Li Jin on The Passion Economy & Its Hidden Currency

I think there are NFT sales that function as relationship building...  it’s a way to capture the attention of a popular creator, in a world in which the creator is constantly being bombarded.  It’s a role reversal from the creator just constantly marketing to the consumer.

Li: ...I think the internet uniquely unlocks this opportunity for the next generation and all subsequent generations.  This is different from just “be your own boss.” You can do that in the gig economy. But with a gig, you’re doing really rote commoditized, kind of repetitive work, where the platform is telling you exactly what to do.  Wh... See more

James: The power law gets steeper in this case because of the transparency that the internet gives us... And that is affecting people everywhere, as they struggle to realize where they are in the power law of life. It’s not just getting clients. It’s putting out your songs on YouTube or TikTok, just for fun, and seeing all the people who are “bette... See more

Web 3 & When Platform Participants Become Platform Owners

NFTs and The Act of Ownership  Something NFTs allow you to do is identify that one true super fan who is willing to pay a really high amount and allow a creator to earn a lot off of not that many followers.  Not only can you identify them, but really you’re allowing them to identify themselves...  But it’s interesting that transactio... See more

...a lot of people make businesses to compete with tools where people are already making money. I know in marketplaces, we often see people design marketplaces to try to intermediate or digitize transactions that are already happening.  But the big mental breakthrough is to say, “Can we create something that creates new transactions that aren’... See more

Success Key #2: Founder-Market Fit ... it’s really important for the Founder of those startups to have great founder market fit, to have really deep customer empathy, to be like basically one of them.

I think what’s more interesting about Web 3 and the angle that I would love to explore more is, in so far as it serves as a vector for allowing platform participants to become the owners of the platforms themselves.

On Monetizing Individuality