Maly

I wrote more about this here, in my piece on Narrative Capital: malyly.com/blog/narrative…

AI lowers the cost of prototyping, but not the cost of confusion. It’s getting easier to build something plausible. It’s definitely not getting easier to make people understand what you are, why you matter, and why they should care. That’s why I absolutely believe narrative matters more now, not less. As more products start to look promising on the surface, the companies that stand out will be the ones that create clarity around the product, the promise, and the reason they exist in the first place. I don’t think enough founders are taking this seriously yet, which is part of why I’ve been thinking so much about narrative lately.

Full article here: malyly.com/blog/how-i-lau…

What did launching the largest crowdfunding campaign in history teach me? When I was CMO at YouCaring (acquired by GoFundMe), I helped launch JJ Watt’s Hurricane Harvey relief fund. It raised $41.6 million from more than 209,000 donors and became the largest crowdfunding campaign in history. People often look at moments like that and assume they were driven by luck, virality, or celebrity. They weren’t. What made that campaign work was alignment. Houston was JJ Watt’s city. The devastation was real. People trusted him. When he asked for help, it didn't feel like a campaign. It felt like a neighbor at the door. That's brand alignment, and it's the difference between a campaign that raises money and one that changes a company. That campaign, and the influencer and communications strategy we built around it, took YouCaring from #7 to #2 in the crowdfunding market. Seven months later, GoFundMe acquired us. I wrote the full case study: the communications playbook we used to turn a three-week fundraiser into sustained coverage across NYT, Washington Post, CNN, Tonight Show, and Ellen. How we applied the same framework to partnerships with Kevin Hart, Ricky Martin, and Tim Duncan. And what I got wrong. Link in comment below. Image edited with AI.

I think part of the issue is that mainstream adoption gets framed as a UX problem, when it’s also a trust and service model problem. Most people don't want maximum control. They want confidence that things will work, that mistakes are reversible, and that there is help if something goes wrong. So the opportunity may be less about making current crypto-native products more accessible, and more about building different consumer experiences around reassurance, convenience, and outcomes people already understand. Mainstream users also adopt through use cases, not ideology. They usually don't care about sovereignty in the abstract. They care whether something is easier, faster, cheaper, or more useful than what they already use. The wedge may not be a better wallet, but a better product with crypto quietly underneath.

Unpopular opinion from someone who builds wallets for a living: No crypto-native product is going to iterate its way into mainstream adoption. The gap between what our current users want and what mainstream retail needs isn't a UX problem. It's a completely different product with a completely different trust model. Our users want sovereignty. The next 100M users want a safety net. You can't give them one without taking it from the other. I've watched teams try. They start adding mainstream-friendly features, the core community gets uncomfortable, and the product drifts into this dead zone where it's too complicated for normies and too watered down for natives. Nobody's happy. The app doesn't feel like anything anymore. The mainstream crypto product that actually works probably doesn't say "crypto" anywhere on the landing page. And it probably isn't built by iterating on what exists today. It's something new, from scratch, with the chain running invisibly underneath. Wallet builders need to start asking a harder question: are we the app, or are we the plumbing inside someone else's app. I don't think most of us are ready for that answer.

If anyone can build an app in a weekend with AI, what’s actually defensible anymore? As I build Wondr and advise AI founders, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Features get copied fast. Speed isn’t much of a moat when everyone can move faster. Network effects are powerful, but they usually appear once a winner is already taking shape. So what’s left? People leave products all the time. They’re less likely to leave something they helped shape. Something that reflects them. Something whose value changed because they were in it. That’s harder to clone than any feature. AI can accelerate building. It can’t fabricate real belonging, trust, or community. Maybe that’s the moat now: not just the product, but the people who make it matter.

Full case study: malyly.com/blog/how-i-tur…

The most important marketing decision I made at a $2.3 billion rocket company had nothing to do with marketing. It was choosing the right story. I keep coming back to this because I've been working with AI founders who consistently make the same mistake. Extraordinary technology solving real problems. And no clear story, just positioning that tries to be everything to everyone. Relativity Space could have been positioned four ways. A 3D printing company. A rocket company. An AI company. A manufacturing platform. Each framing was technically accurate. Only one was strategically correct. We chose "the first autonomous rocket factory." Not a product. A platform, a category of one. That choice enabled everything that followed. The press strategy. The investor narrative. Customer engagement. The $140M Series C. Co-marketing partnerships with PBS, Discovery, CBS, and LinkedIn. 100+ press features in 7 months. Multi-million dollar customer contracts. We took Relativity from an unknown space startup to #2 most valuable private space company after SpaceX. Positioning isn't a marketing exercise. It's one of the most consequential business decisions a founder makes. Currently, I see AI founders who can walk you through their architecture for an hour but can't tell you why it matters in a sentence a customer, investor, or journalist would remember. They usually think the fix is better distribution. It's almost never better distribution. It's clarity. If your traction doesn't match your technology, it's probably not a go-to-market problem. It's a story problem. Full case study on my site. Link in the first comment.

@telefontelaviv @intellegint This.

@intellegint You cannot imagine what it was like to catch Cocteau Twins in the early 90s

NIN Woodstock 94 is actually one of those shows older people do make me jealous of not being at

More details at: wellfound.com/l/2BXNvs

Hiring a Founding UI/UX & Visual Designer at Wondr. We’re building an AI-native, human-first consumer product where design is the product, not a layer. This is authorship, not production. If you have exceptional taste, systems thinking, and want real ownership from zero to one, DM me your portfolio. (Link in comments for more info)

Thank you to @ZDNet and @DavidGewirtz for the thoughtful conversation on what Sora 2 means for creativity, ownership, and the future of AI. For me, it goes deeper than copyright. The real shift isn’t that AI can create, it’s that creation itself is becoming networked. Every output now carries invisible fingerprints from thousands of contributors. After two decades at the intersection of storytelling and technology, from Star Wars and Nintendo to AI and Web3, I’ve seen this pattern repeat: technology expands what’s possible, then forces us to redefine who gets credit. Now, as Founder & CEO of @Wondr, I’m building an ecosystem where identity is portable, value flows are transparent, and creators and communities co-own what they build. This moment with Sora 2 is exactly why that future matters.

@__KimMinJae__ @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Thank you for being such an amazing contributor to the community @__KimMinJae__!

@malytly @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Well done, Maly. Just the best for your Future.

Wrapped an incredible run as Consulting CMO at @GenLayer Labs + @RallyOnChain. In just 6 months we: • Built a new brand + 3 websites • Grew X & Discord to 100K+ • Landed Forbes, VentureBeat, CoinDesk features • Launched Testnet Asimov • Produced an oversubscribed EthCC launch event • Created Rally’s product concept + brand Thanks @albertcastellan, @EdgarsNemse & @josemlago for the opportunity, and congrats on the Rally Alpha launch! Special thanks to @Cryptony09, @AnaRegen & Team Wondr: @NickZoutendijk, @andreoshea, @BlockBrilliant, @RuzgarFlns, @mikegushansky, for helping me create the foundation for GenLayer's next chapter. Now shifting full focus to @wondr_co (AI+Web3 app) + helping founders turn bold ideas into platforms & communities people obsess over. 👉 DM me if you’re building bold, I’d love to help you scale traction fast. ✨ More on Wondr soon.

@Cryptony09 @GenLayer @RallyOnChain We certainly did--a total blast!

@malytly @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Special thanks to you @malytly We've had a blast!

@raskovsky @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Likewise Ivan! :D

@malytly @GenLayer @RallyOnChain It was a pleasure working with you @malytly! I wish you the best in your next endeavors, can't wait to see what you are working on

@mr71mstr @GenLayer @RallyOnChain 🙏

@malytly @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Thanks for the work you've done!

@EdgarsNemse @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Thank you for the opportunity, for your unwavering support, and for your friendship @EdgarsNemse!

@malytly @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Thank you Maly, it's been an absolute pleasure, we couldnt have done it without you! 🙏

@RuzgarFlns @Wondr_co YESSS! ✨

Exciting times ahead ✨ Give @Wondr_co a follow fam 🤍

@BlockBrilliant @Wondr_co 🙌

New adventures loading… 🌌 Catch me at @Wondr_co soon 👀😉

@rundem01 @GenLayer @RallyOnChain Appreciate all your feedback and support @rundem01!

@malytly @GenLayer @RallyOnChain It's an awesome experience.