Suresh and Lars chat with Ray Chan CEO 9GAG

In this episode of the Web3 Marketing Association Podcast, hosts Lars and Suresh sit down with Ray Chan, CEO and co-founder of 9GAG and MemeLand. Known for his sharp wit and bold vision, Ray shares the story of building one of the internet’s most iconic meme platforms and why he’s now leading its transition into Web3.

Ray reflects on his personal journey—from law school to TV anchoring, to launching 9GAG with friends during the early days of Web 2.0. He explains how community has always been at the heart of 9GAG, making the shift to Web3 a natural progression. With MemeLand, Ray is experimenting with NFTs and decentralised ownership, giving power back to communities while reinventing the brand for the future.

The conversation covers the challenges of building in Web3: managing fast-changing communities, sustaining engagement beyond hype cycles, balancing trust with delivery, and staying true to long-term vision in a volatile space. Ray stresses the importance of being “community-informed but not community-driven,” likening leadership in Web3 to running a mini public company with thousands of vocal shareholders.

For marketers, Ray offers clear advice: Web3 is not just a marketing stunt or a cash grab. True value lies in creating genuine utility, rewarding loyalty, and treating community members as stakeholders rather than consumers. He encourages CMOs to learn directly from operators who have successfully launched projects and to think beyond gimmicks to long-term value creation.

This episode is packed with practical insights on community-building, brand reinvention, and the evolving relationship between businesses and their audiences in the Web3 era.

Transcript

Speaker 05: 0:00

There's so much to say about Ray Chan, the CEO and co-founder of 9GAG. He is a rebel, a visionary, occasionally profane, always on point. And today on What the Web 3, Lars and Suresh will chat through the visions Ray has to make the world a happier place.

Speaker 04: 0:21

From the studios of NMD+, comes the Web 3 Marketing Association podcast. Latest thinking at the very cutting edge of marketing. We aim to bring you insightful and interesting discussion about Web3 and the metaverse and other emerging digital trends.

Speaker 05: 0:44

Dave is away this week. Here are your hosts,

Lars: 0:46

Lars and Suresh. Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome to What The Web 3, another episode in the podcast series we've been doing under Web3 Marketing Association. Today, I'm really excited to be joined by both Ray as well as Suresh, who will introduce themselves shortly. But we have a lot of exciting topics to cover. Let's just jump straight into it. Good morning. Ray, would you mind introducing yourself to the people that don't know who you are yet?

Ray: 1:18

I'm Ray. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Wow. Well, firstly, Ray, thank

Suresh: 1:42

you for joining us. For our listeners, all of us are in Hong Kong and it's a beautiful morning outside here. It's winter morning, but it's beautiful and sunny. I don't know, our listeners are usually I'm guessing they're all under negative temperature except for the folks in the West Coast or maybe Southwest. My name is Suresh. Most of you on the podcast know me. I'm the founder of Web3 Marketing Association. I'm the CMO of a global consumer bank and I do various other things. I'm so happy to have Ray here today because, you know, the Web3 industry as Ray and we were chatting about in Hong Kong is quite small, but it is a leading edge of the Hong Kong businesses because I think Hong Kong is reinventing itself and on entrepreneurs like Ray are at the heart of the reinvention of Hong Kong and putting Hong Kong on the map, right? So, so proud of MemeLand, so proud of 9GAG. So, Ray, such a pleasure to have you here today. Yeah, thank you.

Lars: 2:32

Yeah, so obviously you've created an incredible ecosystem over the previous year. And something that we've been really keen to hear about a little bit more is that conversation around a transition from Web 2 to Web 3. What sparked that? You know, what sparked that interest? Could you tell us a little bit more about your thoughts?

Ray: 2:53

Yeah, sure. We have to take one step back to look at what's the difference between Web2 and Web3, right? I mean, just like the definition of Web2, there's no definition of Web3 as well. But I think the biggest difference is the ownership part. Yeah, it's in the past, ownership mainly belongs to the platform or belong to the company, right? But right now in Web3, assuming there's a non-fungible token or fungible tokens, right? Basically, it's kind of like a certain kind of ownership. They have to kind of like distributed to the holders. Yeah. So power to the people is basically, it sums up the whole Web3 definition. So before we decide whether we want to jump into Web2 or from Web2 to Web3, we have to think about, hey, whether we are willing to give up part of the power to the community, to the holders. I think that would be the first questions to consider before we make any decision to get into Web3. I think it's easy for NightGate. It's easy for MemeLand. NightGate is always a very community-heavy business. Yeah. But in the past, I think we started the company like 14 years ago. There was no Web3. There was no Bitcoin and blockchain and stuff like that. That's why it's almost impossible to do so. Yeah. But right now, blockchain tech is getting more mature and there are more successful examples for us to learn from. That's why we've decided that, oh, this is a good time for us to make some change, to reinvent Nygat, to reinvent our brand.

Suresh: 4:14

Amazing. Let's dial back even further, Bray. I want our listeners inspired by your own journey Lars and I call it the hero's journey. So tell us about your own journey, about how you got here. How did 9GAG come about? How did it become this platform for memes? Then your own personal story a little bit for us to be inspired.

Ray: 4:34

Yeah, sure. I wouldn't say inspired. It's more like just personal sharing. I'm born and raised in Hong Kong. I was a pretty good student until getting into university. I spent too much time doing extracurricular activities. So my academic sucks at university. Yeah. I studied law in Hong Kong. I studied law in the University of Hong Kong. But I didn't become a lawyer because my results were so bad. Yeah. Then after graduation, oh, there's no chance for me to become a lawyer. So I joined a local TV station to become an anchor and reporter. And then I worked there for about a year. And then I thought, okay, this is not the type of job that I want to do for life. I mean, it's good. Yeah. Because you keep updated with the news. You have a lot of handsome and pretty colleagues and stuff like that. But somehow, I just feel like this is too boring. That's why I joined an internet company one year later after working at a TV station. I think this is an eye-opening experience for me because on one hand, joining an internet company at the time, that was like the start of so-called Web 2.0. The biggest difference is in the past, in most of the industry, there are a lot of rules and regulations and stuff like that. And basically, you have to work within a framework. But as an internet company, basically, you are trying to to innovate. You're trying to break through the wall, open the doors and stuff like that. I think that is very exciting for me because, oh, as long as you can solve a problem, that creates an opportunity. I think that part fascinates me. On the other hand is my boss was so young at the time. He was like a few years older than me. So at the time when he started his company, he's like 26, 28 or something like that. And then I thought, hey, he is so young. I think he's smart, but I'm not that dumb, right? That's why if he could start a company, why couldn't I? That's why in my leisure time, I found my friends and also my younger brother to start working on some projects. And NightGap was one of the projects. Yeah. I still work at that internet company for three to four years full-time, but I only work on NightGap in our leisure time. Yeah. And until 2011, we thought, okay, maybe it's time for us to go all in. That's why myself quit the job. And also some of my co-founders also quit their job. And then we started to work on NightGap full-time. And then we applied for some accelerators in the US. We joined 500 startups and then raised around run of Siphon Deng. And we joined Y Combinator as well. Yeah. And after that, we just stayed in Hong Kong and then continued to build. And then a decade passed and then we are still working on the same stuff. Yeah. It's a good journey. Yeah. Amazing. Why is it called 9GAG? Oh, it is a Cantonese slang. It sounds like gao gag. That means making jokes, cracking a joke. Yeah. That shows how local we were when we started the company. Even the name was so local. Right. But there was some funny story behind the name because in Germany. Nein means no, right? And then the get, yeah, it's like get is get. So basically because of the name, we got pretty popular in Germany, yeah, in the beginning. And also on SEO right now, if you go to Google, right, when you type Nein, basically it auto-suggests and I get to you. So this is some kind of happy accident for us, yeah.

Suresh: 7:38

Amazing. So tell us about at what point did the penny drop for you saying 9GAG has to transition to Web3 because lots of publications, media, internet companies they have still not figured out that Web3 needs to be part of their journey. When did that happen? What triggered you? What inspired you to say, you know, as a founder, it's a big risk going from left to right. Given where Memeland is going, clearly you're not just pivoted, but you're pivoted very successfully. So can you tell us what's the moment that the penny dropped?

Ray: 8:10

I would say that there are two main factors. Yeah. Number one is we've been working on Nygad, which is a so-called Web 2.0 company for more than a decade. We We see all the pros and cons, ups and downs of the social media. When we first started, people were not even using Facebook. Right now, people actually don't use Facebook that much. So we see that the whole industry has changed. And we see that, OK, the advertising budget, the marketing budget is also shifted to different platforms and shifted to the individuals and stuff like that. If we don't reinvent ourselves, basically, we will get obsolete. That's one of the main reasons why we figure out what we have to change. Number two is, I would say, when Facebook would name itself as Meta, right? And we thought that, okay, Mark Zuckerberg, probably the smartest tech guy in the world, right? If he decided that Facebook has to change into Web3, there's no way that this is not the trend, right? Because they got the most data, right? And they probably understand, hey, what the market is shifting into. If they go all in to Web3 so much that they even change the company name, maybe we should look into Web3, right? So these are the two main factors.

Lars: 9:19

I think what What was really interesting, what I hear often in some of your AMAs is that prior to actually really giving this a go, you were really proactive in various communities. How important was that involvement for you in regards to really talking to Web3 natives? And were there a couple of perceptions that you had that drastically changed through building those relationships?

Ray: 9:44

Oh, totally. As mentioned in the beginning, right, there is no actual definition of Web3. I think a lot of people on crypto Twitter, right? They call themselves OG or Web3 native, right? I call bullshit on that, right? Unless you are Satoshi, right? You are not really OG, right? It only takes like some time for you to learn the basics, right? Because this is really early. It's just the beginning, right? And at the time I thought, okay, how is it different from the so-called Web2 and Web3, right? Maybe I should just dive in instead of just reading blogs or just talking to random people, right? Because everyone has different definition of why you should go into web3 so the easiest way for me is okay let's buy some nft and try to learn by doing right so i asked some friends and then they recommend some nfts and then i just bought in right actually one year anniversary for me for my first nft two days ago i bought my first nft which is i bought a super expensive right and then at that time i thought okay as long as i bought the most expensive nft i'm a cool guy right turns out no one gives a fuck yeah because most people Most people don't really care about NFT, right? And they have a lot of misunderstanding about NFT and Web3 in general. Yeah. So after buying that, I started to know that, okay, maybe I have to actually go deeper into different communities to actually talk to all the people. I think that opens my eyes and also my mind in that sense, because only after you dive into different communities, you understand, hey, what are the things that they do right? What are the things that they do wrong or not wrong, but more like they need to improve. And also that helps us to shape the vision of what we want to build with MemeLand.

Suresh: 11:27

Amazing. So tell us from the learnings, what are the things that, you know, you're going to do and not do with your MemeLand community?

Ray: 11:35

Sure. Different projects, different NFT or Web3 projects, right? They have different purposes. But most of the time, it's all about, okay, we share a vision. We try to attract people to buy into our vision, right? And most of the time, NFT... Or at least Web3 somehow has a crowdfunding purpose in it, right? And a lot of the teams, they just started the company and leveraged the NFT tech to build their projects. Yeah. So most of the time they pitch the vision, right? They usually very good at marketing because they are kind of like native. And to be honest, I think people who actually understand the tech, the opportunity is usually either the tech guy, right? Or the marketing guy, right? Yeah. Because the tech guy, they work on it. They know how fascinating the tech is, right? A marketing guy, they know that, hey, this is a way to make money. That's why they're also fascinated by it. But the problem is, after going into different communities, let's talk about the good thing. The good thing is people are really active in Discord, in Telegram. And they are so excited about what the community is trying to build, what the team is trying to build. And they will share their thoughts. That makes the whole building very fun because it's kind of like you co-build your product. You co-build your roadmap, your mission, right? with your community. The bad thing is maybe because a lot of teams are, I would say, it's more about whether they are mature enough. So you get like 10 million, right? By only selling some JPEGs, yeah. And you never have any experience in managing a team, building a product, right? Delivering your promise and stuff like that. A lot of the teams actually don't work that hard, right? Or their communication kind of like stops after the means, right? And that's the things that I thought, okay, Maybe there are some, I would say, unfair advantage as a more experienced entrepreneur that can bring into Web3. Because on one hand, we know that, okay, this is actually business, right? Because people actually give money to you, although it's not actually fiat money, right? But somehow it's reasonable for them to have high expectation. And how you can do that? On one hand, you have to control your own pace to tell them, okay, we actually will deliver, right? But how do you build a trust? Because most of the NFT projects, they're very news-driven. Okay, we will launch the next collection. And that's how you started to get more attention into your project. And only by that time, the team will start to do more communication. And that kind of sucks because it makes the whole cycle very news-driven in a way that people will just dump your project or your next drop. So these are the things that we try not to do. For example, we set up very regular communication, right? And I myself personally, Try to appear on Discord, appear on Twitter, right? At least once a day so that people know that we are here. We are around to answer the questions, right? And those are the things that we think is necessary, right? If you really embrace Web3 and not just use Web3 as a way to make money. There are many ways to make money. Using Web3 to make money is actually very, very hard work. But the thing is why we still want to do it because we believe that this is a new future for business because it opens a new dimension mentioned for a lot of our businesses. Yeah.

Lars: 14:53

I think, Ray, what is really interesting is that you've managed to build a community feel within a Web2 environment, and then you transition that same community vibe into a Web3 space. Now, the one thing I'm interested in understanding is how do you sustain that feeling, right? Because often than not, NFTs are often referred to as attention token, and I think the vast majority of participants in the space, at least through the bull market, have been inspired by Lambo money, right? Like Wen Moon. So in a bear market, what is keeping these community members together and how do you sustain excitement? False hope. Yeah.

Ray: 15:38

It's what keeps people active, right? False hope. Maybe not false, yeah. Hope, yeah. It's what keeps people active, right? That explains why a lot of projects were doing very well when it's still the Because when it's in the bull market, I mean, people, at least on paper, their portfolio goes up in value. That's why they're willing to spend more money. It's kind of like advertising. It's kind of like marketing, right? So I think a lot of the NFT projects, right? They kind of like a marketing project. When the market is good, everything is good. The real challenges appear when the bear market comes. Yeah. And that is a good test for the team, especially on how they manage their fund, right? How they continue to build when the morale is bad, right? But to me, we've been building in tech industry for almost like 1.5 decade. And we see at least one to two ups and downs cycle. So somehow to us, it's pretty normal. I think especially the business that we are in is always community heavy. I would say 90% of our job in Nygat is the same for us in Mimland. Only the 10% of the speed is much, much faster because people actually pay for the NFT, right? That's why they demand more. And because there is Discord and other tools, so they actually talk to you every single day, right? And they keep asking you, hey, when do you deliver your next product and future and stuff like that, right? That is the extra 10% that we have to learn and also work really hard from. But at the end of the day, I think we have to kind of like control the pace. We tell people why and what we are building, right? Once they have the trust, then you can actually take the time to build, right? And I think the division of labor is also in important. You can't have all the team members going to Discord every single day to just keep chatting, right? Because chatting is not really working, right? You can only have a few guys to keep talking all day, but you have to have a team of people actually building behind the scene. Because we are already a team, that's why it's easier for us to do that. Yeah. And I'm very grateful to have good teammates to help us to build, yeah, instead of just going to Discord to have some empty talks.

Suresh: 17:45

Yeah. Amazing. And I want to ask a connected question, which is, Similar to people, I think community members are also crucial. In this case, you have no control of your community, right? Because your NFTs are now available in the open market, on OpenSea, other platforms, wherever else, and someone's going to sort of sell it because they want to cash in. And suddenly you have a new community member who probably originally did not buy into the community vision, but they bought it because they want to make a quick buck or they bought it because they think the PFP is interesting. or the JPEG is interesting and they come in, they may not have the same ethos of the founding team or they may not have the ethos of the first mentors. How do you manage different people suddenly popping in and out of the community? So the community is changing shape all the time and you've got to keep them all aligned all the time. How do you do that? It feels like a lot of hard work. This is a billion

Ray: 18:40

dollar question,

Suresh: 18:40

right?

Ray: 18:41

I think this is no difference in building a company or building a client base or building any organization, right? There are always new joiners. There are always older members, right? And there is always some tension between the new and old guys, right? Just like a society, just like a country. It's always like that, right? I think as a leader in that organization, what we have to do is tell them, hey, although we join at different times, right? But our mission is the same, right? We want to do this thing, right? You join us different time, pay different prices. But if you believe in us right now, this is the way that we want to do. Yeah, that's why at Memeland, we always promote the concept of loyalty trust and patience right because those are the things lacking the most in web3 right we tell them that okay of course after the means maybe you can get 5x 3x right but that's not all right we actually want to build something solid something big right that's why please be patient only by setting up the right expectation you can actually use the same language to communicate with them right because if someone just want to make a few quick bucks no matter what you say right they won't listen to you right it's kind of like building up the the culture of the organization only by doing it every single day, only by showing up every single day and talk about the same shit every single day. Only by then you started to, I would say, make people listen to you. I think that's number one. Number two is you also have to understand why they buy your NFT or get into your ecosystem. So we also have to launch some features or launch some practice that also fulfill some of their needs so that they know that okay you actually listen you actually care right but the key is we have to be community informed but not community driven right because this is actually a business right i never see any business that works when it's just like a hundred percent democracy right yes somehow the leader the team they have to design the direction and then tell people that okay this is the way that we want to go if you want to jump on board let's go together right let's fucking go But if they want something else, they are welcome to leave anytime. I mean, the good thing about NFT is supposedly you can sell anytime. Of course, whether it's illiquid or not, that's another question. But supposedly, as long as you undercut the floor, then you can sell it immediately. So those are the things that we try to, on one hand, educate our team. On the other hand, also educate our community.

Suresh: 21:12

Wow, that is very profound. Community-informed versus community-driven. It could be chaos and anarchy if you had to listen to it. everyone in the community.

Ray: 21:20

It's kind of like, you are kind of like running a mini public company,

Suresh: 21:24

right?

Ray: 21:24

And you have like 10,000 shareholders. Yeah. And everyone wants the same thing and everyone can talk to the CEO and everyone thinks that they are like the biggest stakeholder, right? In the community. And just like any bank, right? They will have the direction. They are solving a problem that they want to solve instead of just saying, oh, one shareholders want to, maybe let's do virtual bank, maybe let's do virtual land and stuff like that, right? The management would not just listen to any shareholder, no matter how powerful they are. So those are the things that it's almost like running a mini public company, right? And I understand why a lot of new entrepreneurs, they kind of like get lost in that. It's because, okay, if you don't listen to them, they fuck you up and down, right? They will just say, oh, I will leave your, sell all your NFT, right? I mean, it's kind of like you can't really keep your house in control. Of course, you can't build very effectively.

Lars: 22:16

So it's kind of like expect organized care. And to some degree, you need to always look into evolving with the community by listening to them. I feel like there's so many layers of consideration because arguably with the space changing quite a bit as well, there's conversations about royalties obviously falling away. I'm in quite a number of different discords and I think a lot of the conversations are revolving around, okay, how do we actually start evolving into quote unquote real world utility, right? And then On top of that, you have the rules and regulatory evolution that is currently happening. So, I mean, how do you just try to make decisions in an environment where practically everything in your surrounding is constantly changing?

Ray: 23:03

I think change is the one thing that doesn't change, right? Yeah. And also, as Jeff Bezos said, right, focus on things that don't change. I mean, it sounds contradictory. It's also true, right? I mean, the thinking is, what are the things that won't change in five years or 10 years, right? Focus on that. And that would be the permanent competitive edge for your team, for your community, for your organization, right? I mean, whether it's Web2, Web3, or even Web1, it's the same, right? So what we try to do is we focus on that. Yeah, but I think that the difference in Web3 is you actually still have to deliver some small benefits, right, to the holders from time to time so that they know that you care about their pocket, you care about their portfolio, right? So I think that part is also the challenging part. Even for MemeLab, We have a collection, which is a free meal called Potatoes, right? We do weekly prize draws every single week so that everyone have something to look forward to every week so that they will talk about it, whether they lost or win, right? They still talk about it. And then they feel like, okay, you give away so much value. That's why they feel that this community is good, right? Because they don't just try to take. Instead, they want to give as well. Because I think one of the challenges for a legit brand, a Web2 brand to go into Web3 is people always assume that you're trying to extract value from the Web3 community right I think how can we kind of like solve that it's not by okay I get a CMO to talk about how much value that we would give it's not like that it's actually you have to keep giving right and also tell them that okay we are here to build we bring into our experience we bring into our brand value right instead of just okay we try to take 10,000 ETH from Web3 it's not like that right I mean only by then you can show people that you can let your work speak for you. Yeah, I think that's the only way and that's the way that we do. But to be honest, I think even for royalty discussion and the pricing and stuff like that, it's always sensitive. People, I mean, DJs, right? They always want free stuff just like normal people, right? Free stuff, but expect your free stuff can give so much value to me, right? This is impossible. And somehow you have to set the expectation and by pricing your royalty, by pricing your mean price, you're actually selecting your customer as well. I think just like a bank, right? Private bank, they have certain requirements. And somehow by having that requirement, you're already picking the customers. And your customers is the customers that you want. It actually helps your company to build faster and better. It also keeps your customers happier because they feel like, okay, I'm in this collection. That's why I'm taken care of, right? I'm a private banker, a banking client. That's why I deserve good service. And the bank is also willing to give better service because they also get better value from their customers as well. well so I think those are the things that we have to start to segment the customers and somehow expect there will be a certain change when your collection price also changes right for example like potatoes when it's free mean people will just sell when there's only 0.1 0.2 ETH profit right but after it goes a higher price for example like our captain's mean the mean price is 1 ETH 1.069 ETH basically people don't really sell that quickly right because they expect a certain percentage of return I think only by doing that you started to form a more solid community base. And that's the moment that you can actually start to build out your vision. Yeah.

Suresh: 26:26

Amazing. And we are nearly running out of time. Maybe we'll ask you one or two more questions, Ray. So thank you for giving us your wisdom. I think some of the things that you've said is just gold dust for us and for our listeners who are trying to think through this. One of the reasons why we were really keen on speaking with you was because we think that the future of marketing is going to be hugely intertwined with the future of Web3 because Because community building at scale is something that marketers need to understand, CMOs need to understand, and partnering with Web3 brands or creating their own Web3 studios, creating their own way to think through how do they bring value to their customer base. And in some sense, I love the fact that you compared how private banks work or the thresholds, how equity shareholding works. And some of these are fundamental principles of business that hasn't irrespective of whether Web3 or not Web3, right? It's a cut through from Web0 to Web1 to Web2 to Web3. The constant that you spoke about, which is super inspiring and it's great to know that Web3 is not just about crypto bros and degens and crazy stuff, right? It's about real people doing real business, bringing real value and in some ways, bringing community to support each other, bringing network effects to support each other and all of that stuff. We have time for a couple more questions. The question that we always ask in our Web3 Marketing Association podcast is what is your advice to CMOs looking at this from a distance? Some of them have been able to take the leap. We have seen the likes of, you know, Nike and Gucci and some of the car brands and all jumping in. But to your point, it's still maybe 20 or 30 big brands, right? There is still hundreds and hundreds of brands who are still sitting on the fence and thinking, is this a Ponzi scheme? Is Web3 real? Is crypto going to explode? Is regulation going to come in? And they're all sitting in waiting and watching. What is your advice to CMOs who are sitting on the fence and thinking, should we or should we not?

Ray: 28:25

As you mentioned, I think the biggest advantage is to build community at scale. Why we can do that is because this time, community is not just something that you extract value from. You actually have to give. And when you help people make money, when you bring value to people, people will be able to help you to become your ambassadors, your marketer. Just like, for example, For example, Facebook. If you use Facebook, you are a user. And if you buy Facebook stock, you are shareholders. And when you are the shareholders, you are willing to talk more good things about Facebook, even though Facebook sells your data. Because you still own something, earn something. I think for Web3, actually, we turned the relationship into a more healthy one. Because from the get-go, we tell you that you are part of our stakeholders. So that's also one of the reasons why a lot of the NFT holders, they are willing to share share a lot of their experience. They want to help the brand to build because they actually feel like, okay, this is like the early days, like an angel investor, right? So I'm willing to help the company to grow. I think that part is actually very important because to be honest, even there is a very big blue chip brand and stuff, there will always be some new competitors in town, new innovations in town, right? Of course, they can buy out kind of like Nike buying artifact, right? You can do so, right? But most of the time, it's easier to kind of like share a part of your return to keep your existing customer, to make them happy, right? And they are willing to help you innovate already. You don't really have to buy actual new brands, spend millions of dollars to buy, right? Just use your marketing money, right? To give to the people. Basically, they are willing to do better work for you. At the end of the day, the most effective marketing is always word of mouth, right? Like Seth Gordon said, right? It's the word of mouth, right? It's like the purple cow and stuff like that, right? But I think when the brands understand it's not just brand building, right? It's actually community building Then they're willing to jump into it because that is probably the highest ROI on every marketing dollar that they spend, right? But I would say there are a few things that I would suggest a CMO to look into. Number one, don't just go to any random so-called consulting firms that they say that, oh, they launched some NFT project. Oh, because I own a CryptoPunk, that's why you believe that I'm an OG, right? It's not like that, right? Because even CryptoPunk is so outdated that the way that they do marketing right it's totally different right basically right now they're like artwork right you can't just ask a so-called art collector to launch a new business for you right because the thing that CryptoPunk did was totally so different right from what the NFT is doing right now right there are community and tokens and all kinds of utility with the new NFTs today right but in the past like CryptoKitties or CryptoPunk or even BoughtApe right they didn't have all kind of utilities back then right so talk to some people who actually launch successful projects, right? Not two years ago, but maybe like one month ago, right? Two months ago. Then they will probably give you the most updated information about what you should do or should not do, right? When you launch your own project, right? And that's also one of the reason why we think that NFT leaves a bad taste in most people's mouth is because a lot of brands, to be honest, they see Web3 as just a marketing. So for example, like some big car brands, right? They launch an NFT that no one really cares, right? Oh, Insoft. owning a Porsche NFT, maybe I should just buy a Porsche, right? Yeah, unless your Porsche NFT gives me some free access to a free Porsche, right? So those are the things that the brands, they have to think about what are the actual values they want to give to the holders, right? You can't just give them a JPEG. They want more these days, right? So talk to actual operators and entrepreneurs in the space before you start your own thinking. And most of the time, it's pretty straightforward, right? Just hire someone who actually buys a NFT, right? They will probably tell you more about what you should not do, right? So there are two ways, right? Number one, you hire people, ask them to show you your OpenCPO portfolio, right? If you don't have like a hundred valuable NFTs, don't hire that guy as your Web3 lead, right? Yeah. Another thing is work with some agencies that actually launched successful projects before. For example, like Starbucks, right? They work with Forum3. Yeah, Forum3, they have a related business called DGEN Network, right? Basically, they do podcasts and stuff they kind of like understand the pulse of the market right yeah so i think those are the things that help that's also one of the reasons why after launching meme land right we're also starting our consulting firm it's not just about making money right from the brands it's more about teaching the brands the way to do web3 and nft so that it embarks more people into web3 right because to be honest i don't think a mass adoption will happen until the existing brands they join in right starbucks is a good start right but we We need more big brands to actually embrace the Web3 here.

Suresh: 33:22

Amazing. Lars, any other questions from you?

Lars: 33:25

A lot of food for thought at this component. I think we covered a significant amount of different considerations. I think there's always going to be more questions as the space evolves further. But for the time being, I think this was a phenomenal lesson. Thank you so much for your time.

Suresh: 33:40

Thank you, Ray. Best of luck with everything with 9GAG. We are big fans and big followers. If Web3 Marketing Association can help in any way. Give us a shout. We would love to continue the conversation.

Ray: 33:52

Yeah, sure. It's always our pleasure.