Building the LinkedIn of Web3 💥 - Interview with Talent Protocol

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Welcome to the Chain Stories podcast, the podcast that celebrates disruptors who defy convention.

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Here we dive into the bold stories of trailblazers who turned audacious ideas into billion dollar ventures.

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Hey everyone, we got today Pedro Oliveira from Talent Protocol.

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If you don't know or you're not aware, Talent Protocol is a professional reputation ecosystem that aggregates verifiable user data and their single on-chain identity.

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Pedro, great to have you.

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Let's start with a brief intro for yourself.

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And how did you get into Talent Protocol?

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How did this idea came across?

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Yeah.

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Thanks for inviting me over guys, it's a pleasure and I think I can resonate a lot with your audience at some point in my life I was on that side.

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All right.

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So I'll try to speak as if I was speaking to my younger self.

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Why Talent Protocol?

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It's just the way my career was built, but I can trace it back for some years.

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So my previous startup was a tech recruitment marketplace.

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We placed dozens of thousands of people from all over the world in Western Europe or working remotely in tech jobs.

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And the thing is we wasted so much time and energy on data.

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I think the hardest part of our job was making sure everything was right, making sure that the data was verified, legit.

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And my main feeling and while I could back it up with some data was like, we could have done a 100 X better job at matchmaking if we had data.

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I've been building in the HR technology sector for over a decade now, and this is a common problem to anyone in this space.

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And I was surprised when I exited my business back in 2020, I was surprised like, Oh, there's not that many HR technology builders out there.

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It's not a super exciting vertical, let's put it like that.

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It's not a super exciting industry.

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But I was still surprised though, not that many of us were using blockchain technology when natively it can fix many of these issues like, the data, if it's on supported by blockchain tech, it can be verified, can be portable, interoperable.

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All of the baseline problems we have, building at least my previous business and many other businesses that I knew could be fixed by that.

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So that was the reason, why we came into this industry.

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And then we found out about crypto, like crypto as in crypto incentives.

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And also using crypto as a way to create new types of data.

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And this is like what we call nowadays, like the on-chain economy.

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And realize, Oh, this is like a new internet that is being built as we speak.

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And we're part of that as well.

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And all these data points are really interesting, for assessing talented, and making sense out of talented.

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We are like web agnostic.

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So what does it mean?

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It means that data related to talent can be anywhere.

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It can be in our brains.

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Actually, that's one of the most important types of data.

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The best types of hires usually come through referrals and those data points are just in our brains.

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They don't live anywhere in the internet.

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There's now like the Web3 data.

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There's the Web2 data like Github.

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It's great.

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Social platform for devs, and we have a lot of interesting data points in there.

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There's Web1 data that's quite easily accessible.

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And there's also Web0.

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There's a lot of data that is not in our brains, but can be in a paper or hasn't been digitalized yet.

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So we're agnostic to all of this, but obviously it's easier to work with Web2 and Web3.

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And try to use crypto incentives to bring in this brain data and put it on-chain.

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And this is like how I got in here.

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So we came to change an industry.

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And then while we were building Talent Protocol, we thought like most of the use cases using our data would be like matchmaking or anything HR related.

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And then we started seeing use cases like people using the talent data and the builder score in particular to gate events or using it as a way to calculate new types of scores like loan scores in essence to create some sort of vendor collateralized loans for builders.

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So that's the power of putting your data out there.

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But also making it easier for these apps to add data, if it's interesting to add data to your data set.

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Imagine if LinkedIn opened up their data would be amazing.

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They would also be demasking themselves as in most of their data is bad data and verified packed with bots.

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So then people still pay for it, pay a lot for it because it's still like a defacto place where people go when they're looking for work.

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But imagine if they did that.

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I think the only reason why they don't do it is because it may jeopardize their existing business model.

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But if they did, it would be amazing.

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And, maybe through Talent Protocol, we can also change the industry by convincing the other players, Indeed, LinkedIn and others to open up and open up their data, because just going to make things easier for our own industry, but we learned any industry that services talent or needs talent to operate it, any sector really can be upgraded by having better talent related data.

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Sorry, it was a super long answer, but just wanted to give you that bulk context.

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I think it was a great overview of what are you doing in your vision and mission.

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And the question I wanted to ask you is, how does Talent Protocol collaborate with platforms like you mentioned LinkedIn, let's say GitHub or Coinbase, to verify these on-chain credentials?

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What measures are there in place to maintain the integrity of data?

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There's different types of data.

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And by the way, we keep upgrading our protocol.

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So this will also get improved over time, but there's different types of data.

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I think we can put them into a few boxes.

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So identity type of data and to go straight right into it, like Coinbase.

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They have this KYC, so Coinbase Verified ID, which tells you if someone has verified with Coinbase and their geography as well, Binance also has one, and a bunch of other centralized exchanges also have one.

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It can also be world ID from Worldcoin and that's like the identity data points.

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And then we have more data points around activity.

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And for me, the most important ones around skills.

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And when it comes to Github, there's a bunch of data points, like how many stars you have collectively in all your projects, how many forks you've done.

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PRs, like all these data points are relevant to try to assess someone's skills.

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Basically, we aggregate all this data together and we try to make it verified.

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So we verify every data point to make sure it's legit, so that others can then use the data that we have collected.

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And this is how we aggregate like with LinkedIn, obviously someone needs to connect their login account or with GitHub the same or Twitter the same and that will contribute for us to learn more about this individual, on this different vectors.

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The way our protocol is going to evolve, is going to be more permissionless.

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So for instance, you guys could create your own score based on data points that you think would be relevant for you, for your own community.

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Right now we only have one score, like one score to rule them all, but we're still in a highly experimental phase.

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And this score is called the builder score.

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And the formula for the builder score is owned, managed by the Talent Protocol core team.

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We are the ones defining which data points contribute to the score, which ones are relevant or not.

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But our main point is okay, this score should immediately tell you someone's builder capacity.

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if someone has a higher score, let's say 90 above, probably you're dealing with a problem.

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The score that you just mentioned is that central to the ecosystem?

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Can you elaborate on how important?

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It still is very central to the ecosystem and it's one of the most requested data points.

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I think, because like people want to know who's building what I think it's a relevant query to do.

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And we aggregated that into a builder score.

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So we aggregated a bunch of data points.

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We put a formula and it's quite credible and it does a good job at assessing who's what, if you're a good enough builder or not.

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I can just give you an example on the other end.

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Like we did a campaign early this year with Coinlist and most of their community members, they are the lower builder score.

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So we could know, okay, these are not exactly builders, alright?

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So again this can have impact in many different industries, one of them being distribution, and marketing.

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It's highly experimental and we know where we want to go, what we want to build, but the how are we going to build it?

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It's highly iterative.

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So we're not like white paper people, or we're not making super complex plans.

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So we just try to go as we go and learn because as you go, you create more data that it can analyze and understand if you going the right direction.

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But we try to keep it a smooth sailing in a way.

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Maybe smooth sail is not the right approach because there's some rough patches along the way, but we try to not make it super heavy on us in terms of our plan for 2025.

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We can plan like a few months ahead.

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That's it.

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And that's good enough for us.

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What is that you've seen that Talent Protocol can solve really well?

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Is it hiring developers that I know if they are junior or entry ones or is there a specific use case?

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I think it's too soon to say I hope it's going to be on the sourcing front and that our talent agent or ai agent will do a great job at that Ah, but I think it's too soon to tell.

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Right now what it does really well is just understanding who's a proper builder who's not.

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That's it.

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It's just a score.

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But that's the one thing it does super well right now.

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What does the AI agent do in the ecosystem?

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So we started an experiment, month and a half ago, I'm not sure when this is coming out, but some time ago on Farcaster.

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And we wanted to understand if this agent, by being out there in an open environment, like Farcaster is.

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Could help us fix problems in the talent space.

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So we're going in the direction of sourcing and talent sourcing and talent acquisition front, but it started by actually getting really good at roasting people.

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So basically people tag themselves to get roasted by the mate.

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It's called talent mate, by the way, on Farcaster.

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Recently, it jumped on Twitter as well and he's roasting people on Twitter.

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So at least roasting is a thing that the agent has mastered this skill.

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Then, sorry about swearing, but we use this word a lot, which is FAFO, like fuck around and find out.

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It ended up launching, we thought it only launched one token, but apparently launched five tokens with Clanker on Farcaster we had absolutely no say in that.

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The mate as an API key, a wallet, we put some talent tokens in there, and there we went.

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We did run some experiments on sourcing and it was, I cannot say successful yet, we need to run more experiments on it.

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But it was able to, based on a short description from a client, like I need someone, I'll give two ETH for someone to do me a page for a meme coin.

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I think actually this was the description.

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And the mate put a bounty out there, okay, I'll give 1k talent for people who refer other people.

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So people started referring themselves and other people and the mate reviewed all the profiles, all the data, including people that didn't have yet a talent passport and rank them.

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And in the end presented the list of, like a short list of three candidate to the client is still super early days, but this is where I see the potential of AI and crypto coming together, creating the right incentives to bring that data that is nowhere like that exists in our brains.

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Okay.

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It would be a good person to do this and put that into the sourcing equation.

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That's what we're going to test next with, the mate.

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So a bit more of a serious experience because roasting is fun, but it's doubtable the business value it brings, besides happiness and just being fun.

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But now it's time to get real and do some proper experiments around it.

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Let's see how it goes, but we'll learn, we'll build and repeat the process.

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Yeah.

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That makes sense.

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If a recruiter goes on LinkedIn or if somebody posts a bounty on Fiverr, they still have to find the right person for it or hope that the algorithm will put it in front of the right person or through the search.

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You have a bot, the bot can search through millions of people and find like the best person for the job.

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So I think that's an interesting application of it.

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What is the role of the talent token in the Talent Protocol?

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Just to compliment what you said, if you ask any recruiter, what's the part of their job that they hate the most?

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Is the sourcing part.

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It's really crappy.

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And when you join the recruitment space, like an agency or something, and you want to start in this career, you usually start as a talent sourcer.

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And it's a shit job now, to your question on the talent token utility.

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We are going to implement, several of them, but so far you have the vanilla ones, like it's being used for some DeFi protocols, like Aero or Beefy.

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Probably we're going to do something more like DeFi stuff, we're going to ship something which allows you to get some yield with talent by bringing this data from your brain into our protocol as in, okay, I'm going to stake on someone's skill.

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To double down.

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Okay.

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I really trust this person to do it.

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So we're going to make an experiment with that.

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Hopefully it works.

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It's going to be about staking for reputation, get new data points, new interesting data points, and then another one that I'm quite bullish on is..

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so one of our biggest KPIs is our API usage, but that's almost the off-chain data.

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We want to put it on-chain on Dune so everyone can see the type of growth we're having and, we're going to use the token for that.

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So almost like a wrapper, but it's more than that.

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It's transparency to the community so they can see how much we're growing.

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And I think that's going to be cool, so they can like any trader investor can make a mental connection between the token and growth.

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I think that's relevant.

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Is it like a proper utility for reputation?

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Not so much, but I still consider it protocol utility.

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The main point is we have a shitloads of ideas for the token and we're going to test it out, see how it works.

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If for some reason we are unable to find any utility for the token, at least you will be a pricing, a price swapper, at least that can be done.

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And since we are an organization that is like a token-first, we don't have shares or shareholders or token owners really matter, so it can be a proxy to our shares and a proxy to governance as well.

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But that's like the minimum.

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And that's the bottom line and we're building on top of that.

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Yeah, it sounds fascinating what you're building and feels like Talent Protocol is on the forefront of revolutionizing the way we source talents and interact with it.

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What made you decide to go the Web3 route?

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Was the ability to have a token and be able to have access to market liquidity versus Web2?

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Was it easier or harder to fundraise?

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What were some of these stories that you had and struggles throughout the process?

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We were noobs back in early 2021, and we came for blockchain, not really for the token.

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Token came after when we realized, Oh, you can actually do a bunch of things with this.

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And so it came as a second act to how we develop.

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But it was quite quickly in that sense.

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We came for a reason.

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We want that, that's a product that we want to integrate with our protocol because we believe that it can bring new, better data into it.

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And so when it comes to the fundraising, because we also understood, okay, we can also use this as a way to raise and bring people that believe in our mission.

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I have raised before in the Web2 space, and I've raised now in the Web3 space.

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And it's very different.

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Starting with the most boring ones, but the framework that are used to raise in Web2 setting it uses infrastructure that has been around for many decades, like shares.

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Shares exist for centuries now.

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The concept of shares, the concept of an LLC, is also decades old.

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So new reasoning concepts that are quite well established.

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Some more recent like a SAFE, simple agreement for future equity, coined by Y Combinator.

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Is it a decade ago?

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I'm not sure, but many years ago, which is already very used by the whole ecosystem for early stage raises.

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When it comes to crypto, everything is new.

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And that's in itself a challenge because the old players.

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And I've had situations where people knew me because of my previous businesses and they wanted to invest, but they couldn't because their legal framework wouldn't allow them to, and I was like, okay, it is what it is.

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So that was a challenge.

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We couldn't, let in some people for a very basic reason.

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And then crypto still attracts a certain type of persona as well.

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So it's hard to filter them.

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I wish I had the builder score back then in 2021 and 2, that would have helped me filter.

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So you gotta be mindful of that.

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I think it's gotten better.

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I think crypto is more serious as a business nowadays than it was in 2021.

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We can blame the SEC and Gary Gensler for doing a disservice to the SEC and to everybody in the industry.

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But that happened for a reason.

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It was a challenge to understand, what was the best approach, and I made a lot of mistakes.

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If we had a time machine right now, you'll be able to go back that first version yourself, what would you tell to that Pedro before starting Talent Protocol?

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Just one thing.

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Oh man.

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I would really say, look, you're joining a new industry.

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Filter harder, try to be more suspicious.

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I think half the work is surviving.

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So we clearly done that, despite all the mistakes.

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So in other way, I would say, you know what kid, if I say kid is like four years ago, but, you know what, man, you got this.

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Trust in yourself, be more mindful of who you work with because crypto can be..

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Yeah.

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I was going to ask for the founders listening.

00:18:55.127 --> 00:18:57.337
What do you think is part of that filtering process?

00:18:57.397 --> 00:19:04.087
Is them meeting their investors in person, co founders, or what do you think should be part of this due diligence process?

00:19:04.127 --> 00:19:13.877
Because everything is done over telegram or online and people can just disappear and you trust them with your funds or with XYZ, right?

00:19:13.880 --> 00:19:20.319
I think I've made mistakes on everything from founders, advisors, investors, I made mistakes on all of those.

00:19:20.619 --> 00:19:32.460
When it comes to founders, be really aggressive in making sure there's alignment at the values level, your value system is aligned with other people who work or you're going to build a business, a new vision with.

00:19:32.460 --> 00:19:36.950
And I think the best way to do that is to work with people that you've worked with before.

00:19:37.250 --> 00:19:42.990
Because my two co founders, I have Filipe and Francisco, I've studied with Filipe back in the day.

00:19:43.289 --> 00:19:49.670
We know each other for over a decade and with Francisco, I've hired him almost 10 years ago in my previous startup.

00:19:49.675 --> 00:19:50.306
So I knew them.

00:19:50.346 --> 00:20:00.998
So that was a good filtering, and the founder's level is probably the most important one, where if you make a mistake, like a fatal mistake there, it can cost you dearly.

00:20:01.048 --> 00:20:08.748
When it comes to advisors, if it was today, I would be more careful with token allocations for advisors.

00:20:08.748 --> 00:20:13.178
Because nowadays I get some feedback or advice from people.

00:20:13.188 --> 00:20:23.498
And usually the advice I get from crypto OGs is interesting advice because usually that advice is no longer appliable to the new setting, to the new world.

00:20:23.798 --> 00:20:26.038
It's almost like he's outdated that advice.

00:20:26.337 --> 00:20:33.907
And so be mindful of that because, advisors can become what we call shelf advisors really fast.

00:20:34.208 --> 00:20:37.508
So it's important that your agreement is aligned with that.

00:20:37.907 --> 00:20:40.337
And be mindful if you need actual advisors.

00:20:40.498 --> 00:20:43.107
There was a creature trend that everybody needs advisors.

00:20:43.157 --> 00:20:47.107
There was the same trend happening in Web2 many years ago.

00:20:47.118 --> 00:20:49.269
We moved on from that and here we are.

00:20:49.628 --> 00:20:51.419
I think nowadays there's less of that.

00:20:51.439 --> 00:20:55.568
If you want to be an advisor, invest, just be an angel investor.

00:20:55.868 --> 00:20:57.118
I think that's an easier way.

00:20:57.503 --> 00:21:00.663
To have someone with skin in the game, also give you some advice.

00:21:00.663 --> 00:21:02.973
You don't need that strong advisor.

00:21:03.054 --> 00:21:05.374
I think I would do it different today.

00:21:05.634 --> 00:21:08.723
When it comes to investors, I think I let too many investors in.

00:21:08.923 --> 00:21:20.644
And push to have maybe less is more in this case, like higher, having some players with more skin in the game and having some others with less, but less of them, more of the others.

00:21:21.144 --> 00:21:27.124
I think that was a mistake in hindsight, because then it comes with management, you got to manage all that.

00:21:27.334 --> 00:21:31.044
Nowadays, I say I no longer have investors, I only have token holders.

00:21:31.263 --> 00:21:32.183
So they've moved on.

00:21:32.554 --> 00:21:34.114
Now everyone is treated equally.

00:21:34.584 --> 00:21:39.673
We no longer have any private chats with anyone, because we want everyone to have information parity.

00:21:39.723 --> 00:21:44.784
I think that's very important for all types of reasons, from ethical reasons all the way to legal reasons as well.

00:21:45.084 --> 00:21:46.663
Yeah, I was going to say, how do you balance that?

00:21:46.663 --> 00:21:49.134
Cause for an investor, if you're raising the minimum ticket size.

00:21:49.433 --> 00:21:50.394
But for a token holder, right?

00:21:50.394 --> 00:21:51.453
You can be a token holder.

00:21:51.788 --> 00:21:54.679
With as little as like point zero zero zero one of the token.

00:21:54.855 --> 00:22:04.547
Me as Pedro, I'm not gonna share any alpha with an investor that has like a massive stake compared to an investor that has little stake.

00:22:04.646 --> 00:22:09.317
Like right now I'm doing tokenholder updates publicly, all this information is public.

00:22:09.317 --> 00:22:10.210
So there's parity.

00:22:10.369 --> 00:22:12.019
I'm really taking this seriously.

00:22:12.019 --> 00:22:13.779
We shut down before the token went live.

00:22:13.789 --> 00:22:15.849
We shut down all the private groups that we had.

00:22:16.119 --> 00:22:21.089
Which is fine to have them, when you don't have an asset, a financial asset like a token, live.

00:22:21.140 --> 00:22:26.018
Especially in our case when that asset is a representation, a governance representation as well.

00:22:26.478 --> 00:22:36.938
It's important that regardless if you have a fractional decimal point of our token, or if you have thousands of it you should be treated equally.

00:22:37.298 --> 00:22:42.617
We could create situations where it compensates to be a larger holder financially.

00:22:42.917 --> 00:22:45.738
But that doesn't mean you have more access to information.

00:22:46.038 --> 00:22:49.327
That means maybe you'll get more yield or something like that.

00:22:49.557 --> 00:22:52.988
Or you can invest more in the platform because you have more tokens.

00:22:53.057 --> 00:22:59.708
It's an obvious difference, but I think that the most important thing is the information sharing should be the same.

00:22:59.958 --> 00:23:00.877
Yeah, makes sense.

00:23:00.938 --> 00:23:05.597
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I know you did a seed raise and that raised about a 1.5.

00:23:05.837 --> 00:23:07.557
And then you did an ICO.

00:23:07.857 --> 00:23:09.817
How was it about experiences?

00:23:09.887 --> 00:23:13.698
Did you feel it was the ICO that you let so many investors in that was hard to manage?

00:23:13.758 --> 00:23:16.268
Or do you prefer to do that if you're doing it again?

00:23:16.768 --> 00:23:21.198
So we did four private rounds and then one community round.

00:23:21.357 --> 00:23:33.508
I think the community one was important moment to give a last chance for anyone to come in and we use the builder score, by the way, if you came in, depending on your builder score, you'll get an airdrop.

00:23:34.057 --> 00:23:37.208
You want to have a larger token holder base.

00:23:37.508 --> 00:23:41.307
If you have just a handful of token holders, there's not really a market, right?

00:23:41.607 --> 00:23:44.617
So you want to distribute that you want to diversify.

00:23:44.627 --> 00:24:00.617
I think it's over 18K, 18.5K holders right now and our goal, even if you're giving it away, the token, which as a financial value, you want to give away to people that you think are fit with what you're building and that they will hold.

00:24:00.817 --> 00:24:05.768
Because if they notice they have the token, which we'll try to do things in a way that they do.

00:24:06.067 --> 00:24:09.018
The question will appear: should I sell or will I hold?

00:24:09.127 --> 00:24:10.948
Do I believe this project or not?

00:24:10.998 --> 00:24:15.018
The community sale allowed us to expand that to a lot of people.

00:24:15.317 --> 00:24:16.607
But we did make mistakes.

00:24:16.607 --> 00:24:18.738
What I call like crypto shenanigans.

00:24:18.788 --> 00:24:20.377
We did made a few of those.

00:24:20.468 --> 00:24:28.357
And we did do some airdrops, even one recently, which was the distribution of something we did before the token launch.

00:24:28.657 --> 00:24:33.307
And we did a campaign with a partner and the partner used one of those distribution tools, I think it was Galxe.

00:24:33.748 --> 00:24:37.468
And they weren't really heavy on the Sibyl resistance.

00:24:37.508 --> 00:24:38.288
Let's put it like that.

00:24:38.678 --> 00:24:40.607
So we started the distribution immediately.

00:24:40.607 --> 00:24:47.012
Our community was like Sibyl factory right here and we paused it, because we want to distribute to the right people.

00:24:47.242 --> 00:24:48.702
We paused it immediately.

00:24:48.702 --> 00:24:51.423
The former Sibyl abuse started.

00:24:51.423 --> 00:25:01.343
So we said, right decision pretty much, because when you have abuse, it means that there was a problem and now we're going to continue the distribution based on the builder score.

00:25:01.643 --> 00:25:09.432
So what I call crypto shenanigans here was like, we did some campaigns in the past where this distribution was done, but not to the right people.

00:25:09.932 --> 00:25:19.442
And I think it's important for any project that is launching to do as fair as possible distribution to the people that you think believe in you, that you think are your target.

00:25:19.712 --> 00:25:22.553
There needs to be a purpose for this distribution.

00:25:22.853 --> 00:25:27.123
Sometimes we in crypto projects, we tend to follow the latest narrative.

00:25:27.423 --> 00:25:32.222
Like for instance, our talent mate launched five tokens, but none of those are official ones.

00:25:32.722 --> 00:25:34.873
Whatever, AI doing AI stuff.

00:25:35.173 --> 00:25:38.522
We've been pushed heavily to launch a token for the mate.

00:25:38.823 --> 00:25:40.313
And I'm like, but why?

00:25:40.613 --> 00:25:42.702
The only thing he's good at is roasting people.

00:25:42.772 --> 00:25:44.813
Is it the token going to be called roast?

00:25:45.113 --> 00:25:45.883
Is that the point?

00:25:46.252 --> 00:25:46.903
What is the point?

00:25:47.212 --> 00:25:49.383
Or does it fit into our long play?

00:25:49.682 --> 00:25:52.002
So we're done with crypto shenanigans.

00:25:52.423 --> 00:25:56.252
We're doing our way, which is a long way, even though we'll keep learning and improving.

00:25:56.553 --> 00:25:57.462
We're done with that.

00:25:57.482 --> 00:26:00.663
We're just a lot more mindful of our products.

00:26:00.663 --> 00:26:02.282
And we look at the token as a product.

00:26:02.663 --> 00:26:05.673
And you need to be mindful as how do you market that product?

00:26:05.673 --> 00:26:06.932
How do you take care of that product?

00:26:07.232 --> 00:26:09.002
Anyway, ask me again in one year.

00:26:09.502 --> 00:26:09.962
Interesting.

00:26:09.962 --> 00:26:27.053
You mentioned something that was quite interesting and I think it's a problem that plays the industry is doing an airdrop and it is going to the right people to the point that now we have airdrop hunters group chat and people just join you have all these massive influx of people on your Twitter or Discord.

00:26:27.353 --> 00:26:29.163
And then everything becomes stagnant.

00:26:29.583 --> 00:26:38.732
You think the builder score could be integrated into a Galxe campaign or some of these airdrop campaigns and completely help revolutionize this, or there's the potential there?

00:26:39.232 --> 00:26:42.093
Man, the answer is hell yeah, for sure.

00:26:42.313 --> 00:26:43.482
It could and it should.

00:26:43.692 --> 00:26:50.573
We've had other projects that reach out to us after they did the airdrop and we're like, wow, you should have used the builder score.

00:26:50.663 --> 00:26:54.883
And we ran the data and it actually made sense for them to have used it.

00:26:54.883 --> 00:26:57.282
So the answer is hell yeah.

00:26:57.373 --> 00:27:03.262
The question is, why that the incentives for this foreign factories or Sybil factories.

00:27:03.563 --> 00:27:10.853
There was a moment in crypto where you would pump the socials and we've played partially that game.

00:27:11.153 --> 00:27:12.877
But then you're gonna have huge sell pressure.

00:27:13.178 --> 00:27:14.557
At the start of the token launch.

00:27:14.798 --> 00:27:26.807
And if you look at our token launch, which was roughly a month ago, you can see that in the first two, three days, it was a slaughter, like it was a Mike Tyson punch in the face, actually many of Mike Tyson's punches in the face.

00:27:27.107 --> 00:27:33.938
Because we are a bear market survivors team and launching the token is tough, but surviving a bear market is tougher.

00:27:34.238 --> 00:27:39.228
So it was yeah, still Mike Tyson punched you in the face, but you get up, you keep building.

00:27:39.528 --> 00:27:45.897
Then the community rallied behind our price because it was so devalued like after three days, like this is a bargain.

00:27:46.218 --> 00:27:56.268
So we rallied and went all the way up to like 15x and then the price established in a fairly reasonable price, which actually I agree with the price right now.

00:27:56.417 --> 00:28:00.938
I have to disagree with the price one year from now, otherwise we've done a lousy job.

00:28:01.038 --> 00:28:06.127
And I lost myself a bit in the rationale, but I just wanted to transmit this.

00:28:06.428 --> 00:28:16.417
I was looking at the charts and it was quite a rollercoaster going from launching and the token goes to 1 cent, then all the way up 13, 14 cents.

00:28:16.718 --> 00:28:19.438
How did you feel when you felt going through this moment?

00:28:19.468 --> 00:28:24.107
Was this one of the most stressful moments of the entire process of launching Talent?

00:28:24.607 --> 00:28:28.238
Now it's easier to talk, but back then, I don't think we had time to think.

00:28:28.538 --> 00:28:31.567
There were so many things to do and decisions to make.

00:28:31.867 --> 00:28:34.538
In the end, it was the result of the sell pressure.

00:28:34.907 --> 00:28:37.077
It took us a long time to get here.

00:28:37.127 --> 00:28:39.278
Just a bit of a background to Talent Protocol.

00:28:39.278 --> 00:28:42.998
The first version, the V1 of Talent Protocol was social tokens.

00:28:43.448 --> 00:28:52.907
And we felt that, okay, you can use social tokens to invest in talent and these will create the best reputation points ever, like those brain points, putting that in the form of investing in someone.

00:28:53.208 --> 00:28:56.698
It seemed like it was going great, we had a moon graph at some point.

00:28:56.998 --> 00:29:05.998
But then the bear market kicked in and that was a proper Mike Tyson punch in the face where you're like, you know what guys, everything that he built, it falls positive.

00:29:06.298 --> 00:29:07.008
It's not working.

00:29:07.508 --> 00:29:10.768
And we're like, damn, and we were going to launch a token in 2022.

00:29:11.268 --> 00:29:18.938
I'm glad it happened because then we didn't launch and we were able to go through the bear market with a highly experimental phase.

00:29:19.238 --> 00:29:22.458
And that's why today we are like what I told you we're not white paper people.

00:29:22.458 --> 00:29:27.238
We were born in a bull but we were raised in a bear and that made us who we are today.

00:29:27.538 --> 00:29:32.458
And I think when the token got launched and you're right, it was this roller coaster.

00:29:32.807 --> 00:29:36.877
Most of that early sell pressure was farmers and seagulls.

00:29:37.178 --> 00:29:40.768
Which if I could have done things differently, I would have today.

00:29:41.067 --> 00:29:42.688
Also a lot of fatigue.

00:29:43.107 --> 00:29:48.097
So early investors that, you cannot take out from the equation fatigue, and that's normal.

00:29:48.307 --> 00:29:55.198
So in a way we revenged ourselves, because everyone that dumped, they did a bad business decision.

00:29:55.498 --> 00:29:57.448
But that allowed the comeback story.

00:29:57.617 --> 00:30:02.857
And by the way, this was before elections, every alt coin was going down and staying there.

00:30:03.157 --> 00:30:05.597
And we can say that we had this comeback story.

00:30:05.788 --> 00:30:07.248
Did we do anything for that?

00:30:07.288 --> 00:30:08.278
Absolutely no.

00:30:08.587 --> 00:30:09.478
We didn't do anything.

00:30:09.948 --> 00:30:13.067
We're just a community perceived as this is massively undervalued.

00:30:13.167 --> 00:30:13.827
I'm going to buy it.

00:30:14.127 --> 00:30:23.008
Being part of the Base ecosystem helped in the sense that we've been known in the Base ecosystem as a, let's say, if you look at the Base ecosystem, you have memes.

00:30:23.178 --> 00:30:27.978
The most known or the meme with more utility, less with that is Degen.

00:30:28.167 --> 00:30:30.498
We love their team and what they're doing there.

00:30:30.998 --> 00:30:32.798
Two OGs of the Base ecosystem.

00:30:33.087 --> 00:30:35.198
And then you have the utility base coins.

00:30:35.498 --> 00:30:36.178
Who are they?

00:30:36.647 --> 00:30:37.397
You have DeFi.

00:30:37.698 --> 00:30:42.268
Which is most of them, Aero, BMX from Morpho, few others.

00:30:42.768 --> 00:30:44.298
Those three, I would say the maintenance.

00:30:44.298 --> 00:30:49.228
And then you have talent, because we've been building in the Base since September last year.

00:30:49.228 --> 00:30:53.268
So one month after they launched, the Base team launched the Base network.

00:30:53.417 --> 00:30:57.137
It was luck that it happened to us, but you build your own luck, right?

00:30:57.188 --> 00:31:00.488
We have a saying in Portuguese, luck protects the audacious ones.

00:31:00.988 --> 00:31:04.317
We had some luck but we build it around this years.

00:31:04.567 --> 00:31:10.288
The feelings were everything from, what the fuck is happening to again, what the fuck is happening again?

00:31:10.587 --> 00:31:13.097
The partner was supposed to do something they didn't do.

00:31:13.248 --> 00:31:15.428
I was looking here, this was 31st of October.

00:31:15.428 --> 00:31:16.678
It was about eight days.

00:31:17.077 --> 00:31:18.778
You thought what am I doing with my life?

00:31:18.807 --> 00:31:20.147
This is not working.

00:31:20.167 --> 00:31:21.587
I should abandon.

00:31:21.887 --> 00:31:23.268
And you mentioned your bear market team.

00:31:23.617 --> 00:31:28.028
What kept you guys always so together to believe in this vision of Talent Protocol?

00:31:28.078 --> 00:31:34.939
I think you see that through the launch, regardless of the price action, we stood by it like we're long run.

00:31:35.169 --> 00:31:38.989
This is just another moment, an important one, but it's just another moment.

00:31:38.999 --> 00:31:39.828
Still day one.

00:31:40.128 --> 00:31:41.817
Jesse Pollock is always using it.

00:31:42.128 --> 00:31:43.489
Still day one, but it's serious.

00:31:43.499 --> 00:31:44.098
Still day one.

00:31:44.398 --> 00:31:50.249
I think different people in our team have different reasons to believe in what we're doing, how we're doing.

00:31:50.259 --> 00:31:52.989
Like I told you mine, because I've been building this space.

00:31:52.989 --> 00:31:55.439
I clearly see this as a problem of the space.

00:31:55.739 --> 00:31:57.769
And I hope it changes this whole industry.

00:31:57.818 --> 00:32:04.249
But I know that if we do that, then this is a multi billion dollar industry that is growing 10 percent year on year.

00:32:04.398 --> 00:32:07.771
If we do that right, it's going to affect many other sectors.

00:32:07.781 --> 00:32:10.961
So the value potential is enormous.

00:32:11.261 --> 00:32:17.112
So I came from a problem perspective and I think different people on the team joined from different perspectives.

00:32:17.112 --> 00:32:22.791
Just to give an example my co founder Filipe, when I talked to him, I was ending my sabbatical.

00:32:22.791 --> 00:32:23.751
So I quit my business.

00:32:23.751 --> 00:32:30.821
I started a sabbatical was supposed to be a 12 month sabbatical like the whole 2021 ended up just being two and a half months.

00:32:31.321 --> 00:32:32.882
And then Talent Protocol started.

00:32:33.321 --> 00:32:37.852
He was going to do it and I was like, Oh, let me just tell you an idea.

00:32:37.852 --> 00:32:39.362
And then he didn't do it.

00:32:39.372 --> 00:32:46.511
He was going to do something to that original model of Talent Protocol as in having a group of people investing in him, on his sabbatical.

00:32:46.811 --> 00:32:48.731
And I basically challenged him.

00:32:49.061 --> 00:32:50.392
You're just doing that for yourself.

00:32:50.392 --> 00:32:51.781
Why don't you do that at scale?

00:32:52.082 --> 00:32:57.571
And this is a bigger issue of investing in talent and that creates a lot of interesting reputation data points.

00:32:57.571 --> 00:33:04.321
So it came from a different perspective, but I think like our original idea changed a lot over time.

00:33:04.672 --> 00:33:10.852
In the end, like every person in the team has different reasons why they believe in what we're building.

00:33:10.852 --> 00:33:12.481
Some of them are more business driven.

00:33:12.961 --> 00:33:17.152
Some of them are more problem driven, like myself, some others more like vision driven.

00:33:17.451 --> 00:33:22.301
But I think what keeps us together, just the fact that we went through the bear market.

00:33:22.801 --> 00:33:25.382
And we had what we call a redux.

00:33:25.392 --> 00:33:37.872
Redux is Latin for evolution, but we use it as in let's make sure we stay lean and go to the gym and keep our fat low so that we can keep evolving fast, right?

00:33:37.951 --> 00:33:39.061
So that we use it in that way.

00:33:39.061 --> 00:33:40.422
So we call it, let's do a redux.

00:33:40.422 --> 00:33:43.122
So we redux a lot of things on Talent Protocol.

00:33:43.301 --> 00:33:48.211
I think even the mission and vision got adapted a little bit, even though those stay the same.

00:33:48.321 --> 00:33:52.392
That's why I never say we did a pivot because those two kind of stayed the same.

00:33:52.692 --> 00:34:00.182
But the team as well and going through the bear market made this not like a family, that's not it, but like a championship team.

00:34:00.731 --> 00:34:01.761
How big is the team?

00:34:01.912 --> 00:34:08.532
As of yesterday, we are nine people on the team and we want to close off the team at 10 people.

00:34:08.882 --> 00:34:10.231
10 people in the core team.

00:34:10.532 --> 00:34:11.942
We don't want to have a large team.

00:34:12.242 --> 00:34:14.012
We actually have a huge discussion on the team.

00:34:14.021 --> 00:34:18.871
Who should that person be like in terms of not who the person, but the skills.

00:34:19.371 --> 00:34:24.442
Because like the larger teams, they lose speed and it's just harder to get shit done.

00:34:24.501 --> 00:34:30.672
I've had larger teams before and it's just way harder communication wise, everything wise, it's just way harder.

00:34:31.121 --> 00:34:35.251
And with AI nowadays, you can do so much more than you could, two, three years ago.

00:34:35.251 --> 00:34:37.331
So why would you have a larger team?

00:34:37.681 --> 00:34:42.112
It doesn't mean you can't use like contractors and an extension on the team, but that's a different thing.

00:34:42.411 --> 00:34:46.802
But to answer your question, I think the bear market made this become a championship.

00:34:47.302 --> 00:34:49.362
And championships are won over time.

00:34:49.641 --> 00:34:54.231
I wanted to ask you something you mentioned earlier was you're one of the first building on Base.

00:34:54.681 --> 00:34:55.681
How is Base?

00:34:56.032 --> 00:35:01.952
Now we're seeing more projects, but did you find they supported you throughout this journey of launching a token?

00:35:01.952 --> 00:35:04.181
What is in terms of developer docs?

00:35:04.481 --> 00:35:10.012
In terms of raising on Base chain, is there a lot of skepticism or it's more now normal?

00:35:10.311 --> 00:35:13.382
Let's start by answering with the why we started on Base.

00:35:13.391 --> 00:35:22.092
So we came from other chains, Celo being the main one is like one of our advisors like huge on Celo and we're okay they seem cool.

00:35:22.092 --> 00:35:23.521
Let's go and they are cool.

00:35:23.652 --> 00:35:30.021
Celo is very focused on stables and we're not a stable coin project, we're more like a consumer type of project.

00:35:30.362 --> 00:35:34.431
We've always had this problem, by the way, within the crypto space, where do we position ourselves?

00:35:34.472 --> 00:35:36.722
No one is doing things like we do.

00:35:36.972 --> 00:35:43.391
Even the HR projects, usually it's just a marketplace trying to be a Web3 marketplace, but it's the same bullshit.

00:35:43.692 --> 00:35:44.992
No one took the same approach.

00:35:44.992 --> 00:35:46.081
I saw this segment.

00:35:46.092 --> 00:35:48.402
Maybe it's our segment, which is decentralized data.

00:35:48.842 --> 00:35:52.952
D data, was the best I could come up with for to package down verticals.

00:35:53.411 --> 00:35:54.911
Regardless, we don't care about that.

00:35:54.952 --> 00:35:57.561
We have a mission to complete.

00:35:57.862 --> 00:36:02.751
So Base, we started building on Base in September, 2023.

00:36:02.842 --> 00:36:04.211
So a month after the launch.

00:36:04.711 --> 00:36:09.472
We did a hackathon at ETH Singapore, 23.

00:36:09.771 --> 00:36:16.411
And we were building something like a crossover between a Friend.Tech and a Stack Overflow.

00:36:16.911 --> 00:36:17.981
It was called Buildify.

00:36:18.481 --> 00:36:20.612
We won four awards in that hackathon.

00:36:20.612 --> 00:36:21.922
It was the most awarded project.

00:36:22.222 --> 00:36:22.931
In that hackathon.

00:36:23.442 --> 00:36:29.452
And we decided to build on Base because they just started, the team seemed to look cool, but it was a bit of a gamble.

00:36:29.711 --> 00:36:31.152
Let's just use their tech.

00:36:31.652 --> 00:36:33.782
One of the projects we use was Airstack.

00:36:33.811 --> 00:36:36.311
Now they are doing a Moxy protocol.

00:36:36.762 --> 00:36:39.612
And it was a big ambassador for Base.

00:36:39.782 --> 00:36:45.742
So it's like this combination of factors realized by for what are we building the type of data that we need.

00:36:46.041 --> 00:36:48.922
That's a great place to start to build on.

00:36:49.121 --> 00:36:53.001
It started very organically and it just felt natural.

00:36:53.041 --> 00:36:55.952
So we started to work with the Base team.

00:36:56.014 --> 00:36:59.568
I don't know how to say this, but working with their team, they get what we're doing.

00:37:00.068 --> 00:37:03.688
If you go on base.org, everything in there is focused on builders.

00:37:03.838 --> 00:37:07.077
So there's a big KPI match between the two.

00:37:07.577 --> 00:37:10.458
And building with their team was always very supportive.

00:37:10.507 --> 00:37:21.527
Base is different from other chains because they do have some grants and stuff, but almost like all the other chains that I knew they had a lot of grants grifters, let's put it like this.

00:37:21.827 --> 00:37:24.268
And on Base they don't promote any of that.

00:37:24.288 --> 00:37:28.648
You just come, you build and you'll get rewarded by building.

00:37:28.648 --> 00:37:30.047
And there's multiple ways they do.

00:37:30.197 --> 00:37:34.307
Whether it's support, shout outs, some grants, eventually you may get it.

00:37:34.347 --> 00:37:35.347
We got a couple of them.

00:37:35.648 --> 00:37:39.688
And when I say shout outs to the team individually, to the organization as well.

00:37:39.987 --> 00:37:46.288
They also have something on Farcaster called base builds, which is more like a universal builder income sort of thing.

00:37:46.797 --> 00:37:56.007
I do have a lot of other projects that they want to come in on Base and they usually have the same approach as in other chain, which is what's the grant is grant that can you make money to the team?

00:37:56.007 --> 00:37:59.007
And I'm like, how do I explain this without sounding like an asshole.

00:37:59.507 --> 00:38:01.887
Just come on Base, start building and it's going to happen.

00:38:02.057 --> 00:38:03.387
Don't worry too much about it.

00:38:03.688 --> 00:38:05.527
So that was the biggest difference.

00:38:05.557 --> 00:38:07.108
It just happened naturally.

00:38:07.577 --> 00:38:12.387
And then we got invested by the Base ecosystem fund, the day before the token launch.

00:38:12.688 --> 00:38:15.378
And we didn't say, we didn't pursue it.

00:38:15.498 --> 00:38:16.907
We were just doing our thing.

00:38:16.907 --> 00:38:19.958
And then they came to us and I'm like, okay, sure.

00:38:20.057 --> 00:38:20.418
Let's go.

00:38:20.418 --> 00:38:22.827
We are aligned so we can be even more aligned.

00:38:23.128 --> 00:38:32.177
It's just so organic and working with their team, we learn tons and the energy and the execution capacity of their team is one of the best I've seen.

00:38:32.188 --> 00:38:36.748
So they're setting the bar high up for the rest, which is great, competition is good.

00:38:36.998 --> 00:38:39.438
I just think that Base is super well positioned.

00:38:39.617 --> 00:38:46.878
Not only the team they have the ecosystem, they have attracted builders like us, that feel attracted so they can attract and retain builders.

00:38:47.378 --> 00:38:50.827
But also the strategy they have pursued is so intelligent.

00:38:50.978 --> 00:38:53.027
The bullseye focus on the builders.

00:38:53.038 --> 00:38:55.717
They know if they focus on the builders, the rest will come.

00:38:56.018 --> 00:38:56.967
And they've been doing that.

00:38:57.097 --> 00:38:59.438
And consistently giving them results.

00:38:59.938 --> 00:39:03.768
And then they got Coinbase backing them up and Base doesn't have a token yet.

00:39:04.268 --> 00:39:06.568
And when I say they don't have any plans for token launch.

00:39:07.157 --> 00:39:08.307
They never said never.

00:39:08.358 --> 00:39:09.507
So one can dream.

00:39:09.807 --> 00:39:10.788
Do they need a token?

00:39:10.947 --> 00:39:11.608
It doesn't matter.

00:39:11.788 --> 00:39:13.248
We'll keep building on Base anyway.

00:39:13.797 --> 00:39:17.887
My advice, if you want to build on Base, just come on in, start building or creating.

00:39:18.327 --> 00:39:24.887
If you're a creator like videos and stuff on Drakula app on Moshicam, whatever, there's many.

00:39:25.188 --> 00:39:26.177
I'm not a creator myself.

00:39:26.177 --> 00:39:29.538
So I don't know where to go, but there's at least these two, I know.

00:39:29.697 --> 00:39:32.697
But there's games, DeFi Aerodrome is huge.

00:39:32.998 --> 00:39:34.588
Moonwell is huge as well.

00:39:34.887 --> 00:39:40.297
I think latestly with AI agents virtuals, Virtual Protocol is huge as well.

00:39:40.438 --> 00:39:42.458
1B plus valuation.

00:39:42.668 --> 00:39:51.847
So yeah, they've been doing the right things, makes you wonder in a bit over one year what they've achieved, what they're going to achieve in five, right?

00:39:52.097 --> 00:39:58.518
Do you think they are the right chain in terms of scalability and you've never faced any scalability issues with Talent Protocol?

00:39:58.818 --> 00:40:15.157
We had a few back in the day, but their team was incredibly supportive, and they have this metric every week they try to improve scalability, so I think their team is very strong at the technical level and they are OP stack aligned.

00:40:15.447 --> 00:40:17.807
They are Ethereum aligned, which we like.

00:40:18.088 --> 00:40:22.967
We were there like, Celo was layer one now it's moving to a layer two on the Superchain.

00:40:23.467 --> 00:40:25.347
So they're Superchain aligned, which is good.

00:40:25.898 --> 00:40:29.568
I don't think they will have issues there, but let's see.

00:40:29.657 --> 00:40:31.557
Let's see what the time will tell.

00:40:32.057 --> 00:40:33.608
And one final question.

00:40:33.998 --> 00:40:37.418
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for Talent Protocol?

00:40:37.547 --> 00:40:42.438
How do you envision the platform evolving along the next upcoming years?

00:40:42.688 --> 00:40:44.228
Internally we have our targets.

00:40:44.728 --> 00:40:45.557
They're very boring.

00:40:45.557 --> 00:40:46.938
I'm not going to bore you with those.

00:40:47.137 --> 00:40:56.677
Externally, you want to be like, widely known, wildly and widely known as the go to place for any talent.

00:40:57.117 --> 00:41:06.757
Whether you're an indie actor and you're building something you can count on us, whether you are a recruiter, an app, it doesn't matter really.

00:41:07.108 --> 00:41:21.617
I would say, an easier way to put this, envision this, because the way we build, building in the open transparently, we're totally open to integrate with platforms like LinkedIn or Indeed, just say the word, let's go.

00:41:22.117 --> 00:41:23.777
We're not competitors.

00:41:23.858 --> 00:41:24.887
We are, and we aren't.

00:41:24.887 --> 00:41:32.047
We are in the sense that our tech is better, but we aren't in the sense that I wish they would use our data and our tech.

00:41:32.347 --> 00:41:37.858
That would be a nice one if LinkedIn, a few years from now, we're like, Oh, Talent Protocol maybe we should collaborate.

00:41:37.858 --> 00:41:41.018
And we're like, okay, let's see if that makes sense for us.

00:41:41.478 --> 00:41:43.547
But that would be a nice one to see that.

00:41:44.047 --> 00:41:44.568
For sure.

00:41:44.838 --> 00:41:50.648
And whether I'm an indie hacker or app developer or founder, where can I find more about Talent Protocol?

00:41:51.168 --> 00:41:52.318
Talentprotocol.com.

00:41:52.617 --> 00:41:53.318
Just go there.

00:41:53.777 --> 00:41:56.797
you have links to the docs in there to start building.

00:41:57.097 --> 00:42:03.288
If you need an API key of the request in there as well to start on building, it's quite simple.

00:42:03.458 --> 00:42:03.927
The API.

00:42:04.327 --> 00:42:07.137
I think the most interesting data point is the builder score.

00:42:07.632 --> 00:42:09.523
But people have been using others as well.

00:42:09.523 --> 00:42:12.483
Whatever fits your goals, we're here to support you.

00:42:12.782 --> 00:42:13.992
Are you guys also on Twitter?

00:42:13.992 --> 00:42:15.012
And very active there?

00:42:15.103 --> 00:42:15.362
Yeah.

00:42:15.503 --> 00:42:15.693
Yeah.

00:42:15.693 --> 00:42:15.873
Yeah.

00:42:15.873 --> 00:42:16.983
Quite active on Twitter.

00:42:16.983 --> 00:42:19.012
The farmers are hunting us.

00:42:19.512 --> 00:42:20.592
They don't get it, man.

00:42:20.592 --> 00:42:24.072
It's this latest episode we had with, Sybil situation.

00:42:24.123 --> 00:42:28.733
Immediately we started getting Sybil farmer abuse, but they don't get it, man.

00:42:28.742 --> 00:42:31.663
They're dealing with a bear market surviving team.

00:42:31.713 --> 00:42:32.523
This is a joke.

00:42:33.023 --> 00:42:35.333
This is actually good because we use that in our favor.

00:42:35.333 --> 00:42:37.233
We say, Oh, we're getting attacked by these guys.

00:42:37.233 --> 00:42:39.362
It seems like we did the right choice.

00:42:39.663 --> 00:42:40.983
We called the right shot.

00:42:40.992 --> 00:42:44.112
So it was like, thanks for signaling that, as well.

00:42:44.112 --> 00:42:45.373
So they didn't get it.

00:42:45.512 --> 00:42:46.282
But it's a business.

00:42:46.282 --> 00:42:55.672
I just think that these people would be more happy and valued by society if they instead of doing that, they would be working on increasing their builder score prices.

00:42:55.672 --> 00:42:58.393
I think they will be more valued by society.

00:42:58.893 --> 00:42:59.293
For sure.

00:42:59.362 --> 00:43:01.623
And the Twitter handle is at Talent Protocol, correct?

00:43:02.123 --> 00:43:02.463
That's it.

00:43:02.523 --> 00:43:02.722
Yeah.

00:43:03.222 --> 00:43:04.313
For those listening.

00:43:04.612 --> 00:43:04.853
All right.

00:43:04.873 --> 00:43:05.253
Awesome.

00:43:05.282 --> 00:43:06.512
Pedro, that's a wrap.

00:43:06.652 --> 00:43:08.092
It was amazing to dive deep.

00:43:08.592 --> 00:43:09.333
Thank you, Pedro.

00:43:09.833 --> 00:43:10.132
All right.

00:43:10.163 --> 00:43:10.773
Thanks guys.

00:43:11.777 --> 00:43:16.927
Thanks for tuning in to the Chain Stories podcast, where disruptors become trailblazers.

00:43:17.208 --> 00:43:23.327
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00:43:23.617 --> 00:43:28.788
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00:43:28.947 --> 00:43:33.297
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