steve wheen 0:06
Hey there, distillery sessions is back for 2023. I'm Steve wheen founder of distillery, a content company with offices across london, Singapore and San Francisco. And indeed, this first episode from our brand new series comes from San Francisco. We're doing a mini series on web three. And I'm so excited to welcome our first guest in the series, Jessica Lawson. Jessica is the CEO and co founder of radio, the first multi chain and multi web web three wallet for media and entertainment. Jessica lead radio through TechStars music accelerator in early 2022. Previously, Jessica was the CEO of Strange Loop studios and Spirit Bomb, the world's first virtual artist record label and an early stage startup. It was here that she first dove into the world of NF T's and their application to music. Outside of work, Jessica is making web three accessible and digestible with a mission to onboard 1 million people into web three. Hi, Jessica, could you kick off by telling us how you got into the web three space?

Jessica 1:08
Yeah, so my experience was almost the complete opposite of web three before getting into web three. So spent a couple years at Deloitte and consulting, working with national security agencies helping them figure out their digital business problems. And so really fell in love with technology there. But you know, thinking about working with NSA CIA to web three was a very big transition. So went to Wharton Business School. And while I was at Wharton, started working with Metaverse music startup, and they were starting to do NF Ts and the lead creative at this company was called Spirit Bomb and strange studios. He was gung ho about NF Ts, he's an artist, right? You know, he's, he's the chief creative officer. I did not grew up around fine art, or like a lot of art of any kind, aside from like, performing arts, like I grew up dancing was a cheerleader, etc. And so I just assumed, you know, at the time, this was end of 2020, very beginning of 2021. So right kind of as the art market was starting to boom, with NF Ts. I was very, very sceptical for the very first few months, and how I got in NF T's was for this company, we started doing NF Ts. So we were creating virtual artists, which if you imagine the gorillas, these 2d, 3d characters bring them to life as musical artists, we were building our own. And so it was very natural for us to release a music track with this, you know, virtual artists performing ads NFT. And so we started doing that. Again, I was very, very sceptical. But what we saw after doing, you know, five, or six of them, was just the amount of loyalty that we were able to create, with our company and brand as a result of doing those NF T's. And it wasn't until we had an event in person at bright moments. They're like, kind of like one of the premier NFT in person galleries, currently in LA, but they do pop ups kind of all over the world. And we were, I think maybe their second event that they held ever. And we had Justin Brennan from the Glitch Mob comm and DJ because he was someone we worked with, and just had, you know, kind of like the who's who of the NFT art world come to this event. And it was really there in person that I saw the power of community and the power that you can build up loyalty through NF T's. And to me, that's what really changed it from being this this type of item that I viewed as almost exclusively similar to traditional art, where it's this very expensive piece of art, you know, someone with a lot of money is probably buying it, which was not me growing up as a child wasn't around that kind of stuff. And really saw the power that is beyond it.

steve wheen 4:10
So in terms of that community piece, I think we'll probably talk a lot about community during this conversation. What was the sort of timeline we're talking about?

Jessica 4:20
In this case, things were happening pretty quickly. So we I will also get contacts that our company had already had an established presence in the music art world. So we had already been known for being like really nice. First off, but also having like really kick ass music visuals like we worked with the weekend. Lizzo Billie Eilish Kendrick Lamar, you know, you name it, talk to your artists and we work with them. And so we'd already kind of had that that piece of like, aspirational ism and expertise there that people did. Like you younger artists knew who our chief creative officer were, for example, so there was already some type of like loyalty building there. And then what we did was we started working with additional artists outside of the company to actually do these NF T's for the music. And that helped us really build community because we were then able to tap into their communities. And then having these in person events really helped us actually create them person capacity, because this was very early 2021. So vaccines were kind of just starting to roll out. There hadn't been too many in person events yet. And so I think we did it out of like, at a short period of time. So like our first NFT launch was in February, early March 2021. And this in person event was in July. So what that's like four months. And I think, today, I think it takes a little bit longer, and 2023. But because of that additional expertise that we had, we were able to move a lot faster than I think the normal company would have been able to.

steve wheen 6:05
So on the topic of speed, one of the missions that I mentioned in the introduction, was your mission to onboard a million people into web three. Can you expand on that a little bit?

Jessica 6:16
Yeah. So like I mentioned, I really didn't come from this world, and really didn't know a lot about it, the way that I got involved into it was through my last job. And really just kind of having someone hold my hand and guide me through that. And so the way that I tried to do that is through social media. So whether it's posting on Tik Tok, or YouTube, or Instagram or Twitter, sharing links to podcasts that I listened to and find really fascinating about web three, or finding articles to and just I think, I try not to be someone that's like constantly trying to convince someone of my point of view, I think there's plenty of people out there that just want to be heard, and said, I try to be an aggregator of resources, and share that with my audience. And so that's the main reason or the main way in which I hope to be able to do that.

steve wheen 7:08
Awesome. So let's go back to the business piece. How fundamental Do you think web three is to businesses today, and also businesses of the future? If you asked

Jessica 7:21
me this question, last year, I think I'd have a lot more confidence in my answer. Today, and you know, in January 2023, I think that the blockchain, it's inevitable that it will transform the way that we think about data, and that we store data, there's there's always been a problem of like having unique data within a large organisation and being able, you know, email addresses in the marketing world have been, you know, the unique identifier for so long. But what happens if I, as a customer have multiple email addresses or like you want to be able to connect to one email address across companies, for example, like let's say Red Bull wants to do a partnership with with Porsche? You know, how do you actually figure out who the common customers are, etc. I think the Blockchain 100% is going to help tackle that and think about the way that we have unique data now, on the consumer end, from like a b2c angle. I think that the ease at which it is for consumers to adopt web three, and to adopt crypto wallets and start using cryptocurrency, and not be scared of it, especially after everything with FTX. And just like the market kind of tanking, I think that I am less confident in just because there's not as big of a business that we're like an immediate business need, in the sense that we can all agree on the b2b side that it's really important to have unique data and be able to like, make data clean, make data really easy to use, and make as well, like make payments faster and easier to like, that's a no brainer. I think it's just figuring out what the killer use cases for consumers that that's going to be the real question of how confident I am. It'll be adopted soon.

steve wheen 9:14
Can you talk to us about any killer use cases that come to mind?

Jessica 9:18
Yes. So I'd say right now, I think what Starbucks is doing, so a Starbucks Odyssey so they're basically you know, Starbucks has been one of the pioneers since they launched their programme and he doesn't he doesn't nine, their loyalty programme of just loyalty programmes in general, just, you know, people start getting iPhones, smartphones in general, and then they develop their app and then this, you know, the system for being able to credit people every single time they visit and really kind of rewrote what a loyalty programme could be. And that's really what NF T's are to like, anytime I anytime I have a friend that asked me what an NF t is, and like doesn't really get it, I think about an example that is relevant to their lives, and show them how that if they have that particular NF T, they can then receive stuff because of it, right. And so, what Starbucks is doing what Starbucks Odyssey is, which is their new web three programme, they're basically taking, that they're taking their most loyal customer that they possibly have, and trying to gamify the experience and build a deeper connection with the brand. And I think that's that, to me, is the best way that consumer facing companies can be interacting with web three, this point in time, is to create degree and experience that becomes, you know, an extension of the brand, gets them to spend more time with the company and engage with that company in new ways as well.

steve wheen 10:50
So that's a great example of a brand getting it right. What about any examples that you've come across when brands haven't got it quite right? Well, we were

Jessica 11:00
we were trying out Porsche. Porsche this week, launched a 10,000 NF T collection. And it pretty much flopped. They only sold out 17%. To give them credit, like the NFT market is not what it used to be. When folks like Adidas, almost exactly a year ago, you know, December 2021, they launched their NF T collection and sold out immediately, like I remember the day, it's like 70,000, NF T's, right? Like the market is totally different. So to give him credit, there's that, but the same time, a lot of the feedback from the community in general was they didn't focus enough on actually, you know, building, building and community, but also the central question with web three. If I'm a brand, I gotta be thinking, Who am I targeting? Right? Like, at the end of the day, it's all about the customer. And you really have to understand whether or not your existing customer is open to web three, and is open to the blockchain and open to, you know, Blockchain interactions. And I think with them, they might not have done enough research there to figure out, are we converting existing customers? Or are we trying to go into web three and tap into new folks, right, because like, the typical web three person, right now, it's like 75 80%, you know, straight white guys. And so, you know, these guys, and I think of like crypto degenerates, which are like these guys in mom's basement, just like trading crypto all day, that's very stereotypical, not totally true all the time. But is that the same person that is going out and buying a Porsche? Probably not. But at the same time, it might be someone that wants to buy a tea that isn't as much as a car, but wants to still be a part of the Porsche ecosystem. So, you know, overall, like I could potentially see where their customer could lie into it. But they just didn't do a really great job of building enough community. They're in like, really figuring out who they're going after.

steve wheen 13:05
It's funny, isn't it? Because that's sort of marketing? 101, isn't it? So looking ahead, can I ask what your vision of marketing and content will look like over the next couple of years?

Jessica 13:16
Yeah, so I think I'll answer marketing and content separately. So first off with marketing, I am very, very confident that in 510 years, all loyalty programmes will be blockchain based, like, it is just the perfect use case for loyalty programmes. And so I think that, you know, there's there's Starbucks, honestly, but I think like, even our you know, think about credit card loyalty programmes, your point system, you know, those should be able to be transferable between companies. And, you know, today, if I have AmEx, and Chase, Sapphire, credit cards, okay. So I should be able to transfer points between those two companies or, you know, Chase partners with infinite amounts of airlines, that whole airline point system process transfer is kind of a nightmare. And so being able to do that, I think is one thing, but also being able to constantly reward your customers and keep them coming back. I mean, there's a couple ways you can grow your business, you can either acquire new customers or get your existing customers to spend more and building a loyalty based programme that is something that the NF T's and blockchain can assist with. I think it's just gonna get people to spend even more money than they probably would have otherwise. Because you now it's like having a software company, right? If if the price of your NFT goes up, you're probably either going to be more excited at that company because you want it to keep going up because in theory, you either want to keep it or you're gonna sell it, right. It's just like, thinking about assets. So I'm really excited about that for marketing. I cannot wait For the day that like Disney releases, a blockchain based loyalty programme. I think that's gonna be really wild. On Sunday, I literally like bought a Disney annual pass. I live in Los Angeles, and like grew up going to the park as a kid. And they've already started to venture into the space. And they've been hiring a lot on the legal side for the metaverse and web three. So right now Disney is doing stuff with Vivi, which is like a digital collectibles online. But I think once they start, like, the past that I bought Sunday, like that should be an NF T. Because then like, what happens if, what if I want to buy like a theme park pass for, they're always like a year long, right? I and Disney, for example, they stopped selling them for a couple of months. And I could have sold it, if it was an NF T for like twice the amount that I paid for it. Disney gets a 10% kickback. So you know, it's just, it's a great use case. So that's marketing content. I'm also really excited for. So I've been experimenting a lot with this one social media platform called lens protocol. They are kind of like the premier web through social media platform right now. But it's really awesome, because as a creator, I don't own any of my content. So if tick tock decided to delete my profile today, like, that's that I don't own the videos, I post it like I, Jessica, save all my videos that I post online, but at the end of the day, you know, not everyone does that. And so being able to actually own all your own content as an NFT is gonna be really valuable. But what also happens if I have a video that goes viral, and then open book of life, and as NFT, they could then sell that on the secondary market, if there's demand, etc. So there's ways for creators to make money there. What I'm also really excited for too, is I think a lot of social media will turn into, if you think of like only fans, how it is subscription based, what we're gonna have is the same thing, but NF T's, but it's not going to just be, you know, the adult entertainment industry, it's going to be every type of creator, it's going to have some sort of token out there that might be an actual like crypto token, or it might be just an, you know, non fungible token. And if you have an NF T, that gets you access to the creator's content. And so I think that's also a path we're going to start to move down to,

steve wheen 17:31
I want to go back to your example of Disney and the NFT. Being your pass, arguably, isn't that pass now a piece of content?

Jessica 17:43
Yeah, you could, I've never thought of it that way. But you could totally classify it as like, yeah.

steve wheen 17:48
So content is really driving a lot of this change.

Jessica 17:51
Yeah, yes. And I think that the Creator economy and its explosion over the last couple of years, especially post pandemic, like I think that has kind of been the perfect, you know, mixture of the crater economy plus NF T's kind of coming about.

steve wheen 18:06
So. So when you look at an event, like you know, everyone's talking about Super Bowl at the moment, here in San Francisco, it's just around the corner. I'm amazed that they don't have NF T's as as their ticket. I think they sent

Jessica 18:19
out a commemorative NFT last year, but it was not the ticket. It was an add on, or I think it might have just been an email that everyone got, but agreed. So I mean, gosh, I could talk about ticketing forever. Scam fraudulent tickets. Huge, huge problem. Um, I'm really I love festivals. And I can't tell you how many times I've had a friend like trying to find like Coachella tickets online on the internet. And, you know, they then ping me because I'm just that person that people go to, they ping me and ask me, Do you think it's legit, and half the time it's not? And so, you know, having some sort of secondary marketplace that doesn't require a centralised intermediary for people to be able to just sell their tickets and like, know that it's valid, right? Because it's valid because on the blockchain, and I can transfer it to you that way. Like, I think that's going to totally, it's going to, you know, really make make ticketing really, like solve the ticketing problem that we have today, too. We're also like verified fans, with everything that's happening this week, in particular with the Senate hearings, that was Senate news that were the congressional hearings, and Taylor Swift the fact that you know, verified fans can't even get tickets like I you know, my friends, they were trying to buy tickets, one of them did manage to get our groups tickets, but it was just a shit show. And, you know, I just think verification And on both, are you a fan of this artist, but then also verification of is this ticket, an actual ticket? I think those two problems are really, you know, ticketmasters gonna have to think about some new things and their new business. And they are they are like they have hired some of three folks, like a lot of these big companies that I've seen are like hiring web three legal folks. That's kind of like the main hire so far too. And so they're starting, think about it Live Nation started, think about it, who owns Ticketmaster. But it's gonna be a rude awakening for them.

steve wheen 20:35
So I've already asked you about some of the brands in the organisations that are leading the way. And we've talked about what Starbucks is doing. We also talked about some projects that didn't get it quite right. Can you tell me a little bit more about why you think they failed? You know, what a failed project perhaps have in common?

Jessica 20:54
Yeah. So So I think one of the biggest problems that brands and a lot of artists will throw them into that mixture of artists, celebrities, influencers, making the web three spaces that it kind of comes back to who is your customer? And who is your target fan? And is that person already in the web three ecosystem? Or are you trying to tap into an ecosystem that being web three, that none of your fans are in? Right? So there's folks like Bella Hadid that have come out, try to release a T and it majorly flops, because her target fan isn't spending their money on NF T's maybe doesn't know how to buy NF T. And it's too difficult for them. Or, you know, if like Kevin Hart he released, he had a, I think it was like a comedy special that was animated with Roku that he released over the last year. And they launched NF t that got you some like special backstage access, like a behind the scenes video, but the value of it just wasn't great enough. And again, his existing fans weren't really in the web three space. So yeah, it's okay, if you want to go into web three, it's just, if your existing customer isn't in the web three space, you have a damn good reason why and start building community like six months out from when you're trying to do your NFT drop, if that's what you're doing. I think that there's ways that brands could totally tap into web three without having to do an NF T draw. Like, for example, with Porsche, I think that if Porsche had sent all of its like, like, let's say, anyone that had bought two cars from them before I sent them an NF T. Three NF T. Said, Hey, you're a loyal customer, we're going to send you this NF T. And as a result, you know, next time you come to us, you'll get yo free replacement tires or something that's actually a monetary value. I feel like those would have probably done better on the after on the secondary market. Then what they did instead, which was just like a blank and a T drop. And so really figuring out, who are you targeting? And what is the value you're bringing? I think those are the places that a lot of brands have gone wrong, and just assumed they had loyal enough customers, put something out, done very minimal community and customer relationship building in the web three space specifically, and just watched it fail.

steve wheen 23:29
So there's that that community piece again. So one of the things that distillery we think about a lot is diversity and inclusion. You know, is there anyone who's getting left behind in all of this?

Jessica 23:42
Yeah, I think I have two answers to this. Number one, I think a lot of blockchain technology, especially on the payment side, is very well suited for more developing countries or countries where, you know, the bank lists countries, but at the same time, like there's technological gap of having access to 5g, and so I think there, there's a disconnect in regards of, there's some really great technology, but not enough instances in which you can directly be usable today. Yeah, maybe two, three years. Awesome. But I think there's that aspect of being left behind. The second aspect is also a kind of hedge funds on this earlier, you know, 80 85% of the people that are really, really involved in the web through space, are men. And so if you think about it from how do we make sure that like other genders don't get left behind? Having affinity groups, you know, there's there's no formal like web three organisation. But there's definitely a number of groups for women in particular, like my BFF, which is a great group run by Jamie Schmidt, who's like a legend in the CPG space and has done a lot with consumer products and building loyalty programmes. She's running my BFF there's also a group called boys club which is for everyone, but boys. So you know, just there's some fun groups of folks, if you're a female or non binary. There's also from a race perspective, too. It's a lot of like white guys. And so I am half Mexican. And so you know, I'm not a, I'm not a white guy. I'm here for my voice. I'm really involved in a group called Web three familia, which is an awesome group of folks that are Hispanic, or like even folks that are currently like in Mexico or Central America, that want to get into the web three space, too. So there's definitely affinity groups for folks that are either like diverse genders or diverse races, and trying to help educate folks and like, get them jobs in the web UI space if they want to. And make sure that, you know, there's a lot of grants to be able to go to conferences, because conferences are like a really big part of the web three space, there's so many. And being able to make sure those people can attend is also really important.

steve wheen 26:01
So the next thing I wanted to ask you about was web three, changing business specifically, you know, around marketing and content. But we've kind of touched a lot on that already. When we talked about Disney and Starbucks, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Jessica 26:17
Actually, one thing I want to say about that? One thing that I think it's gonna be really fascinating, the blockchain, almost all data is public. So if you looked up my wallet address right now, you can see all the NF T's I have. If I'm a brand, let's say I'm Starbucks, I can look up anyone whether or not they're a customer or not, if I have their wallet address, it's basically your wallet address. For folks that don't know a lot about web three, your wallet, just kind of like your email address in the web three world, right? It's like a unique identifier that identifies this is the this is the container of my digital items. If I'm Starbucks and I look up, you know, Steve's wallet address, I could see that maybe he's a Dunkin Donuts guy. Right? Like, what if the Dunkin Donuts, enough tea, I can then target you and target other Dunkin Donuts users that are customers that I want to try to convert to Starbucks customers, right? Or let's say, let's say 10% of Starbucks customers also shopped at Nordstrom. Same deal. If I have your wallet address, I can then go and see what other other NF T's you have. So I think, you know, today, it's a little bit harder to do that. The power of the data, and the data being public, I think is going to allow for so much more personalised marketing, and personalised experiences that are encompass your entire purchasing activity and your buyer persona, versus just the information that we know about you that you tell us.

steve wheen 27:57
Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, what do you think are going to be the big trends in the next 12 months?

Jessica 28:04
Yeah, I think it's going to be free NF T's. I think people are pretty burned. I think people that are already in the web three space are kind of burned out from purchasing NF T's. People that are not in web three, that might be crypto curious, or web three curious, they're probably sceptical about buying NF T, especially in this market. And with all the news that's been happening. And so I think what we're gonna start seeing is existing companies, rewarding existing customers. And you're seeing that a lot with like, ticketing events, so like the Super Bowl last year, or like the weekend, on his last on his tour this past year, or last year in 2022. He partnered with binance, to give everyone there that attended one of his concerts and NF T. And so I think we're going to start to see a lot of that of like trying to onboard folks into web three and getting them to use technology in a really easy way. But also, it doesn't cost a lot to because cost has been like a big barrier to entry for the last two years.

steve wheen 29:07
At distillery. We work a lot in the b2b space, especially around b2b content in customer advocacy programmes. And one of the things that we've been exploring and experimenting with is how we gamify, an advocacy programme and how we could engage that gamification in web three, combine those two things. You know, in terms of the b2b space, what do you think the opportunities are there?

Jessica 29:38
What I have seen are companies like Shopify that are trying everything they can to help existing, you know, b2b customers that they have. Try to figure out how do I sell NF T's? How do I sell digital merge? And so they've been trying to create their own tooling to allow companies to do that. There's another company that's a startup think there's series A now called third web They're absolutely amazing and like phenomenal, because they basically built no code technology for a brand or company or really like any business that wants to actually start selling NF T's or like really get into the web three space. And so I think from a b2b perspective, the tooling that's going to come about there is how do I make this as easy as possible for my organisation to enter web three? But then also, how do I make it as easy as possible for my customers to enter web three, two?

steve wheen 30:31
Jessica, it's been so awesome to talk to you today. I've so enjoyed being back on the podcast and having you as part of our web three series and to kick this off together. So if people want to learn more about web three, can you recommend any resources?

Jessica 30:47
So I created a web three resource guide, if you go to web three, resource guide.com And three, the number three, just in case you can find, I think now over like 250 links to different resources within NF t's the blockchain defy so decentralised finance Dows, which are decentralised autonomous organisations, which, you know, people think could become the new form of companies per se. I'm a little sceptical, but I tend to be sceptical about new stuff at first. And so you can find all kinds of resources there. You can find me on every platform, but Twitter at Jessica E. Lawson, and on Twitter. I'm Jessica Lawson and I need to

steve wheen 31:32
thanks again, Jessica. The links are below to web three resource guide.com And Jessica's social channels. Don't forget to subscribe to distillery sessions. We've got another fantastic web three guests coming up in another couple of weeks. Check us out on social that's app we are distillery and don't get to have a look at our website. We are distillery.co and I'll see you next time