I’ve had the luck of spending my career building things I am passionate about. While at
@coinbase
, I had the privilege of leading engineering teams building consumer products that introduced more people to crypto - and more importantly to the power of blockchains.
We’re partnering with
@privy_io
so that players can have the smoothest onboarding experience possible.
How smooth, you ask?
So smooth, you won’t even realize you’re onchain.
No wallet? No problem. Just hit play as guest.
At
@coinbase
we had some company cultural tenants:
- championship team (we are a team not a family)
- act like an owner
- positive attitude
etc
But I just met some
@_Bianance
folks and they told me one of their company values is just:
HARDCORE
Bruh can anyone confirm???
@npclabs_org
is the most ambitious and exciting venture that I have ever pursued, and I could not have asked for a better team to make our vision come alive.
@darylX24
and
@viktoriya0x
are incredible cofounders, and it feels fated for us to take this next step together.
We use
@thirdweb
Engine to process onchain transactions server side, enabling a magic & seamless experience for free mints, IPFS writes, and more.
Can easily deploy it on Railway (there's a docker) & it's open source! If you're building on the blockchain - it will make your
Like many - I enjoyed games throughout my life, a source of joy and inspiration that continues to expand my imagination. From strategizing in Age of Empires to embarking on quests in RuneScape, games have been pivotal in shaping my creativity.
Yet, despite its vibrancy, the gaming industry faces critical challenges today. We will humbly attempt to move the needle - shifting the paradigm of game ecosystems and creating new opportunities for players, developers, and enthusiasts alike.
Now that we’re done hiring up, we can start firing up 🔥
Team is lean & mean. Objective is simple:
1. Build a fun ecosystem that mass market consumers actually use.
2. Push the crypto gaming market forward.
3. Spend as little as possible to accomplish that.
@nope_its_lily
Server under heavv load still - more traffic than I was anticipating. I plan on more upgrades to a dedicated instance after trading hours today.
Perhaps most importantly;
Build with high integrity people.
We got lucky because most of our team worked together in the past at
@coinbase
, where the company both screened well for trustworthy + quality people with similar values.
When you're building in blockchains, don't
Craziest story as former cannabis founder is when a guy handed me a medicated cake pop at a trade show. After I took a bite, he freaked out. I didn’t know what was wrong so I asked if I had too much or too little he said “That cake pop is dosed for 8 people.”
This perfectly
One of the best things about working in crypto is the desire to share knowledge.
Everyone comes into this space knowing little to nothing, and everyone already in the space is ready to help people learn.
A ban on vaporizers being shipped was snuck into a past COVID relief bill. This is all from the JUUL / vape lung scare in 2019. Really shitty move that hurts small businesses.
Companies like $TPB & $GNLN should be fighting this!
@nope_its_lily
@PackManSamm
just opened up paid premium yesterday. was covering all costs out of my own pocket / some donations. previously was asking people to donate to
@FeedingAmerica
for premium features
hopefully this will allow me to dedicate more time and upgrade servers
Before finalizing any user interface, you have to make sure the design has enough sauce 👨🏻🍳
Sauce is that extra oomph that takes a design from good to great and from great to amazing
But also, beware
@bless_bottle
Was an honor to serve as CTO for the last year at $HITI. Wanted to focus the scope of what I want to work on, and focus a bit on some personal ventures. Will still be involved to continue to grow the portfolio!
If you are pixel-perfect detail OCD like me, sometimes might notice the typography in your Figma designs do not exactly match your web implementation.
🪄 Pro tip: Try changing the anti-aliasing on the font with the font-smoothing CSS property.
Coinbase, along with the other exchanges, have been the only ones to crack the crypto code of reaching the masses. But how else can we reach people?
The answer: crypto gaming. More specifically, . 😉
You should be uncomfortable when you release your product.
Accept that no matter what, your “final version” will never be quite ready. And it’ll be FAR from perfect.
Sure, you can always keep getting more feedback, keep tweaking, keep doing and undoing into oblivion.
OR: you
I went from being CEO of a cannabis company to a founder of a crypto startup. And after working with both demographics I learned one thing for certain:
Both are my people 😌
Exactly this.
We talk a lot about “onboarding the masses” in crypto, but how do you suppose that actually happens?
The idea that if you build the right infrastructure, make gas cheaper enough, or make block space attractive enough - and suddenly billions of people will show up
Counterpoint - every web3 founder I know with any experience is quietly doing old fashioned UA now because the pool of players in web3 is limited and everyone is marketing to the same group of people.
We have to bring people into the space in order to grow it. That means meeting
A while back I built this no-code
@farcaster_xyz
Frames builder:
I don't have time to maintain / update it, anyone interested in taking it over? People loved the UX.
Or I can open source it! Would be awesome to see it expanded to Solana Blinks!
Over the course of 2 years when I was an engineering manager at Coinbase, I only had 3 engineers leave. All 3 occasions, they left to start their own startups.
All their startups are alive and well today!
I’ve always told people that the real alpha with working at Coinbase is
Coinbase alumni are everywhere in crypto, and they've founded about 100 startups, including 40 backed by Coinbase Ventures.
My story on the tight-knit network and why it benefits Coinbase's onchain ambitions:
@bless_bottle
@SmokeCartel
I think winners will be revealed long term
😉. E-commerce & digital segment only going to grow in cannabis, and $HITI is poised to continue to dominate the space. We’re just getting started.
Invest in meaningful UX improvements.
There's a lot of work to do here for us as a community - both on the infrastructure + consumer side.
But this is where it counts.
Remember, you're not alone - push the envelope with great partners.
When we pitched investors, I conveyed that we needed more consumer platforms in crypto. Blockspace is ample atm, and we have plenty of talented + well funded infrastructure & onchain primitive focused teams.
Demand is the issue, and growing the pie is more meaningful than
@0xMert_
100% true
When shit hits the fan, your VC partners are either going to choose to double down with you in the trenches, or they are gonna try to screw your company over.
Choose carefully
the moment you give up on trying to time the market, the easier your life will become
either:
- trust historical data
- have conviction
- be an optimist
literally all you need to do is not sell things you believe in
Be opinionated with your vision.
The nature of venture means you're typically journeying into the unpaved. There's no amount of data in the beginning that outlines a successful product strategy.
Have a strong intuition & conviction to execute on it, while remaining flexible to
Excited to announce that
@b3dotfun
will be building in public.
I think it's super cool to be able to follow along our product roadmap & contribute ideas.
See our Git activity, and product updates here.
Don't build your app crypto first.
Perhaps a 🌶️ take, but you wouldn't build your app websockets-first, or HTTP-first, or SMTP centric.
Blockchains are technical infrastructure. The ethos of crypto is about decentralized & verifiable ownership.
Make it about the superpowers
Avoid crypto terminology.
Buzzwords might be impressive to some, but if your goal is to onboard the masses (rather than compete for the existing small pool of crypto users)...
Don't use words that they might be confused with.
Example: You are actually minting a game when you
Lot of software engineers I know who work in big tech companies dream of leaving tech to be a carpenter or woodworker.
Something satisfying about tackling a tangible problem, or working with your hands.
Luckily nobody I know who works at a startup dreams of this, too busy
Make crypto UX invisible if you can.
Crypto UX is still quite painful. Different wallet providers, passkeys, ecosystem moats, fragmentation, etc.
Luckily, you don't need to reinvent the wheel yourself with great partners out there.
Example - we architected Guest Wallets with
At larger businesses, you feel stable and secure. You can go home and simply “turn work off.”
But at a startup, you think about work constantly - often in a way that excites you and keeps you up at night.
You work more - because you WANT to work more.
Avoid cross-chain fragmentation.
Everyone and their mom is starting a blockchain these days. In current status-quo, this is a net negative for crypto (who wants assets across 100+ chains?).
Luckily - with great work from teams like
@ChainSafeth
@frontierdev
@SocketProtocol
The new engineers
@b3dotfun
are cooking.
Excited to be in the trenches with them for a while. We'll all learn & grow together, and have an absolutely cracked time doing it.
Accelerate.
Study what you can.
In my case I went deep into gaming communities (offchain ones - that's the target audience!)
Lurked subreddits for game devs, interviewed people, etc.
This builds your intuition ^
@bless_bottle
@RajGrover_HITI
We are diligently working on continuing to improve Canna Cabana and getting set up for US dropshipping (right infrastructure, preparing customer service teams, training, etc). I want to do it right & not rush into it - appreciate the patience!
At bigger companies, it’s hard to care. As a cog in the wheel of a 10,000 person organization, you easily lose sight of even the greatest company’s mission.
As a founder of a startup, your vision and the passion of a small, dedicated team propels everything forward.
our company exists because of an immediate need we felt:
No version of onchain.
Web3 gaming is notoriously complicated, and onboarding is difficult.
is simple. Beautiful. Effortless.
Our hot take is that
@bless_bottle
There’s been a lot of Google ranking updates & SEO volatility in the last year, but we’re happy to see our efforts start to yeild results. We’re certainly seeing meaningful improvements in SEO on Canna Cabana due to the team’s hard work.