eBay and ENS Early Adopter, Tim Ferriss Fan, and PoolTogether
PoolTogether Community Interview #23: gambrill
This week’s PoolTogether community interview features a very interesting member. He lives in the backwoods of New Jersey (yes, that exists), was selling on eBay before some of you were born, and he hosts his own podcast! Meet: gambrill.
1. Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a 50 year old proud husband and dad to 3 grown young men, who lives out in the woods in New Jersey, USA. I’ve been involved with online stuff since before America Online (AOL) got that name - it used to be called QuantumLink. I made my first few dollars online selling movie posters and other swag on a new site called eBay in 1995. I’ve mostly had a career in sales and marketing, primarily in the pharmaceutical and professional sports industries. And for the last 12 years I’ve had my own business teaching people how to monetize their message and audience online.
2. How did you get involved in the crypto/Web3 world?
Bitcoin came on to my radar in 2016 and I bought some when it was around $600, but mostly to “learn by doing”. I had an idea it was getting ready to take off, but certainly not like it did. Ever since then I’ve just been dabbling in the new things that have been coming out, mostly to keep myself educated on the basics so I can move quickly on new opportunities. It’s always been more of a hobby than a business or investment for me.
3. What lessons have you learned about it so far?
I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that it’s smart to hedge your bets. You can’t always pick the next big thing if you only focus on one thing. But if you look at the Web3 opportunities overall and pick a handful that seem promising and exciting to you based on some fundamentals, then you can invest your time and money there and you have a better shot at having a winner emerge for you.
And since there isn’t the regulation that you have in other financial industries, there are a ton of hype machines out there that just want to take your money and run or “rug pull”. I’ve lost a little bit of money in situations like that, but because I’ve spread my bets around and only invest when I can afford to lose, I see it as an investment in my Web3 education.
Right now (April 2022), the Web3 space reminds me of when PCs and the internet just started to become popular. People really weren’t sure what to do with them, so they just took stuff they were already doing and put it on a computer or online without giving much thought to how to improve the entire product or process. There was a lot of linear thinking and actions happening. We are just now starting to see people beginning to think exponentially into how/what Web3 utilities will fundamentally disrupt entire industries and it’s really exciting!
4. What was your best cryptocurrency/Web3 moment?
My best Web3 moment was when Ethereum Name Service decided they were going to airdrop tokens to early adopters. Because of what I’ve already mentioned, I had been buying up .eth domains for years mostly to learn how to do it and to protect my intellectual property for my businesses and brands on Web3. I bought the longest terms I could for dozens of .eth domains, which proved to be pretty lucrative when the calculations for the airdrop came out.
5. What was your biggest failure with it?
My biggest failure so far has been buying into some projects and tokens too late, mostly on hype and then watching the price tank or having the rug pulled. I’ve learned to have a much more discerning eye for opportunities as a result.
6. How did you find out about PoolTogether?
I honestly don’t remember specifically how I heard about PoolTogether, but if I had to guess, it was probably on a podcast with Kevin Rose, either one of his own (“Modern Finance” and “Proof”) or perhaps when he appeared as a guest on the “Tim Ferriss Show”. I’ve been a fan of Tim Ferriss since 2007 and was a big Digg user back in the day, which Kevin Rose founded, so I use those two gentlemen as my “divining rods” that help point to things, subjects, and opportunities I might want to pay attention to.
7. What made you stick around?
I had heard about DAOs and wanted to learn about how they work, and the no-loss idea of PoolTogether seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to learn about two things at once. So as usual, I immediately put a little bit of money in it to learn first-hand how it all works. I then jumped into the Discord to learn as much as I could. And it was honestly my first real use of Discord. I had an account but was never part of a server with so much good activity that was organized so well. So because I could get my questions answered easily, either through pinned posts or super-helpful community members, I kept digging deeper. I think the weekly “Swim Meet” call has been very important in shortening my learning curve and helping me quickly feel like part of the community.
8. How are you involved in the community?
Right now I am involved mostly with the timely dropping of witty memes and gifs in the Discord chats, since I still don’t have a firm enough grasp on the technical aspects to be helpful there. I also answer questions and help new users find what they are looking for. I’ve also dedicated an episode of my podcast, “Unleash the Awesome”, to Web3 opportunities and mentioned PoolTogether pretty extensively.
9. Would you recommend PoolTogether to others? How would you describe it to them?
Yes! I highly recommend PoolTogether to others, mostly as a great, lower risk way to get involved in Web3. I’ve helped a ton of my friends get a wallet, get some USDC on Polygon and get it in the pool. So I describe it literally like this, “It’s a great, lower risk way to get involved and learn about crypto and maybe win some sweet prizes along the way, all without losing your initial investment.”
I’ve also been explaining to my Web2 friends and business owners how they might want to incorporate the power and utility of smart contracts, NFTs, and the PoolTogether delegation tool into their businesses.
10. Are you involved in any other projects or communities? If yes, which ones?
Yes, I’ve had a Bobcat Helium miner for about a year now, and have since installed a few others around the world. That’s been a really fascinating project to see first-hand how Web3 can help solve “real world” problems through incentives and tokenization.
And because of my involvement with Helium, I learned about a similar project called DIMO that is building a user-owned IoT platform that allows drivers to collect and share their vehicle data. Drivers get insights about their vehicle, contribute data to the open ecosystem where it can be used to build new technology and applications, and earn DIMO tokens for participating.
11. Do you have any other thoughts and comments you would like to share?
I just want to say thank you to the entire PoolTogether community and its leadership because I know amazing projects like this don’t happen without a lot of people pitching in to help.
We hope you enjoyed this interview and learned a different perspective on the journeys our community members take to find and get involved with PoolTogether. It always fascinates me to learn about the different paths taken to find this great community. Everyone has a truly unique way of finding our great community.
Please learn more about depositing at PoolTogether.com and join us in the PoolTogether Discord to become a part of our Community!