Alice: 0:00

If you are a marketer in Web3, as long as you can take the complex narratives, technicalities and put it into an emotional story that could reach out to users and that could resonate with your audience, you can do a successful job.

Joeri: 0:22

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I am really happy to be joined by Alice. Hello Alice, how are you?

Alice: 0:37

Hi there, I'm good. Thanks for having me.

Joeri: 0:40

I'm happy that you're there, Alice Guys, if you don't know Alice, Alice Shikova. She's the marketing lead at SpaceID, the leading digital identity platform, powering trustless identity solutions for users, AI agents, apps and beyond. For the past five years, Alice has been deeply involved in fintech and crypto, specializing in strategic marketing for DeFi projects. She's also the co-founder of a Web3 community in Lisbon, which is really interesting for myself because I now live here in Lisbon, comprising some of the biggest projects in the space. Additionally, Alice was a speaker at the Blockchain Academy for United Nations Employees and she's a lecturer for the Women in Blockchain Africa program. You are an interesting bio, Alice. My first question would be, of course, where it all started there, because what was actually the spark that led you into Web3 marketing and how did that part lead you to your current role at Space ID? That's my first question.

Alice: 1:53

Right, thank you. I think I tripped into Web3 in the same way as many other people did. It happened when the COVID hit the world and, just out of my sheer curiosity, I started doing the digital marketing and I was hired by an IT company that appeared to be dealing with the Bitcoin mining app. This is how I got into the crypto industry and I got fascinated by the technology, by the payment solutions, and I started my way of research, writing my own blog on HackerNone, and later I switched to DeFi projects, rubik Finance and Algebra Finance, where I discovered Uniswap and I discovered the liquidity pools. My work at Folks Finance gave me the best one of the best experiences, i'd'd say, in DeFi.

Joeri: 2:47

Thank you for that introduction, alice. So then, from your perspective, what is the deeper problem SpaceID is solving in the Web3 ecosystem? So, beyond just domain names, I would say.

Alice: 3:01

Right.

Alice: 3:02

So SpaceID is not just a web-free domain and provider.

Alice: 3:06

It goes much further and expanded our digital identity functionalities and we are coming up with new use cases based on the market trends and on the market conditions, what the industry needs, what the space needs where it evolves and what directions we should also take to be useful and helpful for the newly launched projects.

Alice: 3:28

Let's say, if this is AI agents field, we want to equip the AI agents with verifiable digital identities. If this is the meme coins on Solana that are popping up like mushrooms after the rain popping up like mushrooms after the rain we want to make them verifiable and we want to allow users to be able to verify tokens that they're purchasing and to be reassured that they are purchasing the legit Android tokens, not the scam, because if you go to a launchpad such as farmfun or gmgn and if you type in a token like AIXBT, you will see a bunch of tokens that are non-relatable to that legit token launched by virtuals and what Web3 domain names can provide. In this case, they can provide an on-chain labeling system where you will see right away that AIXBT token that is legit and that was launched by virtuals has a name tag like AIXBT, and this is just one of the multiple places that we are currently working.

Joeri: 4:38

Yeah, look that you're mentioning AI agents too. Actually, in the world is evolving so fast. Blockchain and AI. When those who come together, I really really love it. Yeah, meme tokens also. You see on the background of my screen, RYO. It's a coin from japan, but they are also launching their meme token. Meme tokens are everywhere these days, so really I think that's a really good utility that you're offering. Now, how do you see digital identity evolving in a decentralized world and why is it the right time now to build the infrastructure around it?

Alice: 5:15

It's a very interesting question because the centralized world is all about anonymity and not being doxxed on blockchain, but we all understand that it has its own limits, and if we don't name things, we don't provide context. And if we don't provide context, we make users, especially newcomers, confused and scared. There is the lack of trust here as well, and as long as we put digital identities in place and let users still keep their privacy but be able to understand who they're talking to are they talking to another human or are they talking to another agent? Is that agent legit? Who is behind that agent? What is their wallet address as a proof of source?

Alice: 6:10

And all of these intricacies can align into a digital identity. That will be I would say that will be one of the major things in the future of DeFi and, as I used to say, digital identity would thread through different verticals of the web space the financial side, such as DeFi protocols, yield aggregators, social fi, NFTs, digital asset ownership. It will be some sort of the gravitational ring that would move fast enough to put everything into alignment and to ship it into the stratosphere.

Joeri: 6:54

Yeah, for me, digital identities. If people ask me about why is web2 important and what does it allow, so for me digital identity is always one of the things I explain to them. You know what it solves, like the problem you have in Web2. Whereas with digital identity in Web3, there are so many use cases that could be beneficial. Now you mentioned already you worked at DeFi, at Folks Finance before. What are some of the lessons that you learned from that experience and that you now bring to SpaceID?

Alice: 7:32

If you have a solid product, you have the potential to propel it further, and we always had a solid, structured product which was user-oriented. We would always address users' feedback. Feedback, which we are doing at space id as well, and building hype is as a part of the marketing strategy is cool, but without the product behind the scenes, that hype will fade away over time and you will have nothing more as the noise that disappeared. And if we center the product development around user feedback, making it always better and making it more useful for our existing users and for coming users, this has the whole, whole potential to be evolving further on, based on the market trends as well, and to be a success in the end.

Joeri: 8:35

You look at or listen to some earlier podcasts you also mentioned. You know the hype marketing is way more than than hyphen, but I also know that you recently launched payment id. And then I'm curious what mind chef, what mindset shifts were needed to communicate something so technical in, uh, in a simple, sticky way?

Alice: 9:00

yeah, I know what you mean. I think if you are a marketer in Web3, as long as you can take the complex narratives, technicalities and put it into an emotional story that could reach out to users and that could resonate with your audience, you can do a successful job. You can do a successful job. And I also recall the words of Einstein that believed that if people can put the most complex things into simple words and explain it to a five-year-old child, they would already make a winning strategy.

Alice: 9:44

And for Payment ID that launched actually last week. First of all, with Space ID, we are really excited about this launch because we were addressing the major issues in the Web3 space, which are interoperability and scalability. And Payment ID was aiming to provide users with the way to seamlessly transact between Web3 wallets and centralized exchange wallets by using a single username which is a part of their Web3 digital identity. That single username would be used as a way of sending the funds across chains, across dApps and across platforms, and the best part is that they would be able to register that name by just using their Gmail. And the Gmail would still keep its decentralized way because it would be ZK-powered, which keeps users' privacy.

Joeri: 10:48

Oh, that sounds really like an amazing product. That is really solving a problem, right? If you have a unique payment ID and if you then can link it to Gmail, as you said, interoperability is a problem, right? If you're a unique payment id and if you then can link it to to gmail, as you said, interoperability is a problem. Also, you know, if you want to have mass adoption, it should not be too technical. While explaining that, you mentioned the words emotions. So, and I'm wondering, what do most marketing, what do most marketers get wrong when they're trying to create this emotional resonance in a Web3 product category? Because, as we mentioned, it's very technical.

Alice: 11:24

I think when they try to make users read their white paper and not having proper user onboarding documentation, they are already yeah, they're already destined for a failure. I would say the basics that the marketers should do to succeed is, first of all, to ensure that users will will be able to easily get up to speed to a product on your websites and on your own channels, which is, your social media community channels and chats, that you could provide support for the users and that you can address the user's feedback. And also, you need to speak in the same language with your users, which some of the marketers forget about because they use this crazy S words as ZK, as I just used two minutes ago. But I'm talking to you, hoping that you will understand that. And, yeah, stop using those crazy ass words and stop talking crypto language. Be more, be closer to an average user, to people that would probably start with lab 3. We don't need to speak about those technical things. We need to already start being more user-friendly and be more open to the web-free world as well.

Joeri: 12:45

Absolutely. If you want mass adoption, we should not talk about those technical things. It's like when you write a book it should be understandable for everyone. You mentioned ZK, Zero Knowledge. How would you explain this to your neighbor?

Alice: 12:58

Zero knowledge is a cool thing that allows you to keep privacy and to verify what you want without revealing that information.

Joeri: 13:09

Voila. So this is actually how we should all talk in Web3, because the audience of the podcast lots of people are already in Web3, but some of them are curious and they want to learn. So thank you so much, ali. It's really easy if you put it like that. Now you have been in the middle of cross-chain, multi-chain conversations. You already mentioned interoperability as one of the things to solve in Web3. What are the biggest misconceptions around interoperability these days?

Alice: 13:40

I wouldn't say there is a misconception about interoperability, but there is definitely a problem that existed several years ago and it's still here.

Alice: 13:48

It's still present because in Web3, I still feel like I'm walking through the airport customs on five different continents in one day when I made cross-chain transfers.

Alice: 13:59

Yes, we got a lot more products that are designed to address the interoperability issue, but, at the same time, they're still not interoperable with one another and you're still struggling by sending funds from Ethereum to Arbitrum grain, by, you know, sending funds from ethereum to arbitrum transacting on base when you need to have your funds on polygon.

Alice: 14:23

So I guess the space and the industry is still trying its best to finally come up with a unified, universal solution for to make it interoperable, but we are still not there yet. We've been always trying to address this issue as well, because we launched as an official Web3 domain provider for the BNB chain, but we've been constantly expanding across multiple chains and we support the domains on more than 24 chains, which makes Space ID stand out from the crowd, from other domain providers, because usually domain providers belong to a single chain. And, on another note, to make it more interoperable, relatable to digital identity, the payment ID feature that we discussed earlier that is supposed to provide a connective tissue between WAPI wallets and centralized exchanges, regardless of the fact which chain you reside on, is also one of the things that we worked on and that we recently launched.

Joeri: 15:33

Yeah, amazing. Space ID is definitely helping to reduce friction in onboarding users to Web3. And then you are the marketing lead at SpaceID. So role does marketing play in this whole process? I mean, by reducing friction, user onboarding in web 3.

Alice: 15:52

We first need to understand where our users are present, which channels they reside, on what language they speak to. For us it's already easier at space city because we already know our users. We did a couple of user surveys. We know who they are, where they're hanging on and what sparks what sparks our users to do so. Once you identify where your potential target audience is, you should craft a compelling storytelling for your product and then you should understand how you will distribute that content so that it reaches out your audience and it gets them hooked up. I think those are the major staples of user onboarding in the very beginning. And then the next step, when you get them engaged with your product, you should make sure that they can easily understand your product in a couple of minutes by just landing on your website and read a couple of your landing page sections, but not more than that probably watch a promo video that will explain your feature in a minute and then they can start using it in a frictionless way.

Joeri: 18:40

Sounds great. Now, part of marketing is, of course, always creating campaigns and not only about just grabbing. You know, grabbing the attention, of course, that's one thing, but also build a long-term value and, of course, trust, really important in the web3 space. How do you build this long-term value and this trust in decentralized communities?

Alice: 19:10

communities. So to build trust in DeFi, you should understand that you need to cater your users, not as your customers but as your co-builders. Once you treat your users as they would contribute to your project, they would do this for real. They would participate in your quest, challenges, airdrop campaigns. They would provide the feedback. But you should understand that the approach in Web3 is different from Web2. In Web2, you just treat your customers as your customers. You would only want to make money on them. But in Web3, it's different. It's always an alignment between you builders, editors and your community members. And once you would understand that cycle, you could spin up the flywheel of growth by making all participants of this round contributing to your project absolutely and then of.

Joeri: 20:03

In marketing, it's important also to measure right so to see what is actually the real success of a campaign. So what is your approach to measuring a campaign beyond the typical vanity metrics like impressions or token airdrops? Curious to hear that.

Alice: 20:24

Yeah, some of the marketing initiatives cannot be measured in numbers and they have the long-term values, such as PR and media. You could always measure the vanity metrics, such as media mentions over time, impressions and engagement rate. They all make sense, but they should be combined with other metrics as well. We are measuring the user retention, domain registrations. We are measuring the website traffic and the community members. I would say everything that you can measure, go for it, because all of the numbers always tell a deeper story. You can see correlation between all of them.

Alice: 21:13

You can also take into consideration the market conditions and what's going on on your business development side. How many integrations did you have? How many users subscribe to your medium? How many users stopped using that feature? There are so many metrics and so many numbers that I'm always advocating for measuring, because you could analyze and you can see a bigger picture. You can zoom out and you can see oh, are we actually going in the right direction? Or shall we zero in on this, on this campaign, because it worked so well? And it worked so well because, not because just the market was bullish, but because we collaborated with this partner and then we used that token incentive mechanism. So, yeah, I would say, use all of the analytics tools that are at your hands and understand the direction where you're going and if this is the right one, Absolutely.

Joeri: 22:21

Data is power and, as you mentioned, asking the right questions, analyzing it and using the data, because data on itself doesn't mean anything. Of course, before I went into, you know what I'm doing right now Web3, ai and marketing. I had a business analytics company, so data is really important and can make the difference. Now, alice, we mentioned in the beginning, you have your community that you're building. You talk to a lot of people. You are in touch with other marketers. What advice would you give to marketers who are now transitioning from Web2 to Web3 and want to build a future career?

Alice: 23:02

With Web 3 primitives, wallets, tokens, agents, identity data. That's going to be your new canvas. And also always remember that Web 3 isn't just a channel, it's a paradigm shift, and you're not marketing to people. You are building with people. And you're not marketing to people. You are building with people. If you can learn to think like a user, right like a founder, and build like a developer, even just a little, you'll eat in this space for a long time, I believe. Always be able to stay looped in on the news, be always on the watch out and maybe be always on the learning curve, because this is what web3 is all about. It's always progressing, changing, if not every, not just not every day, but every hour sometimes or every minute.

Joeri: 23:57

So you should be ready for this sort of craze and chaos and you need to understand how to actually prosper in this chaos rather than to get lost yes, and therefore it's good you know to be in communities like yours, to listen to podcasts and then, and to learn from each other, to share, to share wisdom and experiences. Yeah well, alice, some question I ask at the end often is what are you now the most excited about these days? Is it regarding your company, the Web3 space in general, or something else?

Alice: 24:35

Yeah, I'd say I don't think I ever had a moment in the wet free space when I wasn't excited, because always you would get new things coming up, new shocking news coming up over the weekends, people getting rocked, people getting rich. You know, it's always a chaos and always a craze, and I think that's probably the most exciting thing about the vector space I'm. I'm really looking forward how we will propel space id forward, based on newly launched projects, based on the new industries that are running ahead of competition, and how you can actually iterate on the products and make it still keep its relevance and actually increase the utility. No matter what the market is is this a bullish market or a bearish market you will need to keep your product usability and utility.

Joeri: 25:45

Absolutely and, yeah, a lot of positive messages in this podcast episode. Alice, if people want to know more about you and what you are building with Space ID and your initiatives, where would you like me to send them?

Alice: 26:03

Sure, everyone can go to spaceid and check out our website and get up to speed with our recent launches. You can always find us on Twitter as well. It's Space ID Protocol and me, alicesh15. It's my ex-handle, excited and happy to connect with everyone.

Joeri: 26:25

Amazing. As my listeners know, Alice, there are always show notes. There is a blog article linked to this podcast episode. Every link or resource you mentioned will be found in there. Well, it was really a pleasure to have you on the show, Alice. Thanks so much.

Alice: 26:42

Thank you on the show, Alice.

Joeri: 26:44

Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you, Joeri. Yeah, guys, what an amazing episode again. So I'm sure you know people around you that also could benefit from this episode. Be sure to share this episode with them. If you are not yet following the show, this is a really good moment to hit the subscribe button If you haven't given me a review yet. If you give me these five stars, this would help me reach an even bigger audience and, of course, I would like to see you back next time. Take care.