to grow.
and then they'll start to kindof bring in more people and then
they'll start to be hostingspaces or talking in different
DM groups or different channelsand stuff like that.
Sometimes in, even in differentDiscords and say, Hey, I love
(37:45):
this community.
You should join it.
Hey,'cause everybody has atleast five to 10 friends in
Web3.
that is, you know, exponentialgrowth if you allow and empower
your core community members togo out and essentially talk
about why they are part of yourcommunity.
Right.
So, take a look.
(38:07):
They're there.
And if they're not there, thenyou've got more work to do, to
bring in those folks.
But if they're there and they'reshowing up every day and posting
and, and you see them active andyou're not saying hello to them.
Or asking them, you know, about,you know, like what they're
doing, how they're feeling, thenyou're, you're doing yourself a
disservice because those, thosepeople will be there through
thick and thin usually, and evenwhen there's lulls in the
(38:29):
project, they're still gonna bearound and, um, they're your
most important communitymembers.
so just engage with them.
that, that's, that would be my,my advice because, they're gonna
be, they're gonna be keys toyour growth, for your community.
Phil (38:44):
some sage advice from Carlo
Mike (38:46):
Yeah, like, you look at this stuff from a much deeper,
more human level than mostpeople in our industry, and, I
really appreciate it.
Carlo (38:55):
that's just always how I've been.
It's just the human aspect ofthings.
Mike (38:59):
I think you're right.
Carlo (39:00):
other people in your community as, as human beings,
you are completely overlookingthe entire reason for community.
And, and I mean, this is, theseare social platforms.
Social networks.
You have to be social on them.
starts by creatingrelationships, and that starts
by acknowledging that the otherperson on the other side of the
keyboard or on the other side ofthe phone is a real person with
(39:22):
like, their own struggles, theirown goals, their own dreams.
And you know, that was one ofthe things that I noticed like
early on is like a lot ofprojects or tokens or things
like that, they basically justmanipulated and took advantage
of people's dreams.
And a lot of people's dreams isjust to better their lives a
little bit, right?
Just make a little bit of money,pay off a bill, things like
that.
(39:43):
Try to live comfortably.
that's the core dream for a lotof folks.
A lot of projects took advantageof that by selling them this
idea of their dream and thenrugging them, right?
Or just giving up whatever thecase may be.
But those people are stillthere.
Their experiences, their dreams,their hardships are still there.
(40:04):
those don't go away.
So while community members maycome and go, the thing that is
constant throughout all of thisis that human aspect.
it's those relationships thatyou build and that you nurture
'cause you have to nurture ittoo.
You can't just say, Hey, talk toyou one time, now we're friends.
And never talk to him again.
Like, that's not how it workseither.
(40:25):
takes time, it takes commitment,and you've gotta put in the
work.
And if you do that successfully,then yes, you can have a core
group of people.
'cause you can't expect everyoneto be there 24 7, but they'll be
there most of the time becausethey know that you care if you
really do care.
Phil (40:43):
I love it.
Thanks again, Carlo.
If anyone wants to follow you onX where should they go to follow
you?
Carlo
Carlo (40:50):
You can follow me at @CarloLGarcia.
That's my name.
Phil (40:56):
Thank you all listeners, watchers.
We will be back again withanother episode soon.
And this has been anotherepisode of Everything Is A Game
by Drip Rewards.
Thanks for listening.
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