#75: Jay El-Anis on Building a Decentralized Social Media Platform with 1M+ Users

Jay El-Anis is the CMO of Uhive, a decentralized British social media start-up with over 1m+ users. 

In this conversation, we discuss:
- Uhive
- Scaling to 1mil users in 1.5yrs
- Competing against Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok
- Growing a company in Europe
- Uhive KPIs and metrics 
- 4D space vs 3D space in virtual land 
- Advice to new crypto companies
- Marketing in crypto 

Uhive
Website: uhive.com
Twitter: @Uhivesocial
Facebook: @UhiveSocial
Instagram: @uhive

Jay El-Anis
Twitter: @JayElAnis1
LinkedIn: Jay (Jawad) El-Anis

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Transcript

Matt Zahab: 0:07

Ladies and gentlemen, it's your host Matt they have and we are back. We are back. The Crypto news pod is buzzing. As always, we have another incredible guest on tap for today's episode, Jay El-Anis. Jay has been a regular on the startup scene since 2010, when he left a career in print publishing to begin exploring digital content and how it would shape the future of content marketing. He founded and led his own digital publishing company, which counted Volkswagen Group and HSBC amongst its clients to become one of the top independent digital publishers in the region. A member of EU hives founding team J considers a brand's strongest assets are its customers, and believes in the power of user referrals and advocacy as the driving force behind any successful project. Presentation, Jay is the co founder and CMO at U hive. And I can't wait to get into this. Without further ado, I'm very pleased to welcome to the crypto news podcast. Jay Powell in East Jay, welcome to the show, my friend.

Jay El-Anis: 1:08

Thank you, Matt was a brilliant intro. Thank you so much for going over that stuff. You know, I think that last sort of the last phrase that you that you sort of, you know, rank off perfectly sums up our approach to to marketing. As far as new high, which has been, you know, flywheel marketing is basically, you know, relying on our user base and our community of users to grow and to basically scale. So I am a huge, huge advocate of that sort of approach to marketing. And I think, you know, when it comes down to it, any startup that's trying to scale needs to rely on its user base to help them get to to meet those those KPIs in terms of whether it's downloads, whether it's users, whether it's revenue. And we've you know, all our success, our 100% of view of success at this point, has been based on our users promoting you hive, referring you hive, getting other individuals to download and join new hive, continually post great content on new hive. And you know, so yeah, 111 100% Back Our Community, we are a 100. I mean, we're a decentralized, social Metaverse, you know, so what better way to grow and scale than then via our user base, we're very proud to say we've not spent a lot of ad dollars on marketing and promoting you hive. And I think that's it, that's an approach to marketing that most startups should should adopt, especially in this day and age. Brand advocacy is, is a huge thing. It's worked extremely well for you. Thus far, we are approaching a million downloads, and almost a million registered users, we are well over a quarter million active monthly users as well. And again, 100% user driven those numbers. So you know, thank you for the intro and for pointing out my my grace advocacy, which is for flywheel marketing,

Matt Zahab: 3:07

it almost has mid late 2000s to six to seven toy Facebook, you know, flywheel marketing aspect, where it was like what actually took off, it was the FOMO, where as a user, if you weren't on Facebook, you were missing out on just dozens of opportunities, multitudes of opportunities, and that that sounds very similar to what you guys are doing now really creating that big army of users. before we really get into the nitty gritty, I'd love if you could tell our listeners a little bit more about you hive as a North American and again, you and I talked about this a little bit before the show. Of course I did my research for the pod I got I got to know my shit when I'm talking to a guest. But it's not not very common North American. I know you guys want to tackle that. But before we do tell me about you hive and why it's so special.

Jay El-Anis: 3:50

Well, you you live as a British born, social media starts up. So we're based out of London. And we released our beta app in May 2020. So we're pretty new on the scene. So it's not, you know, it's not to be expected that we will be huge and we will basically be on anybody's radar and anywhere basically in the world. just yet. I mean, we are growing. We are scaling where that growth phase North America, you know, basic like yeah, like any social media startup, it's our honeypot, you know, we need to be present and automatic. We need to have that footprint. We need to have some visibility. But we're you know, we're that's what we're aiming for. And as I mentioned to you, as you just mentioned as well, we had sort of a pre chat, pre podcast chat. We are raising right now our Series A and a big part of that funding and that that capital raise we're going to dedicate to sort of put it put ourselves on the map in North America. So you know, we have a lot of things in store for for North American audience and as we grow over the coming months, very exciting. But we you know, we are based in London, we do have a huge number of users out of the UK, you know, and we, we love the fact that we're homegrown. And that sense in terms of our user base as well, because a lot of what we do is, again, is community driven. So it's great to relate to individuals that sort of, you know, we're, we're part of our Genesis story, and I still part of the company in itself and being British, British born and bred. And we do think it's pretty good stories itself, if we make it as a, you know, it's a top 10 global social network, because there's not really been anything that's come out of that space from the UK before. So we are, you know, hoping to to pioneer that that movement. Europe has some amazing startups, I think it's been often overlooked by by investors. And but perhaps by by users in general. And you know, in terms of like it for social media, there are some companies, our competitors that we have, that are coming up out of the UK as well and out of the EU, who are getting into the social media space, they're getting into the metaverse space, they're getting into the creative economy, they've not had as much success as us, which we're proud to say. So we are in quite a good position to, to enter the US market now. And, and being in the UK as well. It's a very sophisticated market. So you know, there was a lot of stuff that we that we did incorrectly to begin with. So it was a great proving ground for us to be based in the UK, before we go to the US, our cultures or societies are very similar. But you know, obviously, if we if we take a misstep in the UK, it's quite easy to pivot and correct it first and then move on. Whereas in the US, you know, obviously sometimes you get sort of one chance to make a first impression. So going back,

Matt Zahab: 6:42

can you tell me a couple of those mistakes that you made that you know, you're 100% cognizant of, and that you won't do on across the pipe?

Jay El-Anis: 6:49

So what are the biggest mistakes we made to begin with? Well, we're basically creative economy driven. So we do reward all of our creators with cryptocurrency our own social token, which is the UI token for time spent on the app engagement, content created, so on and so forth. And we actually set that pay out a little bit too high, you know, initially when we launched. So it was had we done that in the US and had we had initially launched with, you know, millions of users, that probably would have been our downfall. But we quite quickly realized that we'd had that, you know, we sort of our calculations were off. And and we needed to to reward in line with what we were generating terms of new users and content and revenue in terms of token sales. So that that was something that we we did definitely miscalculate to begin with. And so we quickly corrected that. And we were very vocal with our community in terms of why we were changing and lowering sort of the earning potential on the network and, and how, you know, ultimately, this was to their benefit, because, you know, if we had continued to pay out the tokens at the rate that we were paying out, we don't know if we would have made it past 12 months. So their investment in the network would have been fruitless at the end of the day. So you know, that was a big mistake that we made to begin with, we corrected it, we fixed it, we reworked it, we communicated with our user base, they understood why we did that. And then it actually led us to introduce our dividends for all standard, which is basically a pair algorithm that we created based on token trading volume based on user acquisition, based on downloads, and based on token price, that increases the payout exponentially to our user base. As all of those data points increase as well. So as our daily trading volume increases as our price increase token price, as our user base increases, the payouts increase as well. So ultimately, our users sharing the success of the network. And that that's what that mistake brought us to we realized that, you know, we there, there shouldn't be sort of a benchmark standard in terms of payout, we needed to increase the payout as our our user base increased as all those sort of data points increase. And basically, it was a win win situation for everybody, particularly our user base. Because as well as so they did so much to bring onboard new users to bring on board not on the new users, but quality users as well. So the level of content that was being posted on the network increased as well. And so that has been a brilliant driving force behind getting new users to back the project and back its growth as well as bracket scaling, because they actually they will earn more. The more the company, the more you have, the more the platform grows and expands.

Matt Zahab: 9:49

So from the consumer side, I would love to join you hive as well and create some content but the main value props just so I can understand this correctly.

Jay El-Anis: 9:58

Yeah,

Matt Zahab: 9:58

I get access to a decentralized As a social media platform in which I also get rewarded. So with traditional centralized social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, tick tock, you name it. I spent hours and hours a day on it. Sure, on some of them, I can learn Shut up Twitter, I love Twitter, the others, you know, more, so just a waste of time. And they just take all my data and make millions from it, where it's you hive. I'm still spending my time on the platform I'm creating and in return, I'm getting you hive tokens for the effort that I put in

Jay El-Anis: 10:32

Yeah, yeah, I mean, absolutely. So that's one of the sort of the, the core pillars of you hive. Absolutely. But we are so much more than than that. I mean, that's basically where there's lots of other social media platforms, there's lots of other platforms create platforms that the promise the same, basically, you know, rewards for your time spent in your engagement span. And but how you have differs in your in one respects is that I just mentioned this, you know, we, we pay dividends, we pay this this universal income out. It's not static, it grows and that those those payments, those payouts, they grow with a social network as well, which is very unique. So you hide, you know, not only that as well, but we you know, we don't box ourselves in in terms of labeling ourselves as a social network. We are a NFT marketplace. We are a social Metaverse, we have inter operability at so many levels. So you can basically have a offline and online business that sync on you live, you can trade offline and online, via you hive as well for the same business, you can also earn and then take that that those those crypto earnings, and either stake them. So we have a staking program built into the social network as well, like some cryptocurrencies do, but we are the only social network platform with with greater rewards that actually allow staking as well. And, you know, so we've really tried to focus on the user, when it comes to creating this, this this platform, a user has been at the forefront of every decision that we've made, which is the last thing you can say for Facebook, right? I mean, big, big, big tech, we talk about Facebook, because they're, you know, they're in the news so much as of late. So they they do feel like the Go To bad guy to, to point fingers out. But there are other you know, there are other parties that are responsible doing the same thing that Facebook are doing. That, you know, they've I mean, it's been very clear Facebook have put their user at the very, very bottom of their agenda. You know, it's actually unbelievable that that people have accepted that that sort of status quo for so long, that they're going to spend time and energy growing these these these platforms, you know, and then just getting absolutely nothing in return and the winds of change are blowing Matt, I think I think everybody can see that who sort of you know, pays any attention to the news. There's been so much backlash against big tech in terms of data mining, you know, selling your your your information to the basically the highest bidder and getting nothing in return. Yes, they do have created funds. And they have introduced I think Instagram and Facebook and Twitter of Tik Tok have all introduced creative funds, because they know ultimately, if they don't give something back, that's going to be their downfall. But those great funds are a drop in the ocean. And in fact, Facebook have allocated 1 billion to create a fund, you know, he made he made 85 billion in ad revenue. And they're allocating, you know, 1.1% of that, to to the the individuals that actually made the 85 plus billion possible. So joke, I think people are becoming wise to her. And, and so this is the perfect time for a platform that you have to step in and sort of say, you know, hey, we we are the anti anti thesis to Facebook, we're not going to data mined, we're not going to invade your privacy and sell your data, we are not going to put ad impressions before your well being. And we're going to give week now, not only are we not going to do those things, but we're also going to give you back a lot in return for any creator that for instance Minson f t on our social network and sells in our marketplace, they collect between 9590 and 95% of that revenue. You know, so there's Facebook saying they're going to give creators 1.1% of revenue generated, you know, we're gonna give them 95% The creator gets to choose whether it's 5% or 10% payout to Uhive

Matt Zahab: 14:40

I absolutely love that. Now, again, I'm very fortunate in the sense that I get to do this all day long. So I'm fully submersed in FTS crypto web three you name it, I'm in it are trying my best to learn more about it. But for those and I feel like when I say those, I'll put those in a bucket of the majority of people in the world right because the crypto native people are Till what one? 2%? Probably even less than that.

Jay El-Anis: 15:02

Yeah.

Matt Zahab: 15:02

So for the other 90% What type of dominoes or how many dominoes what kind of dominoes need to fall in order for you hive to be seen as that tick tock and stuff Facebook or Twitter?

Jay El-Anis: 15:13

Yeah, brilliant question. I think I think one of the one of the first hurdles that we have to sort of jump over is, you know, onboarding individuals into the crypto market and the crypto space. What we what we've done basically with you hive is we have creative, absolutely frictionless process, in terms of onboarding our users into a crypto ecosystem. It literally is as simple as signing up to a social network. So once you sign up to you hive, which you can do that through Facebook, email, or Gmail, and you have a digital wallet embedded, baked into your social media profile, and we give you 500, you have social tokens as a welcome gift when you download and create an account on your iPhone. So you know, we have approximately almost 800,000 registered users I mentioned before over 250,000 active monthly users. Those are 100,000 Plus individuals that we have just introduced to cryptocurrency, simply by downloading the app and signing up for it. Which I mean, if you're looking at exchanges, if you look at anybody who's in the cryptocurrency space, those are huge numbers. Either. And that's, that's something that we're really going to focus on in the coming months as well. So cryptocurrency adoption is going to increase exponentially over the next few years. I think anybody who's who's slightly familiar with the space knows that it's all it's just a matter of timing. You know, it's nothing more than that any anything else is sort of smoke and mirrors. When we see new news reports about legislation or countries banning Kryptos, it's BS, it's just a matter of time. And that the sooner we make that process more frictionless and easier for individuals, you know, that the more chance we have to succeed in that space. So we made it very clear from day one that the cryptocurrency aspects of, of our social network of new hive had to be baked in from the very very onset. So you know, that that's how we're doing it and we every every million new users that we have, or a million new crypto, hopefully crypto enthusiasts, or at least crypto users, potential crypto users. So that's really what we're about.

Matt Zahab: 17:33

Folks, I want to take a quick break and give a huge shout out to our sponsor the show prime x BT No, I absolutely love the team from primates BT they've been partners with crypto news for a while and never dropped the ball always have incredible products. I've been using it for the last couple months and love it. They offer a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders does not matter if you are a rookie or events, you can easily design and customize your layouts and widgets to best fit your trading style. Prime expertise also running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the crypto news pod. After making your first deposit of 50% of that first deposit will be credited to your account as a bonus that can be used as additional collateral to open positions. This promotion is available for a month after activation and will be the boost you need to get the hang of trading quickly and efficiently. That is promo code crypto news 50. That is crypto news five, zero all one word, let's take advantage of this offer crypto news 50 to receive 50% of your first deposit credited to your trading account. Now we're going to jump right back in with Jay. Jay, I'm a big marketing guy myself full disclosure, you know, KPIs and all that stuff does get me pretty horn up. I love it when you can actually, you know, the famous saying what what gets measured gets managed a little bit of a tongue twister there are two metrics news, we have some KPIs and some metrics that we're always looking to measure as we want to manage them. You are growing a social media company, not an easy feat, especially with the big boys and girls at the top who have such a stranglehold on the market. Besides the obvious, like, you know, I assume number of new users, number of total users what other metrics or KPIs are you measuring to make sure that you and the team are on track?

Jay El-Anis: 19:19

Yeah, we definitely look at obviously the the number of our users that adopt crypto. So you know, I've already mentioned when you sign up, you get your this wallet baked into your account and you get 500 You have tokens. So obviously one of the most important metrics that we that we actually look at on a daily basis, how many those tokens are being pumped back into the hive ecosystem. So those tokens can be used to send tips to creators. You know, we all heard about Twitter introducing Bitcoin tipping to its platform. We've actually we've had you know peer to peer tipping in the social in our you have social media experience since our beta launch back in May. So that's very important that we you know that we look at how much of the users are actually paying attention to those tokens and then they're they're using them within the platform for tipping. Also, you can use you hive tokens to buy awards and badges and send them to to other users on the network. Also, you can use the UI tokens to purchase virtual land in our 4d Metaverse known as the oasis. Also, you can also buy profile names, we call them space names, which is very similar to obviously the domain market back in the late 90s, early 2000s, where, you know, obviously, domain registration was a huge business venture individuals. So we've actually taken that same idea and transferred it over to a social network.

Matt Zahab: 20:44

Now, now you have now you have ens, right? The East domains, those are blowing up.

Jay El-Anis: 20:49

Yeah. I mean, it's,

Matt Zahab: 20:50

it's crazy.

Jay El-Anis: 20:51

Yeah, it's opportunity. And we, you know, we saw that a couple of years ago. And we sort of, then we built it into into the new hive ecosystem. So you can use your tokens for for tipping for awards to buy virtual real estate, Allah decentraland. But actually, while decentraland is still quite speculative, at this point, we wait, you know, we have the waste this we should this point is, it's a waste is 1.01. A waste is 2.0, which are the 40 experiences coming in November. So you can actually buy up a virtual space in the waste is 1.0. At this point, and, and you can, you know, share your space location, with anybody who's on the you have network, they can discover your space within the oasis. And obviously, you can be part of a cluster of communities and a cluster of interests within within the beehive universe. So basically, like neighborhoods, central business districts, CBD for the different interests that we have. So the real estate aspect to virtual real estate aspects. So you have does actually have some kind of utility.

Matt Zahab: 22:00

Question, a quick question, Jason, my apologies for interrupting here for D space. Now, I've heard this a couple times before. And it's actually in my notion under a big list a list that is wait too long, called shit to read later. And I just pulled it up right here. And I'm, I'm paraphrasing Wikipedia, here. He four dimensional space is a mathematical extension of the concept of three dimensional or 3d space. What the heck does that mean? tell our listeners, what afforded these places

Jay El-Anis: 22:32

as a great question. I mean, in terms of our interpretation of it, it's just a, another level of immersion. And so while you can go around again, like, you know, fortnight or even like Roblox and experience that, that that 3d sort of visual dimension, with with 4d and with the waist is 2.0, we're taking that to another level where they're adding another level to it, you're not in terms of just the visual aspects, but in terms of what you can actually do within that 4d space. And that that 4d universe. So it's another dimension in terms of avatars, in terms of clusters, and discovering clusters and communities. So it's actually another a whole new layer. I mean, three, when people think of dimensions, they think of visualization, they think of visual aspects. But you know, it's in the sense of the Oasis, its adding another layer to the experience. So it's not visual, it's an immersive experience. The visuals are three dimensional, although the we use the Unity game engine to power the the Oasis 2.0. It's so fluid, you know, it feels like it's a level above 3d, especially when you use the VR headsets, and you actually explore the oasis with a VR headset. It's so incredibly immersive. You know, it goes beyond I think a lot of what a lot of people experience when it comes to 3d. But I'll sort of fourth dimension is that additional layer of interoperability that we that we, you know, we've added to the Oasis, which is, you know, you can, you can have an NF t as your avatar, and it can be explored in three dimensions, you can explore communities based on their location within the waist as well. So it's not about joining a group or searching for keywords or hashtags. You can actually, you know, port to those communities, without you hive. That waste is 2.0. So, yeah, it's that it's that extra layer, that that's our interpretation of 4d, because it goes so far beyond three dimensions in terms of just a visual representation. So you know, that's, that's what we basically call in our Oasis 2.0 is a 4d experience because it's, it's super immersive, and there's that extra layer of immersion that you can experience in Oasis 2.0

Matt Zahab: 24:54

It's crazy how many you know, world class organizations douse you name it are really understanding the importance of virtual land. And I actually got to give credit, I am sure he wasn't the first one to say this, but my apologies if I butcher his name, but Akash. And again, he's the CEO of genies. If you haven't checked them out definitely do this is just a free ad, no free ads on the crypto news pod, but we're giving them one, they're gonna be a multi multi billion dollar company. They're creating just world class beautiful, clean, sexy chic avatars that are going to be used in the metaverse. But I do want to take a quick little pivot and just talk about more broader crypto slash marketing subjects, because I know a lot of our listeners would love to learn a little bit more about this. I'll start with a cliche. What advice would you give to someone entering the crypto space? Who is in the marketing field, whether they're starting a company, whether they are a marketing director, analyst, you name it? What are sort of the cookie cutter piece of advice that you'd give them to make sure they're successful?

Jay El-Anis: 25:57

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the first things is the crypto space and the whole ecosystem is itself fluid at this point, you know, there's, there's no right or wrong, I think what will be one of the things that we learned, which I touched upon earlier is that, you know, making mistakes is part of the whole process. Crypto is changing, it's so fast. And so it's so fluid. You know, go with your gut in many instances as well. What you believe in and sort of what you can, the kind of messaging that you can produce and promote are going to basically create that that sort of market force behind your project. You know, there's, there's no right or wrong. And if you do, if you do go with some type of messaging, or if you do come up with some type of feature, or some kind of protocol built into your, your crypto project, that doesn't work, you know, don't, don't be disheartened pivot, the crypto space, again, it's so fluid, you can pivot so quickly. There's so many new features being developed and born every day. And FTS, are new to 2021 defy was 2020. You know, just to have it, have it have a belief in your project, and keep moving forward. We, you know, we focused on on certain aspects and new highs when we started building the app in 2018, that we just we completely ditched when we did we launched Beecher in May 2020. And then they kind of resurfaced, so we kind of added them back into the mix as well. It's such an exciting space to be in, and you can create trends as well, I think that's hugely important to to marketing in the crypto space is, is creating trends yourself as well. And if you have a solid user base or a solid platform, sort of launch those trends off, you know, go go with it, just just make it happen. It's a very vibrant space to be working in. We you know, there are some some crypto projects obviously have come before us huge, huge crypto projects, they've made their mistakes we can learn from them. And you know, in terms of your your circulating supply, burning, your partnerships, that sort of stuff. And, you know, do your research and learn from those guys, because there are some fundamentals to crypto that you do, you do need to abide by, you certainly can't ignore. But other than that, just make make your own rules. And if your project has has real utility and real sort of you know, use case behind it, you can make it work

Matt Zahab: 28:34

on the crypto news pod we love hot takes our listeners love it too. We thought of renaming the pod to the hot take factory. Still haven't got the green light from our team. From an SEO perspective, there's also a bunch of accounts that already have the hot take factory locked and loaded. So probably won't be able to do that. But then again, six months of SEO grunt work, and we can usually move some mountains if you do it. Right. But with that being said, I need one crazy hot take from J just going to be on the front page of The New York Times.

Jay El-Anis: 29:03

Yeah, I you know, great question, Matt. I think, you know, one of the best sort of, you know, things we can call heartache at this point is Facebook, watch your back where we're hot on your heels. I mean, this this is this is the time this there is a revolution, if you will, in the in the there's a social media, sort of space and and we okay, we're not saying Facebook stays in a number so to speak. But but we you know, we are giving users what they want you hive is giving users what they want. Facebook is doing the absolute opposite. And there is an opening for a social network, like you have to come in and sort of take that that that crown away from a month on Facebook, although we don't actually want Facebook's crown because we don't want to be akin to what you know what they've been doing. We want to do something completely different. But you know, yeah, definitely. What's your back Facebook?

Matt Zahab: 30:01

So what's your take? I got to ask you this this just seems like a perfect you know, you teed me up here you me and I still unobstructed layup to to a beautiful nice net. What's your take on Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook planning on pivoting their whole business model to a Metaverse company? Quote unquote.

Jay El-Anis: 30:18

Yeah. I mean, I, when when you know when I first heard that, you know, first of all, I had a bit of a chuckle because we actually, we worked Metaverse and into our pitch deck, way back in 2020. When we first launched beta, and we were seeking seed investment, and myself at the CEO, Mo, we actually had a conversation about it was like, you know, not enough people know what the better versus it's going to be. It's going to be worth it's going to throw them and so we removed it from our deck. And then when Mark Zuckerberg mentioned, obviously this year, we were like, Okay, let's put it back. Because enough people are going to hear about it now. It's going to be the hottest buzzword and we need to we need people to see that sort of association with you hype, because that's what we embodied from from day one becoming the world's first social metaverse. And so we did we started using it in our sort of, you know, promotional stuff, you know, whether it's our posts on social media, whether it's our, you know, our shout outs to our telegram communities and our users. We actually have a new hive space on new hive, which is everybody follows by default, it's a great way to it's basically on my own mouthpiece when it comes to our user base. And so a lot of posts that we put on there, we talk about the metaverse, we talk about what we're doing in that space. And to be honest, when I first heard it, and my first reaction was was sort of, you know, had a bit of a chuckle about it. Because you know the story though the sort of the anecdote I just mentioned myself talking about using that pitch deck, but then that it was kind of I was, you know, Dread I was filled with dread, to be honest, because the idea of Facebook, do you know, building something like a Metaverse and having that that type of control over so many different platforms, rather than just a social media platform? You know, any, any Metaverse that kind of is going to be successful. It's got to, I've mentioned before the insert operability has to be there. So it's got to be able to work outside of its its, you know, it's safety zone, which which for Facebook has been a social network is it's got a it's got a transit that's got to go to commerce, it's got to go to cryptocurrency got to go to financial markets, economists, the idea of Facebook, having this sort of centralized control was was it was yeah, it would try it, it was very sinister to me. And it just kind of, you know, made us just champion our cause more and being sort of this this, this decentralized, autonomous organization, you know, that, that will be one of the biggest meta verses in the world, which you know, which is you.

Matt Zahab: 33:01

So, and again, I'm rooting for you guys. 100%, you have millions of people who are rooting for you, if you do take over Facebook, and J is worth called 100 billion, what's the first thing you're going to buy? If you got $100 billion check or you know, your UI of coin moons? like there's no tomorrow? And as we go to the unipolar Bezos and buy like 250 million or billion million dollar yacht, like, what are you going to do?

Jay El-Anis: 33:27

Oh, no, no, way, way, way more humble than that might actually range rover launched their new 2022 model last night, and I watched the unveiling. And so you know, that that will be my splurge. Definitely not a $200 million. Yacht. And I think I think one thing that I want, obviously, the listeners to, to really understand, and definitely anybody who's involved in the UI project, whether it be as a user or a member of our team, or even in the future is that, you know, that that's, that's basically never going to happen, because the way you hive is, is built and structured. You know, it's not, it's not centralized, it's not built with, with shareholders. in mind, it's built with a user in mind. So we, you know, we do return so much of the revenue that we currently generate, and we, we, you know, we will generate in the in the future to the user base. So, you know, that kind of pay day is just is unfathomable for sort of, you know, any of the any of the founders and if the any VCs that get that get involved, which I might be shooting myself in the foot here because that's definitely not something a VC wants to hear. But but, you know, it's, it's, it's a user centric, net, social network, and in terms of user experience, and moderation, revenue, earnings, everything, but I still want that range over though.

Matt Zahab: 34:51

100 per day I feel Yeah, if I ever had that kind of money, like some real a few money. I'd buy a sports team or a couple. I'd love to have a I mean, it is a brilliant idea as well. Yeah. Like I'd love to have in North America it'd be great to have a hockey team probably wouldn't want a baseball team but ice hockey, American football and basketball and then

Jay El-Anis: 35:13

well there's there's the UK UK football club. I think Ryan Ryan Reynolds both about to say so you can get some some bargain basement football sports teams if you

Matt Zahab: 35:26

if we were really kicking like that. I want to pull like the big food that the Saudi Arabian oil guys were buying. What not? Is it Everton?

Jay El-Anis: 35:40

I'm not sure I think Chelsea Manning might be Chelsea. I'm not sure I'm not I'm not a big football fan. I know, my, my fellow Brits are gonna sort of for that, but no, no, not not big on football. So more focused on, you know, actually, NBA basketball is my thing. Houston's use of rockets goes back to the 1990s was

Matt Zahab: 36:08

great. Back then were

Jay El-Anis: 36:10

very loyal to that.

Matt Zahab: 36:12

Back then to add, I know, Houston's hurt, and for the next couple of years, you got wood. That's about it. But, Jay, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. Before we wrap up any questions for me?

Jay El-Anis: 36:21

I you know, I think, you know, in terms of what crypto news are doing. We you're actually you know, one of our favorite publishers. We you know, we love the type of content that you cover. We love the projects that you cover, and it's very, you know, unbiased approach. And, you know, what's what a crypto news as plans for the future? Are you going to to expand your your your podcast footprint? Are you going to? Are you going to get into crypto? You know, rather than publishers but as creators as well?

Matt Zahab: 36:55

That's a great question. Yes, we are going to hammer away on the crater economy. In today's day and age, it's all about tension. And you are either a media company or you pay for media. A great example that I always use when I get asked this question is a16z very well known and probably the biggest VC firm in the world that has just probably the largest outreach to in regards to software and crypto and any tech for that matter. But what have they done they're literally creating a media company when you go on their website, they almost promote their blog and media arm before the VC arm themselves. And why is that? Well, the larger their outreach is, the more deal flow they'll get the more deal flow they'll get, the more darts they get the fire at the board, and the larger the board the bigger their overall market it so it all makes sense. And just using that point, we're gonna we have some really, really cool stuff on the back burner right now not even backburner on the burner that's cooking up. We have some great content creators whether it's tick tock and stuff, YouTube, you name it, but right now our bread and butter is written content and we are going to be really really broadening and widening our approach to include a lot of a lot more audio, a lot more video and some witty, smaller bite sized content because people's attentions are diminishing day by day. And again you need to create some like you hive where it's just bite sized boom in your face instead of 45 minute podcasts like this, but I know I rambled on there, but that's my answer for you,

Jay El-Anis: 38:22

man it's brilliant. It's great to hear as well MATT

Matt Zahab: 38:24

Yeah, but Jay You're the man appreciate you coming on before we let you go can you just tell our listeners where they can find you? I'm to my knowledge you're a bit of a ghost on social but I know you have is all over the place. So where can our listeners find you and you have online?

Jay El-Anis: 38:36

Yeah, I'm actually I'm on new hive. So obviously my my most prolific profile obviously is that is our new hive itself. But obviously you hive are available in the App Store. We're available in the Play Store. We are our token is traded on the token and probates we do have a very unique feature to our app as well where you can actually purchase our social token from the app itself as well. You can use PayPal Bitcoin, eth, you can also use Google Pay and Apple Apple store as well to buy our tokens through the app, which is a phenomenal access point for for individuals to get into crypto that don't just want to utilize the earned or free tokens. And yeah, we're we're we're on telegram we've got a discord that we just started as well we're working on I don't know if Matt if you can include any of the links on your podcast page

Matt Zahab: 39:27

100 percent

Jay El-Anis: 39:27

but definitely we're you know, we're basically where we should be is where we are and and we can be found on on multiple platforms and multiple access points into the app as well.

Matt Zahab: 39:35

Awesome, Jay. Thanks again for coming on. Man. I really appreciate it and wish you all the best.

Jay El-Anis: 39:40

Thanks so much. It's been absolute pleasure, love crypto news.

Matt Zahab: 39:42

appreciate the kind words folks what a great episode with Jay from you hive, they're making waves in the space. If you are a social media fan and I guarantee our 2021 Everyone is go check them out. You won't regret it and you will learn a lot as well. decentralize ation. Maybe I just made that word up but that is definitely The future go check that out. Hope you enjoyed this episode if you did, please do subscribe it would mean the world to the team and I a big shout out to Eustace my amazing sound editor and the rest of our team couldn't do without you guys to the listeners love you all appreciate you all keep growing those bags stay safe get those gains whether it's financial, spiritual, you know body gains, growing those muscles, whatever you whatever you got to do make it happen, but I love y'all appreciate y'all and bye for now. Speak soon.