I’ve known Ethan Pierse for many years and finally had a chance to meet him in person a few weeks ago. We spent a half day together and over dinner I turned to him and said, “This is the most interesting conversation I’ve had all year”

Both of us lamented that we should have recorded the coversation … so I did by inviting him on the Marketing Companion podcast. You’re in for a treat!

Ethan is a serial entrepreneur who has become an AI innovation authority. As founder of Borderless Ventures he advises AI startups throughout Europe and Asia.

In this show, we discuss

• The rise of the AI solopreneur
• The ROI of AI and the investment bubble
• Practical AI applications
• The unseen evolution of Web3

… and more

To tune in, simply click on this link:

Click here to enjoy The Marketing Companion Episode 326

And here is a text review of the show’s highlights:

The Rise of the AI Solopreneur

At the heart of Ethan’s current work is his passion for “democratizing opportunity” with AI. Through Borderless Ventures, he invests primarily in generative and agentic AI solutions — tools that power not only creators and solo business owners but also small, nimble teams with global reach.

Pierse

Ethan is also writing a book, The AI Solopreneur Economy, capturing this moment where entrepreneurship is open to more people than ever.

He argues that AI isn’t just for developers or technical founders. Instead, non-technical but entrepreneurial folks can now build tech products without deep coding skills. AI is breaking down traditional barriers and letting more people “create their own future.”

The scale is already astonishing: micro teams — or even individuals — are building seven- to nine-figure businesses, something unimaginable even a decade ago. With AI, a solopreneur can achieve what once took dozens of staff and millions in capital.

No Longer a Game for the Valley Alone

Ethan dismisses the outdated idea that innovation must happen only in places like San Francisco, London, or Tel Aviv. The global pandemic, he notes, accelerated the move to remote work, further eroding geographic boundaries.

Now, founders are building companies from “where they’re at,” whether that’s Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, or their hometowns in France. Borderless Ventures itself is based in Singapore and Estonia, reflecting this new, decentralized reality.

While networking and physical proximity still matter for building relationships, huge opportunities are everywhere, especially since digital and AI-powered startups can scale from anywhere. And the cost to start is lower than ever: Ethan recalls when hard drives cost half a million dollars; now, world-class web hosting and AI credits are free or nearly free for newcomers. The barrier to entry for big ideas is almost nonexistent.

The AI Bubble: Hype or Real?

With so much venture capital sloshing around — companies with ten employees are valued in the billions — a debate rages about whether AI is in a bubble. Ethan’s take? Short-term overvaluations are normal for disruptive tech, but what’s happening now is like a gold rush: not just for today’s productivity gains, but for the possibility of reaching artificial general intelligence (AGI) and even “artificial superintelligence” (ASI).

The tech giants are pouring in trillions to build massive data centers and train ever-larger models. In Ethan’s view, most of this is a race to own the future: whoever reaches ASI first may hold the keys to solving everything from interstellar travel to aging.

But it’s not all sci-fi. Right now, AI is driving real value in automating repetitive, high-value workflows.

Practical AI: Working Smarter, Not (Just) Harder

One crucial point Ethan makes is that extracting value from AI today is less about the tool, and more about learning to “talk” to it — that is, prompt engineering. Those who learn how to properly instruct AI (by, for example, writing detailed product requirements documents or SOPs) will get dramatically better results.

Ethan sees a coming wave where companies won’t fire en masse, but will simply not replace roles that AI can fill. Already, firms like Fiverr and Shopify are saying they won’t rehire unless a position can’t be done by AI. “Our days are numbered,” as one tech CEO put it, making it more important than ever to upskill and learn to collaborate with automated assistants.

The Unseen Evolution of Web3

While the buzz around Web3 and crypto has cooled, Ethan remains bullish on the foundational ideas. The technology stack of Web3 — blockchains, NFTs, and tokenization — matters not because people care about “crypto,” but because it introduces seamless, direct relationships and removes unnecessary intermediaries.

Look past the jargon, Ethan says, and you’ll find real-world use cases—soulbound NFTs verifying Harvard degrees, limited-access smart contracts for music releases, or authenticated logistics chains for wine and luxury goods. What matters is the efficient proof of origin, authenticity, and ownership. As user interfaces improve and blockchain transactions go “invisible,” Web3 will underpin a huge swath of future commerce and digital experiences.

A unique crossover between Web3 and AI? Agentic AIs—digital agents that perform tasks in workflows—can transfer value between themselves using stablecoins (crypto-pegged to dollars or euros). This enables automated micro-transactions at massive scale, with companies like JP Morgan already processing billions internally using their proprietary coins.

Please support our sponsors, who make this fantastic episode possible.

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Now, any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customers to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

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The post The Era of AI Solopreneurship Starts Now appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Major brands are taking a new look at loyalty programs in light of new consumer needs and technological opportunities.

Mark Schaefer and Mathew Sweezey explore the opportunities in a new episode of The Marketing Companion podcast.

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion episode 282

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

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Threads.

Of course you know about it. It’s the hottest thing in social media since … Mastodon?

But I don’t think Meta’s Twitter killer will work as a social media platform because I’ve seen this song and dance before, and it didn’t work then, either. So let’s explore today the case against Threads.

What’s the problem with Threads?

For a new social media platform to succeed — or for any business to succeed— it has to solve a customer problem. Threads is the same as Twitter, with far less meaningful functionality. So I am truly struggling to see the business case here. What problem is solved by Threads?

Most people say it is the place for Twitter haters. But so was Mastadon and Bluesky. Are you going to Bluesky every day instead of Twitter? That’s what I thought.

Let’s not forget that Google Plus was the place for Facebook haters. I was the only blogger in the universe who predicted G+ would not work — on the very day it was launched.

Same reason — we already had a social network. It was called Facebook. G+ did not solve a unique problem. It was just a place for Facebook haters. I wrote at the time that it is far easier to move to a new house in another city than to move to a new social network and take your friends, your communities, your games, etc. along with you.

People only have the bandwidth for one social media function. We have one YouTube. We have one LinkedIn. We already have one Twitter. That’s all we need.

Google Plus was the fastest-adopted technology in history at the time. Once the novelty wore off, it crashed hard. The reason for the crash? Well, that’s a story for another day. Well … OK, if you really want the story, it’s here.

Twitter drama

Many early Thread advocates are relieved to be away from the Musk-induced Twitter drama. The currency of Twitter is conflict. Threads is the block party for Twitter haters, and there are lots of reasons to hate what has happened there. But being “not Twitter” is not a sustainable source of differentiation.

Twitter’s heaviest users, like journalists and activists, have built an audience and meaningful assets on the site. This is where they have their Lists, Twitter Chats, and breaking news. It’s their home. Will there be a mass exodus because they’re tired of the Twitter chaos, or are they immune to it by now?

One pundit said recently that Twitter was like a Chekhov play — everyone says they’re going to leave, but they never do.

Others have expressed a love for Threads because it’s less spammy and toxic. But what’s going to keep Threads from becoming spammy and toxic? It’s the same swamp, folks. Is Zuck and Meta more deserving of our trust than Twitter? Spoiler alert: NO.

I think curiosity and FOMO will drive early adoption, but what will keep us there? I don’t think there is a there there.

What’s a Fediverse?

When you sign up for Threads, Meta taunts you with the idea that the technology is all blockchain-y and that Threads is the lead component in a “Fediverse” that is a “new type of social network that allows people to follow and interact on different platforms such as Mastodon.”

Oooooh my. I get to connect to my zero friends on Mastodon?

Allow me to interpret what this really means (I speak fluent Meta). What Zuck wants to do is have access to all your friends and activity on every social network so he can sell you more targeted ads. I do not believe this solves any problem for us. The Fediverse solves a problem for Facebook.

Threads needs Gen Z

There are two wildcards that could torpedo all of the arguments in this post and make Threads a huge success.

1. Twitter dies
2. A young Instagram audience previously disconnected from Twitter discovers Threads and adopts it.

To win at strategy number 2, Threads has to be cool. I looked up the Gen Z word for cool, and it would be “fire,” “extra,” or “fit.” Yeah, that. It has to be fit.

I think that’s the only hope and the card Zuck needs to play — find the “tipping point,” a strategy chronicled by Malcolm Gladwell in his book of the same name.  If you attract a critical mass of the buzzy cool kids, the movement begins. There is some indication that this is exactly what Meta is trying to do when it provided early access to many A-List celebrities and brands.

Allowing Insta-fans to jump-start their Threads account by automatically adding current followers makes Threads at least an easy experiment because there is no “cold start.” This is less attractive for traditional Twitter users since there is probably not much overlap between the followers in these networks.

Lance R. Fletcher observed that the youth migration could already be happening:

“One of the biggest Instagram groups, Bookstagram, has migrated already. Artstagram and Poetrygram are also moving to Threads. It’s gaining ground on Twitter because of creator-centric and creator-friendly brands adopting the platform.

“That was a core weakness of Twitter — it’s focused on being business-forward. The lack of DM capability on Threads as of now, destroys the appeal for the people on Twitter who required it– MLMs and “coaching.”

“The older creator economy has been left out. Most of us don’t like making UGC for TikTok and Reels, and we liked the community of Twitter before it was taken over by MLM and hate speech.

“Instagram lacked the ease of direct engagement of Twitter. This fixes that problem. It also fixes the siloing problem of Mastodon, and the artifice of hashtag engagement in Twitter and BlueSky, something Gen Z does actually care about.”

Will GenZ care about having a new public square? That’s not why they are Instagram in the first place. Instagram is a place to avoid the public square.

The last wildcard

There is another factor in this battle: ego.

Musk and Zuckerberg have titanic egos. Musk already came out swinging with a lawsuit against Meta. There are sure to be surprises in store. Musk is not going to go down with swatting back. Could this be the jolt Twitter needed all along?

Get out the popcorn!

Any way, my job is to connect the dots and see where the path might lead for all you wonderful marketers. May your dots be connected, your threads be bright, and your FOMO at zero as we surge onto yet another social media platform.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post Why Threads won’t work without Gen Z appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Whatever happened to Web3?

Not long ago, every conference was stuffed with speakers pontificating about NFTs, tokenized economies, and digital wallets. We were promised that

• Web3 is ownership.
• Web3 is freedom.
• Decentralization is the future.

In 2022, Web3 was the dominant topic at the SXSW annual gathering of thought leaders. In 2023, there was barely a mention. When was the last time you used a Web3 function? That’s what I thought.

The rapid disinterest in Web3 is reflected in these Google Trend charts:

NFTs

Web3

Metaverse

We can’t overlook the fact that millions of dollars were invested in these ideas and those investments aren’t going to fade into the night. Will there be a time for Web3? Should marketers still pay attention?

I think so, and today I’ll tell you why.

First let’s look at the challenges facing Web3 development and adoption (at least from my point of view). The following points are GENERALIZATIONS. There are exceptions, of course, so don’t beat me up.

1. Disconnected from business value

Let’s start with the fact that too much focus has been on the sizzle without the steak.

An example. My biggest Web3 annoyance has been POAPs (Proof of Attendance Protocol). This is a simple NFT that is generally a memento from an event. A symbol that you attended something.

In my own community, every time we had an event, somebody was sure to suggest that I create a POAP. The conversation would go like this:

Web3 fan: “This event was great. You should create a POAP.”

Me: “Why?”

“Because we can.”

“But why?”

“Because we should.”

“But why?”

“It would be a nice memory.”

“But it takes work to mint this, and then it sits on a server somewhere burning energy forever. I don’t wanna.”

To me, a POAP is like the cheap pen or sticker you pick up at a trade show, and then you throw it out when you clean out your desk. Except you can’t throw out a POAP.

My point is, that many Web3 ideas are irrational products disconnected from real business cases. Too often, it is cool technology in search of a problem.

2. It’s not user-friendly

I was early to dabble in NFTs because I wanted to experiment and experience what it was all about. I set up a digital wallet, figured out what this eth “gas” was all about, and finally put it all together over two days to actually make a purchase. It was a pain in the ass. Still is.

It has been difficult to “on-board” to Web3, which has depressed consumer adoption.

3. Disconnected from the real world

The breakthrough for the success of the “Web2” internet was the user interface.

If you wanted to save a file, you dragged it to a “folder.”

If you wanted to get rid of a file, you put it in an icon of a trash can.

Every Web2 action was tethered to something you could understand from the real world.

Web3 introduced us to altcoins, defi, degens, hodlers, and other concepts that don’t intersect the real world. In a way, that’s what made it fun for the early adopters. Speaking this cryptographic language made you one of the cool kids and kept others out. But that’s also why Web3 has not been widely adopted.

4. Tarnished reputation

Let’s say I was selling a new sports car. We’ll call it the Mark500. It’s a visionary, futuristic vehicle with a retro vibe, so the most passionate automotive fans rushed to buy one. This created scarcity, and the value of my car soared as favorable press coverage documented that the Mark500 was a great investment! 

Oh happy day! Mark is getting rich. I can buy a Taylor Swift ticket!

But there’s one little problem. Everybody can copy my car. I have no meaningful intellectual property to protect my product. Thousands of low-quality Mark500 rip-offs enter the market. It’s confusing to know which car is real.

And then owners discover a big problem. The brakes on the Mark500 don’t work. Every day there seems to be another story of the Mark500 crashing into a tree or driving off a cliff. At first, the early Mark500 owners deny the problems. They are irrationally in love with the technology and want to protect their investments.

But soon, it’s undeniable. The press is reporting brake failures everywhere. Even after I repair my product, there is so much negative publicity that my brand will never fully recover.

The parable of the Mark500 is a story about NFTs. There was so much corruption, so many “rug pulls” and broken promises that most people could not trust the NFT “brand” any more. Sure, a few people held on to their Mark500, hoping for a turnaround. But the general public has moved on.

5. It’s not really decentralized

One of the things I could never understand about Web3 is why people were so in love with “decentralization.” Communities would become democratized and decisions would be made by shareholders, based on how many NFTs or tokens were held. That is almost always a lousy way to make decisions.

Decentralization meant a shift toward a more personalized internet, where data is controlled and owned by the individual. It also meant that owning the rights to your data and owning the rights to a community or product meant that everyone had a say, and everyone could be properly compensated for their time and data.

In a decentralized organization, the shareholders rule.

Occasionally, a democratic process is a good way to make decisions, like an election. But it is usually a terrible way to make most business decisions. That’s a story for another day, but suffice to say that touting “decentralization” as a goal is not really a business advantage in many cases when you need speed, expertise, and decisiveness to win the day.

We may not be happy that companies own our data, but most people are resigned to that reality in exchange for a personalized and free web experience. “Data ownership” is simply not a burning problem for the general population.

Further, as reality played out, it turns out that these Web3 platforms weren’t really decentralized at all. Jack Dorsey famously said:

You don’t own web3. The VCs and their LPs (limited partners) do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that in 2021 I launched a creator cryptocurrency through a platform called Rally. It was a way for people to own a “share” of me. But in the end, Rally was just another VC investment that made stupid decisions and ignored its stakeholders. You can read the story of the rise and fall of my crypto token here.

And yet …

There are aspects of Web3 that I loved. My crypto token helped me build a wonderful, caring RISE  community. I could use the token to thank people and reward loyalty. It opened up new business models for monetization. Looking past the silliness of POAPs, NFTs represent a proof of ownership and authenticity, an elegant new way to create contracts, enable new business models, and reward loyalty.

There is SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

But clearly, problems have to be solved.

Web3 must be focused on true business value and grounded best practices tethered to reality. Obstacles to mass adoption like digital wallets and ridiculous “gas fees” have to go away or at least become invisible in the consumer journey.

And, we’ll probably have to stop using tarnished words like NFT or Web3, just like the doomed Mark500 would have to be reimagined and re-branded to be trusted again.

Now, here is the good news.

It’s happening. These problems are being solved. There is an undercurrent of Web3 successes bubbling up in mainstream businesses.

One example of this is an idea called “Open Loyalty” being pioneered by brainiacs like Mathew Sweezey. Mathew was a co-founder of the Salesforce Web3 Studio and is now on his own, helping brands apply Web3 in a rational way. Web3 is being reimagined!

To learn what Open Loyalty is all about and glimpse how Web3 is evolving into a truly customer-friendly experience, please listen to what Mathew has to say in the latest episode of The Marketing Companion podcast. I predict you’ll agree with me — Web3 is not over yet. It may be just beginning.

All you have to do is click here to hear the show:

Click here to listen to episode 274

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post Whatever happened to Web3? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I don’t believe anyone can truly be an expert any more. Any hope of expertise has been overrun by the malignant complexity of our world.

There is no single human who understands the internet or the economy or teenagers. I recently read an article about a new scientific discipline devoted to understanding how Artificial Intelligence is making its decisions. Wait … didn’t we build the thing? We don’t even understand our own machines.

So there really are very few experts in the world. But you probably already know this.

The important question is, how can you remain an effective leader without being an expert? I will provide a suggested strategy today.

Because … I’m an expert! Just kidding.

An effective leader asks the right questions

When I was in graduate school, I had the honor of studying for three years under the legendary Peter Drucker. He used to tell us that an effective leader didn’t need to have all the right answers. They needed to have the right questions.

This is profound and true, especially today.

My friend Joe Waters passed this quote along: “That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.” – Charlie Chaplin

So true.

The pace of change in the business world is breathtaking. It’s impossible to keep up, but it’s reasonable to have a goal of knowing enough to pose the right questions.

To ask the right questions and lead your business, you need enough familiarity with the changes in your industry to know:

• What is possible?
• What is probable about its future?
• How is it applicable to my business and industry?

And the only way to know these things is to dabble. With courage, you must become an intrepid explorer, immersing yourself in unfamiliar worlds to understand these questions. Part of my recent journey:

• I’m not an expert in NFTs, but I have a digital wallet, bought a few NFTs, and created one. I even tried to publish an NFT book, but the tech world isn’t there yet.
• I learned to create AI-generated images like the one used in this post and I’m experimenting a little each day with ChatGPT.
• I’m no metaverse expert, but I own a digital penthouse on Spatial and meet my friends there. We are learning what is possible to do in an immersive digital world.
• In the past 24 months, I launched a creator coin (and watched it crash), started a community on Discord, and went to a conference about the creator economy.

I’ll never be an expert in any of these things, but I know enough about them to talk to a customer, ask the right questions, and determine how these opportunities might fit (or not fit) in their marketing strategy. And then we can experiment.

What this means for you

I recently did a 1:1 coaching call with a person five years younger than me. She said, “I give up.” She was simply overwhelmed by the rate of change in the world. I understand. It IS overwhelming.

“Overwhelm” is not a function of age. Whether you’re 18 or 68, the world is changing at the same rate. This moment we are spending together right now is the moment of slowest technological change you will ever experience. The overwhelm problem speeds ahead — for everybody.

This means you and I need a new mindset to survive and thrive.

My hope is that you don’t give up. Keep dabbling. Keep trying new things, even if they seem unfamiliar and scary. Learn so we can unlearn.

I explained in my book Cumulative Advantage that every shift in the status quo represents opportunity. Understanding the shift — not necessarily mastering it — can lead to breakthrough innovations, new business models, and momentum for your business.

Forget about having all the answers. But, you can certainly have the right questions.

And that’s enough.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration generated by MidJourney

The post You can’t be an expert. And you don’t have to be. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Companion, Mark Schaefer and Mathew Sweezey of Salesforce select the most impactful marketing moments of 2022 and peer into what’s ahead for 2023.

Highlights include:

• The best commercial of the year
• What the crypto collapse means to marketing
• Will AR overwhelm VR as the metaverse champion?
• The phenomenal impact of having 2 million people on ChatGPT
• The best interactive experiences of the year
• Why social media will be reimagined in 2023

Join the fun!

Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 262

Other ways to enjoy our podcast

• Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
• Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
• Listen to us on iHeart Radio
• Find us on Google Play
• Find the podcast on Stitcher
• Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide

Illustration generated by AI through MidJourney

The post Big Marketing Ideas for 2023 and Beyond appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

About a year ago (or was it ten?), I launched a crypto-backed creator token called $RISE, an exciting foray into the new world of Web3. A few months after launch, my creator community was one of the most valuable in the world, with a valuation over $1 million. Today the project has been abandoned, people lost a bunch of money, and the coin is gone.

I learned that Web3 still has a long way to go. This is my story.

Act 1: The rise of $RISE

In the summer of 2021, I was invited to launch a creator token through a start-up platform called Rally. I hired a crypto analyst to vet the company and help me discern if this was a good bet. Rally was founded by a Silicon Valley star, had $100 million in backing from Andreeson Horowitz, and had an impressive management team. I was aware of the risks, but I decided to give it a try. I saw these benefits:

• As a teacher and consultant, I must remain relevant, and this was a way for me to get first-hand experience in this emerging web culture.
• I saw this as a way to build a community, something I had not been successful with in the past. And, I was writing a book about community, so this fit well.
• Industry peers I admired like Jay Baer, Joe Pulizzi, Ann Handley, Joseph Jaffe, and Scott Monty had already taken the leap and launched coins. I wanted to be in the “club.”
• Early creators were making money on the platform. I did not count on this, but it was a possibility.

I called my coin $RISE, as in RISE above the noise.

How a creator token works

When the coin launched, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. But this didn’t bother me. My career has been a continuous set of experiments. I didn’t know what I was doing when I wrote my first book, hosted my first conference, or taught my first college class, so this was no different.

My coin was backed by a publicly-traded cryptocurrency called Rally ($RLY). Each of my coins was paired with a $RLY coin, which was traded on the crypto exchanges. My coin was only traded inside of Rally, but it could be exchanged for $RLY and cashed-ou at any time, so $RISE was worth real money.

Theoretically, I could increase the value of my coin by using it to grow my community, allowing fans to trade it for my goods and services, and using it as a “currency” to reward people in my community. In reality, that did not work. My token price was almost completely determined by the rise and fall of the crypto market. You probably see where this is heading.

I was given an initial cache of tokens (worth about $20,000) that I could use to start my community. My community could benefit from creator tokens in three ways:

• Exclusive commerce – Many creators offer art, music, crafts, and services that can only be acquired with tokens. My site offered training, consulting, and special events that could be acquired through an exchange of $RISE tokens.
• Emotional reward – Fans may buy tokens simply to support a creator because they love them or believe in their work. When I surveyed my community, 98 percent said they held the coin to support me and learn about Web3.
• Financial gain – Tokens in high demand could possibly increase in value.

This last part caused me the most stress. Rally had a frictionless exchange system. There was essentially no tax or penalty for buying or selling coins. So speculators could buy tens of thousands of dollars in coins and sell them a day later if the coin value went up in value, even by a penny.

And, they did.

For months I struggled to keep my community progressing as it was being jerked around by speculators. On two occasions, I invested my own money to make up for dramatic declines caused by these people we called “whales.”

I was determined to lead my coin community in an ethical and business-like manner, but the whales were a source of constant stress — and even one anxiety attack — as my community was jeopardized by strangers looking to make a quick buck.

The early days were very, very difficult and took a lot of my time.

Act 2: Success and momentum

Within a few months, I was figuring things out, and my creator token rapidly rose in value. $RISE eclipsed nearly every other community in terms of size and value. For example, at its peak, I had a mind-blowing 1.7 million $RISE coins in circulation, more than ten times more than most other creators. I attribute this success to:

1. Complete focus on community. The purpose of $RISE was to build a learning community, not for my personal gain. Everything I did was to create new value and learning opportunities for others. I gave away more than $50,000 in coins to let anybody access the community if they wanted to join and learn.
2. A rational business approach. I had more business experience than most other creators on the platform. For example. many musicians and artists on Rally struggled to understand the token economics, which was insanely complex. I was not swayed by hype or emotion. I just stuck to the business plan and communicated about it transparently.

Eventually, nearly 2,000 people owned my coin. Although I never ran promotions or asked people to invest their money, many did because they believed in our mission. The impressive community success was proof that we were headed in the right direction.

Six months after launching the coin, the value of my own personal holdings was about $250,000.

Act 3: Exposing the creator token flaws

In any start-up environment, you’ll face unexpected problems. I knew Rally was an experiment, so I was patient with the company’s frequent missteps and technical glitches. However, there were some fatal flaws embedded in the creator token system:

1. It was difficult for creators like me to take money out of Rally. Even though the project was taking a lot of time, I wasn’t being compensated for it. Long story short, the algorithm penalized the whole community if a creator took money out. Perhaps Rally designed it that way — they wanted to keep the money in the system, after all. Many creators bailed for this reason, and a few ruined their reputations by putting themselves ahead of their communities and cashing out everything in the middle of the night.
2. Too much of the community value was impacted by the crypto market. My hard work seemed fruitless when the token value was largely determined by outside forces.
3. In the “real world,” I charge for my time. That’s how I feed my family. The key to creator token economics is that a coin holder receives some valuable new access to me or my work. But why would I do that? I can charge real money for my time. Why would I give away valuable bonuses in exchange for tokens when I can’t easily take money out of the Rally system? In an effort to play the game, many creators made terrible decisions selling services for tokens they could not easily redeem for money. I did not do that.
4. Rally was mis-managed. By the spring of 2022 it was apparent that Rally was in trouble. It had just announced its third CEO in nine months. I won’t get into the ugly details, but this was one of the worst-managed enterprises I have ever witnessed. And I’ve been around awhile. At least in part, poor leaders fumbled away the opportunity.

The Meltdown

Just as another new management team was coming on board, crypto winter set in. All the cryptocurrencies melted in a matter of days, and this of course hastened Rally’s decline. The company dramatically cut staff, stopped launching new creator tokens, curtailed development, and — unbelievably — suspended all communications with their 350 creators.

Rally had been in business for a year and a half. In that time, the value of its $RLY cryptocurrency plummeted from $1.45 to $0.01.

A series of mysterious “technical problems” kept creators and our community members from exchanging tokens or cashing out during the meltdown. Finally, Rally sent us a notice giving us a one-time 10-day window to cash out whatever we had left. We had to sign a document agreeing not to sue them.

For my year of effort, I realized a net profit of about $5,000.

And yet, I am happy …

Act 4: RISERS RISE

Perhaps this seems strange, but the whole Rally mess was an awesome experience.

I learned so much. Being on the cutting edge of Web3 was an incredible opportunity. Many of my fellow creators became close friends through this trial by fire.

I often feel alone in my career. I spend most of my time in my office in the woods — writing, thinking, and helping customers. A self-imposed solitary life. But my world is different now. The end result of the Rally rollercoaster is a supremely cool RISE community.

The coin is gone, but RISE remains — a friend-driven machine moving toward bigger opportunities and collaborations. It has grown far beyond the creator coin idea that first brought us together.

In fact, we don’t need the coin at all.

Every day, we gather on Discord to teach each other and debate the future of marketing. It is my most valuable network of friends. It has become my university.

We’re doing experiments in the metaverse together. We’re solving problems. We’re attending free webinars with global thought leaders. We’re writing a book together (look for The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever next summer!). We’ve been gathering for live events. I’ve made more new close friends in six months than in the last six years.

On most days, I check in every few hours to see what juicy new ideas are circulating in the RISE community. These are my friends. They are challenging me, teaching me, and pulling me in new directions. As a curious person, I can’t think of anything more fun or energizing.

I still spend most of my time in my office on the hill, but I’m no longer alone. I belong to a community.

Mission accomplished.

Onward

What’s next?

Some of my fellow creators are moving from Rally on to other platforms or creating their own solo coin efforts on a blockchain. I am not doing that for now, primarily because I’m concerned about how these coins might be impacted by upcoming SEC regulations. I might change my mind, but let’s see how things play out.

Despite the painful experience, I think tokenized economies will work, especially for creators who are artists and musicians. “Selling stock” in themselves can fund new creative efforts and launch a virtuous cycle of promotion from people who want them to succeed. Tokens will also find a place in corporate loyalty programs.

The dust is still settling from the Rally creator token demise, but my community is growing in exciting new ways. If you would like to be part of RISE, you can learn more here. It’s free to join, and all are welcome.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Image generated by AI through MidJourney.

The post The rise and fall of my Web3 creator token. A drama in four acts appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Welcome to the TENTH SEASON of The Marketing Companion podcast!

In the new Marketing Companion episode, we hear from Mathew Sweezey on the evolving role of crypto and Web3 in the marketing mix. Mathew is uniquely qualified to provide this overview since he works on some of the most significant Web3/NFT brand projects in the world through his position at Salesforce.

A few highlights from this fascinating show:

On crypto winter — “I agree with most of the experts out there on crypto winter. This is a necessary shake-out that gets us back to our core. What will disappear is all that is silly. Many of us are excited about this point in time.”

Future of NFTs — “I see companies saying that NFTs are the next major revenue for source for their brand. This is the next billion-dollar product. Others are giving them away for free. That’s the data play. It’s reverse CRM.”

NFT strategy — “When we are working with brands on Web3, everybody wants to do everything. It’s yes, yes, yes. Marketers have to establish a set of guiding principles. We have to guide brands to be ethical.”

Consumer as brand creator — “The future is much more collaborative. We are changing the relationships with brands. We are actually transferring ownership of IP. It changes the role of consumer from somebody who is buying to someone who is co-owning and brand creator.”

This is an incredibly valuable glimpse into the future of marketing and you won’t want to miss it:

Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.

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The post The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I recently had an interesting question from an interviewer. Perhaps my answer can help you … 

You’ve worked with many renowned global clients over the years. What are the most common mistakes you see marketers make when planning and/or executing their strategies?

In most companies, marketing is iterative. We try to do a little better each year with our SEO, digital ads, content, etc. But our customers have taken a quantum leap away from us. They have the accumulated knowledge of the human race in the palm of their hands and they expect something more from companies and marketers today.

If companies don’t take time to look up from their routine, entrenched marketing practices, they are going to become irrelevant soon.

It doesn’t require a crystal ball to realize that the field of marketing will be unrecognizable two years from now, compared to where we are today.

Customers don’t want to be bothered, spammed, interrupted, or annoyed. They are immersed in a streaming media environment now where ads are rare or blocked. Instead of manipulating people, marketers need to come alongside customers to help them make money, save money, have a happier, healthier, more entertaining life … or whatever our customers need our companies to do for them in their moment of need.

A quantum leap

Staying in a routine trench of annual iteration is a path toward irrelevance. We need to embrace and master emerging ideas and customer needs, even if it seems like we’re not ready for it. Even if it seems terrifying.

We need to get out of that trench and take a quantum leap forward to keep up with customers and the culture. I think this requires these important activities:

1. Devote budget to experimentation

Change can be excruciating, especially if you’re moving away from familiar dashboards and marketing routines. To ease the pain, set aside at least 5 to 10 percent of your budget to experiment with these new technologies and practices.

2. Drive a culture of change

One great corporate leader I worked with set an annual performance goal for every employee — they had to show how they experimented with some new marketing idea every quarter of the year. They didn’t have to succeed, they didn’t have to show results — or even progress. But they had to experiment.

To create a true culture of change, the directive has to come from the top. There’s no such thing as a grassroots cultural change.

3. Double-down on personal growth

Get out of the day-to-day, lift your head up and learn about the changes happening in the world. Devote part of your marketing time and resources to learning, not iterating. Read, watch, listen and begin to master the new marketing channels coming at us. One option to consider is the Uprising event where a small group of marketing thought leaders are devoted to exploring the future of marketing together.

4. Put aside metrics (WHAT????)

You can keep up with marketing change and the pulse of culture, or you can measure. You probably can’t do both. That is a disturbing reality to me and my fellow measurement geeks!

I grew up in a slow-moving marketing world. It was easy and elegant to set one goal year after year and measure our steady progress on long-established dashboards.

But the fact is, if you wait to nail down measurement, you’ll miss opportunities due to the escalating rate of change in our world. This gets back to the idea of experimentation. Try new things, even if you can’t measure the results right away.

5. Start now

This very moment represents the slowest moment of change you will ever experience. The pace is just going to accelerate! So you really do not have a moment to lose. Even if you start your quantum leap future focus a few months ahead of competitors, it can make all the difference in the world.

Having a successful company and brand is an unending journey of being relevant. We can’t be relevant if we’re not embracing the new marketing realities emerging all around us.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.