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On Yavin Of Syndika — A Web3 Syndicate That Helps Startups With Web3 Architecture, Design And Startup Development, And More...
Join us in this captivating episode as we delve into the world of Web3, artificial intelligence, and gaming innovations with On Yavin, the dynamic co-founder of Syndika, a cutting-edge consulting firm specializing in Web3 and AI technologies. With a background in angel investing, law, and entrepreneurship, On Yavin brings a unique perspective to the conversation. Discover his journey through various industries led him to the exciting intersection of blockchain, AI, and gaming. Hear about his insights on the transformative potential of Web3, the challenges facing the industry, and the role Syndika is playing in shaping its future. Learn about Syndika’s visionary approach to building a comprehensive ecosystem that supports startups, corporations, and initiatives. Gain insights into the revolutionary concept of adaptable NFTs, the future of AI in gaming, and the transformative potential of the Metaverse. Whether you’re an enthusiast of blockchain, gaming, or AI, this episode promises to expand your horizons and inspire you to embrace the dynamic landscape of emerging technologies. Tune in to explore the edge of innovation with our insightful guest!
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On Yavin Of Syndika — A Web3 Syndicate That Helps Startups With Web3 Architecture, Design And Startup Development, And More…
This is On Yavin from Syndika, a top-notch Web2, Web3, and AI consulting firm. You’re tuning in to the Edge of NFT, a top-notch source for diving into all the fascinating things in Web3 and emerging tech. Keep tuned in.
Stay tuned for this episode to learn how eighteen years of Angel investing and passion for out-of-the-box problem solving across many industries led our guests to build a vast blockchain ecosystem, how one of the rarest weapons in World of Warcraft impacted a desire to invest in Web3 gaming, and finally, how Utes NFT Collection is migrating to Ethereum after accepting a $3 million grant from Polygon.
Yes, it’s official. You can now dive into the captivating world of artificial intelligence with the Edge of AI show. Join us as we explore the frontiers of AI and its impact on our lives. Subscribe now on your favorite platform and follow us on Twitter @EdgeOf_AI and LinkedIn for exciting updates and insights. You can also visit our new website at EdgeOfAI.xyz.
This sponsored episode as part of our media partnership features On Yavin, the dynamic co-founder of Syndika, a leading Web3 syndicate renowned for its comprehensive capabilities in supporting startups, corporates, and initiatives. A serial entrepreneur, lawyer, and Angel investor, On Yavin has been a cornerstone in establishing several successful companies and mentoring many others. He stepped into the blockchain industry in 2017 with the founding of Cointelligence, where he significantly contributed to research and education. In 2021, he launched Cointelligence Fund, an early-stage venture capital and crypto fund with a focus on metaverse and blockchain-based games serving as a managing partner.
More recently in 2023, he co-founded Syndika, bringing his premier expertise to the Web3 and AI syndicate. Syndika stands out as a top-tier Web3 syndicate, offering full-scale support to various business endeavors. With a robust team of over 50 members, they provide the highest level of Web3 technology consulting, architecture and development, Web3 economics and data science, and comprehensive venture studio capabilities. On, it’s a pleasure to have you.
Thank you very much. It’s great to be here.
It’s exciting to be part of Syndika. Full disclosure for our audience, we recently did join the syndicate and we’re excited to talk to you about not only what you’re building but your perspective on the industry and what Syndika is all about. Let’s face it, it takes a lot of grit to be successful in Web3 and you need to have friends around you that also can help accelerate you.
You’ve learned a lot about what makes companies thrive in this type of industry from your experience in building a fund and working with so many startups. It sparked my curiosity when I heard about Syndika. Before we go into that, I’d love to chat with you a little bit about your background. What were you doing before you got into blockchain and what compelled you to jump into the blockchain space, particularly gaming?
I am considered to be a serial entrepreneur. I started and developed companies in different industries. I will talk about two of them as examples. Before I joined the industry, I was managing and also working hands-on with my teams at my advertising agency. I specifically focused on everything related to SEO or Search Engine Optimization, PPC campaigns or pay-per-click campaigns, social media networks campaigns, and so on. I liked the hands-on work itself. As I mentioned, I was doing it with my team and I did it for a few good years.
A second example that I would like to give you is the real estate company that I established that’s a very straightforward and very boring company that buys real estate, invests in real estate, and so on. These are just two examples, but I would say that the biggest thing besides these two examples is the fact that I have been an Angel investor for eighteen years. I’ve been investing in startups, advising, and mentoring a lot of the founders over the years.
I appreciate how someone with a cross-industry perspective can get attracted to blockchain. I come from food tech. I’ve met a lot of people that have come from real estate and traditional ventures, as well as serial entrepreneurs. It makes me wonder, what was that spark that made you go all in on blockchain having seen all these different industries and different technology use cases?
I still remember exactly how it happened when I got a phone call from a good friend of mine. He told me that he’s going to start operating in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. We had a chat for about 25 minutes. In these 25 minutes, he managed to get across to me the fact that blockchain and cryptocurrency are the future of the financial markets and almost every industry out there. That’s the thing that got me so excited about this.
The day later, I started freeing up my time to be able to completely focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency. That’s what I did. I sat down and educated myself from 6:00 AM until midnight every single day for a couple of months. Every day, I got even more excited. I still think it’s the same situation and it’s still going to be the future of the financial markets and other industries. I can tell you that as much as I’m excited about the future, I can also tell you that following six years in this industry, it is probably the craziest industry to be in all aspects.
Never a dull moment. Plenty to do. Just like you, when I got in, there was so much information. It can feel like drinking from a fire hose, but when you’re chopping it up and slowly integrating yourself into the space and breaking it down, the wheels start to turn and dots start to connect. A lot has happened in your six years of now being in this space. What is your current perspective on Web3 at this current moment in time?
First of all, I still think that Web3 is the evolution of the internet. Some would say revolution. Some would say evolution. I’m pretty sure that it’s the future of the internet if you can say something like that. Besides that, with blockchain technology, we can achieve so many things that we could have not achieved before. Thanks to decentralization, things are possible. If we talk later on about gaming, that’s a very good example in my opinion. There’s a reason that I decided to focus our investment on gaming. Besides the positive notion, we are in a horrible situation right now.
Following all the bankruptcies and all the scams that happened in the industry, I know a thing or two about these scams considering the fact that I called out more than 100 different scams until now, personally. The situation is so horrible because not only the world is looking at us in a very negative way. Now, if you say to someone outside the industry that you’re into blockchain or cryptocurrency, the first thing that they think is it’s a scam. It doesn’t matter how you turn it around and it doesn’t matter who you are. The situation is not that good, but I’m hoping that in the next few years, it’s going to change a lot.
We share this passion for leading with education. That’s the type of content that we create to shine a light on the real building happening and the real use cases. We’ll go into that a little bit more. In terms of deciding to kick off Syndika, it was intriguing to me when I heard about it because we had talked many times before about your fund. Typically, fund managers go on to create bigger funds or they might do a venture studio model, but you chose something quite different. What is the impetus and story behind Syndika? How has it evolved since you originally came up with the idea?
First of all, I’m laughing because you made me remember the two people that I talked to when I decided to co-found Syndika, the response was, “On, what’s wrong with you? You are already a fund manager now. That is not a lot of work. You’re going to co-found a services company. That’s huge and tons amounts of work. Why are you doing this to yourself?” That’s why I’m laughing. It is a tons amount of work, but it’s also very rewarding.
To answer your question, I would say the following. First of all, I had an opportunity. Tzahi Kanza who is my co-founder at Syndika reached out to me. He told me that there was an opportunity for me to buy his partner out, the partner that he had back then, and to join him at the previous company before Syndika. I agreed after considering it, and then we decided to completely rebrand the company and focus it much more on what Syndika is doing now. Besides what I said, one of the main reasons, and following what you asked me about my thoughts on the industry, that was a huge trigger for me to create Syndika in its current form.
I’ve seen so many scams. It’s not just the scams of the projects that are stealing money from innocent mom-and-pop investors but I am also referring also to my portfolio companies at Cointelligence Fund. Almost half of them were scammed. It’s either scammed by service providers that took their money and disappeared on them or scammed them in a way that they took their money but provided such poor services. It’s not a matter of poor services, it’s a scam. It doesn’t matter how you turn it around. By the way, in our industry, “fake it until you make it” is the standard.
We come up with these gentle words like “rug pull” to disguise situations where it’s downright fraud.
It’s fraud and it pains me so much. Going back to your question, that was a big trigger for me to establish Syndika. The last part of my answer is going to be the fact that I have seen in our industry, everybody keeps talking, especially in the last 2 to 3 years about DAOs. Everybody keeps talking about DAOs. DAO is the future. DAO is this, DAO is that. What I have seen until now is that most of these DAOs, besides the fact that they are clearly violating laws and regulations. The founders for some reason think that they are going to be protected because it’s a DAO, which is exactly the opposite. I’m saying that as a lawyer who understands a thing or two about blockchain and cryptocurrency regulation or potential future regulation, which is another problem that we have at the moment in the industry.
What we are planning to do at Syndika is to try to establish a DAO model without being a DAO. I’m emphasizing that part. I don’t want to mislead anyone by mistake. We’re not a DAO. We’re not going to be a DAO. We’re not based on blockchain and we’re not going to have the token governance. Just to clarify that when I say that I am calling it a DAO. We are working these days on the members’ committees. The members’ committees are going to be the decision-making mechanism of Syndika. That gets me very excited because it’s not just another company that provides specific services. It’s a company that provides all of the services that founders need, and some of the services are offered by the members and not by the core team members.
Syndika: What we are planning to do at Syndika is to try to establish a DAO model without being a DAO.
That’s an interesting distinction because going back to your core challenge of why you started Syndika in the first place is scamming and people not delivering and executing on what was promised. By bringing these different people together that both of you vet and make sure that whoever is part of it is going to be able to deliver on what they’re talking about. What are some of the other big visions of Syndika? What are some of those key concepts that you can talk about for our audience?
First of all, the basics of Syndika. I mentioned that Syndika is based on a previous company. The main service is blockchain and AI development. I’m referring to software development. Besides that, everything around economics is a core service. I’m referring to all types of economics from financial planning to crypto tokenomics and so on. The list goes on and on to legal, Web3 marketing, and so on.
Everything that I mentioned now is a part of the venture studio services. Besides the mechanism that I mentioned before, what we are planning to start considering next year is everything around the acceleration for the startups. Syndika and the previous company we did before are taking an idea and a concept that was made up by the founders and helping them build it from scratch until they do the exit. That’s the big vision of Syndika, combined with everything that I mentioned already.
One thing that immediately caught my attention because we were in the middle of rolling out our newest sister-brother show Edge of AI, is that you also decided to include AI in your services. A lot of folks are jumping on the AI train. There’s this general mixed feeling about anyone that’s doing anything in AI that it’s a little bit more hype than substance or AI has been around for a while. I think that we’re at a critical moment with generative AI and the adoption of AI that makes this moment meaningful more than just hype. Why did you decide to include AI as part of the syndicate’s core services?
It’s not a decision that I made. The decision was made about two and a half years ago when the previous company started developing AI and it was a no-brainer for us to include that in the syndicate itself. You’re right. It became a buzzword these days. When I tell people about Syndika and when I’m focused on the development part, I’m always mentioning what I just told you because it is obvious to everyone that it became a buzzword. All the serial entrepreneurs out there are into AI now. More specifically, all the blockchain crypto advisors and ICO advisors are now AI advisors, which is very ridiculous that they became experts within such a short time.
Speaking of experts, when I joined the industry and people started calling me a crypto expert, I didn’t allow it. The only time that I didn’t reject it and I stopped telling people to stop saying it is when I was in the industry for more than five years. That’s a proper time for me to make someone potentially an expert. With regard to AI, we have done so much already. We have an AI CTO at Syndika, and he’s in charge of AI developments. It’s something that we’ve been doing for a while.
To keep adding onto that, I think it was not just timely but wise of you to continue to explore all the innovations of AI. I even think there’s going to be a cool crossover between the world of AI bridging into Web3 and building things on the blockchain, making things more efficient and faster, and everything else. Something earlier you mentioned that I want to go back and touch on because I do think it’s important to get more information on, which is how you talked about the unique membership model. Can you expand on how Syndika’s members can benefit from the ecosystem and work with each other in the various unique ways that they can?
By the way, regarding what you just mentioned, I don’t think I’m sure that AI and blockchain are going to be mixed together. For me, it’s very straightforward because if you take the gaming industry, it’s already happening. You have games that are being built on the blockchain these days. You already have the gaming giants that started discussing AI and how AI is going to be used for the NPCs or the Non-Player Characters in the games. It’s already happening. It’s not even the future. It’s happening right now. I am sure that by the end of 2024, I’m going to be able to try at least 1 or 2 games that are going to implement AI for the NPCs.
To answer your question about the membership model, first of all, the most unique part about Syndika’s membership is the fact that it doesn’t cost money to join as a member. That’s the biggest thing. Whenever you hear about the membership club, I never saw a membership club that doesn’t ask its members to pay. The reason that we decided not to ask for payment is because we truly believe in real partnerships and we want the members to join and become real members. Not someone that paid for it and was able to get through the door by a payment. The members are being chosen very carefully and vetted very carefully.
Syndika: We truly believe in real partnerships and we really want the members to join and become a real member, not someone that paid for it and was able to get through the door by a payment.
The membership model itself allows the members to contribute to Syndika. When they contribute to Syndika and if they contributed to Syndika, they are being rewarded with equity shares. That’s the biggest thing about the membership model because right now, Syndika is a profitable company. We’re not profitable by millions per month, we’re on the border of breakeven.
We’re using most of the profit for marketing purposes and so on, but we are profitable with 31 paid employees. We are offering equity shares from a profitable company, which is completely different if you compare it to a startup offering equity. I know a thing or two about that because I have equity in about 2,000 startups considering I’ve been doing this for more than 18 years now. They are worth absolutely zero besides the ones that succeeded, which is only a few of them. That’s a huge difference between what we are offering and what the others are offering.
I would like to also add to that the fact that there are different ways to contribute. You don’t have to do just one specific thing to contribute to Syndika. Members can be onboarded to help Syndika with biz dev, marketing, and with sales. They can also join Syndika and help by providing services to Syndika itself and then being offered equity shares or a mix of cash payments and equity shares together. Lastly, one of the biggest things that I would like to see happening is when members are taking part in the members’ committees. It means that they are taking part in the decision-making of Syndika, they will also be rewarded with either cash or equity shares. In my opinion, that’s the most exciting part about Syndika.
Let’s get into some of the nuts and bolts. You’ve got this team of devs cranking away here. Are there any specific projects that you’re allowed to disclose that either the company’s working on or has worked on? To go beyond that, what are the types of projects that are on your roadmap? I can envision all these fun intersections with gaming, AI, and blockchain infrastructure. Part of the fun of being on the dev side of the house is that you get to be seeing the trends and thinking about what’s the next use cases for this technology. Maybe you could talk about that too.
Go check it out.
Let’s do it.
The book The Hobbit.
We’ll save it for the green room.
What is the most recent thing you’ve sold?
I competed in the World of Warcraft Arena.
Not yet, but it’s definitely on my list.
I’m going to have dinner with my family.
At home or heading out?
No, at home.
Do you do any cooking?
Sure.
Let’s do it.
Sure.
That’s super important.
It’s my pleasure. I’m looking forward to it.