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200th Episode! Inside The Edge Of Company, Edge Lore, Building NFT LA, Past Reflections, What’s To Come, And More…
Back in 2020, the idea of having an NFT podcast was unheard of, but look at how far we’ve come in the last 18 months! Can you believe we’re at 200 episodes now? To mark this milestone, your hosts, Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney and Josh Kriger, come together to reminisce the beginnings of their partnership and the inflection point that led to the creation of The Edge of NFT Podcast. They also savor the wins our community has had so far through the podcast and through the NFTLA events, which bring about a cross-pollination of ideas from around the world. It’s going to be an exciting future for both the podcast and the community around it. Tune in and celebrate this milestone with us!
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200th Episode! Inside The Edge Of Company, Edge Lore, Building NFT LA, Past Reflections, What’s To Come, And More…
This episode features us, your co-hosts of the show, Jeff Kelley, Josh Kriger, and Eathan Janney. We’re co-founders of this show as well as the Edge of Company and creators along with our partner Zach Sekar of the NFT LA event. We have realized that curiosity, connection, and co-creation are the heartbeat of everything we do. We want to celebrate the show because it is our 200th episode. From here on out, we will take a moment to chit-chat about the path to this point with all its wonderful twists and turns and where we see things are going from here. Jeff and Josh, welcome to this program with me.
You brought the champagne. Right, Eathan?
I have some hot chocolate here. I don’t know if that’s appropriate for celebrations but it’s tasty.
It’s a bicentennial. We should release a coin or something.
That’s appropriate.
It would be if you don’t have a coin in your pocket. If someone gives you a coin and they see you, and you don’t have it on your body when they see you again, you owe them a drink. We could work something out like that.
That sounds like a good idea. Let’s do it.
It’s an NFT.
What is an NFT?
How many times do we get that one? It has been a journey. Two hundred episodes over the course of eighteen months or so. It’s a combination of what we do here on the show, and then also a lot of the stuff we have done at events throughout the world where we bring the media arm of our company, which is much more than the show. We will talk about that in a little bit. We bring that with us to try to elevate all the cool stuff happening in the space with friends of ours, and people that we’ve just met that are doing cool things. We’re always trying to elevate people and help to co-create the Web3 future. We say that a lot but that’s it.
We’re just always trying to elevate people and help to co-create the Web3 future. Click To Tweet
It has been interesting. It’s so helpful to have three of us as hosts given how much is happening in this space. There have been multiple times in the last few months where we’re recording an episode, we’ve got a Twitter Spaces, and one of us is in sixteen hours of time zone difference from the rest of us trying to capture the pulse of what’s going on in the space. For me, it doesn’t get any more exciting than the building phase that we’re in.
Before this and when I can currently, I try to give people a little bit of advice on podcasting. My number one piece of advice that I’ll always say on starting a podcast, and most people don’t think of it, is to have someone else in the boat with you. It doesn’t have to be a co-host. It could be somebody excited about editing it. They should probably want to be able to do it for free in the beginning. You could pay someone but having someone that’s passionate about it as you proves that there’s at least one audience member. I’m blessed to have two of you.
We built a team of other people that are passionate about these things. There’s another podcast I’ve been listening to that I’ll give a shout-out to that has three hosts. It’s the Broken Record Podcast. It’s a music podcast. It’s got Bruce Headlam and Rick Rubin. There’s one more co-host that they have on board. He hasn’t been on episodes recently, but they trade off. You will hear one episode where one is hosting or maybe a couple of them. Malcolm Gladwell is the third host. He’s the author. It’s a cool group of guys. They did some podcast episodes with Paul Simon. Three is a very fun magic number for podcasting.
It occurs to me that we have talked about our evolution as a podcast, specifically the podcast in a bunch of different contexts when we’re not here on the show. We talked about how we formed this thing on this show yet.
Perhaps. We have had a couple of reflective episodes but we have seen people in our orbit say, “You should tell us more about what’s going on.” We see it every day. We have a Slack channel that’s constantly buzzing 24 hours a day. People listen to us for an hour or two a week. They’re just not aware of that. It’s great to share that. We mentioned the name the Edge of Company. That’s the company that we formed that’s behind this all. We have been working to develop our ethos and branding around that and make sure people are aware that’s the force that’s driving everything. It’s a lot about Web3 and NFTs, but it’s about our desire to be on the edge of everything moving forward.
You have to understand. We have been in and around this space. Eathan, you came across the world of crypto even before Josh and me who have been hot and heavy in this space since early 2017. You had some initial opportunities to work into it. Maybe share a little bit about your first exposure.
My memories fade a little bit as I age. I almost wish that I happened to have forgotten to create a Bitcoin wallet or something like that. I was p-tuning pianos out of college as a job and then finding Bitcoin. That was a thing. It was a way of decentralized currency. I was like, “Maybe I’ll try to accept Bitcoin for my piano tunings.” That was a thing that I was into for a minute way back when it started. I wish that my memory is so bad that I forgot that I have a hard drive somewhere with a Bitcoin wallet with a couple of Bitcoins, but I don’t think I would have come across that. I was paying attention very early on but I didn’t get into it as much as you did in the past few years.
In 2017, we heard about it. I got interested in Andrea Antonopoulos talking on Joe Rogan’s podcast at the end of September 2016. I was like, “We have to look into this.” Josh and I were hot and heavy as entrepreneurs together since 2012, and a little bit before then honestly because we collaborated on some stuff I was working on too. I heard that. We’re always looking for new technologies and new interesting things that are world-changing.
This was one that we heard about around that time, but then it was the Filecoin ICO that was happening in mid-2017 that we were like, “There’s something cool here that makes a ton of sense like decentralized storage.” That’s when we started getting into it and bringing our experience as business people and entrepreneurs. There’s a level of sophistication to some companies and brands that never had a company before, much less a crypto company.
We started bringing some of those core skills in helping companies think about it as consultants, finance, marketing, accounting, operations, strategies, and things that you have to do to run an organization that a lot of these folks haven’t done. We started helping companies out and getting to know people. It expanded from there. We have been around for a long time and have always been impressed with NFTs. We were excited when it came about. Josh, what are your reflections on those early days?
It’s funny. People talk about Web3 as the Wild Wild West, but if they had been around back then, that was the Wild Wild West.
There are probably even more cowboy hats involved.
There were a lot more cowboys back then that were upset at what was going on with Wall Street, the political landscape, and big technologies. Ultimately, some of that extremism is what fueled such a strong innovative drive. On one hand, Jeff and I have always been fairly moderate. We appreciate radical ideas but we don’t want to grip the wheel too tight. It was one of those situations where some of that energy was contagious. We wanted to see this technology we used for good and we wanted people to have an appreciation that you can’t build Rome overnight.
A lot of that ambition fueled some degree of chaos and hype. We have seen these cycles ebb and flow but what excited us was this converging technology and the idea of bending the matrix. Before 2017, Jeff and I had started a company with some other guys called Territory Foods. We were also co-creating in a sense with meals. The labels on the meals were, “Celebrate the chef that made the food.” We did it in a very decentralized network with over 35 kitchens.
This was before Uber Eats and this whole ghost kitchen concept were even popular back in 2012. We also worked with over 700 to 800 gyms and yoga studios where we delivered the food. That gave us a real sense of communities and sub-communities. When you think about Web3, you think about DAOs and changing the rules. That’s what has been in our DNA for the last decade. It made sense to us intuitively. It has been so fun to see all these ideas come out of a new mindset.
What we’re talking about are core values. What are the things that we believe in? You’re trying to find people who believe what you believe and work with those people. We talk a lot about Animoca Brands and why we like that company. A lot of it has to do with that DNA that we feel from everybody we talk to within that organization and how they go about their business. Every interaction we have had with them has been reflective of those core values. If you also fast-forward through the last few years and land at the end of 2020, this was an inflection point for us because we had a lot of interest in NFTs.
We were trying to find different ways to deploy them and all this stuff, but we realized there wasn’t a lot of awareness about them. We weren’t necessarily in a great position to be the ones to elevate awareness in the world about NFTs. We liked what CryptoKitties was. We knew some of the folks behind it and followed what they were working on. When we heard about NBA Top Shot, we were like, “That seems pretty cool.” When it launched in August or September in the very first version, we were like, “They did a good job with this. This is neat.” It took off at the beginning of 2021.
Everybody started to realize, “This is special. It’s easy to use. It’s awesome. There are all these cool future utilities that are forthcoming. That was a trigger where we were like, “We have to try to get involved in this somehow.” It was around then, Eathan, that you were already in different cryptocurrency groups. You were getting interested heavily in the space at that time as well. You raised your hand. You and Josh were in one of those groups.
I still can’t believe it started with me being like, “It’s probably a good time for an NFT podcast. Is anybody interested?” It was in a chat on a Zoom call. It exploded.
I’ve been telling Josh, “Let’s do a podcast.” He was reticent to do it. I have done one previously. You had done one for an extended period of time, Eathan. There was a couple that you had done.
There are a bunch of different types of projects using media like that. We have the Run With It podcast on the archive hosted by Transistor.
It’s a great show.
Check out the episode with Jeff and Josh as our guests on what to do with your crypto after you die.
That was a good one. It was as quick as that though because you raised your hand and said something to Josh. Josh was going away for the weekend. He was very resistant to the idea of even coming on a podcast or doing a podcast. I was pretty gung-ho about it. We were all pretty gung-ho about NFTs. We had a conversation like, “What do you think? Let’s do it.” We recorded it almost immediately thereafter. Josh had come back from vacation. We convinced him to come on and do a new segment or something.
What happened was you and I wrote up the intro and the thesis behind the show. We had all the basics there and the different segments like Hot Topics and the Quick Hitters. Quick Hitters was your idea. I was like, “We could try it.” That has been such a hit. I believe what happened was Josh naturally took on curating the guests, booking the guests, and bringing them to the show.
Our first guest was Keith Montgomery. What was happening was Josh was joining the call like, “Keith, I told you about this. I’ll be here to help facilitate.” He probably expected to turn off his camera and microphone. We were like, “Come on, Josh. Ask a question. You have lots of interesting stuff to say.” He started talking. That was it. You can’t shut the guy up and now he’s on a podcast.
You smoked me out. It has been incredible. It’s not something I ever saw myself doing in my life. I’m an extroverted guy. I’m an ENTJ. What has been special for me is asking interesting people interesting questions that I am curious about because at the end of the day, I’m curious. This show has been a major anecdote for that insatiable curiosity that I’ve had my entire life. Jeff mentioned Filecoin. It was a fanboy moment for me. There have been quite a few on the show we should talk about.
Having Marta, the Chairman of Filecoin, on the show was how we got into the space. When I think about the last 200 episodes, I get warm and touched by how many incredible people we have gotten to know from doing the show and how we have been able to bring elevated awareness to all the things they’re doing in the world. It’s so easy when you’re an entrepreneur to be in the bubble of what you’re building. Having a podcast as the heartbeat of our company forces us outside of that bubble looking around at what’s being built around us.
I was intrigued by NFTs initially, especially because of the art and creativity aspect. I was like, “This is fascinating.” I’m a creative person. I’m a musician. I create things. I was expectantly awaiting the creator economy explosion for many years. When I signed on to start this show, I didn’t know exactly who we would be talking to. I was pleasantly surprised that we talked to a lot of entrepreneurs on the show. It’s a very entrepreneurial space, or at least our angle on it is very entrepreneurial. It’s different than I’ve got a friend who’s at The How of Business Podcast.
It’s about how business works. This is the intersection of business and creativity. You’ve got so many interesting and passionate characters that are trying to create the future. That’s what I didn’t necessarily expect that we would see over and over again on our shows. The idea of creating the future has been so exciting for me. It’s different than, “How do you start your local lawn care business,” or something. I have nothing against that. We all have our local business type of projects that we may participate in, but it’s creating the future. It’s so exciting.
We have probably always believed in what NFTs are and can mean for the future, but if you reflect on what’s our full understanding of the breadth of possibility for the future within Web3, it’s NFTs as the foundation, having the capability of deploying digital assets the way that NFTs enable. If you compare where it was at Episode 1 to where we are now, it feels like we have been on quite a journey. Our beliefs shifted a bit during that time about what that potential truly is, our understanding of that, and our ability to articulate that to someone when they ask us, “What is this? Why does it even matter? Isn’t it just a bunch of JPEGs?”
Even since Episode 100 and having launched the first NFT LA, our perspective has shifted. That event was marking the end of a very interesting year of experimentation and the beginning of utilities. That has been the topic of the day for the last few months. We know this technology has a lot of use cases. We have explored a lot of them, and now we’re evolving that to the next level of what’s going to create a greater connection between fans and the IP that they love most, whether it’s new IP or existing IP that has a real heritage.
It has been exciting to learn from our guests where they’re taking this next. It has been incredible to have the fortune of getting all these pitches in our inbox every single week. I feel like a kid in the candy store sometimes with how many different things we could cover. We could have two shows a day if we had the stamina part.
The themes emerge over these episodes. That’s one of the benefits. We saw ourselves quickly being able to recognize patterns that maybe nobody else had access to except other people in a media position. A lot of folks are siloed in creating their business. They’re trying to make it work. We have had the awesome advantage of having a gestalt perspective on everything that goes on. Who would have thought that we would have been to Davos and back by now? Not me.
It’s integrating with the world economy and how there are different angles in which people are trying to solve many problems through Web3, blockchain, NFTs, decentralization, security, identity, and privacy issues. It has been fascinating to me how all these things are coming together. That’s why there’s so much momentum. People see multi-layered solutions within Web3 and NFTs for a lot of things that have been bothering people for quite a while.
NFT Podcast: People see multi-layered solutions within Web3 and NFTs for a lot of things that have been bothering them for quite a while.
The evolution from the podcast to the event space for this made a lot of sense for us to be able to tap into that momentum, not just in URL as we do here virtually but also in IRL. COVID played a role in that and our ability to do that. It made sense as a natural extension. All three of us have had experience in events in several different formats over the years. We have collectively hundreds of events under our belt.
It’s events that are built around building relationships, inspiring people, educating, entertaining, and leaving people with good feelings and lasting memories as opposed to trade shows. There are plenty of people that throw out trade shows. That is not what we’re doing. We’re trying to co-create the Web3 future through what we do on the show and what we do at our events.
That’s a different perspective. It sets the stage for how you direct your time in planning something that you hope is going to have a meaningful impact on people for their lives, not just for that moment. We try to inspire relationships, ideas, business partnerships, and all these awesome things that grow out of our events. What grew out of NFT LA that we know for certain for so many people is super inspiring. That’s the next step to what you’re talking about or the next layer.
To that point, having gotten back from our first global adventure to Singapore and Seoul, Korea and having spoken to folks at so many different events and conferences during that time, it was so exciting to learn that NFT LA and Edge have a global brand and that we have an opportunity to expose both the West to what’s going on in the East, and the East what’s going on at the West with NFT LA. One thing that everyone gets to look forward to is more of that cross-pollination globally.
COVID calmed down now. You can only glean so much information from Twitter and the communities that you’re part of. There’s nothing that beats having a globally diverse audience in one place talking and learning what each other is doing. There are some incredible projects happening in Asia that could inspire what we’re doing in the United States and vice versa.
Important Links
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Keith Montgomery - Previous episode
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Marta Belcher - Previous episode
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GMoney and G. Love & Special Sauce - Previous episode
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Spotify - Edge of NFT
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iTunes - Edge of NFT