ReFi Generation
Ep. 17 Kingfishers Media Regenerating Knowledge
I love this episode with Will T. from Kingfishers Media LLC because Will is passionate about regenerative knowledge around community building initiatives.
Kingfishers Media provides educational tools and resources for starting a business in Web3. They are a bridge to help onboard people and to make sure people have the knowledge needed to engage in the space in a positive way.
Will seeks to democratize the access to knowledge and bridge the multilingual communication gap and has their learning content in Spanish, Portuguese, French, & Swahili.
This episode gives a refreshing take on how web3 & blockchain technology is a bottom-up paradigm shift from what has historically been a top-down extractive model. Will believes this technology allows everyone to participate in something that is bigger than ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Will, I hope you do too.
Kingfishers Media LLC Website
Kingfishers Media LLC Twitter
Will T's Twitter
I love this episode with Will T. from Kingfishers Media LLC because Will is passionate about regenerative knowledge around community building initiatives.
Kingfishers Media provides educational tools and resources for starting a business in Web3. They are a bridge to help onboard people and to make sure people have the knowledge needed to engage in the space in a positive way.
Will seeks to democratize the access to knowledge and bridge the multilingual communication gap and has their learning content in Spanish, Portuguese, French, & Swahili.
This episode gives a refreshing take on how web3 & blockchain technology is a bottom-up paradigm shift from what has historically been a top-down extractive model. Will believes this technology allows everyone to participate in something that is bigger than ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Will, I hope you do too.
Kingfishers Media LLC Website
Kingfishers Media LLC Twitter
Will T's Twitter
Yeah, those are both great questions. So why Web3? When we look at the ethos, the overarching ethos of Web3, and it's bigger than blockchain technology I think we can all agree on that. The way I like to look at Web3 is this convergence of the community of technologies coming together at a singular point to benefit societies, to benefit cultures, to essentially level up all of humanity to a higher level.
Cash:Welcome to ReFi Generation, the podcast that talks to experts and leaders in the new frontier of regenerative finance to examine how blockchain technology is creating the next generation of environmental and humanitarian initiatives. I'm your host, cash Upton. I especially love this episode with Will from Kingfisher Media because of how passionate Will is about regenerative knowledge and building community initiatives. Kingfisher Media provides educational tools and resources for starting a business in Web3. They have a fantastic bridge to help onboard people and help to make sure that people have the knowledge needed to engage in the space in a safe and positive way. Will seeks to democratize the access to knowledge and bridge the multilingual communication gap, and has their learning content in Spanish, portuguese, french and now even Swahili. This episode gives a refreshing take on how Web3 and blockchain technology is a bottom-up paradigm shift from what has historically been a top-down extractive model. Will believes this technology allows everyone to participate in something that is bigger than ourselves. Hope you enjoy, hey.
Will T.:Will. How are you doing today? I'm doing good Cash. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Cash:Yeah, I was really excited that we got to meet at Ethereum Denver, which is right in your backyard. Huh, You're a Denver native.
Will T.:That is correct. Yeah, I'm actually a Colorado native fourth generation. My family actually homesteaded here in 1865, before Colorado was even a state, so it was still a territory.
Cash:Oh wow, I love it. That's pretty cool.
Will T.:So deep roots in Colorado.
Cash:You're allowed to tell Californians to get out. No, no.
Will T.:Yeah, exactly.
Cash:Cool. Well, when we met, I was really excited to learn about Kingfisher Media and kind of the focus on regenerative knowledge that you guys are filling. So why don't you start with kind of like how you got into the space and what you guys are looking to do?
Will T.:Yeah, absolutely so. The specific emphasis surrounding Kingfisher Media LLC comes from birthing this concept out of a community effort. So I've been in the space four years now. This month, specifically, is my four-year anniversary of being in the blockchain industry. For the first seven months, I was on a solo journey, doing my own research, finding my own news sources to pay attention to, really finding who are the people that I resonate with more that I could learn from about this, because it was definitely a research journey. After seven months in, I attached myself to a community. That community is now known as the Social Bees.
Will T.:All the imagery on the logo from the design comes from that effort because we, right around the end of 2021, early 2022, we launched our own generative NFT collection and as a recipient of those NFTs, we have full commercial IP rates. So I took one of the NFTs that I had I will say digital collectibles, digital assets right, I took one of those. I took the IP with it and turned it into a brand, initially called Kingfisher's Corner that's our social audio brand and then, you know, then developed it into a company focus.
Cash:All right, and I love on your website you have an Espanol option as well, so I think that's really cool to be able to do that.
Will T.:Just a little bit of background on that, where that comes from.
Will T.:So, as we're developing this community as a social beast, we do have a contingency of our community. That is in LATAM, right, we had daily meetings, like every single day for like 18 months. One thing I noticed through that process was there was a communication gap for like 18 months. One thing I noticed through that process was there was a communication gap. So it was very important to me to help, you know, fill that gap from a communicative standpoint. So there was at one point where we were doing broadcasts specific to that audience, to the Spanish-speaking audience, and then we were having a public space where they could come up and ask questions, right, and then we'd answer a public space where they could come up and ask questions, right, and then we'd answer those questions about the community, the direction of the community. Additionally, recently we acquired translation services for our content, for our core curriculum. So it's important for me, as a founder of a company recognizing the space, that Web3 is global, that we now, when we launch new content, that it has that multilingual approach.
Cash:Awesome. Yeah, we need to bring as many people in as we can. From the front page of your website. You have some cool partnerships that you list, or strategic business managers, like For the Trees, an oxygen chain, like for groundwater pollution, kind of metrics like what, what is that relationship on with with kingfisher? And like how do you guys kind of go about your mission?
Will T.:oh yeah, I love this question. So this is going to talk about our business structure a little bit. So, understanding the space Web3, and there's no truly like 100% full Web3 businesses yet because that framework is still yet being ironed out we had to form as a legitimate business entity and a person on our network gave us some great advice as forming as a series LLC in the state of Wyoming One. Wyoming is an ally and an asset in this blockchain ecosystem, so that was a benefit.
Will T.:Number two, the specific structure of a series LLC meant that we'd launched a parent company with 10 subsequent children underneath it, so that, in and of itself, was like launching a multinational corporation in one fell swoop. Additionally, it allows us to partner with other businesses, entities and maybe entrepreneurs potentially, who want to grow their business alongside of us growing our business, and we can all collaborate in that process for maximum growth. So to me, that particular, really that particular business structure is really abrasive of the Web3 culture and the Web3 environment, especially when we embrace the mindset of collaboration over competition, which the traditional businesses, you know, are very much grounded in competition over everything else. So it's just a refreshing new way to kind of structure a business, to kind of structure a business, to kind of partner with other business leaders and to ensure that we can all grow together for maximum impact Awesome.
Cash:Yeah, I love that. The out-collaborate together yeah, that was definitely a resounding narrative at the Ethereum Denver conference. And then I see that you have some Web3 memberships listed. Our listeners will be familiar with let's Grow DAO, coconut DAO, solar Punk DAO. So are those ways that people can access your content if they're members in that community, or how does that look?
Will T.:Well, we haven't delved into that yet. So, basically, accessing the content is our community of people who resonate with the message that we're bringing, who resonate with the mission and the vision. Right, those Web3 memberships are memberships that we went out and we acquired as a company. So it was either you join our guild right on guild XYZ or you go mint an access point into our ecosystem. So those are ones that we've accumulated through the space of being a Web3 company. So, yeah, those are our access points in those communities. As far as downstream benefits, if somebody is a part of that community and they want to access what we have going on, we don't have that fully fleshed out yet, but that is a possibility for the future.
Cash:Gotcha. Okay, so right now I saw that you're using Bonfire to do TokenGate. Then is that it, or can anyone?
Will T.:Yes, sir, I love Bonfire. Bonfire is an amazing website builder. That for me, somebody who 20 plus years ago made a decision not to be a web developer, makes it very easy to launch a website.
Cash:I haven't gotten to sign up myself. Is it just an email sign up, or do you then kind of get a token?
Will T.:Like, do you have to have a token? Is my question. Yeah, so this is the beauty of bonfire, right, you can go whichever option you want. Um, because I like to say web 2 is like at the top of the funnel, right, and then we sit right below web 2 and then web 3 is right below. So we're this conduit of welcoming people from web 2 into web 3, but also being supportive of the Web3 environment, which I think is a really cool place to be in this ecosystem when we talk about the further adoption that has to come.
Will T.:So it's either or. Right, so you can either use a Web2 credentialing to sign up on the website or you can use the Web3 wallet to sign up on the website. Each one has its own distinctive advantages. Just to be like a casual user of the website, right, once you provide one of those two sign-ins, you're going to be automatically provided with a complimentary pass to the website, right, whether you're part of our community or not. So you get that complimentary pass. It gives you limited access to whatever you know. Gating is applied to the website pursuant to that pass.
Will T.:Additionally, if you are a member of our community. So that would mean three different ways to become a lower layer member of our community. Either you are with us on our original mint or you're going to be with us and mint with us when we have subsequent mints and you're going to get that level of an access point access point. Or you supported us during GG18 and GG19. So Gitcoin grants rounds 18 and 19,. You supported us that way, so we provided ERC-1155s as a way of thanking all the contributors, so those tokens now give you access to that content.
Will T.:Or we do run a monthly awards program for all of our broadcasts. We've been doing that since October. So if you've been awarded one of our awards for being like the most active participants in the broadcast, then you've got your own access point too. This is really important to me because it means that we can customize each layer of our community's experience as they navigate to the website. We can also provide individual layers with special offers, like you know, as an example, with our base layer, community members right, we may launch a special thing, say like an e-commerce store, that we want them to beta test first and get their feedback and kind of see how it's working before we push it out to other members of our community, if that's helpful.
Cash:I love it. Yeah, and the different layers can be accessed by different tokens, so I guess that's like another. Why crypto? So, yeah, our listeners can also follow you on twitter spaces. Right you're? You're doing um, a lot of um live twitter spaces and um like web3, focus business and web3. So, yeah, why don't you kind of just like dive in, like what, what can people find? Like what do you usually um, you know, circle around?
Will T.:yeah, sure, that's a great question. And here's a cool thing too, because we were talking about the website We've also been experimenting with live broadcasts for our website, right. So not only are you going to get the experience on X-Spaces, but you're going to get the experience through our website as well. So it's either or or both. The advantage to the website is we have a chat stream set up on the broadcast on the website, so when we're live, you can chat with us while we're live and if you're not comfortable being on X formerly known as Twitter in that form and asking questions that way, you can ask questions through the website Additionally on X Spaces, through the website, additionally on Xspaces.
Will T.:Right now, we just launched probably a week, maybe 10 days before ETH Denver we launched a new focus.
Will T.:It's a web series called the Future of Businesses, web 3.
Will T.:So essentially what we did with that emphasis and, in my mind, all of these broadcasts at some point, once're concluded, can be turned into like a core curriculum. An example is a previous web series we did was a business builders web series, where we gave everybody the nuts and bolts A to Z of how to start a business, how to manage a business, how to create the branding and the marketing around the business, and then we finished it off with some go-to-market strategies and go-to-market checklists. So things that should be top of mind if somebody wants to launch a business into the ecosystem right, or even a traditional business, for that matter. So this new web series focuses on the future business web three. We set the groundwork for how do we define business in web three and right now, now we're exploring various layers of industries that have the potential. If they're not already seeing the beginnings of disruption in their industry because of the participants in Web3, they will soon right start seeing that disruption. So that's what we're going through on the web series right now.
Cash:Okay, yeah, I love that knowledge gap that you're filling. So you, you are like the perfect person to ask this question to um. First part why web 3? What do you see as it being able to solve? And then the second question would be how can web 3, or specifically refi, but web 3 like, where does it still need to improve? Where would you give that critique to the industry of still needing to be able to improve?
Will T.:Yeah, those are both great questions. So why Web3? When we look at the ethos, the overarching ethos of Web3, and it's bigger than blockchain technology I think we can all agree on that. And the way I like to look at Web3 is this convergence of a community of technologies coming together at a singular point to benefit societies, to benefit cultures, to essentially level up all of humanity to a higher level. At least, that's the ethos that I embrace about all these technologies. So, with that being said, when we look at the dynamic of that and how societies have formed historically right mostly top-down, okay and then we look at Web3 and how societies, or how communities, are formed, it's bottom-up.
Will T.:It's a complete paradigm shift from what we've been used to as human beings, but the thing about it's so refreshing is that we have this altruistic nature Naturally.
Will T.:I feel most human beings do.
Will T.:It gives us the opportunity to participate in something that's bigger than ourselves, and I think that's, you know, really the number one metric, that or the number one narrative that people can gravitate towards as far as improvements in the Web3 space.
Will T.:I feel that, you know, as humans, we have a natural inclination to kind of get in our own way, and I see a lot of that with other communities that I'm involved with Web3. Not trying to throw shade on them or anything, but I'm just saying this is an observation that I have. It's a natural human experience. I don't know if it's a mindset, but it's a natural human inclination, to say the least. One thing I would love to see improve Web3 overall and I feel that the Regen ReFight community really embraces this is to create a unified narrative, a unified message to go forward with, like a unified narrative, a unified message to go forward with lock arms, move forward, bring forth adoption and let's see what beautiful things develop out of that. Hopefully that answers your question, but I'm open to further questions as well if you want to explore this thought track.
Cash:Yeah, the unified message, I think is something that the Rei community does have better maybe situated um. We were together at the region event, regeneration event, um at east denver, so I I'd love to kind of pick your brain on that, get your feedback on, you know what you thought of the event.
Will T.:And yeah, just a little synopsis yeah, I mean the event was amazing. My particular focus was connect with people, so I didn't get to hear a lot of the talks that were being had. I mean, I understand the focus of it, right, so it's put on by the Climate Coordination Network, oriented people who care about well, should we say saving, I don't know? Um making an impact in a positive manner to reverse the trends that have happened by industrialization over the last 100 years?
Cash:right, okay, um, so now that we're on the same, page.
Will T.:Yeah, now that we're all on the same page with that, um, you know what are the specific solutions and how can people get involved and I feel that that was the overarching theme of the narrative of that particular event was like okay, here are the solutions that we're aware of Now, here's how you can get involved and participate and be part of the solution rather than just sitting idly on the sidelines. Solution rather than just sitting idly on the sidelines. But my particular focus was connecting with people that I hadn't ever connected to before in real life, like in person, and picking their brains a little bit about forward-looking focuses that we have here at Kingfisher's Media. But it was an amazing experience. It was a great time, a lot of great human beings that were there, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Cash:Yeah, yeah. I was really excited to just connect with people in real life as well. Got to see Jimmy Cohen in real life, always, always inspiring and bubbly personality. I love that guy.
Will T.:But I think we can both agree. He's kind of like the way he works for him is kind of like a pinball right and a pinball right and a pinball machine, Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, but go ahead.
Cash:Yeah, what are some of the forward-looking conversations you had?
Will T.:Yeah, so that's a great question. So I feel very strongly about a multilingual, forward-looking approach with all of our core curriculum as we move forward. So not only did we recently have bilingual translation services made available to us, but, based on a few other people I met in the scope of ETH Denver, we now have access to Portuguese, we now have access to French and we now have access to Swahili. So it's more or less just partnering with them, providing them the content. They translate it. Bring it back to us. Of course, we're trusting them right. So hopefully it comes out fairly well. So that's one aspect of it is the multilingual approach on all of our learning content going forward. Not saying on our social media, contents can be applied We'll see how that develops, but at least on our learning content that will be multilingual. Faceted Additionally, with our next mint cycle that we're looking to deploy, it was more or less understanding without having to just go out and find stats, because I don't think stats are a valuable resource, necessarily when you're looking at economic data, but when you're looking at economic disparity across different countries in the same region, what does that look like for the individuals who want to participate, right?
Will T.:As an example say, we did a mint here in the US and we said, okay, you know, everybody's cool with 100 bucks, so we'll do it for $100 USD equivalent. Right, but that cost basis doesn't work for developing economies. It doesn't work for areas of the world where their economies are intentionally and I will say this word intentionally not made to be very robust or beneficial to the bottom layer of people. So in thinking about this next mid-cycle and how we can make it equitable for more participants to participate, I had to understand like okay, if I say $100 US, what does that mean in Colombia? What does that mean in Bolivia? What does that mean in Argentina? What does that mean in Kenya? What does that mean in Tanzania? You get the point.
Cash:I love it. Yeah, the democratization of knowledge, right? Yeah, I think that's really important. Love to pick your brain. What do you see as some of the low hanging fruit for solving this economic disparity?
Will T.:I know that's a loaded question, but Well, I would say I would say the recognition that this disparity exists, first and foremost, and then, as a operator of a project or an operator of a community, just the implementation of it.
Will T.:Right. I feel like you know somebody in my position that comes from the US I only really understand the US economy right. And so to have that deeper level of understanding, especially from somebody who's local participate in the local economy, of what that looks like and to make it fair and equitable to them. So the more operators that we can get that are providing NFTs or you know, erc-1155s, 721-s21, sirens, whatever it is, if they're providing an output to a specific community, that they understand the economics of how that community is going to participate, what it means to them, right, and then I believe, I firmly believe, that that's going to lend to a higher level of participation inside a web through itself. I don't know that I'm the only one that's thinking like this. I hope I'm not. I hope more people are thinking like this. But the more people we can get aligned with that focus going forward, the better off it's going to be, for adoption.
Cash:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, because there is some systemic underlying things that have been in place for decades, that kind of prohibit, and that's why I really love what you're doing is like the knowledge is the key, right, and it's and it's true knowledge, right, it's, it's fact, right, like how how can we share the truth with people, how can we educate to then bring people out of these like cycles of oppression and you know, systemic barriers that were placed there on purpose by the powers that be?
Will T.:right, right, and that just comes from, you know, society's developing and becoming more sophisticated and maturing right, uh, throughout history and throughout time. But it also comes from the people who want to maintain their position and their control over people, wanting to be in that position for as long as they can be right. And so the more we can do to stem the tide of that narrative, reverse the trend, like you said, right, some of these nations have been oppressed, you know, for multiple generations, and they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, with web three, we introduce web three to them. Um, now they, now they have hope, now they can see the light I love it.
Cash:Yeah, that's that's the goal, and I I love that you guys are um sharing that knowledge. So what did we not cover that we should share with our listeners before we hop off?
Will T.:I love this question because when I interviewed an 11 year professional podcaster I don't know if you know her or not, but Shani Suisa early on into my broadcasting career, I interviewed her and I asked her this same question and she says that's my favorite question. So now it's my favorite question, because I love getting asked this question. What are we not sure? Um, I would. I would say this um one, take a look at the website kingfishersmediaio.
Will T.:I feel that you're going to find a lot of value, whether you're uh, you know, whether you're in our, in our base layer of our community or other layers of our community or not. Um, like I said, we're testing live broadcasting through there. So once we have that, once we have that streamlined, you'll be able to see all the content that we produce there. I would also say to maybe the person that may need to be inspired to go a step further, and this kind of the mindset that I worked with when I authored the masterclass is that obtaining knowledge is great, but if you're not putting it into action, what good is it? It's just stored in your brain as information I love it, yeah.
Cash:So what's your favorite way to put knowledge into action?
Will T.:Well, like with the masterclass, right. So a part series masterclass called Welcome to the Access Age, because we look at blockchain technology. Every interaction with blockchain creates access to something, somewhere or someone. That being said, it's plain language and it really explains this ecosystem of blockchain technology in a way that people outside of the space can understand. To inspire them to take action on it would be to the point that like, okay, here's what's going on and here you know it's inevitable that it's going to happen. So, basically, what are you going to do about it? Right, Are you going to get involved or are you not going to get involved?
Will T.:And if you embrace it, and then when we draw corollaries, like, okay, I'm going to age myself here, but I'm a Gen Xer, right, so I literally grew up alongside the personal computer. Subsequent generations have literally grew up alongside emerging technology since Gen Xers, right. That being said, when we look at those corollaries and say, look what happened to personal computer development, look what happened to the original internet development, look what happened to mobile technology development, and we cross that span of time of, like, this is how fast it went. And every subsequent iteration of emerging technology development is getting is taking less time and less time and less time, so take advantage of the opportunities that are here now I love it.
Cash:Yeah, that's. That's a good reminder that we are in a constantly evolving space and we need to be aware and knowledgeable and ride it as it comes. Amen.
Will T.:Yeah, kingfishersmediaio, and then you can follow us on X at KMLLCW3. That's our X handle, and then we're also on Farcasters, kingfisher's Media and Lens.
Cash:And that's cool, you're using the decentralized social media.
Will T.:I tried to set up a LinkedIn account for the business and they shut us down because they said we violated their terms of service, but had no explanation. So I'm like, okay, cool, we're going to go Web3 social.
Cash:Yes, yeah, Permissionless baby Awesome, Will Well. Hey, thanks so much for coming on today and I look forward to talking more.
Will T.:Thanks for having us on Cash and yeah, like I tell everybody on Web3, that's connected to me. If you're connected to me, you're connected to me for life.
Cash:Thanks to Matthew Patrick Donner for the ReFi Generation production, including the music, mixing and editing. As a reminder, none of this is financial advice, and feedback is the breakfast of champions. Please subscribe to our show and send your thoughts, critiques and ideas for future content. Be well, take care of each other and do something good today.