Introduction:
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey in the online community space that led you to co-found Collab.Land?
I am Anjali Young, a lawyer by education, former homeschooling mother of two, and decades-long member and leader of online communities. Currently I am living in Denver with my family, including spouse James Young. James leads Collab.Land with me alongside Raymond Feng, Alok Tiwari, and our dedicated community-obsessed core team.
My online community journey started when I was still a teenager dialing up via modem to bulletin boards and continued through my adulthood. I joined James to build Collab.Land together once it became clear that communities were where Abridged would be focusing its attention. Online communities (and communication) are my passion and I’m fortunate to make it my career.
Collab.Land’s Mission:
Could you explain Collab.Land’s mission and what inspired you to create an automated member management system for tokenized communities?
Collab.Land’s mission started simple – to provide tools that support the creation of crypto communities. And that’s sustained us to this day. Listen to your communities, the good and mostly bad (bad being more valuable), and serve their needs with thoughtfulness.
The inspiration for Collab.Land came from necessity; we needed to get our DAO members into a chat together.
Taking it back to 2020 – Abridged Inc was a no code tooling platform built to support developers building apps for crypto. To demonstrate our tooling, we created dozens of applications and one of them, the last one, was Collab.Land.
If you held the required Collab-19 DAO shares, we checked the blockchain and let you in. If you sold those DAO shares, you were removed from the community. That’s how the concept of “Token Gating” was created and things just took off from there. DAOs started adding token gating, investment groups formed, creators used “social tokens” as fan clubs, and then NFTs became membership tokens. Today we see token gating used for both online and IRL access. It’s become a primitive for crypto.
Notable Clients:
Collab.Land has worked with some impressive clients like Prada, Gucci, and Adidas. Can you share some insights into how Collab.Land has helped these brands with their community management?
Collab.Land offers a permissionless platform for over 53,000 (and continuously expanding) communities. We not only provide our projects, including the forward-thinking brands you’ve mentioned, with top-tier and resilient token gating capabilities but also offer dedicated support for admins and members. Additionally, Collab.Land offers a comprehensive suite of miniapps that can be installed to tailor communities to their specific needs and preferences.
Background and Expertise:
You have a diverse background, having worked as a lawyer, adjunct professor, and early tech startup employee. How have these experiences influenced your approach to building and leading communities in the web3 space?
Being a lawyer didn’t directly help me become a better community builder or leader, as much as the years I spent online while homeschooling my two children. That being said, having a law degree and professional experience does give me the additional confidence needed to be more comfortable in such a nascent and quickly evolving industry.
At the end of the day, however, we are running things based on our values, and those are developed over time and life experience.
Passion for NFTs and Artists:
You have a strong passion for NFTs and the artists who create them. Can you share some thoughts on how NFTs are transforming the art world?
NFTs bring with them a history of ownership that is provable and viewable by everyone equally. NFT sales are also viewable and knowable. Much of the secrecy, from sales prices to how funds are distributed and beyond, no longer exists.
Aside from that, NFTs open up whole new relationships between the artist and others, including collectors, galleries, platforms, and collectors.
Web3 Community Documentary Series:
You co-produced the first documentary series focused on web3 communities. Can you share some insights or stories from this experience that left a lasting impact on you?
Rather than allocating our marketing budget towards self-promotion or broadcasting the virtues of Collab.Land, we chose to highlight the vibrant communities with whom we collaborate daily – our cherished friends and partners. These are the ones to watch – the ones who will influence trends, culture, and the future of the internet.
Collab.Land VIP Offering:
The Collab.Land VIP offering provides a range of services for projects looking to enhance their community development. Could you elaborate on how these services, such as bespoke consulting and priority tech support, have made a difference for your clients?
With Collab.Land, we’ve been serving web3 communities for over 3 years, among them, there are traditional luxury brands, sports brands, consumer brands, OG NFT projects, DAOs, gaming companies, and DeFi projects.
Across these different sectors, we heard the need for a bespoke end-to-end solution, a tailored community service.
That’s why we launched Collab.Land VIP. Once you become a client, you get expert advice & consulting, weekly touchpoints, direct tech support, a custom-branded verification bot, education for your mods, and as-needed Discord Security Audits.
The Future of Community Development:
How do you envision the future of community development in the web3 space, and how does Collab.Land aim to be at the forefront of this evolution?
No matter web1, web2 or web3, communities are there, and not going away, humans have a fundamental desire to connect with each other. Online, this connection can be augmented by stores of value like NFTs or ways of expression through the advancements of AI. In the next five years, we will see new forms of online communities emerge that solve problems that we thought were unsolvable. It will also create new, unanticipated problems that we can not yet comprehend, but the magic of web3 community and what web3 community can do has been unfolded, and I am super excited about it and will keep embracing it. We wanna Collab.Land be the community of communities, and provide what’s being needed for developers, token holders and anyone who would like to enter web3.
Closing Remarks:
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience about Collab.Land or your vision for the future of community management in the web3 era?
Web3 is not just an era, it’s the foundation for the next version of the internet.
For more such updates, follow us on Google News Martech News
Anjali Young , Co-Founder of Abridged Inc, Makers of Collab.Land
Anjali Young is the Co-Founder of Collab.Land. Anjali has been active in online communities since 1993 as both a member and in leadership positions. She has also worked as a lawyer, adjunct professor, and early tech startup employee. In addition to her interest in online communities and web3 onboarding, she has a passion for NFTs and the artists who create them. While developing her business skills and working on several passion projects, Anjali also homeschooled her two children. Her role at Collab.Land focuses on onboarding all types of tokenized projects and partners onto the platform, ensuring Collab.Land’s “community of communities” is a safe and welcoming space, and educating others about web3 ethos and values. When she’s not working, Anjali enjoys creating art from found objects and improvisational theater. LinkedIn.