A New Social Platform That Focuses on Finance and Investment Through Community Building with Taylor Perkins: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by HighLevel, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. And on today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down a new social platform that focuses on finance and investment through community building. And to drop these value bonds are brought to Taylor Perkins and EO Fire Studios. Taylor is just a dude trying to level the playing field of finance while taking his company Moonify to the moon. And today we talk about how failing is an advantage, how your platform is useless without users. Get involved in any way that you feel comfortable and owe so much more.

0:36John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Taylor and our sponsors. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. If you're feeling stuck or like you're ready to get to the next level in your career, then finding the right coach can help. Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off your first coaching session. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more.

1:15John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Taylor, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, first of all, what's up, Fire Nation? It's so cool to be doing this, have listened many, many times, and to be talking with you right now, JLD, is kind of a long-term goal that I had and kind of insane for me. But something that I believe in, I would say it's something that the general public maybe doesn't believe in. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs and people who have had success have the luxury of looking back and realizing this.

2:05But I would say, you know, failing is such an advantage. and you know when it comes to success it's not about finding something that's working and capitalizing um i think it's all about finding what isn't working right and failing and failing fast and you know for me and i mean this just might be a me thing you know this just might be how i learned but you know i i think of like in junior high or high school anytime a teacher would call on me, right? And, you know, I don't remember the things that I got right in front of the class. But I'll never forget the things I got wrong, right? Because that just kind of scars you.

2:51And I think that's part of how I learn is, you know, through failure, you can really internalize those lessons. And so I think, you know, one thing that anybody that's trying to build anything should be focusing on is not what's working necessarily, but what is failing. And I think that's the biggest advantage that you have, identifying what isn't working.

3:15John Lee Dumas:Well, Fire Nation, as you heard in the intro, we're talking today about a new social platform that focuses on finance and investment through community building. Taylor is a neighbor here in Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico. He's a friend. I'm an investor. I'm an advisor for the company Moonify, which we will be talking about here today, and about the overall concept about why he's doing and actually together with his team as well and myself and others, what we're trying to do in this space of building a community and so much more. But first off, what is the vision, Taylor, of Moonify? What is the vision of Moonify?

3:58You know, I think what it comes down to as far as, you know, what all of us at the core team believe and identified is technology has come into so many different media streams, right? And really disrupted the way that people get information, right? So much content that used to be controlled by platforms or studios or people decide what voices we see or listen to, who we see, who are these celebrities. All this content has gone peer-to-peer. And what we identified was there are crazy amounts of people having unbelievable success in real markets right now. But the voices that we hear are still those same, you know, voices that we've heard for so long.

4:55And so what we identified at our team is, OK, if we can build a platform, if we can build a online meeting place where we can bring these real people having real success and bring this content peer to peer, you know, it's just a massive industry that's begging to be disrupted. and, you know, there's so much good content and advice that can help a lot of people that is just, you know, waiting to get out there. And so, uh, you know, it's a, it's a massive market and, uh, we're excited to be a part of, uh, bringing this content peer to peer.

5:33John Lee Dumas:Peer to peer. And the question that I now want to ask is why, why build a new social media versus just building a community on existing platforms like so many have done before you? What that comes down to is a few different factors. The first one that we identified is, you know, so much of how communities thrive and how people participate in a community and kind of like what the feeling is comes down to incentive structures, right? And, you know, what we found with social media is when you have a system that is built on monetizing people's attention, what happens is to make money, you need to promote the loudest voices, right?

6:25Or what is getting the most views? What is getting the most comments? And a lot of times that ends up being content that isn't necessarily to the benefit of the consumer. And that's a very nice way of putting it. Right. And so what we've found is because traditional social media utilizes users as the product so that they can sell ads, it creates the very definition of, you know, a parasitic ecosystem. parasitic meaning you know one benefits at the peril of another and so you know we played with the idea of how do we build a community how do we build a safe community where people can articulate these things uh where we can minimize you know the bad actors that are just looking to make a quick buck but really build something where it's a symbiotic ecosystem where everybody benefits And, you know, as we went through it and explored all the options, really the only solution was, you know, you got to tear the whole thing down and rebuild, you know, you got to build up that foundation so that the incentive structure from the beginning is set so that everybody can thrive, not just the, you know, the site that you're coming and visiting.

7:42John Lee Dumas:Now, this is something that we've talked offline about a little bit, but I kind of want to have this conversation for Fire Nation right now because there are a lot of topics that matter in this world. Why did you specifically choose finance and investments for Moonify? From a young age, my dad has taken, you know, the traditional route and he is the hardest worker that I know. and you know there have been good times there have been bad times right you know as economies you know thrive and then you know you have recessions uh you know life just happens like it does to everybody else and what i saw was this man that i you know just idolized that was the hardest working human being that i've ever met go through some of these things you know where it's you know losing work or going through some, you know, financial stress, stresses or whatever it is.

8:36And it ingrained inside of me, this mentality of you have to do everything you can for yourself, right? Like you cannot depend on a company or somebody else to take care of you because you can always bet on human nature where people are going to be, or companies are going to be self-serving and do whatever is best for them. And so naturally I gravitated towards financial markets, just like a lot of people do when you're in, you know, a chaotic situation or when you're looking for a way to make money, right? We saw in COVID just the amount of people that turned to financial markets towards investing because there was just so much uncertainty out there, Right.

9:25Like, will I be going back to work? Will I lose my job? Where's my income? And so people naturally turn to investing as a source of, well, maybe I can, you know, put in a hundred dollars and turn it into a thousand. And so in college, in my studies, I was really attracted to financial markets. I studied economics and finance at Utah State University. And when I left the university, I took a job where I could make as much money as possible, but have a lot of free time. And so that's sales, right? And I worked for a great company, and I worked my tail off to sell what I was selling. And on the backside, I was spending my days learning how to invest and how do I grow this capital?

10:13How do I make this capital grow for me? And because of that experience, you know, it really was eye opening because these complex topics that I, you know, thought about or that I was taught about in these complex strategies that people talk about, you know, that go on in Wall Street and everything. once you pull that curtain back, you realize how simple things are. You know, things really come down to how do you manage your risk? What is your edge? When do you buy? When do you sell? That's all it is. And so, you know, the idea of, oh my gosh, this is so much easier than the public perceives it being really just stuck with me.

11:02And so as I went through and you know, grew my portfolio and started having more and more success, I had all these people that were coming to me, asking me for help, asking me, you know, specifically within cryptocurrencies and the digital asset industry, you know, what should I be buying? What should I be looking for? And, you know, it really just built this burning fire within my heart of, okay, how do we build a system so that people like me who are having success and, you know, I am the first one to tell anybody I am not the smartest guy in the room, right? And so if I can do this, anybody can.

11:39But how do you build a system where it connects people like me, others that are having success to those that are wanting to learn? And as a byproduct, what you create is, you know, a system that learning through somebody else, seeing how they manage risk, right? You don't have to just look at how did Warren Buffett make all his money? You know, how did some of these other major investors make all of their money 20 years ago, 10 years ago, whatever it is. But you can learn from people who are going to be the next Warren Buffett's right now as they're doing it. That's the best financial education anybody could have.

12:18And the thing is, the technology is there. We just don't have the system until now.

12:24John Lee Dumas:Now, one thing that really interested me when we first had our conversation, but I was also like, wow, this is quite audacious, is the fact that you're developing a cryptocurrency on top of everything else. Why are you doing this? The cryptocurrency plays such a massive part of this ecosystem that we're building. First of all, there's a lot of confusion or a lot of different types of cryptocurrencies and digital assets are lumped into, you know, a singular definition of, you know, this is online money, right? Or this is Bitcoin. It's just something that people think they're going to use that is going to replace the dollar.

13:08And that's not the case, right? And so, you know, in very, very simple terms, you can utilize cryptocurrencies for many things. And what we're using ours for is it is going to be a fully SEC regulated digital asset, meaning it's going to be compliant with regulations. Everything we're doing is legal, but it allows us to give this asset to our consumers to use it for customer and creator acquisition. It allows us to use it for, you know, benefit and for retention. And it just lets us get our users skin in the game. You know, the idea is when I explain this to my dad, you know, imagine Henry Ford is your next door neighbor, right?

13:56And he invents the first, you know, he comes out with his first car and you see it and you're like, that's amazing. And he says, well, Hey, if you buy one from me, not only are you going to have this car, but I'm going to give you 5 % of the company. And so as everybody buys Ford, that value, because you're an early adopter of what I'm building is going to grow and you own the network. Right. And so on one capacity, it is literally our ability to give our users ownership of what we're building. And with that ownership comes a lot of power. You can also utilize this currency. I like to call them, you know, I've referenced digital assets many times.

14:41You can utilize this digital asset for governance, right? And so now what our system becomes is a site in a community that is user owned, user controlled, and the advancement of what we're building is decided by the user, right? And so, so many of the systems that we have, we're not trying to recreate the wheel. Like I said at the beginning, it just comes down to the incentive structure. And so, for us, we can utilize this cryptocurrency, we can get people in on the site, we can reward them for being early adopters, we can reward people for creating. those rewards are literally like owning voting shares in any company.

15:29And so as we run into anything, as the site develops, we can push questions to the community and they can utilize the digital asset they have to vote, which is extremely powerful. It is giving the power back to the users versus us as a centralized entity owning everything else.

15:51John Lee Dumas:And that's why I think it's such an exciting time, Fire Nation, to be creating companies like this, because it's giving you all the opportunities that Taylor just outlined. And it's very exciting for all the obvious reasons. And we have some really cool things to be talking about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry.me. I've interviewed nearly 5 ,000 successful entrepreneurs, and one thing they all have in common, they've enlisted mentors, coaches, and people along the way to help guide them. But where do you find the right coach or mentor? Great question.

16:27John Lee Dumas:And that's where strawberry.me career coaching comes in. I speak from personal experience when I say that coaching and mentorship has helped me get to where I am today. In fact, you might not even be listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire if it weren't for my very first coaching mentor, Jamie Masters. I knew that in order to produce the best podcast, I needed to find someone who was where I wanted to be. Here we are nearly 14 years later, and I'd say I made a fantastic investment. So if you're feeling stuck or like you're ready to get to the next level, then finding the right coach can help. Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off your first coaching session.

17:05John Lee Dumas:That's strawberry.me slash fire. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where high level comes in high level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform website builder and hosting funnel and landing pages email marketing automation and workflows calendar booking payments and subscriptions even course and membership hosting everything works together seamlessly plus award-winning 24 7 support so you are never stuck and when you go through my link at high level fire.com you unlock my full bonus stack a 30-day free trial of high level with full access, a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something execution roadmap, and more.

17:54John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Taylor, we're back and I want to create a world where five years from now, Moonify is absolutely thriving. It is just crushing it on every level that you want it to be crushing it. What does that look like? What that looks like to me is our platform is to the point where anything that you can do to make, you know, to grow your capital, to make some money in is on our platform, right? So imagine, You know, you see that the U.S. market is down a little bit, but the Brazilian market is trending up.

18:42Well, you can go onto our platform. You can go into the section where it has the Brazilian markets. You know, a very, very cool component about our platform, which we are keeping pretty close to the vest right now, is we have a trust component that takes in over 80 plus data driven metrics that give a community trust score that, you know, naturally weeds out bad actors and signifies that these people are thought leaders. You can't trust them because trust online is a massive, massive issue. But you can go into the Brazilian market, you can find people with the trust scores that fit what you're looking for.

19:27And you can immediately start getting exposure to a new market by crowdsourcing and utilizing the information that those quasi mentors have, right? The world globalization has affected the world in so many beneficial ways where we're all closer than we've ever been. And I see this on a, you know, a day to day within my own network on the social media is with the people that I help, you know, talking about digital assets. And the whole mentality is, wow, you know, if I can compensate somebody else that is an expert in another field, right? If I can compensate a creator directly by via paying for a subscription, right?

20:14For that exclusive content, that's a small cost out of my pocket to get an expert in the field. And so, you know, the idea is, man, anybody that wants exposure to crypto, anybody that wants exposure to the stock market, anybody that's looking to get into foreign markets, systemic gambling, whatever it is, you can come on our platform, you can find people to trust, and you can immediately, without any prior experience, start your journey of learning. because any entrepreneur will tell you that if you set out to accomplish something, you can absolutely do it off of your own grit and your own grind.

20:58But you are exponentially more likely to succeed if you have a mentor, if you have someone that's been there, if you have someone that can guide you through, you know, the pitfalls, things that are going to trip you up, you know, the good times and the bad times. And so that's the idea of what this is, is how do we bring this peer to peer? How do we provide people with mentors, these quasi mentors that can help get you exposure? You can leverage their knowledge and start growing your portfolio and start your own journey of becoming that. And then hopefully you turn back to the community and you start helping that next generation and you help guide them how to start, how to get going.

21:44what you should be avoiding. You know, one of the biggest things that I love in the digital asset community is what we call wag me, right? It's W A G M I. It means we're all going to make it. And I love that mentality because, you know, it really signifies like I just, you look at so many things in the world and it's a me versus you, right? And in financial markets, A lot of people are like, oh, it's me versus them. People don't give out information because if they're giving information outright, that's going to hurt them in some way, or they lose their competitive advantage. But that isn't how it has to be, right?

22:26We can all help each other. We can all leverage what we have, and we can build communities so that we can unite and as a collective really create something cool. And, you know, I was talking to some influencers the other day about our platform, right? And they were saying, you know, the biggest difference is think about, you know, creating on any platform. And as an influencer, you're competing for people's viewership, for their eyes, for their time. And so you want them to view what you're putting out and not necessarily your competitors. Well, in our site and on our platform, because of the way that we're rewarding creators with this digital asset and giving ownership, because the way the incentives are aligned so that creators don't have to focus on what do I do to sell ads, but rather how do I put out the best content possible so that people will subscribe for exclusive content.

23:28Because, you know, it's the wag me mentality and the community mentality. What ends up happening is you're looking to build the network. You're not looking just to compete with the other people around you for your own personal gain, but you own the network. And so, you know, it really is that rising or the tide raises all ships, you know, that that saying that's what we're trying to build in that community feeling of. Everybody can have success in their own lane because there are so many different ways to make money. And the beautiful thing about the markets is at one point you're going to be right.

24:10At another point, you're going to be wrong. Nobody is right 100 % of the time. And so when you take that competitive nature out of I have to portray that I'm right all the time and you have the aspects of I can focus on what I'm doing. I know and I can put out the best content I can for my own personal edge. But I also want to help these other people around me grow. And I want to promote the best people that have taught me things because it just builds the community and the value that I have in the ownership that I own. It's a completely different type of structure that we're really excited about because it really puts the focus on how do we lift people up versus how do I stand up and tear everybody else down.

25:02John Lee Dumas:And there are just so many toxic places online right now, Fire Nation. That's what was really exciting and drew me to moonify is the fact that it's going to be the opposite of that. And I really do want to end with a bang here, Taylor. So talk to us about the secret sauce that's going to allow you to succeed? Now, again, we've talked about a lot of things that are going to be ingredients of your success. Those are all critical ingredients. But if you could just say the one thing that's the secret sauce that's going to really make sure Moonify does go to the moon, what is that thing? We've got some pretty cool people coming to the platform.

25:48And we've talked a lot about this unprecedented, access, these really cool aspects of like, you know, you can learn from the next Warren Buffett right now. But really what that secret sauce is, is it's all about the community, man. And, you know, at the core team in our core level, you know, that's, that's the focus that we have is the community. I look at all of these massive platforms, these total Goliaths in the industry they're in and none of them would be there if they didn't have users but they act like you know it's they're letting us on their platform right like the the amount of deep platforming we've seen recently the amount of people's you know voices being silenced it's just so backwards from what reality is because, you know, those platforms wouldn't be there without those users.

26:53And so everything at Moonify, how we've structured it, the incentives, you know, how people are compensated, we really try to focus on not building something for the sake of, hey, this would be really cool if we all work together and, you know, kumbaya, we're all going to love each other, but more of how do we take human nature? How do we take people's aspects of they are naturally going to be self-serving. You're going to look for how does this help me out the most and build an incentive structure that naturally weeds out bad actors because for them to benefit on the platform and for them to really maximize their return, they've got to put out great content that's going to help people.

27:44And so, you know, that's, that's what it comes down to is, is the way that we are treating our users, the way that we are treating our content creators by putting our focus on them and more so not the focus, but that power. I think that's the secret sauce. You know, we could build a cool, the coolest platform in the world, but without the community, it's going to be nothing. And so focusing on that community is all we can do.

28:16John Lee Dumas:That's all we can do Fire Nation. And that's all you can be doing in your world as well. Focus on your community, your customers, your clients, and that's how you're going to take things to the next level. So Taylor, take us home, brother. How can Fire Nation connect with Moonify, everything that you have going on, learn more, become part of this amazing community that you, others, and myself in my way are going to be helping to build over the upcoming years. Fire Nation, what we'd love for you guys is just get involved in any way that you feel comfortable. If you're comfortable feeling, if you feel like you've had some success, if you feel like you have some know-how, let's get you on the platform and start building a page and putting some content out there to help others.

29:02If you're more comfortable consuming content right now, Let's get you on the platform and get you in front of some of these incredible financial minds that are truly just going to elevate your game in the financial world like you've never seen before. And then let's get everybody involved with the governance. That is the most important thing to me is because of how the internet has been developed via, you know, web one, right, was very much e-commerce. Web two, we became a little bit more social, two-way facing. We can interact with each other. Well, we're transitioning to web three. Web three is very user focused.