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As an early member of M13, Mark spends his time investing in early stage consumer technology businesses. He focuses primarily on helping the firm develop its web3 thesis. Mark graduated from UCLA with a BA in Business Economics.

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As M13's community program coordinator, Samantha aligns with M13’s commitment to creating an inclusive community through authentic experience, dedication to innovation, and creativity. Samantha was previously the development associate for outreach and programming at Rockefeller University.

Samantha Hughes

Operator

As M13's community program coordinator, Samantha aligns with M13’s commitment to creating an inclusive community.

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Samantha Hughes | M13

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As M13's brand project specialist, Generra brings her experience in operational excellence and community building from her previous time at The Knowledge House, a tech non-profit. Prior to that, Generra led project management, from enrollment and ops to data management, for Newark Public Schools. 

Generra Rodriguez

As M13's brand project specialist, Generra brings her experience in operational excellence and community building from her previous time at The Knowledge House, a tech non-profit. 

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Generra Rodriguez | M13

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As a partner and head of operations, Lizzie leads the Propulsion team that helps propel our founders’ businesses forward. She was previously the COO of sneaker marketplace GOAT Group, CMO of Gilt Groupe, and founding partner of Brilliant Ventures.

Lizzie Francis

Partner

As a partner and head of operations, Lizzie leads the Propulsion team that helps propel our founders’ businesses forward. She was previously the COO of sneaker marketplace GOAT...

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Lizzie Francis | M13

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Erik is M13's accountant and has a vast background working in tech companies and the applications used in accordance with GAAP for reporting. Erik was previously an accountant at Glamsquad and Stella Connect, which was acquired by NYSE listed Medallia in 2020, which gave Erik the opportunity to oversee the finance integrations of the two companies. 

Erik Grant

Erik is M13's accountant and has a vast background working in tech companies and the applications used in accordance with GAAP for reporting.

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Erik Grant | M13

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Feven was an investment analyst for KingsCrowd while simultaneously receiving a certificate from Cornell’s Women and Entrepreneurship program, where she focused on the start-up ecosystem for minority groups.

Feven Solomon

Investor

Feven was an investment analyst for KingsCrowd while simultaneously receiving a certificate from Cornell’s Women and Entrepreneurship program, where she focused on the start-up...

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Feven Solomon | M13

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As a member of the investor relations team, Talitha has worked with the team to build the IR systems at M13 from the ground up. She was previously the quality control and administrative assistant for the accounting and assurance department of Lindsay & Brownell, LLP.

Talitha Wright

As a member of the investor relations team, Talitha has worked with the team to build the IR systems at M13 from the ground up. She was previously the quality control and...

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Talitha Wright | M13

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Sarah was previously the VP of marketing and investor relations at Arlon Group and has served in IR roles at StepStone Group and Citi Private Equity. She is a public company board member, co-founded the Sustainability Investment Leadership Council, and has served on numerous non-profit boards.

Sarah Tomolonius

Sarah was previously the VP of marketing and investor relations at Arlon Group and has served in IR roles at StepStone Group and Citi Private Equity. She is a public company...

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Sarah Tomolonius | M13

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A people operations analyst, Rita was previously the owner and operator of Street Beatz Dance Company. Prior to that, she held the roles of internal annuity specialist and registered client associate at Merrill Lynch.

Rita Serrano

A people operations analyst, Rita was previously the owner and operator of Street Beatz Dance Company. Prior to that, she held the roles of internal annuity specialist and...

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Rita Serrano | M13

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Morgan spent five years in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. She worked on a presidential campaign, at Bloomberg Philanthropies and consulted for start-ups in the political media space.

Morgan Blumberg

Morgan spent five years in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. She worked on a presidential campaign, at Bloomberg Philanthropies and consulted for start-ups in the political...

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Morgan Blumberg | M13

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Latif manages the overall investing strategy for the firm and has led numerous deals across money and health verticals with a large focus on web3. He was previously the managing director at Virgin Group where he led investing in the Americas including investments in Ring (acq. by AMZN), Slack (NYSE: WORK), Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), and Virgin Orbit (NASDAQ: VORB).

Latif Peracha

As M13’s general partner, Latif manages the investing strategy for the firm and has led numerous deals across money, health, and web3 verticals. He was previously a managing...

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Latif Peracha | M13

__As the most tenured employee at M13,__ I’ve had a front row seat for the firm’s growth. It’s been incredibly exciting and rewarding to be a part of shaping culture and translating our mission to do venture differently into action.

 __Being part of a really young company is a massive responsibility —__ who you are in the early days means so much for who you become - but it’s also a massive opportunity to change the conversation. That goes for every aspect of what we do, from how we communicate with potential partners to the culture we create within our own walls.

 __The venture community has an opportunity —__ and to an extent, a responsibility to support founders that incorporate elements of sustainability into their mission. You don’t have to be a cleantech-only investor to do that.

 __Instead of wondering how something could fail, wonder how it could succeed.__

 __The best ideas may sound counterintuitive or even wrong at first__ (who would allow a stranger to use your spare bedroom?), but it’s important to hear them out. I’ve been fortunate at M13 to be surrounded by people who think and act differently than I do, which provides a far better lens for evaluating these counterintuitive ideas.

 __At M13, the opportunity is even greater,__ because we focus on investments at the forefront of consumer technology and emerging trends. That means my job is about more than solely evaluating opportunities that might make for an attractive investment - it’s about seeing the emerging products and services that could become the next household names. It’s about suspending your disbelief and imagining a world that doesn’t exist yet. I consider that role, frankly, to be an honor.

 __I learned the hustle of an entrepreneur firsthand,__ because my mom and sister are both artists. Watching them work has taught me so many lessons about business and the experience of working for yourself, but also showed me how to bring creativity to my work.

Mark Grace

As an early member of M13, Mark spends his time investing in early stage consumer technology businesses. He focuses primarily on helping the firm develop its web3 thesis. Mark...

M13SharePeople-MarkGrace

Mark Grace | M13

Pioneered by Axie Infinity, the play-to-earn category exploded onto the scene in 2021. At its apex, Axie had [2.7M](https://afkgaming.com/esports/news/report-axie-infinity-was-losing-player-count-even-before-the-crypto-hack) daily active users and, at the time of publication, has a [$1.38B](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/axie-infinity/) market cap. While Axie was not the first, a new economy has emerged in what we call earn. 
We define earn as an incentive mechanism that drives member acquisition and retention with networks, and we are seeing growing adoption of this earn model in the form of move to earn, learn to earn, spend to earn, and the list goes on. 
What's most interesting is that both crypto natives and mainstream consumers - who don't know or care what blockchain is - are engaging with these businesses. One example in the move to earn space is M13 portfolio company StepN, which was prelaunch when we invested in early 2022 and is now a top iOS fitness app with more than 3M monthly active users and 800K daily active users. 
The throughline in earn businesses is that a user accrues value in the form of tokens for completing an action of behavior. We have broadly invested into this space, and we wanted to outline our thoughts on what is driving this space forward and what attributes to look for in an earn business. 
<center>![M13 Earn Portfolio Companies (as of May 2022)](//images.ctfassets.net/vcjxvx0h1a5n/1km9n15Pdb7EzBXwbUMPPW/ad56bd2bd5797201d4d439cfb7d1aedf/Web3_blog_v3.png)</center>
<center>_M13 Earn Portfolio Companies (as of May 2022)_</center> 
## Why earn matters
We see three fundamental unlocks that earn businesses can provide when done correctly:
<NumberedBullet number="1" highlight="Providing transportable economic value" />
<NumberedBullet number="2" highlight="Incentivizing users for existing behaviors" />
<NumberedBullet number="3" highlight="Incentivizing users on the margin" /> 
### 1. Transportable economic value
Reward businesses are commonplace in our daily lives: airline points, credit card rewards, Fortnite V-bucks are all familiar earn mechanisms. Their value is typically not transferable and limited to the environment in which they exist. This is by design as they serve as an engagement tool to retain users. 
Crypto is different in that crypto assets are generally redeemable outside their native ecosystem. Want to trade your Axie AXS tokens? Simply head to any whitelisted exchange or DEX and swap them for another token, provided there is sufficient liquidity. 
Transportability matters as it provides users the means to monetize the value that they earned internally on any external market. This trait has been a driver in the rise of play to earn (P2E) as a means of earning income. 
While the transportability of earn allows users to actually monetize their behaviors, this property is a double edged sword. Users can vote with their wallets and cash out, draining liquidity and impairing the ecosystem’s health along the way. This must be counteracted by compelling user experiences or financial incentives (e.g., yield through liquidity pool contributions) that keep users engaged. More on this below. 
### 2. Incentivizing existing behaviors
Earn businesses can incentivize behaviors that consumers have already adopted. Rewards and loyalty programs are massively successful and have conditioned our expectations to earn for spending, but we have seen the expansion beyond just spending. Today's consumers and developers are increasingly educating themselves on web3 and being rewarded for learning and becoming active in crypto ecosystems. Coinbase Earn, Rabbithole, and Layer3 are examples of businesses helping users - from casual retail investors to professional financial analysts - upskill via earn mechanics. 
Another example is M13 portfolio company Flipside Crypto. Protocols that are in need of third party analytics post bounties to the Flipside site. Using Flipside’s querying tools, analysts can complete bounties and submit them for a payment reward in the protocol’s native token. The outputs range from simple queries to detailed dashboards and are opportunities for analysts of all levels to earn by auditing protocol health. An eventual extension of this is the opportunity for analysts to build an ownership stake in the protocols that they are building in or even in a platform like Flipside. 
<center>![Flipside Bounties](//images.ctfassets.net/vcjxvx0h1a5n/17Z2YjReg7Nwl4cTfc6sqo/dda79e2a83989c84c50d66140ed27a50/flipside_crypto_bounties.png)</center>
<center>_Source: [Flipside bounties](https://flipsidecrypto.xyz/earn)_</center> 
### 3. Incentivizing users on the margin
While earn businesses reward people who are already in crypto, we are most excited about the ability of the earn category to onboard net new consumers into the space. 
For example, let’s look at StepN. The app has brought thousands of walkers, joggers, and runners into crypto, many for the first time. More importantly, StepN has motivated people to _begin_ exercising: a quick glance of StepN’s [Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/StepN/top/?t=all) shows its positive health effects. And consumers are lacing up their running shoes (both physical and digital) in droves, making it one of the largest web3 apps to date. 
<center>[![StepN - user tweet - @kailase24](//images.ctfassets.net/vcjxvx0h1a5n/3zuEqdrpc7nnymWNvxHJBL/28a92866763418dd8db3990234cbb97b/stepn-user-tweet.png)](https://twitter.com/kalaise24/status/1525837578133716998)</center>
<center>_Source: [@kalaise24 via Twitter](https://twitter.com/kalaise24/status/1525837578133716998n)_</center> 
It's early days for StepN, and there is much to prove out and much discussion on its token model. The cost of entry remains high, and the game will need to continue to innovate on price stabilization. As the debate continues about what it is -- a game or a financial tool -- the behavior we are seeing is that consumers are getting off their couches, stepping, and improving their health. 
## How earn companies succeed
The earn space is in its infancy and, like most things in crypto these days, growing quickly. To evaluate the models that we are seeing, we ask ourselves three questions: 
<h6>What is the long term utility?</h6>
Community engagement is a key sign that there is something beyond pure token economic incentives. Consumers want and deserve compelling products and experiences, and we look for product durability by trying to understand if consumers will continue to love the experience long after the honeymoon period wears off. For example, will Flipside's incentives drive more analysts to build in these emerging networks, leading to new and meaningful applications that generate further engagement? Will StepN address both screen saturation and immobility and usher in a global fitness movement? This will only happen if consumers extract value beyond economic incentives such as the community, local meet-ups, and innovation in the game design that keeps them engaged and moving. 
<h6>Are the tokenomics sustainable?</h6>
When done right, tokens amplify traditional network effects for all stakeholders: users, developers, validators, and the insiders. A value prop of crypto is its ability to enable owned governance in a network, meaning that projects with aligned long term incentives should be able to both financially succeed while providing a positive experience to users. Are consumer and investor incentives aligned, or will the marginal user be left holding the bag? This is where critical details like token allocation, vesting, burn mechanisms, and unlocking schedules and liquidity are essential. These are still such early days for this market, and we are learning along the way with our portfolio companies. The bootstrapping of a network has been proven out but it will be many years before we can truly answer the question on sustainability. 
<h6>Would this business succeed if it were a web2 company?</h6>
The answer is not always clear. While web3 is filled with jargon, the same business fundamentals that matter in web2 (i.e., user growth, revenue, DAUs, MAUs, engagement, retention, NPS, etc.) still matter here. Copying a web2 model and incorporating a token is generally not a recipe for success, so it is important to think through the fundamental unlock that a web3 company is providing. 
We at M13 will be doubling down, spending more of our mindshare, and deploying more of our capital into crypto and its impact on the future of consumer behavior. If you are building, investing, writing about, or just curious about the space, we hope you’ll join us on the journey. 
## How to get in touch
Contact [Mark Grace](https://m13.co/profile/mark-grace) at [mark@m13.co](mailto:mark@m13.co), and follow him on Twitter at [@markwgrace](https://twitter.com/markwgrace). 
Contact [Latif Peracha](https://m13.co/profile/latif-peracha) at [latif@m13.co](mailto:latif@m13.co), and follow him on Twitter at [@latifperacha](https://twitter.com/latifperacha?lang=en).

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Reflections on ‘Earn’

M13 analyzes investment opportunities in the web3 'blank to earn' model in which users earn money for behavior

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Venture Investing in ‘Blank to Earn’ web3 Startups | M13

Our role at M13 is to understand the future of consumer behavior and support the entrepreneurs who are powering those changes. We focus both on direct applications and the infrastructure layers that power them. Along the way, there are emerging technologies that represent a paradigm shift around how businesses operate and how consumers live. Think technologies like the internet, mobile, and cloud, which have given rise to the likes of Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Uber. 
<ImagePanel src1="//images.ctfassets.net/vcjxvx0h1a5n/1B5KBOtGTTgz3jTLe4fMCO/203138e411498f4f2fd11bebe7f41833/valentines_prepared_1.png" alt1="Prepared team" caption1="M13 Partners Christine Choi and Karl Alomar meet with the Prepared team at M13’s New York office" src2="//images.ctfassets.net/vcjxvx0h1a5n/7ofacJc1KmH7SZIRuWoKzW/cac34901e836fcef4fe608234abec82e/valentines_prepared_2.png" alt2="Christine Choi, Miranda Lee" caption2="M13 Partner Christine Choi (right) with Prepared’s VP of Operations Miranda Lee" />

From Bitcoin to NFTs and social tokens, here’s how crypto is changing the future of consumer behavior.

Pixel portraits of Latif Peracha and Mark Grace pose amid pixel blue and pink fireworks.

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Crypto and the Consumer: The Road Ahead

M13’s Latif Peracha and Mark Grace explain the changing relationship between crypto and the consumer—and the future of Bitcoin, DeFi, NFTs, and social tokens.

Crypto and the Consumer: The Road Ahead | M13

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We are thrilled to announce our investment into [Flipside Crypto](https://flipsidecrypto.xyz/) as part of its $50M Series A Round led by Republic Capital. We are participating alongside a handful of great investors including Collab+Currency, True Ventures, and Galaxy Digital. 
## An underserved market
At M13, we view web3 and crypto as a horizontal layer — much like mobile in 2010 — that started as an investment theme and soon permeated all verticals. The last 24 months have been exciting as we have witnessed an explosion of applications driven by DeFi and NFTs. But these markets are still nascent, and for a shift on the magnitude of mobile to occur, the underlying infrastructure needs to improve. 
Given the immense opportunity in web3, there are astonishingly few developers in the space: [18,000](https://medium.com/electric-capital/electric-capital-developer-report-2021-f37874efea6d) compared to ~4M total developers in the US. Flipside is changing this by incentivizing developers to participate in web3 through bounties. 
## How it works
Protocols post bounties - from simple queries to detailed dashboards - and Flipside users complete them and earn payment in the native token of the protocol. As an example, a user analyzing liquidity provider Aave can receive a reward in $AAVE for completing and posting [bounties](https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/thomas8104/viz/AaveTheLiquidityProtocol/AaveTheLiquidityProtocol?publish=yes). Flipside’s bounty program provides users a seamless way to explore new protocols and earn the native currency. 
Protocols love this too as Flipside is a customer acquisition channel for them. They all want (need!) additional talent, and protocols can rely on Flipside to provide a channel for decentralized analytics. Flipside has amassed an impressive customer base: partners include Terra, Solana, Flow, Algorand, Thorchain, Osmosis, and more. 
Protocols and their foundations fund these bounties through grants and delegations to Flipside’s nodes, and they are incentivized to fund them as Flipside drives more talent and analytics to their networks. This is proving to be a high quality source of talent for protocols. On average, 90% of new bounty hunters are experimenting with a protocol for the first time. Flipside’s retention averages are north of 80%, and more importantly developers are staying in these ecosystems: bounty hunters are keeping over 80% of their rewards staked in the native token of the protocol that they’re working on, which continues to enhance protocol health. 
The number of monthly bounties submitted is rapidly growing: 
<center> ![Flipside Crypto Bounties](//images.ctfassets.net/vcjxvx0h1a5n/RlTafJFLpDBaUwKalvCa3/8ef0505b4fdefbee8f20f03a464b01d4/flispide_crypto-submittedbounties-chart.png) 
 *Submitted Bounties (different colors denote unique protocols)* 
 *Source: Flipside Crypto* </center> 
Flipside is also a creator of MetricsDAO, a DAO that leverages Flipside’s infrastructure to create the future of crypto analytics. As on-chain activity grows, we look forward to the subsequent DAOs that will emerge and leverage Flipside’s tooling. We are in the early innings! 
To Dave, Jim, Eric and the entire Flipside Crypto team: thank you for partnering with us, and we are excited to be on this journey together. Welcome to the M13 family!

Flipside Crypto’s bounty programs provide developers and analysts the tools to explore web3 protocols and earn.

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Investing in Flipside Crypto: Incentivizing Developers to Enter Web3 and Build

M13 invested in Flipside Crypto, an operator of bounties that incentivize developers and analysts to explore and earn in web3.

Mark Grace

Recently Published

Reflections on ‘Earn’

Crypto and the Consumer: The Road Ahead

Investing in Flipside Crypto: Incentivizing Developers to Enter Web3 and Build

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