#12: Aubrey Strobel On Earning Bitcoin While You Shop

Aubrey Strobel is the Head of Communications at Lolli, the world's leading bitcoin shopping rewards company.

In this conversation, we discuss:
- Lolli's $5million raise
- Working with Alexis Ohanian & Serena Williams
- Aubrey's hot takes
- The power of crypto memes 
- NYC crypto community
- The future of Lolli

Lolli
- Twitter: @trylolli
- Website: lolli.com
- Instagram: @lolli

Aubrey
- Twitter: @aubreystrobel

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David Datuna x Dole NFT Collection for the Boys and Girls Club

Dole SunShine Company is doing a huge NFT Charity drop this Thursday May 6th to help combat world hunger! 

Date: Thursday May 6, 2021 

Time: 12:30 PST / 3:30pm EST 

Where: rarible.com

Dole SunShine Company (the largest producer of fruit and vegetables in the world) is teaming up with ‘hungry artist’ David Datuna, for this limited edition NFT drop for Charity. 

They will be dropping 5 NFTs to raise money and bring awareness to their Sunshine For All mission, which aims to increase worldwide access to good nutrition, reduce food waste, reduce plastics in packaging and more! 

4 NFTs will be available for purchase and 1 will be auctioned off. 

All proceeds go to the Boys and Girls Club, a top notch national charitable organization of local chapters which provides voluntary after-school programs for young people.

Dole
Twitter: @DoleSunshine

David Datuna
Instagram: @david_datuna

Boys and Girls Club
Twitter: @BGCA_Clubs

Transcript

Matt Zahab: 0:08

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very excited to have today's guest on the show. This lady is tearing up Twitter, absolutely tearing it up and is quickly become a queen of the crypto verse. Present day, she's the head of communications for Lolli, the world's leading Bitcoin shopping rewards company. She's fresh off a $5 million raise. She's a big fan of the Philadelphia Eagle, yikes, and everything journalism related. In her spare time, you can catch her stacking sites and playing or guitar or in Walter White's hometown of New Mexico. Present day she's buzzing around New York City, the Big Apple. I'm very pleased to welcome to the cryptonews podcast, Aubrey Strobel. Aubrey, welcome to the show.

Aubrey Strobel: 0:49

That was quite an intro. Thank you for having me on the show.

Matt Zahab: 0:53

Very happy to finally have you on. I guess we should give our guests a little bit of a summary of how big of a shitshow this has been. We first tried to connect a month ago when you were back in LA at a famous studio and never really worked and we just tried again, shit the fan again but we're finally up and buzzing

Aubrey Strobel: 1:15

Yeah, I know. It was like back to back while I was in LA and it just like did not work out. I had the prime setup for it too, great lighting all that stuff. And then we tried the other studio but it's fine now and then even today we had a hiccup so i think it's on you guys, but apparently I'm the only one with the connection difficulties so it's I guess it's my fault.

Matt Zahab: 1:38

Well, we have recorded over a dozen pods so far. And this is only

Aubrey Strobel: 1:43

I'm the only one? Okay

Matt Zahab: 1:43

What can you do? Another funny thing that we have to talk about now. When we were in our recording studio, it shows the guests audio setup and it shows my audio setup, shou out Sure microphone shout out focus right mixing solution. ubrey, can you please tell the uests the name of your air ods?

Aubrey Strobel: 2:07

Okay, let me just back this up by saying my air pods are named this because when I was a younger person, I thought it would be funny for Siri to say like, you know, Queen Aubrey instead of Aubrey because it just sounded fun and I was like a kid when I did that. Not a kid but like just in college. I don't really know that was doing. Anyway so I guess my air pods say Queen Aubrey, which is super creepy for all intensive purposes of doing podcasts. So great learning beacuse I'm going to change that now. Thank you.

Matt Zahab: 2:41

That is yeah, that was hilarious. I actually have a buddy who made his Uber name daddy. So every time he gets in an Uber, the driver looks back and goes Daddy? And he's like you got it. Yeah, he's a bit craziness. Good to finally have you on. Really excited to have this. I want to jump right in, before we get into Lolli, and congratulations on what you guys have done. The $5 million raise absolutely tearing it up right now. Love the you know the company's mission of allowing people and giving them a platform and getting the general public to really choose Lolli as their first bitcoin wallet. But before we get into that, I want to jump into Twitter. You've been absolutely tearing up twitter like you even have yet a funny tweet today about oh, it's copy Friday, you know, it's a Thursday recording on Thursday the 29th. You're all over Twitter, like what? What's the secret sauce there? How do you do it?

Aubrey Strobel: 3:32

Um, Twitter's interesting, because like you can be really funny and basically shitpost all the time or you can put some really intellectual articles out there and stuff. And I try to do like a mix of all of that. And just put out whatever I feel. You know, it's hard to like, nail it down. Most people who are successful on Twitter probably have some sort of specialty that they're doing so obviously talking about Bitcoin, crypto, you know, like DeFi, anything on Twitter does well, but I think a lot of this stuff I just do, to be honest, is just pure comedy, which is what the Lolli account is too and my account and I just like to make jokes and sometimes I go too far though. I'm like, I shouldn't send this because people are gonna think it's real. People just take everything so seriously, and I'm very much not. I can be a very serious person but most of the time on Twitter I'm just kidding and people don't get that. Anyway, so there are some just like, just observations that I make. And I put them out there in a funny way and they seem to do well, but I think that's kind of the sauce.

Matt Zahab: 4:40

Speaking of the observation, when, and for our guests, if you go to Audrey's Twitter profile, her link in her bio is theaubservation.com. Now it's spelt like always name AUB instead of OB it's AUB-servation. When's that going live? when are you going to make that happen?

Aubrey Strobel: 4:58

Oh, this is a tough one because I have big plans for the Aubservation. I have a lot of hot takes that I feel like I would just rip through and it would be like Twitter, but on drugs, it would be like not like me on drugs, but like the takes would be that crazy. Like, I feel like I have a lot of takes I just keep you know sifted down because if I put them on Twitter, the thing with Twitter is people can't understand the inflection or how you meant it or the sarcasm, they can't hear that. So a lot of times I don't put my like flaming hot takes out there. But if I had a podcast, I mean, it would be dangerous, I think. So I need to figure out what the timeline is for that. But right now I'm just focused on like Lolli TV, I host that show once a week so it'd be another show on my plate. There's a lot of interesting people that would love to talk to and have on so I think it would be really cool once I finally get off the ground. We only have 600 followers though with no promotion, really on the Aubservation. But if you are so inclined, go follow it, people listening to the podcast. And maybe if we get to 1000 like I'll launch it.

Matt Zahab: 6:05

Okay, you heard it. We're gonna post this by the way. So you heard it. You heard here first folks. If we get the Aubservation to 1000 followers, get it to four digits, Aubrey will go live, and that will happen probably once we air this which will be next week. So when this airs, you are gonna have to get a podcast buzzing? Give me your top three guests.

Aubrey Strobel: 6:24

I've actually promised some people slots already. I told Coby he can come on first. He's like I would. He said he wanted to come on first. I probably would bring in some mainstream people who are into crypto that are not like just straight up crypto people. Probably some influencers but I don't know. I think people are going to have to fight for the second and third episode. Like make people work for it, you know? It's just gonna be a great show.

Matt Zahab: 6:50

That's awesome.

Aubrey Strobel: 6:51

Just hand these out.

Matt Zahab: 6:52

Well, like I said, folks, you heard it here. The Aubservation is going live in early May. Let's jump over to your journey into the crypto space. Now born in New Mexico, i've have never been to New Mexico. I don't think a lot of people have. Excuse my ignorance if that's incorrect, but to my knowledge, it's you know, maybe not the most tourist friendly town. I know that Breaking Bad really put it on the map. But tell me more about your journey and starting journey journalism, No pun intended. Your journalism journey from New Mexico all the way to New York City and then getting into crypto.

Aubrey Strobel: 7:27

Yeah, so I grew up I have like a very untraditional upbringing. I grew up in on the Navajo reservation for the first few years of my life and then moved to, that was in northern Arizona. I was born in Gallup, New Mexico, which is like right off the reservation, mostly because of my parents. If you're not Navajo you can't be born on the reservation so they make you like leave the reservation and I'm not Navajo, its just my parents were teaching up there. So then we moved down to Arizona, I grew up there lived most of my life in the southwest and then I yeah, I went to school in New Mexico State, got into journalism and I really wanted to be a broadcast journalist, it was a passion of mine. But this is before like the 2016 election cycle and I just felt like the news was a little bit more quality back before the like Trump election. It just became more like entertainment based and a lot of the news cycle on Twitter was about like getting the story out first, and this is on both sides, like very like just, it was just kind of nuts. And I was like not sure if I want to be a part of that. And I sort of pivoted to try out PR for a bit, even though I still wanted to do broadcast for a long time and ended up working for a crypto PR firm called Waxman for about two and a half years. Eventually, after working for a few other PR firms and I really just got into the crypto space. I was like I'm going to stay here I really like growing with an industry and also working on these projects, even though a lot of them were like ICO shills. Let's be honest, there was like this is back in 2017. Like the worst projects like I don't even want to claim association with, but the technology was really interesting to me and I really believed in Bitcoin early on. And yeah, I just I kind of stayed and got introduced to Alex, the CEO of Lolli through a friend that was working at Barstool and he was like, hey, you should talk to my friend, they're really building something great here. And I basically just put me on a text thread with Alex and I was like, alright, I'll just talk to this guy. I had no idea I would be here today would have ended up this way. But I'm really glad I did.

Matt Zahab: 9:39

I want to touch on Alex. He, again, I've only seen him from Twitter and the various interviews. We'll also we'll get into the CNN interview a couple days ago which was huge by the way, congrats on that but about Alex everyone on Twitter just absolutely pumps his tires and I believe it's a desert tire pump but like, seems like he is on the fast track to becoming one of these world class CEOs.

Aubrey Strobel: 10:02

Alex has a unique skill set that I have not seen with a lot of people and he's just really attuned to culture and what is happening in the world. Sometimes even better than I am, and which I feel like I'm really on it and he sometimes just like comes out with these unique perspectives and really understands how to market Lolli really well, and that's why I think it's been successful. And I think he just sees things differently and which was always really like an attractive reason to come work for this company. So I mean, he's amazing, like really great to work for. I like am so lucky that like, my job is genuinely a blast to do and I'm really happy at my company. So I mean, this is all a testament to Alex he just picks a good team. Like everyone I work with is amazing. I have no problems with anyone and it's rare to find that you know? Sometimes you like work in companies and you're like oh my gosh, I don't want to work with these people, but like Lolli is a blast. Everyone is good friends and is a great worker. So it's a great time

Matt Zahab: 11:05

Nice is your is your office back up and running in NYC?

Aubrey Strobel: 11:08

It is not. We were at... so I'm filming from my you know, apartment as we speak, but I'm going to be moving to hopefully a larger space in the next month or so. Yeah, we were on in Midtown and those days are gone. Most people are like half of our team is in North Carolina. So all the engineers and everyone, they've been working remotely basically the whole time they kind of just work from their house. Actually, I'm the only Lolli employee in Manhattan. There's one in Brooklyn. And that's it. So

Matt Zahab: 11:41

Wow, interesting.

Aubrey Strobel: 11:42

Just the last one in New York. It feels like I am like what is the movie with Will Smith?

Matt Zahab: 11:46

I am legend?

Aubrey Strobel: 11:47

Yeah, that's basically me. Really dramatic, but for Lolli

Matt Zahab: 11:51

Solo in Lolli. Tell me a little bit more about NYC? Is it back to the like the pre COVID buzzin levels? Or is it still has a livelihood?

Aubrey Strobel: 11:59

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the city's roaring like, you can hear this collect ve roar on the weekends, like pe ple are just so excited to be o t, and the restaurants are com ng back and it's gonna be back And I've been this way, the who e time. I've been long NYC whe everyone was folding, and pac ing up their bags and going t Miami. I was here like struggl ng and suffering through it all ecause I'm just, I'm like, l ng term, you know, just like I m with all my positions and hol ings, like I just I see everyth ng long term. I was like, t ere's no way New York City's ot coming back. I don't care li

Matt Zahab: 12:31

No, I completely agree. I've been in New York a e what you say. I live down to n close to sort of the 9/11 yo know, Ground Zero Memoria and we came back after that, l ke the city rebuilds. It does no you know, give up. It gets ba k together, people go to work an it will be back. I do think p ople will be working from ho e though. Like, you know, t at option now that it's been su cessful, there's no way you can like shut people back in offices So I think it's gonna be like obviously, the you know, t e Goldman Sachs and some of thes like, you know, banks are gon a make people go in, but if you on't have to go to work, I don't think. Everything will be opti nal for people. I don't know wh t do you think? couple times. And it's like, New York's New York for a reason. There's no other city like on the planet.

Aubrey Strobel: 13:16

Exactly. Better than LA, and I wanted to just put this out there that New York City is better than LA after visiting LA. And I just want to make that statement publicly here on your show.

Matt Zahab: 13:24

You got it, you got to give a description. You can't just throw out a hot take and not back it up.

Aubrey Strobel: 13:31

There's nothing wrong with LA per se, but I think it's just like, it's kind of like a shittier look, I think DC and LA are the same city sort of. Everyone is power chasing and like trying to grow themselves and they're like clout chasing and all these things. But LA is just a little bit more vain, whereas DC is like a little bit more secretive with their operatives and LA is kind of shallower version of DC. But that being said, Malibu and like this like you know areas around it are beautiful. I think there was a really like there was a lot of nice people. I just think no one works out there. Like no one gets up and works. Whereas people like work in New York and there's something romantic and beautiful about that

Matt Zahab: 14:26

Work hard play hard hauling ass. Also, that's gonna make a great headline now you Queen I love this. Couple more a couple more geo topics and then we'll get right into Lolli the bread and butter of this call. Okay. NYC Bitcoin scene. What's that like?

Aubrey Strobel: 14:45

So there used to be meetups obviously before the pandemic and people were trying to get things together last summer at the end. You know, Mike Dudas would have like meetups and stuff like that just with people on Twitter, but it's sort of like fallen away. I want to bring it back. And actually we kind of have, like I hang out with Cody Vargas who's like a marketer on Twitter and like Brad Mitchell somebody who just left New York, that sucks, huge owl, but we would like, and then like Marin. We get together like once a week and drink usually and just talk about crypto but it's not like, it's not really like crypto themed, it's just like our friends hanging out. So everyone that we sort of know and then you know, I have like my friend Marguerite, coin artist, she's moving back. My friend Maddie in the crypto space. I like a few friends and they're all like crypto related, so fun actually to like hang out especially during the bull market but like in terms of meetups and like groups and stuff, I don't think they've like, I don't think anyone can do it yet because of the capacity for tables and restaurants in New York so I think we're a little further away from that

Matt Zahab: 15:55

In my mind I just picture like again obviously it's COVID so it's not a clear picture but in my mind I just picture like you and the rest of the NYC Bitcoin and crypto scene just literally getting up to no good on like a beautiful rooftop patio with like Manhattan skyline in the background like just, I don't know. dummying margaritas.

Aubrey Strobel: 16:13

So accurate. Yeah. That's no, that is what it is. It's so fun. Everyone, like, I've found such a good group of people in New York and I didn't even realize that all these people lived here. We kind of just started talking to each other, like, where do you live? Where do you live? And now we just get together all the time and there's not much to do but drink, so apology, you know. I feel like I put out some like late night tweets where I'm like, I love my life or whatever and it's just like me hanging out with like my crew again, or like, something like that. Anyway, it's a good time. And if you're in New York, I welcome you to you know, hit us up and we'll go out again, do a rooftop drink,

Matt Zahab: 16:52

Love to hear that. And looking forward to that. Let's move forward to the bread and butter of the pod. And that is Lolli. Before we get into Lolli, tell me more about the name. It's a five letter name, makes a great domain. Like why Lolli all names, why Lolli?

Aubrey Strobel: 17:09

Yeah, that was Alex. So Lolli, you know is a reward, like an incentive you want a lollipop? And so when Alex was a kid he would go to the bank with his father and basically he felt like when you would go to the bank, you would get that reward. And the only thing missing from the Bitcoin you know story is that there's no like extra treat at the end. So even though Bitcoin itself is a reward to own and have there is no like, you know, it was just like a cute play on words. So it's like the bank giving you a lollipop. So that's that here's where Lolli came from. And it is yeah, people get into like, some people hate the name and some people love it. There's like a mixed mixed opinion.

Matt Zahab: 17:52

I think it's easy. You know, the best names in business are always the ones that are easiest to pronounce, easy to spell, rolls off the tongue nice and shorter is usually better names and that's about it. But yeah, so Lolli is without a doubt the world's leading Bitcoin rewards company that gives customers free Bitcoin when you shop at a 1000 plus stores. And we're not talking mom and pop stores, we are talking the biggest stores in the world. Now, this is incredible. And the whole ease case of it. You literally download it for free, it pops up on your Chrome browser and it's no different than, I guess it's the Bitcoin version of Honey in some sense. Whereas Honey, you're sort of getting coupons but with Bitcoin or with Lolli, rather, you're actually getting SATs back on every single purchase. Before you go into a little bit more of a deep dive on Lolli. I'm so curious in regards to how you ended up getting all of these big dog retailers on board. Like have any funny stories or negotiations about all that? Like when you first pitched them, they probably thought you had like four different heads or something.

Aubrey Strobel: 18:57

Yeah. So it's interesting because Alex and some of the team came from, like Rakuten had acquired their last company and so they had all these connections, basically with these retailers. And the issue was he pitched it to them at the time. He was like you guys should offer Bitcoin back. This was probably back in 2016/2017. And it was just was not at that stage of adoption yet and you know, for Rakuten to offer that, and so also similar to Honey - Honey is coupons Rakuten is cash back, but same premise on the browser extension. And they just weren't ready for it and so Alex was like, you know what? I'm not gonna wait around for you guys to finally come around to it you're such a large company, i'm just gonna go build it myself. And so he went off and built it, had a lot of those connections. But yeah, I mean, these these retailers are huge. The day you know, we launched we had like Walmart on board, a bunch of these like top, top retailers and it's just continued to grow. There's some people that are still sort of hesitant to offer bitcoin rewards. But there are some companies that are like, this is so great for our company, it incentivizes people not to shop with Amazon and come to us. Because it's like, you know, more, you know, incentivization to come shop at, like, Dick's Sporting Goods, or Sephora or whatever it is, and instead of going to like the huge monopoly, Amazon, so there's a lot of companies are super excited about it and it's amazing to see that transition, because when I know I started in this space, it's just night and day in terms of what people will will touch anymore. I feel like it's finally getting accepted and especially over the past six months, I can't even tell you what a difference it's made and obviously, that has a lot to do with the bull market, but it's amazing to see the growth. I mean, it's just, it's also inspiring, and just like exciting at the same time.

Matt Zahab: 20:47

So are there any objections that the general consumer would have, besides the fact that they might not know a bit about Bitcoin? Or they might be scared of Bitcoin? Like, you literally sign up. Very, very simple. You get the Chrome browser extension, you start shopping and you get free money in the form of Bitcoin. Like it's literally a win win for everyone on board, besides the fact of oh, I'm new to Bitcoin, and I'm scared of it. What other objections? Like why wouldn't anyone want to sign up for this?

Aubrey Strobel: 21:13

Um, it's, I don't know. I mean, people just, I think there is this hesitancy of the unknown and fear of that and just not understanding Bitcoin. But other than that, like, there's not too much I think people are worried about how do I get it off of Lolli? You know, where do I, you know, store my Bitcoin after this, can I cash it out, and we make it super simple to cash out. If you want to cash out to your bank, you can do that. So, basically, like, you could even think about it as just like a savings account, you know? If you want to cash it out at any time, like at least it's earning, if you want to call it, you know, or it's appreciating in some way, instead of just getting cash back with Rakuten. The other incentivization, I mean, we're competitive with these affiliate marketing programs, and sometimes Rakuten can offer like, slightly a higher percentage on a reward back but if you think about it, you know, your rewards gonna appreciate way more than whatever it stabilizes that you know, when you get it off with like Nike at 5% or if you get out Wally at 4%. That's just gonna go up over time and a lot of people forget about their wallets and have come back and been like, Oh my gosh, like, I ordered off Postmates like a year ago, and now I have like, $2,000 I don't even realize like, how this happened to me, you know? No, those are the really cool stories.

Matt Zahab: 22:29

Gravy train. I love that. Folks and Aubrey, we are going to take a quick break. And I just want to give a big thank you to our sponsor, CoinPoker coin poker is world's premier crypto poker platform. I absolutely love these guys. I'm a big poker fan. I'm a lover of Texas Hold'em, little bit of five card stud and I do love my sports betting I must say. CoinPoker is a revolutionary blockchain technology based platform that was developed by an ambitious team of poker players and sports gamblers alike. And CoinPoker uses USDT as the main end game currency, and $CHP which is their token as in game fuel, instant and secure transactions, payouts in USDT Ethereum, Bitcoin, $CHP you name it. No KYC absolutely love that. Huge promotions 1000s and giveaways. If you're a poker fan, if you like to bet on sports and if you're into crypto, it's a no brainer, give it a shot. And they also have a mobile app. Whenever I'm on the go, I whip out the coin poker app and play a couple hands of Texas or bet on some sports. It's an absolute treat, you can find them at coinpoker.com. Again, that's coinpoker.com. Just want to thank our friends and we will see you guys shortly. Let's get back to the show. Aubrey I have a question. And I don't know why. But this is this one was just stuck in my head. I was like okay, someone goes on Lolli and let's say you're a multi multi millionaire, you got nine figs in the bank. Maybe you got into bitcoin early. Maybe you're a billionaire. And you're just the Lolli savage. I want to know who is the MVP? Like, who's the guy who's spending or the lady who's spending millions of dollars on their pets on chewy and getting you know, three to 10% back SATs, whatever it may be? Is there any person who has like 100 grand from lolly in their account? And can you say that?

Aubrey Strobel: 24:23

Okay, there are some people who have earned over a Bitcoin, first of all, which is crazy. And there's just people who've rigged the system. It's not like rigged but like they've put their company charges linked to their cards. And then like bought like mass amounts of paper or printing, super toner, whatever, like a few years ago and now I have like, there's people to move over, I think there's someone who has over two Bitcoin. I know the last time I checked it was over one. But that was like year ago. So yeah, I mean, people like if you gamify the system, this is a whole new eco omy. It's like you have to kind f work and find out these way because credit card points wer cool for a bit. You can also be getting the obviously credit c rd kickbacks with whateve, you know, I use Chase, get rewards for that. But then you also get rewarded for using a b owser extension, like every urchase you should make should't be accruing interest. And I think that's the difference etween like, your parents gen ration and our generation now is, you know, it was just like checkbooks and like, o I'm gonna, you know, fill his out and like, you know, an like, I'm can't go to the ba k on Sunday, it's all it's ust totally shifted. None f that's the same anymore. And t's gamifying the system, ou saw that with the Reddit s ort squeeze and like these online channels, where people are just like pumping and dumpi g, you see it on tik tok, lik fin tok now, which is happenin, I'm not sure if you follow tha. But like, literally any co n can get pumped and dumped in a day.

Matt Zahab: 25:55

Yeah, no, that's, I completely agree. Let's talk a little bit more about Lolli here and big congrats to you in the team on the $5 million raise. And it's not just about the money, it's who backed you. I feel like in VC now, especially with the money printer being fully, you know, fully torqued at all times, locked and loaded, right, you know? Raising money is one thing, but raising money from people who have a lot of power and who are willing to help you and want to take you to the moon. That's another, and that's exactly what Lolli did. You guys got a raise from a couple big dogs. One of them being Alex. Alexis, excuse me. Ohanian and his wife, Serena Williams, the goat of tennis. That was insane. I'd love to know, you know, any cool stories about that? Have you had a chance to meet them? And just tell me what exactly that's going to do for Lolli in the long term?

Aubrey Strobel: 26:44

Yes. I mean, just the best investors, you could have really on board. I mean, Serena Williams, when I first was in a Google Doc, with Serena Williams, I think I had like a mild panic because I was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm in a Google Doc with the goat of tennis is this happening right now? But yeah, I think Alexis is, you know, he's obviously someone who has had great foresight and a lot of things being the founder of Reddit, and then, you know, invested in Coinbase early, so he sees projects, and he understands them. And I think with Coinbase, you know, that who knew Coinbase was going to be the leader of you know, exchanges back when he invested, there's a lot of exchanges popping up and there's a lot of exchanges that have fallen by the wayside since then. But I think what he saw with Lolli is that not everyone wants to be or associates themself, as you know, I'm an investor, but everyone shops. And so that aspect of it is like everyone now can have because they shop have the opportunity to be an investor. And really, it's just getting the story out there. And he is just a joy to work with, he loves to get the story out there he's been an absolute like gem in terms of just doing the CNN interview, which aired the other day and we have a few other shows lined up but he really believes in the mission. He's believed in crypto and Bitcoin specifically for years and so I think when you have that sort of validation from, you know, key investors, him and Serena, who really gotten behind Lolli, not just because of, you know, it's a great product that because of the mission of making the, like spreading the wealth in terms of making finance more accessible to all groups, and that is marginalized groups, which I think Serena Williams really believes in and specifically, she's a person of color and you know, she's a woman. So I think those things align with her. And then Alexis, you know, he just, she just blew it out the gate. So it's been great, perfect fit.

Matt Zahab: 28:47

I also saw I saw Alexis and your CEO, Alex on CNN a couple days ago. How's that for a little bump?

Aubrey Strobel: 28:54

Yeah, we have so many media opportunities coming in. It's actually really hard because you know, the scheduling for that is tough, but it's exciting. I'd love to get Lolli on TV, get the buzz out there and it's just gonna continue to go, you know, I've some more opportunities planned so I'm... bigger platforms, even though CNN is great. Like, I'm thinking like Today show, Good Morning America soon. So, you know, we'll see when that happens. We'll have to come back and talk about it.

Matt Zahab: 29:24

Love that. You brought up the fact of having Serena as a woman and being an incredible investor. Correct me if I'm wrong, I read a stat 30% of Lolli's users are females. Is that true?

Aubrey Strobel: 29:36

Yeah. So women shop online more than men. It's just a larger cohort of shoppers. And so we've been able to, especially maybe like a spokesperson for the company and really get women into the door get their foot in the door at least and so I feel really proud of that about that. And there's a lot of people that have used Honey for years or have used Rakuten, women, and they're like, Oh, I didn't even know I could get Bitcoin back, you know, for my purchases and have shifted their shopping habits to come to Lolli. So that's something we're proud of. Obviously, you know, Bitcoin doesn't care who uses it but it primarily is a better currency when both genders adopt, you know, the currency. It would be weird if just only men were transacting with Bitcoin so we do need the women in there and I feel proud that I've been able to usher in you know, quite a bit of women. I did a panel ,I think it was a week ago, two weeks ago and we basically spoke with 1000 women and taught them about Bitcoin and why they should own it. I got a ton of messages on LinkedIn, from these women saying, you know, I got my first SATs, I bought my first Bitcoin I bought Ether, and that is so exciting to me. Just to hear people get excited about this new economy, especially women, and feeling like they didn't have a right to have skin in the game, or they didn't feel welcome or whatever their wall was for not getting involved and then feeling comfortable. And I think making people feel comfortable is something that Lolli does and something that I personally try to do with women.

Matt Zahab: 31:11

Well said. Couple, I guess one more really question about the essence of Lolli and then we'll get into rapid fire fun questions. And I know you're extremely busy. This has been awesome. Thank you for this Aubrey. About Lolli, are there any plans, you touched on this earlier about people gamifying the system on a corporate level? Again, it's very hard for e commerce and more so software companies to scale without hitting that b2b sort of, you know, revenue lever. Are there any plans in the future to really pull on that and go business to business?

Aubrey Strobel: 31:42

Business to business, not immediate pla s. We have other plans too. I m an, we are b2c and we have some plans to offer new products hat will incentivize people to either, you know, keep their mon y with Lolli and then other sor of rewards based, I can't, it s hard to talk about it withou talking about it, because w haven't announced it yet. Rewa d based incentives. So these thi gs are gonna be coming in probab y within the next three mon hs. Our full mobile app is li e like I have it on my phone, bu it's just going to be fully rol ed out during consensus So you know, everyone will have full access to shopping nline. And that was really th biggest lift for our company f r a while we were really wo king on getting that off the g ound, but making it a beautiful app and seamless. And now that use it mobile all the time. It' great. And I think the reaso we started with the web exten ion instead of going to mobile first and having a mobile ap is because most people ma e their like larger purchases or more serious purchases on a desktop or tablet. T ey're not usually on their pho e.

Matt Zahab: 32:53

Aubrey, another thing that you've done at Lolli that's been really admirable is you always, even the team, you guys are incredible at hammering the emojis, the memes and new marketing channels like clubhouse. Now on Twitter, Lolli, excuse me, has the lollipop emoji in its handle. I know you do the laser eyes, you just did that. I believe that was last night on clubhouse you got Mr. Beast like? These are not easy feat. So the first two are but the last one is not an easy feat. Start me off by telling a little bit more about the power of emojis and memes in the crypto community.

Aubrey Strobel: 33:33

I think people really underplay memes and it's a huge way of communicating with people. And so it's like I had a comms memes are a form of communication and I think bigger companies may laugh at that, but you'll see that there's huge meme accounts that basically try to put their advertisements or marketing into a meme now. And I think that people have kind of, you know, thought that it was just like some internet stuff or like, kids doing that, but I guarantee you, you will see chief meme officers in the future, mailing these like memetic ideas of, you know, the lollipop and the color purple that we use, which is the same as the purple like heart emoji. It's all you know, comes together, it's all convergent. And so yeah, just being up to date on what's going on is sort of part of my job to be in the know of what's happening. We did a Clubhouse room with, you know, the NYU girls shoot their shot, which was, like 2000 3000 people in the room, talking about Bitcoin, getting involved with the people like really just meeting the people with where we're at, we gave away combined, we gave three people came up it was a wow, Logan Paul and their intern they gave away almost a full Bitcoin on that channel and it was like the biggest show that they've done. So that was just, that's a way of, you know, marketing that people probably didn't, you know, think before to do or wouldn't have thought of. But because we're a startup, we can kind of be sort of scrappy in those ways, very interesting.

Matt Zahab: 35:12

I love that and tell me about Mr. Beast, how'd you land him? He's, I think he's the biggest youtuber on the planet.

Aubrey Strobel: 35:16

Yeah. Work with Night Media who manages him and so he's huge. And I think what we look for is influencers because the influencer creator economy is so big and it is so underplayed just like memes. I think people still laugh at influencers and even I did before I went to LA. I didn't understand fully like, I've always believed in influencer marketing, I do the influencer marketing in our company. But I didn't really fully understand how big the creator economy is until I went to LA and you just see it growing so rapidly and it is the future. These people have, especially for Gen Z, they have a unique audience that will follow them that will buy their merch, they will download whatever they promote. And it's just a whole different medium of advertising. So we've chosen to have a lot of the influencers, become investors in our company, because that makes them more incentivized to promote Lolli. And yeah, they're excited about Bitcoin they want to get involved. So it's kind of like a great marriage of the two.

Matt Zahab: 36:21

Are you the are you the chief meme officer at Lolli?

Aubrey Strobel: 36:24

So you don't have that title yet? Or like no one has that. But I guess I would be like self proclaimed chief meme officer, if there is one. Because when it comes to like, funny means, we have that, okay, we have a meme slack. And it's just me thinking like, we need to make a meme for this. And then we create memes. But that's not really like a title, per se. But maybe I'll add that to my Twitter bio

Matt Zahab: 36:51

Couldn't hurt. Couple more rapid fire questions. And we will wrap up and again, thank you for this, Aubrey, this has been awesome. Let's start with Bitcloud. I know you're on Bitcloud, I think your coin is going for in between six and $650. We'll call it $625 is big cloud here to stay or go?

Aubrey Strobel: 37:08

Wow. Um, I think Bitcloud is pretty scammy in my opinion, and it's crazy the backing that they've gotten, it's there. I mean, all these VCs are behind it and like the top top VCs and it's shocking to me the way they launched it. A lot of people say that it was purposely done that way other people are saying no, it was sort of leaked out that way. But um, personally, I don't think it's here to stay. I think the idea, the concept is good, but I don't think how they've rolled it out is gonna work in my opinion. But you know, could be wrong.

Matt Zahab: 37:50

Bitcoin to 100k or Ethereum to 5k what's gonna happen first?

Aubrey Strobel: 37:55

Um, Ethereum been on a rip recently, um, but I gotta go Bitcoin 100k. I have alt and I've had them since when I first got in, but I don't and I'm not going Ethereum at all, I don't really feel like it is but um, but like, sort of become a hardcore Bitcoin maxy because I feel like that's what we got to get off the ground first before anything else but yeah, I mean, with the NFT space popping off, I don't know. I'm gonna go Bitcoin 100k

Matt Zahab: 38:23

Okay, when's that going to happen?

Aubrey Strobel: 38:27

I feel like December honestly, there's something about Bitcoin in December. It just thrives in the winter. And there's always some crazy like hockey stick graph. So I'm going to go I'm going to go November a little bit before, because that's my birthday month.

Matt Zahab: 38:43

Hot take November 2021. Bitcoin 100k. You heard it here.

Aubrey Strobel: 38:47

You heard it here.

Matt Zahab: 38:48

Last question, Miami Bitcoin conference, which is happening beginning of June. Are you going and on a scale of one to 10? How bananas are those afterparties?

Aubrey Strobel: 38:58

Oh my God, I'm actually like, kind of freaking out. Because it's gonna be insane. And I don't know how to physically or spiritually or mentally prepare for that. But yeah, it's gonna be. I cringe a little bit wondering what the headlines are gonna be because you know, the media is gonna just rip through it and be like, bitcoiners overtake Miami. Like it's gonna be a whole thing in the news cycle. And so, but I'm excited for it. I'm excited to meet a lot of friends that I've only known online and see them in real life. So I think it'll be a good time and hopefully be safe and yeah, hit me up if you're in Miami and hopefully we can meet up and anyone listening to this would love to see you at the conference. I think I'm speaking, I'm doing one speaking thing, and Alex will be speaking so should be fun.

Matt Zahab: 39:50

And after parties, one to 10 how bananas?

Aubrey Strobel: 39:53

One to 10, an absolute 15. Like there's no other word. There's no like, everyone knows. I'm actually, I am scared for it. I hope my liver like makes it

Matt Zahab: 40:05

You have a bunch of people who have, you know, 10, 15 20x their net worth in the last, what? 15 months kind of thing.

Aubrey Strobel: 40:11

And everyone's been caged inside and yeah, and their net worth is up. They're going to be spending money. Like, I mean, it's, I'm excited but scared. I don't know.

Matt Zahab: 40:25

Love that. Second last question. Okay, if you were a gambling woman, who would you put all your money on in regards to who was Satoshi?

Aubrey Strobel: 40:33

Oooh, I'd had this conversation very recently and I don't think it's okay, for instance. Well, first of all, it's not Craig Wright. It's not Hal Finney even though there's that rumor. I think Satoshi is dead in my opinion, and I don't have a particular person that I want to, like publicly say, but I've heard some rumors of who it could be and I feel like that's probably who it is. But I'm not gonna like, I don't want to throw it out in the podcast and get quoted.

Matt Zahab: 41:05

You'll save it for the Aubservation.

Aubrey Strobel: 41:07

Yeah, I gotta save like good content for the Aubservation. You can come on the Aubservation and we'll like do the same thing. Maybe we'll talk about it then.

Matt Zahab: 41:15

Love that. Aubrey, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for jumping on and everyone in this space really appreciates what you're doing. You're paving the way. Lolli's tearing it up, fresh off the five mill raise and extremely bright future ahead. Before you leave us please let our guests know where they can find you on Twitter or on Twitter socials. You name it, and Lolli.

Aubrey Strobel: 41:35

Yes. And thank you so much, Matt, for having me on. That's so sweet. Aubrey Strobel on everything also on Bitcloud, but don't follow me there. On Twitter and Instagram and then Lolli, Lolli.com. Sign up if you haven't already, it'd be ridiculous if you are not getting free Bitcoin back on your shopping and @tryLolli and then @lolli on Instagram@tryLolli on Twitter. So follow us on all those channels. And yeah, this was great. Thank you so so much for having me on.

Matt Zahab: 42:06

Aubrey, thanks again. Really appreciate it. And definitely we'll have you on in round two. Hopefully I will also be able to meet you in a month or so at the conference in Miami. Folks, this was Aubrey Strobel tearing up the Cryptonews podcast. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed it, it would mean the world if you could subscribe. We are on all major podcast platforms. You want learn more about us? You can hit us up on social it's Cryptonews on just about everything. And our website is cryptonews.com. Special thanks to the team, couldn't do this without you, Justace you saved the day again, our amazing sound editor. Folks hope you had a blast and we will see you in a couple days. Thanks again. All the best. Bye bye