Everything is a Game
Loyalty is dead. Drip Rewards is rewriting the rules. This podcast dives into how to breath new life into your business through building a diehard community, including insights from experts who’ve cracked the code on keeping communities buzzing. Tune in to discover the strategies that turn your business and brand into the ultimate hangout—where everyone wants to be and stay.
Everything is a Game
Ep. 2 - Building a Strong Community, Carlo from Bearish
Building a Strong Community in Web3: Insights from Bearish's Carlo Garcia
This episode of 'Everything is a Game', sponsored by Drip Rewards, features a comprehensive discussion on community building in the Web3 space. Hosted by Phil from Drip, with guests Mike, head of partnerships at Drip, and Carlo Garcia, COO at Bearish, the conversation delves into Carlo's journey into crypto and community management. Carlo shares his experiences from entering crypto in 2017 to becoming a key leader at Bearish. He highlights the essential elements of successful community management, including empathy, active engagement, and the strategic use of tools like Drip. The discussion also explores the differences between NFT and meme coin communities, the importance of rewarding active participation, and how brands in both Web2 and Web3 can benefit from a strong community focus. Mike and Carlo offer practical advice for startups and established brands alike to foster genuine, long-lasting connections with their communities.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Background
00:15 Carlo's Journey into Crypto and Community Building
03:10 Differences Between Meme Coin and NFT Communities
04:34 Maintaining Community Engagement in NFTs
07:16 Using Drip for Community Engagement
09:02 Empathy and Genuine Connections in Web3
13:32 Building Community in Web2 vs Web3
25:02 Strategies for Rewarding Community Participation
34:22 Final Thoughts and Advice for Community Building
40:44 Conclusion and Farewell
Follow us on X: https://x.com/dripchain
Welcome back to Everything is a Game brought to you by Drip Rewards. My name is Phil, I work in operations at Drip. I'm here with Mike, the head of partnerships for Drip and Carlo, the COO at Bearish. Carlo, can you give us a little bit of background as to how you got into this world of being a COO and doing a lot of community stuff for Bearish?
Carlo:Yeah, that's a great question. Now I've been, you know, I kind of got into crypto back in like 2017, just kind of like collecting coins and stuff like that. I think the pandemic really opened up a lot of time for myself, with the shutdown and things like that. And I kind of got deeper into defi, setting up my own wallet, you know, shit coining on different chains from, you know, Binance to ETH, found my way into NFTs in late 2021, early 2022. Started collecting NFTs. Really gravitated towards the community aspect of what a lot of projects were building. Probably one of the communities I'm still a part of, is the Plague. The Plague NFT, so Plague of Frogs. I've been part of that community for over three years and, really met a lot of great folks through that. So I've always been a big proponent of community and the power that it has of just, you know, kind of uniting voices around a common cause or purpose. Even before Web3, I was doing stuff like that with community, whether it's through theater and filmmaking or through philanthropy and charity. Back in 2010, I started a Twitter trend called, Cyber Giving Monday, which is all about uniting communities to donate to different charities around, right after Black Friday essentially. and then continued at the second year in 2012, it became, a, rebranded as Giving Tuesday, which is now a multi-billion dollar day of giving globally. Billions of dollars are donated through that hashtag. I've seen firsthand the power of community, of uniting voices and bringing people together. When I saw these microcosms within Web3, especially in NFTs of people banding around wearing the same PFP, supporting each other and, having a good time, that's what drew me in, deeper into, into Web3 into NFTs. Started veering away from meme coins in crypto and focused mostly on NFTs, even though a lot of the communities that I've supported the years are either not around or they've kind of merged into others, but there's certain people that I've met, you know, four years ago that are still here and, and some of them are in Bearish. And, I think it was in, late 2022, I started working with Scotty, Scott Mitchell. Who was the dev and founder of Brawler Bears and I was doing some community work with them. he was working with Toli on Drip about a year and a half ago. They both were kind of leading two bear themed projects and decided to like, why not merge communities, merge teams and launch a new ip. they brought me in, about three weeks before mint, to help out with community and operations. So that's how I got from dabbling in crypto, to being now part of the team of Bearish.
Phil:As you were going through your journey in crypto and you were going through, you know, meme coin communities and NFT communities, are the differences? I'm interested in maybe your opinion on the differences between NFT communities memecoin communities, is there a difference? Or if there is, what do you think it is?
Carlo:You know, it's a lot harder to build a community around a meme coin, a token or a shitcoin. reason for that is there's a ton of excitement around the presale, around the initial launch, but at a certain point, it loses momentum unless it becomes like a billion dollar market cap, it loses momentum and people sell out and as they sell out, they're leaving the community. So it has a, degradation over time. Unless it gets super hyped up, has a lot of stuff on the timeline. Like Pepe for example, like Pepe kind of launched really high, died for a little bit, launched up again, and it's, I think it's maintained a sense of community, but for the most part, a lot of the tokens that launched at that same time are probably zero. Right. they've gone to zero. That is 100%. You know what happens the majority of the time with meme tokens, and I've, I've seen it across a lot of tokens that I've, participated in. Now, it doesn't mean that that can't happen for NFT projects. You have those like excitement around mint, the hype around mint around reveal. It's what you do to maintain that after reveal. Whether it's through things that you're releasing or other ways to engage your community, you gotta maintain it because again, there is a degradation cycle for NFTs as well. People get bored and there's always in the, Web3. Anything that I've learned is there's always going to be a brand new shiny object that's going to draw attention, that's going to pop. For however long it pops, people will change their PFPs. Right. And, you know, that will be like the mind share for a period of time. Could be a couple weeks, could be a couple months. but unless the team and the community work together to kind of maintain, the messaging, maintain the energy, it will. fade, it will tend to fade if floor price will start to drop. and people will leave the community as they're dropping in floor price. Community members are selling out of the community. So, the one thing, the one advantage that NFTs have over meme coins is that. if you could provide value to your community members, have the ability to keep them from selling out, right? It's like, how do you add value so that like, alright, holding this and making this my PFP has more value than if I sell it, right? if you can maintain that type of, valuation for your NFT project, then you're going to maintain that community a little bit longer than. who has a meme cone, you know, they can't PFP it necessarily. And they're looking for their out, right? If it's a little bit higher than they went in, they're gonna sell. maybe they keep a moon bag, but for the most part, they'll move on to the next meme coin because that's the trader mentality, especially in dent's trenches, is that you're moving from coin to coin to coin. Catching that pre-sale, catching that, pre release to a liquidity pool and then trying to sell. and get to the next one, right? You're just trying to compound your profits. and hopefully get a nice take a two x into a five x into a 10 x, hopefully for that, hundred x. and hopefully it's a token that actually has a liquidity pool that you can realize those profits on.'cause that's not always the case either. So it presents its challenges. Yeah, I think NFTs have the, have just a little bit more advantage. And that's why a lot of meme tokens will launch A NFT alongside of it, because they need that identity aspect of it. How do I represent this particular token, this community, with my PFP on X or discord or telegram? So those are important aspects. The is the identity, you know, kind of just this as I'm a part of this community, I'm a member of this community.
Phil:that makes total sense. I wanna shoot it over to Mike real quick. as you've been working with people who use Drip on different levels of smaller projects versus, huge enterprise level, customers, are some of the things that you've seen done using Drip to help keep the community engaged and provide value?
Mike:Yeah. I think that a lot of it comes from the gamification, the ability to create virtual currencies so that they can have an economy, it allows you to have what Carlo said about with the memecoin without the memecoin existing. You're able to create an economy, but instead of having no use other than the next person, you know, the greater fool theory, they're able to create economies where they can, buy and, you know, earn whatever the, the code token coin is and sell it and use it for, for an object to buy whitelists, buy PFPs, to buy NFTs, to buy merch, whatever the, the community wants to have. So that part as well as the ification, the playing games, the concept that you can earn around your NFT and the NFTs themselves can generate points has been a really important piece of the equation. It's just giving people something to do and giving them value for doing so.
Phil:Carlo, coming back to you, before we get into Drip and how you've used Drip and Bearish, was curious about when you first started as your COO role and doing a lot of community stuff for Bearish, was your mindset going in? And what were some of the things that you did like from the get go where you just thought, you know what, we need to do this, this, and this, and this will keep our people engaged and here instead of wanting to go over to the next hot thing that's happening?
Carlo:Yeah, I mean, so I think it's really important if you're gonna be on a team, is to never lose the mindset of being a community member first. I've been in a lot of communities. I know what I like personally, when it comes to that. and you've always gotta kind of keep them at the forefront. it's not an us and them situation. it's more of like, we're all in this together. We're all a part of the same community. I'm just helping kind of motivate or move around roadmap items or working on operational things or, community efforts and things like that. But for the most part, I approach everything that I do from a community first standpoint. So I'm a community member first. I know that, having used Drift in the past in various ways I know what I'm looking for. I want to, you know, I wanna be able to earn, I wanna be able to, to spend it. I think Drip has a great, setting up that economy is a great kind of precursor to even having your own meme token, right? It allows you to explore token omics with an off chain currency that allows you to see what the use is within your community. Then also like how much value can you add to it with this off chain token without having to, set up a liquidity pool and things like that. it has its inherent benefits to do so. I think it's important to listen to your community members, stay active in the chats, whether it's on Twitter, whether it's on Discord. Because that's where you're gonna get a sense of the temperature of the community. what are people thinking? what are people feeling? is there no news? what's the reaction to that? What's the reaction to the announcements? everything that happens within that discord, every single interaction is important information and data for you as a team to analyze and to take in. If you ignore. requests or you're ignoring tickets, you're gonna miss something. And that might just be one vocal person, but more than likely, there are probably like 10 to 20 other people who are thinking that same exact thing, who are just not vocalizing it. Right. So you're most vocal, community members, they are a barometer of sorts that lets you know, what the community's feeling, what they're vibing. one of the things that we've done, especially on x, is, we have a DM campaign that we do. if we notice someone's posting a lot about bearish or they just joined Bearish, we'll send'em a dm, welcoming them for one, but then asking'em how they found out about bearish, what are they into, just to start that conversation, letting them know that they are a part of this community. We're a community of builders, and whatever that means to you. it's important for us to connect and find out who you are. there's a channel in the Discord that's like introduce your bearish. We want to know if you have any interest in building or art or tech or whatever it is. we want to know who's behind the B-R-P-F-P, right? How can we help each other grow? How can we, connect? What is it that you value, so that we can kind of understand and hopefully find ways to provide that value back. utilizing the tools that are available, listening to your community, being an active part of the community is very important. those are kinda my three pillars. And also just kind of leading with empathy. obviously people are here to make money, but there's also the human aspect of things. people have a hard time, deal with a lot of, drama whether it's weather related, family stuff, there's a lot of stuff, that happens in our everyday lives. we can be there as just an ear. we don't have to provide solutions, other than just being there as someone who listens. Right? Like, giving your time, listening to hearing somebody out is like even more valuable than saying like, this is how you fix it. Right? So, and a lot of people don't go to therapy. They don't have, maybe they, they're here in Web3 because they're looking for that community aspect. Be genuine.
Phil:Yeah. And I love that you're saying that about, it's all about making real connections, being empathetic with people. I mean, like you said, a lot of people in Web3 in particular, like they live in Web3. this is their people. I mean, I'm pretty much one of those people. I've got maybe one close friend outside of Web3 and a few associates, but everyone that I actually hang out with and talk with are pretty much Web3 people at this point. so having that empathy, making that real connection, like you were saying. that makes sense. it's the core of building a community, you know, a real community where are moving in the same direction, maybe depending on whatever project they're in, or NFT collection they're a part of, but also, interacting and having a good time and making friends. Bringing this idea of community with this amount of depth to web two. Okay, so a lot of web two, you know, real quote unquote, real world people. The companies there, they view their customers as well. You're just the customer. You pay us this amount of dollars, you buy a$10 combo meal, we give you a hundred points, and once you get a thousand points, you can get a free burrito or something. and even in the more like business to business or broader enterprise level kind of businesses in web two, how. Let's say I'm like A CMO or a marketing guy for one of those businesses, and I'm just like, yeah, the people, they spend the money, we give'em points and they come back and there's a drop off rate and blah, blah, blah. How would you communicate this idea of actually treating your customers as like real people, building a community instead of just customers that. they give you money, you give them points, and at some point they drop off'cause they're not interested anymore.
Carlo:Yeah. I mean, think at a certain point, some companies don't have to do that. They don't have to think in that way. I. doesn't mean they shouldn't, it just means they don't have to. you know, Coca-Cola, doesn't need somebody to be rocking a Coca-Cola, PFP on X and Facebook to sell Coke, right? I mean, people see it in the store. They're, it's been around for hundreds of, hundreds of years. Plus, people will drink it if they want it, right? are certain products and, and things like that, that they don't have to think about it in that way. And that being said, I think there are microcosms of communities that have formed, and a lot of them kind of happen within the entertainment industry, especially with like up and coming. bands and artists, right? You know, the idea of a fan club is probably one of those, you know, one of those best representations of a community and web two, some of them have even started using Discord a little bit for their community engagement of just like having forums and chat channels and stuff like that. I think there's like an untapped. You know, market in terms of bands and up and coming artists to utilize these tools a little bit better, for their Web two crowd I mean, and like, I mean, I've, I've said this, a lot of people have said this, like there's no delineation between web two and Web3. It's all internet. so for my mindset, I've just like, okay, why don't you just use the tools that are available? To build and engage and interact with your community, and see how it goes. I just don't think there's a need for folks to, you know, at a certain level on certain businesses and companies to even think about that. Right? It's those growing businesses. Those growing products, those growing bands and artists. need to really kind of engage with their communities and really build them. I think there's a lot of tools that are available, to do so. I would say that getting outta that mentality of like treating all of your fans as consumers is probably a good idea. you should be treating them as, fellow members of your community. the way that you're connected is they like your product or they like your music, or they like your art. engage and create experiences for them that kind of just continue to highlight that conversation, to carry through that conversation, across different channels. maybe you'll have a community member or a fan for life.
Phil:that makes total sense.
Mike:Yep.
Phil:think?
Mike:I got a counterpoint, to some of that, and, I agree with a lot of it, but I think that there doesn't become a time in which the community wouldn't be extremely valuable. You know, I look at companies like Apple, where community evangelists are what brought them to where they are now and where it has become that cultish. This is. My brand and I identify with it, you know, an iPhone has an identity around it. I think that Starbucks is the same thing. You know, there's an identity with I'm carrying a Starbucks cup and who I am and what I'm doing, and I think that if they went to the next level. And where the brand started to speak back with them is where you got the evangelists, to really help the brands and to really bring it forward. I think that it can also help gain market share. it can, protect brands from recession where, you know, if I'm choosing which discretionary item to cut, you know, I'm probably not gonna do the one that I feel a kinship to. I agree that they don't need to rock the PFPs and don't necessarily need to go that way, but I think that the community. Remains important. it might not be reflected as much in the share price as it necessarily is for a lower end brand, but I think that there becomes a time when it becomes elastic to, the user's discretionary spend.
Phil:Makes sense. And as both of you were talking, I was thinking in Carlo's situation that he outlined, like for me, this makes total sense that a growing brand, a growing entertainment, especially like a singer or a band, like they should lean into this community aspect instead of just like, oh, I've got 10,000 listeners on Spotify, like turning. And maybe this is going forward because of the internet, because there's so many people doing different things now and trying to make it, maybe this is a differentiating factor that. Can turn a, you know, standard entertainer or brand, a band, even a startup business into something that people actually care about instead of just like using the metrics that we've all used for the last 20, 30 years of, you know, everything. and then to Mike's point, I think what you brought up is. Basically doing the same thing, like we're using community as a way of turning either new customers, new listeners, new followers into evangelists, or for something like Starbucks, maybe establish customers that are already like diehard and loyal to you. How do we switch that so that they go from loyal customers to hardcore evangelists and maybe this community aspect and this nurturing the community aspect is that missing piece for, for bigger established brands even, and then they go out and market for you. You know, it's. And it's organic and everything's great. Everyone's happy. They're happy, you're happy. I think the community aspect, all across the internet, I think is the next level of marketing here. Carlo. Oh, Carlo, did you have something to say or.
Carlo:No, I was just gonna say on, on Mike's, kind of like Apple example, you know, a lot of that community was built up, before, even the iPhone, right? I mean, people were hardcore Mac users, the whole Mac versus PC conversation. but they also spent a lot of money on advertising to, you know, kind of convince people, right? And I think. what got into that cult status outside of the product was those evangelists, right? Those hardcore Mac people who were talked to their friends or have that flex of like, I got the first iPhone. you don't have one of these, you're gonna want one of these. but they didn't reward. the people who purchased it, right? Like there was no consumer rewards for that other than like, I'm better than you. with those Mac versus PC campaigns. maybe the reward is the product is a little bit better, right? but no actual reward, a lot of that was built up prior to even, some of the social media stuff that has happened. and maybe it's kind of created some Facebook groups where like, you know, I'm a Mac but again, that's done organically. That's just people, trying to find like-minded individuals. that's the same thing that happens within NFT communities. You have people trying to find like-minded in individuals. What are you in, what are you into? what can we build together? Like those types of things that happen. and we've just gotta need to encourage and, and empower that type of, that type of interaction, in whatever ways that we can.
Mike:that's awesome.
Phil:Yeah.
Mike:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And when you were talking earlier about the. Empathy perspective, of the community, that is one I feel like goes unnoticed and is undervalued. being empathetic and really talking to the person and learning to know who they are. I was wondering a lot of the times, community floor price, you know, if PB floor price is driven around announcements or events, you're talking to a way to push that aside and go, Hey, it's not about that. It's about who you are and who we are, the actual community, not just community as a concept. So I think that's really valuable, what you brought up there.
Phil:It.
Carlo:It was one of the first like. One of the first things that I noticed a lot when I, when I first entered into this space, one of the first things that I noticed was the, that empathy was missing because it was such like an anonymous space. A lot of people are wearing PFPs cartoons or whatever, animals, you would just see interactions on the timeline of people just being very, just kind of mean or rude because they could, I would see people even in some discourse, you know, someone would come in, some of that maybe I had an interaction with or whatever, would come in and be like, I just got drained. my wallet just got drained. And there'd be people who would just be like, oh, sucks to be you. you learned a lesson. but showing zero empathy. I'm sorry that happened to you. I have no means to kind of, correct that situation, but that really sucks, Be safer next time. If you ever have any questions about a link or something like that, you know, reach out to me. instead of using that instance as an opportunity to connect and deepen a relationship. People would just dismiss and scold somebody who's just gone through, a somewhat traumatic experience, right? You don't know how much they've, committed dollar wise into whatever assets they had, but it might've been a lot for them. And instead of seeing those moments as opportunities to connect and show empathy. people are really quick to just admonish them, and that just makes people feel worse, So whenever I have witnessed that over the course of three years, I would show empathy for it. I've been there. I know what it's like, you know, if I had the opportunity to, like, hey. if you set up a new wallet and it's secure, let me know. I'll send you a little something just to get them going again. a lot of people, once they get to that point, they're gonna be like, you know, why am I even here I'm leaving. And then you've lost a potential community member as opposed to being like, Hey, I'm sorry that happened to you. stick around. Hopefully things will get better for you. So I think those are important things to pay attention to.
Phil:Yeah, that's a good point. Especially in crypto, there's definitely a lack of, and it seems to be, depending on the space you're in, maybe the sub-community of crypto as a whole. some of them are very ruthless. But then some, especially among NFT communities, it feels like some have a lot more, they're a lot more likely to be more empathetic, filled with real people who are actually trying to connect. So I love that you brought that up. I did want to go into Carlo, your experience with The bearish NFT collection. So what are some things that done to keep people engaged and excited? And then also on the reward side, what they can spend, berries on. What, what's like the, thinking process on like, oh, people will be interested in this, or maybe we'll do a raffle versus like a straight up, you know, buy it for this many berries. give us a whole overview on all that.
Carlo:Yeah, for sure. So I know everybody. Who uses Drip is gonna use it in a different way. there's a lot of different, you know, tools within Drip, that can be utilized and how you set it up is up to you. one of the things that I, having been a part of communities that use Drip, having used Drip prior to bearish myself, as a team member and as a community member, one of the things that I wanted to put a focus on was rewarding. Active participants in the community. And the way that we've configured the drip bot in our discord is we didn't enable passive earning for just holding an NFT. That is an option. Some people like that. It's great. they can go and claim daily on their dashboard, you know, of the off chain token for that particular discord. we have a two currency economy within bearish, which is the red berry and the blueberry. for the most part, people will earn the red berry by doing actions, doing quests. we have regular quests for the main account, the bearish X account, and then we have side quests. The side quests are very important for us because we use those to highlight important posts from community members, especially new members who are joining. Hey, I just bought a bearish, here's my post on x. We want people to engage with that. We want people to welcome in the new members, to make them feel at home and also get them into the discord so that they can learn about the ecosystem, we also have a channel in the Discord called Bear Post, where we encourage people to post anything that they see that maybe it's a new member that we missed, or maybe it's just something that they've created. Content-wise just using those side quests as opportunities to highlight current community members, new community members. maybe there's an occasional raid of somebody of like, what should I buy on abstract? Of just getting the presence on the timeline known. And if they go and complete that task, whether it's a like or a comment or a retweet, then they can collect that red berry. Sometimes I'll just do an occasional drop of, see who's active in the Discord. I'll be like, Hey, here's, you know, claim five Red Berry right now. If you're in the Discord, I won't tag anyone. It's just people who are active, right? So you want to kind of reward those who are actively checking in. sometimes I'll do Holder only, prizes and like, I've also kind of, hidden raffles throughout the discord. So sometimes there's a channel that I might want someone to look at. I'll just say, Hey, I've randomly put like. Three raffles and different discord channels or forums. Go try to find them and enter. you can utilize the, the raffle prize system, like the create a prize system, to engage within the discord as well. Right? maybe you just have a channel that has all the store items and all the raffles. That's great. But maybe there's a channel that's new and you want to them to engage in it. a question or drop a raffle in there. We don't use the store items a lot. we use the raffles because it's easier to get more people to participate. not everybody has, a bunch of berry to spend on a store item, but they would be willing to kind of gamble on a raffle entry. because we don't have necessarily an inflated economy from passive staking. the amount of berry in the ecosystem, is pretty controlled, which I think is important. Sometimes if you have passive staking on and you don't have the bandwidth or the ability to provide constant, sinks, people will just rack up a bunch of tokens, and then if you do do a prize. You have to put the entry so high up You're trying to like, just pull back all of those tokens and it becomes, it just be, it, it craters itself, right? so that's one of the things to kind of avoid. and just learnings, you know, learnings that you have from just being in different discords and stuff like that. So for us. The quests are very important. Obviously, I want to kind of continue to, you know, expand that out. Obviously I've been talking to the drip team about some other, you know, potential sites, to use. there's also kind of the games that are built in, you know, the blackjack, the poker, the bear, the, the, the drip shooter game, drip combat like that people can use and spend berry on and or spend the token on. hopefully try to get more. but yeah, for us, like the raffles are, are, are pretty popular. we do raffles for red berry and blueberry because we're trying to kind of the amount of blueberry in the ecosystem as well. and you know, it's usually a lot of NFT prizes, things like that. We've had some meme meme tokens in there, some physicals. we had, Some like, trading cards, physicals that were in the shop, that you could buy. we've had custom bearish PFPs that you can kind of design your own. so it's just kind of like a piece of art. we've, we had some light boxes, so like 3D light boxes that you can get of your PFP. merch socks, things like that. You want to kind of just put as many different options in there as possible. Some people might want a digital collectible, some people might want something that's just a little bit more physical. and if you partner with any other projects, those are great opportunities to say, Hey, I've gotta shop. You've gotta shop. Let's just do like a little bit of an exchange. that could be merch, that could be NFTs, that could be whatever, and help each other out. then you have a variety of stuff within your store, within your shop, and it's a really great way to grow and also kind of co-brand with stuff. Like, we do stuff with Hadi Thoses all the time. they're one of our partners, so if we want gift cards or if we want soda or IES or something like that. know, we can ask them, we can give them something for their shop. we have this kind of like, you know, cross-cultural exchange if you will, cross community exchange. and it just makes things more interesting, for the shop and stuff like that. But most important, you know, really, and it's kind of almost like a full-time job to be honest. you've gotta be aware of the timeline. You've gotta know what your community is doing, what they're posting, who's joining. And engage with them. And you could use Drip as the tool to help get the community to follow along with you, to engage with those folks. So if you're a founder or a team member, and if you're not liking and replying and welcoming new folks, you're, you're basically doing yourself a disservice. because one of the things that you've just psychologically, that people enjoy is being seen and being heard. And being welcome into a community. And if you do that, you do that enough, it creates this, this atmosphere of like, this is how we're supposed to act as a bearish, we're supposed to welcome everybody. Then the community, community gets on board and they start welcoming everybody. And that's kind of how you build and grow, is by having those kind of initial interactions to build a relationship. And you never know, like we've got other stuff going on, like the hackathons and stuff like that. Where these people can then come together and join a team and then build something together, right? That deepens that relationship. or they're connecting on being, being parents, or they're connecting on listening to a certain band, or they're connecting on, you know, a different, a certain sports team. Finding all of those, connective tissues and giving them an opportunity to combine them, just helps deepen those relationships, makes them feel part of the community, makes them want to stay a part of the community. And I think that's the most important part.
Phil:and the, the idea of having you either as the founder or the chief community officer or CMO or whatever, set the tone that helps build the culture, which then helps build strong community members. Which then eventually will turn at least some of them into hardcore evangelists that are going out there repping your brand all over the place for free. Just'cause they love being part of the community so much. I love that. And Mike, I was curious on your take, so we've been talking a lot about using Drip in Discord. What are some other ways that businesses can use Drip outside of just using it in Discord?
Mike:Yeah, so Drip can be used to build requesting websites and the storefront and everything that Carlo talked about. That is a really key feature of what Drip can do. Can be built off discord, and you can have a dedicated site for those. Everyone that's not in Discord has a place where they can gather, they can Quest, they can buy, they can earn. But it also provides really strong opportunity to bring people into the Discord where you can say things like, Hey, there's five quests here, but there's another 20 in Discord. You know, you wanna enter that raffle that costs 40 if you only have 10. Come into discord, earn the rest, and then go spend it on the raffle. So there's a lot of ways that you can really draw people into, the discord through the outside. one of the great ways issue the Twitter range and doing all those quests. But the other really strong one is by building questing sites around Drip's API.
Phil:And just before we go, Carlo, I wanted your take, if someone is new to building this community, you've already touched on empathy a little bit, what would you say to someone who's like, okay, well, you know, I'm, I'm hustling, I'm trying to do this startup, or trying to bring our business to the next level. how do I do this whole community thing? Gimme an elevator pitch on here's what to do, think like this, go do these things and you'll be on your way.
Carlo:If you're starting up from scratch or you're, you're stumbling a little bit with building your community, take a step back. Take a look at what you're offering and is it something that you want? I think the best thing you can do is put your, put yourself in the position of a community member. And see if you're providing the value, the experiences, the conversation, the discord that you would want to participate in. Ask yourself that question. Would I want participate in this project? Would I wanna participate in this community? If the answer is no, then you've got a lot of rethinking and retooling to do. If the answer is yes, and it's just more of a, you know, getting the word out problem, then what I would say at that point is, listen and look at who your most active community members are. Who are the people that are showing up every day saying Good morning? Who are the people who are posting about the project on Twitter every day? And talk to those individuals. Ask them what is it that they like about this community? and ask them for advice. Ask them, what do you think would help make this community better, make this project better? You can create sort of like this core think tank of community members, say a community committee, that you could use as a resource. And as you engage with these kind of core members, they start to become and feel more empowered. Like, oh, the founder, the team, they notice that I'm really gung ho about this particular project. I'm gonna step it up another level, right? You have this core, this core, committee that you can then bounce ideas off of, then also create campaigns or quests that are more geared towards them. Give them a role in the discord, and then within Drip, give that particular role a boost in whatever token that you're offering, right? So if I, I've got a community committee, I know that they're gonna go out and do every single quest. If I post a new quest, I'm gonna give them, one and a half percent, multiplier on engagement when they do that quest, within the first hour, that is that the quest is posted, right? That rewards them for being active. Then other people see that, like, what's that role? do I get that role? Well, you've gotta participate in the same way, and we have these examples of our community committee. All you have to do is, you know, kind of follow their lead. They're just fellow community members. And then you start to kind of grow this, this core, you need your strong vocal core to grow. and then they'll start to kind of bring in more people and then they'll start to be hosting spaces or talking in different DM groups or different channels and stuff like that. Sometimes in, even in different Discords and say, Hey, I love this community. You should join it. Hey,'cause everybody has at least five to 10 friends in Web3. that is, you know, exponential growth if you allow and empower your core community members to go out and essentially talk about why they are part of your community. Right. So, take a look. They're there. And if they're not there, then you've got more work to do, to bring in those folks. But if they're there and they're showing up every day and posting and, and you see them active and you're not saying hello to them. Or asking them, you know, about, you know, like what they're doing, how they're feeling, then you're, you're doing yourself a disservice because those, those people will be there through thick and thin usually, and even when there's lulls in the project, they're still gonna be around and, um, they're your most important community members. so just engage with them. that, that's, that would be my, my advice because, they're gonna be, they're gonna be keys to your growth, for your community.
Phil:some sage advice from Carlo
Mike:Yeah, like, you look at this stuff from a much deeper, more human level than most people in our industry, and, I really appreciate it.
Carlo:that's just always how I've been. It's just the human aspect of things.
Mike:I think you're right.
Carlo:other people in your community as, as human beings, you are completely overlooking the entire reason for community. And, and I mean, this is, these are social platforms. Social networks. You have to be social on them. starts by creating relationships, and that starts by acknowledging that the other person on the other side of the keyboard or on the other side of the phone is a real person with like, their own struggles, their own goals, their own dreams. And you know, that was one of the things that I noticed like early on is like a lot of projects or tokens or things like that, they basically just manipulated and took advantage of people's dreams. And a lot of people's dreams is just to better their lives a little bit, right? Just make a little bit of money, pay off a bill, things like that. Try to live comfortably. that's the core dream for a lot of folks. A lot of projects took advantage of that by selling them this idea of their dream and then rugging them, right? Or just giving up whatever the case may be. But those people are still there. Their experiences, their dreams, their hardships are still there. those don't go away. So while community members may come and go, the thing that is constant throughout all of this is that human aspect. it's those relationships that you build and that you nurture'cause you have to nurture it too. You can't just say, Hey, talk to you one time, now we're friends. And never talk to him again. Like, that's not how it works either. takes time, it takes commitment, and you've gotta put in the work. And if you do that successfully, then yes, you can have a core group of people.'cause you can't expect everyone to be there 24 7, but they'll be there most of the time because they know that you care if you really do care.
Phil:I love it. Thanks again, Carlo. If anyone wants to follow you on X where should they go to follow you? Carlo
Carlo:You can follow me at@CarloLGarcia. That's my name.
Phil:Thank you all listeners, watchers. We will be back again with another episode soon. And this has been another episode of Everything Is A Game by Drip Rewards. Thanks for listening.