Episode Notes:

What are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and how do they work? What exactly does it mean to market “direct-to-community”?

In this episode, I sat down with Simon Yi, co-founder of Myosin.xyz, a marketing DAO where he explained all of this and how he saw the power of DAOs during his time at ConsenSys Ethereum Blockchain Incubator and what inspired him to start a service agency that is a collectively-owned DAO.

Simon's journey is an exploration into being a builder in a nascent industry. Discover the story behind MyosinXYZ, his decentralized marketing DAO that's redefining brand-consumer relationships. Simon's wisdom and unshakable confidence in blockchain, when aligned with human needs, offer a captivating glimpse into the coming DAO revolution and the endless creative possibilities of web3.

In this episode we cover:

(01:26) Simon's career pivot from finance to growth marketing to web3
(07:32) DAOs and how they have always existed since he could remember as a Korean American growing up in NY
(18:29) The shift from direct to consumer to “direct to community” marketing
(22:00) Web3 enabling people to own their data and be rewarded for it unlike web2
(28:42) His mindset on being a serial quitter and how that allowed him to become an entrepreneur
(37:39) Service DAOs and the future of work
(40:51) The importance of having a strong support system and community as a builder

He leaves us feeling inspired about the transformational potential of DAOs and blockchain technology (despite the current bear market) and his vision on how DAOs can change the way we work and even the way society itself operates.

Referenced on the Episode:

Guest Bio: Simon Yi

Simon is a co-founder and head of growth at Myosin.xyz, a marketing DAO and product studio building the web3 user acquisition suite. He sharpened his skill for 12+ years as a growth expert at VaynerMedia, R/GA, Wunderman and other global agencies. He has lead growth at startups that have been acquired for a combined $625 million, and most recently was the growth director for Tachyon.xyz, a Consensys Mesh accelerator.

Twitter/X | LinkedIn Newsletter | Myosin.XYZ

Ep 01 - Unlocking the Power of DAOs and Web3 Marketing with Simon Yi of Myosin.xyz
[00:00:00] Simon Yi: The smart innovators in the space know that this is just the first inning. Just like, you know, when the first website came up, pets. com or whatever, not every single website that was published in 2001 is a business. And just like not every NFT project in 2023 is a business, we're in experimentation space.
[00:00:17] Simon Yi: And I think it's about reframing what this is all about.
[00:00:24] Ariba Jahan: Welcome to Up Next in Tech, a podcast diving into emerging innovations and experiences beyond the hype through exclusive conversations with the brilliant people exploring the intersection of emerging tech, responsible innovation, and how we live, play, and interact. I'm your host, Ariba Jahan. On this episode, I got to sit down with Simon Yi, co founder of Myocin. xyz, a marketing DAO that's building tools for user acquisitions in Web3. Simon has over 12 years of experience driving growth at top agencies like VaynerMedia and RGA. He's also led growth for startups that has been acquired for over 600 million combined. Simon shares his journey into Web3, building a marketing DAO, and his thoughts on emerging trends like direct to community engagement.
[00:01:15] Ariba Jahan: We'll also get his advice for other builders and innovators looking to create an impact in this space. Let's dive in.
[00:01:21] Ariba Jahan: I met Simon a few months ago and was super inspired by his story and figured, let's bring this story so that other people can hear it too.
[00:01:30] Ariba Jahan: So Simon, tell us about you and your origin story.
[00:01:33] Simon Yi: Like you covered earlier, we're the founder. And, uh, head of growth at Myosin.xyz were a marketing DAO and product studio. How I got here, honestly, I didn't plan on it, but what I can tell you is I started my career in finance back in 2008. Tough environment, obviously with the recession, about four years of spending time at in Corporate America.
[00:01:54] Simon Yi: I realized pretty quickly, like a, I didn't fit in, but b I wasn't passionate about it. That's where I started to look into what actually like ignited my interests a lot more I'd say I've been at growth hacker worked at agencies like VaynerMedia and RGA.
[00:02:09] Simon Yi: I was the head of growth at several startups, three of which got acquired, started working for venture funds. Was recruited by ConsenSys, largest accelerator and incubator in the Ethereum blockchain. And two years after that, I realized, wow, this thing, this DAO thing and Web3 at large is, is here to stay.
[00:02:26] Ariba Jahan: For you, when you were at ConsenSys, what was the signal for you that you were like, Oh my God, I am doubling down, tripling down in this space?
[00:02:33] Simon Yi: Yeah, much like what I saw with social media, I started to see like GE tweet. I'm like, what is this industrial company doing on Twitter?
[00:02:42] Simon Yi: The same I saw with CryptoPunks and Visa. So there was a announcement, Visa was like, Oh, we need to be in this NFT game. And that was the, okay, it's go time. From that moment on, there was a mad dash for retailers to get into the Metaverse space, and then obviously DeFi was red hot and then NFT summer.
[00:03:00] Ariba Jahan: So for anyone who's hearing Web3 for the first time, how do you define Web3?
[00:03:05] Simon Yi: So I'd say there were three different phases in the Internet, and this is not my original thought. It's what's been discussed. Web 1 is read, right? So you have all this content on a directory. You want to read what's available online, you can't necessarily post. Web 2, you're now reading and writing. So you're going from reading about the New York Times articles, to now you're writing your own articles with your blogger. Then came social media, but you're still writing, right? You're not owning. And that's where Web 3 comes in, is now, it's read, write and own. What does that mean? Well, what's interesting is that we post a lot of content online, typically social media networks at this point, but what we post we don't own.
[00:03:48] Simon Yi: And that's what Web3 is solving, is the ability for us to own our own image, our own writing, our own music. Uh, and everything in between.
[00:03:58] Ariba Jahan: Yeah. So it's kind of like I can post on Facebook. I can post on my own website, but as long as that website is on Squarespace or like the domain is being owned by an organization that collects a certain amount of data, all of that becomes not owned by me versus in web3, we're talking about decentralizing that ownership and so that people can own it themselves empowered by blockchain. Okay. So you're at Concensys. You realize Visa suddenly wants to partner with CryptoPunk and you're like, wait a minute. Brands are getting in and how many other brands might get in and how much will the space blow up?
[00:04:33] Ariba Jahan: Because what we know is when brands get in, money comes in, right? More money flows in. So tell us about Myosin. What is Myosin? What was it before? What is it today?
[00:04:42] Simon Yi: The seed of the idea came in about six years ago when I met my co founder, Blake. He and I both were at Human Ventures. He was a venture product designer. And I was a growth marketer for one of their portfolio companies. And over lunch, I was telling him like, listen, I'm in the performance marketing space. There is literally a number that you can look at to say is Simon good. Right. And that number is ROAS return on ad spend. You know, I, I said to him like, wouldn't it be great if instead of LinkedIn, there was some way that you can identify the top 5 percent right now it's agencies that kind of represent that or it's really not the individual and it ideally should be transparent. And so we kind of like talked it out, fleshed it out and then didn't really action on it. Now coming out of Concensys, I was now chock full of knowledge in what I learned having been at the accelerator. And I started thinking about like, what are my options? One was like, join a big web3 company, maybe an investment fund, start an agency. I had one in the past. I've worked at a bunch. Would be pretty easy to do. And then I thought DAOs. What is this DAO thing? And at the time, you know, DAOs were a byproduct of DeFi protocols.
[00:05:50] Simon Yi: So we're talking about like thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of members in a DAO. Really difficult to coordinate or build connections with people. But long story short, that those DAOs failed. But I started noticing social DAOs like FWV. And realize, okay, maybe there's something here for marketers to be able to leverage the power of a network.
[00:06:10] Simon Yi: Myosin is a service DAO that accelerates the direct to community movement using the insights that we deliver for clients. We also build products in the user acquisition space for Web3.
[00:06:21] Ariba Jahan: So for people that are listening and have never heard the phrase DAO, DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. It's a new way of organizing. And Simon, I'll actually let you define the rest, because I'd love for you to talk about like, what is the service version of a DAO.
[00:06:35] Simon Yi: Yeah, we say this often at Myosin, but we are an agency in the front and a DAO in the back. And so really for the end client, there is no need for us to really get into the DAO specifics, how we operate, how we govern, how we finance ourselves, et cetera.
[00:06:50] Simon Yi: All of it happens to be transparent. So you can look into it, but for the end client, they really have a brief that needs to be responded to and marketing results that need to be delivered. And so what we are to. Clients are a marketing network of the best marketers in Web3. And we are almost like a formless Swiss army knife of sorts, where we kind of shape shift according to the needs of the business.
[00:07:13] Ariba Jahan: I'm hearing a little bit more like a collective. Yeah. Almost the way that you manage funds, the way that you organize and all of that. When you look at DAOs and the way that you're running your DAOs. Can you tell me a little bit more about like how the DAO works? Earlier in conversation, you were talking about how this is not the first time you've seen DAOs, you've grown up around something that mirrors DAOs. Can you share a little bit more there?
[00:07:35] Simon Yi: Yeah, totally. So, you know, growing up in New York as a Korean American, I noticed actually. A lot of other Koreans owning grocery stores or owning nail salons or dry cleaners and laundromats. There is a running joke about, of that kind of being part of our, I guess, culture, but I think more deeply what, what actually happened from my experience is, there would be a community of families that work together. The community would be operating a network of nail salons or a network of delis or a network. of laundromats and for every new family that want to move from Korea to the US, rather than kind of them operating on their own, they would tap the network and receive financing from the network to start their own company.
[00:08:20] Simon Yi: And because obviously the network has the expertise of procurement, how to operate a business, how to finance the business, et cetera, that new immigrant who came to the United States would be set up for success. And that's essentially like what I saw as an opportunity for talented marketers in the spaces. When you leave a big agency, you leave a network and sure there's, you know, now more than ever, there is a movement towards solopreneurship, freelancing, the digital nomad. But what people don't talk about is how lonely it is, how difficult it is to fend for yourself and also market yourself, right? There's this whole adage of the cobbler's children have no shoes. And that's, you know, ironically what agencies and marketers often face is they're too busy marketing their clients and they forget to market themselves.
[00:09:06] Ariba Jahan: So it's like either you're working at an organization and you're part of that organization and, and sometimes when people want to leave that, it feels like, okay, it's either I have to become a freelancer. Which is like a similar to solopreneurship or I launched my own company or I find another job. And it feels like there needs to be something in the middle because solopreneurship and being a freelancer, to your point, even though all you want to do is do the work. The only way you'll get work is if you are able to market yourself. And that's not something everybody wants. So I guess what you're saying is being part of a service DAO gives you that alternative. So what, what is that incentive and how does that service DAO work? Like, so if I was like, okay, I want to join a service. Dao, what does that look like?
[00:09:50] Simon Yi: So, to join Myosin, you, you, a member is usually referred to by other members. At this point, we have a pretty high bar for quality and, and a standard. And so, you know, you apply, you talk to me or Blake or some other core member of the dao. Then you talk to a community guild member who's vetting for intention, right? The number one thing that we're vetting for is, are you looking to make a quick buck, right? Like a Fiverr, or like one of these like talent marketplaces where you're picking up a gig. Or do you want to join a cooperative? And what does that mean? Well, it's, this is designed for long term cooperation so that the members all benefit equitably. And so if your intentions match that of myosin, then you're, then you're in the DAO and, uh, off you go.
[00:10:35] Ariba Jahan: So what does it mean to want the cooperative to benefit from your individual contribution. Like, what is, what does that mean?
[00:10:43] Simon Yi: Yeah, I'd say in a, in a crude way, it's always keeping yourself honest to say to yourself, like, am I adding to the network and adding value to the network or am I extracting value from the network? And it's a symbiotic relationship that actually both happens. But what we're watching out for is someone who enters the network, takes a couple gigs, never contributes, right? Or like doesn't do any gigs, but he's like, he or she are copy pasting, we're stealing our playbooks, you know, all these other things that, you know, we're trying to solve for, but that's the kind of, I think, behavior that we're ideally looking for is how do we identify those problems? How do we address, create solutions against those problems and how do we problem solve as a network.
[00:11:30] Ariba Jahan: I feel like when I first heard about DAOs, I kept on hearing about all the, it's kind of like a new way of organizing because people are tired of organizing the way that we organize now, where there's like hierarchy, there's rules that doesn't feel like.
[00:11:44] Ariba Jahan: it's been informed by you or shaped by you. And there's a lot of inheritance of rules and norms that people don't want to live by. And people brought a lot of that aspiration for change into Web3 and DAOs. And I'm curious from you, like, as you've been in the ground on the ground, like building a DAO and watching the mechanics of it around you, what's the reality of how it operates? What's the hopes and aspiration you had? And like, where are things now? And where do you hope things go?
[00:12:11] Simon Yi: Yeah, that's a really interesting way to frame the question. I think a lot of publicly around Web3, or perhaps crypto, or especially DAOs is, oh, this is socialist, or oh, this is like libertarian, or this is anarchist. I would actually reframe that question in that this is not a political experiment. What this is getting down to the first principles of how humans always have collaborated since like the birth of time. A few things to note. One, Dunbar's law, which states a human being cannot remember a person in their community beyond 150 members, right?
[00:12:47] Simon Yi: So by design, Myosin will have no more than 150 members. Builds intimacy, have one to one connection with people, shared identity, et cetera. The second piece is this idea of social currency. In Myosin, it's an ERC20 token, right? On a testnet. But what it is an always has been in a community in the 1990s when I grew up, or a community in the 900s, right, with no computers at all.
[00:13:13] Simon Yi: It's a gift to get, and it's a feeling of we are bigger together than we are apart. In order for us to achieve that mission, we need to work together and cooperate. In that sense DAOs have always existed, we're just digitizing them.
[00:13:27] Ariba Jahan: I love that reframe because I think part of that narrative is that it's completely new, and what you're saying is that actually it's not that new. It's been an organic way that we've organized before. It's just when we think about the word organization, we think about professional organization where we are employed. We're not necessarily connecting the fact that, hey, there might be something in between where we are working and creating impact and value, but we're organizing and functioning in a different way, is what I'm hearing.
[00:13:54] Simon Yi: Totally. I guess to get at like the industrial organizational aspect of your question, I would say traditional capitalism or perhaps late stage capitalism, there is a very clear hierarchical structure. So, you know, especially the, the larger companies that are out there, the vast majority of middle and middle management and kind of entry level employees, they're kind of roughly being told what to do. They're not necessarily opting in and so DAOs or community driven cooperatives. Offer an unprecedented opportunity to be rewarded for leaning in, be rewarded for taking risks, taking initiative and being entrepreneurial, but not by yourself in a community of other entrepreneurs.
[00:14:33] Ariba Jahan: I mean, that sounds amazing, right? Like, it's just like, I hear that I'm hearing, I get to inform, shape, be heard and all those things. I know you were part of Seed Club and you are connected to a lot of other DAO leaders. What are some challenges that you feel like, okay, we still have work to do in figuring out these things about DAOs?
[00:14:52] Simon Yi: This is typical of most DAOs, uh, in that there's a 90 percent to 9 percent to 1 percent ratio of lurkers to active members to core members, right? Which obviously doesn't do anything as far as like, contributing to the vision of the community and like driving that vision forward. You know, I think for Myosin, initially we struggled with that. There were a bunch of, there was a bunch of interest, a bunch of applications, the quality was low, and we had to really sit and think like, okay, it's one thing to mechanically set up a DAO. It's a different thing to infuse values and say, who is this actually for? And through that, you know, exploration and discovery, we started to see those numbers improve.
[00:15:31] Simon Yi: So now happy to boast that. We have an 80 percent participation rate out of 60 members. 80 percent of those participate in some sort of guild. We actually sunset these people. And then as far as the core membership, we're something closer to 10 percent instead of 1%. So I think for me, I'm very proud of that because it took a lot of effort to get there and a lot of listening to the community to really understand what they need.
[00:15:55] Ariba Jahan: That's quite a journey. Before we switch gears into another topic, could you just break down on what a DAO is and the different types of DAOs? Cause I know we've mainly been talking about a service DAO.
[00:16:05] Simon Yi: So they're very different types of DAOs. You have DAOs that are service DAOs like Myosin, right? We offer a service as a collective of people. There are DAOs that are closer to a protocol, meaning technology, where there isn't as much human involvement. It's more just like human participation with voting. Other than that, the actual mechanics of the DAO, uh, operate. Autonomously, which is the A in DAO. And then the most DAOist of DAOs is Ethereum itself. So Ethereum itself has a voting procedure, a proposal, procedure, governance, its own treasury, the whole thing. And so it's a, it's a bit of a fractal.
[00:16:41] Ariba Jahan: So just to add to that, in a typical organization, whether it's. an organization that's a company or an organization that's a community organization, there's usually a leadership body that sets the rules and the rules change and the leadership roles change. But from my understanding, Simon, in a DAO, the group that is starting the DAO, there might be some rules that they set that is encoded into blockchain and that in smart contracts and that that's what gets deployed. So rules are set and then gets deployed. That's the autonomous part. And then because of a lot of these communities get voting power, sounds like yours has a voting power. Then some of those rules or new rules can be created. And when Simon was talking about, , proposals, there's forums where DAO members might pitch like, Hey, like this is a project we should be doing, and then the community utilizing their voting power in a dao gets to vote on that. And that is also deployed by smart contract, allowing it to be again, very transparent. There's no hush hush of like who voted? Where was, where did the voting happen? Do we really know the truth of like, what was the output of the voting? So that's the transparent portion of the voting and the decision making.
[00:17:53] Simon Yi: Yeah. Just to bring it home for Myosin and kind of my day to day, let me put it simply this way, name one. agency, boutique agency, large agency, and tell me how much is actually in their checking account. You'll never find this information, but with Myosin, just look on Ethereum, look up our community treasury address. You will see in real time how much is sitting there. And what that public ledger does for our members is it builds trust. You don't necessarily have to meet these people on the internet, but you can trust that everyone has a shared incentive to make that number go up.
[00:18:26] Ariba Jahan: That immediately makes me think about my other question. Earlier you talked about going direct to community. I'd love for you to break that down. Like, what does that even mean?
[00:18:35] Simon Yi: So... In the advent of Facebook, what we saw was that the retail middleman was removed. As a result of Facebook, Nike was able to advertise through Facebook and reach you, Ariba, based on your interests, based on your browsing behavior, based on what you've purchased in the past. And we call that now direct to consumer, right? Where there's no more need for Macy's or these other department stores. So Facebook became the middleman, right? And so what we're seeing now in web3 is we're moving and shifting towards direct to community where the middleman is Facebook, it's Facebook is now so big that it actually extracts value. It doesn't really do much for consumers or communities and brands. And so we're cutting out the media middleman by going directly to community. Now, now what does that mean? How does this show up? For example, Nike launched this thing called swoosh app or dot swoosh. What that essentially is, it extends the existing program that they have to commission local artists to create new colorways on Air Force Ones and other shoes. The only difference with Dotswoosh is the creators now own a piece of the royalties, the revenue that's generated from the digital skins, as well as the physical shoes. And that's a dramatic shift away from, you know, not that Nike was doing this this way, but kind of taking advantage of the local artists so that they can sell more shoes to actually that local artists contributed way more than that freelance rate that they got. They should have royalties. In perpetuity of what they delivered for Nike and their community. So that's an example of direct community.
[00:20:09] Ariba Jahan: So by Nike doing this and people use their MetaMask or Coinbase wallets to sync up to their dot swoosh and they're either purchasing an NFT or they're becoming part of that community. Now Nike has access to these individuals without needing a Facebook, they have their wallet addresses, they can share updates or drops or information directly to these individuals without having to rely on like a Facebook algorithm. Like, I really hope 1 of the Nike fans gets to see my post so that they can take advantage of this. This is just like in your inbox or in your in your wallet directly, right?
[00:20:49] Simon Yi: Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of what we're seeing with, Starbucks as well for brands like Starbucks or Nike or these other consumer facing brands that have a lot of trust, they can go directly to community pretty quickly.
[00:21:02] Simon Yi: But there are other consumer brands that don't really have, they never had a voice to the community. They never had a vibrant community. They're, they're always sold to. So for some of these brands, they have to build the community from scratch and figure out as a brand, like, what do we stand for? Cause in Web3, it's not enough to be like, Oh, we care about wellness too. Like they really, people want to see you kind of invest into that network.
[00:21:23] Ariba Jahan: This makes me think about, you know, currently we know about our audience through like whatever data we can get from a Facebook or Google, et cetera. And any data we can get from the cookies, right on our websites. And then everyone has to like accept all cookies. And then what you think is the evolution of that as it relates to this direct to community conversation.
[00:21:43] Simon Yi: Yeah, totally. When I go to any site nowadays, I either have an option to accept cookies and give my information away or reject them.. I think in Web3, what we're building towards is a third option, which is why don't you get paid for the data that you're giving to some sort of brand or some sort of media, media middleman.
[00:22:03] Simon Yi: What would be normally locked within the confines of Facebook? Like Facebook knows I like dogs. Facebook knows I like tennis. It'll show me images of. Dogs playing tennis and all these things that ultimately sell me more pet food or rackets or whatever it is as a user, I'm able to be rewarded for my browsing behavior or my interest.
[00:22:24] Simon Yi: And in exchange for that, I'll get, let's say some, some parcel of value that happens to live on chain. What does that do for web three and other marketers? Well, that becomes a primitive for other people to say this wallet ID 0XSIMON is into tennis. And here comes LinkStyle, right? LinkStyle can say, Oh, well, people who like golf also like tennis, and they can give an offer to me, 0xSimon, so they can acquire my data in exchange for something within LinkStyle.
[00:22:55] Simon Yi: And I think what I see in the very near future is brands like Budweiser, instead of advertising adjacent to the LGBTQ month to actually give money directly to, um, LGBTQ musicians and support and provide a platform for them to thrive and be discovered. And that's what I mean, like indirect to consumer. You're leveraging Zeitgeist. You're leveraging moments or movements and trying to sell more product in direct to community. You're contributing to culture directly.
[00:23:27] Ariba Jahan: Where are we now in that, in that journey? So that sounds like that's where we are headed, right? Like I keep reading about how Web3 and blockchain, as we're creating these technologies, there's a ton of data, but they're not necessarily organized in a way where they're providing this insightful utility yet.
[00:23:44] Ariba Jahan: I'm curious. For you, what are you seeing? Are we there? Like how far are we from where you're saying we can go?
[00:23:49] Simon Yi: That's a great question. You know, I think after the bull run last year, there are a ton of people who got burned, right? Regulators, institutions, regular consumers, retail investors, everybody. Bull run is just like during the hype cycle last year of board apes and crypto punks, things were selling from half a mil to a mil to two mil.
[00:24:11] Simon Yi: And there's this crazy market force where people just kind of lose base reality and just get overzealous. And that's what last year was. You know, this year we're in a bear, which means, you know, there's a lot of people who are fearful of a recession and as a result behave very differently. And that's, you know, that's where we're at right now, which is perfectly fine.
[00:24:30] Simon Yi: Uh, there's a very sobering moment to say, what is it about this technology? That's actually useful and not another like JPEG on the blockchain. And so, you know, what I see as I go to these conferences, the earnesty of the builders is at an all time high, right? The price is at an all time low, but people are way more intentional about what they're building and they're, they've done their homework.
[00:24:53] Simon Yi: And so the reason why they're still in the game in a bear market is. No one really has the answers, but everyone's experimenting. And by the time the next bull market comes, you know, there'll be some meaningful change, I think, to the everyday consumer.
[00:25:06] Ariba Jahan: Yeah. Thanks for breaking that down. As you were describing where we are right now versus where we want to be, which is being able to like identify, Hey, Simon is into tennis and that means he's going to be into golf possibly or maybe a clothing brand who creates tennis gear wants to find you. Like that's, that sounds like where we want to go. And I'm curious, where do you think we are right now?
[00:25:29] Simon Yi: Yeah, right now I think consumers are just very fearful or they're apathetic and they say privacy doesn't exist. And sure. Apple and Facebook and Google and everyone's saying, Oh, your data's secure.
[00:25:39] Simon Yi: In the meantime, everyone's getting fleeced. There's an entire 600 billion industry leverages your data and sells it and resells and resells it. So this is where we're at now. And up until web3, I don't think there were meaningful solutions in place. It was just more of the same.
[00:25:55] Simon Yi: And now that we have different technology, we can really disrupt that industry and say, let's take the power back as consumers and own my photos, own my likes, own my content that I used to write on medium. And now I write on mirror. xyz and people collect. My writing, it's not Google that indexes my writing and makes money off of AdWords.
[00:26:17] Ariba Jahan: I know that we're sitting on a lot of data right now as more people are coming into crypto, creating wallets, dabbling in different digital collectible projects, you know, or like have been in the space for this whole entire time. And they've been very active in the space, uh, as it comes to like organizing the data actually, so that you can make those insightful decisions. Like right now, do you think we are in a place where someone like a footlocker can analyze the data and understand which wallets to target? Do you think we're there yet?
[00:26:48] Simon Yi: Yeah, totally. Check out a company called hang. xyz. Pretty cool guys. They're in the loyalty space with blaze. app is another one. They're basically bridging web two to web 3 data. Segmenting your wallets, tying that wallet segment into a custom audience and Twitter, and there's like, you know, a handful of these companies emerging in the space. The bigger, I'd say impediment to a footlocker using said technology is the narrative.
[00:27:15] Simon Yi: The mass media narrative is NFTs are a scam. Crypto is some. internet punk, you know, currency that drug dealers use. And at the same time, like people are, you know, it's like, what is this, you know, anarchy, socialists. You know, I think the smart innovators in the space know that this is just the first inning, just like, you know, when the first website came up pets. com or whatever, there weren't not every single website that was published in 2001 is a business and just like not every NFT project in 2023 is a business. We're in the experimentation phase and I think it's about reframing what this is all about.
[00:27:54] Ariba Jahan: I love that. You've been in this journey and it sounds like there's been a lot of unknowns and unexpected challenges and a lot of uncertainty that you've had to navigate. Can you share a little bit on like what's gotten you through? Whether like how you stay grounded, are there any community members, not necessarily just Myosin, but like, where do you find community and like, in being a builder?
[00:28:18] Simon Yi: Well, I mean, first and foremost, I didn't know that I was builder, a builder coming out of school, right? I was, I wasn't like told by my parents, Hey, go be an entrepreneur. It was never an option. It was like doctor, lawyer. And then randomly because I'm a New Yorker, like hedge fund manager, I don't know how my parents heard about it, but whatever they're like. If you're gonna do finance, you gotta work with billions, with a B.
[00:28:38] Simon Yi: And so, I went that traditional route, yadda yadda yadda. I joke with my friends and say I was a serial quitter and that's how I became an entrepreneur is I just continue to quit jobs that didn't answer my three questions, which is, am I having fun? Am I learning something? And I'm, am I providing value to society?
[00:28:56] Simon Yi: You know, continuing on that North Star for me has led me to a point of starting it out. It wasn't necessarily something that I wrote in third grade, right? And that technology didn't even exist. And through. You know, having that framework and also being supported by mentors like Sean Clayton, who's the third co founder of Myosin.xyz he's been a mentor for me for several years. Matt Tepper, also a mentor of mine. I met him early at, at General Assembly and a handful of others. I wouldn't have gotten The guidance, the access to the network, the tough feedback, right? The course correction, just wisdom from these guys. So, you know, eternally grateful for them.
[00:29:35] Ariba Jahan: We don't get there alone, right? We need each other and we need to support each other and that journey looks different from for everybody. Sounds like despite what your parents had envisioned for you, there's a level of comfort that you have with quitting and not absorbing the stigma that comes with quitting, right?
[00:29:54] Ariba Jahan: Like you're saying, yeah, I'm a serial quitter and I'm fine with that. Was that, was that a mindset you've always had or is that new? Or is that like, you know, in hindsight, this is how I would, this is how I frame it.
[00:30:04] Simon Yi: Yeah, it's interesting. I've always marched to the beat of my own drum. And just ask my brother or sister, like I've always been this way, quite stubborn, a little bit head in the clouds, but I'm not distracted. I'm actually really focused when I was at these places. I would see the work that I'm doing and then see kind of where my life would be in five to 10 years, if I had my boss's job and. The reasons why I quit most of these jobs is I was like, I don't want their life. I don't want their life. That's not my monkey, not my circus. And so I've had to do a lot of soul searching, but as a result of knowing my ikigai and my why, I've been able to get to this place.
[00:30:40] Ariba Jahan: What would be your advice to anyone who's been listening to this episode and they want to go further down in this rabbit hole?
[00:30:50] Simon Yi: Let's say, um. Be brave enough to suck at something new today. Because I think a lot of people, especially Americans, you know, we sell the success story in a city like New York, you're surrounded by hustlers. Everyone's the best at what they do. No one wants to hear your piano recital after you learn your first lesson, but it's putting in the work and realizing that. If let's say piano is your passion, you have to suck for 10, 000 hours or whatever it is for you to get to where your tastes are. And so, you know, don't feel discouraged by not having the skills focus on your passion. And be brave.
[00:31:29] Ariba Jahan: I really love that. Be okay with sucking at something new. So Simon, when you, you know, you shared right at the upfront, all the different like organizations you've worked at, right?
[00:31:38] Ariba Jahan: You've mentioned RGA, Vayner, ConsenSys. And so when I hear that, I, I hear a string of like amazing organizations. So when you, are thinking of this advice, what was a moment that looked like, no, that's it. That's the image of Simon sucking at something new.
[00:31:54] Simon Yi: I'd say there was a very awkward time in my life. Uh, four years out of school, this must've been like 2012. I just joined VaynerMedia having come from G capital and Deloitte consulting. And ironically, my first account at VaynerMedia was G. Gary didn't hire me for my social media expertise. He hired me because I had a lot of corporate speak and like jargon and just all of the heavy paperwork.
[00:32:20] Ariba Jahan: You could speak to the client.
[00:32:21] Simon Yi: I could speak to the client, exactly. And so, you know, they saw that value in me that I didn't see in myself. But I didn't realize that. I was just knee deep in imposter syndrome, being like, Wait, I tweet for a living now? Do I tweet enough? How do I tweet? Like, what does it mean to tweet?
[00:32:37] Simon Yi: Yadda yadda yadda. And have had to peel off the imposter syndrome, slowly and surely, by making mistakes. In front of teammates, friends, colleagues, failed projects, the lists go on. And I think for me, where there's failure, there's learnings. Failure is the breakfast of champions.
[00:32:54] Ariba Jahan: I like that. And I'm sure people are taking notes. This makes me think about, you know, are there any projects right now that's giving you inspiration? Or like you think, that's just like really dope what people are doing.
[00:33:05] Simon Yi: Yeah, totally. Check out, uh, Meta label started by Yancey Strickler, one of the co founders of Kickstarter. And what meta label is, is it's a meta record label. They operate as a DAO. They also came out of C Club, so they get it. They are solving the issue of traditional record. Labels putting together 360 deals on up and coming artists, and then basically not letting the art artists thrive and succeed independently. So rather than every artist start their own independent and not have the marketing support, this is a much more modular and equitable way for up and coming artists to support each other. Another example is CabinDAO. CabinDAO is trying to build a distributed network state. of coworking spaces. So, you know, I think if I remember this correctly, they launched a couple years ago, raised through NFTs. They've built now three different locations in the United States, Colorado, somewhere upstate in like New Hampshire, Vermont, and then somewhere else. And now they have a network of locations for DAO members to meet in real life and co work and co live. And the vision is for them to build a network of cabins around the world where anybody who's within the network can stay kind of like an Airbnb, but again, like more community owned, more community driven.
[00:34:23] Ariba Jahan: So can you be part of Myosin DAO and part of Cabin DAO and Myosin DAO members could go co work? At a location of cabin dao that we're
[00:34:33] Simon Yi: exactly and that's what's beautiful about daos. It's like it's not exclusive like like full time jobs are it's you can date in many different interests until you figure out what's right for you. And that cross pollination makes it really fun to work in this space too.
[00:34:48] Ariba Jahan: So earlier today, you brought up intention. You said the Web3 space, you know, there's been a lot of experimentation happening. We went through a bull run and a bear market. And then you talked about going from intention to action. Tell us what that looks like for you, what that looks like. What are you hoping that means for us?
[00:35:07] Simon Yi: In year one of Myosin, we were very, very careful about bringing the right people into the space and highly vetting people on their intention to join. And. Almost intrinsically motivated for the mission that we had set, and we've done a pretty good job of doing that.
[00:35:26] Simon Yi: We have 60 members in 24 countries around the world, and we've booked our first million in top line revs in 15 months, so it works, right? As we think about year two, what I've challenged the DAO members to think about is, from a purely commercial standpoint, how do we 10x our revenue? Because once you become a 10 million agency, we just have complete control over our future.
[00:35:49] Simon Yi: But I think from a touchy feely view is if this is a DAO, we need more co owner behavior, right? And what does that look like? It's not three core members having a stake, driving this, you know, through and obviously through the support financially and sweat equity of, of your fellow members. It's up to that member to say, Hey, I'm really passionate about metaverses.
[00:36:14] Simon Yi: I'm going to start a metaverse meetup or, Hey, I'm really passionate about like 30 person conferences. Let me do that 10 times a year around the world. That's still what's missing. And I think we'll get there. That's what I mean when I say intentions, the impact is. Really making the ethos come alive in the flesh.
[00:36:32] Ariba Jahan: I appreciate that you broke that down for Myosin. Like what was the era of intentionality and vetting for intention? And it sounds like now you want to see signals of action and, and sense of empowerment within the community. Do you think that's, that's also true for all of Web3's ecosystem?
[00:36:47] Simon Yi: Yeah, that's a good question. They're all different maturation cycles. Like DeFi is the most mature segment within Web3. I can argue that a vast majority. of DeFi like tooling has enabled a much more decentralized version of finance. And so there's at that point impact happening for something like social communities like FWB boys club or the jury's still out. Right. We have these really bold visions about if we assemble as a hundred people, if we assemble as a community of 3000 women, if we, whatever, XYZ, we will have better solutions, well, it's time to prove that now in a, in a bear market, there are no distractions. So, you know, we'll see. What kind of impact are these DAOs and the entire industry will have before the next bull run?
[00:37:39] Ariba Jahan: Now that gets me really excited. And I think I start thinking about what other things have to happen in order for this ecosystem to be able to take those actions. And what I think about service DAOs, I think about clients and their comfort level of working with a service DAO, which is a new type of agency.
[00:37:58] Ariba Jahan: Right? So if that was like a early signal, we have obviously. Had much more traction now, but with like the, the bear market, there's definitely people who've pulled back a little bit and said, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to watch first. Let's break it down. Let's start with the now. What is it like as a service DAO to get web2 clients? Like, are they hesitant? Are they like, yes, let's experiment. Like, what's that like?
[00:38:23] Simon Yi: I'd say for many of the CMOs and heads of innovation that we're talking to in a traditional consumer brand. They get really distracted when we mentioned DAO. Uh, in fact, we don't mention it anymore because it's like, what is it? What do you mean decentralized? Like, this is too confusing. What we are is, you know, we're, uh, the ultimate marketing network, right. Or we're an agency. And in order for us to, and you know, that message has resonated because now we have clear revenue and profit to prove that model. But in order for us to 10x this, I think. Again, like we mentioned earlier, it's members going from applying for a project and getting staffed on a project to them realizing, Hey, I'm a designer. I'm running the design guild. I'm going to start a design agency specifically for gaming in web three. Right. And I'm going to 10, 000 from the community treasury to spin up a website, branding, da, da, da, and off we go. That's the thing that's going to unlock 10X is having agency in an agency. You know, again, that, that sense of entrepreneurial spirit.
[00:39:27] Ariba Jahan: I so heard the distinction when you re explained that right now. I think earlier when you said you need that co ownership. Spirit. Now I get it. What you're saying is when you join like a collective of freelancers, that's different. There might be a gig that comes in. Maybe a few people share that project and finish that and have the output and they're done. What you're talking about is a whole bunch of entrepreneurs that is in it for the, for the win of Myosin, right? So it's like, oh, I see a gap in the market. This is what I'm gonna do to address that not necessarily waiting for the myosin core group or myosin leadership to do a thing and then them feeling like, oh, okay, now I do the thing.
[00:40:08] Ariba Jahan: You're saying no, no, no, we need to all roll up our sleeves, find little gap, create meetups or create whatever. Like there is no one hat to wear. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. That's awesome. I would love to know as we wrap up, just a few rapid fire questions. First thing, what keeps you up at night?
[00:40:24] Simon Yi: Oh my God. A lot. I'm old. I'm old now. It's my back. My back keeps me up at night. I'd say among the things that I can control, what keeps me up at night is this idea of fear, uncertainty, and doubt within my community. It does, you know, that, that means my friends, family, old coworkers, new coworkers, et cetera, is I think people are really contagious and that energy is contagious.
[00:40:50] Simon Yi: I've done a great job of making sure that I've got my community of support, but it's a tough time right now. Financially, it's a tough time. Politically, it's a tough time. You know, lots of scary things happening, and it's easy for people to begin to unravel. That keeps me up at night a little bit. What gets you out of the bed?
[00:41:07] Simon Yi: Living the perfect day. Uh, a friend of mine, Shom, said this to me, it's like, life is kind of like an arcade where you live the same day, and your goal isn't necessarily to have a great life, it's just to have a great day. And really thinking about what does that great day look like and reflecting on that. And you wake up the next day and try to have a great day.
[00:41:27] Ariba Jahan: Well, what was the answer to that question? When you woke up today.
[00:41:32] Simon Yi: Uh, prepare for this podcast, uh, wear a collared shirt.
[00:41:36] Ariba Jahan: I love it. I love it. Okay. So I think you answered portions of this next question from your perspective, being in this space, what's up next in tech?
[00:41:44] Simon Yi: Well, one, a lot of regulation. And in the technology that we're all tinkering around, I think service we'll have their moment this year, if not early next, it's a future labor, it's a future work, right? We're going from fractalized talent that reaches the far corners of the earth and connected through the internet to now. Clusters or pods of specialties operating as their own, you know, sovereign organization and makes money collectively online. It's so early, but this is going to change the way that even society operates.
[00:42:18] Ariba Jahan: I feel like when I hear that, that I start and we don't have to unravel this topic on this episode, but we're talking about operations, right? We're talking about how people drive change, how people organize. And, and we've been talking about DAOs in the sense of what already exists. And I think. We haven't really touched on, does everything need to be a DAO, right? Or like, where does it make sense to be a DAO versus what doesn't make sense to be a DAO? And then in the future, what's the relationship between DAOs and government? Does government become a DAO? Can you do that? You know, so. I think, um, if someone in the, if someone in the audience is like, Oh, I want to talk about that. Yeah. Email me. Let's, let's hop on a podcast and you can break that down from your perspective. So who would you refer to as up next? So we talked about what is up next and now who do you think is up next? Who is someone we should all be watching and learning from?
[00:43:08] Simon Yi: Good question. I'm just looking at Boys Club, whoever does the copy for these guys. So this person.
[00:43:14] Ariba Jahan: So boysclub. is will be one group to pay attention to and whoever does their
copy. So Simon, thank you so much for this conversation. It's been, it's been exactly the dream of a conversation. I knew this would be, thank you so much for sharing your journey, your stories, your point of view. Um, where can people find you?
[00:43:32] Simon Yi: Yeah, you can find me at douche on Twitter, Telegram. Discord. That's D A 0 U C H. And if you're wondering what Douch is all about, it just is a thing for me, a daily reminder of not to decentralize too early, because if you do, you'll go douch.
[00:43:49] Ariba Jahan: It's pretty awesome. I get that. Like,
[00:43:53] Simon Yi: It's like Homer, I'm like the Homer Simpson of daos
[00:43:57] Ariba Jahan: oh my goodness. Thank you so much. That's it for today, y'all. Uh, that's That's it for today's episode and with up next in tech, I'm Ariba Jahan and my guest today was Simon Yi. Thanks y'all.
[00:44:09] Ariba Jahan: Thank you for joining us for this conversation today. If you liked what you heard, be sure to rate and review us on Apple podcasts and Spotify to help more people discover the show.
[00:44:19] Ariba Jahan: Really appreciate you joining us today and be sure to hit subscribe, leave a comment and come back next week. So we can keep exploring what's up next in tech and shape our collective future together. Until then stay curious.

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