Let’s Talk Community Growth in Web3 Marketing with Kelsey McGuire, CGO of Shardeum

Ty Smith0:06

What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode. We're going to do another exciting interview today. With me is Kelsey McGuire. Kelsey is currently the CGO at Shardeum, previously CMO at CoinFund, head of experiential marketing at ConsenSys. A couple of cool roles there for sure. Another New York native, which is good to see.

Ty Smith0:22

I was just listening to a couple of podcasts. I love this space because everyone is such media creators in the crypto space more than most industries. You can kind of hear a lot of the questions founders deal with, like, 'Are these issues my issues or is it the whole industry?' Stuff like that, you can battle test a little bit or see a little bit better based on the content people put out. But across the board, it seems like a lot of people feel like the advertising in the crypto industry is coming back a bit, and we're feeling the same. So it's a good week over here.

Ty Smith0:50

I walked through a very, very high level of your background, but give me the long-form version. What have you been up to the past, let's say, 5-10 years, and then what got you into Web3? I'm curious about as well.

Kelsey McGuire1:34

Yeah, absolutely. So, I've been in marketing, growth, branding, strategic partnerships, that whole big umbrella of different activities for a pretty long time now. I started in the fashion and beauty industry a long time ago, but was really interested in the idea of pivoting over and working in tech. I initially explored some opportunities with consulting and took some small clients on in the startup space. But around 2017, I'd say, some of my friends that were in banking here in New York City started really getting a little concerned about something called blockchain and Web3.

Kelsey McGuire2:15

So, I had a few conversations with them, and I figured if it's something that they're worried about, it's probably something worth digging into and learning a little bit more about. So, I gave myself a little bit of a crash course at that time with any of the resources that were out there, and ended up going through the interview process at ConsenSys and started out focused on community strategy for ConsenSys, the big Ethereum-focused organization. So, it was kind of like that initial education and community layer, and then also had the great privilege of working with some projects called spokes, which were basically, in a way, their portfolio companies. And that was everyone from Gitcoin to MetaMask, and so you get a lot of great exposure across the ecosystem.

Kelsey McGuire3:21

I ended up then working with an L1 called Celo, now they're an L2, I believe, on some of the strategic partnership marketing over there before jumping over to CoinFund to work as the CMO, which was a really cool experience. I hadn't been on the VC side before, and I was really looking at overall CoinFund and their positioning, but a really awesome part of that was working with a lot of our different portfolio company founders. I'm still in touch with some of them today, and we can bounce ideas and have some of those types of conversations. After that, I ended up, like you mentioned, over here at Shardeum.

Kelsey McGuire4:26

So, it has been a great journey. I'm the CGO now, and that's another sort of, I would say, kind of big umbrella role that encompasses marketing, communications, branding, sort of some of those regional strategies. I'm focused on parts of the US right now, and I get to, I have the privilege of sort of visiting some of these different conferences and making these different connections and understanding really what the community needs and what they're interested in, and how to really start providing that for them.

Ty Smith4:54

Awesome. At Shardeum, is there also a CMO, or is that kind of like Shardeum's version of it, CGO?

Kelsey McGuire4:59

Yeah, it's Shardeum's version of the CMO, I would say. And it's always interesting, and I would love to hear your thinking on this too, when you consider a CGO role versus a CMO role. I've found that also having the CGO title can sometimes encompass a little bit more of the sort of broad strategic level work that I think CMOs do anyway. And it can help facilitate and open some doors when it comes to different types of connections and speaking opportunities in a way the CMO title didn't.

Kelsey McGuire6:04

Because I find that some reporters or conferences, they don't want to hear from what they consider to be a marketing person, which is an unfortunate corner to just be put in and sort of ignored, where growth and strategy somehow get their attention a little bit more when honestly a lot of it is the same work. Have you found that to be the case at all, or have you seen a big difference in those roles in these conversations?

Ty Smith6:24

I find it largely is like just a semantics thing, at least in the experience that I've seen. But I honestly do like the title CGO better. I feel like it's a better fit than CMO, at least as far as the responsibilities that that role tends to have. Marketing versus growth, marketing is kind of like a component of growth, but it's not the whole picture. And typically what companies are relying on the CMO or CGO for is growth, whether it's marketing-related, whether it's biz dev, which can arguably be not considered a marketing task.

Ty Smith7:35

With our employees, for example, rather than assign tasks, I'd rather assign goals, and I feel like growth is more aligned than marketing is with what's trying to be accomplished. But yeah, I feel like it's one of those things that the internal culture of the company tends to dictate, but they tend to be relatively similar.

Kelsey McGuire7:42

I find that to be the case too, and I am definitely on the same page with you when it comes to sort of looking at goals over tasks as well as a way to really sort of manage a team and keep people excited and engaged. So, I think it's a great way to look at things.

Ty Smith7:56

Yeah, definitely. Explain Shardeum. Obviously, it's a blockchain company, meaning it's going to be over the head of most general population people. What's kind of the explain-like-I'm-five version?

Kelsey McGuire8:07

Yeah, absolutely. So, for folks that aren't really familiar with Web3 or blockchain, Shardeum, this is kind of the complicated side, is a highly scalable, EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain. And it's like, okay, what does that actually mean? A Layer 1 blockchain, I always like to think of it as this is the foundation. Like if you're thinking about building a house, you need to pour the right type of foundation, and different foundations can have different types of quality. So, if you're five and you're thinking about building a house, or you want to build a big Lego tower or something like that, you have to have the right sort of mat, or maybe it's one of those ridged pieces to start building on. And what we like to think of is we provide that kind of mat or ridged piece, so no matter what creative idea you have, you can build it on Shardeum.

Kelsey McGuire9:28

So, say you want to build a big tower with a moat and walls around it out of Legos or blocks or whatever system you have, you'd be able to do that quickly and securely and really without limits, where perhaps some building materials and foundations wouldn't quite be able to come together in the same way, or it might fall down, or you might have to compromise on not building the moat or building the wall and just building the tower, or maybe you just build the wall and the moat and you can't build the tower at all. So, we really want to address all three of those different areas, and that's called the trilemma, which is scalability, security, and decentralization. So, we want all of those components to be able to come together without limits for the folks that are building, as opposed to just having to choose one or two.

Ty Smith10:47

Very cool. What are some of the more exciting, I guess, developments in the Shardeum community the past year?

Kelsey McGuire10:51

Yeah, it's been a really, really, really big year for us. We've had this amazing project called Backpacking India. It's part of our Proof of Community initiative. So, Proof of Community are these amazing little meetups that the team puts on all around the world. We've had over 225 Proof of Community events in over 85 cities. And these are get-togethers that can span from VC-focused to technical and builder-focused to just sort of community get-togethers, let's have a drink and chat and support each other, that are focused on the Shardeum ecosystem.

Kelsey McGuire11:59

So, that's a really massive development for us. We are also able to close a strategic round of 5.4 million in this past year that will help kind of spur these growth efforts that we have. And we're heading towards mainnet, which is a massive thing for us. So, we're doing all those exciting kind of prep work on the growth and marketing side, and we're looking forward to hitting that milestone early in the new year.

Ty Smith12:23

Very cool. And what, I guess, got you into Shardeum as a member?

Kelsey McGuire12:27

So, there were some really interesting projects that I was working with and some of the portfolio companies with CoinFund, and the team had reached out to me from Shardeum a couple of times. I ended up digging into the project a little bit more, and for me, it was really seeing that intense focus on community, like that incredible number of people in the Discord community that are active, like I think I mentioned, 500,000, 600,000 folks in there. The different meetups, the Proof of Community events that I mentioned earlier, that it really felt like this was a project that was getting the kind of exciting growth and traction that you want to see as someone in our line of work, along with the right types of values. And by that, I mean a very community-oriented approach instead of just say, I've seen some projects that are focused more on something that feels much more transactional, like it's just a paid ad strategy, which I certainly don't recommend for these types of projects. So, it got me really interested, and once I started meeting the different team members, I was like, 'This is something really special.' So, I decided to take the plunge. I think it's been about five or six months now.

Ty Smith14:02

Nice. Congrats. You definitely, based on your resume, have a lot of experience, more definitely way more than most, in the marketing for blockchains space. How do you feel blockchain marketing, specifically to blockchains, differs from both the Web3 space as well as just kind of like more traditional industries? What is kind of unique to blockchain marketing, and what do you prioritize?

Kelsey McGuire14:57

So, I think the community element is fairly unique and to the point where almost community above a lot of other types of what you could consider to be marketing activities. I think it's something where I've seen more in the traditional space and even kind of just broader tech space that folks will sort of hone in on, like I mentioned earlier, some of the paid advertisements, these sort of very traditional-feeling activations, some of those more corporate approaches to things that again feel much more transactional. And I see in Web3, it really does have to feel much more community-oriented, organic, and you're really looking for how these different community members want to see themselves and really creating something that's a part of someone's identity, and really focusing in on how you can tap into that and actually serve a purpose through this like strong educational and community-oriented foundation.

Kelsey McGuire16:27

I think another difference is really that intense focus on education. You really can't just kind of rest on your laurels and assume people know what you're doing, know what you're talking about, or will automatically trust any part of what you have going on. You really have to assume that you're starting from almost square one with a lot of different people and audience segments, and making sure that they actually understand that you have a clear value prop for them. So, those are some of the kind of main differences that I'd say that I've seen when I compare my experience outside of Web3 with what I've been doing for the past five or six years now.

Ty Smith17:00

Cool. So, a little bit of, I guess, a more difficult question, but I want to list a couple of different marketing strategies and hear how you would prioritize them for a company like Shardeum or any blockchain company for that matter. But community, branding, SEO, paid advertising, content marketing, how would you prioritize those?

Kelsey McGuire17:52

So, I think that if I had to start at the beginning, you're probably not surprised to hear community. I think a big part of community and building community are those in-person events, like I mentioned, our Proof of Community initiative. That has been a huge, huge thing for us when we look at what's impacting our growth and what's really serving those communities. It is those in-person events. So, those really work together very closely for us.

Kelsey McGuire18:15

I'd say branding maybe coming in at number three, but again, it's like all of those feel like when you're doing them correctly, it feels like this seamless sort of holistic push because all of these activities are so beautifully intertwined into this one sort of moment and sentiment building exercise for say Shardeum or whatever project you're working on. I think content marketing maybe coming in right after that. It's sort of a supporting piece when it comes to those branding, community, real-life in-person events.

Kelsey McGuire18:39

But you know, I've seen that sometimes fail to reach people in the same way that those other pieces, when done correctly, really truly can. SEO is important. I would say that comes in right under that because I think that how I've seen people engage with SEO, like I said, absolutely important. In terms of day-to-day what we would spend our time on when we're say growing in a new region as a new project, SEO tends to rank slightly lower just because we're not, we want to be of course search optimized and all of those important pieces, but a lot of times we're reaching people before they would really just look for us, if that makes sense.

Kelsey McGuire19:59

I think down the line, as you grow as a project, that becomes increasingly important, though. So, part of this really does depend on where you are in your sort of growth trajectory. Slightly more mature projects should be really much more focused on SEO than some of these early, okay, we're just building out our community. The only way they're probably going to hear about us is through these one-on-one interactions just beginning, versus down the line where you're like, 'Oh, I want these larger institutional partnerships, for example,' or 'I want to make sure that when someone searches for like these specific Web3 keywords or specific things around scalability or whatever your focus is, that you want to come up.' But there is a certain point where you should flip over more of your efforts to SEO.

Kelsey McGuire21:15

And then probably unsurprisingly, given what I've been saying, is paid advertising comes in last for me. I see a lot of different service providers looking to charge projects for paid advertising services and encouraging people to throw a lot of money at paid advertising. And I just don't see it working in the way that they want to, especially given where we are with the industry as Web3 marketing people.

Kelsey McGuire22:27

The times where I've seen it work okay were in the past, and it was a highly targeted regional push directly connected to an event that was happening that week. For example, if there's like an event invitation plus an educational material kind of bumped together, and you're paying to make sure that people that are in that specific area or attending that specific conference are seeing it, then you can maybe get a little traction there. But overall, it's something I tend to stay away from.

Ty Smith22:40

Got it. Makes sense. Yeah, I would assume pretty similar rankings as well, especially with the SEO piece. I imagine the people that are like building on a blockchain like Shardeum have interacted with a blockchain they want to build on before they're just typing in like, 'What blockchain should I build on?' I imagine that's not how the process goes. That ranking there of priorities, is that how you'd say your time has been spent and your resources have been spent focused at Shardeum?

Kelsey McGuire23:00

I would say yes, it is roughly in line with that. We did invest and we were focused on SEO as well, just given where we are at this point, but overall, it does reflect that because of our community focus, the Proof of Community events that we have going on. I also consider we have a great newsletter, and that kind of feeds into it's also content, but that community building initiative that we have because the newsletter will also point to real-life events, opportunities to connect with other people, and that's been a really great tool for us and a worthwhile way to spend time.

Ty Smith24:10

Yeah, it's very interesting. I asked you obviously to prioritize all the different things, but they blend together really well. Like content marketing, like a newsletter, for example, is going to help with the community piece and get people aware of in-real-life events. Like it really is difficult to do one without the other. So, I kind of apologize for my somewhat ridiculous question now.

Kelsey McGuire24:38

Oh, that's okay. It's good to be able to pick out the pieces, but I feel like if you're doing them right, they should feel like they're blending together seamlessly, at least from the outside.

Ty Smith25:30

Yeah, it's so difficult nowadays, especially in the Web3 space, to look at any kind of marketing campaign or project and not look at it as a combination of strategies rather than just one. That's what I found, at least. So, like KPIs, what are the KPIs that you're tracking and the team are tracking?

Kelsey McGuire25:42

So, something I always think is really interesting, and KPIs that we also look at, are the website visits and as much data as we can get there broken down by region and the percentage increase month-over-month. So, that gives us a really great view into which regional strategies, of course, are performing, which messages are working best for which community groups that we're connecting with, and so on. So, that's really a great one for us.

Kelsey McGuire26:51

Not specifically a KPI, but I always think it's interesting when you can see which parts of the website people are interacting with the most. I've seen that in past projects that I worked with, and it can really give you some insight into where people are getting really, really frustrated with how you're presenting your content or really what's missing and what people are looking for. So, it gives you some ways to start addressing that. Also look at newsletter sign-ups. I think that this is a really important one, and when you do newsletters right, it's something that's exciting for people to see, and you want to see that growth month-over-month.

Kelsey McGuire27:23

It shouldn't be something that people feel like they're bombarded with. Like I know that you probably are also this way, I've subscribed to a lot of newsletters and then every single time they arrive, I delete them. So, of course, we want to make it through to people and make sure that we're providing enough value, enough of that kind of community connection, enough relevant ecosystem news that is Shardeum-related and, of course, beyond, so that people do open and that someone like even you and I would want to open it as well.

Kelsey McGuire27:24

...although that would be kind of exciting.

Ty Smith27:28

Yeah, Super Bowl ads obviously are crazy expensive. I don't remember the exact number, but to the tune of a couple million dollars per segment. But the what was it, the DigiDaigaku, the NFT project that they bought a Super Bowl ad this year, the amount of earned media generated for that outside of just obviously the impressions you're getting from the ad was crazy. Honestly, with unlimited budget, it's not probably a bad ROI kind of event in my opinion.

Kelsey McGuire27:29

SEO is important. I would say that comes in right under that because I think that how I've seen people engage with SEO, like I said, absolutely important. In terms of day-to-day, what we would spend our time on when we're say growing in a new region as a new project, SEO tends to rank slightly lower, just because we're not, we want to be, of course, search optimized and all of those important pieces, but a lot of times we're reaching people before they would really just look for us, if that makes sense.

Kelsey McGuire28:19

I think down the line, as you grow as a project, that becomes increasingly important, though. So, part of this really does depend on where you are in your growth trajectory. Slightly more mature projects should be really much more focused on SEO than some of these early, okay, we're just building out our community. Really, the only way they're probably going to hear about us is through these one-on-one interactions just beginning, versus down the line where you're like, oh, I want these larger institutional partnerships, for example, or I want to make sure that when someone searches for like these specific Web3 keywords or specific things around scalability or whatever your focus is, that you want to come up. But there is a certain point where you should flip over more of your efforts to SEO. And then probably unsurprisingly, given what I've been saying, is paid advertising comes in last for me.

Kelsey McGuire29:09

I see a lot of different service providers looking to charge projects for paid advertising services and encouraging people to throw a lot of money at paid advertising. And I just don't see it working in the way that they want to, especially given where we are with the industry as Web3 marketing people. The times where I've seen it work okay were in the past, and it was a highly targeted regional push directly connected to an event that was happening that week. For example, if there's like an event invitation plus an educational material kind of bumped together, and you're paying to make sure that people that are in that specific area attending that specific conference are seeing it, then you can maybe get a little traction there. But overall, it's something I tend to stay away from.

Ty Smith29:48

Got it. Makes sense. Yeah, I would assume pretty similar rankings as well, especially with the SEO piece. I imagine the people that are like building on a blockchain like Shardeum have interacted with a blockchain they want to build on before they're just typing in like, 'What blockchain should I build on?' I imagine that's not how the process goes. That ranking there of priorities, is that how you'd say your time has been spent and your resources have been spent focused at Shardeum?

Kelsey McGuire30:09

I would say, yes, it is roughly in line with that. We did invest and we were focused on SEO as well, just given where we are at this point. But overall, it does reflect that because of our community focus, the proof of community events that we have going on. I also consider we have a great newsletter, and that kind of feeds into it's also content, but that community-building initiative that we have because the newsletter will also point to real-life events, opportunities to connect with other people, and that's been a really great tool for us and a worthwhile way to spend time.

Ty Smith30:41

Yeah, it's very interesting. I asked you obviously to prioritize all the different things, but they they blend together really well. Like content marketing, like a newsletter, for example, is going to help with the community piece and get people aware of in-real-life events. Like it really is difficult to do one without the other. So, I kind of apologize for my somewhat ridiculous question now.

Kelsey McGuire31:01

Oh, that's okay. It's good to be able to pick out the pieces, but I feel like if you're doing them right, they should feel like they're blending together seamlessly, at least from the outside.

Ty Smith31:11

Yeah, it's so difficult nowadays, especially in the Web3 space, to to look at any kind of marketing campaign or project and and not look at it as a combination of strategies rather than just one. That's what I've found, at least. So, like KPIs, what are the KPIs that you're tracking and the team are tracking?

Kelsey McGuire31:27

So, something I always think is really interesting, and KPIs that we also look like look at, are the website visits, and as much data as we can get there broken down by region, and the percentage increase month-over-month. So, that's it gives us a really great view into which regional strategies, of course, are performing, which messages are working best for which community groups that we're we're connecting with, and so on. So, that's really a great one for us. Not specifically a KPI, but I always think it's interesting when you can see which parts of the website people are interacting with the most. I've seen that in past projects that I worked with, and it can really give you some insight into where people are getting really, really frustrated with how you're presenting your content or really what's missing and what people are looking for, so it gives you some ways to start addressing that.

Kelsey McGuire32:12

Also, look at newsletter sign-ups. I think that this is a really important one. And when you do newsletters right, it's something that's exciting for people to see, and you want to see that growth month-over-month. It shouldn't be something that people feel like they're bombarded with. Like I know that you probably are also this way, I've subscribed to a lot of newsletters, and then every single time they arrive, I delete them. So, of course, we want to make it through to people and make sure that we're providing enough value, enough of that kind of community connection, enough relevant ecosystem news that is Shardeum-related and, of course, beyond, so that people do open, and that someone like even you and I would want to open it as well.

Kelsey McGuire32:48

So, that's a really great one because it kind of can gauge the health of that email list of people that were open enough to sign up for it, but maybe now are feeling a little less interested, and that gives you a lot of data around how you can address it, including like which segments in the newsletter people are clicking on. Is it just like a little maybe a contest? Is it an event invitation? Is it an article that you're linking to? Any of those types of pieces can give you a lot of insight into what people are thinking about and what people care about.

Ty Smith33:14

Yeah, I feel a lot of the same way with the newsletter piece, whereas if I'm really excited about a company or something, I'll join the newsletter and then almost immediately as soon as I get it, I'm like, 'You know what? This really isn't the medium that I want to be contacted with, with this.' Yeah, that's funny. I think that's why, I think especially our industry would prefer to be like marketed to via something like Twitter or X, I guess we have to call it now. A lot of KPIs you mentioned are are on the website. Are you using just Google Analytics? Do you use something more a little more like, I guess, enterprise level, or or do you like the kind of tried-and-true basics of Google Analytics?

Kelsey McGuire33:45

Yeah, I'd say tried-and-true basics for now. We've been able to get all of the sort of information that we need from that, as well as from really having that close connection with the overall community, which is really what helps us shape the the website, like I said, the newsletter, the contents, and just really how we're adding value whenever we can.

Ty Smith34:03

What do you think of the new Google Analytics, the GA4, which they migrated to like six months ago?

Kelsey McGuire34:08

You know, like we have been fine overall with it, you know. I, I don't have like a super strong, I'm just kind of excited that it's available and that we're able to use it and engage with it, but don't have a really strong opinion either way. What about you? Is it something that's been causing you some grief over there?

Ty Smith34:27

Yeah, a little bit. I understand what they're trying to do. They're trying to essentially build like, they're trying to essentially integrate like Google Analytics and Looker Studio, which is kind of, for anyone that's not aware, like the reporting ability. Like you can build like graphs and charts and all kinds of stuff like that and kind of customize what your data looks like. But in the process, they basically scrapped anything helpful on like the real-time analytics side, and now data is so delayed. It used to be like you had data within like an hour, it would show up in your, you know, non-real-time reports, and it's like 12 hours now. So, it's been a little frustrating.

Kelsey McGuire34:56

A work in progress, maybe.

Ty Smith34:59

It's the kind of thing that like I'll just be like angry and grumpy about while I'm using it sometimes, and I'll I'll mention it to my fiancee, and she's like, 'What the hell are you talking about? Like that's such a, like no one cares about that.' As a marketer, I guess I take it too seriously. As a whole, you've had a lot of success on Discord. I think your your membership on Discord is just under, I think, half a million. I think 450,000 was what I saw. Is that right?

Kelsey McGuire35:26

Yeah, we've actually grown past that now. So, it's been very, very exciting. I think we're over 500k now.

Ty Smith35:36

Wow. What do you think was, you know, played a role in that? That's obviously, you've got to be one of the larger communities on Discord at that point.

Kelsey McGuire35:43

We are. And it's due to the amazing work by the team. Like I mentioned, I think I, I joined Shardeum around five or six months ago, and the numbers were already extraordinary. So, they have been really just boots on the ground, organizing those proof of community meetups that I mentioned, and really getting people excited about Shardeum, which is no strong or small feat, especially pre-mainnet.