Hello everyone!
The last two weeks felt like three years. I went to Singapore for two days, reflected on the last months, started working on our new website, and much more is happening in real life. Colin is not available today so I kept the audio version brief by recording just a summary myself.
Recent internal updates
Sarah, Savannah, Sergey and I are still working on KAON, which is a blockchain being built from scratch and in the process of raising funds.
Stacy and I proposed a workshop for stakeholder definition to a client and are waiting for a response.
Balint and I are progressing with the design-focused hackathon concept and might start with a 48-hour version to validate our initial hypotheses.
Total Treasury Balance: $8,432.73 (0.13 BTC)
How was our Q3?
The “report“ for this quarter is pretty short as we only worked on paid projects with small profits (in total $830 for the entire quarter). The focus is still on getting Deep Work to default alive with a better offering.
Insights from Token2049 in Singapore
Optimism on the surface
My initial impression while spending two days in SG was positive. Many founders and VCs were wondering how to create real-world impact with blockchain. However, deeper conversations revealed an understanding limited to financial applications, lacking the socio-technical component of the infrastructure.
Most people I met were overly enthusiastic and asked to reconnect over Telegram, but the majority have not responded to my follow-up messages (see metrics below). This has not happened at EthCC or EthTokyo.
Malaysia wants to experiment but the population is skeptical
I also spoke to a few representatives of the Malaysian government. They are curious about how they can create a sandbox for blockchain innovation in Malaysia, given its favorable regulatory environment. They want to “find a way of staying ahead“, because “investment is flowing into it“ and because they see crypto as “an inevitable technology“.
However, adoption among the population is difficult because developers “just build stuff in a decentralized way“ and are difficult to direct toward soleving real-world issues. As a consequence, the majority of the population still considers most products a scam or that crypto is “used by terrorists”.
BD and sales metrics from Singapore
I started recording sales metrics to get a better sense of which strategies establish rapport, offer opportunities to meet new people, and increase collaborative work. The following metrics are for September, mostly from my trip to Singapore:
Showed interest/requested follow-up:
11 VCs, 15 Founders, 3 service providers/partners
Scheduled calls:
1 VC, 4 Founders, 3 service providers/partners
Paid or unpaid collaborations:
1 (from a pre-scheduled meeting)
My primary goal for Singapore was to meet people I scheduled meetings with, so the metrics show the result of making the most of my time there. However, considering that everyone agreed with the need for better design in web3, solutions to real-world problems, and better collaboration, the outcome feels surprising. In the same time frame, I had many more scheduled calls after EthCC. A few factors were different:
Singapore was mostly about money and most VCs “went on a vacation” afterwards. Maybe some will respond later.
For EthCC, I pre-scheduled most meetings. In Singapore I only had one scheduled upfront.
During EthCC there was more time to provide value to people I spoke to, and hangouts were more enjoyable in general.
Short-term encounters/conferences don’t seem to be sufficient to build rapport when meeting new people, which is important for the long-term sustainability of our business. In addition, the sense of urgency doesn’t seem to be strong enough to act in a VC-heavy environment.
So far, the best way I was able to establish rapport (by providing value) with new people was in Salon-like meetups, through personal introductions, or at longer-term coliving spaces.
What’s next for Deep Work
I took some time to reflect on our overall progress and reviewed sales metrics over the last month. and made a rough plan, if we continue to do what we do well. Please consider that this is not a prediction of the future, and everything might change.
Roadmap
The first row (in white) is what we are currently doing and the assumed trajectory of development is based on what we learned, discussed, and personally progressed in over the last years.
The current state of the BD strategy
In retrospect, this is a sketch of how the best client collaborations worked so far. It’s pretty simple but it means that I can focus on my core skills while offering opportunities to our community and partners.
Based on the metrics above, I will also try to find more predictable ways of meeting new founders, potentially by participating in longer-term IRL events.
User testing a new website
I’m currently user-testing a new website. The goal is to make our value proposition clear, make it easier for the client to decide what they need, and present our offerings in a productized way. Once it’s finished we can finally continue the project we started a while ago.
The advantage of productized services for us is that we decide on the constraints of what desirable work is to us. For clients, they should offer more clarity on what problem is being solved, and what exactly to expect from the deliverables.
Starting a founder-only exclusive TG group
Balint had a great idea to create an exclusive group for founders who work(ed) with us. This will give me the opportunity to be more consistent with my social science and business management research while having a space to learn from each other.
EthTokyo Presentation Recording
I am also proud to share with you the recording of my presentation at EthTokyo. Thanks to Colin, and Sarah for editing, Rodolfo for gathering insights and data (we started with a written report), and Sho, Taichi, and the rest of the EthTokyo crew for organizing the event and recording.
Substack subscriptions have increased since August
Since I’ve started traveling, I have been sharing the newsletter with more people I met IRL, especially those who are interested in how Deep Work operates.
Upcoming Events and IRL workshops
October 4.-6. - EthKL
I will be facilitating a problem-solving workshop with Josh from DeSciWorld,Oct 21. — Nov 3. Seapunk.asia in Chiang Mai, will also facilitate a public ideation workshop
Oct 10. — Nov 10. Edge City Lanna - I’m still on the fence, it’s very expensive ($500+ per week) but might be a good opportunity to connect with other founders
Nov 6.-7. Funding the Commons in Bangkok
Nov 10. DAO Summit by Metagov
Nov 12.-15. DevCon in BKK - if you’re interested in running a workshop in the Adoption Hub, let me know!
Stuff I learned
Why Human (Contributive) Labor remains the creative principle of human society by Michel Bauwens
In this newsletter, Michel is reflecting on a PhD thesis by Benjamin Suriano that dissects the nature and understanding of labor. I found it particularly interesting that while in the early Middle Ages labor was seen as a toil (mostly related to slavery), monasticism turned towards labor as a means of spiritual growth. We also still live in a system that encourages the separation of management (as a “ruling class”) from labor, making the latter seem like a negative inevitability.
All-in Podcast
The two recent episodes caught my attention, with discussions relevant to the labor economy.
The episode above breaks down and confirms the flaws of the VC ecosystem that Colin and I discussed in a previous newsletter/podcast. The conversation suggests a rapid decline of the VC ecosystem.
1. In this episode, the hosts discuss how automation of workflows will make high valuations of companies unreasonable. This means generally lower investments into startups, who will need to start using infrastructure that supports criticality - being able to quickly shift between stability and flexibility, and scale up and down.
2. Geopolitical conflicts will increasingly impact supply chains and require decentralized coordination of labor.
Detailed financial breakdown for September
Revenue: $6160
The payment delay from a client and an internal error caused a split between revenue and profits, so I had to manually add the profits today ($560).
Profits: $560
Big shout out to Anya who led the pitch deck design for a client and shared profits.
Internal payments: $0
I have booked an Airbnb for Bangkok but haven’t paid myself back yet.
Operational costs: $662
I cancelled our Zoom subscription.
Love you all, see you in two weeks!
Andrej
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