I traded away most of 2018-2019 grinding for a scholarship to pursue my MBA. I was a first generation college student and paid my way through undergrad. There’s no doubt that money is important it makes the world run. Do you find your job fulfilling and exciting? Is it engaging you every day? Do you think about it after working hours, not because you’re stressed and are putting off problems, but because it’s fun and there’s nothing else you’d rather be doing? Is this something you even want? If the issue of money is giving you pause, yet you’re still here reading, then I implore you to think about the utility that your current job’s total compensation is netting you. If short-term, perhaps even mid-term risk-free compensation is your number one priority, this may not be the industry for you. This can be more than made up for in ISOs and token allocations, but this will vary from company to company. While many Web3 companies are backed with huge VC fund raises, odds are you’re likely going to take a paycut to your total compensation if you’re coming from a FAANG. What will pay look like? Are they going to pay me in tokens? Am I going to take a pay cut for equity upside? Will this company even IPO? Does this make any sense when I can stick here and just grind to L7… If you’re reading this post from a comfy web2 tech job, you might be wondering if it’s worth leaving your cushy salary and RSUs for the uncertainty of a venture-backed web3 startup. Passion versus Compensation - Optimizing For Utility While you can port over many useful frameworks from traditional business (e.g., 4Ps, Porter’s 5 Forces, Marketing Funnels, etc), products driven by tokens (NFTs and fungible tokens alike) must be built with a deep Web3 understanding in order to be successful. Please note, when I say web3-native, I’m speaking more to products that explicitly involve on-chain assets and smart contracts this applies less to web3 companies that are closer to traditional tech companies in their offerings such as Alchemy or Coinbase. Working in Web3 requires specific knowledge if you’re willing and excited to acquire it, you become a rare, valuable asset in this growing sector. The best Web2 PM that can’t understand how immutable, finite tokens changes their product strategy, go-to-market, growth, and monetization ultimately cannot be a PM in this space. In Web3, there’s much less of a playbook of experience to reference to indicate future success. In Web2, interviews often hinge on your ability to have delivered on similar problems in the past or how well you can “score” in Leetcode problem sets or unrealistically time-boxed product sense interviews. One of the most exciting aspects of Web3 is how it requires an entirely new way of thinking to successfully kickstart and maintain the success of Web3-native blockchain business it requires specific knowledge. If you can be trained for it, if you can go to a class and learn specific knowledge, then somebody else can be trained for it too, and then we can mass-produce and mass-train people.” You weren’t competing with anyone to deliver impact, you were uniquely able to add value.Īs Naval Ravikant famously described, “The first thing to notice about specific knowledge is that you can’t be trained for it. In this example, you were able to gather locally specific knowledge that made you valuable to your team and to the project. You were creative, made something new, and delivered an outsized impact. You approached things from a first principles perspective what problems were you facing, and how could you address each one systematically? Seniority became less of a factor in developing a solution as nobody had a playbook to reference. You were given free reign to explore possibilities. Have you ever worked on a problem that nobody else on your team knew how to solve? New Ways of Thinking - Optimizing for Specific Knowledge In addition to these ideas, I’d like to present you with the following factors to consider. Max Farren’s (Rabbit Hole, Data) framework was more broad, but came down to:ġ) Doing Good - “Am I actually improving the lives of others?”Ģ) Expected Value - “Am I maximizing my return on time?”ģ) Upside Potential - “What is the best case scenario?” Jason Shah (Alchemy, PM) used a framework of:ġ) Desire - “How much do I really want to do this?”Ģ) Value - “Am I contributing or extracting value?,”ģ) Best Worst Case - “Am I okay if this doesn’t work out?” You may find the following frameworks of others who have made the jump into web3 useful. Let’s start this off with a question… Why are you doing this? What drives you? What is bringing you into this field? Your motivations and narrative will be crucial to nail down in order to properly direct your job search as well as put your best foot forward as you start to have conversations with people in the industry.
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