Women In Crypto | Ep. 49

Ty Smith0:00

What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Crypto Marketing Podcast. I'm Ty Smith. With me is Liz and, for the first time, Amara. We are covering a pretty interesting topic today: Women in Crypto. I've been excited for this episode for a while now. We have two of the great women leaders of Coinbound here as well. We're going to dive into a couple of things like interesting projects that are women-led in crypto, where women fit into the crypto industry as a whole ecosystem...

Ty Smith0:35

...and then some advice for women that are trying to get into the crypto industry, some tips to make the process a little bit easier. And then, of course, from the marketing standpoint, I'd like to address if there's anything to know about marketing to women with your crypto marketing. So, Liz, why don't we kick it off with you? What projects out there that you're aware of that are women-led are you interested in?

Liz1:05

Yeah, I think that there's a ton of different projects from NFTs to women-led projects, events, networking, and then also more on the technical side. I'm not personally as read-in, but those exist for sure. There's such a wealth of opportunity here for women in crypto. It's really unlimited. The NFT project that first comes to mind is World of Women. That's really taken off, especially to show powerhouse types of women, like women bosses. I kind of hate that word because women can just be bosses without 'women' in front of it, but I know that's a very popular phrase.

Liz1:47

I think that there's a ton of others like Crypto Connect, women-led, women-run, which allows people to gain access to crypto events and resources. Again, so many different things that are out there that are a little more women-driven, led, run. I know that within crypto, sometimes gender can be interesting. Like, you look at a lot of people's Twitter PFPs, and you would never know if it's really a guy or a girl. And so, I think that crypto offers actually a wealth of opportunity to women, and not even the way of saying like, 'Hey, I'm a woman.' It's just, 'Hey, you can be here,' and it's not necessarily bent on that.

Amara2:38

Oh, sorry, I was just going to say that's the great thing about the world of crypto is like there's no discrimination, there's no time zones, there's no borders. Everybody can invest, and it's peer-to-peer, so really you have that kind of freedom where it's not really judging you based on your gender. It's just the freedom to be and participate.

Liz3:01

But there are still those more feminine things that people can gravitate toward. Sorry, Ty, what was that?

Ty Smith3:07

Yeah, I think the ethos of crypto is so much about equality. I mean, just our generation as a whole, who are really the driving factor behind crypto, are so much about equality that if there is, there's kind of this stigma that tech is more male-driven. I feel like crypto was at some point more male-driven, but I think there's a huge, booming group of awesome women in crypto that are really moving the needle on us as an industry towards adoption.

Ty Smith3:37

Crypto Connect is another perfect example of that. It's a women-led organization. They are non-profit. They focus just on education and meetups. I've been to a couple of their meetups, all of which were awesome. I think that's an awesome initiative that kind of just gets the whole next generation of women in crypto excited and involved. And even just people, not even just women in crypto.

Liz4:01

Yeah, exactly. And there's such a wealth of opportunity there. It's incredible. I definitely would agree that it was a little more male-dominated, but there's been such a shift. There's so many huge people in crypto that are really making waves. Some people that come to mind, like Haley Lennon, Wendy O, Aubrey Strobel from Lolli, they're really hitting the ground running and making huge impacts.

Liz4:23

And then so many others. A woman, actually I'm blanking on the name, but she's now the lead at Crypto Twitter. And so, you have a ton of women coming into the space that are really taking the lead here in the realm of crypto.

Ty Smith4:47

Yeah, I want to touch on World of Women as well because, obviously, for those people that aren't aware of World of Women, it's a profile picture NFT project. It's all women. Art is awesome. But I think they were able to find so much success because there was this totally underserved group of women that wanted to get involved with NFTs, that were really interested in NFTs, but almost every major profile picture, like avatar NFT project, is male. Even Bored Apes, which isn't even a person, it's male clothing, it's male hats.

Liz5:26

It's very masculine. Yeah.

Ty Smith5:29

And if you're a woman, you're not going to change your profile to be a masculine photo. You're going to give off the wrong impression. People are going to think you're a man if you have a man, like CryptoPunk, for example.

Liz5:42

Yeah. And that's not always, again, it can be either way. There's some NFTs that I've seen that are definitely more masculine that I'm like, 'Oh, that's just sick, and I would totally put that as my PFP.' But something that's always going to be a push forward is just representation. And so, for me, I was looking at actually Crypto Cannabis Club, CryptoCannaClub, and I wanted to get one of those because I enjoy the cannabis world. And I didn't find any NFTs that spoke to me. I didn't find any that I really related to or that represented me, that I would want to put as a profile picture.

Liz6:25

And so, I think that there's so much opportunity for more just representation. And I think that's why World of Women and projects like that are really going to be at the top, at least for now, until there's other ones like that. Because there's so much talk these days about gender, masculinity, femininity, what's for a woman, what's for a man.

Liz6:55

And I think that crypto really breaks that zeitgeist. But, again, people do still want representation. They want to see them represented in a place that they want to be in, too. And so, I think it would be awesome to continue seeing more feminine and women-based NFT projects, and just projects as a whole, because then that is something that, at least I personally, and Amara, maybe you feel similarly, can then be more gravitated toward.

Amara7:21

Yeah, I do think that crypto does maybe come off as a male-dominated industry. And coming from seeing really all these, as a digital strategist with Coinbound, and I see all the projects that are looking for marketing opportunities, a lot of them are really male-dominated. It is actually really refreshing when you do see women, or it is surprising. I'm like, 'Oh, this is a girl.'

Amara7:45

But it really is an opportunity for women to go and gain independence and financial freedom and learn and actually come together and empower one another. And as crypto shifts from being just about finance, it's going into the NFTs or the creativity part of it, so that even gives women more of an opportunity to really have a voice and be different in the space. So, I definitely think there's a lot of potential and opportunity.

Liz8:09

Yeah, and there was such a movement this year with the workforce. Like, tons of women had to leave their jobs because they couldn't get childcare, or they couldn't afford it, or they didn't trust it with the pandemic that was going on. Whatever the reason, they needed to step away from work to be able to care for their children or the household.

Liz8:41

And something that's so cool about crypto is a lot of it's virtual. All of us work from home, and I think that that is going to really empower women to come back to the workforce and be involved and be able to be financially stable because it really does offer that wealth of opportunity. And I think that women and people of color, honestly, are really representatively underserved. And so, the more projects and things that come out that serve them, there's going to be so much opportunity there for so many different people to have financial growth and autonomy.

Amara9:13

Yeah, that's a really good point actually about the flexibility.

Ty Smith9:17

There still is so much, I think we're being as honest as to say that women is the majority of crypto because it certainly isn't, but I've been looking at the analytics of a lot of the websites and the websites of our clients as far as demographic data and gender. Years ago, everything was 90% plus male. And I look at the stuff now, and it's still the majority is male, but it's closer probably to 82%, 85% for a lot of the sites that I look at. And you could see that, even beyond the data, you see that at going to NFT NYC and the Bitcoin conferences. It's becoming more popular among everyone rather than just young, well-to-do males.

Liz10:01

Yeah, no, I totally agree. It really is going to create a level of quality, like it's going to help elevate people's quality of life and accessibility.

Ty Smith10:14

Definitely. Where, because of course marketing podcast, I have to tailor this to marketing somewhat, do you feel there's any specific tips that people should keep in mind or things that people should keep in mind when they're planning on marketing to women or just marketing in general to keep in mind for marketing to women in crypto?

Liz10:34

Yeah, you know, it's really, times have changed since the old-school advertising to women. There are still people who really love more feminine design, but I think that if you represent women, you don't really have to market to them. It's not like women and men speak a different language. Well, actually, sometimes we do, but I think for the most part, it's just have that representation. Like, work with both female and male influencers, have things that, design-wise, are just a little less gendered.

Liz11:10

Maybe make things that, if you want it to be more inclusive to women, be more inclusive to women. Have people in your Twitter Spaces, have representation on your team. There's so many little things that, it's not like you have to be obvious and say, 'We're marketing toward women.' It's not really in what you say, it's in what you do. And I think that that will be a very defining factor moving forward for a lot of different projects and workspaces in crypto.

Amara11:46

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Some projects that I come across, they are just like, it's like the Crypto Gentlemen, or it's just like all avatars of different men. Those are things that you really are going to see that it's just clearly catered towards men. So, there's definitely a way to find that middle ground and make it kind of neutral without screaming, 'Oh, this is just for women,' unless you want to be marketing towards women, but there definitely can be a middle ground.

Ty Smith12:11

Yeah, I would say the numbers of men to women would suggest, unless you, I can't imagine, I don't think I've ever seen a product in crypto that's specifically to men or specifically to women, but I do think that the branding of a lot of these companies that we see does definitely, if you were to go to a branding agency or branding expert, they'd be like, 'All right, you're clearly here targeting 20 to 35 male, American.'

Ty Smith12:38

And I think that held true over the past few years as far as who you're probably going after the most. But I think people should still pay attention to the fact that there's now a huge segment of women and a huge segment of people that aren't just the standard, young, white male that's engaging with crypto and can be marketed to successfully.

Liz13:02

Yeah, and then, especially from my stance, like everything is about know your audience. And it's so easy now to create multitudes of different audiences, and you can reach them in different ways.

Liz13:27

And so, it really also depends who do you want your audience to be. You can narrow it down so into certain niches that you can serve so many different people in different ways. And it's not just like, 'Hey, here's one giant segment to serve in crypto.' There's all these little different niches that are growing, especially within just even the different products and stuff. Like, there's certain people who are going to gravitate toward different things. And I think that we'll really start to see that grow over the next few years, and even have just in the past few months.

Ty Smith13:53

Let's move on to some advice for women that are trying to get into the crypto industry. Do you, as two women that work in crypto, is there any tips you think you can recommend to women that want to get involved?

Amara14:05

I was just going to say, so, I mean, first of all, getting involved in crypto when you don't know anything, that's already like a step forward because it's like where do I start, what is this, I don't really understand. But also kind of being the lesser of the whole in the space, like you want to really actually find a community where you feel kind of accepted or welcomed, or where things are broken down for you.

Amara14:30

So, like as I've been seeing, there are a ton of different networking groups that are just working out and empowering and educating women, and kind of like having this funding. There was Global Women in Bitcoin, and then there was SheFi where they have crowdfunded funds to help educate these women. So, it's really centered towards just getting them crypto literate, and it's just empowering women and helping them kind of break into that space. So, that's definitely one way of doing it.

Liz15:00

Yeah, and then, it's not like women have just one space in crypto. Like, if you're more technical or product design or something on that end, there's room for you there. I say just, what Amara said, building off of that, always having a really good group of people that you can learn with is so important. That's how I got into crypto.

Liz15:25

It was like 2015, 2016, and everything was like really revving up in a big way, I think, for one of the first times. And I had a lot of guy friends who were really into it, and I was like, 'Okay, I need to know more about this because they're making a lot of money.' And so, and I, too, would like to make a lot of money.

Liz15:55

And, I'm like a little more conservative in my risk-taking methods, but, they were so open, and we still to this day have like group messages where we talk about like new projects, new NFT projects to watch for, new DeFi projects to watch for, new platforms to try. It's all about taking it beyond do your own research because everyone can Google something. It's having that network to talk about it with to gain the understanding of it.

Liz16:25

And so, when you really pair those two together, I think it's super powerful. I now have like a bunch of girlfriends that are getting really into crypto, and we have group messages where they'll ask like, 'What is DeFi?' There's so many simple, like foundational knowledge type topics to go over with people that they just don't know yet. And I think that having community is so key, and that's what's really cool about crypto is the community is really really big here.

Liz16:52

And so, also resources. Coinbase has tons of resources. Every marketplace at this point, I think, has amazing resources and knowledge bases to learn from. There's a bunch of newsletters that's like crypto for dummies. There's a bunch of different guides that you can find on like Twitter, Telegram, Discord.

Liz17:15

And then, as for actually getting a job in the space, network, talk to people, use your community. I joined Coinbound because I knew Ty previously. And I think I had asked you like a while back if there were any opportunities, and there weren't at the moment. And then you hit me back up to work on some Twitter accounts, and now here we are, what, like, I don't even know, seven, eight months later.

Liz17:45

And it's just really like leverage your network, use your network, talk to people. I know after the pandemic, no one really wants to do that. But simply talking to people, showing interest, and honestly, throwing yourself in the deep end is what's going to get you into this space. And there's tons of job opportunities, LinkedIn, that guy, Pomp, has like a job listing, Coinbound is always hiring.

Liz18:15

There's tons of different places to join this industry. And also, if you don't see something that fits you, dive in yourself. Start a TikTok channel, start talking about news and education within crypto. You can build your, there's so much room here to build your own table, to build other people's tables, to do both at the same time. Sorry, that was super long-winded, but that's a very female thing to do to apologize for talking a lot. Fitting for the women in crypto episode.

Ty Smith18:42

I feel like the women in crypto that are currently in crypto, I have found to be extremely supportive of getting other women into crypto. So, I think the whole networking with other women in crypto specifically might be really impactful, especially with these organizations like Crypto Connect.

Ty Smith19:02

All right, I think that was awesome. Thank you, Amara and Liz, for breaking that down for us. Going to wrap this up. If you found any value in this, please remember to subscribe to us on YouTube, rate, recommend us to a friend, and that will be it for now. Thanks, guys.

Liz19:19

Awesome. Thanks.