Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Maika Isogawa, co-founder and CEO of Webacy, helping you protect your digital assets, crypto, social media, et cetera, for anything that happens. Maika, I'm so excited to chat with you today and obviously uncover more of this is wonderful, exciting, such new world of, of, Web3 and cryptocurrency and blockchain technology and, and how just different founders are, are working on similar.

All, all necessary products that I think will allow users to be more seamlessly involved in whether it's using blockchain technology or having it within their lives. But before we get into all that good stuff, what's harder? Is it running a startup or performing in front of thousands of people?

As I know you're, you're a former circus day sole acrobat. So which one's more difficult?

Maika: It's apples and oranges. First of all, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to speak with you today. Totally different. I think physically circus delay is much more challenging than being a founder, especially now cause I just sit in front of my computer all day.

But everything else, being a founder is harder for sure.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And one particular, was the, like catalyst to get involved in Web3. I know you were working a few different companies before you had exposure at Microsoft and, and some larger companies. And, and what in particular was exciting about Web3 technology and, and kind of had you fully go into it?

Maika: Yeah, my first exposure to crypto was actually in 2014. So it was kind of early on. I wouldn't say the earliest, but it was pretty early. And I thought that the blockchain technology itself was super cool. Growing up internationally, I had run into a bunch of issues about things like financial freedom and being able to transfer your money from one place to another with all the, the guardrails and stuff.

So I thought that it was really promising. So I followed it for a while. I played around with it, but I didn't seriously get into it until pretty much 2021 when the company started. I had played around with things like NFTs and DeFi, but not very seriously until 2021.  

Julian: Yeah. And, and what in particular while you were going through this discovery process?

Well, I guess actually question how is the, the, the, how is blockchain technology viewed in, in different parts of the. and obviously we kind of see it in one perspective, being in the US and kinda US companies are building. But I'm assuming it has a different connotation in other parts.

What's similar and what's different from what you've seen in your experience?  

Maika: Yeah, so far I'm really impressed by the internationalism of crypto. I think it's built to be an international kind of technology in the first place. And you're really seeing that there's companies that are building awesome things in.

Asia's absolutely crushing it, especially in gaming. But even within Asia, from Singapore to Japan, there's kind of different dynamics of crypto and what it means to, be in blockchain or Web3 or crypto. And so as you travel or as I've traveled, I've seen a lot of different takes on it. But it's, it's kind of, interestingly, we all agree upon similar dynamics around it, and I think that's just part of being in the ecosystem, being on discord, being part of the same DAOs, that kind of group C.

Julian: Yeah. And what in particular about, the technology? I'm always curious on, on kind of where it is in the state of its it, it's, its build is is it halfway through? Is it, is it adaptable from kind of an everyday standpoint? And, and I'm talking about like, we don't even think about the technology that's being, under the, the devices we use.

Where is it at in your opinion?  

Maika: I think we're so early, and this is something that's way overstated in the crypto space is we're early. I think you could put it on a t-shirt and make some money. But just like how with ai, I thought, a decade ago I thought that AI was supposed to be way ahead of its time now.

And now we're starting to see things like chat, G P T, which is still impressive, but not quite what we thought. I think we're in the same boat with blockchain. So it, it's still very early. There's still a lot of issues regarding security and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I think we're really in the beginning of that ecosystem.

Julian: Yeah. And so d during this discovery process, while you're seeing the technology from a different lens and, and kind of traveling internationally and, and being in different places, what about the technology and what about, web, what was the inspiration behind working on, kind of the layer that add the protection to the digital assets that we have?

And I guess an another question, not only what the inspiration was, but what, what assets are we unaware of that, that need that high level protection that might not be getting it now?  

Maika: So I think our digital identities are becoming way more important than we kind of give it credit for. So if you think about.

What, like 50, 40, 50 years ago, the assets that people had to protect and pass on and so on, it was your house. It was maybe your wife and kids, depending on what country you live in, those are your assets that you had to protect. But now we are starting to see things like your social media and your digital media.

Just this last week, I had a fake account on Instagram, like, pretend to be me. Right? And this is a piece of your digital identity that you need to. Because it has some sort of philosophical or tangible value, and then you get into crypto and then you have monetary value tied to it. It's kind of the first true digital asset that is a, you can kinda exchange for dollar value.

Mm-hmm. . So I think that's part of why crypto became so popular so quickly is people just wanted, wanted to make some money. But in that sense, you start to think about your identity differently. It's not just. Yeah. Paperwork that you have and your ID card, but it turns into this whole digital online presence that you have.

And so, although Webacy is starting by protecting your crypto, the vision is that eventually everything might be on chain. Things like your house deed, things like your your graduation papers from college. And so that's what we're building for, is that future.  

Julian: Yeah. And, and again, you know what, what I guess is how secure, I guess, are our current crypto assets.

I think we all believe that the blockchain technology and, and kind of all the layers and all the validation that needs to have kind of creates this this sense of, of, of protectiveness. But what in there, I guess is, is not as protected or needs to be kind of, increased in the level of protection that, that it's connected with.

How secure are the assets that we actually have?  

Maika: The concept of the blockchain, blockchain technology as a technology is very secure, right? That's the whole point of it, is to have this ledger that can't be changed. That is like group consensus. Distributed. Yeah, decentralized. All of that is true.

Mm-hmm. , the actual application of it, as we've seen in the news in hacks on Twitter, it's incredibly insecure at this moment based on how people use it. So for the most part, I'd say like 90% of hacks that happen are due to user error . Not due to user's fault, right? Like someone might be coming to them with a fake link and so on, but the user clicks it, the user signs something.

Yeah. And then the, on the other hand, you get protocol issues or bugs or vulnerabilities that cause the massive draining mass draining of these protocols. And so, there's a lot of work to be done in the space, which is why Webacy is building in it, which is why there's a bunch of companies spending a lot of time and focus on it.

But it really, it can't grow and scale to the masses until the security issues figured out. .  

Julian: Yeah. And what's involved in making sure those issues are, are figured out? Is it a layer of, of technology over your assets or what are particulars legacy doing from a technology standpoint? In, in tandem with the assets you have to make it more secure and, and less accessible for.

Maika: I think there's a couple steps. Very first top layer like top of funnel is user education, right? Because majority, again, like I said, is people making mistakes. I've made the mistake myself twice, right? And I maybe will make in the future, who knows? Hopefully I won't. But definitely user education first and foremost.

And then second, I think actually the products that people are using need to be. From the security layer up, right? So having the right security practices, not even letting users click on things that could be potentially malicious to them, which would mean scoping down the speed at which we're building and exploring in the world.

So it's definitely a trade off and it's not something that comes naturally. So we, just like in the Wild West when people had no law, it's kind of the same thing that's happening here, but we're starting to see the regulation come in. Companies like ours are building technology layers that'll keep people from even making those mistakes in the first.

So there's a lot of players working to make the space better.  

Julian: Yeah. And from a regulation standpoint, how often are those like updated I guess, requirements how often are they released and and how much do you have to adjust to them as a founder to be in compliance with them?  

Maika: It's tough. I think, I mean, we know the American government doesn't move too quickly and I'm not knowledgeable enough at all to speak on policy and so on, but some of our advisors are really plugged in with them, so we rely on them heavily for anything that's, that's big, that's gonna affect us, but mm-hmm.

Particularly with the centralized exchange debacle that happened basically in 2022 which we're kind of just seeing the aftermath of, we'll see a lot of centralized regulation coming out in the coming months I think.

Julian: Yeah. And what in particular, the company is about a year and a half old. And what in particular is, was difficult or maybe challenging about around building it and getting it up to speed, getting the people involved in your network that, that people might not know of or might not be aware of as founders.

What was that kind of part, what was that experience like? Getting everything kind of up and running and, and within the space and also it, it looks as, On paper that you're new to the space as well. What kind of I guess a learning curve did you have to tackle to, to become knowledgeable in the industry?  

Maika: When it comes to challenges as a founder, especially as a crypto founder, I think there, there are too many to list . It, it's a very fun and rewarding activity and the process and journey that I'm on, but there's so many different things that you come across. So, for example, I come from an engineering background, but it's more traditionally web two.

And so building on blockchain, especially on Ethereum, you run into things like cost, right? It's, yeah, it gets extremely expensive also just even to test the products and you need to make sure you're testing the products thoroughly if you're gonna have users using it. So that's one. Another one is the barrier to entry for users is that I think the user pool is still quite small for blockchain because of that education barrier.

People just don't know, like 80% of people. That you talk to, don't know about crypto, don't, don't have a wallet, and so on. So there's that piece. And then the hardest part so far was probably, we started the company in 2021 Bear Market and the collapse kind of hit around middle of 2022. Right.

So you try raising a, around in a crypto startup as a small company in that kind of time zone. So those were some of the challenges for sure.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And what was the conversation like when you were raising money? What you feel was the most compelling reason to investors behind what you're building, what you, what do you think kind of aligned kind of your vision and, and kind of their motivation to work together?

Maika: I think the biggest thing was the need, right? If you look on Twitter today, there was a huge hack that happened literally like 10 minutes before I hopped on this call. Someone's a big influencer's wallet got drained. And so we'll see what happens after that. But every day on Twitter, somebody gets hacked, someone gets scammed.

We've talked to investors who have gotten their wallet drained because they clicked on something bad. Everyone just gets the reason why something like us needs to exist. Yeah, and it makes the conversation a lot easier.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And how is the crypto industry as a whole now, and, and how has it changed from, say the ftx, the, the chair and Luna collapse and all these other kind of, I guess, shortcomings of, of companies that maybe were motivated or had had motivation to build good technology and or maybe not.

What is the current state and what's changed? Is it mainly regulation? Is it how people are using the products? Is it how companies are working together? What in particular change have you seen? With all that news coming out and and, and with Covid and the pandemic and all the market kind of changes and things like that.

Maika: The biggest change I've seen is it kind of feels like we've cut the fat from the crypto industry. Cuz when, when the bull run was so, when the coins were valued so high and everything was so exciting and there was so much going on, you get a lot of people flooding into the space to, again, maybe not for the right reasons to bring in a bachelor quote, but they are here to make money or just to make a quick flip or something like that.

So what we saw, the bowl or the bear market in the crash and collapse of kind of the token value is that the people that are still here are very committed to the technology that they're building. They believe in the future of blockchain and they're really building for kind of a sustainable industry future.

Yeah. And so it's actually been really it's been a breath of fresh air cuz everyone I still talk to in the space is incredibly excited. They're building, yeah. They're focused. And they're, they're kind of grinding and. It's a good time to be here. People say that the best companies are built in the bear market and yeah. So that's what we're trying to do.  

Julian: I love that. I love that. And what was the building process like? Were you mainly focused on building the product and then getting people to adopt the iterating on it? I, is Webacy the first version of, of what you had conceived of building? And if not, what, what has changed or what changed to, to make you adjust to whether it was customer demand or, or something else?

Maika: Yeah, we've changed quite a bit and I've learned a lot as a founder about adjusting to market feedback, adjusting to user feedback and so on. It's a wild ride. It's been really fun. So, I mean, when we first started the company, our very first product was actually a crypto will. Right? How do you pass on your crypto assets after you die, which is still a huge problem today.

Yeah. Inheritance is a huge one and so we built a crypto will totally on chain. I think we were one of the first ones that were facing users and was fully functional. Yeah. And so with that tech we started building on top of that cuz the technology itself was useful for way more than just estate planning.

Estate planning is super valuable, but at this point we saw a lot of issues with security and our tech could help security. So now we adjusted and kind of expanded the company vision to be more about protecting assets for all pieces of life, not just after life. Yeah. And so that growth has kind of expanded our horizons quite a bit and it's been incredibly impactful for the people that we've been working with.

But yeah, you kind of just have to, especially early stage companies which we still pretty much are early stage, you can pivot and change and adjust as necessary to, to find that path.  

Julian: Yeah. And, and during that adjustment time, were you mainly focusing on that user feedback? Were you getting push from, your advisors to go in multiple directions and also when you're thinking about expanding the products that you service?

What's that kind of road mapping look like? I think we, we think a lot about building it in new products, in new areas, but we don't really know the mechanics behind what it takes, making the decisions, making the small incremental milestones for your team to kind of, not only accomplished, but also to show kind of measures of progress.

What's been that experience for you?  

Maika: Yeah. It's, it's been a mix of things. So I think when it, when it comes to making the right decisions, I won't know if I made the right product decisions until 10, 5, 10 years from now, right? Yeah. Or maybe sooner. Like ideally, I know my answer sooner, and that's based on data.

And so the company, just in the past few months with the release of a few of our other products, we're getting enough user data and user traction. Yeah. Allow the data to direct us in the right direction. Cause super early stage, you're working with a small beta test of users, so you really, like, maybe you chose beta users based on exactly who's gonna validate your opinion in the first place.

Right? You're not gonna make good sense. So you learn a lot. And so we're, we're getting to that stage where we have a ton of users now we know what the data's telling us, and we can adjust based on that. But when I, when we thought about how to expand our resources, one was demand, right? Where does security need to fill in the.

What do users need in the crypto self custody space now? Mm-hmm. . And then the other thing was kind of about being resourceful. So when you think about your everyday life, you like to reuse any. any extra resources that you have, right? So if you make coffee in the morning using the coffee grounds to plant your, your, the dirt in your coffee tomatoes in the backyard, and I use that as an, as an example cause that's what I do.

Yeah. We kind of have done the same with our tech. So we built these smart contracts that do one thing, that same application can be used across different like products and services. And so yeah, that's kind of how we re-utilized the tech that we've built. .  

Julian: Yeah. And, and for you, where, where does Webacy sit? Like, and how, what is my experience as a user? How do I interact with the technology?  

Maika: Webacy is completely non-custodial, so we allow users to bring their own wallet to us. We're not a wallet ourselves, we're not a vault. We're kind of the security layer that goes on top of your self. So within the crypto space, I'm not sure how crypto savvy everyone listening is, but there's custody, which is like your, your Coinbase, your kraken, your ftx.

If you happen to unfortunately use that in the past. And then there's self-study, which is where you manage your own keys. You hold the C phrase, so this is your meta mask, Coinbase wallet. Your ledger, Oculus. All of those fall into the self-study space. And Webacy, our technology can actually work with both, but right now we're focusing on helping the self-study space and the users there.

So as a user, you might bring your meta mask to us, and then you can actually set up the backup wallet, panic button, crypto will wallet, watch all of our products. Utilizing that, you don't need to move assets in and out. You don't have to lock anything up. It's a really good, easy to use product.

Julian: Yeah. Describe the panic button. It sounds like a very scary term. What, where does a panic button come into play? Is it like, after I take an action, I realize, oh no, that wasn't the right action to have taken. And then I, that kind of helps kind of, stop the process of whatever was going through. Like, what does this whole panic button or like inject button, I don't know what this.

Maika: Yeah, that's a, it is a little scary to think about a panic button. I think of that. The meme of the guy, like not sure which button you push when he's like sweating. Yeah, the panic button, there's a couple uses of it and I'm always amazed when users find new. Ways to use the products that we built for them that was not intended, but also helpful.

But the panic button in particular, we built this in case you need an emergency eject button out of your wallet. Yeah, because one thing about the space is that if your wallet gets compromised, you don't always know exactly what got compromised, how far into the wallet it got compromised. Are your seed phrases compromised or is it just a approval on a collection you don't know?

Yeah, and so usually the best course of action is just to move everything to a fresh wallet. But the panic button does. It lets you click one button and move all of your pre protected assets to the backup that you already designated. As yours. So the ba, when you set it up, you choose a backup wallet that you know and you own and you have control over already, so you know exactly where it's going.

You know it's going there all at once, and you can click it in a moment. And so it's very fast and it helps people save their assets if they think they're vulnerable to something.  

Julian: Yeah, it's amazing to, to think about the layers of, of protection that we do need and, and and that it is easy regardless of technol.

Not easy, but it's feasible that at some point it might be hacked or might be compromised in some way, shape or form. As a, as a founder what kind of keeps you up at night? What is really like, at the top of your mind each day as you're building, I'm sure you.

More responsibilities than one person can handle as, as most founders have, but what in particular is like constantly on your, your to-do list and that you're, you're constantly kind of keeping top of mind as you're building your company.  

Maika: Well, I'm up at night because my team is remote, and so we're all over so when I, when I'm at night, someone else is awake. I mean, anyways yeah, I think there, there's a lot of things about the space, right? So every new, every new hack, every new regulation, every new big piece of news could affect the industry as a whole. And so you never know when the ball's gonna drop and people are, let's say maybe a country just bans crypto entirely, right?

And so, yeah, you never know when that's gonna happen. So that's a, that's something you have to kind of plan for and plan against. Yeah. And that's is. Our focus on entire digital identity kind of gives us a good A good foundation for not just, not just crypto, right? It's more than that. It's more about your entire identity on chain and in the digital world.

But other than that, I have to just really be grateful for my team. That's awesome, right? Because anytime I can't do anything or I'm not good at something, someone on my team is very good at it. And that's the importance of hiring good people around you.  

Julian: Yeah. What has it been like hiring? Is it, has it been particularly challenging, especially in the Web3 space?

It's a newer technology. And, and requires, more recent skillsets. It's not as, I, I would say, as, as thoroughly vetted as some other, if you're a JavaScript developer, I mean, it's pretty easy to get a test online in a quiz and, and really validate someone's experience and, and you're obviously have an engineering background.

But what's particularly challenging about hiring is it finding the right personality, the right skillset those who share the right vision wouldn't. As a founder, I, I feel like this is something that comes up as, as a big area of strife is, is the challenge of. What has been challenging for you in particularly.

Maika: All of the above. You named a lot of them . Hiring is probably the one of the hardest things that I've had to do as a founder cuz it really, especially at such an early stage, every hire you bring on whether it be part-time or full-time, changes the culture of your company. It really affects and moves the needle on which direction you're going.

And so it's really important everyone you hire in the beginning and later on too. But yeah. Again, right. Web3 is kind of new. So a lot of engineers are, as long as engineers are sharp, I think it's something they can learn pretty easily. You see a lot of people upskilling into this space, so that's one.

But the other thing is, I think when we first started the company, there was a huge lack of resources, cuz crypto is booming. Everyone was getting hired and now unfortunately we're seeing giant layoffs. Right? So there's a ton of talent. suddenly in the pool with no job. And so I feel very lucky to be able to talk to a lot of TA talented candidates.

But yeah, I mean, we, we know there's more layoffs coming, so we're trying to be quite rigorous with who we hire, should we hire that sort of thing.  

Julian: Yeah. And as a founder, what's particularly challenging in terms of kind of, maintaining culture in your team? I know. , we all kind of think about culture and, and those values or some principles up on the wall and hope everyone kind of is aligned to that.

But what's, how do you kind of reinstill that motivation or, or that, that North Star for your team?  

Maika: Culture's really tough in a remote environment. I think if I could have my way, I mean, I love working remotely cuz it gives me so much freedom and it gives everyone on the team a lot of work life balance.

But I, I think it's really hard to build a con, a strong company culture when you're all separate and especially different time zones. So yeah, it's been tough also. But as a team, we try to meet once a quarter in person as much as possible. We do have people who are international, so it's harder to get them over.

But we do quarterly team meetings. We have regular team meetings in general, just weekly too, just to keep pace. But it's, it's tough. I think sometimes in the beginning, a culture is just the people that are in it, and that's okay. Right? And as a company grows, then you start to establish new things. So, for example, we just did an exercise about company values.

And it seems really cheesy and it feels really cheesy as you're doing it, but I think at the end of it, once you all get through it together the pain of it yeah, you come away with some bonding through trauma of coming up with some cheesy company values, , but they, they stick with you.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I always find, I agree, it's, it's kind of feels like a little bit of like kumbaya campfire moment esque, but for, for my experience, it really helps, at least for me, guide, guide my decision making in how I should approach a problem in, in how to kind of tackle it in this, in, in, in the right way or in the right direction that I think is in aligned with company values, as cheesy as it sounds.

I, I agree. When you come away with so much more direction from it. Tell us a little bit about the traction. How many people are using Webacy currently? What was the product growth from the last year and what are you particularly excited about this next coming year and, and what you're all looking to build And any, any new features or any new products that are coming out this year.

Maika: Yeah. So traction's actually been really amazing. I don't wanna act surprised, but I'm actually surprised by how many people are kind of just flocking to us organically. We haven't spent money on marketing, and I know there's ways you can pay people to, to get onto your platform, but we just don't wanna do that right now.

Yeah. Especially with the market like this. So we've just been letting people come to us doing Twitter spaces, trying to be more education oriented, because security's just undereducated. And so on the, we just released our newest feature called Wallet Watch last. So at the end of 2022, and this is a realtime notification service, so I think one thing that's lacking in the space is that you don't always know what's going on in your wallet unless you specifically go to, let's say, ether Scan, which is kind of like a, a log.

website and type in your wallet address and then look at everything that's happened in your wallet. You don't know what happens other than that if you check it or not. Yeah. You just kind of see reflections of it. And so what this service does is it sends you real world notifications, SMS and email.

One or the other, or both if you want, anytime something happens. So you, you sell an N f t, you get a text, you send a transfer, you get a text when it even hits the mem pool. Right. So it's before it's even confirmed, while it's pending, you. So it's pretty cool in this, we've seen a huge uptake of users and then they filter into our other products too.

Crypto will, it's a little more niche, it's more high value, like high net worth people, cuz those are the people who have stuff to protect. But we're seeing a lot, a lot of traction on these products.  

Julian: That's amazing. And what, what, if you think about kind of the overall, not even the overall market, but even internally, what are some of the biggest risks that Webacy faces?

Maika: Number one would be blockchain exploding in a negative way. So imploding. Yeah, I should say. Yeah. Yeah. So if blockchain disappears, then yeah, we're, we're kind of at the drawing board when it comes back to what we're gonna build. That's number one risk. Number two risk is, it's tough to say. We, I think we've kind of positioned ourself well because the technology is useful for all kinds of different applications, particularly even custodial solutions too.

That's something that we've kind of started exploring in 2020. So we're, we're setting ourselves up well, but yeah, that, that big one lingers in my mind is whether or not crypto's gonna be okay.  

Julian: Yeah. Unable. And yeah. Yeah. I, I can tell if everything goes well, what's the long term vision for Webacy?

Maika: Long-term vision is ideally being an integrated component about, in like within all the tech that people use in crypto, right? I don't even want users to think about their security. I want them to know this secure, just purely by being in the space. That's the, that's the long-term vision.  

Julian: Yeah. As a founder, if you had more time in the day, what would you like to spend more time on?

Maika: My company . Yeah. No, I mean, I, I try to do other stuff too, but Yeah. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of stuff like relationship building and just checking in with my team for example, that I wish I had more time to do cuz so many things come up, but that's something to definitely prioritize.  

Julian: Yeah. With particularly challenging about your job now that you hope to, improve upon or, or really get down to, to a science?

Maika: Ooh, that's a good question. I think. Kind of company pr, company marketing is a little bit tough cuz you're, you're balancing actually doing stuff with doing other stuff that people tell you you're supposed to be doing. Right. I want, I just wanna build cool stuff, but as a business you have to make money.

You have to be a company that has good brand and vision. And I think that comes with having good product, but it's a, it's a little bit of a magic art of both.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. If you weren't working on this, what would you be working on?  

Maika: Ooh, good question too. I really like media and entertainment and so I would probably do a docu, I've actually thought about this quite a bit.

I would do a documentary series that captive captures a bunch of old dying Japanese arts. Mm-hmm. And uh, skills like knife making, ta, Tommy bamboo floor making all like sake creation, all of that.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess, man, that's so, that's so fascinating that there's, that there's dying arts. Is there is there any, like, this is totally off topic, but is there anything that is, is in progress to kind of maintain or, or at least denote what those arts were or are, or continue the, the use of them?

Maika: I'm not quite sure. I, I would, I only say it's dying because just the population of Japan is declining so much that there's less people to kind of take over. Mm-hmm. , a lot of these arts that are more apprenticeship based. Yeah. Right. Like people need to make money to support their families so they move to the city, get a tech job and so on.

So it's just trending in that direction everywhere really. . Mm-hmm. , I, I know it's gonna continue in terms of families and within local communities. Mm-hmm. , and there have been a couple great documentaries that capture it, but mm-hmm. , I'm not plugged in enough to, to give you a solid answer on that.

Julian: Yeah, yeah. If I were to ask you, I, I know Webacy kind of focused on a few different assets and in this protection layer, which is amazing. What else is in, in crypto is, let's say not being addressed in terms of improving. The, the technology behind it or the experience, the user experience. What else kind of do you have an eye on in terms of another area of crypto that needs to be improved?

Maika: Yeah, so there's a ton of areas of crypto that needs to be improved, and there's teams, there's awesome teams working on all of the problems. So I'm hopeful for the future. I would say on-ramps are one, so getting people into the space, right? That's something that you're starting to see. Big companies like Starbucks and Nike creating these Web3 activations, and I think that's gonna bring a lot of retail consumers into the space, which is awesome.

I really love that they're starting to do that. Another one is just the user experience, kind of the UIUX of the space too. That's a huge topic. We just held kind. talk on it with a bunch of industry leaders about how to improve the user interface, user experience of the space. Yeah. Which means more designers need to come into Web3. Yeah. But yeah, lot, lots to improve on, but a lot of space to build.  

Julian: Yeah. How, how how would you improve the, the current user interface and, and what would you model it after? I guess? Is there a company out that, that you really love their, the user experience that, that you've used that you would kind of model other companies and other products around?

Maika: It's tough cuz I think it's really easy to fall into what we're comfortable with. Like I, I like the Web3 apps that look like web two apps, because I'm comfortable with that. Right. And that's not the mindset I want to have. It's an opportunity to really change the way we interact with the internet. But I think the, the way we've built web two works.

Right. And so we're used to it. Yeah. And so I think that's one potential path. Rethinking it is another amazing path, but then you have to teach everyone how to deal with it. Yeah. . Yeah. So, we'll, we'll see. I like both, but Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's tough to say. .  

Julian: Yeah. You've mentioned education is kind of a huge not only, I, I think a huge focus of the company, but I think overall a lot of companies are, are really focusing on educating their user base, creating a rewards based system so they keeps their users around versus, know, we went through that whole trend of in-app app like I always think about in-app purchases and it's like, giving you enough to make you want more, where I feel like companies are, proactively giving their users, whether it's rewards or incentives to take certain actions versus kind of the opposite, right?

Keeping them around versus supporting their user. What in particular? Where if, if you were to tell my audience can we find the information, can we find the education that we need to get more, I guess, knowledgeable about, about Web3 and, and blockchain technology, but also understand where we can use it and where to find it?

Maika: Yeah. You bring up a really good point about the difference between web two and Web3. So in web two, I think companies realize that human attention. is the most valuable thing, right? Like they make tons of money on ads and make their platforms free for users because they can make money off that.

We're in Web3. users are starting to realize that we are the most valuable asset, right? And so that's why companies are starting to have to pay us to be around which is a great change in dynamic. And I think it's something that was a long time coming. Even owning your own data is something that is a long time coming.

Yeah. So when it comes to onboarding, if you wanna learn, I personally learn best through doing. And so I would suggest doing things in the space that are well known, well vetted, for example, creating a Metamask. Right. Even, even by owning any kind of crypto assets, that's a first step. So, getting onto Coinbase, which you have to go through KYC and it's a lot of work, but getting through it, right?

Do put some money on there, send it to your meta mask, and then even doing something like E ns. E ns is kind of like buying your own domain name on the space. It's mine is mike sala dot eth, right? And so even just the practice of going through. You learn a lot along the way. And so I would say start there.

And then there's a bunch of great communities that all kind of rattle off that do a really good job of onboarding. So there's BFF and boys Club is another one. These are women focused Dow communities that help people ramp up into Web3. And then beyond that, there's a ton of different on-ramps of education into Web3 too.

So do a little Google search, try to go after ones that have good reviews and are well.  

Julian: Yeah. I love that. I love that. And thank you so much for sharing that. I always like to ask this next question, not only for selfish research purposes, but also for my audience if it, whether it was early in your career or now currently, what books or people have influenced your most influenced you the most?

Maika: I'm a big book person. I think the, I can, I can see it . Oh yeah. Can you see my books behind me? Yeah. Yeah. . Yeah. My dream is to have like a whole shelf office where I can just have 'em all behind me and have some cool knee on stuff, but, oh yeah. The one I'm really bad at remembering names and authors of books, unfortunately.

But the one that sticks in my mind is it's called How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. It's a book on Stoke philosophy. I cannot remember the author's name, but that is the title. And then right now I'm reading Never split the difference. yeah. Which is a negotiation book, which I heard is pretty good.

And it's, it's been really captivating so far.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I, I I, I've, I think gone through half of the book and it's so amazing kind of how you think about conversation in a different way as you kind of read through it. I don't wanna spoil anything for the audience, but it's so, it's so amazing. I think it really kind of illuminates not being so reactive to situations or conversations, but really kind of taking a step back and.

Working through a conversation with, with people's kind of internal motivations as my takeaway. Everybody else can read the book and, and see, see what they, they get from it. But last question before we wrap up here, cause I know we're getting to the, the end of the episode, but is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have or that you would have liked to answer?

Maika: Great question. You also are wonderful at asking questions, and so I have to say, not on the top, not off the top of my head. You could ask me how can people find out more about Webacy and then I would say we're at Webacy.com, WEBACY.com, and you could also just sign up for Walla Watch, which is totally free to get things going.

Julian: Amazing. That was actually gonna be my last question, is give us your plugs, your, your LinkedIns, your websites, where can we find you? And where can we, where can we be a fan of you as, as a founder? Are you active on any channels that other founders or other individuals who are interested in this, this technology get involved and get into conversations with?

Maika: Yeah, let me show myself some more. So, I mean, you could find me personally at Maika Isogawa, m a i k a i s o g a w A, across all channels. So Twitter, Instagram, it's the perk of. No one else's name is that everything is available to you. That's all I'm gonna say. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, we, we have some, like you can join their company Discord, which has a bunch of security topics and so on.

We have a security group on Twitter that we talk about. So if you're interested in Cryptosecurity at all, just gimme a ping.

Julian: Amazing. Well, Maika, thank you so much for being on the show. I, I, I think we could have hours of conversations into what, where the technology is going, where the current state of, of everything is, and, and how the future kind of.

It's gonna look once we have all these pieces of technology kinda active and running within either in front of us or, or and underneath layer. But I really hope you enjoyed your time and thank you so much for being on the podcast today.  

Maika: This has been awesome. You are awesome. Thank you so much.  

Julian: Thank you.