A New Era for Content Creators

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1:35It's Web3 Wednesdays on Crypto Daily Briefing Show and thank you for spending some time with me on this learning journey. I'm Elaine Lee, your friendly crypto host and producer and joining me today is Sami Aryan, founder and CEO of Impeak. Sami, welcome to the show. it was time. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here finally. Look, guys, before we begin, we have a quick programming note that I wanted to mention for this show. We often get questions from our viewers about, well, which Real Vision membership is right for them. So Maggie and Raul posted, take a look there, posted an AMA on it today.

2:12So go and check it out and see, well, what kind of level of view you are at in your financial journey. And remember, Prices are going up, but if you're already a member, you can lock it in until tomorrow. Go to realvision.com forward slash level up. So Sami, I have decided today is, well, Women's Crush Wednesdays on Real Vision. Oh, amazing. I didn't know you had that. That's fantastic. It is a thing now, Sami. So I think, you know, first and foremost, really a heartfelt thank you from the Real Vision team for, you know, building out a platform where every Friday, visionaries who are into the crypto culture can hang out on InPeak.

2:51And what I also think is the most interactive part of Real Vision when it comes to exploring into the world of Web3. Now, for those of you who don't know, every Friday at 2.30 Eastern, we have a show called Degen Happy Hour. Sometimes it's a hot mess, sometimes it's chaotic, but sometimes it's educational too, and also where we do some fun giveaways. Now, with your Genesis or RV Collective Energy, you are able to log in via InPeak and have access to our exclusive token gated community, a platform that Sami is building out with her team and shout out to the team as well, Impeak, a fantastic team.

3:23It's a place where our community has made real life friendships through the connection of real vision. Is that a fair analogy, Sami? Yeah, that's right. And one of the things that makes it special is that you can also collaborate with other communities so you can invite other token gated communities as well. And it's a really interactive experience. Your show is probably our favorite. It's just so much fun. It is a lot of fun. And thank you for helping us build it along the way. So, Sami, it's just you and I today, a little bit chill, a little bit hangout. I do want to sort of ask you, when was the first point where you actually started getting into the blockchain technology?

4:07Probably around 2015, 16, when I started getting really curious about it. Unfortunately, I didn't buy anything or get into it from a financial point of view, because I was actually at a time in a relationship where my partner really hated everything blockchain and we actually had a lot of disagreements about that. But I really understood the technology first. The main thing for me was actually I was more interested, as opposed to most people who get into blockchain because of the financial aspect, I was first attracted to the technology. Because when I started reading books about blockchain and one of the things that I discovered very early on was that this is going to disrupt big tech.

5:01And that was the thing that was exciting to me because I was like, you know, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I actually told Raul about that when he was on my podcast. I was like, you know, when Mark Zuckerberg was building Facebook, I was trying to get out of a forced marriage in Iran. You know, I was like, you know, back then I was like in a completely different environment. I couldn't build. I was not in Silicon Valley. I was not a white man in the kind of networks that had the possibility to do that. So for me, blockchain technology gave me a window into what would be possible and that maybe this could be a place where I could finally make an entrance into the tech world as an entrepreneur.

5:45No, for sure. Everything is building from ground up. It is such an exciting place to be, especially in blockchain technology, especially like you said, for a woman as well. And I really like the fact that you said, disrupt by big tech. Here's the brand new opportunities that is building out on a decentralized system. And this is what's happening. So, Somi, you really are someone to me as a mover and shaker, the way you speak, the way you fell down a hole, you are a true DNA of a Web3 founder. So, okay. But how did the idea of InPeak sort of come to fruition? I mean, tell me where is it through a dinner party and you saw like, okay, YouTube shouldn't be owning every piece of content out there, or like, you know, Instagram for even like NFT artists that, you know, realize that, oh my God, all their art just lives on Instagram page.

6:30If they get rid of it, they get rid of it. So because it lives on its servers and extender. So what was that point where you were like, okay, Impeek is born? How did that idea come about? So, you know, as a content creator, and, you know, as a creator in general, I found that it was very, very hard for creators to break through any kind of algorithm, right? Like there are a lot of... Sami was saying for content. Can you take me back a little bit? Yeah, yeah, sure. So I really made my debut in terms of like content on LinkedIn. And I was creating content about digital marketing and like millennials, how technology is disrupting businesses.

7:17And I found it really hard. You know, before that, I had tried on Facebook and Instagram, which was even harder because unless with Instagram, like, you know, you had to fit into this influencer, you know, kind of mold and every day, you know, it's all about the pictures, the selfies of all, you know, all the things that, as you know, it's like if you're a woman, there was like a certain look that you had to fit into to maybe break through the algorithm. and there were so many of them and you looked at every single one of these channels, they all looked pretty much the same, you know, like these profiles to a point that you couldn't really tell the difference between these influencers.

7:59So I wanted to build my profile, if you will, as a thought leader, as a business thought leader, you know, not necessarily as that type of influencer. So I started building it on LinkedIn and I was very lucky because I was at the right place at the right time. But what I found very difficult and challenging was that LinkedIn, just like any other platform, they kept changing their algorithm and their priorities changed. And as their priorities changed, fewer people would see your posts unless you changed with the algorithm. And this was a conversation that I had in depth with Tom Bilio as well.

8:42And he was like, he says, like, as a creator, I'm a slave to the YouTube algorithm. And I didn't want necessarily that kind of being a slave to the algorithm. I was like, there must be a better way. There are a lot of amazing, amazing content creators that don't have maybe a million followers or hundreds of thousands of followers. But they're creating really thought-provoking, really, really interesting content. It's just that they are not able to dedicate the time and the ability to necessarily build a massive following to break through the algorithm to be seen. So I wanted to build a platform that would enable creators of any sort of like amount of followers to monetize their content, to build a community.

9:42So when I came to Web3, this concept of community really resonated with me because I felt like there's a real difference between community and audience. on social media you don't build a community you build an audience the first time I really felt the sense of community was in discord I was like oh okay so this is the difference between a community and a and an audience and it reminded me of the early days of the internet forums I remember at the time I used to be a bodybuilder you know believe it or not and I was in a body building forum and and the conversations that we had as well for those of you who don't know So Sami is a bodybuilder.

10:21She's an entrepreneur. But because we obviously have been using Intiq and I learned a little bit more about you, you also are a death metal singer. Yeah. I was also a death metal singer and a fitness model, all sorts of things. I love that. So sorry, you were saying the difference between audience and community. Yes. So that sense of community, you know, I felt like there is a real way of building community that is not practiced on social media. And I feel like there is a real opportunity now for us to rethink what this social media, you know, what the future of social media can be. And to me, the future of social media is not really about, you know, threads.

11:09You know, it's not like the way I see it is that social media as we know it may continue to function as the top of the funnel. You know, but where community is built, you know, and I hate that term funnel, but you know what I mean, like your first impression. For sure. Right. And then it's where you build your audience and then you build a community. And I wanted to build a platform that was designed for building a community in a decentralized way. But of course, as you know, Web3 is, the proliferation of Web3 is being challenged because of its hyper-financialization. So at the moment, I'm actually working on that business model in a way that it's not only focusing on Web3, but also focusing on all emerging spaces.

11:56So basically what we are building is like two models. There's going to be two models. One is community as a service where, let's say, for example, you are building an AI product and you want to build a community of people who are going to interact with your content and with your product so we can help you build a community. So that will be community as a service. The other is that you use the platform to build your own community. Hey, everyone. we're going to take a quick pause and hear our word from our partners we'll be right back

12:32yeah no I think it's um excellent how you notice the fact that you know an audience is very different from a community and of course a lot of um sort of web2 brands are struggling to actually know how to build the community right and we'll go into a little bit uh more uh into this a little bit later but you know why don't you tell us like at the moment who is using the platform how many people are using it? And well, I think you've answered it a little bit, but go into if you can touch a deeper a little bit about how you notice about the different communities are using it and go through some of the key features on your platform in Peek.

13:06So right now, obviously, as you know, you guys, Real Vision, you're using it for your DGN Happy Hours, but also for some of your other sessions that you're doing with other communities. And then Impact Theory has been using it. Zen Academy has been using it. And we just onboarded Asprey, Bugatti, Asprey, you know, the studio. I think the biggest challenge that many people are finding communities is that they don't have enough content. So it's really good for content driven communities. But most communities, so I think within Web3, this is part of the reason why we are actually going to expand beyond Web3.

13:52Because within Web3, most communities don't have enough content. They are not really, you know, the only content that they're creating pretty much is like Twitter spaces. So I think in the next bull run, as new communities come into Web3, there will be a real opportunity to, you know, onboard a lot of Web3 communities. But in the meantime, we are going to be focusing more on emerging spaces as a whole. So, you know, for example, one of the people that we've just onboarded, she's part of the 100 Women in Finance and she's building a hedge fund for women. Not a hedge fund for women. She's building a community of female fund managers.

14:39and then she's getting, you know, going out and getting funds for them. So that's very interesting. That's a very interesting use. So attracting really niche conversations and attracting the specific field who knows that they probably have about 10 to 20 followers, but really niche ideas and that they can grow within the community because like basically it's very niche. It's very small in Web3, but that's how they sort of stick together. And, you know, just talking about like in peak at the moment, And obviously we use it for DJ and Happy Hour. What's fascinating to me is the fact that, you know, you are able to form a live show.

15:15And when it's a live show, it does hit differently, you know, and you get to throw out polls in there, which makes it interactive. You get to like upload the videos, the links that you want your audience to go and visit as you are sort of presenting the show in real time. So this is like, I think, just myself using it, have noticed the small little niche touches that basically are so healthy for the tiny little community to expand from that. So there's plenty of growth potential. And just listening to you, Hal, not only covering Web3, but exponential tech and AI as well. I think that's a very way to approach this space, and especially in the bear market and building in Web3.

15:54Yeah, and obviously there is the on-demand section. There's the live sessions. There is the fact that we built this jump bot that sits in your Discord. If you have a Discord channel, people can jump into the session directly from Discord. But also, we're working on an AI feature that we'll be building into the platform where after a session, once you... First of all, we're going to automate the uploading of the session unless you choose to opt out so that you don't have to do it manually. Then you're going to be able to literally, at the press of a button, be able to create. It will give you a few options.

16:30You can create clips from the session to directly post on social media. You can create a quiz and let people fill out the quiz and get a certificate. So, you know, it's all using OpenAI. So we've just tested it. Literally yesterday, the team showed me the initial, you know, version of what it's, so the MVP that we're building right now. So you can choose to create quizzes You can choose to create proof of engagement so that, you know, if people say that, you know, they join the session or watch the session. Let's say, for example, you're doing a giveaway. So people can go in and watch the session and then they can answer a few questions.

17:12And the question will be different for each person so they can't cheat. And, you know, and then they can get a proof of experience, a proof of engagement. So it's kind of like a POAP, but proof of engagement. And then that will allow you to build a level of engagement with your audience and use your content in so many different ways. It will also allow you to create an article from it straight from there. That sounds, you know, you can just tell you're clearly a woman building on the tech sort of stack when I hear about this, especially when you and I sort of test and peek out every other week.

17:52I'm like, you know, Somi, I need this, Somi, I need that. And you're like, I'm on it. The devs are getting there. And it's great just watching how you function over time. And I'm just reading some comments. Goofy Ginger. No, it's not women only, but it's for a public discord. That's Goofy Ginger. And then obviously someone also said proof of engagement. Ooh, that's fun. So, and then, you know, like just this very moment here, obviously I'm on a platform now and I've still got another screen and I'm reading comments on YouTube but if you were using like a platform like in peak um it would just be all within uh platform itself so you really need to use it to feel it is what I'm saying so do join DJ and happy hour on a Friday where somebody does join um so somebody as a web3 founder though um you know there is a lot going on in the creators economy um in web3 even though I know you said there's not enough of it but you know so many people put out podcasts so many people put out different type of videos but you know for me what's interesting is in the space of web3 is like you know the the data that you still hold to yourself so basically you know i mean i downloaded threads or whatever but you can't post stuff on twitter or when you're on instagram you can't really just copy and paste like a link from google because they've built out the system to be like you are in this ecosystem, and that's the ecosystem that you're going to stay in.

19:19So it's fascinating to watch all that. So can you explain content creation of Web 2, and how is it different to Web 3, and how do you monetize Web 3 content to monetize Web 3 content creation efforts? So I think the monetization of Web 3 is a really big topic that isn't cracked yet. And we have seen, obviously, that you can sell NFTs and tokens and things like that. But it's not a solved problem. We're still working on this. We are all still working on this together. It's a very new technology, right? And one of the important things about Web3 content is that, for example, the way that we are building it is eventually the idea is, for example, if you have got followers on Lens Protocol, you will be able to also have them on Inpeak, you know, if you have them on Farcaster.

20:15So we are going to be doing these integrations with Unstoppable Domains, with Farcaster, with, you know, Lens Protocol, all the other kind of Web3 social media. But we are primarily, we are not a social media and we are a content management, you know, and community building slightly different so we are i would say i compare what i'm uh you know building yeah i was just about to ask you actually if you had to pick another sort of web 2 sort of equivalent out there in space right now what would impig be nearest to it's not it what we're building is so different like you know when i was showing uh to um tom video he was like your approach is so fundamentally different you know at the moment when you look at it what you see is that oh it's a platform that You can have live sessions and on-demand content.

21:06But really, the long-term vision is, like I said, it's a place for community building, but with the difference that the communities, that there will be a news feed for the communities. So, you know, so like think about it. If Discord had a news feed and you could go to that news feed and there was a curated news feed of all the communities that you're a part of so that you didn't have to go from one thing to another. And this is something that I'd say, you know, maybe you could compare it to something like Mighty Networks or Discord or, you know, Guild, but with the difference that it's not siloed communities.

21:48Our goal is to bring communities together and help the discovery of content and products and services. Something at Real Vision that I'm familiar with going by the name of the network effect. Yes, exactly. Right. Yeah. So so really there isn't anything like it. And, you know, and the business model is so different from, it's not a social media, it's a new generation of, you know, you could think of as social networking and content management. Hey, everyone, we're going to take another quick break and hear a word from our partners. We'll be right back to the Real Vision Crypto Daily Briefing.

22:30I mean, Sami, I hear you talking about new social comment. I mean, I was literally reading up on this lady called, I don't know if you've seen that video. I think it's called, God, what's her name? She's left my, come on, Elaine. Pinky Doll. Oh, my God. If you guys don't know about Pinky Doll, you should give that a little Google now, and we'll explain that later. The world is moving in all sorts of different directions of how we consume content. But God damn it, when you find the same people within the community that really want to pinpoint that conversation, that dialogue specifically and tailored to what you're interested in, that's the most magical thing, I think, in the next sort of era of content generation and consumption.

23:17Okay, and then... Let me just quickly put this in to say that part of the reason for this is that the need for community and the need for that kind of identity discovery is going to be even more with AI-ness, something that... Yeah, well, I was about to say a lot of funding in Web3 has gone to AI. How do you see AI and blockchain go hand in hand? And by the way, Andrew Hur said Sami's podcast with Tom Dillio was fab. Oh, thank you. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. Yeah, you should definitely check out the podcast. I've got H16Z coming on the pod as well. I'm really looking forward to talking to them about this concept of, you know, social media and all that stuff.

24:03So AI is actually, I think AI is going to make blockchain even more needed, you know, because with blockchain, we can it can really help us figure out who is the real identity behind a certain content. It will really help us figure out the real people, humans, as opposed to AI on all of these different platforms. But I think right now, the conversation is shifted to AI. And you have to speak to people the language that they are. It's about being in the moment, right? I wrote a book about the future of work and AI in 2019. And nobody talked about AI back then. Wow. And everything that I said, the book is called Career Fear and How to Beat It.

25:00And everything that I said in the book, which I was like, in the next five to 15 years, we are going to see all of this happen. You know, with it actually with COVID, it actually accelerated. And you are now seeing it in one to three years rather than five to 15 years. And, you know, back then nobody was talking about it. And so I was too early for that conversation. So then I shifted my focus to blockchain because everybody was talking about blockchain. I was like, OK, I need to be part of the conversation that's going on right now. But now the focus has shifted away from blockchain. And I think that it will come back.

25:36I think blockchain, the technology is solid. There is something there. But I think it's going to take a while for it to come back. But also the truth is that blockchain technology, the adoption is extremely hard. You know, until we iron out those issues, it's going to be very hard for people to get their head around this whole wallet business, right? So, and also it requires a fundamental shift in understanding the concept of digital ownership. So this is something that needs to be sorted. Yeah, and I'm just reading in the comments now, of course, visionaries being visionaries always trying to outsmart me, which they do.

26:21And they're always 10 million miles ahead. So for anyone watching this, which is what they're asking too, who wants to create a show on your platform, where should they begin? So at the moment, the best way to do it is if you have an Inpeak Genesis Pass, you will be able, once you log in with an Inpeak Genesis Pass, you will be able to see the creator dashboard and you can start creating your channel. Other than that, we are from around mid-August, we're going to introduce a new tier where people can go in and actually create a channel, have like a one-month free trial. And then after that, there will be a paid option.

27:01But in the shortest run, and the Inpeak Genesis Pass is not very expensive right now. So you can pick up one from OpenSea. And as long as you log in with your Genesis Pass, you'll be able to see the creator dashboard. Okay. And by the way, viewers, put down your questions in the chat. We're asking the best ones on air. I've already tackled one. Remember, Real Vision members take priority. If you are not a member yet, go to realvision.com forward slash crypto to sign up. It's absolutely free. Picking up a few more of your comments. And Samantha, who has joined, actually, usually on our platform, but definitely joined DJM Happy Hour for a yoga session, which, believe it or not, she was fantastic.

27:44She said, love seeing women pioneering in the tech space. Well done, Sami. And furthermore, if you are not a member yet, go to realvision.com forward slash crypto to sign up. Remember, it is absolutely free. It's where a new episode of Brow Pals Adventures in Crypto premieres every Friday. Okay. Well, you know what? I'm picking up one question. And my producer is typing out live right now. What are your thoughts on WorldCoin? I'm going to take some questions, Sami, if that's okay with you. That's interesting. Yeah, WorldCoin. I actually had to comment about it on LinkedIn the other day. I think it remains to be seen.

28:25I'm happy to keep an open mind. I think that we need some kind of UBI solution one way or the other. It does feel a bit dystopian. I do have my concerns about it, especially considering that I don't know. I don't know if I trust. Look, I want to get Sam Altman on my podcast. So I'm going to be careful of what I say here. But, you know, I don't know if I fully trust him. The reason is that, you know, I think considering that he's like he doesn't have a share in open AI, you know, I just wonder what exact ideology is driving him. And yeah, I do have my concern. You know, I read on so many of your bios and you are a tech philosopher and I can imagine so many people have to even chase up with you when you're saying, of course, it's not open AI.