Ridhima Ahuja Kahn: Dapper Labs make the Top Shots using Flow Blockchain and serve up Brand Partnerships like Cryptokitties

Ridhima Ahuja Kahn is the VP of Business Development at Dapper Labs. Her focus is helping build meaningful partnerships with the world’s top IPs, creators, and social media platforms as they look to build blockchain-based experiences.

Prior to Dapper Labs, she was a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) where she focused on sports, social, media & entertainment, collectibles (both in digital & physical), hospitality/travel and food.

She has also spent time on the investment teams at the Hewlett Foundation & Grovenor Capital Management.

- Tell me about how you shifted into this role at Dapper Labs and was the inspiration behind TopShot birthed at Dapper or was your sports background the impetus to this idea?

- What does fandom look like in metaverse ? what does TopShot and Cryptokitties experiences look like there? And do you think experiences are the magic of an NFT and your utility?

- Flow blockchain technology is unique to Dapper, reducing the friction of Web 2 native users and Web 3 adventurers, do you think this shift in creating your own blockchain has been part of the the secret sauce for Dapper Labs?

- Digital Fashion will likely see a ton of growth due to the concept of wearables and shopping in the Metaverse: Luxury brands will soar to the top fast bc of virtue signaling and the marketing machine they are built on. Can Dapper help creators or smaller brands with NFTs for this use case?

- Because we are also an education platform on Culture Factor, can you define DAO and is Dapper getting involved in the DAO space?

- And what would a brainstorming session at Dapper look like in terms of iterating on best use cases, verticals or simply coming up with experiences?

Ridhima Ahuja Kahn of Dapper Labs

Transcript

Welcome to Culture Factor. I'm your producer and host Holly Shannon. Our new season looks at creators, innovators and entrepreneurs. Why? Because the creator and gig economy is emerging. Talent has gone to work for themselves. The new year starts with the 101, or the beginner guide for NFTs, blockchain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and all those Metaverse and Web3 topics we keep hearing about. We're all going back to school on Culture Factor to understand this decentralized economy. From creator coins to the tax implications of selling crypto, let's unpack these emerging technologies in really simple terms. Join me and feel free to send in your questions. Would your brand like to sponsor Culture Factor? It is your opportunity to be a part of a podcast that is ranked in the top 2% globally and heard in over 89 countries. Email holly@hollyshannon.com. Subscribe to Culture Factor and share with a friend now. Okay, let's start with our class. Let's get our next guest on.

So hello Culture Factor family. Today I have Ridhima Ahuja Kahn with me. She is the VP of Business Development at Dapper Labs. Her focus is helping build meaningful partnerships with the world's top IPs, creators, and social media platforms as they look to build blockchain based experiences. Prior to Dapper Labs, she was a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, where she focused on sports, social media and entertainment, collectibles both digital and physical, hospitality, travel, and food. She has also spent time on the investment teams at the Hewlett Foundation and Grosvenor Capital Management. She and I met at South by Southwest where we were speaking and she agreed to come on my show. So I'm so excited to introduce her. Hi, Ridhima. Welcome.

Hi, Holly. Great to see you.

So I would love to dig in and touch a little bit on your past before coming to Dapper Labs. So can you tell me about how you shifted into the role at Dapper Labs? And was, and then we'll dive into your inspiration behind Top Shots. So I'm going to break this question into two.

Absolutely, yeah. So I've had the pleasure of working with the Dapper Labs team since 2018. So it was interesting. My second or third week at Andreessen Horowitz, I, you know, we take our portfolio companies on these, essentially like tours to meet other companies they might be interested in partnering with that could be along the lines of the goals that they have for their go to market strategy. And so we had taken Dapper to add a few other companies to Good Music, which is Kanye's studio. And I got to hear firsthand for the first time why Dapper decided to put cats on the blockchain. And what they described was essentially that they realized the value of the technology of blockchain technology. But in order for it to really reach its full potential, it was important to get billions of people engaging with it. And the best way to do that was really through fandom and things that people are really passionate about in general, and then enabling them to experience the technology in a really seamless way that allowed them to express that. So one thing that, you know, you can take an image of a cat, and you can put it to anyone around the world. And they'll know exactly what it is. We can all understand breeding and so CryptoKitties was was where as our initial foray into, into the blockchain space, and from there, of course, fandom is very prevalent in sports. And that's also something that's really quite global. And so after that, you know, Dapper started working, or having conversations with the NBA. And at the time, I was working closely with the league as well. Both, you know, as part of my role at Andreessen covering sports, but also as an advisor for the 76ers. And I kind of got to help the NBA get comfortable with Blockchain technology and at the same time, help Dapper sort of backchannel and understand what was required in order to to make Top Shot happen. So worked very closely with them then and then jumped over to leave the long form agreement for the NFL contract that we were working on back in May. And I just really wanted to jump in and spend all my time in web three and go operate. So that's how I ended up joining Dapper labs. And now I focused as you mentioned, on our partnerships across a number of IP holders as well as creators and social platforms.

So when, so Top Shot was, was, were you part of the creation of that or Dapper already had that as part of their portfolio?

So I worked with Dapper before, before NBA Top Shot. We did, I wasn't at Andreessen at that time, but it was helping sort of them back channel and get the NBA comfortable with, with the technology.

I see. I see. And so then would you, I know part of the kitties, the CryptoKitties, is that like everybody can relate to like what a cat was, do you think like the. the success was the whole gaming technology that was in it?

I think it was really just one of the early NFT projects that showed how you could, the benefits of blockchain in terms of true ownership and being able to monetize that IP in different ways. So for example, we saw companies or individuals start building companies based off of their CryptoKitties, there was something called the KittyVerse. And so just creating this holistic overall experience, and then enabling people to have ownership and then share that socially with their, with their friends, I think was really important.

Yeah, that's really cool. So if we're sort of talking about fandom a little bit, what does fandom look like in the metaverse?

Yeah, so I think that it looks like essentially a place well, so I guess I'll take a step back and start by describing a few things that we think of when we think of what the metaverse is, because there's a lot of definitions out there. And the way that we think about it actually is, is been impacted, or influenced by Matt Hall, who's one of our advisors, but sort of the core key six, or I guess, seven attributes that he highlights are: that the metaverse will be persistent. It'll exist sort of, at all times won't pause or end. It'll be synchronous and live. And so there will be, you know, events just like they happen in the real world. But it'll be a living experience and real time, there'll be an, it'll be an uncapped number of users, full functioning economy, and then an experience that spans both digital and physical worlds. And then interoperability is also going to be a key component of the metaverse so we think about fandom in the metaverse is being a mix of things that we can see today, and then experiences that we can actually have in a physical world. So we think that the communities will form that there will be ways to express and share your fandom socially with friends in both a digital and a physical format. So today, for example, if you own an NBA Top Shot, you can you know, have a showcase, there's a number of showcase challenges that we have, you can showcase that you can share it with your friends. And you can also even buy like an infinite object, a physical collectible that displays it. So for one of our products for the UFC, we actually took a moment and put it on a chain, and that is a necklace, and the athlete was able to wear that necklace and show it off as well. So I think that will be another component as well as events. So whether that event is live streaming, someone opening a pack and being able to be part of that experience, or gathering the community in a physical or digital format to convene and sort of discuss the things that they're most passionate about.

I love that. I, you know, I personally think that experiences are really the magic of an NFT and its utility. So talking about Top Shots or CryptoKitties experiences, what do you think they might look like in the metaverse?

Yeah, so I think that there will certainly in the future be ways to engage with your NFTs in different in different ways, whether it's in a virtual or augmented reality experience. And then I think participating in different events will also have that same those same attributes. So I think we're really early days here. But these are all things that were that have been top of mind for us that we've been thinking about.

Cool. I like that. I'd like to get a little bit into your blockchain technology. So flow blockchain technology is unique to Dapper and I'm, I believe it's there to reduce the friction of sort of that Web2-native experience users have and bridge it into Web3 adventures. Do you think this shift in creating your own blockchain has been part of the secret sauce for Dapper labs?

Yeah, absolutely. So when we were building NBA Top Shot, we realized, because we had built CryptoKitties on Etherium, when we started building NBA Top Shot, we realized that it just wasn't, Ethereum wasn't going to have all the solutions to what we were trying to do, which is to create really seamless consumer experiences. And so we decided to build our own blockchain. It's called Flow. And the Flow. Blockchain now has over 7000 developers on it over 5 million accounts. We span across gaming and social and fashion and a number of other verticals, pretty much any vertical you can think of. But our goal is to get billions of people on the blockchain. And so we really wanted to create a chain that was more environmentally friendly. So according to a study that Deloitte recently did on a number of L1s, and L2s, it shows that, that flow actually is the most sustainable. We looked at the number, the gigawatt hour consumption that we had, and it's much lower than any other, any other chain. So that's something that we take a lot of pride in. We think that's really important for brands and traders and for the sustainability of the overall industry. We wanted to create a chain that had really easy sort of programming language that people can understand. So that's called Cadence. And we've heard from a number of developers that they just really like building on Flow. And for anybody that's building a consumer app, we've really optimized the chain for that reason.

Well, it's interesting that you've optimized it for other developers coming in, and that it wasn't just your team. I didn't realize that that's, that's really cool.

Yeah, absolutely. So Flow is really for everyone. And then we also have a Dapper Wallet, which is sort of the way that we're able to enable these really seamless experiences where you don't need to know anything about blockchain or crypto in order to participate in the economy, you just have to have a credit card. We also, you know, accessibility is really important to us. So a lot of our products are priced at much more attractive numbers. And then we could command, because we want users to really have the benefit of that upside. And so everything that we do from building the Flow blockchain to the way that we manage our existing products is centered around that.

So is the wallet, the wallet can be used with Fiat, which is like US dollars and with cryptocurrency?

Yeah, exactly.

That's amazing. That's really amazing. Because I think that invites a whole, a lot of people who are trying to bridge the idea between web two and web three, but aren't as comfortable with the concept of cryptocurrency. So that is amazing. Actually, I didn't know that that's, that's really cool that you do that. I have a lot of people that would really benefit from that, because it's hard. You know, it's it's such a new adoption, the whole thing. I mean, the whole idea of blockchain technology is a whole different adoption and mindset. And then you add the currency part to it.

Yeah, absolutely. We want to make sure that the barrier to entry is really low. Again, it's our mission is to get billions of people using the technology.

I like that. You talked a little bit about digital fashion on, on that blockchain. And I do believe we will, we will see a lot of growth on there because there's the whole concept of creating wearables that people can shop and use in the metaverse. And without a doubt, we know luxury brands are already doing that. And they have the support, they have the marketing. And then they also have their consumer base that likes to wear their stuff and use it in real life. So it's like a bit of that virtue signaling going on. But Dapper works with creators, and I'm assuming that it doesn't matter what size they are. So how are you positioning smaller brands with NFTs for the use case of creating digital fashion to be used in the metaverse?

Yeah, so there are a number of really exciting companies focused on digital fashion that are building on the Flow blockchain. And so, one example of that is Genies. Genies is enabling people to design and create avatar ecosystems. And so, you know, we believe that avatar ecosystems are going to impact web three in the same way the mobile apps impacted web two. And an avatar ecosystem essentially consists of avatars, fashion and accessories, spaces and venues, so, and social experiences, and so Genies will provide users and creators and brands with the tools that allow them to manifest their ideas, experiences and businesses into these avatar ecosystems. So I think digital fashion is going to be a big part of that and sort of will address creators of all sizes. There's also a company called the Fabricant, which is a digital fashion house that's really moving the industry towards digital only clothing. And so it's a platform that enables brands and individuals to create trade and wear digital fashion, which is pretty exciting because I think the combination of creativity along with, along with digital assets will be will be very compelling especially when you're enabling creators to, to manifest what they hope to see in the world in a digital format. And so this will be like really high quality, interactive fashion shows and experiences where brand fans can attend and participate, sort of like ready to wear in the metaverse and then utility built into the garments. So there'll be AR and VR and multi platform integrations that that fabric is working on. And then there's also an awesome company that's starting to get into the fashion space called Someplace, which is a female founded Metaverse company that is built on Flow. And they essentially have gated community spaces, events and activations and environments that exists in a digital format. And we think they're they're fairly differentiated from other Metaverse companies, because they're operating in a much broader, you know, it's not necessarily focused on on a specific sector, it's pretty broad. So we're excited about them as well. So there's a number of exciting things happening on Flow as it pertains to wearables digital fashion.

I find it really fascinating because, fascinating because I come from, I was a jewelry designer for about 10 years, and I collaborated with other designers to mix things together. So for example, I had worked with Rachel Roy and she had created a dress and I had created the necklace that attached to it had held it up like it was a halter dress. And to me, it'd be really interesting to be able to take the jewelry and the things that I used to do and put it in that type of environment into a Metaverse because I think as we dress our avatars, we're gonna want them to have like, other unique elements, right? And jewelry is so universal, you know, men and women and you know, everybody, they he, she, they, you know, whoever they they love it, right? Everybody loves wearing jewelry. So, I find it really fascinating. Like, I can't wait to see what people do. Like I'm watching what other people are doing with it, because I have ideas too. Like, I want to see what other people do.

Yeah, yeah, it'll be awesome to see, like all the creator tools that come out to support support, things like that.

Yeah, yeah. Cuz like I, you know, when I think of, I had this conversation with, with Vlad Ginsburg about this, because what I find really interesting, I think I want to see like, if you think of 3d technology, which is how I created something once before, it uses a lot of the software that we're using to create NFTs in terms of like Adobe Illustrator, you know, all those different ones. So I'm wondering, like, how far away a 3d printed item is, from actually being an NFT? I feel like it's actually really super close, in terms of its iteration on, you know, what I mean? So,

Yeah, I mean, I think that the physical and digital worlds funding, I think there's a lot of opportunity to kind of share utility in that way. But then the digital the way, we think was a digital asset is still sort of the true, the true value. And it's also part of you know, it's on the blockchain and so forth. So we're, we remain keen on on digital that are excited about some of the physical applications.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I just, I just thought it was kind of cool. How, like 3d, in 3d printing, the technology you use is actually almost the same as some of the technology for an NFT. Like I think the bridge is, is short, is I guess what I was getting at. Just wasn't articulating it well. But, so yeah. You, I'd like to jump into also, because I like this to be an education type platform, I did want to talk about DAOs. And I was hoping that you might be able to define it, and maybe tell me, how Dapper is getting involved in that space?

Yeah. So DAO is our decentralized autonomous organizations. And the way that we think about them, in the way that we're actually getting involved as well, is really for brands and creators to create communities and have those communities live in a sort of decentralized format. So we actually acquired a company called Bread, and created Lil Miquela, who's one of the first digital influencers, and so she doesn't exist but she has over 10 million followers. And it has a real community around her and the team that created her is called Fraud, and the CEO of Fraud also leads one of the largest DAOs today called Friends With Benefits. His name's Trevor McFedries. So we acquired Trevor's company in order to enable brands and individuals to create DAOs on Flow in a really seamless way. Because we think that, you know, we're always thinking sort of 10 years ahead. And we think that in the future, and, and today, DAOs are going to be a really core piece of the web three experience.

Well, I think whenever we're talking about community, I sort of feel like it's the foundation of everything, right? So, you know, those are, they're, like, communities within themselves in a way.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And people take different roles within that community. And now in order to be part of a community, you can be in different parts of the world and still have a really active, you know, an active role in that community, which is really exciting.

I like that. So let's talk a little bit like, the community within Dapper Labs, I mean, I'm not gonna say within the walls of because we're all fully remote, pretty much. But what would like, a brainstorming session look like in Dapper Labs? Because like the sky's the limit on ideas, and I know that obviously, you have a lot of really interesting partnerships that are feeding into that. But what, what is it like? What would, what would that be like if we were sitting in an, you know, a virtual room with with Dapper Labs?

Yes, there's a lot of passion. Because, you know, we, when we think about hiring, we hire people that are most passionate about that given sport, about web three, and so forth. So I think there's a lot of collaboration and a lot of passion that happens in all of our, in all of our discussions. I would say we try to stay fairly focused, so we select, you know, only a number of projects that we will build in house in Dapper Studios. Because we want to do each project really, really well. But at the same time, we have this amazing Blockchain with you know, like I mentioned over 7000 developers, and so we'll also share projects, with those, with those folks that are part of the ecosystem that are kind of trusted members of the Dapper community. So for example, the International Cricket Council did a partnership with one of our companies called FanCraze. And we were very excited to support them, because they built on Flow, we thought they were really well equipped to manage that. And so there's a number of, so there's brainstorming in the sense of like, okay, what are our priorities? And how are we going to execute on them? Then there's product brainstorms that really center around what's going to get fans to come check in every day, what's going to get them to have a level of community that they might not be able to achieve in a physical context? Where are our fans going? And where are they spending time? And how can we kind of show up accordingly? So those are the types of things that we oftentimes have brainstorms about. We always try to sort of set the objectives and an agenda and kind of all the background information you need ahead of the the meetings so we can maximize our time, because now we're at about 500 people. And so the meetings can get large, but also be keeping, you know, some of the meetings really, really tight and ensuring that everyone that's in the meeting has an active role in it, or otherwise, just keeping it you know, a smaller group we found to be really effective.

Giving everybody a voice. So you kind of like, walk me into what my show was born on was the conversation around company culture. So giving everybody a voice and maybe tightening up these meetings so that you, you make progress, right? Because obviously, when you have an infinite amount of people, sometimes it's hard to dial in on on what the strategy is. So what is company culture like at Dapper? I mean, it's such a different kind of environment than a standard corporation.

Yeah, it's fantastic. So we have a number of values that we sort of abide by, and that we think about and try to epitomize in what we do. So a few of them are essentially having a very founder mentality, we use a term called Kaizen, which is change for better or continuous improvement. And so we're always thinking about how we can improve how we can do things better. That's a really core piece of you know, the Dapper mentality. We, you know, everyone should act as owners of the business. We, you know, really take a lot of pride in operating in a way that is in the best interest of fans at every point, and so I'd say culturally, you know, we're the, we like to test things out. We like to experiment we give direct feedback. Um, and really, we try to operate in the best way possible for the broader team. And then with fans and users always, always in mind.

I like that it kind of is like, sort of an entrepreneurship mentality, it feels like you explained.

Yeah, exactly. Everyone's a founder.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I'm just curious, based on your experience, from even before you came into Dapper Labs, and now that you've been exposed to a lot of really creative IP and creators, do you have like a dream thing that you'd like to build or a partnership that's like, would be like a dream company for you?

Yeah, we have a couple that we're working on right now that I'm really excited about. So I think, I think we love working with sports leagues, of course, there's a number of other types of companies that we're going to be working with in the near term, which we're excited about. And I think just getting, I think the dream is to have all a lot of developers building on Flow more broadly. So we want to enable and provide the right tools for developers as well as creators to really thrive within the Dapper ecosystem. And also, you know, just get, I guess it's important to me to get different communities on Flow. And so whether that, you know, from a diversity standpoint, I think it's really important in the same way that we have, you know, physical economies that work, we need the same thing in a digital world. And I think that having a diversity of audiences is really important to us. And so that's what I'd say there. There isn't like, necessarily one specific project that's the dream project. But I think that would be the outcome of, of dream projects is, is to get people from all around the world engaged in web three.

So it's sort of like your audience will match what the company shape looks like, in a way. I love that. I love that. Is there anything I'm not asking you?

No, I think these have been great questions. I would just, I would just encourage people who are interested in the web three space, but haven't really dipped their toe in yet to do so. I think there's a lot of exciting opportunities for anybody, regardless of sort of where you're from, or what your background is, or even the sector that you operate in today, I think web three is something that's going to touch every sector. And it's really important to, you know, as we're, we're at the beginning of this, we're saying, we're in such a nascent stages, I should say, of this amazing technology. And so we all have our equal footing in terms of education. And I think self educating and dipping your toe into web three is really important for for anybody. So I would just encourage people to do that.

I love that. And I know for people that I talk to that are very new to this, you know, I'll be talking to a lot of different people. And the first thing they'll say to me is I don't even understand any of this. And so I'll be like, okay, so start with episode 85 on Culture Factor, because that's where we start to talk about, you know, web three and the definition of things. But I went on your website, and I found it to be very user friendly. And so I personally would encourage people to go take a look at the Dapper Labs website, because it is designed with the, like the non-user in mind somebody who has who isn't on board yet. At least that was the feeling that I got. Was that intentional?

Yeah, yeah. So we think of flow as being the best blockchain for normies. So anybody that doesn't know anything about web three can essentially come to us and we would love to serve as a source of education. And as I mentioned, you don't need to have any crypto to participate in our products or our communities or or join our Discord. So welcome, everybody.

I love that. I'm gonna end on that note, because I think it's a really cool product and I love what you shared. So Ridhima, I want to thank you for coming on Culture Factor. This was amazing.

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.