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What Can We Learn from TPan’s Journey from Web2 to Web3 – with Thomas Pan

December 28, 2022

Thomas Pan, known digitally as TPan, started his career in Web2 doing growth and marketing in big tech companies like Uber. COVID-19 became the reason for his transition from Web2 to Web3. His first exposure to NFTs was with the Dapper Labs' product called NBA Top Shot in January 2021. During this time when Thomas saw people purchasing NFTs, it seemed to him like a very interesting potential investment opportunity. He became fascinated with the aspects of culture, community creation, and how this type of technology spread like wildfire. And that eventually led him to NFTs as a technology and as a way to create new products.

Earlier this year, Thomas decided he wanted to do two things. One was to itch the scratch of writing, entering content creation. The other was to continue spending more time in the Web3 space to see where he might be able to provide more value and also to explore it further. Now, fast forward about seven months from when he started, and he is focusing on three buckets of work. One is content creation which he is continuing. He is writing about 4 to 5 times a week and enjoys it to the fullest. The second one is consulting and advising in the Web3 space. His ultimate goal is to help other companies directly involve or lean into the Web3 space to better understand it. And then the last one is more of a passion project. He has made his community called Write Web3, which is a group of writers and content creators that are writing-focused, and have their initiatives. Some of them have their publications, some of them have their agencies, some of them are copywriters, a variety of different backgrounds, and a variety of great folks creating written content. He intends to build a community where they could support each other, help each other, and ultimately help bring more quality written content into the Web3 space, as well as to provide more opportunities to each other from both sides of the table.

Discussing his content creation, Thomas mentioned it takes him 3 hours on average to write articles of around 2500 words. He writes what's on his mind in his style and voice so it allows him to create content quickly. Thomas mentioned that he spends a good amount of time a day talking to his community on different Discord groups, Twitter, and Telegram. He stated that he has a premium community for his readers to connect with them. He is rolling out different features that are going to migrate those readers towards Web3-enabled and token-gated access for more intimate conversations. But for his written content, at least on SubStack, he wants that forever to be free because he believes to some extent what he is doing is a public good.

Talking about writing tips, Thomas mentioned that it’s important to create evergreen content. He said that in Web3, there are plenty of topics and concepts that are evergreen. He believes telling and showing are equally important to create successful content. Telling people verbally is one thing but showing them through images, videos, or other media content creates value for the content. Another important thing as Thomas believes in creating good content is voice. Based on what type of content you are creating; it is important to add a personal element to it. Use imagery, use analogies, use metaphors to explain the concepts in a better way. Thomas loves to add humor and reverse engineering concepts in his content so people can feel connected to the content while getting educated on a topic.

According to Thomas, it is important for entrepreneurs and small business owners entering the Web3 space to be open-minded and willing to learn. Web3 is not all about good people and good actors, there are some bad actors but it does not make the ecosystem bad. Web3 technology can be a great benefit and can expand and empower businesses but also it could be a huge risk and resource intensive. So, anyone entering this space, Thomas believes need to be firm on their decision to succeed. Moreover, learning from reputable resources whether it’s LinkedIn, Discord, Telegram, or Twitter is extremely important to understand the dynamic of Web3 space before stepping into it. So, Thomas believes it’s a step-by-step approach and every step must be well thought for.

Sharing his perspective on the bear market in the Web3 space, Thomas said that there are multiple levels to this topic. One of them is on a macro level, the global economy. According to Thomas, the stock market and the crypto market are intertwined from a financial standpoint. So crypto is not purely independent on that front and its prices are going down affecting a lot of businesses. But there are still so much great things that are happening in this space. One personal example that Thomas gave was of ESF, ETH San Francisco event conducted by ETH Global where ETH stands for Ethereum. The organization host hackathons globally since 2017 to promote education but also to bring more developers into the Ethereum ecosystem. The event had over 1200 developers building in the course of about 36 hours and he wrote all about it. The event was conducted over the weekend.

 Thomas believes all the people that were there decided to spend their weekend willingly on such an event rather than just doing their things. He mentioned there were also a lot of students present at the event participating in the activities making him believe that Gen Z is interested in Web3. He sees this event as a positive aspect of Web3. He believes if people are willing to spend their time on such events, there is a great future ahead for Web3. People are curious about Web3 and this is why events like ESF have such a high turnout. After experiencing ESF, Thomas believes the bear market is temporary and the future of Web3 is surely bright.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS  (see clickable version on www.cmo-stories.com)

00:51] Who is Thomas Pan? 

[09:27] How much time do you spend on an article that you would put out? 

[11:56] Does it take you a lot of time to interact with your community? 

[16:10] Do you have any tips to make sure to have fresh content? 

[20:26] What would you advise people for their first steps in web three? 

[26:17] What do you tell people who look at the negative side? 

[35:35] What is the best place to connect with you? 

NOTABLE QUOTES 

“We're all creating different communities to some degree, and depending on who is listening or reading or watching, then finding the best places that complement what they want to learn where they want to learn.” 

“The bear market is temporary and the future of Web3 is surely bright.” 

“Just because there are a lot of good people in the space doesn't mean the whole space is perfect too.” 

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