On Tuesday, August 13, 2024, Mike Michelini presented our “alpha ship” demo to about 15 attendees at a local ecommerce meetup in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Learn more about the meetup here.
Key takeaways from the demo:
- Mike spent about 20-30 minutes sharing my screen and doing a live checkout on Hamza’s “alpha ship” at the meetup.
About the attendees:
- Experience level: About 5 of the attendees were experienced sellers with 10+ years in the field, while the rest were a mix of newbies and intermediate-level participants.
- Crypto usage: Around 5 out of the 15 attendees indicated they use or hold cryptocurrency.
- Self-custodial wallets: Most attendees were unfamiliar with the concept. When I mentioned MetaMask, only one or two raised their hands, and even then, not very confidently. Those who were into crypto mostly kept their funds on centralized exchanges like Binance or Coinbase.
- DAO/community governance: The concept was new to most, and they didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about.
Main questions raised:
- What if someone tries to sell “body parts”? This led to an in-depth conversation about blockchain censorship and the potential for censorship within the Hamza application layer.
- If someone gets banned, can they just create another account?
- How do we handle fake reviews?
Mike’s main responses emphasized that this is about TRANSPARENCY and community ownership/governance.
Outcome: The attendees are definitely open to the concept. They have been following our updates over the past year (through meetups, etc.), but it’s clear that they still need a lot of guidance and training.
The road to go-live will require a strong focus on education.