Will Nicholson

Let The Cross Pollination Begin…

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I have a thesis that vibe coding will spark an internet creativity renaissance and crypto is the only monetization vehicle > all internet creativity has been funneled into feed native formats like tiktok, twitch, X, instagram, etc. they dominate distribution. it's the only way to play online > this has led to the death of mobile gaming and mini viral web app experiences. flappy bird. agar. io, reddit one pixel a day, etc. people didn't get less creative but they lost the distribution and therefore got punished for building outside the existing box > vibe coding very soon will be as easy as writing a prompt to gpt to build full mini apps/experiences. as in depth as you want. literally zero experience required > everyone is going to be building hyper niche hyper specific solutions to their problems. sort of resembling what a yahoo answers or reddit did for search engines in the pre ai algo 2010s > it will also be very easy to take existing projects and add tailored features on top of them. a marketplace for ideas if you will > this will lead to an explosion of short term viral experiences. in the early internet these shaped culture but most didn't last more than a couple days / weeks at best (sort of resembles viral crypto coins) > they will be in a weird spot after going viral. some will get extremely popular. but will probably be coded by a single guy in moms basement. no revenue. no employees. not a "real" company > It's too good of a viral idea to make no money, but not big enough to raise venture. > the current model of subscriptions is not ideal because it requires too many sign-ups to make real money, and i think ppl will get subscription fatigue >>>>> this is where crypto comes into play<<<<<<<< > crypto has sort of struggled to find PMF? Outside of bitcoin? Like it is VERY good at making creators a lot of money very fast, but coins haven't really showed an ability to sustain multiple months let alone years > the one thing crypto is REALLY good at is crowd sourcing / bootstrapping capital very fast and making smart founders rich > the other is attention and memecoins as attention flywheel. launch an app -> launch a token -> buy the token -> try the app -> app is good -> buy more token -> more ppl try app -> buy more token --> etc. in theory it's beautiful > this has really only played out with memecoins so far. before most of crypto was mostly venture backed infra at too high valuations for this to play out > crypto is the ONLY way to monetize this vibe coding renaissance that is coming very fast > there will be an explosion of creators making really cool niche things, posting them online, monetizing via crypto. most will be slop and make nothing. the biggest will make millions and probably evolve into full fledged companies. and everyone will be doing it. the slop is a feature not a bug. and will lead to a rising tide for all. filter through the slop. find the gems. bet before it goes viral. make a lot of money. > eventually we will either see social media platforms like tiktok add native integration for mini tech apps (cc farcaster frames) or we will see a new platform build a moat dedicated to supporting this stuff > and what I think is the true usecase of crypto, quick monetization and viral flywheel, is fully unlocked like it couldn't be for memecoins. -----side note------ > I think this is the beginning of what crypto is TRYING to do with the internet capital markets thing > launch a startup. raise capital via crypto. > the problem is these companies don't know what they are. are they equity? are we investors? They are sort of saying yes? but the token is acting as no? it's stuck in between > also why launch a coin for your startup instead of raising capital from a top crypto VC? you probably wouldn't? that's why I think these "companies" are something a little different. > I think these are optimally a lot closer to memecoins than equity tokens. launch an EXPERIENCE. It is culture. bet on growth. > Ideally in the vibe coding crypto era devs are launching 10s if not 100s of projects over their lifetime. it won't require constant upkeep. if it's good enough the community will build it out and add to it sort of like memecoin pushers might write a cleaner full article about this but I can't stop thinking about it. You should probably start vibe coding if you haven't Btw - "vibe coding" is such a trash term can someone fix it?

CLOUD-004 has failed ❌ Trades - 892 Volume - $46,165.02 Thank you to every cloud who voted.

buybacks are an inherently pessimistic mechanism they imply: we don't have a better use for the cash than to paint the chart in the short term (in the hopes that the chart works out long term) it's an implicit binary option where you are in a sense trying to bootstrap the reflexive loop of prices over product growth levers imo this CAN work because some growth is path-dependent and reflexivity in crypto is insane but assume a thought experiment two companies make the same money and have the same profit margins in the same vertical - company A uses 20% for buybacks - company B uses that 20% for product and R&D or growing sales team in the best case for company A, the chart is painted nicely, investors/users make good returns and spread the word and so you get a strong reflexive distribution loop in the worst case, you are hit with macro conditions and the buybacks are a big waste of money in the best case for company B, you develop new products and onboard/retain new users you otherwise wouldn't have regardless of macro in the worst case for B, company A has now exponentially grown and it is hard for you to catch up to the network effects however, company B can also use this money for different types of network effects via referral programs or other incentives if you play this out over let's say 3-5 years and combine it with the cyclic nature of markets, then I would bet that Company B does better almost every single time (all other things equal) since the buybacks will eventually run into market turbulence which will flip sentiment in the company B case also, just the anticipation of future buybacks is probably enough (see stocks) so tl;dr — I think buybacks can work in certain cases, but in contested markets, I'm not so sure they're the best play the edge case seems to be if you're in a tough spot with market sentiment, you can use it to rent short-term sentiment i.e opportunistic buybacks during market crashes when your equity is irrationally cheap, combined with aggressive reinvestment during normal times, might be best obviously I'm saying this from a company/founder lens and not a short/medium-term investor lens