Claire Kart [Aztec] x Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress

hey everybody it's nice to be here I'm the CMO of Aztec I'm CLA Kart um yeah they brought it up I don't care if you guys think I'm a cipher Punk or not I know what I'm here for I know why I'm here I know why I've been in the industry what I'm going to tell you today you might not want to hear this but I also don't care about that because I think everybody needs to hear this right so like if you come away from this being like Oh She doesn't belong here guess what I've heard that all before so I know where I am I know why I'm here and I want to walk you through the way I see our industry and why I think we really need to radically change so title of my talk no one gives a [ __ ] about privacy okay so what do we do right like I'm not here to preach to you I want to see this as a problem and how do we solve that problem uh let's see let's get into it oh okay all right yeah so cool bubble bro right like um I think we are all inside a bubble and that's okay but it's also important then to acknowledge that and to figure out how do we get outside of this because if the only people who use privacy Tech in 10 years are the people in this room or even the people at Devcon we will have massively failed so first we have to acknowledge we are in a bubble a little bit about me like I said I'm Claire I'm the CMO at Aztec I'm a board member at radiant Commons which is the lab behind penumbra um invest and advise a lot of other privacy focused Tech projects and kind of across the web three Spectrum um I have taken some really boring products to Market in my career I started in Tech at a fintech um we were working on helping people refinance their student loans I was there for four years the company ipoed so I have a really strong track record outside of web 3 and I think it's important to bring in those like core disciplines right because marketing has been around for 8,000 years um So for anybody in here who's like ah marketers like okay but like you really can't ignore the market and I see our industry ignoring the market and I would like us to change that um I also was yeah early employee at Ripple um first on technical member at o of one Labs I took Mina to Market created the category around what it means to be like a ZK focused project um was it risk zero and now now I'm at uh Aztec kind of my dream job all right so here's the agenda I know what you're all thinking like that's really not true Claire what is this heresy get off my stage did these people invite you but we're going to get into how I think about this and maybe I'll change your mind all right so I know what you're thinking you're like Claire you have missed it signal is so popular like everybody I know uses signal it's growing yeah it's growing but if we look at the data this is messaging apps by monthly downloads right there's two things we measure when we're looking at consumer applications one monthly downloads second monthly active users so you pair those and you figure out like who's dominating the market what we see here yes signal is on there even being on there is insane like that is an accomplishment but are we okay that WhatsApp has 40 times the monthly active users of signal I'm not okay with that like privacy Tech is a drop in the bucket it is so so so so small right um WhatsApp has two billion monthly active users signal has 50 million so even amongst all the signal users out there they are in a bubble like we are in a bubble so why is this and I know what you're thinking next you're like but Claire fire fox and brave they're so popular but they're not that popular they're just popular amongst us in our bubble and again it's the same thing 2% of all people use Firefox Brave isn't even on here Brave is in this other category of 1.4% it's a percent of 1.4% okay so I don't know what that is but it's insignificant in my my opinion right there is no dominant technology that offers privacy that is adopted widely okay so here is the problem with privacy is a marketing message I'm not saying there's anything wrong with privacy as a technology privacy as a technology is great how do we help it connect to what people want so that they will use it the issue is privacy is an abstract concept right like in the real world privacy makes a lot of sense because you think oh my God like my pervy neighbor's looking in my window that's rude you know okay that's privacy no one should do that but digitally it's abstracted away from us and this is the [ __ ] up thing about surveillance capitalism right it's like there's this long terms of service and you just don't know you just can't really understand how is all this data being used right it's super abstracted away from our daily lived experience and that's why it's so dangerous but it's also why we really need to amp up how we are marketing this to people to get them to pay attention so when something is an abstract concept generally in marketing what that means is it doesn't impact consumer decisions they can't understand how it impacts their lives so they don't take it into account in their like decision-making framework right what's the solution segment customers tie it to a real use case one company I think is doing a great job of this is raro so raro is not saying like privacy good you know they're like you're in these countries where your privacy is at risk you want to vote in an election that's a very specific use case here is something that is going to help you do that right so that's what I want to see all of us do with these privacy Tech things is like how specifically is this going to help you and I know what you're thinking you're thinking like yeah but then we won't reach 1 billion people go reach a 100 people first okay then go reach a thousand then go reach 10,000 like you have to grow it out from what people want and how they're actually going to use it if you try to be everything to everyone you're like nothing to no one right next thing it's not top of mind so again it doesn't impact purchase decisions I think we need to bring emotions into marketing more um I think you know all of you in this room are technologists I'm not a technologist but I've spent my career working with technologists cryptographers Etc they have this assumption that people are rational and people are not rational like none of you are Ral like why do you even work in this industry it's insane right you're connected emotionally to what you're doing maybe you could go make more money elsewhere maybe you could have a better quality of life like whatever right but you're here because you love it you're here because of your emotions not because of your rational decision-making so we have to stop assuming consumers are rational they are not they are driven by their emotions just like us next it doesn't solve a problem so in marketing when something doesn't solve a problem it doesn't make it into the consideration set the consideration set is all the things that a consumer is going to consider before making a decision like okay I want to buy a car maybe I'm going to consider you know a Honda and a Toyota right you have to get into that set and privacy is not in that set the solution here is to frame it differently so let's say that you have you know an email product right ZK email is awesome and really cool if ZK email frames it as oh you guys this email gives you privacy like okay that's cute what problem does it solve this email platform will reduce your spam by 95% that's a banger when people think about their email the number one reason like it's a meme on the internet like inbox zero right it is not possible and our emails are worthless tools now because they are full of spam even if you have the best filters or maybe you're like yeah but Claire I use like 10 different emails so I you know okay well that's a lot of tax on you the user right so if we had an email system that provided privacy and by that was able to eliminate spam that is something that can sell to a user so I want to see everybody thinking about their products more like that next thinking all consumers are the same um I actually think tour has done like an amazing job at this and shout out to Elina the organizer because she brought this to my attention T is such a great example of an actual like privacy tool that was adopted and tour has insane customer research they weren't just like this is good you know they dug in what do people want like who specifically is going to use this and for what reasons if you haven't checked this out I really recommend it so the thing about privacy is they might care about privacy but they care about other things more they care about the things that are right in front of them in their daily lives meeting their daily needs and my argument is that you know just trying to kind of shove privacy down someone's throat is is not going to work all right so we're going to look at a little case study um I picked this one Tesla because like I don't know the US election right it's top of mind good old Elon um the electric car has like been around for a really long time I think the first electric car was in like the 1880s but here's an early example first picture I could find this is the 1920s this is the first kind of like more mass marketed electric car it's kind of where privacy is today right some people are interested in it they're sort of figuring out product Market fit how to message it had usability issues and it was too early okay that's its own problem right we fast forward in 1996 GM released the ev1 it was expensive it's kind of a problem the so was a Tesla Tesla was very expensive when it first came out they marketed as practical they were like this is so practical you know you're not going to pay for gas and people were just like okay you know that's not really what I'm looking for in a car what are people looking for in a car somebody shout something out like think about like a consumer like what are they looking for in a car oh my God yeah who said that who said sexy show me who you are yeah yeah thank you Tesla is the most user Centric car company um my husband actually used to work there so I had like a really Insider view of how they develop all of their software their Hardware everything they want to deliver users what they want right not what they think they should have so this is the first Tesla this is their little sports store they released in 2008 like I'm not a car person but like if I had to pick one of the three I'd pick this one like it's a sexy car right um and what are people looking for in a car fast sexy premium desirable stylish maybe it's a flax maybe it's a conversation piece okay I get it some of you are like no no no my car just needs to get me from A to Z but we're not the average customer right again we're in our bubble so when we think about the average customer like do we want to judge them for this or do you just want to be like okay if I want to get electric cars into the hands of people here's the rapper right when you open it up it's still an electric car like the brand positioning of Tesla the mission of Tesla is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable renewable energy sources that is Tesla's Mission brand positioning for the Tesla sexy ass fast car not like it saves you gas money and you're saving the environment like boohoo so pre- Tesla this car is electric that's really good please buy my car post Tesla this car is fast because it has a badass electric drivetrain it's premium you're going to absolutely love it you're going to want to like pick up guys and girls in it do your thing have a really great time you're going to look forward to driving this car you're going to tell everybody you're going to post about it on social media okay so let's get into how to privacy pill consumers a little bit because like I think this is what we want to get to so I'm sure you all have seen this like more times than you would like to is everybody familiar with what this is it's okay to raise your hand and be like I've never seen this CLA okay so this is the technology adoption curve um industry to Industry you know it's nuanced but on the whole this pretty much holds up so in case you've never seen it before what it's showing is that there's kind of this standard distribution bell curve of the way people adopt new technologies so crypto blockchain privacy technology is a new technology because digital technology itself is still kind of a new technology um you have this really small slice of people who adopt it first those are the innovators it's 2.5% of people so those are the people that might actually be attracted to a technology because it aligns with their values because it aligns with their principles right that's us like we are the people who are like this is good I want to invest my career in this I want to adopt this technology but if we don't have empathy and understanding for these rest of the people on the bell curve like if we're not thinking about what early adopters or early majority want and if we're willing to judge them and be like no you should drive this ugly electric car because I say it's good for you we are never going to succeed so what I want to encourage everybody to do if you're a researcher like whatever your role is in your organization or if you're independent like please please please be open to what users actually want and talk to them in a language that meets them where they're at because we don't need to sit on an ivory Tower and be like this is what you need you know let's find out what people need and let's try to give it to them in a way that enhances their lives we all know their privacy technology enhances people's lives but let's just communicate that in a way that people can hear it okay so this is like a little US versus them right and I don't I don't love this but it's true people inide companies they're building this privacy preserved technology they're not the early majority right they are the early adopter so it is a little US versus them but how do we kind of I'm going to poke a little bit of fun at this right so here this lady's like I bet he's thinking about privacy technology and he's like I just wish my email wasn't filled with Spam all the time right so how can we kind of like recognize that US versus them and then and then get Beyond it um here you know like here we are we're like you guys privacy is a human right the surveillance state is spying on us we're all [ __ ] like what's wrong with you that you don't care and this like poor consumer is like ah I just wish I wouldn't get so many spam taxs like I don't really know about human rights like I'm just really annoyed with my phone right so does that person's concern is it like any less than ours no it's not it's a real thing and if we can meet them where we're at we'll succeed um okay so again this US versus them right like we're over here in our bubble just being like privacy is good privacy is good and they're like okay sure yeah that's great but mostly I just want technology that's going to solve my everyday problems so I guess my call to action for all of you is try to get to know the users that you are selling this to or that you want to like adopt your technology yes it's still really early for us right maybe it's 1920 with the electric car and it's just early and that's okay talk to your early adopters get them to love your Tech use it but if we're going to evolve Beyond it we really need to think about what those people want and stop being judgmental and just give it to them um and so I kind of liken it to this um yeah so my the thing I want to leave all of you with as a marketer as someone who's you know been to grad school for marketing and all this stuff like studied it thought about it I love marketing a lot let's take a user Centric approach here right what do users want they have needs Let's help them meet them can we connect privacy technology to solutions that address problems desires and needs and can we make it relevant and then the second thing is like I'm you're lecturing you but like no one likes to be lectured right like if you go to someone and you're like you should do this you should do that people don't like to be talked to that way so we have to make them want it we have to make them desire it and and it's you know like I'm a mom right so I always think about this like I put vegetables in my kids Smoothies it's got mango and broccoli I'm not just like eat this broccoli you know the I see your face the mango broccoli smoothie is actually really good I'll make one for you one day um but you know like you can't just sit there and be like well if you're not eating your broccoli like I'm going home like put it in the Smoothie like how are we making this appealing and attractive to people and let's not be afraid to go there so this is the thing I want to leave with you all today like do we want to be right or do we want to win and that's my final question and I think you all need to actually like get into your body and think about this because if you're telling me well I just want to be right like I want to sit here and preach privacy to everyone you need to go home like if we're going to win I want to win I think you all want to win we have to change our mindset so everyone here who wants to be right um like don't be sfus right don't roll the boulder of consumer preferences up the hill like make a nice smooth path where you give them what they want um and yes I know we're all very principled I'm very principled too but at the end of the day if things continue in the direction they're going like we are all [ __ ] so like how do we kind of stem the tide and I think we stem the tide by using these like very tried andrue marketing and and user research principles um so that's it um I'm Claire if anyone wants to connect with me I'm really easy to find CLA card on Twitter clart on telegram um clart .49 on Signal and uh yeah we'd love to hear from you and thanks