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Blockchain in Product Management
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8. Jason Roberts
HelloSugoi
Co Founder & CEO

9. Blockchain & Product
Management
By Jason Robert Trikakis

11. This Morning’s Agenda
• Who am I?
• Why decentralization?
• What is blockchain?
• What are smart contracts?
• What are tokens?
• Smart contracts use cases
• New considerations for PMs

12. Who am I?
• 10 years experience in the entertainment industry
• Attended LA’s first Product School cohort in 2016
• Co-founded HelloSugoi
• Founding instructor for Product School’s “Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies”
course

13. Why blockchain?
• A social movement rooted in the diffusion of power to create
a more fair & just society
• Experienced the problems facing artists
• Wanted to do something about it

14. Why “decentralization?”
• Because centralization (middlemen) hurts artists (users in
general)
• Spotify pays major labels 70% of revenue before artists
• Exploit artists to satisfy stakeholders (major labels)
• Misalignment of incentives
• Artists vs. Labels vs. Platforms (DSPs) vs. Consumers
• Centralized platfroms define the rules of the game

15. What is blockchain?
• Blockchains are economies that enable the exchange of
value peer-to-peer without a central authority
• Blockchains enable trusted transactions, enhanced security,
data immutability, & decentralization
• I define decentralization as the ability to transact digital
assets (money, IP rights, event tickets) without a central
authority (middleman)

16. What are smart contracts?
• Coded logic that runs on the blockchain aka “stored
procedures”
• If Bob puts a quarter in the vending machine then he will
receive one can of soda
• If Alice puts in one dollar bill, then she will receive one
can of soda & seventy-five cents change back

17. Smart contract use cases
• Event ticketing
• Ride sharing
• Supply chain
• Real estate
• Creative rights attribution
• Decentralized exchanges

18. By Matteo Gianpietro Zago

19. What are tokens?
• Tokens are a kind of cryptographic (virtual) asset. There are different kinds of
tokens:
• Work tokens: A service provider stakes (aka bonding/deposit) the native
token of the network to earn the right to perform work for the network
• Governance tokens: A sub-category of work tokens that typically represent
a vote or “influence” (e.g., one token, one vote)
• Security tokens: Represent traditional securities (stocks, bonds, derivatives)
wrapped in blockchain technologies (tokenized securities)
• Collectible tokens (Non-Fungible Tokens): Represent a unique virtual asset
(like CryptoKitties) & are not interchangeable (great for event tickets)

20. By Untitled INC

21. Blockchains are a blue sky opportunity for PMs

22. Opportunities for PMs
• Blockchains are a new technological innovation. Critical
infrastructure needs to be built before (in conjunction with) realizing
the promise of decentralized ecosystems. These areas include:
• Identity
• Scalability
• Governance
• Real world use cases (beyond a speculative bubble mentality)
• PMs have an opportunity to help solve these problems

23. New considerations for PMs
• Blockchains introduce new user behaviors (education is paramount)
• Buying crypto from an exchange
• Understanding centralized vs. decentralized exchanges
• Creating a wallet
• Managing private keys
• Hot wallet
• Cold storage
• Sending & receiving tokens/coins

24. • Need to be a polymath in:
• Securities law
• Financial regulation
• Markets
• Trading
• Game theory
• Incentive design
• Monetary policy
• Social psychology
• Governance
New considerations for PMs continued

25. • Working with smart contracts
• Immutable (or not?)
• “Build fast & break things” is bad
• Third-party security auditing is a MUST
• Gas fees
• Users pay to execute smart contract computation
• Connecting to MetaMask (Ethereum)
• Enables “Web3” in the browser
New considerations for PMs continued

26. • Working with tokens
• Tokens are a core feature of the product
• Ecosystem incentive design
• Tokens coordinate behavior via incentive design
• Token Engineering Frameworks
• Token Model Canvas (next slide)
• Seamless incorporation in to the product’s design & function
New considerations for PMs continued

27. By Balázs Némethi & DimitriDeJonghe

28. By Balázs Némethi & DimitriDeJonghe

29. • Identify & understand ecosystem actors
• Broader outlook when designing tokens (group traits vs.
individual traits)
• What are their incentives?
• What are their behaviors?
• How do they interact?
New considerations for PMs continued

30. • Aligning ecosystem actors around desires outcomes
• Define desired outcomes (solving a problem)
• How do you reward good behavior?
• How do you punish bad behavior?
• How do you leverage reputation (if at all)?
New considerations for PMs continued

31. • Building market-based (driven) communities
• Define a core ethos
• Example: Empowering artists
• Managing Telegram/Discord channels
• Monetarily based expectations (driven by emotion/sentiment)
• Managing speculation
• When moon? When lambo?
New considerations for PMs continued

32. • Bootstrapping a network: token distribution mechanisms
• Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
• Capped sale/Uncapped Sale
• Reverse Dutch Auction (novel idea)
• Airdrops
• No token sale
• Targeted “smart drops”
• Curved Bonding/continuous token sales
• Dynamic pricing/distribution based on demand
• Plays on FOMO
New considerations for PMs continued

33. • Financially incentivized network effects (Robert Metcalfe’s Netoid function)
• Token sale bootstrapping of primitive networks (ICOs & other token generation & distribution
mechanisms)
• Willing a network in to existence based on finial speculation (monetary reward now/technological
revolution later)
• Token as a social (network) signaling mechanism (tribal)
• A “badge of honor”
• Indoctrination
• Personalization
• Organizing & facilitating meetups
• Token holders drive network innovation (decentralized vs. centralized decision making)
New considerations for PMs continued

34. • UI/UX sucks
• Onboarding new users can take up to 20 steps & 30+ minutes
• Private key management is a vulnerability
• Lost your private key? Sorry, your funds are gone forever
• How do you inject Web3 in to your browser?
• MetaMask (it sucks and needs to be easier)?
• How do you batch transitions?
• How do you educate new users?
• Modal windows
• Clippy?
New considerations for PMs continued

35. By someone hilarious (source unknown)

36. To conclude
“The network effects businesses of the future will be organized
not as centralized for-profit corporations built on extractionary
business models, but rather as decentralized token-based
economies with incentive alignment between network owners
& participants.”
- KJ Erickson from “The Future Of Network Effects:
Tokenization and the End of Extraction”

37. Thank You

38. Hit me up on Twitter
@hellojason83

39. www.productschool.com
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