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  3. /Jesse Walden
  4. /Briefing
Pre-Pitch Briefing

Jesse Walden

Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Variant Fund

SeedSeries AConsumerCreator EconomyDeFiSocial

Their Thesis

Ownership economy. Users should own a stake in the networks they contribute to.

How to Pitch Them

Show how your protocol distributes ownership to users and creators.

What Excites Them

User ownership, creator empowerment, protocols rewarding participation

What They Pass On

Extractive platforms disguised as web3, ownership theater

Key Frameworks

Ownership Economy Model

Three-phase approach to building crypto: product-market fit, community cultivation, sufficient decentralization.

Ownership Economy

Users who contribute value to networks should own a stake in those networks

In Their Own Words

“In the ownership economy, users are owners and owners are users.”

— Variant blog

“Progressive decentralization is the path to legitimacy.”

— a16z blog

“In the ownership economy, every user is a stakeholder. That changes everything about how products are built and distributed.”

— Blog

Recent Writing

Geeks Like Usblog
Everything Is Marketblog
DAO 2.0 Product Ideasblog
DAOs 2.0blog
Beyond Speculation and Stablecoins: Crypto’s Next Phase?blog

Podcast Appearances

Crypto and Creator Economies — Unchained
creator economyweb3 socialtoken ownership
The Ownership Economy — Bankless
ownership economyprogressive decentralizationVariant
The Ownership Economy — Bankless
ownershipcreator economytokens

Variant Fund Portfolio

Top Sectors

Infrastructure9
DeFi2
NFT/Gaming2
NFT1
L1/L21

Stage Distribution

Seed31
Series A19
Pre-Seed7
Token4
Series B4
onchain via Mirror
Takenos
Seed
The Clearing Company
Seed
True Markets
Series A
Turnkey
Seed
Whetstone Research
Pre-Seed
ZkCloud
Seed
ZKsync
Series C
Zora
Seed
Swoop

+ 60 more investments. View fund →

← Full profile@jessewldnLinkedInVariant Fund website