Julian: Hey everyone. Thankyou so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have TaraFung, co-founder and CEO of Co:Create, enabling innovative brands to unlocktheir power of their community, fueled by gamified truly self-owned rewards andtheir, their astonishingly simple community activation tools built on Web3

Tara, I'm so excited to not only chatwith you about your founder journey, but this whole idea about community, itcontinues to grow. and it's really an organism that I think a lot of companiesare paying way more attention to nowadays, especially as consumer behaviors arechanging. Now we're capturing multiple consumers across different types of,continents and countries and profiles, especially in Web3, that everythingseems so, I think fragmented, but I think a lot of the companies like yourselfare, are focusing in on the important aspects of it.

But before we get into all that goodstuff, what were you doing before you started Co:Create?  

Tara: Thank you for havingme, Julian. I'm excited to be here. What I was doing right before Co:Create isI was the chief revenue officer of a venture back company that enabledindividuals to invest retirement funds into alternative assets.

So think non-publicly treated.Securities and investments, including venture capital and private real estate.And one of those asset classes was crypto. And that's what led me down therabbit hole personally and introduced me to the exciting world of Web3.  

Julian: Yeah. And what about,crypto and Web3 really was exciting to you. Obviously there's so many aspectsof it. I think a lot of people think crypto and tokens like Bitcoin, but othersin the community think about infrastructure and, and layers that we can use itfor preexisting technology and, and new ways to use it. What in particular wasexciting to you about, crypto to, to then start a whole company around it?

Tara: Yeah, it's a greatquestion. A lot of times when people hear Web3, they think crypto and theythink Bitcoin and Ethereum. Yeah. And that was how I thought about it at firstas well, is that this world of Web3, I didn't even like the term Web3 I thoughtit was a little bit high nosed . Yeah.

Yeah. And. I was like, what's sodifferent about this? These are just, these are, this is just an investment, anasset class. And as an asset class, I can understand why when I dug into it,why someone should have call it two to 5% of their portfolio with exposure tothis nascent asset class. It plays a role in a diversified portfolio, and so thatmade a lot of sense.

And then there's the other side of itwhere people were saying, oh, this is distributed ledger technology. Yeah.Where you can just have a database that everyone can see at the same time. Andso it's distributed across multiple machines as opposed to being captive to asingle centralized entity.

And I think neither of those thingsreally capture what I think of as Web3 and what got me so excited aboutbuilding in this space is that there. Tokens, which introduces value, right? Mm-hmm., if we think about web, one was read, Web2 was read, write, and Web3 is read,write, own. Tokens have introduced value to the internet in a way that isownable.

Yeah. And distributed ledger technologyintroduced the ability for multiple people to see state at the same time. Butsmart contracts, which Ethereum really brought forward, allowed it not just tobe. Saying, okay, who owns what? It's also, let's introduce the idea oftrustless transactions. Yeah. Let's introduce this concept of smart contractswhere we can pre agree to certain terms and conditions that is visible toeveryone, and we don't have to trust that an intermediaries in between usthat's making these things happen.

Like a bookie. Yeah. We can actually go.Directly engage with another party without needing to trust them because we canjust trust the blockchain. Yeah. And so that was where I thought, oh wow, thisis truly groundbreaking technology and it is superior for certain use cases andI've gotta figure more of it out and I wanna be building within it now.

Julian: Yeah. And so, the, thewhole, trust component into blockchain, I think, I think it's a hard conceptfor people to move, forward from, or move past, thinking. And not needing anintermediary, or not needing a trusted individual to complete transactions orto facilitate certain types of contracts.

But what goes into, building that trust,being that you've, you've worked with so many companies now that are lookingto, I think trust is a huge component of it. Obviously with ftx, crumbling andthat whole, that whole fiasco. But there's countless times where technologykind of, know, we, we lose a bit of trust in them.

Bad actors in the space. How, how do youbuild trust with something that you can't necessarily see or you can'tnecessarily, interact with without giving yourself some exposure to it?  

Tara: Yeah, and I think ftx,it was such a sad story because, They have a century's old business model.There was nothing novel about their business model, which is they took moneyfrom people and they said they put it into certain, they invested it intospecific assets on behalf of those individuals, and they said that they weregoing to be a custodian, which custodian means.

Safekeeping of those assets. But insteadwhat they did was they actually loaned them out to a hedge fund who lost allthe money. And then when the people came looking for their funds, it wasn'tthere. And so the fact that crypto was the asset class on backend had nothingto do with the, with FTX being just a fraudulent business.

And I think it's so sad that that getsconflated cuz the Web3 Maxes will say, this is the antithesis of Web3 becauseWeb3 is all about. You own, not your keys, not your Coin, right? Yeah. Like youare in control of your own assets, which means you're not trusting somecentralized party. You can just trust yourself.

But I think what you're questioningreally gets at Julian is, well, how can someone trust themselves? How cansomeone feel confident to be able to. understand, okay, if I'm connecting, if Ihave my own wallet, yeah. And I'm self-studying my own assets, I'm not usingsomeone like ftx. I'm, self-studying it with my own wallet.

How do I know when I connect my walletto, yeah, a smart contract? How do I know what it says? How do I know if it'sgood? How do I know they're not gonna drain? Everything that's in my account.We see countless examples of really prominent people within Web3 who are verysophisticated and they get duped and they make mistakes.

And so I think this is indicative of weare very early, the technology is still nascent. , anytime there is a nascenttechnology, there are opportunities for people to both make a lot of money, butalso lose a lot of money. Right. And that's what we're seeing. Where I thinkthis goes is I think that there are going to be more products and services thatmake it human readable for anyone to understand.

What a specific smart contract would do.What they are agreeing to when they connect their wallet, how to take better preventativeactions to protect their assets. Yeah. And so I'm seeing a lot of this coming.We have a lot of examples of plugins that make it so you can human read smartcontracts but it's still a long way to go.

Julian: Yeah. It's sofascinating just thinking about the amount of, I guess investment into acommunity, obviously thinking about, co. and how much that's gonna foster notonly, people learning and, and being able to connect with the technology. But Ithink also the, the, on the flip side of that, the developer community whowants to, whether it's build applications on top of preexisting technologywithin Web3 but also what that technology's gonna do for the overall growth.

And de describe, some of the communitiesthat are being built through Co:Create and, and what. Community is so powerfulfor these companies that if they don't invest time into it, they, they loseout.  

Tara: Yeah. I think the, thetopic of trust is so important because a lot of people don't feel like they cantrust the counterparties, the institutions, the governments that theyhistorically have done in the past.

Right? Like, sure. There. There's thisnarrative in our society that trust is broken, and so it's making people gocloser to home, right? It's making people trust through word of mouth. I knowsomeone in that community or I, I'm part of this community and this community.For me, that means that when, if we're both part of it, I feel some sort ofkinship.

There's some common value set oraffiliation that brings us together. There's some common cultural norms that weshare, and so I think that's why we're seeing community be so powerful is thatpeople have less trust. Yeah. That goes broader into to larger groups. And sothey wanna say quote unquote closer to something that they can know and feelmore confident in.

And what Web3 projects, NFT projects inparticular have highlighted is how powerful an engaged community can be, like,love them or hate. BoredApes. You know when someone's a BoredApes holder? Yeah.Because they represent their identity through that BoredApe. They go to partiesbecause they own a BoredApe.

They like see someone else who has aBoredApe. If you see someone on the street, if you're a BoredApe holder or ifyou're in a zuki holder or a doodle holder, whatever, NFT community, if you'rea part of one and you see someone on the street that's wearing swag of the sameNFT collection, you're like, oh man, I know you.

Yeah, you don't, but you just feel thisconnection and this affiliation and I. , what established brands are looking atis they're looking at how these Web3 native projects have done such anincredible job of creating a group of people who feel like owners because theyactually are going back to, yeah.

Web3 is about read Right Own, being ableto have a form of ownership, and now, Established brands are like, how can Itap into that? Yeah. And they can't do it. They can't unlock the power of communityjust by sprinkling some Web3 fairy dust on top of what they're already doing.They actually have to say, you know what?

I'm going to introduce a new level ofownership and voice. Yeah. And transparency to my audience. And I trust that bydoing so, I will actually see more engagement, more advocacy, more word ofmouth. Yeah. Marketing on my behalf. And so that's what we are really focusedon, is how can we. take all of the complexity of Web3

mm-hmm. , that has been a hindrance toindividuals feeling comfortable getting started, but also to brands. Yeah.Feeling comfortable that they can move forward and how can we take all thatcomplexity, package it up, make it really simple, and introduce a way to, forbrands in their audience to have a new type of relationship.

Yeah. One that's no longer a one-wayconversation, it's no longer a two-way conversation. It's a multi-partyconversation because that's really what community is all.  

Julian: Yeah, our brand, ourbig brands ready for that. And we, and I asked that thinking about, Starbucksimplemented its own cryptocurrency and Nike's obviously, all these large brandsthat we consider even cons.

Consumer brands are focusing on ways to,adopt Web3 and the community, whether it's, whether it's through tokens orwhether it's through deliverables that they, they can offer to their. , arethey, are they ready or are they a little bit behind? Because, I feel like alot of the, the earlier Web3 builders kind of do this inherently as a part oftheir overall business model. What's the transition like?  

Tara: Yeah, no, it's a greatquestion. We have been very specific. As to what types of brands we think areour ideal brand partner. Mm-hmm. , and we call them irreverent cult brandsbecause irreverent brands are brands that are not afraid to do thingsdifferently.

And cult brands are ones that alreadyhave a really strong tie. Yeah. To the audience, which they consider acommunity. And for. Let's call them most mass market brands. I don't think theyactually want a different relationship with your audience. I think they justwant their audience to spend more money with them, which I understand I'm notcriticizing, but that's not what we are trying to do or enable.

We're trying to say, okay, for brandswho actually think that there is more value in sharing and giving ownership toyour. We're gonna enable that. We're going to enable you to do collectibles tointroduce status as a digital asset, to introduce points. Instead of it beingpoints in a closed database, they're points on an open database where they'restill, you get to still define how those can be earned and redeemed, but it's amuch more flexible, powerful, interoperable system because these are points ona blockchain versus points in your own closed web.

Two data. And for, there are a lot ofbrands that fall into this category. Like I think Nike's approach to this iswhat I always point to. you pointed out Starbucks as well. Personally, I'vereally been impressed with Nike because the approach they took is, first theytried to understand.

and they tried to understand what Web3is about at an authentic level. They acquired one of the top NFT projectsartifact. Mm-hmm. And they brought that knowledge in-house. Yeah. They then setup their entire consulting group in-house that's responsible for innovation.Then they launched this Nike dot swoosh program where someone can come, theycan create their own version of a domain.

You can get your own Nike domain name.That's minted as an N F T that that individual owns in a wallet that they own.And it's like, wow. But it was all, it was Web3 it was true to Web3, the ideaof ownership and personalization and transparency. But it was Web2, ease ofuse. Yeah. That someone only needed an email address to sign up.

And that's the exact type of experiencethat we enable any brand to do where they can onboard their community. With aslittle as an email address, but they're not giving up the concept of trueownership and tokenization of assets that someone can say, these are mine. Andthat means I get to decide what I wanna do with them.

And the brand can see the upside ofbeing able to collaborate with other brands that are doing similar things.Cause these are assets on chain. Yeah. As well as the advocacy and engagementthat that brings out from their community.

Julian: Yeah, I, so manyquestions come come to mind, but I gu I guess the first one, just, just to givea little bit more structure to, to the conversation is describe Co:Create andthe, when we think about communities, we think about congregating and where dothe users and companies.

Where do they congregate and what arethe common mechanics behind? Not only the, the conversations, but also therewards system that you're building. Describe those a little bit more indetail.  

Tara: Yeah, so whatCo:Create does is Co:Create, serves brands and enables them to unlock the powerof their community by introducing tokenized assets into their brand ecosystem.

And so what this means is a brand likewe just announced our partnership with Boys Club, which is a Web3 nativecommunity today. Previously we'd announced our partnership with Atari, whichis, I would definitely say they're an irreverent cult brand, . And we announcedthem a few months ago. And what these brands can do is they can come, they canset up their program with us where they can onboard their community to Web3with as little as an email address, and we will spin up a wallet for theindividual.

We will mint their first tokens to thatwallet and we will enable the brand to set up campaigns where they can rewardindividuals for certain actions and allow them to utilize those rewards to gainaccess to good services tickets, events, et cetera. Yeah, and so you can thinkof us as really the brand admin system that allows them to launch their loyaltypoints on chain.

Yeah, that allows them to launchcollectibles that can be truly owned by their audience and mint NFTs easily andcan take their idea of status. So if you think about Delta sky miles, yeah, Ihave a hundred thousand miles and I'm also silver status. Like both of thosecan be assets on chain and there are specific Yeah.

Token types that support these differentuse cases? Yeah, so we use fungible tokens for points and we enable brands tomint their own fungible token, like Delta could use their own Sky miles token.Wow. We enable, enable them to mint semi fungible tokens as status where, Mysilver is the same as your silver, but it's different than gold.

Yeah. And something that is truly uniqueto Web3 that can't be done in a Web2 loyalty or engagement program is we enablebrands to introduce the idea of collectibles. Yeah. Things that are uniquelyyours, that are distinct, distinct assets that. Can represent identity that canrepresent, I was there when I'm an OG and introduces a lot of fun andgamification that isn't otherwise possible.

Julian: Yeah, there's so muchshift and, and, countless companies are shifting to this model of, ofcommunity, but also education and really just fostering a lot of I think , alot of brands before were thinking about just eyes users. Just, I guess,activity as a way to measure success. But now brands are shifting towardsloyalty and how can I, yeah, reengage.

How can I repurpose information or repurpose,different tools to keep my community engaged. But you mentioned this conceptearlier. Which sparked an idea, which was how brands , can can cooperate orcommunicate or collaborate with other brands who are doing the same thing.

How does that work in a Web3 communitywhen there's different technology involved, when there's different communitiesthat are very tribal, in, in using that kind of terminology, very tribal in theessence that, they have an identity, they have maybe a culture, they have, rulesthat are maybe distinguishly different than another community.

what are ways that they can cooperateand collaborate to, to benefit their users? Say if I was Nike wanting to workwith Starbucks for instance.  

Tara: Yeah, that's a greatquestion and I think what it gets at is where is that community hub and alsohow can brands easily engage and work with, partner with other brands.

And so talk speaking to like where's thecommunity hub? If we think about traditional. Web2 product experiences. Mm-hmm., like, say you go to, like, what's one of your favorite online productexperiences? Oh. Do you have a brand that you really like?  

Julian: Gosh, I'm a avidonline shopper, so like end clothing.com. Not to give anyone else where theycan find cool clothes from Europe, but, and the clothing.com is, is a greatexperience for me.  

Tara: Okay. So if you go tothat website and you're engaging with their front end application. Mm-hmm. ,that front end application. When you log in, when you use your email address tolog in, it's sending information back to the backend.

Mm-hmm. to the data system, but onlythat specific website has access. Yeah. Data. They're the only ones who havethat backend. Yeah. And that means that there's not another place where someonecould say, you know what? I'm gonna take the same information, the same data,and I'm just gonna build a new product experience, a new application on top,because I think the onboarding kind of sucks.

Or I think I can do a better job ofshowcasing the curation and maybe curating the items for a specific user type.And so I'm not gonna show shoes, even though shoes are part of the offering.I'm gonna show and I'm gonna allow. Sort by color. Cause I think that's what reallymatters. And so what blockchain does is it gives everyone access to the samedata for anything that's on a, on a public blockchain.

And it says, you know what, go wild.Sure. Build front end experience. To your heart's desire. And so what we aredoing is we are helping brands get their community on chain and get assets tothe, those community members on chain, including a point system for theirbrand. Mm-hmm. loyalty tiers that showcase the most active, engaged,contributory members as well as collectibles that are one off unique items thatmaybe they're earned, maybe they're bought and sold.

Mm-hmm. . And what this does is itenables the brand to say, . I don't have to be the sole place where mycommunity aggregates. Yeah. Maybe I have a product experience that I build sothat when someone comes and they log in and they quote unquote connect theirwallet, I can show them specific experiences, but because these are assets onchain, someone in the community could also build a product experience and say,you know what?

Every single. Who has this specific shoethat's from this specific year, they can come connect your wallet. If you havea shoe, you get access to a spec, to a community forum where you all can geekout about how much you love these shoes. Yeah. Yeah. And how cool they're, andyou can find, you can set meetups together and you can token gate communities.

Based on people's assets and what theyown. And so I know I didn't address your question before of like, where doesthe community aggregate? And the great thing is they can aggregate where thebrand Yeah. In the ecosystem the brand is building or they can migrate acrossthe web because now these are assets that are on an open database.

Mm-hmm. , that people can build productexperiences on top of what that also does. Going back to the, the three-prongedapproach of points, tiers, and collectibles. Mm-hmm. , we enable brands tolaunch all of these cause we think they play a different role within a brand'secosystem. Yeah. Points really encourage specific actions.

Do this, get points. Do that, get pointsand you can then use these points and redeem them. Yeah. For good services,access, discounts, what have you. And then the tiers and collectibles, theyserve a different purpose. Tiers are more of that aspirational. You try to getto a tier cause it unlocks new benefits for you.

Yeah. Or collectibles. You representyour identity by having this collectible and you find other people who aresimilarly situated. The points is that interoperable brand piece that gets mereally excited. Yeah. Most people think about. blockchains and crypto or tokensas something that's an all or nothing.

It's freely tradable. You don't controlit at. Or it's soul bound, which is our word for, it's a terrible word withinthe Web3 ecosystem, but it means that the token, you can't move it at all,wherever. Whoever gets it, it just sits there in their wallet and it can nevermove. There are actually ways, these are just programmable assets.

You can actually say, you know what, thepoints that I give out here are the five ways they can be used. They can beused with me. Yeah, but they could also be used at. Or brand C. Yeah. Oh, maybebrand D, but only for this week and I'm gonna change it next week now. And so weenable brands to launch their points as a token where that, that token contractis upgradeable.

Yeah. Meaning the brand can say from oneweek to the next, my token can be used in at these 10 companies or merchants orbrands. And next week only at these five. And because it's, these are tokens ona block. It means that there's no proprietary API between two closed datasystems that needs to be built out to make this happen. It's just, okay,upgrade the contract. Click, done.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. It's sofascinating to be able to think about the ways you can move within , the, likeyou said, within the web to be able to utilize what you own, your assets intodifferent companies or different programs. And it just kind of relinquish the,the barrier to entry for a lot of different products or services and reallykind of, creates like, like, not, not a sense of ownership, but it's, it's likea sense of identity through that ownership, which is amazing to.

what that's gonna be able to do in termsof the connection. Tell us a little bit about co-creating. Tell us, tell usabout the traction that you, that you've seen. How many brands are you workingwith? What's exciting about the progress that you, you've seen so far, andwhat's ex, what are you excited about in terms of the next year and, and so onthat you're looking to work on?

Tara: Yeah, we've beenreally fortunate. I think that this vision. , introducing a new relationshipand a new degree of ownership for consumers and, and making them into communitymembers for brands is something that I think is a massive opportunity and idea.And our investors did as well. We raised a 25 million seed round in April oflast year.

And we've been heads down building,working on, we, we write all of our own smart contracts that enable brands toissue these different types of tokens. These. These tiers, these points, thesecollectibles. And we're we've announced partnerships with Atari, with BoysClub. We have an e-commerce health and wellness platform that's coming online,one of the largest media brands in the world, in the sports and entertainmentspace.

Just launched their program with uswhich we'll be sharing in the coming weeks. And so we're really excited aboutbeing able to primarily get more people to have more ownership by bringing themon chain and reducing the barrier to entry. Making it so that you can just signup with an email address.

But also that cross brand composabilityis the thing that we think will really bring power back to the brands versus intermediariesand platforms. Yeah, like I think so many brand leaders feel as though they arebeholden to Google AdWords or Facebook where they have to pay and fight againstevery other advertiser to get in front of a relevant audience.

And they would much rather. Values alignbrands that are non-competitive. Yeah. And say, you know what, let's partnertogether. Like we can cross pollinate because all birds and commenter a coffeeand a shoe those are non-competitive businesses. They're definitely targetingthe same demographic. If they could partner together, there's so much valuethat can be unlocked for them as brands, but also for their audience.

Yeah. And so, yeah, so future is bright.We're, we're really excited about the brands that we're partnering with andwe're trying to be very specific in targeting brands who are, we think are init for the right reasons. Yeah. Who actually want to introduce new level ofownership to their audience.  

Julian: Yeah. I love what yousaid about, everyone's kind of fighting for the same almost ad space, butreally, two different brands who have different interests. Not evennon-competing businesses are still fighting for that same exposure. It's reallycool to think about a future where they're working in tandem with each other,not having some kind of, launch or collection that, that involves a lot ofupfront investment, but really, small micro projects that, that becomeextremely intimate and extremely unique for the users, which I think, I thinkeveryone can agree that's what we all crave, right?

We all crave that specific uniqueexperience based on something, that we can congregate with a smaller communitywhich is awesome to see. I guess, thinking about just Web3 and, and where thecurrent climate is, I guess in, in terms of the macro sense, what are some ofthe biggest challenges that Co:Create faces today?

Tara: I think it's beingreally specific around what we're doing and what we're not doing. The good newsis that because we're making this more about like not the means, but actuallythe ends, we're trying to make this about let's unlock a new degree Yeah. Ofconsumer ownership that turns them into a community and let's empower brands todo creative campaigns with other brands and truly make , their consumers intoadvocates and evangelists and feel like owners we're getting a lot of tractionand so we're getting asked to do more things than we can support. And so I'dsay focus is probably the most important thing for us right now.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Ifeverything goes well, what's the long-term vision for Co:Create?  

Tara: So we wanna build thelargest interoperable loyalty network, connecting the most innovative brands,and introducing a new degree of individual ownership to the brands that peopleengage with.

For us. I think it truly is about, likethis is more than just let's help companies make money. Companies need to makemoney in order to be sustainable businesses. Yeah. But I think that there'salso a shifting power dynamic where individuals are realizing, you know what?My voice matters. Yeah. A lot of us.

We are consumers in certain regards. Weare influencers and others. We are advocates and evangelists and others. Likeeveryone is so multifaceted and I think a lot of people who have voice and whohave something that, that brands value, they're still struggling to. Be able totake advantage of that fully.

And so what we're trying to do isintroduce a new degree of ownership to communities while still recognizing thatthe brands need to benefit in order for this to be viable and sustainable. Andso that's probably the future that I'm most excited about.

Julian: Yeah. I mean, you saidso many things that, that I'm extremely passionate about, but I've also seen,you think about communities , of TikTok, it's been such a driving force betweenpeople having an area where they can gain un, I guess, I don't know, notunfiltered knowledge, but knowledge that essentially is, is a growingunderstanding of what something is doing, what are the mechanics behind it, andalso what it means as a consumer.

That, we're all having some sort ofattachment to it. So it's been super exciting to see, that level of, ofaccountability set onto companies to not only provide an extremely, powerfulservice and, and something that's valuable, but also something that is in linewith, know, the values of their consumer, which, we all wanna make the rightchoices, but in, in the, in the, in the minuteness of life, it's difficult toknow what those choices are.

Which, which I feel like Web3 kind of,kind of helps facilitate that. always like to enter this next section. It'sreally exciting to me. I call it the founder FAQs, but I'm gonna ask you abunch of rapid fire questions and I would love to see your answers and, andwhere we get. So, first question is, what's particularly hard about your job?

Tara: That is constantlychanging. , I feel like what my job is, Changes as the company develops, as theteam grows, as the market matures. And so I have to make sure that I'm stayingup to date with like, what is my job as a CEO right now? And is it differentthan it was last week?  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. What's onething that you say we're weren't as good at early on as a founder that you findyourself better at today?

Tara: Ooh. I think early on,I see our investors as they invested in our ability to validate a hypothesis orinvalidate it and then build a business based on what we learned. Yeah. And Iloved knowing what my goal is, and if I know what my goal is, I know how to getthere. The ambiguity of like, okay, let's figure out where the largestopportunity is and let's validate or invalidate hypotheses.

That was hard. Yeah. And it felt reallyhard to lead a team through that and to say, Hey, we gotta be comfort. Righthere in this un unknown because that's, that's the stage we're in and that'swhat, and I feel like we're past that now. Yeah. Like there's still a ton ofunknown of course, but we have a very clear direction.

But that was the thing that was thehardest. And there were times where I just felt like I was failing as a leader.

Julian: Yeah. I feel like alot of that, you talk about team and, and orienting your team around aparticular mission, goal, value, or, or focus. Where do you go to find,talented and strong team members, being that they're so valuable for , the,zero to one if we call it, with businesses, not only for that, but also for thelong term success. Where do you go to find talented people as a founder?  

Tara: Yeah. It's, honestly,it's the most important thing. Our, so my co-founder who's our COO in general counsel,he is like the person who. So intentional about, okay, let's start. Our entirehiring process is so intentional. There is nothing that's an afterthought.

We start by creating a mission andoutcomes document of like, what are the mission? What is the mission for thisrole? What are the outcomes that they will have if they're successful? Mm-hmm., we use that to translate it into a job description. We then go to a compdatabase to say, okay, what's the 75th percentile for cash and equity for thatperson?

Yeah. We then post this on all of therelevant job. Many of which are crypto specific job sites, but then some thataren't. And we have several communities that we're a part of that we shareindividually. Yeah. And then we go and we have a whole hiring process thatvalidates someone against, okay, are they a fit for our values?

Yeah. Are they a fit for the role? Arethey a. Fit for the team. And so I don't, it's not necessarily just where canyou find people, but what's the entire process to make sure that you canidentify who the right people are. And I just think that the approach that he'sintroduced to the company has been incredibly successful.

And I'm, I'm so happy with the team thatwe have. .

Julian: I love that. I lovethat the team aspect and the structure around it. I, you I, I run a companywhere we connect developers with from South America with US companies, and alot of the success is that structure of the interview process that that makes asuccessful relationship.

And it adds, it adds a level of, of not,not authority, but I guess almost comfort from the developer or from thetalent's point of. To, to feel that a company is, is at a level of maturitythat they can feel, confident in, which is awesome to see. If you were to havea magic wand, what is something that you wish your company could have nowversus say whether you couldn't have it or whether you could have it in thenear future?

What's something that you wish you couldhave right now?  

Tara: I just wish as soon aswe could dream it, we could make it happen. Yeah. like the idea of productroadmaps are so important cuz it's like what's happening for a second, third?Yeah. But I wish we, I just wish we could move faster cuz I'm so excited aboutwhat we're doing and I want it all done now.

Julian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Itseems like a common answer. What's it called? Next, next question is , what isif you weren't working on this, what would you be working on?  

Tara: Mm. That's a reallygood question because my career from the outside looking in makes no sense. Istarted out in like German automotive, and then I went into FinTech, butconsumer lending and SaaS, and then I went into alternative investments and nowI'm in web.

Three, basically marketing technology,if you will. And so for me it was always about I'm, I consider myself veryopportunistic and that I just wanted to figure out how the world works. And soI do think I'd be working in Web3 no matter what, because the world ischanging. Yeah. And this is the new frontier.

But no idea what it would be if itwasn't this I, a year and a half ago. Oh, close to two years ago now, I put outinto the world, the next thing I did was gonna be founding a company in theWeb3 space. And this was the concept that I felt I could work on for 10 years.And if it failed, I would still feel good about it.

Yeah. But if it wasn't this, it would besomething else and it would be in Web3.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I lovethat. I love that. What's one piece of advice you'd give to a founder?Building, I guess early, early founder? Whatever product, it, it doesn't evenmatter. What was one piece of advice that was, that you found was helpful foryou maybe early on in your career?

Tara: Yeah, so, A 16 Z, theyhad a founder summit mm-hmm. this past November and it was incredible becauseit was about 200 people. And there were just these sessions with thoughtleaders and other builders and I found, I came away so invigorated and one of thethings that was said in the panel has really stuck with me, and it was BenHorowitz and he said, it is better to be right

than consistent, and as a founder attimes, I feel like it's my job to be consistent and to say this way is north.Let's keep on, we're pointing north, we're going north. And not to create.Churn or disruptions, but actually it's my job to say, you know what? Wethought we needed to go north, but now we need to go east and so we're goingeast and it is a hard right everybody like turn it now.

And that I, I feel the weight ofcreating that disruption because I know people are working on things that thenget, okay, well maybe that didn't matter that whole last week of work. It'sgone, doesn't, doesn't matter anymore. I feel that as guilt, but I know thatit's that. It's better to be right than consistent, has really encouraged me tomake the tough calls when I needed to.

Julian: Wow. Yeah, it's superpowerful. I I love that. I love that. We might have to make that the tagline ofthe episode . Last question I always like to ask just to, kind of, help withthe audience, and obviously selfishly I ask for my own inspiration, but whetherit was early in your career or now, what books or people have influenced youthe most?

Tara: Yeah, I've always beenthe type of person that just enjoys reading fiction. Mm-hmm. , I really lovestories. Yeah. And it's such a silly answer cuz I don't think that, I don'tthink that it's. A particularly insightful business book. Like The Hard ThingsAbout Hard Things is a great business book.

Everyone should just keep it by theirbedside and pick it up because it'll make you be like, oh wow, this is hard.But it's supposed to be hard and it's fine. Yes, . But a book that I read thatI think had a lot more impact on me than I realized at the time was a bookcalled Teresa A Dream. Mm-hmm. And it was about a young girl who wanted to be ajockey.

in a time when women weren't jockeys.Mm-hmm. . And so she had to dress up as a boy and try to become a horse jockey andracer. And I think I've always found myself in places where, you know, first inGerman automotive and then in FinTech and then in crypto where there justweren't as many women Yeah.

Around. And I've never hid, my identity.Yeah, yeah. But I think it was just the grit maybe. Yeah. Do what you need todo to, to be here and don't back down. And I read, reread that book probablyhalf a dozen times growing up.  

Julian: Yeah. That's sopowerful. And, and it really shows, if I were to take away from from that, itwas just, it's like you said, it's it.

Do what you need to do to be a part of,the, the room, the conversation, and to really then, press forward, whetherit's your vision and, and the notoriety validation comes along with the work.And I love that aspect, especially the honesty about startups too, is you're,you're getting constant feedback and that feedback is extremely honest about,one thing and it's about the work and the product.

Which, which is ex extremely equal andin a lot of I know we're at the, the close of the episode here and I'm soexcited to, to share this with the audience. Not only your background, yourexperience, but also Web3 and how you view community and, and the importance ofit, especially as, as these companies grow.

But last little bit is, I would love toget your plugs, where, where can we find you? Where can we be a part of you,not only you as a founder, but the community of Co:Create and the differentbrands that you're bringing on board. What are your websites, your LinkedIns,your Twitters? What do community engage as an audience and, and maybe even usethe.

Tara: Yeah, so you can findus on Twitter and online at use Co:Create. So us e Co:Create on Twitter, it'sjust use Co:Create Online. It's use Co:Create dot io. And me personally, youcan follow me on Twitter. First name is Tara t a. Ra. And so I'm@nonfungibletara. And since my last name is Fung, I thought that was kind ofcute. That's it. And then on LinkedIn is just Tara Fung.  

Julian: Amazing. Tara, thankyou so much for joining the show. I'm so excited for, for our audience to viewthis and also maybe even to have a second conversation to, to maybe recap the,the growth we've seen from, from when we first chatted to, to where you are inthe near future.

But again, I hope you enjoyed yourselfand thank you for being on the show.  

Tara: Thank you so much forhaving me, Julian. It was a real pleasure.

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