variant

Founders

The most interesting question at the moment to me is: "What can only be built with crypto?"

Now we’re playing @Perl with honor to highlight some of our actual bangers...
Let get started with https://warpcast.com/li/0x6c276c36 
More below 👇
- @li

investing & writing about consumer tech since 2016. FID #30. hosting /web2web3 

https://www.lisnewsletter.com/

0to1

Been doing Farcaster Fridays: meeting with builders in the ecosystem all day. Energy is contagious. 

My favorite part of focusing on seed is thinking through the early idea maze, trying new product experiences. 

Reach out if you’re getting started with building headless first, clever client idea, or other.

first-check crypto vc, investing in an internet that turns users into owners. some of our channels….. /variant /0to1 /web2web3

Farcaster

Request for startup: 

$DEGEN-focused Farcaster client

A FC client that treats $DEGEN as a first-class citizen for feed architecture and content recs. $DEGEN is a powerful latent curation mechanism but right now isn't surfaced in a digestible way.

Variant owns $DEGEN. From what I saw onchain, we bought on DEX before the private sale happened. I am very bullish on community currencies in decentralized social :)

https://warpcast.com/jesse/0xae3e3e4f

The year is 2030: "L3s" have replaced REST APIs as the  default way of interacting with third-party software products.

Mental model for L3s: open APIs with the benefit centralized performance/cost, interoperability, audibility, reproducibility, and some security fallbacks.

Wrote about how consumer apps are now increasingly competitive and resemble entertainment, with users wanting to try out the latest thing and moving on.

For founders, the strategy can be to build transient apps, rather than aiming for a "kitchen sink" giant:

https://www.lisnewsletter.com/p/multi-hit-wonders

New Essay: New Opportunities in the Farcaster Stack

tldr: "When you're offered a seat on the rocket ship, don't ask what seat." Farcaster is a rocket ship. Starting a company in the ecosystem is, in effect, building your own seat. Lots of new opportunity!

https://variant.fund/articles/farcaster-stack-opportunities/

https://warpcast.com/alanadlevin/0x8446d2d8

> When a new go to market strategy becomes clear, a wave of innovation and opportunity often follows. In 2024, you can go to where the wallets are.

https://jessewalden.com/go-where-the-wallets-are-headless-marketplaces/

2019: Reddit tried community currencies & failed
2024: Farcaster memecoins working as community currencies. 

The diff is cultural, in part.

But also wallet-native social enables memecoins to be a first-class part of the product experience (e.g.tipping $DEGEN, claiming via Frame, etc) 

@variant likes these memecoins

Lessons on points from building in web2: 
https://www.lisnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-points-programs

In the weeks B.F. (before frames) I had been working on an essay about the opportunities at different layers in the Farcaster stack

@jesse left this comment on it (check the date)

Frames launched Jan 26th

https://warpcast.com/alanadlevin/0x3f569fc6

if you thought the NYC Frames Hackathon 1.5 weeks ago was cool, I highly recommend joining /tacotuesdays 

it's kind of like that, but with tacos

https://warpcast.com/alanadlevin/0x5331a281

Builder energy is clearly back. Quick recap of the Frames hackathon yesterday at the @variant office in NYC

Sharing highlights + some favorite frames in the replies below

https://warpcast.com/alanadlevin/0xc3ffe065

App layer tokens have largely failed to sustainably grow products/networks, and tokens are understandably kinda seen as a category error.

@li & I have a new idea oriented around tokens for loyalty/retention vs. growth; feat. Farc as an ex :) https://variant.fund/articles/progressive-ownership-model-application-tokens

We can keep going for a while like that...