Latest / TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast / 85: Tezos in Asia | TZ APAC

Transcript

85: Tezos in Asia | TZ APAC · TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Tez Talks Radio.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I am your host, marissa True, and joining us today is Imran Hakim, the Deputy Head of Lab Strategy at TZAPAC, the Tezos adoption entity based in Singapore.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: So how are you, imran?
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, marissa, super, super happy to be here and talk about Fortify Labs and some of the stuff that we've been doing at TZAPAC.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would definitely love to dig into everything to do with Fortify Labs.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: For the uninitiated, it is the Web3 startup studio that began out of TZAPAC and is probably one of the leading initiatives that's coming from the APAC region.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: But before we get into that, I would love for you to share a bit more about your personal journey into the world of crypto, into blockchain and, specifically, tezos.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: What was it that attracted you to this space?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean, the first time I ever heard about like crypto and Bitcoin was actually back in like 2016, 2017.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: So I was like fresh out of school at this time, you know, didn't have much money, but I actually heard about it from some of my friends online playing video games and stuff like that and like instantly I found, instantly I found it quite attractive.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: So that was when I sort of purchased the first bit of Bitcoin that I had.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I bought it through my friend's brother and that was my first exposure.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I still have the screenshot of, I remember, the top 10 currencies I think Tezos was there at that point in time and yeah, so that was like my first exposure to it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I didn't dig really that deep into the industry.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Then I was like focused on studying.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So I studied mechanical engineering what was meant to do my master's and then, like COVID hit.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a long story but to make it short, you know, when COVID hit, I took a break and I decided, hey, you know, I want to like break into tech.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: You know, when COVID hit, I took a break and I decided, hey, I want to break into tech.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: After working in engineering for a bit, I worked as a data analyst at one point and then found the opportunity at TTAPEC.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: So I joined as an analyst and now I've been here for the past three years and prior to that I've had experience working in sales at years and prior to that I've had that experience sort of working in sales at startups and stuff like that.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, over the past three years, when I initially joined, you know, off the bat I was working with like really early stage projects.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I used to help sort of run the small grants program, which helped, like you know, write sort of small checks to people who had, like you know, big dreams and, you know, eventually write sort of small checks to people who had, like you know, big dreams and you know, eventually that sort of transitioned into more of an incubator model and currently now Fortify Labs.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So I would say, like Fortify Labs is actually, you know, the work of, like you know, three years of iteration of what we've identified from founders and, like the, the you know, hundreds of conversations that we've had um with various people so it sounds like your exposure to crypto had a massive influence not only on your sort of academic trajectory but your professional ambitions as well.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But it also sounds like you took a lot of the learnings that you generated before entering into this space and sort of giving it new life within, within the web3 domain or the web3 environment, uh, so to to give our audiences, like, I guess, a bit of a stronger primer on what exactly fortify labs is like.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: What is its mission?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: What is, what is it that you are setting out to achieve?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: yeah, um.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I mean to.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, the one-liner is like fortify labs is a startup studio focused on turning startups into commercially viable sort of businesses.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Um, but I think to expand on that, really like how we, what makes us sort of different from other, you know, accelerators or incubators is that just the high level of support and expertise that we provide?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: So, um, you, you know, like one key difference, for instance, like typically speaking, accelerators last for like three months, right, so it's kind of a short stint.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: You have this like very focused work period and we have that as well, except, like we extend it towards more, towards eight months.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: So, meaning that you know, let's say, if you start, if you join at the start of the program, you might be building.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: You know, once you go to market, we'll be there with you as well.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, the currency of Fortify Labs is the result of years of sort of iteration.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So we've kind of curated the program based on, you know, all the different stories we've heard from founders and you know the experiences they've had, specifically within the tesla's ecosystem, and I think, like, definitely, you know, if you think about crypto ecosystems in general, uh, what people really care about is is the level of touch point that you have with the ecosystem entities.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So that's something that we know that we can solve like fairly easily.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: You know we have a very passionate team that cares a lot about these individuals.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, so we we take in like seven projects a year and we help them with a bunch of stuff from fundraising to partnerships, to customer acquisition, legal support etc.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: But I can speak uh deeper into that, exactly what what it is uh for the down the line before we sort of dig into that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you know, fortify Labs launched in April of this year and, as you said, it was a very iterative process.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: It changed and evolved basically as you had ongoing conversations with various project founders.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: But from the get go, what was sort of the types of projects that you would see applying, or where did you see the vast majority of interest come from?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Or where did you see the vast majority of interest come from?
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so, you know, because of the time that we spent, you know, building the ecosystem in general, we already had a bunch of projects that we really wanted in the program, but on top of that, you know, we had like an open application.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: A bunch of people applied.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Some were like long term, long time.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: You know Tezos projects, that Tezos projects that wanted to take the next step and grow.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Some were completely new projects from different ecosystems.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I mean it's quite a broad range, including even the stage of applicants.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Some are super early stage, they've just built the product and go to market.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Others have already done their seed round and maybe raising pre-A, for instance.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: So it's everything from art-focused to gaming-focused and we don't have a preference in terms of vertical or anything like that.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: But I think, generally speaking, we saw a lot of consumer applications rather than infrastructure projects, for instance.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that's, you know, generally a good trend to see, and NYC in Asia in general, and yeah, I mean I think, as sort of value accrues to the application layer, like it will be definitely a positive for us.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think once you sort of see the evolution of development go from infrastructure to, I guess, more DAP focused, then we sort of start to see where the interest and the momentum is building.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: What was the biggest change you think that TZAPAC learned once it embarked on Fortify Labs?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: What was the biggest change from the beginning through to the way that you run the program now?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I think, typically speaking, when you think about accelerators, a lot of them have a super high focus on, say, fundraising, but you know, I think that isn't always true, right, there's, you know, one of the things that we've really changed is just the sort of level of touch points we have with these projects, right?
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: So it's not just hey, you know, I'll make an introduction and I'll sort of let you take it, because you know let's spend you, you know, a week talking about how we're going to approach this introduction.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: You know, who else do you want to get introduced to um?
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Is this even the right person to introduce you to um?
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of like strategy behind it, and you know, we sort of meet with the projects like every week.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: So I think, generally speaking, projects see a lot of value in that, right.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: So, you know, I think for them having the ability to, you know, have, you know, easy access to the Tezos ecosystem consistently and having various teams, you know, consistently sort of thinking about them and bringing up opportunities to their door, I think it's something that is really valuable and underappreciated in sort of crypto ecosystems in general.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Right, it's easy to just sort of run hackathons and then, you know, be happy with how things went.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think to really build an ecosystem you really have to be in the middle of it, within the community, within the builders, and have a high level of touch points.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Right, so Fortify Labs basically guides them through the entire journey end to end, rather than sort of giving them a little bit of support for, like you said, roughly three months, and then booting out of the nest and hoping that they fly.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And I think what's super interesting there, as you were saying, a lot of the applicants that first arose came from a variety of stages, so they were all differing in sort of the levels of the, the levels of support they were actually seeking to obtain from tza, pack or fortify labs specifically.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: But then digging deeper into those projects, you know what were the sort of the qualities and the traits that you actually looked for in the applicants, like, what did you find were the traits that made projects more successful or more likely to be taken in by Fortify Labs?
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So I mean our selection process was, I mean, fairly comprehensive, I think.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: So I think that's you know the sort of obvious things to look out for just from a project perspective.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Like, for instance, you know what's the attraction sort of how big your market is.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: You know what's the attraction sort of how big your market is.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Um, you know all those like standard uh metrics that you can look at.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think, especially for more early stage projects, like ideas can definitely change um, and you know, for, for these kind of projects, you're sort of betting more on the jockey rather than the horse, right?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I think this makes it much trickier to identify, uh, like exactly who you're betting on.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: But there are a couple of things that personally I think are really important to look for in terms of founder qualities.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I'll go into that.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: One of which I think is very important is called founder market fit, which is like how much does the founder actually know their market?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Are they themselves a user or are they just sort of somebody who put themselves there Is the issue they're solving.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: What's the story behind that?
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Did they experience something in their lives that made them realize, hey, I got to solve this issue, or are they just doing analysis and then suddenly, hey look, there's a gap here.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Analysis, and then suddenly, hey look, there's a.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: There's a gap here, right, I think those have.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: You have very different mindsets depending on on how closely tied the problem is to yourself.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Um, and like being someone like that.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: You have the advantage of being your own user right, so you don't have to, you know, find users each time.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: You can sort of trust your intuition to to iterate, um, you know, I think an important part as well is what work experience they've had.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Were they in the field in the past or have they had similar work experience?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So I think fundamental market fit is quite important.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Another one is, I think, the concept of being a missionary versus a mercenary.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Generally speaking, missionary founders, you know, generally speaking, sort of missionary founders do better than mercenary founders just because they outlast them.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: So, you know, mercenary founders, for instance, are people who, like you know, really care about exiting or, like you know, eventually buying your Lambo and chilling in Bali or whatever, whereas, like you know, missionary founders are really focused on the ultimate mission and the problem they're trying to solve.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: And yeah, like I said, I think that, in terms of the motivation behind missionary founders versus mercenary founders.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: It's definitely much stronger.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Missionary founders will just outlast mercenary founders, especially when things get hard.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: And I think an idea that I thought about a lot as well is like stubbornness, specifically the right kind of stubbornness.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: So I think a lot of founders are stubborn in general, which is not a bad thing.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I think a certain amount of stubbornness is is kind of necessary for founder.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: But you know, I was reading this paul graham essay the other day that breaks down stubbornness into sort of two main subtypes it's either persistence or obstinance.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Persistence is basically unwavering belief of a goal, whereas obstinance is the belief of how you get there.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I think, generally speaking, you want to optimize, to minimize obstinance.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: You should really care about what goal you're trying to solve, but be flexible in terms of how you get there.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I think, like a founder with low obstinance is just more capable of self-reflection and being honest with themselves in terms of their progress and, you know, because of that, when they're building their startup, they can craft strategies that are actually more grounded to reality and make sense.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think those are some things that I would look out for in founders.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it's really hard to find out right, especially in the context of, like you know, if we're interviewing these guys online, for instance, you know we have like maybe an hour that we're chatting with them it's hard to understand how stubborn they are or what kind of stubbornness they have, right, but you can see sort of hints as you go through the interview process and you know that's, I think, a big reason why we've structured the program the way it is as well, because we actually do want to spend time working with these funders, right, we actually do want to find out who they are, what they care about and what matters to them.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: So, you know, the structure of the program and the length of it definitely supplements to that as well.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess, at the end of the day, you are sort of placing bets on people and their ability to execute on their idea, and I do think those are very critical qualities and traits that are often overlooked.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: And, just to rehash what you mentioned, there is essentially having skin in the game, having something that they are personally invested in to some degree or other, being extremely mission driven and then, last but not least, extremely self aware in terms of what we would call stubbornness, or their grit or their tenacity to accomplish their vision, regardless of the means of getting there.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And, as you said, if you've kind of got you know roughly an hour to sort of make your own judgment call, I guess it forces a lot of self-awareness on your side as well to understand what it is you're looking for and what traits you're attracted to versus what you consider, I guess, riskier behaviors.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: But then for those, like, for those projects that are actually applying, you know, how do they use fortify labs to their fullest advantage?
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Like, what are some of the support systems that fortify labs provides?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I know you touched on fundraising and introduction to investor networks in particular, but how else does it differentiate itself from other incubator models?
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: yeah so.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: So I think, like fortify Labs is honestly quite a unique program.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I think that we definitely give sort of a very, very high level of care and attention to the startups that we sort of support, and I think that's especially now as ecosystems maybe focus more on numbers that just become more rare.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: So I think if startups enter the program with the right mindset, right mindset right, which is like they're here to do stuff, they're here to get stuff done, they're here to pivot if they need to, um, they're not going to sort of waste any time.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Even though the program is sort of eight months, I think you can get a lot out of it right.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: So I'll break down the various supports that we have into deeper detail.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: So you know it's sort of broken down into, you know the internal teams that we have and also sort of partners that we work with.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: So, in terms of the internal team, we have the strategy team.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: So this team is mainly focused on advising the startups in terms of the market strategy or customer acquisition or anything like that, but also helping them operationalize any of the support.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: So, for instance, if one of them needed I don't know, like marketing support, you know they would sort of make an introduction to the marketing team.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: So you know, we also have mentors within the team and collectively the team as a whole has definitely seen like thousands of startups over our career.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So I think there's very deep sort of wisdom within the team that the teams can I mean the startups can definitely benefit from.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: I think wisdom at the end of the day, saves time, hopefully.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: So if you know the startups are very open and willing to reflect on what's being said, I think they can get a lot out of it.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: There's also the marketing team.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: So this you know, know this sort of allows the teams to directly tap into the distribution channels that we've built over the years, such as an ecosystem.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: You know they can get advisory on how to grow their social presence etc.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: But I think the most sort of valuable part that the marketing team actually provides is related to, like, the ability to aid go-to-market and aid product refinement.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: So one of the programs that we have is meant to bring, so we have a community of early adopters that any of the startups can tap into.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: So when they want to go to market generally speaking startups the first problem they will face is how are they going to get their first.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: You know 20 customers or whatever.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: So it's sort of a cold start issue in that sense.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: You know they just have to keep talking to a bunch of people.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: So by building a community of early adopters, we kind of help them get over that line very quickly and then you can instantly do product refinement.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Right, you can have a high level touch point of this community because we're close to them so you can instantly get feedback and do whatever tweaks you need to do.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So yeah, getting your first customers and building a community out of it, I think the marketing team is really good at that.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: We also have a partnerships team.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: So you know they help us build partnerships for Fortify Labs itself, meaning, like you know stuff like AWS credits and you know any advisors that we have that are external, for instance credits, and any advisors that we have that are external, for instance, but also actually bringing opportunities to the startups.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: So if we see any interesting institutional opportunities, any of these big firms that want to get into crypto will definitely make an introduction.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: If we see any links or potential partnerships that we could have between the startups and anybody in the ecosystem, we would do that potential partnerships that we could have between the startups and anybody in the ecosystem would do that.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And also, like we just have a super broad investor list as well.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: They're sort of looking into the ecosystem that we've built over the past year, right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: So you know, if you're serious about fundraising, you're serious about building partnerships in your network like the partnerships team is really good at that.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: So you know, those are sort of the key internal teams that exist within Fortify Labs, meaning, like you will basically get them any time of the day and you can, you know, use all this 24-7.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: And then there's sort of external teams as well that give additional support and we provide.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: You know if any sort of external teams as well that give additional support and we provide.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: You know, if any sort of um uh payment is required, we can help like subsidize some of it.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: If it's too much uh, for instance, right, we have like legal support.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: We're working with this entity called govern um, so super experienced uh crypto lawyers, um that that not not just have um expertise but also have like angel networks and stuff like that.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So like it's a multifaceted engagement.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: We have like developers that we work with from Tezos, india that can help with any integration stuff we have, you know, like legal support, developer support, and you know the various communities we have in the Tezos ecosystem that they can tap into, and a graphic design team as well if they need.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: So it's like a mix of internal and external teams that these startups can tap on anytime, pretty much.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: So all of the incubators essentially can leverage all of the internal resourcing and power of the TZAPAC team and sort of treat them as almost like an extension of their own team, like suddenly, by working with Fortify Labs and TZAPAC, they have a marketing team and they have access to a developer resource pool or they have access to TZAPAC's network, and I like what you mentioned about sort of the balance between the internal resources that TZAPAC provides as well as the network externally, so that it helps those projects, I guess, proliferate through the Tezos ecosystem.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Suddenly there's a lot more codependencies in terms of the way these different entities work together and hopefully bring them farther along in terms of their journey.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: You briefly touched on the cold start problem and in terms of trying to recruit that first batch of users, and I know that you also have a community rewards program that's slightly linked to that which is TZApex.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: How does Fortify Labs work in tandem with TZApex?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: How are they mutually reinforcing?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: um, yeah.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: So, like you said, right, tz, apex is a community rewards program.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, it started with the intention to sort of get early adopters to the projects in 45 labs, um, so we do this by sort of giving them some incentives to interact with the projects or do like tasks that sort of lead to meaningful growth for the projects.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, it could be like something simple, like following them on twitter, or it could be like something super in-depth, like you know, trying out the product on testnet or whatever.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, I mean with with sort of tjpacks, there's a steady pool of users who can give their feedback after like testing the product, um, while also raising awareness for themselves.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: So, if I'm not mistaken, like you know, we've seen, like some of the uh community members like making like twitter threads about these projects, which are quite meaningful for them as well.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: So I mean, yeah, you know, I think that, at the end of the day, initiatives like this uh bring everyone much closer together.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Right, tza pack to the community, the community towards startups, startups towards tza pack.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: It's like a?
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: um, yeah, it's just a force that sort of brings everything together, which is, I think, what we need in the system so then can you share a bit more about some of the success stories that you've actually seen come out of fortify labs already?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I know, since you know it only launched in apr, we're sort of probably dealing with the first cohort only, but what are sort of the early signs of momentum that you've seen in the earliest days?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: So I think that definitely some of the projects are moving quite quickly.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: You know, there's like two in particular that come to mind for this right One is Questflow.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: So Questflow is sort of a network for this decentralized AI agent workflow Like think of it as almost like a Zapier for AI agents and it's seen like quite significant growth since they had joined our program in terms of, like, user acquisition and revenue generation.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: So they have like 30K beta users at this point, if I'm not mistaken, and they have like almost 1.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Users at this point, if I'm not mistaken, and they have like almost 1.8 million monthly recurring automations.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: None of these is on mainnet yet, unfortunately, but you know they're working towards that and very focused on customer acquisition right now, which I think they've been doing a fantastic job on.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know we've been helping them a lot with their fundraising.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: You know I'm not going to share too much about that, but I think they've been, uh, they've been doing fairly well for themselves on that front as well.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, another project that I think has grown quite organically within the ethylene ecosystem is ocb labs.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: So you know, they're essentially a toolkit to sort of on-chain everything.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: What it essentially is is that it sort of converts website code, ie like HTML, css, javascript, and embeds it into the metadata of entities.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And the key thing is what it enables, which I think is quite unique experiences.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: So, for instance, you could have completely on-chain Tetris or completely on-chain games or interactive experiences.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: So you can imagine how the surface area of what you can do with OCB is quite broad.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: And you know, there's sort of two interesting things that they've done so far.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: One is like Block Reflex.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: You know it's initially a game that was sort of launched in ECC in Brussels and they used that as an engagement method for the booth etc.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think One of the interesting things that they did there is they just added a simple leaderboard so that people can compete, and even after the booth was over, people were still competing.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: So whenever somebody saw their leaderboard or their high score getting broken, they would definitely come back and try and beat it again, and we've seen over 9,000 plays just for a simple memory game.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: So I like projects like that because they are, you know, they don't focus on trying to build something super hard, they're just like okay, let's just build a simple memory game with an interesting mechanic.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Another thing that they did was with a community member.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: It's called a project called Degeneratives.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: It's quite simple as well.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: It just sort of allows users to make a set of emojis to represent how they're feeling.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: But I think that that has seen like considerable growth as well.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I think they have like more than 500 minutes.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: That's a token attached to it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: That's seen like, uh, it's been doing quite well as well, and they have like very interesting bonding curve mechanics.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah, I think I think that you know, for ocv in particular, those are like early inklings of product multi-fit right, which is like, hey, you can build a project that people like, people like to engage with, and you know.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: So where do we go from here?
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And that's what we're constantly sort of working with them on.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Right, as you said, it sort of it was a proof point in product market fit and how critical that is to the project's growth.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: But also I guess that it indicates that there is a ready and willing base of users that are actively experimenting and trying out these various applications to see what sort of really developing at a pace that they're willing to work with and also wait for.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um, then if we were to zoom out from there, do you see any sort of prevailing trends within the APAC Web3 market?
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Through the basis of the projects that you're interacting with, whether they are those that you've directly incubated into Fortify Labs or those that have simply applied Like what are the types of projects that are considerably more popular?
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: You know what's your sense of how the Web3 APAC market is evolving?
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean I can speak on the behalf, I mean, from the perspective of the builders, I guess.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, definitely, if you compare like sort of the APAC builders versus like, let's say, like Western builders, there's more applications rather than infrastructure projects in general, I think that's a given, like most blockains are really, uh, born out of this region, um, which I think is a really really good thing.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, I think it's a really positive sign.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think gaming is is a huge one in in apac in general.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: So I'm quite excited to see that take off.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've seen the telegram, you know ecosystem do quite well uh, especially on the game side of things.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: So I think that's like something that somebody should capitalize on for sure.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Um, and yeah, I mean maybe I can speak a little bit about some things that excite me in the in the space.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think on-chain gaming is definitely going to take off, but like, uh, maybe with less like uh, ponzi, ponzi, ponzi-nomics.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I think that would be nice.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Um, I think like social networks or like, um, yeah, messaging platforms in general will do really well in in sort of the apec region.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Um, and I've seen a couple sort of decentralized compute uh networks come up.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: That I think is quite interesting.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I think, generally speaking, projects in apec focus more on applications for users and I think that we'll probably see considerable growth on the front from a lot of projects.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So there's sort of like a graduation from the infrastructure development and more towards the application layer and actually sort of seeing ecosystem builders actively create products for these end users.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I do want to zoom in a little.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I like your comment regarding gaming has such high potential, but it's sort of at risk of falling mercy to the Ponzi-nomics that we've seen, I guess, throughout the industry for the last few years.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's still a prevailing risk within the gaming space or do you think that the potential is coming because they've sort of evolved past that stage?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would like to say I would like to say that we've evolved past that stage, but you know, I mean, obviously those kind of things still exist, right?
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Recently there was that whole tap coin craze, whatever that's on Telegram, which tap coin craze, whatever there's on Telegram, which is just like you just tap the screen a bunch of times and earn whatever tokens to.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: But I think that you know, obviously that's kind of like quantum economics, but then you know, I think it.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: If you think about how that team made money from the games, it actually wasn't by the tokens, it was actually by ad revenue that is generated.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: So I think that, even though the mechanic of the game you know maybe you might want to think about that, but I think, like the fundamentals which is like, hey look, you can monetize games beyond that of just, you know, launching a token and dumping on your community, right, there are actually ways to make games engaging and automate the whole ad revenue process.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I think that's a business model that people should look into.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: There's so many amazing distribution platforms now, like Telegram or Twitter and stuff like that, that you can actually get decent traction without building such a super complex game.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I think that as time goes on, hopefully, you know the sort of gaming market just matures beyond depending on dumping onto tokens for their revenue source, which I think is going to happen.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: So, basically, while that tapping mechanism was a very loose or broad definition of what one could consider a game, there were still elements or components of it that would be successful should a more mature game be built around it, which I think is a is a really interesting observation.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Um, then, looking towards the future, you know like what is it that you hope to see more of when it comes to the projects that are coming to apply to fortify Labs?
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: And if you could give them some advice ahead of them coming to Fortify Labs, what would it be?
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: So we're definitely going to continue sort of welcoming projects I mean applications in general with open arms.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I think I would like to see some sort of projects that are more tied to the real world, you know, where DeFi doesn't just sort of become a sort of projects that are more tied to the real world, where DeFi doesn't just sort of become a sort of loop that's feeding itself and sort of is actually grounded to reality.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: I think that would be interesting, though I think it would be super difficult.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: But if somebody wants to solve that problem, happy to chat to them about it.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: I think one thing about the Etherlink ecosystem is that there's just so many opportunities at this point it's really performant and the ecosystem is still growing so a lot of the projects that there's still a lot of space to innovate within Etherlink itself.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm happy to have any conversations.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: In general, it doesn't have to be an application.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: So if people just want to speak to me about their projects, happy to help them.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: But I think if you were to apply, yeah I mean I think, just be sort of really honest about where you're at, be really clear about what you want to get out of Fortify Labs, exactly how we can help you.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: What's sort of meaningful to you?
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: What isn't the main problems that you're facing?
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, let your personality shine during the interview and I think you'll have a pretty good shot, right?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: So basically, remember that it's not really a one size fits all solution.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: With regards to the program, it is very much come and take what it is that you need from us, and we'll mutually support one another to reach whatever goal that is that the project has, which I think is actually very significant because it points to the fact that this is not a prescriptive model.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: There's no single benchmark of success, and so it's very much sort of giving ownership to the founders to determine what their needs are at any given point in time and then leveraging TZAPAC's expertise and resources to achieve that goal.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: We've touched on Fortify Labs.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: We've touched briefly on TZAPAC.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: You know what's coming up next, like what are the future plans or future initiatives that are sort of being baked within TZAPAC that these different projects and entities can look forward to?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: So I think the closest one is Tezos Realms.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: So during Token 2049, we're going to have a sort of side event called Tezos Realms.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: So during Token 2049, we're going to have a side event called Tezos Realms.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: It's going to be at Chimes in Singapore.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: The listeners know where that is, but it's going to be awesome.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be generally a Tezos ecosystem event.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: There's going to be all the whole Fortify Labs cohort is going to be there, different other projects within the ecosystem, any partnerships we have and stuff like that.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: And the whole point of it is that we want it to be experiential rather than, you know, just people having sort of booths and standing there and smiling.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: So there's going to be a bunch of stuff to do there and I think it's going to be good fun.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: So if you want to come and meet the Fortify Labs team, definitely you know, come to the event, sign up.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I'll pass Marissa the sign up link so you can add it on the bio or whatever later.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: But yeah, other than that event, we also want to sort of run another cohort next year hopefully.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: So you know, keep an eye out on that and sort of any news that comes our way.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And I guess my final question for you is that you know, with all of these projects in the works, what is the thing that you're most excited about.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Again, we touched on gaming briefly but, like big picture, what's inspiring you within the Web3 space that you really want to keep cultivating, I think well, you know, when I first joined uh sort of crypto, uh, I I was definitely I went through the sort of uh the hype cycle, right.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: So I saw some crazy projects, like like some people asking for crazy things, right, and it's just so unreasonable, uh.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: But now I think most of that is gone.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of projects are way more grounded and way more realistic and actually genuine.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: So, you know, I hope that trend continues.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I hope that sort of the founders that we attract and the projects that we want to build in crypto are just more genuine and actually thinking about hey, you know, like what impact does this have to society?
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: You know, how are we actually helping people rather, um, how can we make the next meme coin, um.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: But so, you know, I hope that, um, that trend continues so basically watching this industry become more and more legitimate over time and kind of really fulfilling the potential that a lot of us saw from the start, without a lot of the noise that came with it yeah, exactly well, imran, thank you so much for your perspectives.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: It was super interesting to hear about fortify labs and hopefully we'll get some of the projects on as guests as well so we can dig into their individual stories.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: But exciting work coming out of tza pack, exciting work coming out of a pack in general and looking forward to see what you guys turn out awesome.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, merns.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you.