Chapter 5: reading HTML, FUD'd & confused, one pot pasta ftw
I spent 20 hours researching Shopify Themes so you don’t have to.
As part of the work to build the website, I have reached out to countless visual designers and cold pitched myself to so many people I’ve lost count. But, there’s nothing like saying the words “bootstrapped” and “I have a lean budget” to cause the color to drain out of potential partners’ faces.
I quickly eliminated the path of a custom built or headless ecomm platform. They are expensive to create and require people with design and technical skills (none of which I have) to maintain it on an ongoing basis. Plus, Shopify themes have gotten really really good. You’d be surprised at the number of big brands that are built on a theme. The problem is that there are so many to choose from. After spending hours sifting through different designs and comparing various options, they all starting looking the same.
So then I started trying to figure out what themes other brands are using. I scanned the source codes of a bunch of ecomm websites to see if I could find the name of the Shopify theme. I eventually found a very handy Chrome Plug-in that can detect Shopify themes. It also has a secondary benefit of showing you the software tools that a brand running on Shopify is using. (Pssst: if you work in ecommerce and want to do some research on your competitors…)
After hours of looking at the themes of 50+ brands, reading source codes, talking to designers who have a ton of experience with theme customization, here’s what I’ve learned:
Cascade and Prestige are the two of the most popular Shopify themes. They are both extremely customizable. Some of the brands using these two themes are able to customize it to the extent that it looks completely different from the original theme.
There are an endless number of themes, but from a design standpoint, they are not dramatically different. The most important consideration is to use a theme made by a legitimate company that provides good tech support.
Reading source codes is a good way to get intel on competitors. For example, Kylie Cosmetics used to be one of the biggest brands, from a revenue standpoint, that operates on Shopify. They migrated to a different platform recently, which I’m assuming was mandated after Coty took a majority stake in the company, because they now appear to be using a couple of Coty-specific software tools. They are now also using Bazaarvoice as their ratings and review platform. Bazaarvoice - aside from being a bully - is primarily a reviews syndication tool…so my assumption is they are planning for broader retail distribution beyond Ulta.
Now if I could only find a Designer willing to work with me. I’m open to leads!
A Tale of Two Discord Channels: the race to give Web3 a feminine glow-up
True story: one of the last projects I worked on at Native was an ad campaign for the brand’s holiday collection. This was Native’s first foray into longer form content that was meant to drive top of funnel brand awareness. It was also used as a vehicle to broaden the brand’s audience by speaking to the male demo, as Native’s current consumers are overwhelmingly female. And what do men want, you ask? Apparently, CRYPTOCURRENCY. One of the supporting characters was written as “that annoying cousin”, a distant relative who you have nothing in common with and dread seeing during holidays. After a couple more re-writes to give the character more specificity, we landed on “Crypto Bro”. You can check out Cousin Greg in his full glory here. He shows up at :26. During a script revision meeting, someone on the call brought up the idea of rewriting the cousin character to be an over-the-top Crypto Bro and asked the writer casually, “do you know what crypto is?”
Aside from me, the writer was the only other woman on the call. At that moment, even though we were on a video call, it felt (at least to me) like all of the air had been sucked out of our virtual room. She took a long pause before saying in measured tones, “Yes, I know what crypto is. I understand all the terminology. I can write a crypto bro for you.” And boy did she write him. I think she was trying to make a point by writing a 30 second monologue that was full of insane crypto jargon and ended with Cousin Greg screaming “to the moon, baby!” and beating his chest like an ape. A scene which ultimately got trimmed way back because…we were making an ad selling, uh, candy cane scented deodorant.
I tell this sidebar anecdote as an example of how it’s matter-of-factly assumed that women don’t know anything about Web3 and all of the concepts associated with it: blockchain, Defi, DAO, NFTs of poorly styled apes that look like they came from the bargain bin at Home Goods. You might have seen this video clip of Paris Hilton talking about NFTs that went viral. I think it went viral because people could not get over the fact that a person like Paris Hilton, a woman like her, could possibly know anything about the crypto space.
It is true that women are under-represented in crypto investing. The internet is littered with stats that show the stark gender (and race) gaps in this space.
Two-thirds of cryptocurrency investors are men (60% of whom are white)
6% of Bitcoin investors are women
The gender gap in this type of financial investment is even wider than other instruments like real estate, traditional stocks and mutual funds.
But fear not, our Jade Egg Goop Goddess herself, Gwyneth Paltrow, is on a mission to solve this problem. There is a growing and increasingly crowded movement to educate and recruit more women into the Web3 space. What’s interesting to me is how different organizations are going about their messaging and brand positioning in very different ways in an effort to be the owner the “women in crypto” discourse.
Exhibit A: MyBFF
MyBFF launched last week with a star-studded bang. Their launch announcement strategy had echoes of the Fyre Festival launch: a carefully coordinated social media announcement by a long line of celebrities and celebrity-adjacent influencers using matching creative assets. Founded by Brit Morin and Jaime Schmidt, MyBFF is described as “a new community for the crypto curious". People like Tyra Banks promoted the live Youtube launch event on her IG and Twitter accounts.
MyBFF’s brand identity feels distinctly female millennial - its logo is made up of block sans serif letters in a palette of high contrast jewel-toned colors. The brand voice is bubbly and friendly. Baked into the casual tone are subtle hints of exclusivity and elitism. They are saying to the audience “Hey besties, do you want to become a successful #girlboss like us? We’re giving you this one chance to join our very cool club, but first can you give me your email address, phone number and Coinbase Wallet ID?”
I’m not going to lie, I watched a portion of the event because I have an unhealthy obsession with celebrity culture and wanted to see if Gwyneth’s skin still looks radiant on a video call. (It does.) It was a mixture of female empowerment slogans, lauding crypto as the get rich quick opportunity of our lifetime and a top line intro into key terminology. My first thought after the event was “did I just attend a MLM conference?” My second thought was that MyBFF is ripping and reapplying the beauty brand marketing playbook:
utilize an army of influencers and key opinion leaders to promote the product benefits
focus the bulk of its marketing efforts on social media
create FOMO - make the product and community that surrounds it feel aspirational and exclusive
keep it light on actual technical details
This user’s comment on a Reddit thread about Glossier equally applies to MyBFF’s approach - trendy and alluring on the outside, empty beneath the surface. Instead of Boy Brow in your makeup bag, the new ‘it’ accessory of the season is a token in your crypto wallet.
Exhibit B: Eve Wealth
Compared to MyBFF, Eve Wealth feels a bit like the serious, more accomplished but dowdier sister.
Eve Wealth positions itself as “The 1st wealth DAO helping womxn learn, earn & invest in a web3 world.” (Can you imagine the year 2002 version of yourself reading that sentence?) Whereas 75% of MyBFF’s website content is head shots of the founding partners, Eve Wealth promotes access to an abundance of educational content: video tutorials, investment guides, detailed courses, and a robust calendar of events. However, all of that content is locked behind a $1500 membership paywall. Eve Wealth does not feel particularly accessible to the average person - one of the membership questions is whether the applicant has a net worth of $1M+ and applicants already need to have a digital wallet to receive a token that unlocks access to the membership.
Eve Wealth is taking a very different approach to its brand positioning. It’s closer to a SaaS playbook:
dense, hard to navigate content
a whole lot of different products and features
subscription based model with few features that can be accessed without paying upfront
I am by no stretch of the imagination a web3 expert and I think a large part of it feels like it’s ripe for scammers. But I do think women should have more avenues to educate themselves about the space, so they can decide if and how they choose to participate, rather than being shut out of it completely. To get more women in the space, orgs like MyBFF and Eve Wealth should come together and combine the best parts of their different approaches: Provide a free, straightforward and easy-to-navigate suite of educational content communicated in a format that is accessible and less intimidating than a lot of the info that is out there.
I’ve been trying to educate myself more about this space (primarily because I want to understand how NFTs can be valued as anything more than a modern day digital beanie baby) and found a resource called Odyssey to be very helpful. I recommend the 12 day email series!
One Pot Pasta Recipe
I’ve really taken Deb Perelman’s advice to heart and have been making new dishes and not stressing too much if our kids reject it. I recently made this One Pot Chicken & Mushroom Pasta recipe and it was accepted by BOTH kids, which is basically a miracle. Here’s a slightly modified version of the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 shallot, chopped
3 pieces of garlic, minced
2 cups baby bella mushrooms
3/4 box of cavatappi or gemelli pasta
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups chicken stock
1-1.25 pounds of boneless chicken thighs, diced
1/2 cup grated parmesan
salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions:
sauté the shallot, garlic and mushrooms in butter in a large sauté pan on medium heat for about 5 minutes
add pasta and combine mushroom mixture
add 1/2 cup of white wine and cook until liquid dissolves
add in diced chicken
stir in the chicken stock 1/2 cup at a time and stirring occasionally, like how you would cook risotto. Add more chicken stock when the liquid has evaporated
Continue to cook like this until chicken is done. Our kids like pasta mushy, so I cooked it for longer than the recipe’s instructions.
When done, turn off heat and add in grated parmesan
Pic of Zaki chowing down on said food:
Miscellaneous Links
It’s been two weeks and the internet has mostly moved on, but I’m still thinking about #westelmcaleb. This writer wrote a great piece about the whole saga and it’s worth a read.
I love a juicy celebrity blind item and this is a juicy celebrity + business blind, which is even better. Any guesses as to the celebrity referenced in this video? Ariana Grande and R.E.M. Beauty is called out a bunch in the comments, but I’ve also heard through the grapevine that she was heavily involved in almost all aspects of the brand development and launch. The Tik Tok reminded me of this recent article asking for celebrities to please, just don’t.
