Ep 152: Feelings Check-In with Ted (Not Lasso) on Starting Your Own Thing, Accidental Influence, and Onchain Content

[00:00] The Feelings Check-In is a podcast for people who love to listen to two women overshare about the challenges of building a business, navigating careers in tech, and trying to have a personal life. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No. No. [00:21] Just boy stuff. [00:22] Hi. Hey. Welcome to the feelings check-in. Here we are. Here we are. We are recording this on Tuesday because I will be headed... [00:32] to fest tomorrow with the boys, thanks to our friends at Optimism. [00:38] Optimism. [00:39] Crushing it for us. [00:40] Getting all the boys to fest. Crushing. We love Optimism so much. So much. And we're going to be doing some fun stuff with them there around the super chain. And yeah, can't wait. I won't be in attendance at fest. But devastating. Absolutely devastating. To see all the stuff that comes out of it. [01:00] But all the boys will be there, minus Dina. And it's going to be a great time. And we just really love optimism a lot. So thanks to them. And I feel like I'm in like a Coachella house, you know? Like I feel like I'm at the Revolve house. Totally. But it's optimism. Totally. [01:17] Honestly, it checks out and it's a great look for optimism. It's a great look for optimism. Today's episode was really fun. We had on Ted Not Lasso, Ted of Farcaster fame. She's been a friend of the boys for a while. We went to fest with her last year, which was so great. And she was one of the four people in a cabin of five that were reading the

[01:39] That book. What's that book? Oh, the Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin's book. The Creative Act. [01:44] The creative act. We were like such a stereotype. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Just all of us in our Pilates sets reading that book together in the woods. It was a really good time. Anyway, excited to hang with her as we can and also just had a great episode with her about... [02:01] A feelings check-in around career and taking the leap of leaving your stable job to do something risky and all of the feelings that come along with that. I've been having a lot of conversations with people recently in Boys Club and... [02:15] in crypto generally just around their careers and what they are excited about and what they want to be working on and where they want their careers to go and what decisions they feel like they're making now that will impact that and i feel like this is a great listen for for people who are sort of in that crossroads and trying to navigate that [02:33] part of their life. [02:34] Totally. [02:35] Enjoy. [02:35] you [02:37] Hey, Natasha. So a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help you along the way. If you're ready to check out [03:06] to kraken.com backslash boys club and see what crypto can be not investment advice crypto trading involves risk of loss cryptocurrency services are provided to us and us territory customers by payward ventures incorporated pvi dba kraken view pvi's disclosure at kraken.com backslash legal backslash disclosures

[03:27] On today's podcast, we have Ted. [03:30] the infamous Ted with us, friend of the pod, friend of us. Friend of life. [03:38] Friend and more. So happy to have you on the pod today, Ted. Welcome to the show. [03:43] Thank you. I'm honored. Privileged. We're doing a feelings check-in. [03:48] with ted before we get into the feelings check-in i want to do just a quick [03:52] Drive by on your bio here. So Ted [03:57] Not last so, you may know her from Barcaster fame. You may know her from other places like... [04:03] Morgan Stanley. So you worked at Morgan Stanley for many years. TradFi. Morgan Stanley Gurley. I see some other clients that you've worked with in the past, Gucci to 23andMe, just a range. [04:17] Get yourself a girl who can do both. Fill your money, just fill your data. Yeah. Just kidding. [04:34] going full-time consulting on your own, which is what we're going to be talking about today. Any other big hits? [04:39] that you feel like we should mention before we get into it? [04:42] Oh, I was also like molecular biologist as well. I was like full working in a cancer lab before I was like, I need to scale my impact. I need to like work with actual humans. I learned this about Ted when we went to the weirdest dinner that I invited her to a few months ago where I was like, hey, I'm going to Brian Johnson's house for.

[05:03] quote unquote dinner, but it was just a bowl of [05:07] Smoothie? A smoothie bowl? [05:09] - And an olive oil shot. - And an olive oil shot. And the smoothie bowl, like, it wasn't like an acai. It was literally smoothie. [05:16] that for some reason the pea protein was just scooped on top. It wasn't even blended in together. It was so weird. It was the weirdest dinner. And I was like, who is in LA who will same night come to this dinner with me and Ted came. And it was like a single threaded conversation type dinner where, you know, you're [05:34] you're all talking about longevity and not wanting to die. And Ted just starts throwing out some like science, like science. And I was like, what the fuck? And I was like, wow, I didn't realize how much Ted should be at this dinner. Like she's she's perfectly suited. Her and Brian Johnson's doctor just start like going off about cells in the brain. And I was like, OK, go off. So I learned that late in our friendship. But it's, you know, great. [06:02] Lore. It builds the lore. Yeah, that'd be it. That's the only other highlight. [06:07] Great. Okay. So let's dig into it. Feelings check in, you know, the format. We just talked about our feelings really for a half hour. And I feel like you are. [06:17] well suited for that. I think you're a feelings first type person. So [06:22] I think that you're ready. I think part of why we're interested in having you on the feelings check-in today is because... [06:28] We know that you've [06:30] You've gone full time. You took a dive into doing your own thing recently.

[06:36] You had... [06:37] a great job at this [06:39] crypto company, DeFi company and [06:42] you took a leap of faith to go out, strike out on your own. And I think that [06:48] First of all, I'm just so excited to hear about how it's been going and catch up with you. But also, so often founder life is romanticized. [06:56] and glorified and there's also a lot of like survivor [07:00] bias where we only hear the stories when it's worked. And so I think that Natasha and I share a lot on this podcast about sort of the other side of that when it's hard. And I think it's important to share the stories. And so not that you need to come on and say it's been hard, but I think just sharing your experience is useful for people and relatable for a lot of folks. So one other thing that I would just like to add is I am seeing a trend across the industry right [07:30] around their careers. They're either looking for new jobs or thinking about starting their own thing. And I think that there are some [07:37] universal feelings around career stuff and moments in your career that feel maybe like a risk or more opaque and so [07:46] Just having a conversation around that, I hope, will make people... [07:51] excited about what's next for them but also feel a little less alone in the process [07:54] Yeah, I love your guys' feelings, check-in. I like listen to it religiously. Like I went a couple weeks where I didn't and then I listened to one of the recent ones and I think I texted you guys being like, oh my gosh, I haven't listened to this in so long. I'm catching up and I'm like crying.

[08:16] It's hard. [08:17] So first let's start, what are you doing at the moment? [08:20] So right now I would say I'm doing a couple of things is on one hand, I'm doing consulting. So consulting, advising, just like working with different projects or different firms on specific things. You know, like, okay, let's agree on a scope of work, get that done, like have a contract in place and execute on it. So like that's- Operation stuff? [08:42] operations or something? Some operations, some marketing, some like community and networking stuff. A lot of just like connecting the dots. [08:49] From a financial standpoint, I was like, okay, if I'm going to be exploring and like navigating the idea maze, I would feel better if there was like some source of income. And so I was like, okay, let me explore this. And then there ended up being more interest in there than there. [09:03] I would have anticipated. And so like, that's one part of it. And then the other part is like thinking through, okay, like, how do you experiment? [09:10] with the Farcaster community, for instance. And so like, there's obviously this new wave of on-chain creators. I don't know if anyone's actually like cracked it. [09:19] or like if we even know what that means. And so like that to me was really interesting was like, okay, what does like on chain creation look like? Is it a new content form factor the same way? Like when YouTube came, it became video. And then when Instagram came, it became photos. And then when TikTok came, it became like short form video content is on chain really going to be like this next like new content form factor and navigating that idea maze. [09:44] I think as we all know, that's a big question mark that may or may not come to fruition

[09:49] And so that part is really challenging of, okay, do I have conviction that this is like worth exploring and continuing to drive there? And I think [09:59] as founders, like the [10:00] the biggest challenge you have is finding that conviction and holding on to it, especially when times get tough. [10:07] Those are like the two things that I'm focused on. [10:09] So you left your job when? [10:12] I left my job my first day of quote unquote freedom was April 1st. [10:16] And you know this because then I accidentally went full time on Crypto the Game. [10:25] I forgot about that. I forgot about it. [10:30] Oh my God. Full time. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's coming back to me now. It's coming back to me now. Yeah. And I remember I was like. Full manic episode during Crypto the Game. Yes. And everyone was like, you're fun employed right now. [10:46] this game it's not because you like like everyone else here has a job like you are the only one oh my god i forgot about you just sending me like hundreds of spreadsheets a day and moving like what is ted doing right now so you you played crypto the game for 10 days that was the first 10 days of your [11:09] - Frito. - Yes. - And when you left, so when you left your job, you were like, okay, I'm going to explore [11:15] Ted is an influencer on Farcaster for people who don't know. And Farcaster is...

[11:20] Why don't you explain what Farcaster is for people who don't know? Also, you made a face when she said you're an influencer on Farcaster. Well, I like I'm like an accidental influencer. So Farcaster is a decentralized social that looks like Twitter, but also somewhat like Reddit. And I was an early user and then got put on an autofollow list. I just like stayed there and was creating content. I wasn't really on Twitter. I wasn't really like doing anything else. And so ended up. [11:43] I would say like becoming this accidental quote unquote influencer where I have a lot of followers, many of which are like automated bot accounts if we're being intellectually honest. But like I do have a strong community there. Ended up like launching a membership platform and like experimenting and like know a lot of the developers, a lot of the projects, a lot of the founders that are building on there. You're the Tom of Farcaster. She sure is. I am a version of the Tom. Yeah. [12:13] . [12:13] accidentally been thrust into this role of hosting the first Farcaster, I guess not first, but like first larger scale Farcaster community. [12:21] meetup, which ended up being like a 500 person, five day summit in LA. And this coincided with the growth of the network, a fundraise, and like, here I am community member who was like, okay, I like agreed to do this. And like, I'm the type of person who if I'm going to do anything, I do it well. And so like, [12:38] There's these competing tensions of like, okay, I'm working this full-time job. [12:41] I also am supposed to be doing this like little side project that's now turned into like a full blown event. I can't do both. And so I was like, Okay, let me let me just focus on doing Farcon, the summit, and then

[12:52] figuring out what I want to do afterwards. [12:54] So that was like how that came to be. Okay. And so you get to the other side of Farcon. [12:59] And are you like, what am I going to do now? [13:03] Because what's interesting about you as a founder, every founder's journey is different and every founder... [13:08] has a different like approach to the work but i feel like sometimes you leave and you're like okay this is the thing that i'm gonna do i'm gonna go raise money for this thing this is like a concept that i'm rooted in that i'm gonna build a team around or that i'm going to go raise money around and then some people leave their jobs and found things and it's more like i'm betting on [13:25] myself and my own abilities and perspective and and expertise and network and [13:33] going out and being like a consultant or a freelancer which from my perspective is more what you did which there's good things about that and there's bad things about that the good things about it are that you get to choose what you want to work on you have a lot of flexibility around like the things that you're excited about the [13:48] the hard part about it is like it's so much more opaque. There's not like a grounding for like this is the thing that I'm doing. And so I'm curious how you sort of like approach that work when I think there's a lot of people who are thinking a lot about [14:00] what they can offer and their expertise, but unsure of whether that means they should just go get a new job or they should do freelance and consulting. So curious how you approach that question. [14:10] Yeah, that's a I'm like still struggling with it, to be perfectly honest, is that [14:15] Taking a step back, it was like, okay, once I announced that I was leaving my job, [14:20] I think because when you're building a personal brand and when you're attaching yourself to something, people kind of,

[14:26] saw me as like a [14:27] Farcon founder, the event that I put on this summit, they were like, oh, you've like kind of founded that and you like made it happen. You took something from nothing and like you did this. And so I had gotten tons of inbound interest in terms of like, oh, do you want to come work with us after I announced and then like in the mist and like immediately after Farcon and doing something hard like that on your own. And I'm sure you guys felt this way after Brand New. You're like, holy shit, I can do it. It gives you this confidence and this like strength of you being [14:57] I know I can do hard things. I know I can make like something out of nothing and people will enjoy it and like it and I want to do it again. So that's the great part. [15:06] Then, you know, if you go out and have a good time at night and go out, you like wake up the next morning and you have anxiety, you know, there's like, okay, like I can't do that every night. And so a like I was like, super burned out after Farcon. And it didn't really hit me until two weeks after to be like, Oh, shit, I feel completely depleted. And I had also been like, Oh, I'm not ready to work on anybody else's vision or mission. Like I like bringing my own vision to life. Why would I go do that for somebody else right now? And I [15:36] Then all of a sudden you're like two weeks down the road and you're like, wait, hold on. Like, what is my vision? You start to like question it again. And to your point, I think it's hard in an industry like crypto to have... [15:48] there are some people and I really, really admire them to have like a long term view of like this is what we're building for the next five to 10 years. And I have super, super strong conviction around it where I'm kind of like,

[15:58] okay, I don't actually control a lot of these pieces. I'm not technical. So I'm like trying to navigate the idea of me is like, where are the opportunities here? But the landscape is ever changing that even if you identify an opportunity, unless you execute on it, like immediately, it can vanish almost instantly, or it just becomes irrelevant. And then at that point, you're like, is it worth putting time and effort into? So yeah, [16:22] All I have to say is the question I had was like, [16:25] I am [16:27] at an age where like a first i like no responsibility to anybody except for myself i love my parents i like help my parents but like [16:34] I don't have kids. I don't have a partner. This is the perfect time to go out and like put energy and effort into something that [16:41] I'm solely responsible for because I don't have to like answer to anybody else. And that might not be the case in five years. When else am I going to have this opportunity to go chase something where I'm perfectly positioned to build on the momentum of executing something big? I don't know if another moment will come. And like when I'm on my deathbed, I probably will regret not chasing after it than just like going and joining another company and doing the job there. [17:05] Which is like scary to think. But I was like, you know what? [17:08] F it. I don't have another chance to do it. I can go back to Morgan Stanley if I want to. To being trad fi, you know, trad wife, you know, like fully. Trad wife. Single trad wife. Yeah. That was how I was thinking about it. And I don't know if like anybody else has thought about it that way, but I was like, what other time in my life am I going to be able to do this?

[17:29] you [17:30] It's time for a more open, inclusive, and transparent financial system. A system that serves nearly everyone, everywhere, all the time. That's why we love today's sponsor, Kraken. Kraken is a crypto platform that provides a super simple on-ramp to the world of crypto with a 24-7 support team. Crypto transcends physical and imaginary borders. No matter where you are, you can send funds easily and quickly to almost any part of the world. Plus, forget about waiting times and waiting lines. You can send, receive, and trade crypto anywhere near instantly. [17:59] Do you have any regrets about doing it? [18:22] - Thank you. [18:23] No, I have a lot of learnings. I feel like I've learned a lot about myself and like what I need in terms of romanticizing the founder journey. It's like, holy shit, I need a co-founder. Actually, I love working with people. I absolutely love working with people that right now I'm like, oh, it's so lonely. [18:40] Like it's, [18:41] So lonely. Yeah. And like, I'll have great collaborators. Johnny Mac of Fabric talk all the time and like such a great mentor and like an amazing app. Okay. Here's what he's done as a founder. But he's like, if you don't have co-founders, like who are you having these conversations with? Mm-hmm. [18:56] That to me was a big learning, was like, oh shit. I actually like want a team.

[19:00] to do this with, I don't want to do it solo. You are so extroverted. [19:06] Also to begin with, like, not only do I totally recommend to anyone who's listening to have a co-founder just because of honestly... [19:13] sanity. [19:14] Yeah. And also like... [19:17] what's the like money of it all how are you feeling about money [19:25] - Do you get stressed about money? I've never seen you get stressed about money. [19:30] So it's a great question. When I think about money, and I think this is from working at Morgan Stanley, and so for people listening, I worked with all of Morgan Stanley's family office clients. And so these are people who have like, [19:41] hundreds of millions of dollars. It's not just like, oh, you have like [19:45] 100,000 in the bank, they have enough money [19:47] to live many, many, many, many lives. Have you watched industry? [19:51] No, but everyone asks. You should watch it. I think I'm now picturing you as one of the girls in this show. And so we got like really comfortable talking about money, like what motivates you. And like from a financial perspective, I don't. [20:04] I want money to provide money. [20:07] for [20:07] my family or my future family that's what i want and so like again i take a long-term view of it and so [20:15] If you're thinking about generational wealth, I've always thought about this, like, OK, you join an early stage startup that's like maybe about to hit hyper growth and then you end up having the liquidity event if it goes public or it sells. [20:26] And that's kind of like the one real way to get generational wealth. And I think that's why people join startups a lot.

[20:32] And then on the other hand, I did have to make the decision of like, oh, I could have gone full time, found her and kind of navigate the idea maze, but I'm still spending like 50% of my time doing like consulting because I do want some sort of income. I love living in Venice. I love being able to travel. I love getting my $7 latte every morning. And like, I don't want to give all of those things up yet because those spark joy for me. And so like, that's the other thing is like, I did make a conscious decision to not go like 100% down. [21:01] I'm not. [21:02] No income full founder free money. Exactly. Yeah, and I [21:08] Am I making as much money as I... [21:10] would have been making if I stayed at Morgan Stanley or stayed at, you know, an early stage DeFi company that distributes a token as part of like your equity grant monthly or like any of these other things or like the other options on the table. No. But I had to consciously make that trade off is like, OK, it's right now. Like, do I need to optimize for wealth? And I was like, OK, no, like I don't need to optimize for wealth right now. Maybe in five years that will change. Maybe like if you asked me five years ago, I would have had a different answer. But at this moment [21:40] I was like, okay, like, what do I want to optimize for? And I was like, okay, I want to optimize for challenging myself and like seeing if there's something here. [21:47] I think that's a thing that we think about a lot and... [21:51] Honestly, I think people should be [21:53] asking themselves often is... [21:55] I think at any point in your career, [21:57] you're optimizing for something and you have to be honest about what that thing is and

[22:04] be really open to the idea that there are sacrifices that you're making and i think what can be hard about being a founder is that in the case of dina and i at least we have made the decision to optimize [22:16] making less than we would if we were just like at a normal job in the open market with the idea that we're building equity in this thing and also [22:24] deciding... [22:25] that as the money comes into the business that we're reinvesting it into building the team, [22:31] hiring support around the areas that we need support so that we have more bandwidth to think about the growth of the business and [22:39] I think what's interesting is like you make [22:41] that one big decision initially in your career when you're like, okay, I'm going to go off and do this thing. But then I don't, [22:47] I didn't realize how much of at least having a bootstrapped business is then making that decision like over and over and over and over again. And I'm well, this is a small example, but like I'm looking at we're going to token and I'm looking at hotels and I'm like. [23:02] looking at where all my friends are staying and I'm like my decision to decide to stay where everybody else is staying or stay at a cheaper hotel like directly impacts. [23:10] the business and our bottom line and our P&L. [23:14] It's. [23:15] small but [23:16] you feel the effects of those decisions. [23:19] every day in a small business or in a bootstrapped business. And I think what you're speaking to around like, okay, I've decided to be, have some of my time and energy go towards consulting and building other people's businesses. And it's still challenging. You're still enjoying it. But I think similarly to what I'm talking about is like, you are confronted by those decisions around your career and your business every single day and having to optimize for like either long

[23:49] hard is you end up thinking about money a lot because you're like, [23:52] Yes. Constantly navigating those questions. Truly all of the time. Even when I announced that I was leaving, people were like, oh, what are you starting? Can we invest? And it's like, OK. [24:01] do I even want to build a venture scalable company? Because that is a completely different relationship with money as well. So like, oh, then you have to go out and you're asking for money in a different way than you're generating revenue. And you're beholden to like a cap table and you want to do well. And so like, that's different though, because then it offsets the risk if you have the money in your bank account and you're like, okay, great. Like they gave me this money. They trust me with the money. Whereas like when you're bootstrapping, you're like, what if our [24:31] something goes wrong. And like, like, I think about it with Farcaster a lot is like, obviously, I took this jump when Farcaster was at its peak, right? It hit its max daily active users, they announced their fundraise, like it was all this stuff. [24:43] Since then, like it's no secret, engagement, activity, usage, even like the narrative around it externally has just like gone down. And so then it's like, okay, if a lot of my like, quote unquote, influencer, like, okay, like all this like content or like the creator stuff is happening on Farcaster, yet the network is going down. [25:02] That's when I actually have to start thinking about, OK, what is the viability from a business standpoint to think about money? It's an equation. It's a constant equation. [25:12] Yeah, something that Amanda Cassett, we were actually talking about her before we started and how great she is, the founder of Sertone and told Dina and I, we went and got martinis with her years ago at Temple Bar. And she's just the best. And it was, I think, the first time that Dina had met her. And for those who don't know her, she's just like...

[25:28] such a great person and such a distinct person and really intense and [25:32] It was in a moment where, similarly, a lot of people were, like, wanting to cut a check for Boys Club. And we were like, do we raise money? Like, the market was so frothy and it was so tempting. But we were like, there's not a venture-backable business here, at least at that point. [25:47] built serotonin from the ground up and so we were kind of talking to her about it and she was like look when you are a venture-backed business [25:55] you are riding in an SUV. [25:57] And you can kind of feel the bumps in the road. [25:59] but like you've got some comfortability. [26:03] Cushion. [26:03] to the business and what's going on. And when you're bootstrapped, [26:08] you are in like a low suspension Honda and you are feeling every single little bump and groove and pavement. And that is really important at an early stage of the business where you're looking for viability of what you're building. And it was so, that has stuck. We talk about this probably once a month where it's so, so true. And I've had other friends be like, oh, you guys are bootstrapped. I had a friend the other day and I was of course talking about being bootstrapped because it's my [26:38] Like you did it on hard mode. And it was so nice to hear because he's a very successful founder and he raised a bunch of money from very legitimate funds. And it was so nice to have that recognized in that moment because it does feel like hard mode where you're just like, man, there's very little margin for error and there's very little margin for your own life having some cushion to it.

[27:08] Like if... [27:09] You've built a business on top of... [27:11] farcaster, let's call it, and something happens to the network, depending on... [27:15] how much runway you have and decisions you've made, you have some ability to pivot. But in your situation or in another bootstrap situation, like the risk is so much higher in what you're doing every day because you're like, my livelihood depends on this sort of network and a different type of relationship. So it's really interesting to hear you talk about it because I think the narrative around Farkaster has been so up and down. And I think you've been so smart to have like a lot of irons in the fire. Well, I think there's a trade off you're making. So like, [27:45] like, okay, great. We're all in this like new industry, which in and of itself is risk. The TAM can be like somewhat small and like call it delusional, but... [27:53] What I was so inspired by, by both of you, was the fact that, oh, hey, you're taking something that is very cringe and you're making it so fun and so appealing and like, [28:04] There's a reason that you have, like, you won't agree to this, but, like, I think it's, like, a following. Like, there's, like, a religion around voice club because, like, you go and you find, like, a sense of community and a sense of, like, super smart but trendy and hip and in the know and nice, like – [28:20] people who care about crypto but none of us define ourselves by it and i think that's what's so appealing to me and it's like okay actually as you think about like these new voices of the new internet there needs to be more people like voice club there there just needs to be more if this is ever going to go mainstream and if we're ever going to be like this is how all new products or like all new companies are built on blockchain there needs to be more people like you guys who

[28:50] know about normal yeah i don't know about normal ted coming on our podcast to gas up us up is so like so quintessential ted it's so ted um you're so kind first of all thank you so much and that's so such a generous read of what's happening here and i just appreciate that i appreciate you so [29:11] you talk about sort of mainstream, I don't know, I hate the word mainstream adoption. I just I'm so triggered by it. But [29:19] Part of what you're doing is this idea of this mind maze around on-chain [29:23] content and its form factor and [29:27] that takes a renewed and daily conviction in the space in crypto in on chain let's call it and i'm curious how you're feeling about [29:36] it all about the on chain of it all [29:38] Oh my God. [29:39] Oh my gosh. You want to know? You want to know my like honest feeling? Yeah. There's just not good content in crypto. [29:47] And like, I'm sure you guys have felt this way too. It's like, there is, and like, I don't want to slight, there's like a ton of amazing creators who are doing it, but they're like far and few between, you know? I think some of the like, [29:58] the malware podcast, like all of these podcasts. And like, I think we've talked about this was like, oh, like actually like, [30:04] There's interesting things on the Internet that exist outside of crypto. But for some reason, crypto Twitter and like even Farcaster is trending this way. It's like the crypto content is getting the most engagement. And so like the algorithms are actually working against you because like, [30:19] If you want engagement, you actually need to cast about or like tweet about crypto. Oh, I see what you're saying. The content self referential.

[30:26] The only content that's working is self-referential. Whereas like, oh, then I go to like TikTok and can like make a joke like Joe Biden conspiracy theory or something about horse girls and like, oh, it reaches all of these niche communities outside of crypto or outside of tech. And so for me, that's the most discouraging part. It's like I love meeting interesting people and like having interesting conversations across like a variety of topics. And I feel like for you to be [30:53] like the greatest or like the most prolific content creators right now in crypto are like [30:58] talking about crypto yeah and like that's just like kind of boring to me and i don't know if it's taboo to say that because it's like i'm just like okay we can't like [31:08] The best way to get engagement on crypto Twitter is by dunking on crypto or like dunking on some project. And I'm just like, I'm not here for that. Tell me like the latest fashion trend or like show me the memes or like teach me the freaking Charlie XCX like Apple dance. Like I want to be seeing that. And like I feel like people like everybody wants to go see that. It makes you happier. It makes you laugh. And so I'm just like, it's hard. Then you have to show up and you have to be like, OK, I like I want to. [31:30] create interesting content that's not crypto related but like is that going to resonate here because it's a completely crypto platform ted and i just doing the apple dance in idyll wild this weekend i've been working on it just in the woods in the back of the cabins like you and i i hope no one holds us to it um ted thank you for coming on we love you so much and um we're such a fan and it's so encouraging to hear you talk about what you're working on and how you're thinking

[32:00] I just have so much belief in you. And I'm like, if dad can do it, I can do it. I feel that way about you guys. I remember when I was starting to do it, I was like, um, how did you guys set up your LLC? Thank you for coming on.