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Audio and transcript from the April 21st, 2022 installment of “Conversations with the Coop” with Diana Chen - Founder of The Rehash Podcast, the first community-driven podcast.
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[00:00:00] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Hello, everyone. Welcome to conversations with the co-op. This is where we source questions from the index co-op community to gain insights from today's leaders in crypto defy and website. I'm your host crypto Texan. And today on the show, we have Diana Chen, who is the host of the rehash podcast, which is the first community-driven podcast DAO actually also involved with paperclip DAO, Inc DAO kernel, and in previously of rabbit hole and unstopped. Diana. Thanks for being here on the show today.
[00:00:46] Diana Chen: Thanks so much for having me here. Things are going great today. How are you?
[00:00:50] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: I'm doing great. We're just kind of getting settled into our new house, my fiance and I, and so this is my first time doing a podcast in this room. So I'm not really sure about the acoustics, but hopefully.
It works out in editing on the other side, but I just listed off congrats. Oh, thanks. Yeah. We're pretty stoked. I just listed off a long list of groups that you're working with or were formerly part of. And I kind of feel like you're on this Coupa troop, uh, trajectory. You've got like 13,000 followers now.
Like how long do you think until you get a hundred thousand followers on Twitter?
[00:01:26] Diana Chen: Oh, gosh, I have no idea. I just hit 10 K. So my brain isn't even at a hundred K or anywhere near there yet. It is cool though. It's been really cool to just like make friends on Twitter. That's something that I wasn't expecting at all.
When I. First started working on web three. That was probably the last thing I was expecting was to start working on web three and make a bunch of internet friends. But here we are, and it's been so much fun to just connect with people online and find like-minded folks from everywhere. So it's super cool.
And I'm just excited and feel really honored to have a platform, to be able to voice my thoughts and connect with people.
[00:02:08] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yeah. And so how exactly did you get into this space? Like, what's your background, first of all, and then how did that background kind of drive you to the web three crypto space?
[00:02:18] Diana Chen: Yeah, so none of this is going to make any sense.
My background is in law. I started my career as an attorney practice for a little bit out of law school and did a real life rage quit and decided I wanted to go travel the world. Super responsible move bile at 26 year old lawyer. So I quit my job. I started traveling. I was like, okay, well, I have to figure out a way how to figure out a way to make money now to sustain myself financially, if I want to keep living this lifestyle.
So at that time, this was in early 2017. Like way before COVID ever happened. And back then, it wasn't super common to, to like work online or to work remote. Wasn't really a thing. And for me, coming from a legal background, which is super traditional, I knew there weren't any legal jobs that could be done remotely.
And I honestly had no idea how to go about finding a remote job or even which skillsets of mine could transfer over to other positions. Like I had no idea at the time. So. I thought, okay. Want to travel? I've always really enjoyed writing and I've always been good at writing. So why don't I start a travel blog now is the most rational thing that came to mind at that time.
So I started a travel blog and became a travel blogger for the next few years. Through that process. I realized that it is very difficult to make a full-time living as a blogger or a content creator of any kind in the web space. So I ended up finding this content marketing agency that was fully remote, and that would allow me to travel while still working at the same time.
So I ended up working there and. We were helping B2B businesses start podcasts. This was back in 2019 when a lot of businesses wanted to start podcasts as part of their content strategy. So that's what we were helping people do. And as part of that, I thought, well, I should probably start my own podcast to prove out to our clients and potential clients that I've done this before.
I know what I'm doing. And you can trust me to do this well for you and you can feel comfortable hiring us to help you start a podcast. So I started just a normal, like a web to startup podcast where I would bring people who worked at startups onto the podcast and have some drinks with them and chat about startups.
It had nothing to do with crypto or web three. And at this time, I didn't know anything about crypto or web three still. And then totally by chance, the CEO of unstoppable domains, Matt gold found my startup podcasts somehow and really liked it. And so he ended up hiring our agency to help him start a podcast for unstoppable.
And that was my first real exposure to crypto to like actually understanding what crypto is and what decentralization means and what people are actually trying to achieve with web three. And as soon as I actually started learning about it, like I was hooked. And so within about a month or two of working with Matt, he invited me to work at unstoppable full-time so you basically poached me.
And I was like, hell yeah, let's do it. Like, I still don't really know that much about crypto, but I feel like I know enough to know that this is going to be the future. So I took that leap and that is how I ended up in web.
[00:05:49] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: I feel like that is such a unique story compared to all the other stories of people that I've interviewed.
Because I think typically you go through the rabbit hole and it's like, for me, it started with like in 2017, it was Bitcoin. And trying to figure that out and then. Alternative layer ones, which like in 2017, that was like light coin Bitcoin cash, and then Ethereum, and then define than NFTs and then dowels, et cetera, et cetera.
But yours didn't really go that way at all. It was more of, Hey, we have a podcast that we want to start and. You don't know anything about the space. And so do you want to do a podcast on it? There's that pretty much
[00:06:28] Diana Chen: it, that was pretty much it. Yeah. I warned you guys that this story was going to make absolutely no sense.
And it was just a lot of random bits that all came together at the right times. But yeah, it was like, I think from Matt's perspective when he hired me on it was. 'cause. I was like, Matt, you understand that? I don't know anything about crypto. Right. And you're asking me to host this podcast on crypto. And he was like, yes, I understand.
I think you can actually like ask the best questions from the perspective of other newcomers in the space. And I think that's exactly what ended up happening. Like for me, I'm like too scared to go back and listen to those first, like 10 or 20 episodes I recorded at unstoppable because I think it would just be so cringed for me to listen to that.
But I actually have gotten some of the best feedback on those initial episodes because people are like, you asked all the questions that I have and that I'm too scared to ask because they feel like dumb questions. And I sorta just like had no shame, put myself out there. Really dove into this whole like learning and public thing.
And people like that, like not a single person dams me and was like, you're such an idiot. Like what a dumb question that you asked on this podcast? No one said that all the feedback I got was quite the opposite. So that's why I'm really a big proponent of learning and public. I think the community is gracious and the community.
Like following your journey of learning and also want to jump on board and learn alongside you as well.
[00:08:05] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yeah. I totally agree there. And I think another thing that's kind of interesting that I've noticed from doing the podcast is that if you, even if you ask a question that right after you ask it, you're like, that was so dumb and you're like, assume something incorrectly in your question.
And the guest then has to correct you and tell you why that question is wrong. Those sometimes. Yield the best in like more thoughtful thought out answers, I think. And so I think it is important. I think it's a great way to learn. Right. And it's also like you can take questions from your audience too and help your audience learn.
What do they want to learn from this experience as well? I think that's really cool. I think your journey is very unique. Yeah. Right. I think Stoney was an attorney or he was a lawyer too, before he got involved before he started right. I think
[00:08:55] Diana Chen: so there are a surprising number of ex lawyers in this space.
I feel like I keep meeting more and more of them. Like I just gave a talk at tacky on the other day and someone just followed up with me. From that talk. It was like, Hey, I also used to be a lawyer. I feel like there's like a lot of ex lawyers joining the space or already in this space. I don't know why.
I don't know what it is, but, but yeah, you're right. There's quite a few of us in here. Do you
[00:09:21] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: feel like, just like the background of being a lawyer and the way that. I think maybe gives people a leg up in this space because I think, I don't really know cause I'm not a lawyer, but I feel like you really have to like read between the lines and in law, everything's kind of like black or white.
And in this space you're dealing with code, which is either same thing, kind of black and white. Since in that regard, do you feel like that kind of helps people in the space or do you think it might be something else?
[00:09:48] Diana Chen: Maybe that's part of it? I think, I think if you think about the types of lawyers who don't want to be a lawyer anymore, they probably have somewhat of like a rebellious personality or rebellious streak, or there's something about this very rigid, traditional age, old thing that they didn't love.
And crypto sort of offers an alternative to that. Crypto is kind of rebellious. It is like this new thing that goes against tradition and what we've been doing for decades. Maybe there's something there with just like this rebellious kind of personality and attitude and not being afraid to. Go to stray away from like the straight and narrow the norm, what people are used to and try out something new.
[00:10:36] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yeah. Just like a break from the traditional norms. Yeah. That makes sense. And so, yeah, so you had the podcast, what initially really brought you in about the web three space? DAO's or was it NFTs, defy? What aspects of the web 3d space interested you the most at that point that really converted you? And then what about the space interests you the most?
Now, if it has changed at
[00:11:02] Diana Chen: all at that time, when I first started learning about crypto, the thing. That initially brought me down the rabbit hole into doing more research and learning more on my own was learning what decentralization could do for creators. Having come from a background of being a travel blogger, being in that world of trying to make it as a creator, I felt firsthand a lot of the pains of being.
Uh, creator in the web to world. And when I learned about this concept of the ownership economy, that web three would hypothetically offer, I think that was so attractive to me and also mind blowing to me at the same time. Like I think I just hadn't even entertained that there could be a different model.
Like realistically could be a different model. Than what we were seeing in the web to world where it's a numbers game, it's all about how much website traffic you have, how many followers you have on social media and less about the quality of those followers or the quality of those connections. And this whole, like if you guys have read legions 100 true fans, article this whole concept of being able to have just a hundred true fans, a very small number of fans of your work and.
To make a full-time income from that I think is really something that I don't want to say is like novel and web three. Like that concept also exists in certain areas of web two, but I think web three tooling really makes that concept a lot more feasible for people. So that was the initial thing that brought me down the rabbit hole and to learning more.
And when I first got into this space was also like in sort of the earlier parts of when NFTs started to boom. So NFTs were another thing that I thought was really. Interesting. And at first I thought it was interesting because I couldn't understand it. Like, I just didn't understand why people were so hyped about NFTs.
Like I wasn't somebody who grew up collecting baseball cards or collecting anything really. Like, I don't even have really any artwork or paintings in my house. So it was hard for me to understand like how people were paying so much money for these, like, yeah. I, for sure thought they were just JPEGs, like in the beginning of.
But that like, I think, because I couldn't understand what NFTs were that just like motivated me to learn more and more about it and talk to more people about it and hear different people. Explain what NFTs were until I could understand it. When then once I understood it, I was like even more hyped about it.
So I would say like creator economy stuff out of. That was what I was initially interested in today. I'm definitely still interested in those things, but a lot more so in doubts as well. And I don't think I even knew about DAOs when I first learned about crypto and web three, it wasn't until maybe six months or even a year later that I really started to learn more about Dallas, but I think.
DAO's now that pretty much all of my work in this space revolves around DAO's to some extent, I really just think that DAO's have so much potential to change the future of work. And that means the future of. Like how people can live, where today, especially in the Western world and the us where it's more of a capitalistic society, it's almost like people live to work instead of live to live like our lives revolve around work.
They don't revolve around living, which seems a bit counterintuitive that your life doesn't revolve around living. And it almost feels like a privilege to be able to say that my life doesn't revolve around work, that I don't have to work that much. I can go on hikes every day with my dog. I can go and enjoy the things that I like to enjoy and still live a comfortable life.
Like that feels like such a privilege. And I just think that that should have. Like that doesn't sit right with me. And I think Dallas have the potential to, to shift that narrative a little bit. I'm not saying DAO's will fix everything. There are a lot of other issues that are not related to Dallas, that Dallas can't fix, but I think it's a step in the right direction.
And I'm just excited to see how DAOs develop and how they can give people more opportunities to. To earn a living in like a fun way and in a way that still allows them the time and space and energy to live other parts of their lives.
[00:15:55] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yeah, absolutely. I think DAOs are just such a fascinating new mechanism for human coordination and I guess like allocation of resources and capital, but I guess like, what is it in your mind?
I guess a community that's so important about DAO's or is it the ability to, I guess like the freedom of movement from a work standpoint where you can transition from doubt to doubt, if you wanted to, like, what is it about bows that you feel like provides that. Freedom for these types of individuals, like either right now or in the future.
Yeah, for
[00:16:30] Diana Chen: me, it's really that freedom of movement that I think is really key. And DAO's still have a ways to go in this department. I think there are the dowels that I'm seeing today, at least. Still have things to think about in terms of like, how do we best onboard people and also how do we best off-board people?
And that's one thing that I love about index and I always point people to index as one of the best places to. Onboard onto a DAO if you're brand new to the space, because you guys have such a good process for onboarding, I think more Dallas need to have a solid process for onboarding and for off-boarding.
And I think that balance is hard to find of letting people move freely from doubt to DAO while also making sure that the work is getting done within the DAO. So that's sort of TBD to see what structures are set up to ensure that balance. On the other side too. I think compensation is also another big question.
And this is something that I'm sort of experimenting with right now is. I've heard all sorts of different stories about some people trying to go full-time DAO and just not making a lot of money. Other people are saying they've been full-time DAO for essentially years. Like before we really even knew these were called DAOs or before, like people really understood what they were.
And they're making a great income. So I'm sort of experimenting with that myself right now, just to see some of the pros and cons, like some of the things that are good about Dallas right now, and some of the areas that need to be improved upon, but yeah, that freedom of movement and just that freedom of.
Being able to contribute in whatever way you can offer value in the moment, I think is really important instead of being locked into a position and saying, okay, like your content marketer. Now you just have to be a content marketer forever. You can say, like right now in this moment, maybe I'm a content marketer and I'm going to help you create your content strategy.
But maybe in three months where I can offer the most value is actually in building up your community or actually in something else. And I think the freedom of movement in that regard and your like, quote unquote job title or your role, like how you contribute is important as well. And I think like the other big thing too, a Dallas is that you don't have to.
Like your credentials don't matter as much, and you don't have to have gone to Harvard to be able to contribute to DAOs. As long as you have skills to contribute, that's really all that matters. And I think that really breaks down the barrier to entry of getting good jobs and the traditional web to space.
And now allows a lot more people to find meaningful work who maybe just didn't have the opportunity to go to a procedure school or come out of a prestigious company that everybody's heard of. Yeah. And I
[00:19:32] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: think it's also pretty telling that a lot of contributors to DAOs just have the title contributor, right?
Like you might be a contributor with a focus on growth or a contributor with a focus on business development, but it's really just. At least from the index co-op standpoint, I've noticed is that yeah, you can focus on a certain pod is what we have, but you can contribute to all of the pods. Like you can contribute to business development and growth, and you're not just really siloed, which is also kind of freeing, right?
Like if you have good ideas from a business development standpoint, instead of just sharing those with the business development team, like why not just implement them yourself or, and maybe that it could just be like, Uh, mechanism of the fact that we're so early in trying to figure out how DAO's work, but I've kind of seen, like, not only the freedom to move between Dallas, but also the freedom and opportunities to move between different roles within the organization is also pretty fluid as well.
So I guess my next question is like, have you experienced that? And I guess, like, what are some of the more. I guess surprising lessons that you have learned by being involved in DAOs.
[00:20:44] Diana Chen: Yeah, I think one of the most surprising lessons for me from working in DAOs is learning about that balance between autonomy and guidance.
So learning about that balance of as a team lead or as a pod lead, or as like a leader of the doubt, How much guidance do you give the other contributors to accomplish the goals that you want to accomplish versus giving them the autonomy to create freely within their realm of expertise? I think that balance was, it took me a little bit to figure that out with.
Rabbit hole when I was trying to figure all of that out at rabbit hole. And I think in every doubt it's going to look different, but one of my learnings was that people actually crave a lot more guidance than I had initially thought. So I'm somebody who likes to have a lot of autonomy and independence in my work.
And I think I projected that on to everybody else and assumed that well, because I want to have all of this autonomy in my work that everyone else would as well. And I quickly found that to be not true at all. And I think the balance that I found at least within a rabbit hole was to provide people with guidance around what your goals are, what your values are.
And within that, then let them either you can co-create with them or let them create on their own. Yeah, I think that was probably one of the biggest. Challenges. And one of the biggest learnings that I had from working in a Dao, and I think it's important to, like, I know earlier, you're like, yeah, it's cool that everybody is just called a contributor.
And I totally agree with that. I do think that Dallas still need leaders like team leads. Like I think I tweeted at one point that like the only title is that should exist within Dallas are team leads and contributors. So you're either lead or contribute. And I think the reason for that for having leads is that you still need some sort of organization and some sort of structure to make sure that things are in fact getting done.
And that there's a point person too, because I think when you just are completely decentralized and let everybody have like, have a completely flat like organizational structure, I think that can be chaos. You and can either lead lead to people clashing with one another or just nobody speaking up, because it's kind of like when you're in a group setting, you're less likely to speak up than when you're on like a one-on-one call or a one-on-one meeting with somebody it's like that whole theory.
So yeah, like really just finding the balance between autonomy and guidance was a really big learning.
[00:23:28] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: You obviously have experience cause you're involved in quite a few dowels enough fall down at least to include them in your Twitter bio, which I mean, in my mind, that means you're taking ownership of that contribution that you're making or that community that you're sharing with that DAO.
So let's kind of talk about these doubts. And maybe if you could kind of give us a background on like, how you got started, like how'd you get introduced to these organizations and then kind of, what's your role there now? So let's start with Colonel and I'm not exactly sure exactly what Colonel is. I know it's related to a get coin grant, but what is kernel and how'd you get involved with that?
[00:24:04] Diana Chen: Yeah. Colonel has this great little community within the good coin ecosystem where people can learn about web three together. So they have different cohorts. I think they're on COVID. Five or six now they call them blocks. So I was in Colonel block three last about a year ago was when I was in kernel.
And I think like, what I really like about Colonel is that they have this curriculum that they provide you with and it's open source. So actually anybody can go and look at this curriculum without being accepted into the program or anything. But once you're accepted into Colonel. You get to meet a group of other like-minded folks, other people who are trying to build and learn more in this space.
And it's just a great place to jam with other people about different ideas. You have to maybe join a project, find a co-founder or just like hanging around and learn is like totally fine as well. And one thing I love about Colonel and the way that they have written out their curriculum and the way that they teach things.
Is that they teach things from a very nuanced perspective. And so I think like one thing we see a lot on crypto Twitter and just online in general is that everyone likes to take these very extreme black and white views. And so then it's like, oh, you disagree with me. Like, then I'm going to argue with you.
And when in reality, most people. Most people's beliefs are somewhere in this gray area, like somewhere on the spectrum between the two opposite extremes. And I think Colonel does a really good job of helping you think through. Not everything is like all good and not all bad. Like not everything exists in binary.
And in fact, other than code, very few things in life exist in binary. And the Colonel curriculum does a really good job of sort of explaining some of those nuances and helping you to be more open-minded to other perspectives. And also think more critically about your own perspective.
[00:26:11] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Oh, that's interesting.
That sounds like a great initiative, a great project. And when did that get funded by G was that a good coin grants program or when did that get funded by get coin?
[00:26:20] Diana Chen: So it must have started probably like two years ago at this point. I know at one point they were talking about spinning out from get coin completely.
I don't know if they have done that yet or not. My involvement with Colonel now is like pretty fringe. Like I basically just offered to mentor a few people in each of the new Colonel blocks. So my involvement is pretty minimal nowadays, but I'm still a huge fan of the program and highly recommend anybody who's, especially like newer to this space.
Who's trying to learn more and really like dive in and get involved to check it out and maybe apply if it looks into.
[00:27:00] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: That's awesome. All right, now let's move on to ink DAO. This is, this is a fun one. I'll let you explain it.
[00:27:07] Diana Chen: All right. So this was inked out, started from a ship post, which was actually very web three.
Basically. This was last fall, right before Massari Maine at the conference in New York city. I saw something on Twitter, like somebody who needed a photo of a girl with an ERC 7 21 tattoo, and I had retweeted it, or I had quote, tweeted it and said something like, who wants to get tattoos with me in New York next week?
This was like a week before Massari mania. And th this was a joke and I thought it was pretty clear that it was a joke, but some people latched onto it really hard. And when I was in New York from a, sorry, you may not, people were DME. Like, when are we doing this? Like, I know a great tattoo shop in Brooklyn that we should go to.
And then before I knew it, like this girl was like, okay, cool. Like I made an appointment for 10 people at this tattoo parlor and brother. At this date and time, see you all there. And even though like, it was in my mind, like obviously a joke when I tweeted this, like, since people jumped on it so hard, I felt like I couldn't back out since I had started this, all of this chaos.
So that's how inked out started. And somehow inked out has just continued to grow without really any effort on anyone's part. I think like the story of being Dell just like spread and it resonated with people and people were just curious and wanted to join. So anybody with an ERC sewn in 21 tattoo. Ken join, Inc.
DOE that's really the only requirement. And we have like the right font and. Like size and everything on the inked out Twitter. So you can literally just like, take that and bring it into a tattoo shop and be like, Hey, can you tattoo this on my body? And that's it. But it's turned out to be this really fun community with like such impeccable vibes.
Every time there's a big crypto conference, we'll always try to like, get a dinner together and meet up together and hanging out. And it's a lot of fun, but like very much not a DAO in like an official DAO in any sort of way, other than just the community of people who like to hang out with each other and
[00:29:29] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: like tattoos.
Yeah. That's a fun one. Yeah. We are all somebodies ERC 7 21. Standard, I guess there you go. I love that. So do you have to provide proof of ink to join ink down even though it's pretty unofficial? I don't think y'all don't have a token or
[00:29:44] Diana Chen: anything. No, we don't have a token or anything. Yeah. You have to provide proof of eating, which typically is just a photo of your tattoo on your body.
Some people will send videos of them getting tattooed as well. We have a couple of people who, who are tattoo artists or who. Our artists of some kind and decided to tattoo themselves. So those are kind of cool videos. This the, we call them the self scratchers. We have a few of those. So it's really an eclectic bunch and people are located all over the world.
We have a bunch of people in Europe who are in inked out. It's yeah. It's open to anybody from anywhere around the world. Show, just show a tattoo parlor, that text file and get a tattooed on your body to show us proof of being.
[00:30:28] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: That's fun. Okay. The next one I want to talk about, and I'm familiar with this one and that's paperclip DAO.
I love this concept. I think it's super fun. And I've thought about like getting involved with paperclip down a little bit, and I poked my head around the discord a little bit, but share with us what paperclip DAO is and kind of what's your involvement in that now?
[00:30:48] Diana Chen: Yeah. So paper-clipped out for anyone who doesn't know is basically an on chain version of the red paperclip experiment.
That blogger Kyle McDonald from back in 2005. If any of you remember that basically this blogger decided to trade. He had a red paperclip and he was like, I'm going to keep trading this paperclip until I trade up to a house. And it was just this crazy experiment. And he documented every trade that he made and every part of it and his blog, it's still online.
Like you can go Google it and read it. But the paper-clipped out is basically that experiment on chain. So we started with a paperclip NFT that like someone just made it's worth zero. And we were like, let's just keep trading this until. Who knows what we can get. Like for us, it wasn't a house. Like for us, it was like, we've always said our north star, like our house from the original experiment is maybe like an alien punk.
That would be super cool, but like, who really knows. And so we started this last summer when NFTs were really exploding a lot. And people were so hyped about it. We got like a board, a crypto pond, moon, cat, like all of those things pretty much right off the bat. The one that we're holding right now is N I K B, which is like a digital zone of pictorial inventorial sensibility, Mitchell Chan's project.
It's a whole other thing that you can go look up if you're interested, just like search for Mitchell channel on Twitter and look at his pages, but it's sort of like slowed down and. It's been dormant for a little bit, partly because don't have T market slowed down a lot, partly because one of our main members had a baby.
And so like, his life was obviously very busy, but it started as just a group of, I think there were 10 or so nine or 10 of us, my friend who was starting this like dams me one day and was like, Hey, starting a cool, like super secret DAO. Do you want to be part of. And I was like, yeah, for sure. Like whatever it is.
So that's how I got involved in paperclip. And it's been so much fun. Like paperclip has been, I think the most easy DAO to be a part of in the sense that I feel like the core members that started paperclip or just a bunch of really smart, talented, People who are all really good at what they did. And so when we launched, which happened.
Less than 48 hours after we got everyone together, everyone was just like, would just step up and like, knew what to do. So somebody was like, okay, I'll step up and write this blog post. So it was like, okay, I'll step up. And like tweet this thing. And there was never any question to it. It wasn't like, oh, what do we need next?
Like, who should do this? It was like, everyone always knew what had to be done next and someone would just stop step up and do it and do it really well. So that was really my first doubt experience and it set the bar really high for DAOs for me. And I think it may be skewed my perspective a little bit in the sense that if you have a small group of.
Really smart people who all really get along then, like, yeah, I think you can do anything. You can build anything you want, you can achieve anything you want. The reality is most DAO's, aren't set up this way. And so there are a lot more things you need to consider, but paperclip was just like so streamlined and operated so smoothly and was like, so functional, right from the
[00:34:28] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: get-go.
Yeah. That's every time I talk to someone about that, that one's always a really fun one. So before we get into rehash, which is your newest podcast venture, I guess, are there any other DAOs that you're kind of looking at or any other details that you want to chill?
[00:34:43] Diana Chen: Right now? There are other doubts that I'm like more friendly involved in cabin.
DAO is one of them. I'm a huge fan of cabin day. I just think the people there are awesome and they really have their shit together. If you go hop in their discord, you can check out their how well they're organized and check out their docs and you can easily see that for yourself. I'm also in joked owl, which is like a fun, another fun, little doubt that started as a joke, kind of like inked out, but really has grown to become something like quite serious.
They're trying to develop this whole protocol and everything, which is pretty cool to see. And then another sort of fun. One is Toby DAO. Toby is the name of my dog. I started minting these photos that I had of Toby as NFTs said that anybody who held a Toby out of ti could join Toby DAO. And it basically was just a fun group chat, similar to inkjet.
But we might actually be doing something with Toby down. Now I brought him to east Denver back in earlier this year and I made him this QR code dog tag. So, so there was a QR code on his dog tag. And if you scan it with your phone, it would lead you to this claim page where you could claim a Toby NFT and prove that you've met him in Berlin.
So a bunch of people met him in person in Denver. And one of the girls that met him there is really passionate about turning Toby DAO into something. So I just had a chat with her earlier today, and we were talking about creating more of a community around Toby DAO and even facilitating some rehoming efforts because now that we're coming out of.
COVID and people are kind of returning to their normal lives. Like a lot of the dogs that were adopted at the beginning of COVID, their owners are now traveling a lot or circumstances have changed and they can't keep their dogs and they're trying to rehome their dogs. And a lot of dogs are ending up in shelters and things like that.
So we're still like very early stages of thinking through that, but it's just been so far just been a fun community of dog lovers. And in the future, it might turn into something bigger.
[00:37:01] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: That is the alpha leak that we had been looking for. Diana Toby DAO is going to the moon,
[00:37:10] Diana Chen: doge to the moon.
[00:37:13] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: All right, let's talk about rehash.
This is a community owned. Not community owned maybe, but community driven, rather podcast DAO what's going on here.
[00:37:25] Diana Chen: Yeah. So rehash just launched a few weeks ago. The way I was thinking about this is I was thinking I'm really passionate about podcasting and I'm really passionate about Dallas. Why not combine the two I've been podcasting for the last year and.
All for different companies for different people. So I don't really have anything that I own in terms of those podcasts, even though I recorded about 150 episodes on crypto web three topics. So I thought, well, I should probably start my own podcast so that I have something to show for it and call my own over time as I jumped from one project to the next.
So that was part of it. And then the other part of it was I've been really wanting to build a community around. Media and content in web three. And I thought, well, why not combine the two and turn this podcast into a DAO. So with regards to the podcast itself, the DAO component is that Dell members will be able to nominate which guests get to come on the podcast.
They'll get to vote on the guests. They'll get. Offer suggestions for topics that are talked about on the podcast, we'll be able to really have a say in how the podcast is structured and what the podcast looks like long term. So that's sort of like with regards to the podcast itself, big picture though, for rehash DAO, I think there's so much more potential with rehash DAO than just this podcast and the way that I'm envisioning.
And ultimately this is going to be up to the community, but the way I'm sort of thinking about this is it would be so cool for rehash to grow into the. Premiere web three content and media brand, where any content related project in web three can spin out of rehash and be part of this ecosystem. So it'll be like, like, it could be like conversations with the co-op sponsored by rehash or something like that.
Whatever you want to call your project. And so in the future, what people will be able to do is there'll be able to submit proposals for projects that they want to launch within rehash. And so I can say for instance, that I want to launch a new video channel where I explain really complex DFI topics to somebody who knows nothing about finance.
And I think I'm the best person to do that because I have a background in finance. I've been working in this space for ages and I'm also a very good communicator and very good at breaking down really difficult concepts into easy to understand ways. And in order to launch this project, this new video channel, these are the resources that I need and it could be like, I need X number of E to launch it.
I need these human resources. So maybe I need like a video editor to edit my videos. I need a designer to design my visual assets for this video, et cetera, et cetera. And then you hit submit that to the DAO and the DAO would vote yes or no on whether we want to use the funds in our treasury for this project or not.
So that's like the term. Vision for rehashed out. I think it can be something like way bigger than just the podcast where in the future, you might envision that there's rehashed out. And then within rehashed out, there are all these little projects or little pods under rehash and the podcast now would just be one of those many projects that make up the rehash.
[00:41:01] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Interesting. So are you looking at doing newsletters potentially out of this as
[00:41:04] Diana Chen: well?
Fun out of here. Yeah. Like these, I see these as being independently run projects, but that all have this cohesive branding and community. So like, you can really leverage the rehash community to get your project off the ground. You can leverage rehash resources to make your project a reality. Things like that, but otherwise it would be like the people working on this specific project can operate pretty independently of like the people working on another project within rehash, for instance,
[00:41:43] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: that makes sense.
That's really interesting. And so like, just in general, I guess, like how. How do you decentralize content like this? Like what does that mean to you?
[00:41:54] Diana Chen: Yeah, that's a great question. This is actually something I've thought about a lot and it's pretty much worth the on full time for the six months or so that I was at Robert.
And I think when you think about decentralizing content, you're dealing with all of the typical challenges of operating a Dao of just de-centralizing in general, plus all of the challenges of content. So like maintaining quality of content, maintaining consistency and posting things like that. When I think about de-centralizing content, I think that there are a couple of ways you can do this.
So the first way that I think works well is that you could have a small group. Elected content creators who are elected by the Dao. So you could say every season. So every quarter, for instance, like every few months you have a new set of writers who are elected to the DAO, a new set of video creators, a new set of like whatever content creators.
And that can switch up every three months. So during the nomination cycle, I can nominate myself. I can say, Hey, I'm Diana. I would love to be a writer for index. And this is why I love index. And this is why I think you should vote for me. And here are some links to my password. And then if I get voted on, then I agree to produce like X number of content, X number of pieces of content per month for the next three months.
And in exchange index would agree to pay me a stipend of X amount for every month for the next three months. So it's kind of like that agreement where the decentralized part of it happens. First it hap that part happens with the whole community of voting on who they want to see represent them. But then in order to maintain quality control, which is super important for content, do you have a smaller group of people actually be able to create the content and represent the brand publicly?
I think that's one way to do it. I think another way to do it is to. Let everybody write content. So if we're talking about written content, let anybody in the DAO submit written content, but then have another level of curators who are a smaller group of trusted content, people that you have within your Dao, how a smaller group of curators pick and choose which pieces of content actually make it onto the publication and out to the public as like representing your brand.
And I think that's sort of like, At least like that's the best way I've come up with to maintain quality within a decentralized environment when it comes to content. And the way that I see it playing out and rehash then is that which projects end up growing out of rehash will be determined by the larger DAO community.
So that part of it is completely decentralized. But then once we work on this, like we are electing on a few people, like we know who submitted the proposal, who wants to tackle this idea. And then also like who the people are that they want to bring onto their team. If they need other people's help to help this project become a reality.
[00:45:14] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yeah. And I just wanna let you know, I've been a big fan of your podcast for a while we'll since you and I met it and they met last year and I think it was David that introduced us. And I was like, oh, fellow podcaster, you know, my podcast gets like maybe like 150 downloads or something like that. But yeah, I think, yeah, this is a very exciting next step for you in the, in the sense that you actually get to own your own.
Right. So I don't know. What does the future look like for you in your mind? Like, what is the, just like, if you look out, it's hard to say five years in crypto. So I'm going to say, if you look at a year, like where are you sitting right now with rehash and everything else that you're
[00:45:50] Diana Chen: doing? Yeah. So for me personally, since leaving rabbit hole, I sort of took a couple of weeks to figure out where like what my next move was going to be and where I saw myself next.
There are so many options. Like you can work full-time in this space, you can be full-time DAO. You can like, the options are endless. So I think for me the next year or so, I'm going to work on rehash and work part-time on other projects, like on like a, like a contract basis. So my first project that I'm going to be taking on and starting in a couple of weeks is going to be helping my friend ML Waldron build out her new company, wild, which is like a web three media company focused on women creators.
She's just, she's fantastic. And I think her vision for what she's trying to build is like completely aligned with my values. And so I'm excited to help her with that. I'm going to be helping her for the next three months or so, like, get that launched and come up with a marketing strategy, her community strategy or her content strategy in order to launch that.
I think that's sort of like the stage of businesses that I'm most passionate about and that I have the most fun working with. Is those really early stages where she's still pre launched, like she hasn't launched yet. And she's trying to come up with a good community strategy, a good content strategy so that she can launch successfully.
Like I love working at that stage and helping come up with a strategy for that. Outside of that, I'm going to be working on some DAOs as well. Like Kevin DAO is one that I've got my eye on and trying to get more involved in DAO house is another one that I've been connecting with the people there. And I think there's a lot of interesting ways that I can maybe contribute and help out there.
So the next year is just going to be sort of experimenting with this full-time DAO thing and seeing how that goes and really like, I'm super excited. I'm like, so, so excited because this is really like, all I've ever wanted in life is to be able to work on a few projects that I'm really interested in and work on it at the stage where I believe I can contribute the most value.
And then have like a non-awkward way of exiting and working on like the next project. And I think that's what I'm trying to set myself up for right now. And yeah, I love to like, I'm equally as curious to see where I end up in a year. And if this experiment goes well and. Yeah. I'd love to talk to myself one, one year into the future and know what that looks like.
[00:48:30] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yeah. Well, like I said, the podcast is great and, or kind of running up on time here. So is there anything else that you want to touch on that maybe we haven't had a chance to quite yet?
[00:48:41] Diana Chen: One thing I've been thinking about a lot that I think is super important and really not talked about enough in this space is the importance of having clearly defined values in your DAO or your company or your project or organization or whatever it is you're working on.
I think it was shocking for me to find out that a lot of really big and well known projects in this space do not have values. Like if you ask them, what are your company values? Like no one would be able to tell you. And I think that's a really terrifying thing, but I think if you're thinking about building community and you're thinking about like really getting people to rally around.
Business your product, your Dao. I think the way to do that is to start with having very clearly defined values. And what that looks like is stating what your value is. Providing context for why you're thinking about that. Like, why you think that's important out of all of the, like thousands of values you could possibly have in the world.
Why are you choosing this as one of your core values? And then also explaining like explicitly laying out because we have this value, this is what that means. So if I say I hold this value, this. How that's going to impact my actions, my behaviors, and my decisions, and then everything that happens within your organization can ultimately go back to this core set of values to determine, should we take on this project or not?
Should we pivot in this way or not? Should we go about things this way or. You can always reference back to your core values to determine those things. And I also think that when you put your core values out into the world in a way that is very clear to understand that you'll naturally attract the right people with the right culture and the right vibes that you're looking for.
Into your organization. So that's a really quick and easy way to make sure that you're curating the right vibes in your doubt or your organization. And on top of that too, when you get your community that aligned with what you're trying to accomplish, then if a small thing goes wrong, there's like a small bug in your product.
Like some people lose some money, maybe your token price doesn't go up as much as people think. People in your community, won't just turn on you. They'll stick by, you stay by your side because they understand what you're ultimately trying to do versus people who don't understand that, then they're just in it for the speculation.
They're going to turn on you at the tiniest little mistake that you make or not even a mistake, like the tiniest decision you make, that they don't agree with. They're going to turn on you. And it only takes a few very vocal. Unhappy people in the community to like really sour the vibes around your brand and like the general feeling around your brand.
So for all of those reasons, I just think that everyone who runs a company or an organization or a project of any kind should, before they do anything else, sit down and write out like their core values and make sure they're very clearly defined.
[00:51:47] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yeah, I completely agree there too. It's just not only clearly defined, but also just like, I just reinforced a lot too.
And I think the next co-op does a pretty good job at this for the most part. Like, obviously we're a DAO and this is a new human coordination tool that we're using. But I mean, if you come into any of our calls or any of our meetings that we have, like the very first slide on all of the. Meetings is what are our core values?
What do we believe? What's our mission statement and what are we trying to achieve as an organization and in this meeting specifically. And I think that's very helpful just to help align everyone. Else's expectations of the values of the organization. And yeah, I completely agree. Absolutely.
[00:52:30] Diana Chen: Yeah. A hundred percent index does an excellent job of this.
So great job guys. Thanks.
[00:52:35] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: We appreciate that. Yeah. So before I close us out, Diana, where can people go to find out more about you and.
[00:52:45] Diana Chen: Yeah. So for me, you can follow me on Twitter at DDW Chen to same as my discord handle. And then for rehash, you can follow us on Twitter at rehash web three, and you should be able to find all the links to all of our podcasts and everything on.
[00:53:03] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Yep. And for everyone who is listening live, thank you for listening live. This episode is being recorded and we will get this out and published in about a week. Diana, thanks again for coming on the show. Appreciate having you.
[00:53:19] Diana Chen: Thanks so much for having me talk to you soon.
[00:53:21] Justin Havins/Crypto Texan: Alright. See you later. Bye everyone.
Bye .
Host: @Crypto_Texan
Marketing Images: @crypto_diller_
Producer: @0xMitzy
Conversations with the Coop - Diana Chen - Rehash