Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
ArenaX Labs Cofounder, Wei Xie, shares how ArenaX is levelling up the Web3 gaming ecosystem using AI
12 Plays10 days ago
Wei shares his journey from TradFi to Web3 and why he chose to tackle problems in the gaming industry. In this conversation, he opens up about the psychological challenges of making the switch, what excites him most as a founder, and the evolving landscape of AI-driven gaming.
We dive into:
- The pain points in gaming and how Web3 can solve them
- The day-to-day life of a founder & COO
- How to stay ahead in the fast-moving Web3 space
- Career-building tips for those who don’t want to be founders
Whether you're a builder, a founder, or just curious about the future of gaming, this one's for you!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Wei, welcome to the podcast. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to this conversation. Great
About ArenaX Labs and AI Arena
00:00:08
Speaker
stuff. Wei, for people who don't know who you are, could you give us a bit of an introduction, please?
00:00:12
Speaker
For sure. So I am a co-founder and CEO of a company called ArenaX Labs. People may know us from the game AI Arena, which is an AI-powered fighting game.
00:00:25
Speaker
It kind of harkens back to things like Super Smash Bros and Brohalla. But the twist that we have in that game is people actually train AI models to learn how to fight like they do.
00:00:38
Speaker
And then once these AIs are trained, you can submit them to kind of ah compete autonomously on your behalf because they're effectively a reflection of your skills, crystallizing this artificial intelligence model.
Focus on Gaming Infrastructure and AI Technology
00:00:49
Speaker
So we've been building that game for the last three years. Currently, ah that game is live on mainnet and people are able to try it out if they wanted to kind of get into learning about the gameplay but in addition to that we've also started to grow a gaming infrastructure business called arc and arc is largely the crystallization of a lot of the technology that we built that went into AI Arena now that that we are now distributing to third-party studios and helping them create some really cool and interesting AI-based game experiences, but then also helping them to solve some pain points in their kind of growth life cycle and development life cycle as well.
00:01:32
Speaker
So yeah, currently those are kind of the two main focal points with ARK being kind of our primary ah platform that we're starting to grow and really helping the broader gaming ecosystem level up in terms of using AI and empowering and improving their experiences.
00:01:51
Speaker
Sounds really cool. Well, we'll go into that in just a second. now I've got yeah a few questions around around the projects, if that's okay.
Career Path from Finance to Crypto
00:01:58
Speaker
um before we Before we go into that, I'd love to understand a little bit more about your career journey so far.
00:02:04
Speaker
Could you talk us through what's kind of led you to this point? For sure. um So i'm older than I look probably. So I've ah been a professional services for, ah i guess it's been 15, 16 years now.
00:02:21
Speaker
um I started my career in traditional finance I've done a bit of everything in finance. I started on more on the advisory side, doing mergers and acquisitions advisory, and then I moved over to more of the buy side um and spent a career within a Canadian investment fund.
00:02:39
Speaker
you know covering all different types of investment strategies and asset classes from private markets to public markets. And then towards the end of my tenure in TradFi, was leading a large liquid strategies portfolio, so more public markets facing.
00:02:55
Speaker
um We were kind of running our own money inside the fund, but also we were able to kind of invest through third party managers as well.
00:03:06
Speaker
And it was a very kind of interesting and expansive mandate. And while there, I also spearheaded the initiative to start a crypto investment mandate for that fund as well, um culminating in a couple investments prior to me leaving.
00:03:22
Speaker
And then we also started kind of incubating a machine learning based algorithmic trading strategies kind of program and ultimately was able to scale that to about, you know, $750 million. dollars So that that was like the the starting point of my career was, you know, largely stratified. That's when I started just discovering crypto, falling down the rabbit hole.
00:03:45
Speaker
And then it was during the last bull market in 2021 that one that's one of my co-founders and I, Brandon, we were colleagues at at this firm.
NFTs and AI Model Commercialization
00:03:56
Speaker
and We started to dig into NFTs and we were starting to think about how we can use NFTs as a kind of a primitive to really and empower a new wave of IP effectively.
00:04:11
Speaker
Because from our perspective, NFTs were just kind of these general purpose containers and you can drop almost any type of content type into it. um So you know Brandon's thought immediately went into ai models and how that could be a basically an IP content type.
00:04:29
Speaker
um And we started ideating on how do we commercialize like tokenized AI. So that's that's where kind of the gaming piece came into it We felt, okay, gaming is this like portal to the consumer market. And if we can kind of abstract away some of the complexities of what AI is under the covers and deliver it as like an engaging platform.
00:04:49
Speaker
experience for players, this might be the avenue for us to really introduce something that's really cool to the market and um kind of get AI and that type of intellectual property to be more widely owned.
00:05:05
Speaker
and also allow it to be more readily i know i allow the value discovery of these types of IPs to be more market-driven and give people who are creators of this IP an avenue to directly monetize for themselves.
00:05:23
Speaker
So that that was like the initial thesis. um And yeah, in 2021, we raised the seed round and then, you know, we've been at it for three plus years now, um building this this kind of platform to where it is today.
00:05:37
Speaker
Sounds cool. And to go from TradFi into Web3 Gaming probably isn't the traditional route that most people end up in gaming, right? like did you always have ah Did you always have a love for gaming? Did you spot that that was an area of the market that you could make a big impact, example? Or was it out of Pure, just love gaming, so i want to come and do that first or look at that as an area first?
Journey into Gaming and Co-founder's Influence
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah. No, i think all of this happened rather... What's the right way? Like serendipitously yeah in the sense that that it was, I think the thought came to us in terms of, you know, how do we how do we commercialize something that's a bit more kind of complex and abstract in AI?
00:06:19
Speaker
and And this was prior to like LLMs and generative models really becoming part of the public consciousness. so So, yeah, I think it was more of like the situation, the opportunity that we saw at the table and the fact that you know Brandon, as an amazing engineer, is able to kind of translate conceptual ideas into actual working products.
00:06:42
Speaker
And that's really kind of how we got started down this path. I never in my life ever thought that I would be in the gaming business. ah So um it was not by grand design.
00:06:55
Speaker
um Having think said that, I think branching from TradFi into gaming, although it's not something that we're kind of, you know, don't have a track record in this space.
00:07:07
Speaker
It wasn't necessarily something that we felt was a... like going to hamper our ability to succeed. i think my prior experience in TradFi was also a very kind of exploratory, experimental.
00:07:22
Speaker
I've always had this streak of, you know, trying to connect the dots and make things work. And even if it's new, I had a lot of confidence in myself to be going into those situations and find a way to learn about how it works and try to use kind of first principles thinking and reasoning to try to make things better.
00:07:43
Speaker
um So I think from that perspective, irrespective of whether it's gaming or any other industry, didn't really kind of compromise, you know, our own confidence in terms of where we can take this.
Personal Growth and Industry Transitions
00:07:56
Speaker
I think really it's at the end of the day, it's like hard work, you know, persistence, consistency, but then also going into anything new without preconceived notions and really try to decompose that value chain on a first principles basis, understand it.
00:08:14
Speaker
And then the rest of it is just like, hustle, it's just like you know constantly trying to iterate, for trying to figure it out. um So i think I think, yeah, despite the fact that there was there wasn't a plan behind it, um I think we're where grateful for the opportunity that we're in right now and being being where we are today.
00:08:34
Speaker
Hasn't been easy, but it's been it's been very rewarding. No, that's cool. Do have any advice? Like say if someone is ah in TradFi at the moment, TradFi specifically, and they're looking to come across into the industry, there must have been some challenges at the start or maybe some key learns that kind of stand out for you.
00:08:55
Speaker
yeah If someone's looking to make that jump, have you got any and top tips you could share with us? For sure. um
00:09:04
Speaker
I think, first off, was probably speaking to the psychological aspect of it, one of the challenges with TradFi and you know transitioning from TradFi to something else is that um there's always going to be this perceived high opportunity cost.
00:09:18
Speaker
And and that that almost always, not always, but you know very commonly would deter people from taking the plunge, right? because you're especially as you rise up to ranks in draft fi, you're in a pretty good situation all told, right, financially.
00:09:34
Speaker
So it's that switching cost is quite high. So I think, you know, for people that are thinking about making a transition, you the finance aspect of it does factor into your decision making but ultimately you have to kind of really think through whether or not this is this is the right decision for where you are in your career the context that's surrounding you in your personal life um because it it is a dramatically different sphere that you're entering into um especially if you're coming from a larger organization you probably have a more well-defined role
00:10:10
Speaker
um And especially if you're running money or running an investment strategy, it is a very specific type of discipline. Once you get into building, it's lot greater breadth.
00:10:22
Speaker
it's a lot greater bra and perhaps a bit less, like shallower in terms of like what you're managing on each, you know, disparate vertical that now matters.
00:10:34
Speaker
um But your your day-to-day is certainly not kind of like honing and take one particular discipline. You have to be kind of everywhere at an all times. Now, this is if you're kind of branching off and becoming like a like founder or co-founder level person, because obviously as you build an organization, your specialization, et cetera,
00:10:54
Speaker
um but But I think people need to understand the nature of what you do very much changes. And you know you got to be honest with yourself. like Are you someone that really enjoys a very repeatable, ah reliable book process that you have honed and crafted over time?
00:11:09
Speaker
And just basically exploiting that and maximizing your ability to kind of drive the edge in that space. Or is it you're yearning for something else where it's like complex dynamic shifts really quickly and your energy is allocated in a many you know in many different directions at the same time.
00:11:29
Speaker
And all of those things have to ultimately come together for it to work.
Shifting Roles and Responsibilities
00:11:34
Speaker
um Yeah, it's not a simple transition. i think one mental model to use is probably...
00:11:42
Speaker
There's like a similar arc when you progress through very a larger organization where when you're at a lower level, you're usually more specialized. And then when you get up to the ranks of management, it becomes broader.
00:11:54
Speaker
And it's a breadth of skills that you now have to cultivate. That's why a lot of times like really good employees don't necessarily make great managers is because it's just a radically different um skill set.
00:12:08
Speaker
it's like that but tenx or a hundred after it's like now you're outside of the of the realm of a established institution and there's so many more variables that are happening at a extremely rapid pace um and that kind of pacing is also a very different thing to trips try to manage on a day-to-day basis as well so Not sure that's, like, advice, but it's just, like, a recognition of, like, this is what you're getting yourself into.
00:12:36
Speaker
And you have to be very aware of it because, like, you know, some people do prefer, you know, predictability and I'm good at something and I just want to keep doing that.
00:12:48
Speaker
There's no shame in that. That's that's very, you know, that's very... that's, if that's great. That's great for, for certain people. You, you have to have to want the other things that come with like entrepreneurship, building, growing, especially in a extremely dynamic industry that is web three.
00:13:05
Speaker
ah That's brilliant. Really good insight. think that's really important for people to understand the mindset shift, uh, of yeah doing that. Cause I think from the outside, looking in the industry has this, uh,
00:13:19
Speaker
I guess people have a view of the industry of of it being this really, really cool cutting edge sort of place. Everyone thinks I'd love to get involved in that, but actually probably doesn't suit everyone.
00:13:30
Speaker
ah There are roles for everyone in the industry, but you need people across finance, operations, HR, marketing, engineering products. Like you need all of these ah people, but maybe not everyone has the right sort of mindset ah to go into it.
00:13:43
Speaker
And I guess if you go into it with the wrong, mindset that's when your askre expectations and maybe a little bit differently and and maybe it's not what you thought it was going to be but it's really useful for people to understand yeah but did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur eventually was that the plan no no no okay I think I think honestly when I was younger I think my default view of my professional career was you know I'm going to do something that's like
00:14:14
Speaker
you know just like perfecting your craft and just like rise through the rings kind of kind of like the default template that you would expect in a like a career arc um i don't know what it was like maybe i would say i was in my like mid late 20s when kind of a switch went off and maybe it was it has something to do with you know, i started to like grow into growing into myself a little bit and starting to understand what like really drove me.
00:14:45
Speaker
And I can start seeing examples of areas where I really excelled. um And I felt like, you know, you have those moments of like,
00:14:58
Speaker
the effort and kind of the creativity you brought into something create an outsized impact on the result. And you're like, whoa, this is different than just doing your job. You know i mean?
00:15:10
Speaker
So I think that that was like starting to accumulate those experiences in your career. You're like, okay. Like if I applied myself in this way, this is where I have outsized impact on an organization that I'm in, the group that I'm in, you know,
00:15:24
Speaker
So I started using that as a way to kind of guide my decisions in my career. So I started to seek out more and more like things that were off the beaten path and it didn't shy away from any of that.
00:15:35
Speaker
So, and I think, you know, my, my circumstances reward me, rewarded me as well. I had really good kind of mentors and people that like believed in me and kind of gave me a lot of that latitude to express my curiosity, explorations, and kind of like,
00:15:53
Speaker
creativity to build something new despite the fact that it was still within an established organization. So I think that yeah ultimately gave me the confidence to like step up and start you know building something you know completely in the wild, of so to speak.
00:16:11
Speaker
and And so but you like the concept of our our company is so esoteric as it is right like it doesn't fit into a nicely packaged box yes it's gaming there's an ai aspect of it what we were doing in ai no one really understood like even with this ai explosion people still don't really understand because they all just like think lln's and generative models and that's not what we do so there's always been this you know, we're for better, for worse, very independent, and very convicted in what it is that we want to achieve and what what we want to build.
00:16:49
Speaker
But that comes with those little challenges, have to, you know, fight for your space in this grand ether of everything that's happening, right. So but yeah, I think it started from Having those initial experiences that builds confidence and it it you can take that learning and take that progression and level up to the next thing that you want to do. And it just kind of scales from there.
00:17:14
Speaker
Nice. So you got more way more satisfaction out of looking across the broader things than you did focusing on a very specific role. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think at the at the core, it's like, I think what makes me really tick trying to connect the dots on different things that maybe don't have any relationship on first pass, but it's like, oh, okay.
00:17:36
Speaker
these things are connected. and initially it was just like trying to figure it out like a puzzle. And now it's more like you take that sticky skill set, you start figuring things out and you're like, okay, now what do I do to create impact now that I know this?
00:17:51
Speaker
and then And then, so like building is another dimension on that because now you're an active participant in this phenomenon that you're observing. And you can actually interact with the system to either mold it, change it, take advantage of it, right?
00:18:07
Speaker
But you can very quickly kind of experiment your thoughts and thesis and hypothesis in this environment. And that's, that's a lot of fun. It's very stressful, but but because you're putting, you're like, it's it's high stakes.
00:18:22
Speaker
um But, but, ah but it's, it is also like when things work, it's an unbelievable level of like satisfaction. So, yeah. I've got some, I've got some questions on that in, in just a sec, if if that's all right.
00:18:37
Speaker
um But before i I go into that, I think a lot of people would look at your current, if we just go off job titles, right your current title as a co-founder of a project and chief operating officer.
Role of COO and Adapting Business Focus
00:18:48
Speaker
A lot of people would look at that and think, you know, that's my career aspirations. I want to achieve achieve those levels. This might be quite a hard question to answer because I guess it varies. But yeah, can you talk through a day in the life of what do you do as a CEO? What do you do as a co-founder? And how do you what do you do molding the two? Like, can you give us a bit of an idea of that?
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So maybe let's just start from the definition of what the role is supposed to be, right? Like COO, you're in charge of the business operations of a company or a project or an entity.
00:19:22
Speaker
and So in our context, business operations is everything outside of engineering and creative. So those are other departments, but literally like finance, operations, legal, marketing, you know,
00:19:38
Speaker
All of the rest of that stuff sits under my purview. So there's a lot of disparate things happening throughout the day, right? And I have to you know understand you know where our finances are. Sometimes you know on on the accounting and the bookkeeping side, I need to understand where you know how the how the money is flowing, et cetera. What is our run?
00:20:00
Speaker
but is our run so That's an illustration of some of the operating pieces that are like recurring throughout a day. I'll have to kind of dedicate some amount amount of my time to that on a recurring basis.
00:20:12
Speaker
um There is the personnel side, the HR side. right The team grows at certain points. Sometimes you have to make the key decisions or tough decisions on retrenching and or making personnel changes that factors into it.
00:20:26
Speaker
legal and regulatory massive area that you have to spend a lot of time thinking through for this space in particular, because it's very great, a lot of uncertainty.
00:20:37
Speaker
um So, you know, working with external counsel, working with our internal counsel and analyzing business decisions that we're making, how much risk are we taking on?
00:20:49
Speaker
Is that a deliberate risk that we want to take on? That factors into a lot of my day to day. and then And then there's in Web3, it's like a lot of it is also marketing, PR, getting out there, telling the story of the brand, building that trust with the community, and frankly, like rising above the noise threshold, which is actually really difficult to do in Web3.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's one of the most nois this one of the noisiest spaces, right? um So that takes an incredible amount of time. um And when you're a small company, more and more of that rises to the level of like a co-founder, you kind of have to do all of those pieces, you can't, you don't have the luxury of like, I can delegate everything to other people.
00:21:40
Speaker
Not that you don't trust them, it's just that you don't have enough bandwidth to be able to operate in that way as a starting point. um And then the other part of it is like Web3 does have this tendency to want to see more visible leaders.
00:21:56
Speaker
Because the other side of it is there's a lot of unsavering characters in Web3 and there's a lot of things that aren't good. And as a as an ecosystem, I think we are still wrestling as an industry of how do we actually engender trust with the community, with our customers, with our clients, because for every example of good actors, there's 10 examples of bad actors, right? So you're almost like always fighting that uphill battle.
00:22:27
Speaker
um So I think that's that's where you start to stack in the nuances of like what a day-to-day feels like. And then the other thing is like your role ebbs and flows over time.
00:22:39
Speaker
So at particular moment in time, you know let's say you're going through a very heavy promotional period where you're launching a product. maybe 70% of your day is dedicated to things that are more PR and marketing driven because that's what's required of you in that ah view in that moment.
00:22:58
Speaker
And then there are more times where you go into a fundraising period and literally your entire day is just talking to all the investors, like meeting me business development, partnerships and all of that.
00:23:09
Speaker
um Yeah, and then and then other things will, you know, come into the fold and and require more of your time. So the it's, you know, people generally would say, you know, the days aren't really that structured because at any moment, I feel like there's probably like 25% reoccurring things where it's just like every week, you know, you have to kind of get through them.
00:23:34
Speaker
And then there is... like another 30 30 percent which is like um what it is that is like the focal point of the business right now is where you're dedicated your time another like 20 is like you always have to have capacity for being a visible appearances, AMAs, like so spaces, interviews like this, going to conferences, all that kind of stuff.
00:24:02
Speaker
And then, and then another like 20, 30%, where it's just like contingency. Like, you don't know what tomorrow holds. Like, sometimes something just blows up you're like, I'll have to deal with that today.
00:24:13
Speaker
And you had no idea. And you will know that my math doesn't add up to 100% because it's not 100%. It's probably, like, 200% that it adds up to because, yeah's like, this this is not a 9 to 5, right? Like, it's it's just ah around the clock 24-7.
00:24:27
Speaker
So you're you constantly feel like you're... You should feel like you're operating at, like, always almost like at your limit.
00:24:38
Speaker
And sometimes you discover that, you know, oh, that wasn't my limit. This is actually limit. There's more more that I can kind of like extract. But um but yeah, that hopefully that gives you kind of a little lens into it like a day in Yeah, I mean, on paper, I think everything looks it's like, well, yeah, you know, co-founder, building something really cool, exciting industry.
Passion, Challenges, and Context Switching
00:25:01
Speaker
um But I don't think, like, personally for me, I don't take that from like and don't think about that too much. This certainly doesn't really, like, feel like it. Like, it's not like you're a big corporate executive sitting in your, like,
00:25:14
Speaker
50th floor corner office in a tower hurri in downtown metropolitan area. That's like, that's not it right? Like you're, you're in the weeds and just like in the, as they call it, in the lab, right? Just, just grinding it out on all dimensions. But like, you know, I think from, from the perspective, like I've experienced what it's like to being like corporate to this, I think there are aspects that you know you appreciate on both sides. And I think ultimately, again, it comes down to what is that thing that makes you tick, right? What what is that thing that's going to get you going every morning where you're like, yeah, okay, let's get after it. It doesn't matter how hard it is. like
00:25:56
Speaker
This part of it is like what like what I want, and then the rest of it that comes with it is what comes with it.
00:26:04
Speaker
That's a lot of context switching. Yeah. By the sound of it. Yeah. where This might be quite a hard question to answer, but where do you think you learned how to do that from? Is it just trial and error, get stuck into anything, problem solve and work it out?
00:26:20
Speaker
Or do you think there was a certain point in your new career that helped you when you when you were maybe learning how to do some of these things? What do you think? Yeah. I think contact, yeah.
00:26:35
Speaker
Certainly there was an aspect of like my prior career in triathlete, there was a couple of opportunities that I had where it really required me to you know, develop the skill set of context switching.
00:26:50
Speaker
And it was very dynamic as well. It was dynamic in a different way. The volume was very intense and there was a lot going on. So i had to manage breadth as well.
00:27:02
Speaker
So through that, and learned how to do it and still be effective because frankly, it is overwhelming sometimes. And if you're not able to you know be able to focus on certain things at a moment in time and the and and and still compartmentalize other things that you have to do and being able to like almost have this like complex like calendar type of puzzle in your mind of like, I need to do this now.
00:27:32
Speaker
This is the most critical in order to figure out all these like critical path items to get you through your week, your month, your next quarter. like would be very difficult to to kind of build a business in this dynamic, right?
00:27:45
Speaker
um So I think, yes, experience had something to do with it. I don't know if like from a personality standpoint or like innate kind of characteristics of who I am maybe gives me a certain level of tolerance to be able to deal with that amount of stuff to coexist at the same time.
00:28:05
Speaker
So I think I'm able to, you know, tolerate uncertainty and stress to a great extent. I'm not saying that it's not stressful. It's extremely stressful. It's just, you can tolerate it to a certain extent and not have it like basically devolve into chaos. um So, so I think, I think probably having those things do help. And I think part of it is also like,
00:28:34
Speaker
I think with maturity, you start to learn that strategically or tactically at certain moments in time, you can actually let certain things go. um Whereas I think I feel like in my younger, when I was younger,
00:28:51
Speaker
you almost ah you operate in this environment where you would be like, everything has to be perfect. like Everything has to be like buttoned up and fully tied up. and you know That's the only way. But you you you start to understand like that's not a way to to build a business. If you're rescaling a business at any moment in time, there's probably one or two key decisions that drive all the impact and everything else is just like,
00:29:14
Speaker
You know, it is what it is for that moment. um And if you try to scale in a way where like everything is like scaling in lockstep with each other, you i don't think that's a recipe for success.
00:29:26
Speaker
um But it's actually quite difficult to flip that switch mentally for a lot of people. And and this is this is where they do find a challenge in terms of context switching because it's almost like they can't... It's counterintuitive. is's not It's not a not something that's like natural to make that trade-off decisions along the way um because you're so yeah like you're not trained to do that.
00:29:51
Speaker
You're not trying to do that in school. You're not trying to do that in your you know early career. like There's not very few situations where you're like you're naturally like honing that skill set. is just I think over time, you yous like you're forced into situations where you start to realize, okay, if I try to keep doing what I'm familiar with, like it won't work out.
00:30:12
Speaker
So I have to find another way. Yeah, that's really good insight. I guess you have to have that North Star metric, right? Like you always aim for that or keep that that a metric in mind. Like you focus on that one thing and every decision you make points towards that yeah that that that metric rather than trying out to have 10 different things across all business areas that you're constantly trying to juggle. like Then you just miss things, right? And that's not a good place to be.
00:30:37
Speaker
um yeah I think that's really good good insight for people to understand because Web3 is such a, probably those entrepreneurial ah industries that I've ever recruited into. You know, you chat to most people and and most people would love to, I speak to anyone, would love to ah run their own project one day or start something or um they might have side gigs going on or whatever it might be.
00:31:00
Speaker
um
00:31:03
Speaker
could you ah Could you maybe talk through some of the things that that you think people need to be aware of? i know you've touched on ah few things there, to be honest, but could you maybe talk through a few things that people need to be aware of before they launch projects of their own?
00:31:16
Speaker
ah Particularly in Web3, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and maybe I'll frame my answer just thinking a bit more about like what is unique about Web3 that they need to understand.
00:31:30
Speaker
I think, yeah, ah one dimension is just, it's super dynamic. I think like everyone uses that word, like went through, it's so dynamic, but it's like, it it really is. you you um You don't understand until you're in it and you're like, whoa, there's a the sheer amount of things that you have to be aware of and factor into your decision-making, how you manage everything is a lot.
00:31:52
Speaker
So I'll give you some examples. I already mentioned many times you're building in public. So even at the small, like you're a startup, you're like an infant company, but there's this aspect of stakeholder management where you're basically, you operate like you're a public company.
00:32:10
Speaker
But the cadence is even faster than publico like public, like for a public company, you report to your board and stakeholders every quarter. In Web3, it's like, you know, your stakeholders will literally DM you.
00:32:24
Speaker
like every day. and And, you know, like that in and of itself gets to become a lot to manage. And if there is one thing to say, like, yes, you want to build that relationship to with with your community, et cetera, but you can also very easily allow that to consume your time and consume your entire life if you wanted to. Because, you know, if they have a direct line of access to you, you're a customer service rep as much as you are a founder.
00:32:52
Speaker
right And you're just dealing in the front lines with your stakeholders, who also, by the way, happen to be economically tied to the success of your... So they're kind of ah also like owners of your business. So that part of it is very difficult to manage.
00:33:10
Speaker
Most young people who are very enterprising and entrepreneurial, they have never had to manage stakeholders. Point blank, they haven't, right?
00:33:21
Speaker
And this is, you see a lot of mistakes that people make in Web3 where one is they they don't know where to draw the line. Because it's not it's not, you know, I think there's this like false pretense like, oh, you have to be super radically transparent in Web3. You got to always listen to your community. It's like, no no, you don't.
00:33:41
Speaker
there You have to have an or star. You know, you have to know where to draw the line. You have to take feedback where it's constructive and useful. And there's a lot of things that's just noise. And you should not even entertain it.
00:33:53
Speaker
because that is ah counterproductive to what what you're trying to achieve. So how do you create a framework where you can still engage, but manage that energy and that kind of energy finding a way to balance that.
00:34:09
Speaker
It's very, very difficult. I think even for the most seasoned professionals that have had to manage stakeholders, if you put them into Web3, they will tell you, holy smokes, this is a whole different ballgame in terms of how you communicate, manage you know the emotions and the and the the morale, the energy that kind of just morphs over time within these communities.
00:34:31
Speaker
That's one area that you have to be very, very cognizant of.
Global Web3 Competition and Strategy
00:34:34
Speaker
Another is just you have to understand The competitive equilibrium of this industry is extremely challenging.
00:34:45
Speaker
And it's because of a few things. Number one, Web3 technology is truly global.
00:34:53
Speaker
I know a lot of industries say that they are global. They're not. right like If you're a physical industry, you're physically divided by borders. You're physically divided by jurisdictions. There's very clear regulatory frameworks that govern how supply chains operate in different regions. There's protectionist policies that are... You know you operate by kind of like this physical world. right And then you jump over to like the digital world. You look at social media.
00:35:21
Speaker
And you may think that things like social media platforms are global. And the truth is they're not. by you know They're actually fragmented. There's dominant platforms in different parts of the region. right there's There's these type of...
00:35:35
Speaker
kind of consumer clusters, if you will. Web3 is different. Web3 is actually truly global, right? The ownership of something like Bitcoin, ETH is extremely distributed across the world. In fact, adoption is probably faster in emerging markets than it is in advanced economies, right?
00:35:52
Speaker
um Now, that's a great thing in the grand scheme, but building a business is very challenging. because this is first time a truly globally competitive business.
00:36:04
Speaker
Your competitors are not people in your backyard. They're not even in your continent. It's literally someone in like Southeast Asia or Africa or you know any of these other areas of the world.
00:36:16
Speaker
Those are your competitors. they can be also very dynamic and they don't play by the same rules that you do. right A lot of these other jurisdictions, very, very weak regulatory frameworks.
00:36:29
Speaker
Then people can get away with a lot more than what we potentially can in North America or in fiting you know to develop Europe, et cetera, where there's much more robust regulatory frameworks and so um you know enforcement agencies that can have the resources to act on certain things.
00:36:46
Speaker
Now, What I'm not suggesting is, oh, people should be like breaking laws or anything. What I'm telling you is people play by different rules. Business practices are different.
00:36:59
Speaker
You need to understand that. and if you're that and And if you're in that competitive context, decisions that you make, you may not know this because you're you're not you're not accustomed to the business practices of people elsewhere.
00:37:15
Speaker
But if you don't have the awareness that this is what they're doing, yeah you will lose on certain things. but because ah Because like what's what's what's kind of an assumed level playing field in your mind is not that in other people's minds.
00:37:32
Speaker
They will take advantage and exploit every possible kind of advantage that think they can get. it So I think i think that... A lot of it is you have to start to understand what are, quote unquote, the rules of operation, especially in this vacuum of a lack of rules.
00:37:55
Speaker
right And this is kind of the is very frustrating in our space, right? Because we have leading institutions and governments and regulatory agencies that we're all trying to bring them into the fold and say, hey guys, we yeah what we actually need is more clear regulation. Like the fact that there isn't anything clear that's being written about how to operate is probably one of the worst things for this industry right now. And it enables a lot of the you know the bad actors and the things that we see that make the headlines because they're sensational.
00:38:32
Speaker
um And it's because there's not any clear rules. So then people... decide to take advantage of the system where they think they can get away from it ah get away with it.
00:38:43
Speaker
And then that you know that that kind of moral compass or business ethics compass is very different depending on where you are in the world. But that becomes your competitor set.
00:38:54
Speaker
So I think especially if you kind of grew up and operated in a Western context, it's a an eye-opener. For sure. And I think if you talk to a lot of founders in the West, even if you talk to VCs in the West versus the East, they have completely different vantage points of way where they think what they think the levers are to pull for success.
00:39:18
Speaker
It's very, very different. um So i think you have to have an awareness of that. like And you need to... You need to have the ability to embrace that as well.
00:39:29
Speaker
Because you can't just hide behind the fact that, oh, no, but that's that's not how we do things here. It's like, no one cares. you know ah hate shit like Yeah, okay, we can all talk about, you know theoretically, this is what we should do. But in in reality, this is what you're up against.
00:39:46
Speaker
So do you understand that? um So I think that's another area that's very different about Web3. Um, and then just if I can, uh, that's in there. That's super, super interesting thing to understand and how, as a, yeah as a founder, how do you, uh, how do you combat that? Like, do you just try and ignore the noise and just focus on building what you're building, ignore the competition and, and do what you can do? Cause I guess in those sorts situations, you can only control what you do, right? Like you can't control the regulation in a completely different part of the world.
00:40:21
Speaker
I don't think. maybe at some point in the future, there may be some guidelines that will be similar, but to get regulation the same in every single part the world so that everyone's on a similar ah like level playing field is, I don't know if that will ever happen, right? No.
00:40:37
Speaker
um So as a founder, do you just ignore, yeah do you have to ignore the noise and just focus on, right, this is what we're building and just stick to the plan? Or do you, how do you combat that? Yeah, know that's quite a vague question, but...
00:40:51
Speaker
i don't I don't think you can ignore it. I actually don't think you can ignore it. But ah what what I'm not suggesting is you you kind of um relent to a level where you compromise your business integrity and moral en compass, right? Like you should never compromise that.
00:41:09
Speaker
So g you should know that at every stage, decisions that you make ultimately do come with like certain consequences. And in i think I think specifically on like the regulatory side, I don't think there needs to be like a common regulatory standard across the world.
00:41:28
Speaker
But I think leading geographies have to play a leadership role. And we know who to that agency is. They just haven't done it. You know i mean? um and And quite frankly, if they came to the table and became more transparent,
00:41:42
Speaker
and actually put things on the table, a lot of other economies and geographies just follow suit because that's what happens in in the traditional world anyway. um so So I think it does start with leadership. leadership But I think as a founder, like I don't think you can ignore it because So it's one thing to say, yes, you have to focus on your core competency and what what it is that is going to create outsized impact in what you're creating. You should never lose that North Star.
00:42:14
Speaker
But you also need to understand the reason why you observe certain things about how this system operates is because other people are operating by different business assumptions.
00:42:26
Speaker
So what you observe in terms of the outcome Like the the fallacy or the risk of not paying attention is you ascribe a you ascribe an explanation for an observed phenomenon that wasn't the explanation to start with.
00:42:44
Speaker
And that that will impact how you make decisions. And that is sometimes where you make fatal mistakes in in miscalculation. Because you're like, oh this is happening because of X, Y, It's like, no, that's actually not the reason why. It's because people are doing this that's causing this.
00:43:01
Speaker
And if you if you have that mismatch, you may think that was the determinant of success. So you do the same thing that you thought was the determinant success. And it's like, no, that wasn't the explanatory variable in all of explained ah explanatory variable and all that So I think you do need to be aware and you need like this is the awareness and the understanding of that information empowers you to now creatively problem solve so that you don't go head to head in how they compete.
00:43:32
Speaker
You find another angle to out compete them in another way. But that is still, you know, in a way that's very thoughtful about regulation, constraints and all of that kind of stuff.
00:43:45
Speaker
So, but if you didn't if you didn't know that to start with, you can't devise a new strategy. and And the worst part of it is just like, you had no idea and that ignorance actually led you to like a suboptimal decision because you thought the outcome was gonna be something, but it's not.
00:43:58
Speaker
That's fair enough. I think in the industry as well, I guess another thing that you have to be super aware of when you're thinking of of maybe a different solution to a different to a problem or how you can make more of an impact in the area that you're building,
00:44:15
Speaker
There's so many people now, and I know we talk about Web3 being quite a small industry, but still there's, I don't know if it is necessarily that small anymore. There's so many projects building so many things in all parts of the world and that kind of stuff. So difficult to have an eye on all of your competitors in every single region, right? like they even That gets quite tough to even keep an eye on what's are even happening within your particular niche within the market.
00:44:39
Speaker
um ye So yeah, I don't know if you have any tips for for that on on how to really understand your competition or um yeah how to really kind of keep in touch with what's going on.
Core Competencies and Avoiding Trend-Chasing
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah. it's it's it's It's a challenge. it's It's one that's actually difficult to manage as well because Web3 is, to your point, it's actually it actually quite big as ah as ah as an industry in terms of its footprint.
00:45:07
Speaker
um And there's so much going on all the time because as an industry, it's also very loud. And it's deliberately so because everyone is trying to fight for that attention, right? um A lot of times, and you talk to other founders, you know, quite a few of them I've spoken to, can see that sometimes you get swept up in just, you know, what is the thing that is like topical and is getting all the attention right now.
00:45:35
Speaker
And it it does have this like, it does infiltrate how you make decisions because you start to, you know, it's like the shiny object syndrome. It's like, oh, this is the thing that's like capturing attention and everyone's there. Maybe we should be doing and steering our product towards that direction, right?
00:45:50
Speaker
And I would say most of the time, that's that's a bad decision to make because you're losing focus and you're constantly like pivoting towards what is popular at the moment.
00:46:02
Speaker
And by the time that you recognize that it's popular, you're late. That's usually the saturation point. And then the meta is over in like two months. Yeah. It's always that.
00:46:13
Speaker
It's like almost always because, you know, as a founder, your core competency is not discovering new things. You're a consumer of saturated narratives. You're not the discoverer of that.
00:46:25
Speaker
If you want to be a discoverer of that, you should you should quit your job as being a builder because that takes a lot of time to to develop that skill set. So you need to understand about your role, your position, how you're consuming information.
00:46:37
Speaker
You're never going to be first the curve. You're going to be... on average, a consumer of what's already happened and it's about to basically pass. So if you try to start steering your product development pipeline and pivoting to that, it's a losing its a losing prospect. and'm I'm not saying this and won't be ever successful, but on average, it's not be successful in my opinion.
00:46:58
Speaker
So that that that's one aspect of it. think the other aspect of it, so from that standpoint, it's like, oh, don't be overly... um engaging with everything that's happening because it's it's a distraction.
00:47:13
Speaker
But then the other perspective is like, you can't you also cannot have like a head in the sand strategy where it's like, oh, I'm not going to allow any of this noise to bother me. I'm just to be laser focused on executing what it is I'm doing.
00:47:24
Speaker
That doesn't work either, right? Because you do need to know What's happening? um Because at certain points, there will be a narrative or something where it happens to be the core competency of your business.
00:47:41
Speaker
And you need to be there when this is the narrative of the moment. You see what I'm saying? It's not like I'm not trend chasing, but if if the narrative is now aligned with what I'm building, I have to step on the gas and capture that.
00:47:57
Speaker
right Because you don't have many shots at being the focal point of attention in the space. And if you miss the tailwind, that is to your detriment in terms of being able to build quiet users, gather more traction, build brand resonance and equity and all of that.
00:48:16
Speaker
So it's hard to manage that. It's very hard to manage. It's hard to discern what is real, what is not, what matters, what it doesn't. um I think a general statement I would make about competition is that unfortunately in Web3, everyone's competing with everything.
Understanding and Competing in Web3
00:48:34
Speaker
Like you may think, oh, I'm an infrastructure project. I don't compete with the gaming projects. No, you do. You compete in attention. You absolutely do. And you're like, all you know, meme coins, you know, I don't get it It's like, ah you know, I'm above meme coins, right?
00:48:53
Speaker
And it's like, no, don't understand. Meme coins are competitive, right? Especially in a context of an industry where everyone has a token. Yeah. So on that basis, your token is a product that competes against all of these other products that also happen to be tokens.
00:49:09
Speaker
right So in in that setting, this is this is one of the most intensely competitive industries out there. um And it's because of the fact that it's almost at the attention level, which is really ah like marketing and all that,
00:49:26
Speaker
It's perfect competition. This is like textbook perfect competition. And it's exceedingly hard to derive an edge. Very, very, very difficult.
00:49:38
Speaker
um So... Yeah, yeah and and and you have to recognize that. So I think this is this' a maybe builds back to the prior question. i was like, what's unique about Web3? Like, this is another aspect of Web3 that you need to understand. Like, it's insanely competitive because there's this financial value capture mechanism that's tethered to a lot of projects. And that in and of itself becomes its own market.
00:50:03
Speaker
of this like commoditized thing that's called tokens and NFTs and things like that. And it's like, there's no barrier to entry. Anyone can launch anything on at any moment. And meme coins have showcased that. The most unassuming product, which is in essence just a viral idea, is now capturing the most attention.
00:50:22
Speaker
You know, like in traditional textbook economics, this should never happen. But like, it's the now the world that we live in. And how do you navigate that kind of dynamic as building actual product.
00:50:36
Speaker
Something that, you know, I think a lot of projects are trying to figure out. Yeah, it's really interesting that you but you talk about the competition in that way. I don't know why I've never i've never put two and two together like that before.
00:50:48
Speaker
I think I tend to focus on ah the fact that in Web3, everyone is there trying to build each other up. like Everyone's up for different partnerships with different companies. like There isn't competition in terms of It doesn't feel like it's like Web2 brands over competing and selling to each other's audiences and this kind of stuff ah because they're so willing to help. But actually, when you, as you just said it there, when everyone's competing for attention and when your token is a product and you are competing with ah businesses, not just in your niche, but across the whole industry.
00:51:21
Speaker
um Yeah, I never thought about that before, but you yeah, you're completely right. I don't know why I haven't yeah thought of that. like that's a That's a big ah big challenge for a competition. yeah Yeah. I think if you talk if you if you talk to founders, like they would come to that realization ultimately.
00:51:42
Speaker
that they'll they'll They'll understand like, okay, yeah yeah actually if you have a token or an NFT, that is independently a product that now you have to manage over and beyond the actual product that you're building.
00:51:54
Speaker
They're kind of related and tethered together, but they're also in some ways separate and distinct. um So you almost have like you have to have dual strategies for both sides.
00:52:04
Speaker
Tough job as a founder. um it's not easy We've obviously, we've we've spoken we've spoken quite a bit about challenges for founders and and if you're launching a project. Do you have any advice for someone, say, if they don't want to be a founder, they just want to build a real solid career for themselves in the industry?
00:52:22
Speaker
Do you have any advice for someone who might be looking to to do that and how they can set themselves up for success in Web3 specifically? Yeah, um certainly. i think I think there are...
00:52:36
Speaker
um there are people that fit that kind of archetype that that we come across. Like, for example, a very good example would be like Web3 specific or Web3 focused like marketing agencies.
00:52:47
Speaker
Like dare de their core competency is understanding how how to you know capture attention in Web3, how to kind of work with the inner networks of communities to be able to distribute.
00:53:03
Speaker
um And it's a specific very specific part of the overall value chain, but they're kind of like category specialists and this is what they do. um um So so like that's the immediate like example that comes to my mind.
00:53:19
Speaker
I think if I were to think through like, unpacking like how do you create that niche for yourself in this space, I think prop probably it starts with just really digging into it and being like a being like a consumer and or a participant in the flow of that loop.
00:53:38
Speaker
like You have to intimately understand how Web3 works um which is usually quite different than how Web2 works. um And the only way that you can kind of build build up that intuition base is being in it and almost being like a client or a creator and understand that flow.
00:54:01
Speaker
um I think you you you take away a lot of learnings from that. And then from that experience, then you can start to observe and identify opportunities and gaps right where you can come in and service that um and then depending on what you want out of it it's like okay do you want something where you want to scale a really big business by filling a gap um that's one proposition another it could just be don't want to run a very good kind of independent business, maybe it's just me, maybe it's me and a few people that support me.
00:54:36
Speaker
i mean, there's a lot of opportunities here in Web3, right? um So I think it's all predicated on being a kind of, you know, in Web3, they call it just being part of the community to learn how it works.
00:54:49
Speaker
From there, you start to observe and understand what's missing, what are the gaps, what could be done better, and then filling that gap and just doing it and then offering value to the community as a function of the opportunity that you identify and then trying to figure out, okay, is this like a business prospect here that I can scale into?
00:55:08
Speaker
ah If so, then you know you can start you know using using that kind of initial product market fit that you found to yeah influence, you know gather capital, et cetera, and start scaling it, right?
00:55:23
Speaker
So I think that that would be my advice. um I can see like marketing being one aspect on the more technical side. There's, you know initially it was a lot of like more kind of deep kind of smart contract engineering, being able to find like exploits, vulnerabilities and stuff. Like I know people that,
00:55:42
Speaker
They have a personal brand around it, right? Like they're the like the most coveted white hats in the industry. They have a brand presence in the industry around it. They get a lot of deal flow. They become like investors in a lot of deals. They get paid to do certain types of like white hat work.
00:55:58
Speaker
like hacking to to to try to identify vulnerabilities like that's but it's all about like you being in that environment and just like observing getting involved with projects seeing things fall apart coming in as a community member helping to fix it and then you're kind of like building that brand and then that becomes eventually kind of like business right so i think that's probably the best way to go about it That's really good advice.
00:56:27
Speaker
Really good advice.
Self-Reflection and Personal Drive
00:56:28
Speaker
And one question always like to ask, and obviously throughout the last hour hour or so, you talked us through some all sorts different areas, to be honest, and and shared all sorts of insight on on a lot topics.
00:56:41
Speaker
But knowing what you know now about technology, about leadership, about Web3, entrepreneurship, if you could go back 10, 15 years, what advice would you have for your younger self?
00:57:01
Speaker
Yeah. 10, 15 years.
00:57:08
Speaker
um
00:57:14
Speaker
I think, I think, you know, this is probably just very personal to me. i think,
00:57:23
Speaker
I think one advice I would give my younger self would be like you have much greater capacity than you think you do. um And that might be like, yeah, again, like my personal, my own characteristics, my personality. personality I think when I was growing up, maybe it's like the Eastern culture part of my upbringing that plays a factor into it where you know you're you're a bit more, it's not conformist, but like youre your're yourre your're you're a part of a bigger community. like You have a role, right? And it's about like respect for hierarchy, respect for your elders. And I think that does formulate your worldview in terms of your your your place in the broader system.
00:58:14
Speaker
I think in the Western context, it's very different. like the the The ideology of the states is like, just get after it, right? ah you know Life, liberty, push pursuit of happiness. It's just literally the frontiers of the mentality and anything you can imagine, you can create.
00:58:31
Speaker
I do think there's like a good, healthy like middle ground there, but but I do think like over time, um yeah like for me, I think I ah grew into that confidence.
00:58:42
Speaker
I didn't innately have that. So if I were to roll back the clock, I would probably to tell my younger self, like, you may be dis discounting yourself in certain ways that um may limit you in terms of the opportunities that you can ah create for yourself.
00:59:01
Speaker
um And it's it's not like all is lost because obviously the experience that I've had is you grow into that realization, but maybe I could have kickstarted that a little bit earlier um and really get bootstrap that confidence at an earlier stage. And maybe, don't know, things could have worked out in a different way. but But I think in terms of that vantage point and that mentality that I had when was younger or relative to where I am now, and even with younger younger people that I've worked with in mike in my career, i try to con convey that to them to say, like, you're always capable of something great, but you have to find that thing that makes you tick, right? And a lot of things are just things that don't, they're just did just the kind of like so superfluous and you're on the on the periphery, but you're constantly trying to search for
00:59:58
Speaker
a core process or a discipline or a sense of feeling that when you find it, you're like, oh this is it. And it's not a job title. It's not like ah career choice.
01:00:09
Speaker
To me, it's just like, it's a process. It's a repeatable process. And you don't you can put any label on it you want. But it's like, this is the process ultimately that I really enjoy.
01:00:22
Speaker
and then it's like, then you then you scaffold all the things around it and you try to find it so that you preserve as much of that as possible, knowing that inevitably there's all this other stuff that comes around it as well.
01:00:36
Speaker
That's great. Yeah, thank you Thank you for sharing. I'm sure there'll be people listening who can yeah relate to that and and get a lot of value out of that. and People who are starting their careers or just in their journey into Web3.
01:00:46
Speaker
I think that's really useful to understand. So, yeah, thank you for that. um Appreciate it. so Wei, thank you very much for taking the time ah to have a conversation today. um It's been brilliant. I've i've i've learned a lot, ah actually. You've blown my mind with, the yeah, the competition in Web3 specifically.
01:01:04
Speaker
um But, no, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much for taking the time.
Conclusion and Staying Updated with AI Arena and ARK
01:01:09
Speaker
I appreciate you having me. and from it So if if people are interested in finding out more about AI Arena and ARK, is the best place to reach out on on Twitter? I guess you guys are all across Twitter and obviously you have your own websites and stuff as well. Is that the best place to find out more information?
01:01:29
Speaker
Yes, definitely. Follow us on Twitter is AI Arena underscore. Also, we have a new account for ARK. It's called ARK Agents. um You can follow us there for all the developments around the infrastructure product. In fact, this week we're going to be rolling out, kind of kicking off the marketing cycle for the ARK product. So definitely follow us there for for all the latest information.
01:01:51
Speaker
Nice. No way. Thanks again. Thank you very, very much for your time. I'm sure we'll speak soon. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. This was a lot of fun. Take care.
01:02:02
Speaker
Take care, Jack.