This is Meet A BFF, the series where we ask loyal BFF holders across our BFF Bracelet and You collections to share what a day in their life — or multiple days — looks like as a Web3 enthusiast with interests and expertise outside of cryptoland as well. Have an idea of someone we should profile next? Email us at hello@mybff.com.
Name: Po On Yeung
Twitter: @poymeetsworld
Location: Part-time digital nomad and Las Vegas
Web2 Po On: Twitter — Commerce and Communities, University of British Columbia - Business and Innovation Development
Web3 Po On: Currently Head of Community at Warbler Labs / Goldfinch Protocol, and previously Coinbase
First became crypto curious: 2018, but really 2021
First became a BFF: April 2022
First bought cryptocurrency: BTC
First NFT bought: Moshi Mochi (I have a penchant for cute anime.)
Number of NFTs owned: 30+
Number of BFF Yous owned: 2
Number of Discord servers I am in: Too many!
Name: Taylor Dunstan
Twitter: @tayloredunstan
Location: Venice (LA, not Italy unfortunately)
Web2 Taylor: Morgan Stanley Family Office and Strategic Impact Consultant
Web3 Taylor: Business Operations and Strategy at Warbler Labs / Goldfinch Protocol
First became crypto curious: 2017, but really 2021
First became a BFF: January 2022 with “BFF Minted”!
First bought cryptocurrency: ETH
First NFT bought: my ENS
Number of NFTs owned: 30+
Number of BFF Yous owned: 1
Number of Discord servers I am in: 5, but don’t get me started with Telegram channels!
About Goldfinch: Goldfinch is a decentralized global credit marketplace that bridges blockchain and real-world lending. Goldfinch allows investors to evaluate and lend USDC to fully collateralized private debt deals. Yields come from real-world lending, and investments are collateralized off-chain, making it less susceptible to crypto volatility.
Although we’re part of a remote-first team at Warbler Labs, the founders recognize the importance of in-person office visits, so I flew in for a week to LA this February, (where Taylor and three other teammates live) using part of my annual “team visit” budget. I timed it this way because two other NYC colleagues from the credit team were planning to be in town, and this was an effective way to maximize group sessions.
Although we each have different areas of expertise — from business operations to investor telations, marketing and comms to credit — we need to work cross-functionally as a nimble startup finding product-market fit in a bear market! We raised $100 million in the bull run and are now looking to source new capital so we can keep building a global credit marketplace accessible to all.
Ahead is a snapshot of a day when Taylor and I got to see each other and work together in-real-life (IRL).
I check Slack to see if we’re still meeting one of the engineers, Brandon, for a 7:30 am morning hike before we start the work day! Each office seems to have its own personality, and the LA crew — or LAugh crew, as we’ve dubbed ourselves — are currently Huberman fanatics and obsessed with bio-hacking and optimizing our health. Movement is just as important as getting 10 min of sunlight to start the day.
Brandon picks me up from my Airbnb and we meet Taylor at the Culver City steps. We decide to meander around the side of the hill and then head straight up the steps to get an intense cardio workout! At the top, we admire views of the ocean and look over to where our WeWork is.
We wrap up, and Brandon suggests a quick coffee break to visit one of his favorite spots. On the car ride, I check Twitter for any new mentions of Goldfinch and also monitor the engagement in our Discord server of 40,000 members. I notice that our Twitter account is now at 50.6K followers - it has moved a decimal point from 50.5K! Hey, every bit counts in the bear market! Besides, I’m a big believer in quality >>> quantity. There are a few notable fans of Goldfinch who have done independent research and analysis on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that tagged us, so I give them some hearts on Twitter and send them a personal DM to thank them and build that relationship. Every once in a while we get a troll or someone spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and I generally choose to ignore it. The best case is when other community members step in and support, by sharing the value they get instead!
We arrive at a hip coffee spot that’s giving industrial art gallery vibes. The barista sees us all walk in together. “Oh,” he exclaims, “are you architects?”
“You just made my day!” replies Taylor, who has a deep love for architecture and design.
He then describes the different coffee options and we get our flat-whites to go in a reusable jar. I order two pastries because I can’t decide between a salted chocolate chip cookie or an olive oil cake. I know I won’t succumb to sugar-overload though since I like sharing food with others — another benefit of working together in person!
We arrive at the WeWork and split up for our respective meetings.
Taylor begins her investor relations meetings and is working to organize HubSpot, our CRM. At Goldfinch, we have a dual-sided marketplace and tons of contacts to organize and keep track of. On one side, are all of our borrowers who are accessing the protocol for credit. On the other side, is our pipeline of investors or LPs “liquidity providers” that fuel the protocol in return for yield on their investment. The yield comes from monthly interest payments repaid by the borrowers in return for loans to their businesses in emerging markets. The CRM needs to be up-to-date with latest call notes, insights and marketing campaigns and managing it is a big undertaking!
Meanwhile, I’m collecting stories for the biweekly newsletter to showcase news “from the beak of Goldfinch”, community-sourced updates, and project-managing a Q42022 State of Goldfinch Report with Messari.
This Goldfinch Report was a governance proposal commissioned by the Goldfinch community since we operate as a DAO — a decentralized autonomous organization —and the community voted in favour of having a large, reputable brand like Messari write an in-depth analysis on us. I tag multiple members of our team to fact-check various stats, open up my Telegram chat to communicate directly with the snalysts on the Messari team, and write up some sections at the end about community participation and how they have been active in proposing novel ideas and getting them over the line.
Taylor and I meet at a long table across the kitchen in the WeWork and I show her some of the latest Messari updates and get her quick feedback. We also review the latest investor relations email and she sends it off. This email is intended to share some early ideas with our closest or most engaged users around upcoming products that we’re working on and start to gauge interest on who is interested in upcoming deals.
Taylor and I sign on to the computer to meet with our colleague in NYC, Jaou, who is leading the Credit Grant Analysis Pilot Program. This is a community initiative that has been several months in the making. First, Jaou and Blake (one of the founders) posted a governance proposal seeking community expertise in credit underwriting to help author credit investment memos. These analysts will summarize the data in NDA-gated data rooms about our borrowers and craft credit memos. Seasoned credit professionals have the knowledge to distill information into easy-to-digest memos that help the community and potential investors make well-informed decisions. Note - DYOR (Do your own research) and NFA (not financial advice)!
This initiative had many moving parts that involved: getting the proposal passed, marketing this initiative, shortlisting and interviewing candidates, having them write the memos, meet the borrowers to refine the memos and more. Each analyst will be compensated for their work and the funds come from the Goldfinch treasury. This is another way we aim to be community-driven! (more here: Twitter announcement)
Now that the memos are ready to be shared, Jaou is working with Taylor and I to ensure this goes through all the marketing channels and that we can make a big splash with our announcement.
We met the previous day to go through all of this, but after getting on the initial call and sensing stress from other high priority and urgent items on our plates, Taylor, who is an expert at reading the room, stepped up and said, “Jaou, we can move this by a day. We all have deadlines on other items, and this one can wait. Let’s meet tomorrow instead”.
In moments like this, I feel incredibly inspired and grateful to work with team players who know how to focus on what’s important, re-prioritize, and I’m super lucky to work with these two!
We decide to divide and conquer - Taylor will draft up some copy we can share on LinkedIn and Twitter and also get legal guidance from our GC. I’ll arrange a live Community event in Discord to pair the announcement with an opportunity for the community to hear about the program live and ask questions.
Brandon offers to take the team’s lunch order and pick up food since it’s going to be a packed day where we work through lunch. Good thing we got that earlier hike in! As a group we decide on Best Friend’s Korean take out burritos.
Taylor and Alex are having dedicated meetings with potential investors and I’m having my 1:1 with Sam, the Chief Investment Officer. Luckily I found a WeWork phone booth so I don’t have to use any room credits (scrappy startup, remember!). On my agenda today is to review a Marketing and Events strategy and associated budget. As a growing startup, we’re aiming to move fast, but also recognize the importance of creating repeatable processes for scale. I walk Sam through a proposal outlining which strategic events to attend, based on what was successful in the past, and a suggested budget for final sign off from the Founders. I get early alignment and then before we know it, it’s 1:00 PM and we need to head to the next meeting.
I check my Slack and see a direct message in my group chat that reads simply: “7J”. That’s how I know to meet the team on the 7th floor, in room J.
It’s time for the weekly Crypto Club! This is a fun initiative for the whole team to get together every week. We have many functional meetings (Sales-focused or Eng-focused) in addition to Cross-functional initiatives. But with all the work going on at a startup, there isn’t much time left over for the entire team to meet outside these or a weekly Monday sprint or Friday retro. So Crypto Club serves as a team ritual and learning opportunity to discuss the latest in crypto news or deep-dive into a new topic. Our GC at this point would probably advise I don’t share too much about what we cover, however, I did just tweet recently on my personal account that I covered “Account Abstraction” for my latest Crypto Club presentation.
Brandon saves the day and arrives with lunch! Taylor points the camera directly to me as I’m stuffing my face with a burrito, so I slowly turn the camera over to Alex and Brandon instead. It was a fantastic burrito — 10/10.
We end a bit early so now it’s time to review the latest Messari Report edits, while Taylor gets on some other calls and works on a proposal with one of our Engineers, Will. At Goldfinch, we’ve received over 40 Governance-Improvement-Proposals and we love seeing the combination of proposals from our team and the community at large.
The Goldfinch Community Managers, whom I’m in daily contact with, do the heavy lifting in our Discord, while managing the Twitter account is more individual. I see an interesting tag in my notifications: “Goldfinch tops in commits”.
I rarely hop in to the #eng slack channel but I post this tweet to share with the team and get their thoughts.
The Engineering team is immediately all over this!.
“oof they're counting commits my poor squash merges”
“TOP CODER”
“One line per commit”
I decide to bookmark this tweet for later so I can quote-tweet at a later time with “devs gonna dev 🫡”. I want to tag all of our engineers but then realize I don’t have the entire team’s twitter handles. Time for another Notion page to capture this!
Now it’s time for a team meeting to discuss dedicated Sales and Marketing initiatives.
I share my rehaul of Notion to showcase all Marketing and Community related efforts (prior to this role, I was strictly a Google Drive person!) And just a couple weeks prior, Taylor and I had complained about Notion and compared how Google suite is so much more collaborative!
We’ve all been heads down to work, mostly writing for me, but then I look up and shout “Hey everyone, the sunset is gorgeous!”
We briefly pause to admire it.
I get up again and say, “Seriously this is beautiful!” Time for a photo!
We go outside, watch the sunset glow, and take a team photo.
Taylor has signed up for a breathwork class thanks to an announcement on Farcaster. Most people have left WeWork now so we can easily get a private room of our own and join this workshop.
Taylor and I emerge feeling super refreshed and energized for the workshop! Brandon is still around (he lives the closest!). The two of them make jokes about funny things they saw on Farcaster and Brandon’s latest cast. Taylor likes it and recasts it. I then decide, OK, sign me up! I’ve been around those two all week and it’s about time I join in on the action.
Note - I already have Slack, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Signal, LinkedIn, WhatsApp constantly open. What’s another one? I suppose it’s all part of working in a Marketing and Community role!
I wrap up my day and week feeling incredibly energized from working in person with the LA crew. I make a note I need to pass this feedback on to Annika our Head of HR and Mike one of the Founders and share tips on making the most out of our in-person time and budget.
Po On Yeung is an avid community builder and an advocate for women in web3. Previously at Twitter, Coinbase and now Head of Community at Warbler Labs, contributing to the Goldfinch Protocol and participating in a number of DAOs.
This is not financial advice. If you don't want to spend money investing in crypto or Web3 — you don’t have to. The intent of this article is to help others educate themselves and learn.
