Community-First Company Building with Cuy Sheffield & Micah Johnson

The NFX Podcast

In today's episode, NFX Partner Morgan Beller talks with Cuy Sheffield (head of crypto at Visa) and Micah Johnson (Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, and Aku and former professional baseball player) as they explore tactics for building community, no matter what industry you’re in. Listen to their conversation as they uncover why Founders can’t skip the community-building part anymore, as it’s essential to company building in today's ecosystem.

The next evolution of companies will be created in public with early customers, partners, and supporters. They’ll be community-owned and operated, building upon the playbooks created by early NFT and play-to-earn projects. Because many of the web 3.0 advantages are hard to adopt as a large web 2.0 company, as a Founder you have to focus on the big ideas: ownership, collaboration, and community.

(0:00) Introduction to the NFX Podcast and guests Kai Sheffield and Micah Johnson (1:22) Journey into the crypto space and transition from professional careers to NFTs (3:54) Discussion on NFTs, the black crypto art movement, and comparison to traditional art (10:38) Discussion on NFTs in the context of art and the power of collaboration in NFTs (15:23) Managing a community as a creator: challenges and opportunities (19:10) Shift from traditional business models to community-led product development in the crypto space (23:30) Shift from fleeting internet interactions to committed engagements through NFTs and tokens (26:56) Shift from eyeball metrics to commerce metrics in Web 3 and the digitization of supply chain (33:11) Emphasizing core values in Web 3 and the rise of crypto creators (36:39) Importance of community engagement and the challenges of scalability in community management (41:56) Setting good principles as a founder and thoughts on accessibility in the crypto space (44:57) Using IP to make crypto more accessible and sharing upcoming Aku milestones (46:50) End of episode and closing remarks