Marketing with Web3.0

Porter Geer is leading the Partnership and Business Development team at Dispatch , a web3 community engagement protocol that enables brands and projects to segment and reach customers via marketing and e-commerce on-chain – effectively the Mailchimp of web3.

Previously Porter worked at Deloitte as a member of Deloitte’s Financial Services innovation team and also led Partnerships & Business Operations at SheFi . Porter is passionate about contributing to organizations that break the status quo, with a focus on financial systems and education.

Eve #wealthwednesdays Highlight 75: Porter Geer, Partnerships - Dispatch

What was your first investment?

My first investment wasn’t security but it was on a platform called Ellevest . Ellevest was started by Sallie Krawcheck , a prominent professional in the financial services industry, with the mission to get more money into the hands of women. The ways they do that have expanded over the years but I started out with them using their investment portfolio structuring tool. I had to indicate a couple of things around my interests, risk tolerance, and major goals I have for my life and then allocate certain amounts of money. Ellevest then creates an investment portfolio using a thoughtful mix of stock, bond, and alternative funds. This kind of diversification is intended to help reduce your portfolio's overall risk and help you build a portfolio around what's best for you and I thought that was super amazing. Alongside that, they offer a deep collection of educational content so the experience helped me boost my confidence when it came to approaching greater financial obstacles and setting bigger financial goals.

When I started using Ellevest for the first time, it felt accessible both from a product design and also information access standpoint. It was clear to me why certain products were included in my portfolio. I could also use Ellevest to learn more about decision-making. They helped me open my first Roth IRA through their amazing resources within the site. It helped me determine the difference between Roth IRA versus a traditional IRA and how they compare to a 401k.

What role do you play in the wealth space and why is it important?

I was able to reduce information gaps for other people to make them feel comfortable or well-informed which enabled them to take action based on what they know or what they don't know yet. When I discovered Ellevest, I tried to share this platform with friends and peers as I felt it was a big gateway to better financial health and just a general understanding of the financial world that we live in.

When I found SheFi and its founder Maggie Love, I further grew in that kind of role as I was partially responsible for creating what would be a lot of women’s first experience with crypto, blockchain, and Web3. That’s a powerful position to be in. It meant that what I was saying or teaching in my demos and teaching assistant sessions was extremely important. I always try to approach these situations by making information super clear, accessible, and digestible. I did it in a safe and no judgment environment for asking questions as I never want someone to think they can’t ask me something because it's a dumb question.

Now that I am at Dispatch doing a full-time position, I still feel I am able to play this role. In dispatch, we approach our project in our work by saying we’re the new KYC or know your community. I’ve enjoyed working with various project leadership teams to help them engage and learn from their user base or customer base. The initial idea was to reduce the information asynchronousies that exist between project companies and end users. Initially, we looked at the investor communications approach, and how can we help users or token holders to know what they're buying and stay informed or connected to the institutions issuing them these tokens. The company mission or approach at Dispatch was what drew me into the role and I feel like I’m consistently leaning on reducing information gaps for people.

Can you share more about Dispatch?

From the objective perspective and operation side of Dispatch, we reach people through 1155 NFTs. We’ve had an exciting past year working on establishing NFTs as a communication primitive rather than exclusively a collectible, PFP, or membership token. As we know, NFTs are super dynamic media sources. They’re visual and engaging, so who’s to say that NFTs can’t be a communication channel as well when the only information we often have about customers and users is that wallet address? It’s kind of a twofold to make sure people embrace this new standard of communication. We are interested in exploring a partnership with wallets and renderers to endure end users have the best experience possible. Last week, we announce an integration with Ledger and you can now access any of your Dispatch messages in an inbox by Dispatch Direct in Ledger Live. It’s the first Web3 inbox of its kind and we are thrilled to move forward in that space.

What do you believe is the most exciting thing you’ve learned and want others to know?

The most exciting thing I’ve learned has been the trends I've been seeing since at Dispatch. Sometimes when there’s a negative or a questioning media representation of Web3, there are hundreds of major brands, enterprises, and companies that we’re all familiar with on a day-to-day basis who are making moves to enter Web3. I think people want to remember that this space has so much to offer and many of the companies that we know and love were also realizing this and finding creative ways to launch themselves into the Web3 ecosystem. When you’re seeing more mainstream adoption, it’s a signal to pay attention. Exciting stuff is happening and it’s an opportunity for creativity and innovation. I want people to keep in mind that there’s still a lot happening.

I mentioned with Dispatch at our core, we’re thinking about communication and engagement on-chain. Information that end users should have access to is important to us. We have seen the opportunity to enable this information sharing and engagement with all of the brands and institutions that are entering Web3. We’ve shifted and expanded our focus a bit at the moment from what I previously touched on, there are a ton of possibilities for how campaigns and companies can speak and engage with their users. Also, things like shifting marketing campaigns on-chain or enabling companies to sell goods, perhaps both physical and digital direct end user’s wallets. Things like sourcing feedback via polls or fun trivia in a Web3 native way. Those are the things that allow companies to collect details engagement data and bring that into a CRM that supports Web2 and Web3 data. Those are the things we are exploring and super excited to see if and how we can unlock this whole new way for organizations to engage and activate their customer base. I think it's a bit of an untapped market and we’re very excited to learn and grow in this space.

Is there a person or a company that’s really inspired you?

One of my friends, Maika Isogawa is the founder of Webacy . Webacy’s tagline is simply they are the protection for self-custody. Webacy is a suite of security products to help users better manage their crypto, particularly in the long term - which I really love. I’ve been a beta user for the past couple of months and I’ve loved watching the future suite expand. I feel that Webacy is a strong reflection that we need better security in crypto not just temporarily but for longer periods of time like through the end of your life. Maika and her team have created a platform that lets you get texted and notified when there’s an activity in your wallet. Create crypto will via smart contract to allocate your assets to someone else after you pass or in an event of a crisis. Set up backup wallets and select a panic button if something goes wrong and you want to prevent any funds from being withdrawn in the future. I love that those are feature suites. I’ve planned to set up some of my close family members with their own Webacy accounts for Christmas and I’ve set some of my close family members as beneficiaries for me in the event that something were to happen.

It’s been an exciting space to watch evolve and I loved the energy that Maika and her team bring to the space. She’s brilliant and thoughtful and the Webacy platform reflects that.?

What advice would you give to someone getting started?

Find a friend or peer that you can jam on with. There’s so much information you can get lost in and having someone to lean on can help you narrow your focus and look at only certain resources. Having that comfort with someone to ask questions when you’re confused is helpful. There’s a lot of opportunity to build accountability when you have a peer and keep you potentially able to practice evaluating potential investments or even by starting doing together like co-invest in projects together. There are tons of cool project in Web3 that enables peer and partner ownership.

Having a friend or two along the way is a great way to begin the learning and also making sure that you stay in the learning phase for as long as possible.

Do you have any ideas for somebody getting started as a professional trying to navigate how to apply it to their business or their industry?

We get this question a lot on SheFi - people don’t know to their skills translate ties to what they could be doing in Web3. The most important thing to note is that the skills you have are incredibly transferable across the board. It’s the context that’s changing a bit. It is also important to note that in any job, you can be super qualified but the bulk of your learning is going to be done once you’re in that experience.

Simply subscribing to Web3 communities like Eve and SheFi is an impactful way to build a community while also learning at the same time. Leveraging other women or other people’s experiences is one of the best ways to introduce this industry into your place of work.

How can we stay in touch?

I’m on Twitter @portergeer and also on LinkedIn . Feel free to reach out, my DMs are open. Dispatch is also on Twitter @DispatchXYZ but if you’re interested in receiving updates in a super Dispatch-friendly way, we have an on-chain following where you effectively can subscribe to updates with your wallet. You can check that out through our website , under the Dispatch community. You just need to follow and connect your wallet and automatically you are subscribed to future on-chain updates.

Have thoughts on this week’s topic or question for me or Porter? Post your thoughts in the comment section. Until next week.??

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DISCLAIMER: The thoughts and views expressed in this video do not constitute financial or investment advice.

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