Charles Lin on What Monad Foundation Looks for in Founders

0:00Kinsa Durst Welcome to Panoramic Content Suite Singapore Edition. We have backdrop here of MBS alongside Token2049. Super excited to be here. And you have exciting guests today here with us, Charles from Monad Foundation, working on the ecosystem team. Yeah, thank you for taking time out of your busy day to be here with us.

0:20Charles Lin Yeah, thank you for having me.

0:21Kinsa Durst And to kick things off, you know, let's start with an intro. I would love to hear about yourself, your background, how you ended up at Monad today.

0:29Charles Lin Yeah, so I work at Monad Foundation on the ecosystem team, mostly cover consumer and a bit of trading as well. So before this, got into crypto initially in 2020, during that cycle. Initially got into it, like I went to Berkeley, so I knew a lot of the founders there and worked with them on some projects, did some trading myself. And then joined, ended up doing investment banking for two years, focused on consumer internet, software and semis. Subsequently joined an AI startup in San Francisco. And then we sold that to Salesforce. And then, yeah, got a call from Monad Foundation saying, hey, you know, they've got an opportunity here. And so decided to join full time.

1:11Kinsa Durst Amazing, impressive pedigree. So leveraging, you know, your experience, the network you built, how are you converting that into your current work at Monad Foundation?

1:22Charles Lin Yeah, I think a lot of the translation that comes over is, I think an ecosystem role is very diverse in the sense that you talk to a lot of founders, you talk to investors, and you also have to have a framework for evaluating different teams. Since, you know, we have a lot of resources and time that we have at the foundation. And the question is, how do we dedicate that to the best teams, right? So, yeah, I mean, coming from a sort of investment banking background, you have a sense of how to evaluate startups and teams. And then at an AI startup, you get a sense of what an operational, excellent team looks like. And so combining these two allows you to, you know, sort of evaluate what teams might, you know, potentially do better than others in this market.

2:05Kinsa Durst Yeah, Monad essentially is an infrastructure project, and you guys want people to build on top of it using your tech stack. And kind of your background is perfectly aligned with this in a way where you're picking out best teams or teams that would have the most promise or success leading into a successful product on top of Monad.

2:25Charles Lin Yeah, I mean, we're an L1, so we definitely look for a lot of quality projects, you know, strong founders to come and build exciting things. And I think, you know, our team is very technically excellent. So, Category Labs has been innovating. We had Open, which is a reflection of conference, and we just announced privacy that's gonna come quite soon. And then we have Cadence, which will allow block times to go even lower. So yeah, we're always innovating on the tech stack. And I think on the other end is how do we compliment good founders with a really good tech stack? Right, right.

2:56Kinsa Durst Yeah, happy to dive into the details of the tech stack, how Monad, you know, stands ahead of other blockchain L1s. But before that, kind of wanted to do some little bit of fun chatting around what you're covering, which is consumer apps and maybe some AI and others. But, you know, collectibles is the talk of the town right now. Yeah, curious to just pick your brain on what you're seeing, what you're most excited about. Are there anything you can share in terms of what's coming up next on on top of Monad?

3:24Charles Lin Yeah, so collectibles is a very, it's a big area with good product market fit. If you look at the general landscape of the market, you obviously see a Collector Crypt, right? Courtyard doing very well. They're probably doing about $150 million each in volume a month. And usually the RTP is around like 85 to 90%. So they're doing good revenue off of that. It's a big area with product market fit. I think you see a ton of companies are now heading into this space, right? Coinbase recently launched the collectibles, right, Pokemon cards, and every company is trying to get like a sort of piece of the pie. I think, so that's the general market landscape. What I'm more interested in is the verticalization of this landscape, because it's not just about pulling Pokemon cards, it's about this idea of like entertainment commerce, which is you're essentially effectively opening a pack that could be, or a pack, a box that allows you to have an element of surprise of something that's like value.

4:22Charles Lin And I think that combination of the chance of getting something of a high value is something that's very interesting for the next generation of users. And so I think that's what I'm interested in. So not just Pokemon cards, but you see people now doing like sports cards. There's founders doing jewelry. I think there's a lot of different sectors. Sort of like you think about Craigslist and how that spawned Airbnb, how that spawned Uber, all these different companies, I think a similar moment will happen for collectibles. And for Monad, I think there's obviously, we're a very consumer-focused chain. We have Arepa, which is a TCG company, and then we have a couple others on the pipeline that are gonna launch quite soon. So definitely keep posted for that.

5:06Kinsa Durst Nice, nice, yeah, we've actually hosted, speaking of Tance, a company called Tance yesterday, that is launching, not just picking out and opening up Pokemon packs, but adding a social layer to it. You can delegate packs to others to open. So for example, they're working with a lot of streamers where the viewers can delegate packs for them to open, but the viewers get to keep the packs, but have this social experience together. There's a lot of social elements that can be added into this fun pack opening experience, which I think is cool, but sure. Yeah, we'll see a lot of variations and experimentation of this vertical expanding.

5:43Charles Lin Yeah, I think on the social side, that is the biggest interesting feature that I think FOMO is the first one that kind of unveiled that, hey, this could be a flywheel that can bring on a ton of creators and users at the same time. And then you look at, now Robinhood came out with social, right, about, I think it was like two months ago, where you can share your trades, and I think the similar thing will happen for collectibles. I'm more interested in what flywheel actually makes sense for collectibles. I don't have the exact answer, right? I don't think anyone does, and that's kind of up to the market to decide, but it needs to be a good flywheel of, hey, either creators are maybe putting in some of their items into a pack, right? And then they can bring on their users and their followers to open it, or there has to be some sort of element that gets people to keep coming back.

6:29Charles Lin Otherwise, I think a simple sort of social feed is not enough to capture the same audience. I mean, FOMO, I think, makes a ton of sense, right? Like KOLs, influencers, right? Like you sort of post your thesis on a coin, it goes up, then your followers kind of come in and participate, right? So I think the flywheel makes a ton of sense there, and we've yet to see what that looks like for collectibles.

6:51Kinsa Durst Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, so it sounds like you guys are focusing a lot of B2B2C kind of networking, or bringing on these builders and businesses on top of your chain. Given the context of Token2049, I was curious what some of your conversations look like when you talk to these founders. What are they kind of, what are they looking for when they look to come on chain? And how do you say, you know, portray a message saying, "Hey, Monad would be the best fit for your team, your product, come to us."

7:23Charles Lin Yeah, I think there's several elements to it. I would say first is you want a chain that is technically a performance. You know, on Monad is with a combination of like asynchronous execution, parallel execution, you have very minimal block times of 300 milliseconds, finality is about 600 milliseconds, EVM compatible. I think you want to also have Category Labs, which is a great team that's developing the blockchain, coming out with privacy, coming out with different innovations. I think that's very important, especially like in a sort of quantum future, you want to be able to see how you can survive. So we're very dedicated to that. And secondly, I would say is a chain that is also more incredibly neutral. I think when you look at a lot of these sort of teams and other chains in the landscape, you could be building something and they could all of a sudden create like a similar product and compete against you.

8:17Charles Lin I think for our stance is that, you know, we want different types of founders to come and we will not be the ones to compete with you on the things that you're building. You know, ultimately we want you to succeed. So I think that's a pretty strong stance that we take. And thirdly, I would say is a team that is really just with you through every step of the way. So how we support teams is, you know, we all come from a sort of venture investing background. So we're very well connected to like funds, to, you know, different creators, to info providers that we can help founders grow. So we're very well connected there. We have a world-class security team. So we're always there to sort of be with founders every step of the way. And we make it very clear from, you know, the first meeting that, hey, like, if you're building this on Monad, we want to make sure that you succeed.

9:04Charles Lin And obviously we want to also make sure that from the foundation side that these are teams that are, you know, having great traction, founders that have the right concepts to sort of continue to build because ultimately it's like, you know, you could have, you should be delusionally optimistic about your building, but at the same time, you'd have good judgment about execution.

9:23Kinsa Durst For sure. Yeah, that sounds like there's a lot of founder can benefit from working with you guys, watching with you guys. That said, is there something that you're most interested in or you're looking for when it comes to founders that you want to shoot that interest out there? What do you, what vertical are you, do you see the most potential or promising, et cetera?

9:43Charles Lin I think.

9:44Kinsa Durst Or do you just like Pokemon cards, you know?

9:46Charles Lin I mean, I like Pokemon cards. I think obviously if I was a founder today, I would be cautious about building another sort of gacha Pokemon card app on a chain. I think that space is very saturated. I would say that if you're going to build something, you need to obviously be good execution wise, right? Like you should have now with the tools, tooling with like AI and all this stuff, I think you don't have an excuse to not like, to sort of like execute slowly. Like you should be able to do things at a quick pace. Second is you should be, again, like you should be delusionally optimistic about what you're building and have conviction, but that doesn't mean that, you know, you should be having at the same time, good judgment about every like step that you're taking.

10:32Charles Lin And then I'd say thirdly is, I mean, I think we welcome all founders. Obviously like everyone has a different skillset. And ultimately I do like founders that are just very like scrappy, very like high energy, just trying to do their most to make the most of their situation. For sure.

10:49Kinsa Durst And you guys work with global founders, right? I know you're based in the US.

10:53Charles Lin I'm based in New York.

10:53Kinsa Durst New York, okay. I think you're seeing Singapore talking with founders here. Yeah. We're at KBW as well.

10:59Charles Lin I wasn't, but we had a lot of team members there.

11:01Kinsa Durst Gotcha, gotcha. So working global founders.

11:04Charles Lin Yeah.

11:04Kinsa Durst Nice. Cool, cool. I go back and forth as well, East and West. It's great to have blockchain as a kind of global financial infrastructure.

11:14Charles Lin It is, yeah. I mean, like different regions have different types of founders. And I think one thing that's interesting is you look at a lot of like, you look at San Francisco, right? It's like all the AI founders are there now. New York is a lot more like FinTech. There is maybe a bit more consumer there. And then Asia, I think, has a lot of great talent around execution-wise, like trading. I think there's a lot of founders, like obviously Singapore, right? You look at Hyperliquid, all these like founders are very concentrated here. So there's different types of founders and different skill sets in different areas, which is like, I find this like pretty interesting to think about.

11:44Kinsa Durst Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's all the great founders I met past week are as we're fascinating to talk to. Yeah. So I do also like to touch on the buzzword AI with all the guests here. Curious to hear your thoughts on AI. What are you guys doing with AI?

12:05Charles Lin Super intelligence. You mean super intelligence?

12:08Kinsa Durst Super intelligence, yeah. I think everyone's curious in trying to figure things out. No one has really unlocked super intelligence, how to work with it, especially on chain yet. Yeah, yeah. Curious to get your thoughts on it.

12:20Charles Lin I mean, I think it's very broad, right? There's many different angles to this question. I would say my general take is that, I mean, I think that we live in a bubble. And so if you look at the stats, we're like only 98% of households have access to AI. I think it's very, very early, which is why like Muse has done super well, is that there's a great distribution to different types of people who are just using these tools for the first time. And so I would just sort of bucket it into more like sophisticated use of AI and then just more general like daily use. I would say as a founder, as a team, I mean, everyone that I know that is basically using AI to some extent, right? To further their startup. I think like Hermes agent is very popular. There's a lot of like buzz, for example, is like Slack, but like with AI enabled usage.

13:08Charles Lin So like there is a lot of ways that founders can implement it. And I think if you don't do it, then you're behind. But I mean, that's like a pretty consensus take at this point. I would say, I mean, on the non sophisticated use is just daily usage. I would say that on that end, like there's just such a big unparentated market for consumers to use AI. I think it's still like quite early. Yeah. I think that's a broad take. I would say there is a lot of ways to differentiate with it. I think just simply prompting it is not, is a skill in itself and the way that you configure it, teaching it your skillset to review different things. I think is all that is a differentiator.

13:48Kinsa Durst Yeah, I think at this point, it's like you either build in AI or you build with AI. It's unavoidable if you use it or build in it. So yeah, so an experimentation going on. But coming a few years, we're very excited about the on chain ecosystem. I think we're given Token2049, we're seeing a lot of suits and ties, institutions coming on chain too. That ball has been rolling and it's gaining momentum. I think it's unstoppable at this point. We've had other EVM chains, institutions, for example, Ethereum Institutional, co-founder here on the podcast yesterday as well. Are you guys also working and looking into the institutional side of things, working with these FinTech folks or other kind of government organizations, et cetera?

14:39Charles Lin Yeah, so that's been a pretty big focus for the foundation as well. I think it's good to play like both sides of it where you have a good institutional focus and also a focus on earlier stage startups and founders. So on the institutional side, we've been quite focused on that. We had a, like Sirius X was a sponsor or open flagship conference. And then we have been talking to a lot of different, basically just a lot of like B2B motions across the board. We have like a pretty globally distributed BD team. So they work, we have teams that are focused on talking to AI startups. And then we have teams that are talking to sort of like more of the payment side. I think payments is a huge focus as well. Like we acquired Portal led by Raj, who was previously the ex-head of crypto at Visa. So we're very focused on the payment side of things.

15:26Charles Lin And then yeah, we just continue to keep talking to new businesses, institutions as they sort of move on chain.

15:33Kinsa Durst Yeah, incredible. Well, if these builders want to get in touch with you or the Monad team, how can they best do that?

15:39Charles Lin Yeah, I would say you can reach out to any of the Monad team that you see at the conference. I think everyone's just very nice and open to chatting. Jamming about like different ideas. And then, yeah, I mean, if you want to reach out to me, I guess I could plug my talk.

15:54Kinsa Durst Yeah, we'll add some link below. Yeah, we can add a link below to that.

15:58Charles Lin But yeah, we're always just super open to chatting. Yeah, I think the team is great, great background to be able to help sort of anyone go through the most important stages of a startup.

16:08Kinsa Durst Incredible, highly recommended. Thank you for taking your time out of the day for us.

16:13Charles Lin Thank you.

16:13Kinsa Durst So to see what's happening next.

16:15Charles Lin Cool.