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Latest Episodes:

022 – Rori Knudtson – Infinite Seed Mar 31, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, we sit down with Rori Knudtson, the CEO and Founder of Infinite Seed, a decentralized entertainment world building ecosystem that incentivizes people to adopt new behavior patterns with a positive impact on environmental disruption. She works in the spaces between art, architecture and film.

Infinite Seed aims to unlock the profound power of embodied storytelling through present and emerging media platforms to encourage, educate and co-create. Engaging the emotional attention of audiences in a way that is both familiar and new, Infinite Seed aims to provide the tools to write a new reality into existence, problem solving together.

We had a fascinating conversation with Rori who is bringing a multi-disciplinary approach to solving some of the worlds biggest problems.

Enjoy!

Links

Rori’s Website: http://www.rknudtson.com/bio/
Infinite Seed Website: http://infiniteseed.is/
Infinite Seed Twitter: https://twitter.com/infiniteseed_is
Infinite Seed Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/infiniteseedis/
Infinite Seed Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infinite_seed_is/

018 – Tarik Bellamine and Kevin Kim – Gossamer Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we speak with Tarik Bellamine and Kevin Kim, co-founders of Gossamer. Tarik is a full-stack and Ethereum developer who was previously at Capital One and Pace Harmon and passionate about personal finance, DeFi, and building cool things. Kevin is a product manager, designer and front-end developer who was previously at Quartz and Facebook. He has a passion for applying research and user experience to product development.

Kevin and Tarik met and became good friends at the University of Pennsylvania. They are passionate about DeFi, but are tired of it only being accessible to a few thousand people. To change that, they started Gossamer with the mission of making earning interest available to anyone with an internet connection.

We discuss what they feel is inaccessible when it comes to DeFi today and how they are utilizing user research and user experience to solve those issues with Gossamer.

Enjoy!

Notes

[0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro.
[1:12] Episode intro.
[2:16] Overview of Gossamer.
[4:12] How Kevin and Tarik are positioning Gossamer and what macro trends influence that.
[7:41] Origin of the name Gossamer.
[8:40] Background on Kevin and Tarik.
[9:21] The importance of decentralization as part of Gossamer’s value proposition.
[11:46] Approach Kevin and Tarik take to user research and who Gossamer’s target users are.
[16:10] Overview of Kevin’s user research and user experience talk at the last DevCon.
[18:28] The approach they are taking to take Gossamer to market.
[21:05] How Tarik and Kevin think about community development and why they are focusing their efforts elsewhere for the time being.
[23:36] Biggest challenges Tarik and Kevin are tackling right now.
[29:08] What skills they believe are most important to have on a team to be successful in crypto.
[31:57] How Tarik and Kevin carve out space for deep work.
[34:33] Where they stand with regard to funding for Gossamer and their perspective on the evolution of funding in the space.
[36:04] What keeps Kevin and Tarik up at night.
[39:28] If we fast forward five years from today, how is the world different with Gossamer in it.
[40:20] Where listeners can go to find out more about Gossamer.

Links

Tarik’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/tarikbellamine
Kevin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevin0kim
Gossamer Website: https://www.usegossamer.com
Gossamer Twitter: https://twitter.com/UseGossamer
Recording of Kevin’s talk at DevCon about dApp UX: https://slideslive.com/38911919/guerrilla-user-research-for-dapps-step-1-to-mainstream-adoption
Blog post from Kevin about blockchain design principles: https://hackernoon.com/6-principles-for-designing-dapps-for-regular-people-from-a-consensus-18-hackathon-winner-134cdb881cc1

017 – Alan Carr and Bryce Bladon – Dapper Labs Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we speak with Alan Carr, co-founder of KittyCalc and Product Lead at CryptoKitties, and Bryce Bladon, Director of Communications at Dapper Labs. In addition to his work as a game designer and product manager for CryptoKitties, Alan also contributes to other projects at Dapper Labs. He is a Jack of all trades, master of dragons, and previously worked on entertainment experiences everywhere from Blizzard Entertainment to Asterism Books, his own self publishing imprint for young adult fiction. Bryce is an award-winning writer and content designer with a background in emerging technologies and helping people understand them. While at Axiom Zen, Bryce was a part of the team that brought CryptoKitties to market.

CryptoKitties is a game centered around breedable, collectible, and oh-so-adorable creatures called CryptoKitties. Dapper Labs is a company aiming to reshape how we use and interact with digital worlds with projects including CryptoKitties, Cheeze Wizards and NBA Top Shot.

We have a lively discussion with Bryce and Alan covering a lot of ground to unpack how Dapper Labs and CryptoKitties have been so successful in kicking off and driving the NFT and crypto collectible ecosystem.

Notes

[0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro.
[1:12] Episode intro.
[2:23] Background on Dapper Labs.
[3:30] Alan’s background.
[4:48] Bryce’s background.
[5:26] The origin stories of CryptoKitties and Dapper Labs.
[9:24] How the user base of CryptoKitties and Dapper Labs has evolved over time.
[15:25] Overview of the markets for Dapper Labs, CryptoKitties, Cheeze Wizards and NBA Top Shot.
[19:54] Approach to community governance and management to cultivate a following for each project.
[22:31] Team organization across the different projects and how cross-pollination occurs.
[28:03] Perspective on what the most critical skills are to have on a team to build successful products.
[31:15] How the different teams run experiments, analyze results and communicate them to the rest of the organization.
[37:12] Strategies for taking products to market.
[41:48] What keeps Alan up at night with regard to CryptoKitties?
[43:38] How is the world different five years from now because of Dapper Labs and CryptoKitties?
[47:01] Where listeners can learn more about Alan, Bryce and the projects they work on.

Links

Alan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alanfalcon
Bryce’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/BryceBladon
Bryce’s Personal Website: http://brycebladon.com/
CryptoKitties Website: https://www.cryptokitties.co/
CryptoKitties Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoKitties
CryptoKitties Blog: https://medium.com/@CryptoKitties
CryptoKitties Discord: https://discord.gg/cryptokitties
CryptoKitties Open Positions: https://www.cryptokitties.co/careers
Dapper Labs Website: https://www.dapperlabs.com
Dapper Labs Twitter: https://twitter.com/dapper_labs
Dapper Labs Blog: https://medium.com/dapperlabs
Dapper Labs Telegram: https://t.me/dapper
Cheeze Wizards Website: https://www.cheezewizards.com
Cheeze Wizards Twitter: https://twitter.com/CHZWZRDS
Cheeze Wizards Blog: https://medium.com/@CHZWZRDS
Cheeze Wizards Telegram: https://discord.gg/6RxgZrZ
NBA Top Shot Website: https://www.nbatopshot.com
NBA Top Shot Twitter: https://twitter.com/nba_topshot
Flow Website: https://www.withflow.org/
Flow Twitter: https://twitter.com/withflow_
KittyCalc Website: http://kittycalc.co/

016 – Sean Papanikolas – Cargo Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we speak with Sean Papanikolas, founder and CEO of Cargo. Sean has extensive experience as a developer as well as a founder of various businesses. Frustrated after being shut out by a payment processor he was trying to use for his crypto project, Sean founded Cargo to solve the problem himself.

Cargo is a service platform that securely tokenizes tangible and digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain, allowing anyone to buy, sell, auction, trade or transfer those assets in a decentralized way to unlock new economies and let users keep more of what they earn.

We speak with Sean about the experience that drove him to start Cargo and how he has bootstrapped Cargo and extended the solution he built for himself to the developer community. Enjoy!

Notes

[0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro.
[1:12] Episode intro.
[2:10] Overview of Cargo and use cases.
[4:25] Sean’s background and journey that led Sean to start Cargo.
[9:30] Insight into how Sean is approaching validation of Cargo’s target market.
[10:57] Evolution of go-to-market strategy for Cargo and understanding potential users.
[12:49] Examples of the types of developers building on Cargo, their use cases and some of the unique features Cargo provides.
[16:26] Biggest challenges Sean is working through to get Cargo off the ground.
[18:15] Overview of the approach to take Cargo to market and drum up interest.
[20:07] Tools Sean is using to build Cargo and the challenges with using them.
[23:33] Sean’s thoughts around bootstrapping Cargo and potential funding in the future.
[25:13] How Sean has leveraged contractors to get support building out the product and what steps he has taken to vet them.
[28:21] What keeps Sean up at night.
[29:03] Trends around Ethereum standards that are interesting to Sean and why.
[30:52] If we fast forward five years from now, how is the world different with Cargo in it.
[31:47] Where to find out more about Cargo.

Links

Sean’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-papanikolas-940150154/
Cargo Website: https://cargo.build
Dolli Website: https://www.dolli.io

015 – John Crain – SuperRare Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we speak with John Crain, co-founder and CEO of SuperRare. John has an extensive background in product consulting for fortune 500s like Coca-Cola & AT&T before taking the leap and working on products in the e-commerce and crypto space.

SuperRare is a marketplace to collect and trade unique, single-edition digital artworks. Each artwork is authentically created by an artist in the network, and tokenized as a crypto-collectible digital item that anyone can own and trade.

We speak with John about how SuperRare has been able to create a community of not only collectors but also forward-thinking creators.

Enjoy!

Notes

[0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro.
[1:12] Episode intro.
[2:02] Overview of SuperRare.
[2:48] John’s background and how he came to work on SuperRare.
[4:18] Lessons John learned from working at BlockApps.
[5:13] Genesis story for SuperRare.
[7:28] SuperRare’s discovery process to understand the opportunity to solve problems for digital artists.
[8:59] Why having SuperRare on a decentralized protocol is critical.
[10:46] What target markets SuperRare is focusing on right now.
[12:20] Who typical SuperRare users are and how the team does user research to learn more about them.
[13:41] Opportunities John sees with the blending of the digital and analog art worlds.
[16:31] How the SuperRare team thinks about and builds for the social experience around digital art.
[18:36] The team’s approach to market development and taking SuperRare to market.
[19:58] What opportunities John and the team see given technical developments in the crypto space such as re-fungible tokens.
[22:08] Differentiating between the concepts of fungible and re-fungible tokens.
[23:28] Challenges the SuperRare team is dealing with.
[25:36] Breakdown of the team.
[26:32] What John believes are the most important skills a team needs to succeed in crypto.
[28:08] The team’s process for conducting user research and synthesizing feedback.
[30:43] How SuperRare has been funded thus far.
[32:09] The team’s current approach to their business model and thoughts about the future.
[33:09] What keeps John up at night and how the world will be different five years from now with SuperRare in it.
[35:04] Where listeners can learn more about SuperRare.

Links

John’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/gnarzly
SuperRare Website: https://superrare.co
SuperRare Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superrare.co/
SuperRare Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperRare_co
SuperRare Blog: https://medium.com/@SuperRare_co
SuperRare Telegram: https://t.me/SuperRare
Pixura Website: https://pixura.io
Pixura Twitter: https://twitter.com/pixura_io
Pixura Blog: https://medium.com/pixura
Pixura Telegram: https://t.me/pixura

014 – Leighton Cusack – PoolTogether Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we speak with Leighton Cusack, founder and CEO of PoolTogether. Leighton was previously the co-founder and CEO of Kindrid, a company dedicated to increasing generosity through technology.

PoolTogether is a no loss lottery built on Ethereum leveraging Dai and Compound. Their mission is to create financial security by offering a healthy alternative to lotteries.

We explore how PoolTogether started as a hackathon project at ETHDenver and what Leighton has done to transform it into a high growth project in such a short period of time.

Enjoy!

Notes

[0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro.
[1:12] Episode intro.
[1:52] Overview of PoolTogether and history of the idea.
[3:33] Cusack’s background and what prompted him to start PoolTogether.
[5:38] Why PoolTogether is better done on a blockchain as opposed to using the traditional financial system.
[7:39] What concepts inspired the thinking behind PoolTogether.
[8:45] PoolTogether’s total addressable market and target users.
[10:38] How Leighton thinks about user research and driving user adoption.
[14:04] The challenges in conducting user research given the anonymous nature of crypto.
[17:33] PoolTogether’s approach to community outreach and development.
[19:19] What Leighton’s experience has been using Aragon and the incremental approach to decentralizing governance of PoolTogether.
[21:30] Team breakdown of PoolTogether and challenges they’re dealing with.
[24:08] The skills Leighton thinks crypto startups need to be successful.
[26:22] How Leighton and the team prioritize their time given how small the team is.
[28:12] Story behind how Leighton started PoolTogether at ETHDenver 2018, funded its initial development and secured a grant from the Maker Foundation.
[31:55] What about PoolTogether keeps Leighton up at night.
[32:56] If we fast forward five years, how is the world different with PoolTogether in it.
[33:28] Where you can learn more about PoolTogether.

Links

Leighton’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/lay2000lbs
PoolTogether Website: https://www.pooltogether.us
PoolTogether Twitter: https://twitter.com/pooltogether_
PoolTogether Discord: https://discord.gg/hxPhPDW
PoolTogether Blog: https://medium.com/pooltogether
MakerDAO Website: https://makerdao.com/en/

012 – Devin Finzer – OpenSea Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we speak with Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea. Before OpenSea, Devin worked at Pinterest and Google, and sold his previous company to Credit Karma.

OpenSea is the world’s largest digital marketplace for crypto collectibles and non-fungible tokens (NFT’s). Users can buy, sell, and discover exclusive digital assets like Gods Unchained Cards, ENS names, CryptoKitties, Decentraland plots and much more.

We discuss the evolution of OpenSea with Devin to understand how he and his team have succeeded in bringing together developers and users to create a thriving ecosystem centered around their marketplace for crypto collectibles.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

[0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro.
[1:12] Episode intro.
[2:01] Pitch for OpenSea.
[3:24] Devin’s background.
[4:51] What led Devin and his co-founder to start OpenSea.
[9:00] The thesis that drives OpenSea’s strategy.
[10:53] The tools OpenSea offers developers to open a storefront and how they assess which projects get whitelisted and make it onto OpenSea’s marketplace website.
[14:06] Explaining the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards and how OpenSea views each standard from a strategic perspective.
[18:13] How OpenSea is thinking about target users and markets.
[21:13] What OpenSea has done to navigate the UX challenges inherent in crypto.
[25:45] How the OpenSea team leverages great developer documentation and smart contract capabilities to enable them to do business development with such a lean team.
[29:01] The biggest challenges and opportunities Devin sees for OpenSea to ensure it becomes a sustainable business.
[33:40] What Devin believes are the skills teams need to be a successful crypto startup.
[41:43] How is the world different five years from now with OpenSea in it?

Links

Devin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfinzer
OpenSea Twitter: https://twitter.com/opensea
OpenSea Website: https://opensea.io
OpenSea Blog: https://medium.com/opensea
OpenSea Discord: https://discord.gg/ga8EJbv

011 – Season 2 Intro – NFTs and DeFi Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, co-hosts Nick and Zach chat about a new approach to releasing episodes, this season’s focus on NFTs and DeFi projects and episode highlights. Enjoy!

013 – Jayson Hobby – Compound Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we speak with Jayson Hobby, Head of Design at Compound. Hailing from Stumptown, Oregon, Jayson has deep design experience, previously leading pro and institutional Product Design at Coinbase including Coinbase Custody, Pro and Prime. Before diving into crypto, Jayson cut his teeth on product on the founding team of Uber Freight by way of Otto. In his free time he’s listening to obscure music or casting cardboard spells in Magic The Gathering.

Compound is an open-source, autonomous protocol built for developers, to unlock a universe of new financial applications. The mission of Compound is to unlock the significant portion of cryptocurrencies that currently sit idle on exchanges and in wallets, without yielding interest.

We dive into how Compound has leveraged great design to drive adoption and become one of the most prominent DeFi projects in the space.

Enjoy!

Notes

[0:32] Polyient sponsorship intro.
[1:12] Episode intro.
[2:19] Overview of Compound.
[3:45] Description of the target user types for Compound.
[5:01] Jayson’s background and the path that led him to Compound.
[11:38] The origin story of Compound and how it’s evolved over time.
[13:15] User research and discovery challenges within DeFi and how they overcome them.
[14:52] How Jayson and the team process the user input flowing from the various channels it comes from.
[16:35] Jayson’s design process and how the team uses the Compound interface to validate assumptions.
[21:31] The team’s approach to user testing and feedback.
[24:00] How Compound takes new products and features to market.
[25:24] The emphasis the Compound team takes to shipping code at the protocol level.
[27:00] Challenges the team faces on a day-to-day basis.
[29:21] Breakdown of the team and how prioritization decisions are made across the team.
[32:10] Jayson’s view on what skills are most important to have on a team to succeed.
[34:34] How the decentralized ethos informs Compound’s community development.
[39:03] What keeps Jayson up at night and how he thinks the world will be different five years from now with Compound in it.
[42:13] Early thoughts about decentralized governance for Compound.
[44:07] Where to go to find out more about Compound.

Links

Jayson’s Personal Website: https://jaysonhobby.com
Jayson’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaysonhobby
Compound Website: https://compound.finance
Compound Discord: https://compound.finance/discord
Compound Blog: https://medium.com/compound-finance

010 – Season 1 Finale Jun 16, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we look back on the first season of Fork the Product to chat about lessons learned, patterns we’ve observed across projects and what’s ahead for the industry.

In the next season of Fork the Product, we’ll be digging even deeper into specific aspects of UX and product strategy. Stay tuned!

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