tech - Justin Paterno

The Beautiful Bastards

I haven't written in a while. Mostly because building and fundraising for Cardshop has been taking up most of my time. I've also gone deep down the rabbit hole and gotten involved in an NFT project that is of particular interest to me (and what we're trying to do at

tech

From @oldmansearch to @oldmangrams

By now you are probably sick of all the NFT posts. Writing for me is a discipline, a daily habit, and a way to get my thoughts down on paper database digital paper. I'm trying my best to tell a story along with each post that is interesting in it's

game design

Gamers get it

We started building Cardshop as a really fun way to open packs of cards from your phone. As we started to pivot towards this being something rooted in NFT's, it's been interesting to me who it clicks with and who it doesn't, and watching it click. This post is a

tech

Web 3 is a Network of Formats and Formats will Build the World

Last week I wrote about NBA Top Shot and a format replacement cycle occurring between traditional cardboard cards and digital ones. While oversimplified and not the entire story, people are in essence taking their collection and "burning" it to the blockchain. It has sparked a new gold rush in people

game design

Format Replacement cycles

Something interesting is underway. Over the past month, NBA Top Shot, a digital collectable similar to a basketball card has exploded in interest and in price. My friend Michael Batnick just wrote a great post about diving into the mania head first. With Top Shot, instead of a physical card

finance

Gas Prices, Currencies, and Enabling Economies to Scale

If you've been following Ethereum at all you will see that Gas is Too Damn High. Gas prices, or the fee miners charge to use the Ethereum network has been at an elevated level since mid-summer, as DeFi and general speculation is driving more activity on the blockchain. Ethereum charges

tech

All of a sudden, Twitter is Doing Many Things

As someone who built a product that started off on Twitter, I follow what they do quite closely. Often times at Stocktwits we would see our roadmaps be eerily similar as both companies shared a core set of similar problems to solve. After years of focusing on improving the core

product

An Ode to No Code

One of the tech trends that excite me the most is No Code platforms, which allow those with little to no programming expertise to build applications. Perhaps the best example of a No Code platform is Shopify ($SHOP) - which has enabled entrepreneurs to quickly set up digital storefronts and

finance

The Billion Dollar Cartridge

Tomorrow a bunch of younger investors are going to put a quarter of a million dollars into a dinosaur. I'm not talking about GameStop, rather it's the latest offering on Rally Road - a platform that fractionalizes and securitizes ownership of collectibles. Here's a tweet from Rob, their founder (who

finance

On Conway's Law and Social Financial Media

Every now and then a stock market story comes around that captures the attention of the nation. Yesterday, we were blessed with such a story as short squeeze on all but left for dead video game retailer, Gamestop ($GME), led the stock to astronomical levels. The stock is up 350%

management

Post Pandemic Trends: Offices

According to researchers, the current pandemic surge has likely peaked in the US. They certainly could be wrong or we could see a new surge based on some weird variant out of South Africa or West Hartford, but with vaccines starting to get distributed, it's a good bet that the

product

The Next Wave of Consumer Social Apps and Related Miscellany

A theme I've seen people getting behind is the idea that 2020 was the start of a new trend in social apps. As someone who spent most of his career building social products and really enjoy using them, it's been something on my mind. I coupled it with a couple

game design

Build the Toy First

Last week I wrote about how most teams build really bad MVP's. One alternative to Minimum Viable Product, I've heard mentioned by some people is Minimum Delightful Product. I don't hate that. Most teams when they set out to build an MVP forget that the goal is still to delight

tech

Fear and Loathing in Crypto

“There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil." -Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las VegasAs Bitcoin reaches new all

tech

The Comment Section Insurrection

The events we witnessed yesterday at the Capitol were awful, sad, jarring, and scary. A common reaction I saw echoed on TV and on Twitter was, "This isn't who we are." or "America is better than this." Aside from mostly agreeing, I found it interesting because it is essentially the

management

What I've Learned So Far in Product and Management (Vol. 1)

Taking a break during the pandemic gave me plenty of time to clear my head and reflect. Over the past 9 months, I put together a running list of thoughts of things I've learned and/or mistakes I've made. Most of these are related to product management and startups, but

life

Spotify is Other Music delivered at Scale

I love music and I'm a heavy user of Spotify. Like many others, I really enjoy their annual "Wrapped" feature where they produce a personalized summary of my year using their service. For the music lover in me, it is rewarding and fun to see what I've listened to from

finance

Coinbase, Facebook, and Why Values are What Really Matters

This week Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, published a Medium post reaffirming its mission to "create an open financial system for the world" and announcing that Coinbase would not be a politically active company, except where it helped further this mission. He writes (emphasis his), Coinbase’s mission is to create

product

Analog and Digital Junk Drawers and the Beauty of Roam Research

Today I was straightening up the kitchen, and noticed that a bunch of random stuff was accumulating on top of a bench by the window. I was trying to figure out where to put the various items when it occurred to me - we never designated a junk drawer after