Peeking under the hood of the Belgian Web3 Community with Lawrence Landeloos, Alexander Hoogewijs & Karel Byloos

On this podcast Alexander, Karel and Lawrence highlight the evolution of the Belgium Web3 community

Are NFT's the front runner or is DeFi taking over? What hot in the community and what keeps them interested.

These questions answered and more about the flow of the Belgian market exclusively on The Future of NFTs.

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BELGIUM HIGHLIGHTS

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (CEO & Co-founder of AdLunam)

• Lawrence Landeloos(Founder & CEO of Onegrid)

• Alexander Hoogewijs(Founder & CEO of SiteManager)

• Karel Byloos(Co-founder 49/Meta)

00:23

Nadja

Hey, web3 world. This is Nadja Bester from AdLunam, the industry's first and only Engage to Earn investing platform that gives you a Proof of Attention, allocation mechanism, Engage to Earn model and NFT fractionalization. I am joined today by a group of lovely gentlemen all the way from Belgium. And we are going to be looking a bit into what is happening in the Belgian ecosystem in web3. So stay tuned for what I think is going to be an amazing episode because everyone comes with a wealth of insights and experience from their perspective corners of the web3 space. So let's quickly do a round of introductions. So Lawrence, you said you're in Belgium right now, but you will be going to Spain later tonight. So I think some of us watching this after today's recording is going to be very jealous at the thought of doing Spain at this time and others who are in the southern hemisphere are happy that they don't have winter.

01:24

Nadja

So Lawrence has an illustrious background, very passionate about bringing ideas to life, connecting people, creating enjoyable experiences. He's a member of CPG Club, former equity partner at strategy and innovation agency VODW, which is okay, has been acquired, Congratulations Lawrence. Lawrence is an innovative thinker and a creative strategist at heart. He is an associate director and advisor at EYVW. Sorry, I knew I was going to get that wrong. And he is also a board member on the economic Alumnum for entrepreneurship in Flanders. Interesting, Lawrence. I also spend quite a bit of time with students at universities. When I was in Vietnam over COVID, because I was COVID refugee there, I ended up working also at a number of different universities, working with students in mentorship roles. And it's so incredibly enriching in a way that working in the professional world isn't always so welcome. Very much looking forward to be speaking with you today.

02:37

Nadja

Over to Alexander. Alexander, My son's name is also Alexander, so I don't know how you prefer me to pronounce your name because he's very particular about his.

02:49

Alexander

You can tell Alex that's okay, that's a bit shorter.

02:54

Nadja

So I never call my son Alex and I refuse to, but I will call you. Alexander is the founder and CEO of SiteManager and No Code NFT marketing platform. Very, very excited to be talking to you today about No Code because I think it's something that we are starting to see making waves in the web3 space as well. And the SiteManager platform empowers agencies and web professionals to scale their web design business by building design systems that improve the workflow and collaboration between designers, coders and end clients. And as a company building and working between designers and coders ourselves, I'm very well aware of how absolutely necessary a product like this is. So the SiteManager is currently leveraging its proprietary tool stack to empower brands to launch their NFT collections. No Code from our generation to post mint experiences. Welcome, Alexander.

03:56

Nadja

Very excited to be talking with you today about what's happening in the NFT space. And then final, last but not least, Karel. So nice to have you with us as well. So Karel Byloos is the co-founder at 49/Meta and probably the most wag me agency in Web3. I absolutely love that tagline, because wag me for me, is a philosophy. It's not just this line that you spread all over the place because you're trying to be cool on Twitter. So I read that and I get you, and I kind of know where your head is going. So I'm happy to have you on the space today. And Karel is a prolific digital marketing expert, having helped many different brands in envisioning and adapting to the ever evolving future trailblazing Web2, and now coming into Web3 and promising to do the same in this space.

04:53

Nadja

So to all of you, thank you so much. I am extremely excited to be having this conversation today. I was talking to someone in lieu of the show, and were talking about how a country like Belgium doesn't necessarily get a lot of attention in the Web3space. Now, I'm from South Africa originally, and whenever I go back there and I see the lack of Web3 spirit that is there, it's a painful thing to experience because it's like your little pocket of the universe, and yet the world doesn't know what's happening there. So I'd love to just really get the ball rolling. In terms of Belgium as a country where as people who are so integral to the development of the space in this country, where do you see the local industry operating at the moment? What level of innovation are we typically seeing in Belgium?

05:48

Nadja

Alexander, can we start with you?

05:53

Alexander

I think if you look at the pace of just digitization in general, I think that Belgium at this moment is a bit lacking around. We are maybe too modest and too shy. We always compare with our neighbors like France and especially the Netherlands and Germany. I think that they are away before us. And I think that if you look at the medium sized companies that still in what we think is just normal to do, just start digitalizing your business, your administrative flows and all that kind of stuff that a lot of small, medium sized companies need to do some efforts over there. Together with SiteManager, for example, we are participating in Tetra projects, which is like a European subsidized granted project together with universities. And there the goal of that project is still how to support small, medium sized companies to digitalize their business.

06:57

Alexander

So I think talking about Web3, we do have a lot of education and stuff to do to get people entirely convinced about what just Web2 digitalization can do with their business. So that is where Belgium is at this moment. That being said, I think there is like a layer in the society that is really innovative hat. So it's busy with artificial intelligence, it's busy with Web3. So you also have that layer in the society. But talking about small, medium sized company, there is a lot of work to be done with what we think is quite just normal in doing business, just digitalize the way how you're going to the market. That's my humble opinion. I don't know what cartel and lords are thinking about it.

07:56

Nadja

Yeah. Well, thank you, Alexander. I think that's such an important point because we tend to live in an echo chamber. If we are within a certain industry, within a certain level industry, we start assuming it's like the yellow car. If you buy a yellow car, then suddenly you start seeing them everywhere. But it's so incredibly important to understand that actually, in most countries, businesses are very far away from the Web3 ideals. And I'm more and more starting to think that I should refer to what we are doing as Web 2.5 because it's not Web3 yet. We are not there. We have the Web3 vision, but we don't have the Web3 step by step manual to bring everyone with us from Web2. So, Karel, please tell me, what are your thoughts on the ecosystem in Belgium?

08:48

Karel

Yeah, I think Alexander already did a good job at explaining with the attitudes most Belgian businesses and consumers have. We tend to be very reluctant in terms of innovation. First, we want to see proof of business before they actually invest in something. However, what I do see is that because we kind of completely missed the ecommerce thing. If you look at the top e-shops and commercials in Belgium, all the shops, they're from neighboring countries, from the Netherlands, from Germany, from France because they deployed their ecommerce system way ahead before Belgium, and then suddenly saw, hey, there's a nice market very close to us. Maybe we can also service that market. And I think many business and business leaders have learned from that mistake and why I'm saying that because when we started Fortnite Meta last year, the first thing we thought is, we going to need to educate the market.

09:35

Karel

We need to explain what is Web3 and why is it important to you, why should you care as a business leader? But actually what we saw is that actually, very quickly, people got it and they're like, okay, not if we should do something, but what should we do in Web3? What should be our web3 strategy? So it very quickly went beyond fact of do we need to do something? Do we really need web3? But more like, what would it mean for my business and how it can be relevant for me and my consumers? So that's something we very quickly got into with customers. And that kind of proves with the mindset not for the whole, let's say with the market itself, it's still quite behind. But the business leader we're innovating, they are clearly thinking about it. And if I see the speed between, let's say, my first web3 event I had like almost two years ago until where we are today, it's really going very fast in that sense, I think.

10:26

Karel

So I'm happy to see that we are adopting, but it's still the market itself is still far behind. The consumers are far behind, and understanding of NFTs and kind of things is still way beyond. But I think it's really good to see business thinking about it and already experimenting with it.

10:44

Nadja

11:44

Nadja

So it's really fascinating to see how one failure to get the home run then leads to being much more open in a subsequent round. Lawrence, what about you? From your experience, how do you see the Belgium ecosystem maybe flourishing both from a user perspective as well as from a business perspective?

12:06

Lawrence

Yes. Well, maybe to take some fundamental views on it, if you look at the Belgium market, you could argue we are a pretty heavy SME driven market. I wouldn't say we are heavy on corporates, given the size. We're not heavy on consumers. We have almost 12, 11.5 million citizens in Belgium. So if you look at a whole web3 space, for example, it's a quite heavy B to C angle approach, and there is movements into the B two B space regarding loyalty. But that still has to be explored. So that means that initially, what does that mean for web3? That in baseline or market size is less big for companies to enter it to. So we need at least the United States, other Asian countries or maybe Europe, which is pretty fragmented. Like I said, I'm moving to Madrid. I'm living there part time. The English speakers are at a minority, even if it's a capital.

13:07

Lawrence

So there's a lot of legal, tax and language barriers to expand from Belgium. So that's one barrier. At the same time, if you look at Keyrock automated market maker, if you look at Vanley Complete Blockchain technology provider, they've got some decent funding, both like 175 million, the other 20 million, I think 21 million. So we're actually doing pretty well in the space on the infrastructure level. So that's something to be proud of. But again, it's more of as a B 2 B. And then as a whole, where is the space going for Belgium? I think they noticed with the ecommerce they missed the ball. I think it was mainly also a legal issue regarding agreements on work night shifts that complicated everything. So I think they're trying to move faster, but I don't have a feeling that there's a lot of tendency to take risk still, even if I wish it would be more so.

14:06

Lawrence

Meaning a lot of incorporations happen in different countries, not in Belgium, because of compliance regulations and something we're exploring as well. So it remains a difficulty for crypto businesses to thrive, for sure.

14:24

Nadja

Yeah, I thank you so much for that perspective because I think it touches on something so incredibly important, namely, well, two important things, regulations, on the one hand, and where countries like Belgium and the larger region like the EU is perhaps stifling innovation because of the regulations that are being placed. But then, on the other hand, if you look at some other countries where there are no regulations, it's the World West. So this touches on very important conversation. But also it made me think of if you consider the B to C versus the B to B, I think this is another really important conversation in the sense very many people, when they think of web3, they only think of the B two C. And when the markets are down, it's really the B two C markets that are down in the sense that the retail investors lose faith.

15:26

Nadja

What is not as highlighted is the B two B, because that continues to happen even during a bear market like the one that we have right now. It's very rare to speak to a company that's actively building and actively working with customers if they are B to C at this time. So most of the people that I speak to that are very actively building their businesses with the clients that they are acquiring are B two B. So I wonder if we can talk a little bit about this and maybe just from your own perspectives in terms of what you are building and also what you are seeing around you. How do you think that the B to B and B to C sort of divide in the industry is helping us or hindering us. Do you think that there should be more of a focus on B, two B at this time or what are your thoughts?

16:21

Nadja

Alexander, can we start with you?

16:25

Alexander

Yes, definitely first thing. But that's just a personal opinion. I don't love talking about bear and bull markets because it made the emphasis that web3 technology is all about investments and in my opinion that is really not the case. It's like it's a technology. From my humble opinion, for me crypto is just a way to pay and validate transaction and it's like the market, we start doing short term trading on it. So I think from an ideal perspective, crypto should be evaluation of the adoption of a certain blockchain or a certain chain, but not really as an investment instrument as such. And that's just the same for NFTs, I guess. I think that the NFT is a technology and the value of the NFT should be the underlying value of the utility or the solution that drives the NFT. We have a couple of use cases.

17:32

Alexander

We are like in the middle of building a B to C storyline for a big media company in Belgium and that has all to do with fan engagement and community building. They want to build like super fan club of raving fans and offer them money cannot buy experiences. But the people that will buy that kind of digital membership card because that is the way how they will sell it will not know beforehand that they are buying NFTs because as we said before, the market is not ready for that. But the gross is no like investment policy or philosophy behind it. It's just the way, yes, we want to do something in the digital world for our super fans. We want to offer something and for us the NFT is a way to achieve the goal. On the other hand, you do have great B to B examples as well.

18:36

Alexander

I'm in conversations with, for example, a fundraising agency that is thinking about new ways of collecting a network of business angels and use NFTs as a way to contribute in funding some products, some ideas, and some companies. So that could be like a way to think and how to use NFTs. And another ways. For example, how to use NFTs for employee retention. For example. So I think there are so many different use cases and NFTs are just the technology behind it. It's just like listening to music. You say you listen to jazz or to blues or to RnB or something like that. You don't say that you're listening to MP3 file or a WAV file or something like that and it's just a way how to build communities, a way how to prove digital ownership and I think that is what needs to change in the industry as well.

19:37

Alexander

We are talking too much from a tech point perspective. Instead of going to the essential case of the thing. And that's like building solutions for companies, for enterprises, and make it incorporated in the global marketing strategy. That's how I look at it.

19:58

Nadja

Yeah, I 100% agree with you. I mean, we have this feeding frenzy whenever we are, as you say, this term, even bull market connotates that it's all about the investment and all about the money. But when we have those healthy, and it's questionable whether it really is so healthy when the charts are green to that extent, because it really just attracts a lot of seedy characters, unfortunately, that have nefarious purposes for being in the industry. But it's so true that ultimately there is an investment aspect to it, and that aspect definitely, I don't think will ever go away. It is here to stay. People will remain, let's say, optimistic. For me, it's so crucial that when you offer someone the opportunity to invest in a company, that it should be a bona fide company, that it's one that really is committed to building. And so if you as an investor are investing, you are doing it for the long term, you are not doing it for the three months until vesting period starts and you can claim your tokens and then you dump them on the market as soon as possible.

21:11

Nadja

That's the most unhealthy way of looking at it. So, Karel, very curious, because with your agency, you obviously have come across a lot of people, or maybe not a lot. I mean, this is my question to you. But as a marketer, let's say you've come across people who have this mentality of I'm just going to hype up at all cost and it's not so important what I'm building. What's important is that I get the attention and I get the money and my investors can dump, I can dump, everyone can dump, and it's just a dead project. So, as someone coming from the marketing side, what are your thoughts on this phenomenon that we have where it's not really about what we are building, but it's about what we can invest in?

22:01

Karel

Yes, it's a difficult splitter. I think initial phase. We saw also in Belgium, some examples which you could describe as a money grab. But actually, I think that's also the cornerstone of, let's say, philosophy. We call ourselves probably the most wagami agency in Web3 is a bit with a wink. But what we mean with that is that everything we do start from kind of a Wagami perspective. What I mean with that is that we try to dissect which are your stakeholders and what is driving value for your stakeholders. Because if you can come up with a business idea, business line, strategy, whatever you want to do, and you will drive value to all your stakeholders, then basically you have the spirit of Web Three because they will contribute to your business model, even if they are not part of a centralized, more decentralized way of working.

22:55

Karel

And I think that is quite important to start from that angle. And actually when we look into with clients that want to do something and we feel that it's a high project, we usually then advise not to do this because one of the things we usually do is also look at do you need a technology? Because sometimes people just want to do something in the Metaverse. I want to open a virtual office in the Metaverse, so I get some PR. I'm the first and it's about branding and I'm thinking like yes, but what is the value of it? Why are you doing it? And is it sustainable? And yes, you can build with that. You can say yes, let's grab the money also as an agency, we'll build it for you and fights you, but I think that will reflect on you also at some point also as an agency, if you do things that don't turn out well, people will remember that.

23:41

Karel

And I think that's why it's quite important that we drive value and that's what we really want to do is drive value for clients. But this also means to drive value for a client's clients, because if they don't get value, our client won't be successful. That's something we really try to, let's say almost like embed in everything we do is that it's all about value. And I think I come back to what Alexander also said is that's also what an NFT is. An NFT is because one of our first project was into music. And why do people buy music NFTs? Yes, they support the artists. Yes, they want. But it's also about ownership and it's not about speculation, because there you get the utility of the music, you get the link to the artist. So you get a lot of return in it. But still, in the back of your head, many people also know that, hey, I bought this music NFT for zero point.

24:31

Karel

I can still sell it at some point. When I'm on Spotify listening to music, I have nothing to sell. If I have a subscription to something service, I cannot sell anything. And that's quite important, is that you own something and so at some point if you don't get the value, at least you can resell it to somebody else who might value it. And that's why I think is the big element of these is the ownership part. It's something that we still need to embed into our business models is what I said earlier is that you need to come up with a way that you can keep delivering value token holders because then in the end your business will be sustainable in the long run.

25:08

Nadja

Really well said. I think if people consider the concept of an NFT because I love what you both keep on coming back to, that this is a technology, I mean, that's all it is for me, I always use this example. It's like money. Money is not good and money is not evil. Money is either a piece of paper or a few coins or ones and zeros in the bank's computer system. What we do with money is what makes the money good or bad. And in the same sense, I mean, the Web3 is a stack of technologies and that's it's agnostic. And everything that is done in the name of comes from humans. It doesn't come from the technology itself. You can't villainize something that is a neutral technology. But I think what you touched on in terms of NFTs that are so important is an NFT has value, whether there's speculation or not.

26:02

Nadja

So this example you use about the ownership, I mean, if I buy a CD, like a manual put into my CD player CD, and I keep the CD for 20 years, and after 20 years, okay, probably I'm not going to sell it for more than what I bought it for. I'll sell it for less because there's many copies and it's not really valuable because technology has changed. But if, I don't know, buy an NFT, Michael Jackson NFT and the next day Michael Jackson dies, probably it will increase in value. So it's more that in the long run, there's a chance that it might increase in value. But then the reason I bought it is for the value that I was getting it up until that point. So I really love that differentiation that you made. So Lawrence, from your perspective, we've heard both Alexander and Karel talk about community and about the human element and how important it is to think of all the stakeholders and drive value.

27:02

Nadja

So what are your thoughts on what you are seeing in Web3, especially as it relates to this conversation about Hype versus utility, true value versus sell to you in the short term so that we can both get something out of it as soon as we can? What shift are you seeing, perhaps?

27:25

Lawrence

Well, yeah, what shift is an interesting one regarding the value, I think everything that comes with value drives speculation one way or another. That is, from physical items to other items before. I think NFTs are a more evolved technology to capture that value and to transfer value. I think that's an incredible innovation. Like the web of value, like some say. The question becomes, does everything have to be monetary value? Right? Can it be value that relates to building up your digital identity? I'm very interested in evolving your digital identity, meaning the wallets we have, these accumulate different type of tokens fungible, non-fungible, semi fungible utility, currencies, and that will eventually represent in some way your digital identity. And that could be valuable. It could be valuable by signaling being part of a community, just like you buy certain brands just to say where you're part of it could be value.

28:32

Lawrence

That is monetary that you can exchange, and that is the sort of a bet on the long term. So there's so much, thanks to the token and the programmability of it that it is very hard to not make it speculative because there's so much to build around. So I think that will exist. The only difference is how can we ensure that people are better educated and informed about what is valuable for them versus having these rug pools or scams or just buying into something, believing it's real? Well, it's not. I think that's worse than people buying into something, making a mistake, and then have to realize just like shares, so it's maybe not the best investment or I have less value than I experience. That's one thing. I don't have a clear answer yet for that. I do wish there was a better compliance and regulation framework in place to at least protect consumers a bit more.

29:25

Lawrence

I'm not against it. I think it will drive the market forward, for sure. And then what we're seeing in terms of shift, I think there's a very interesting discussion on how do brands utilize NFTs and how, for example, independent creators use it. And I think the value for an independent creator is a sort of a crowdfunding, but instead of having an invoice, it operates as a key for more value and utility. Like All Access, for example, while a brand wants to build a social graph independent of a platform, so a brand wants to have loyalty and connection and just understand who their members are and that could be free. So I was discussing with Karel a few days ago as well, why does everything has to be paid? Why cannot be earned?

30:15

Karel

Right?

30:15

Lawrence

Why cannot be just transferred? Just build up the social graph and connections and then see from there, based on who is involved, of contributing in whatever way, on projects, on attending events, you can think of different ideas. So I think that's a shift. Initially it was all sell and then speculate, and now it's more about connect, build, and engage. And that shift is beautiful at the same time, like what Alexander is doing with SiteManager and its product is how can we make these tools as accessible for brands and creators to start experimenting with it, right? The shopifys of these worlds have created ecommerce brands that we have never could thought of before, thanks to Better Tooling. And I think we need that as well. In this space, there are creators who are incredibly smart and have great ideas, but just cannot execute.

31:12

Nadja

Yeah, thank you for that fantastic answer. I loved some of the points that you touched on that really brings together for me so much of what we've been talking about in this idea that your technology that you are using, in this case NFTs, probably would become part of your digital identity. We look at how social media defines us. People are their Twitter accounts or they are their social platforms, whether it's Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram, I mean, it becomes a digital extension of who you are. And there's so much potential with the technology behind NFT, not necessarily the use cases that we are seeing right now, but just to have this available for creators and to really put the options out there and the option to innovate. Because by the time that creators reach that next level of technological innovations with their communities and with the brand members that they have, if they are, as you say, a larger company, then these technological options are a possibility.

32:16

Nadja

So that's really exciting to me. So I'm wondering, in terms of we look at NFTs as they are right now. We know that there are a bunch of weird looking apes and there are some funny little creatures drawn. And this is kind of what most people think about when they think about NFTs, is, I don't get it. It's really stupid. It's really dumb. And I think it doesn't matter who you speak to. This is not a generational thing. You speak to anyone that is not in web3, and it's almost like a chorus, like the Emperor without clothes. Like, oh, how can I see that? He's not wearing any clothes but no one else. So they have this idea that people in web3 have been duped, right? Like, we are the ones that live under an illusion, and the bubble is going to burst, and all of this is going to disappear, and one big joke will be on us.

33:14

Nadja

So I'm really curious in your own circles that you move in and this might be in Belgium, this might be international, but how do you find that people who are not in this space, how do they view NFTs right now? And if you have these conversations with them, how does the shift take place? Or does the shift take place where there's a light bulb that goes on and they go, okay, you know what? Maybe there's something more here. Very curious. Karel, can we start with you?

33:52

Alexander

Yeah.

33:53

Karel

I was laughing because I kind of had the same, let's say the same reflection when I first, like, my first, let's say, encounter or first time I got into it was when I saw Gary Vee draw his doodles and selling it for, like, thousands of dollars. And I was like, I couldn't wrap my head around it, what was going on? And I was not necessarily joking about it, but I was just curious of what is the catch? Why don't I see it? So I think all of us have, at some point when you first encountered it, really thought about, what is this about? How does this work? Why are they paying, like, thousands of dollars for eight pictures you can right click? Save it. I think we all have thought it, and I think what was for me, kind of the eye opener was when I was dug into that case of what's Gary Vee doing, and he explained, look, the tickets, the NFT is also your access to next three Vcons I'm going to organize, and they're going to be huge.

34:48

Karel

They're going to be a lot of so suddenly I thought, oh, but he ties in some value to it. So it's not just this picture. It's a picture that gives me access to something, to the community, to value. And I think that kind of opened my eyes to see there is a lot of possibilities. And I think today when I talk to family and friends and so on, you often get like, people heard about it, but they kind of joke with it, and they also joke about what is happening in the metaverse. And I always say, look, it's a joke until it isn't a joke. And what I mean with that is you can look it up at YouTube. If you Google like Bill Gates at explaining the Internet to the Dave Lerman Show in the 90s, he's also been laughed up. Hey, why would you listen to a baseball game on the Internet?

35:34

Karel

Why you can listen on the radio? And I think it's a natural reflection with change. Every change, any innovation, is always looked at very skeptically, and you have to go through it until there are clear use cases. And I think it depends also a bit on how you as an individual look at things. Like, for me, when I don't understand something, it triggers me to be curious about it. Why does it work? What's behind it? Or you can just laugh at and see. You don't see the application. And I think today, I think what should move things forward is that I think technology will disappear and we will more and more focus on driving value and people will see the value. So I think we see some good cases in the market. Like with what Starbucks is doing is they don't talk about NFTs, they talk about stamps, they talk about a journey and that's language that people understand and they say, look, if you have certain stamps, you get certain value.

36:27

Karel

So it's a loyalty program and people understand it's not laughable, but it's really concrete. And I think that's where we need to go. I again make reflection with the 90s. If I'm in the 90s, need to go on the Internet, I have to have an ASP, I need to have an account, I need to buy a modem, I need to install the modem. There's a lot of technology going on before I got the value of what the Internet could do for me. And I think today is the same thing. You need to create a wallet, you need to buy crypto. You need to do a lot of things. You need a lot of technical barriers that kind of we need to overcome. Until you see the value and I think those will start to get disappeared. I think there's a role of big brands, big companies to take the leads, to take their consumers and onboard your consumers into web3 by providing value, lasting value to them as, let's say consumer of them.

37:11

Karel

And I think that's where people probably NFT will disappear and we'll talk about digital collectibles. So I think things will slowly start to adopt and be integrated into, let's say, more concrete examples and then we'll see market adoption.

37:26

Nadja

Yeah, absolutely. 100% agree with you. I mean, there's so much work cut out for us, but at the same time, it's such an exciting time to be in this industry. I remember in the early days of digital marketing, before it was kind of the same curveball where nobody really knew what it was. And then all those people came in that just sold courses, the gurus, you know, the ones that sold you the snake oil and that put so many businesses off of going on to the Internet because it was all that sleazy place. But I mean, now look at us. How do we conduct almost any business at all without the Internet? My whole career is on the Internet. Most of yours as well. The section that you have that's not on the Internet is typically very small if you are a certain kind of person in a certain kind of industry, in a certain kind of role.

38:20

Nadja

So amazing just how quickly it shifts. So Alexander, curious to hear from your perspective, but maybe also add in an additional question because I think, as Karel said, most people are still not ready for this, but there are some people who are already in this industry. So I'm also curious, what are your thoughts on what kind of person is attracted by what's happening in the space at the moment? There's definitely different archetypes in terms of who is in the industry right now. So yeah, curious to hear what some of the ones are that you come across.

39:01

Alexander

Well, I hear signals from two different reference groups that make me feel very hopeful for the future. And the first reference group are the marketeers. I think when the marketeer starts getting it, I think then there is an opportunity, there is a market opportunity. When I'm talking to those marketeers, they start getting it in a way. And I refer to what Lawrence was stating before. I love the idea in a way like show me your NFT and I tell you who you are. So I think NFTs are a beautiful marketing instrument to personalize content and to work as like a tool in the education awareness phase because everyone is always talking about, yes, I do need to release my own NFT collection. But that's in fact not true. What you can do as a brand is also position you towards a community of, for example, the crypto punks or the board apes, or something like that.

40:09

Alexander

It is perfectly possible to target those communities on your own platform and I think that's a beautiful takeaway and the beautiful foundation of blockchain in general is that it's all open and that's transparent. I'm able to read the contract of the crypto punks and create content gating for brands that want to interact with the community of the crypto punks. So that is very nice, it's very beautiful and I think that is the way how marketeers are going to perceive that business. It's a way about customer profiling. The fun thing is that people decide what kind of NFTs they have in a wallet. They are owner of their own NFTs and that is the big difference compared with social media platforms today where the owners are the social media platforms and I think that's a big shift and when talking to marketeers they start to get it.

41:14

Alexander

And then the second signal I receive is from a totally different reference group. And in fact, it's from my kids. They're a much younger of course, but they live in that world, they live in a metaverse. They play Roblox ,Minecraft day in, day out. They ask okay, can I make a Sandbox account or something like that. So they ask their role books for their birthdays for example and buy digital utility to skip levels in their games and all that kind of stuff. So that makes me feel confident that NFTs have a beautiful role to play in that industry as well. I think we can improve interoperability between the different games and all that kind of stuff but it will be there. How cool is it that, for example, if you are the marketing manager of a football club, for example, that you release like a cap, which I branded in the colors of the football club, and that you can use it or wear it in your avatar in the different games to make people show that you're a fan of a club?

42:27

Alexander

I think that's beautiful and it's already there, it's not that far away. Of course there are a couple of steps to be taken but I'm quite hopeful to it. I see a big switch the recent months. I think in fact the bear market is perfect for that because also we are more focusing on the technology and on the solution, on the added value instead of focusing on the hype and on the quick earn. So I think being in this kind of market also is a good thing because we are more into education instead of speculation to say like that. And that helps the other part of the community that's not into web three to start adopting and to start reading about it.

43:17

Nadja

Yeah, there's definitely amazingly exciting times up ahead but I was laughing because I'm also the mother of a Minecrafter and he's turning 17 but he started playing Minecraft when he was, I don't know, six. And it will be with him. I mean, he still plays and he's extremely loyal. So this to me is always the prime example of community is when you want to target your target audience. You can't like the bat signal kind of project it on the city skyline and then hope that everyone will come to you. You have to make sure that you go where your community is, where they are happy, where they are themselves, and then you have to treat them according to who they are, not according to who you want them to be. Because I asked my son about some of the big brand integrations. I think there was one recently with Minecraft and Burberry, if I'm not mistaken, and my son is for sure not the target audience.

44:18

Nadja

45:06

Nadja

And people have been loyally playing it ever since. And there's now recently apparently been announcement that Wizards of the coast, which was acquired by Hasbro many years ago, Hasbro is now moving away from the non-commercial aspect. So from now on, they're going to completely commercialize the game. You won't be able to play the game in the same way that you were before, at home with your friends. You don't have a dungeon Master. And my son came to me last night and he was horrified because he'd wanted a DND tattoo. And he said to me, I can't get it anymore. I mean, I can't have a tattoo in my arm that represents this company that just wants me to pay. So for me, I 100% agree with you, Alexander, on how seeing the world through your kids'eyes makes you understand where we are going and especially with the new generation, how many brands are getting it wrong because they are using brand thinking mentality that's for a different era, a different age and they are kind of copy pasting it.

46:09

Nadja

On what's happening today so, Lawrence, we've spoken so much about B to B to C, the value that NFTs need to bring the technology that it is. But where do you see us going from here? We come from this NFT legacy of one painting is sold for $69 million and all the artists are flocking there and everyone has suddenly become the next Picasso. And where are we actually going with NFTs? If you look at it with a sobering perspective, beyond what people want it to beyond what it can because sometimes what's possible is not necessarily what's going to happen. So, realistically, where do you think we are going with it as we speak in this year, going forward?

47:03

Lawrence

Well, in this year, yeah. I think there's a lot of being built for the moment. I think this year is a pretty small window still. There are so many verticals. I see it moving. I think generally in the spaces of, let's say one thing I'm very interested in is the spaces with a very low liquidity. Meaning, how can you liquidize things that have a low liquidity but need some transferability to create interest? And recently I was having a talk with somebody regarding hotels and booked rooms. And how can you start have a secondary trade of rooms booked in hotels, create that liquidity. Just like tickets, for example. Tickets that are only liquids through ticket swaps is an intermediary who facilitates this? How can you facilitate this? True tokenization. So it's more of the tokenization of assets that are not liquid. And you can make it liquid because it's not locked into a central platform.

48:01

Lawrence

I think that's a very interesting space. I think we'll see very weird things. One of the things is real estate, right? How we can make it more liquid through tokenization fractionalization. So that's just a big chunk. What I, on the other hand, see very interesting thesis is how social media became user generated content, right? What one to two is like read, only read, write. I think this era could be potentially be user generated, but user co-created, almost. Meaning the Shibuya project I keep talking about, I think is amazing, is that they're building a complete long form animation movie with animators, designers, directors who you have it, but they're gradually releasing producer passes. Just generally, you can buy the pass and then you can influence the direction of the movie. You can add value by doing voiceovers, you can add value by adding animations, and you can get rewarded for it with tokens.

49:04

Lawrence

And at the end, when the whole movie is built, that will be encrypted in one NFT, that's the IP that will sit in a dow and all these contributors will have a fraction or a certain percentage of that IP based on their contribution. So you will see a lot of bottom up brands being completely built up. Instead of having the central companies who say, we're going to build this, we're going to hire these people and we're going to build IP and let people consume. I think there's a huge flip a shift. So it's the user generated, user created movement. And that's something that interests me incredibly compliant. And again, legal wise, that might be something to tackle, but that's where I see things moving and then everything related to digital identity, which of course is the glue between all that's a bit my perspective and I think that could be a disruptive force for a lot of industries as well.

50:06

Lawrence

And to add to it, if you look at I'm also a firm believer in the single person business, you see that growing more and more. You saw the first wave of freelancers and then you gradually, thanks to the democratization of Internet, the tooling, you'll see single people or very small groups have acquired of large businesses and products built out. Again, I see the power of the decentralization of the masses connecting in networks, building products, businesses and brands the way we haven't seen before. Instead of you incorporate a business, you hire people, it becomes big and you evolve. And that interests me the most.

50:48

Nadja

Yeah, we think about the creator economy as well. Bunch of content that lives on the internet. But what I personally also really love about what's happening is exactly this democratization of just everything. I think what we truly are in is the democratization age because it's really the time when people are able to tap into themselves, into others, into the world around them, at a scale where it just simply wasn't possible before. As I said earlier, I'm from South Africa. I've been working with entrepreneurs on the continent and on other continents as well, the so called third World, for many years. And the one thing that I have always said over and over again is there's incredible talent all over the world. But when you are from Africa you simply don't have the same amount of opportunities that you do when you are from the US.

51:44

Nadja

Or from Europe or from Australia or from an income high income nation where there's also mental health support and there's physical health support and there's welfare and there's programs and there's just so much help from so many different sources compared to when you are just someone from not that social standing. So I think for me, the most exciting thing is really what is this going to mean for countries on Earth that until now simply haven't had the same opportunities? And we are seeing this because Web3 is not really leading from the economically leading countries, it is leading from other countries. So that brings me to my final question. We think about crypto, blockchain, web3, all of these different terminologies that we have as something that can be completely life changing, transformative. So I would love to hear what is your personal philosophy about how being in this industry, being part of this industry, is life changing?

52:50

Nadja

How has it been for you and what does it have to offer for other people in the world? Alexander.

52:59

Alexander

Whoa, that's a high level question. Yeah, no, I think I'm quite humble to that. I think from our perspective we can contribute to this trend, to this industry by making it accessible to the majority of people and not only to developers. I think that is what we would like to achieve. In a way, I'm always referring to that one. It has taken, I think 15 years to I offered no coach to be like a trend in the classical Web2 industry and it won't take that long for Web3. And I think if we do have a role to play, I think that it is by our NOCO technology make it as accessible to as many people as possible by marketeers, by solo entrepreneurs, by artists, by whatever person business they want to become familiar with web3 NFT technology. So that is how I look at it from a personal perspective.

54:25

Alexander

I love it, I'm into it, I'm into innovation, but I know myself. I think when there is like within five years a new trend, a new innovative space, probably I will tend to digging into that as well. So it's more like it's very interesting because it opened new doors, it's technology that will facilitate new opportunities to a lot of businesses, but it will be a trend like other trends has been there. I think that our role has been played the moment NFTs are just integrated in the classical marketing tool stack of every company as it was like with content marketing and social search engine optimization and search engine advertising. That's how I look at it. I think like the Web3 technology is just enlarging the marketing mix in companies. It's a way of course I'm now mostly referring to NFT technologies. Of course you also have the Dow Zenzo that makes it possible to create new business models.

55:42

Alexander

But from our perspective, I think when we could be a part of that future marketing team with our technology I think my story has been written.

55:51

Nadja

Thank you so much. Lawrence, what about you? I know you have to go in a few minutes, so if you want to leave after the question it was absolutely amazing to talk to you.

56:04

Lawrence

Yeah, sure. So for me, it's more of I have connected with people across the globe who I wouldn't have known otherwise to be able to connect to. And you have social media, but up till the moment I was into this tokenization utility, tokens NFTs, I had social media, but I wasn't very inclined to go into communities on LinkedIn, communities on Facebook. It felt very frickal. The moment I got skin in the game or at least a sense of ownership that changed my behavior. I was more economically aligned, more emotionally engaged and that changed. It feels like such a thin new alls, but it's an important one and the idea of trying to contribute a whole wag me at the beginning you were talking about does live there in a way I've been able to source people to work on a project that I haven't been able before.

56:56

Lawrence

I got support of people I don't even know exactly the identity from. So the whole space of pseudonym, people just wanting to collaborate, help, it's a very interesting one. And I think collaboration and co creation creates new things that are beneficial globally. And that's, for me, the most interesting piece. And I felt like before it was more individualism, has to say that of course, there's a lot of opportunism and there's always in such a space, but we tend to navigate too much towards the negative, and there's a lot of positive when you're connected to some good communities. So that's what I love the most.

57:39

Nadja

Yeah, I 100% agree. Very well put. Karel, what about you?

57:48

Karel

Yeah, I think Web3 technology blockchain kind offers an opportunity to break a lot of boundaries. And what I mean with that is, for example, we already spoke, we work with people or with communities across the globe. Even if you launch a project, you launch an NFT, you immediately launch globally because you cannot control which area it is. It's about decentralization. We think about decentralization. It basically changes rules that have been set by central entities. I think one of the nice things we also see is that we can make from Web3 what we want to make from it. For example, we built our digital identities based on the digital assets, not on where we're from, not from our gender, not from our beliefs, not from whatever. Basically, we are used to define somebody because right now we define people based on a lot of elements.

58:41

Karel

But basically, Web3 allows you to redefine you based on show me your NFTs and tells you what you are. Basically, it's about that. It's not about what color you are, where you want, what you believe is, what your intention is. And I think Web3 offers that opportunity to break some of those boundaries because we go much more a decentralized way working, of working and different way of connecting with people. Like what Lawrence said, I think through getting part of a community, like, if you have a bored ape, it doesn't matter who the owner, where they're from, somehow you're connected with them emotionally and financially. And I think that was something we can definitely leverage for creating, hopefully a better world where I absolutely hope we can with Web3 and hope we can we have a positive, let's say positive spin on this technology.

59:30

Nadja

Nadja

But the foundation of this industry is getting stronger, it's getting cleaner, it's getting more honorable and has more character as time goes on. So, yeah, I'm very humbled by all of the amazing things that I heard today, because it just makes me so appreciative of being in this industry at this time, and also extremely grateful for all of the insights and all of the experience and the nuggets of wisdom that all three of you shared with me today. So, in closing, if people are watching this and want to get involved with what you are doing or reach out to you in any other sort of way, how can they do that? Alexander, maybe give us your social media platform that you're most active on and also the website of site manager.

Alexander

Yeah, the website is www.sitemanager.io, and you can reach me personally by shooting a DM on LinkedIn. That's the platform I often, most oftenly use to this moment.

Nadja

Karel, what about you?

Karel

Yes, the website is 49, so 49meta.xyz , that's our agency. And you can reach me on Twitter. Just DM me on Twitter, which is @kbyloos , and then I'm happy to get back to you.

Lawrence

Yeah, okay. And last but not least, no, you can reach me on Twitter. I was exploring different platforms, but eventually I think Twitter is the better one. So that's LawLandeloos at Twitter and our platform we're building and launching end of this month, next month is www.onegrid.me, which is a new creator platform we're experimenting with.

Nadja

All right, well, exciting times and everyone's details will also be available on the show Notes, if you look on the AdLunam website or on YouTube if you're watching this over there. So, thank you all so much for being with me today. It was absolutely amazing to connect and I look forward to speaking to you again in future and hearing what's happening, what changes have taken place in the industry since then. Because even though we are not on that insane roller coaster of just new something that's happening every 15 minutes, we are still in this industry and new things do still happen on an almost daily or weekly basis. So, looking forward to catching up with all of you again at some point. Have an amazing afternoon. Cheers, guys.

Karel

Thank you so much.

Lawrence

Bye.