:::info

[@sydneylai ](https://www.twitter.com/sydneylai)
linkedin.com/in/sydneylai
github.com/sydneylai
:round_pushpin: 8 years in Silicon Valley, 8+ years in NYC
:::

## Summary

Sydney Lai is a long-time gamer who's passionate about building community around gaming. She has had the unique experience of working in gaming from both the perspective of solutions engineering and VC game fundraising, allowing for clear understanding of go-to-market strategies for game developer adoption. This combination of gamer to builder to funder provides a landscape of nuance that explains what games we build, why we build them and who wants to play them.

**2014:** Began career in a gaming fund based in Silicon Valley, managing, onboarding and due-diligence for mobile and VR games. Worked in partnership with Zynga and Unity to arrange demo nights and meetups for founders.

**2015:** DevRel for game developer meetups and bootcamps at Upload Collective, focusing on equipping developers with skills to build Android mobile and VR games using Unity.

**2016:** Served as a product growth consultant for Jump Gaming, a game launcher and subscription service offering unlimited indie gameplay. Tasks included sourcing content creators for co-creation and marketing, and onboarding new game titles to the platform.

**2019:** Learned, trained, competed and won 1st place as a competitve Fortnite player in Regionals.

**2022:** Assumed role of lead for technical due diligence for a $1B gaming fund, reviewing infrastructure integration and game incentives across multiple gaming genres. In the same year, I also organize game builder summits both online and in-person in NYC, MCON (Denver), and the Game Developers Conference, focusing on user onboarding to games.

**2023:** Worked in DevRel for a web2.5 wallet integration across their major gaming accounts, such as ImmutableX and Mattel, with a focus on consumer onboarding into Web3 games. Spearhead game demo design for game publishing.

## Education

**University of California, Berkeley** - Bachelor of Arts in Sociology
• Cal Fencing Team – NCIFL competitive collegiate fencer

**University of Houston** - Professional Certificate, Foresight
• Analysis of the highest probability of future technology creation with adoption curve mapping

## Developer Advocate Experience

**Senior Developer Advocate, Freelance; Aug 2019–Present**
- Developed on teams including Polkadot (Web3 Foundation), 0x, The Graph, Filecoin
- Built eco-conscious mining hardware and staking design across 3 projects
- Designed governance mechanics for 4 DAOs
- Meme-ed my way into $38K in $1-$5 micro donations on cryptotwitter for community grants
- Diligenced flash loan attacks and cross-chain vulnerabilities
- Launched 3 global developer ambassador programs
- Increased Discord retention by 283%
- Designed Discord mods program and increased guild sign-ups by 3x

**Google Developer Group, Google; July 2016-Present**
- Launched GDG Cloud in SF and NYC, and grew chapters to 3K+ members
- Launched GDG Brooklyn, and grew chapater to 200+ members
- Lead chapters of user group ambassadors for sponsorship partners
- Teach engineers across certificiation programs including ML Engineering exams

**Head of Developer Relations, Mantle.xyz, BitDAO; May 2023–August** (Contract)

- Summer contract to prioritze DevRel deliverables for July mainnet launch
- Manage $8M devrel budget, 24 hackathons, $250K+ in bounties, 66 startups
- Streamline and restructure a team of 5 Developer Advocates and segment Customer Success of various technical levels

**Sr. Developer Advocate, Magic; Sept 2022–April 2023**
- Onboarded 230+ developer sign-ups for Developer Pack campaign
- Piloted bounty program for hackathon series
- Researched and piloted template marketplace, onboarding first agency to create developer template

**Lead Developer Advocate / Integrations Engineer, OutSystems; Mar 2020–Jan 2022**
- Developed 6 React/blockchain integration demo applications; crypto wallet, NFT wallet, space launcher, dating app, ML chat app, P2P Ridesharing
- Stack: IPFS, API integrations, algorithmic programming, React, Python
- Improved awareness metrics by 466% increased engagement by 283%
- Delivers strategy on developer outreach and leads technical demos to a community of 300,000 devs
- Co-produced, host and launched a 6 episode podcast, recruited and signed 6 guest speakers in 2 days
- Grew podcast to 3 seasons, 29 guests, 5 figure streams
- Creates developer video content and improved metrics by 466% on awareness and increased engagement by 283%

**Technical Product Lead, Audacy Corporation; July 2016–May 2017**
- Negotiated a relationship with the Luxembourg Consulate, we hosted the Crown Prince and Princess for a private space conf
- Increased enterprise customer contracts through lead gen by 109.38%, 175 new B2B by 1st month, made GTM strategy
- Lead campaign to win 2nd place at People’s NewSpace Award 2016, of 187 companies, through social media strategy
- Managed and lead a team of 4 developers and 1 designer on the development of our spacecraft mission operation platform
- Oversaw technical scope of open-source platform, our mission operations software, managed cohesive brand alignment, launched app
- Lead campaign to win 2nd place at People’s NewSpace Award 2016, of 187 companies, executed social media strategy

## Venture Experience

**Self, Squad Ventures; Nov 2018–Present**

- Built out and due diligence structure for a $1M builder grants program
- Streamlined operations for two DAOs at $1.5M and $12M respectively
- Built out 4 startup deal-flow pipelines
- 9 angel investments, 2 died, 1 exit
- Fundraised a $21M token sale

**Technical Lead, Griffin Gaming Partners; Jan 2022–April 2022**

- Assessing token models for every web3 gaming deal-flow
- Creating Web3 industry analysis for LPs
- Structuring research for $MM token fund
- Streamling deal-flow structure at $1B fund
- Diligencing two-token model economies with in-game economies across 52 venture backed companies
- Techncial review of L1 integrations and dapp architecture

**LP, Practical Venture Capital; Mar 2020–Present**
- Raised a $5M debut private equity Fund I with GPs Dave McClure and Aman Verjee and now sits as an LP of the fund
- Brought in and closed own LPs
- Scaled LP onboarding pipeline

**Global Facilitator, Techstars; Mar 2015-Feb 2020**
- Launched 16 in-person hackathons leading to 1008 hour weekends
- Raised $55,994.34 in funding by attracting corporate sponsors and partnerships through cold and warm lead prospecting
- Created programming for 2 pre-accelerator programs
- Ran startup due diligence for 8 accelerator cochorts
- Mentored 280 startups, 2 YC companies emerged

**Co-Founder, CryptoNYC; Oct 2017-Mar 2020**
- Founded NYC's first blockchain coworking space
- Onboarded 30+ tenants
- Facilitated weekly community token design
- Created CryptoNYC's businesses model and commercial real estate

**Head of Strategy - Token Foundry, Principal - Coven ConsenSys; Feb 2018-Mar 2020**

- Co-created and Principal at Coven, ConsenSys's angel syndicate
- Built out TF's first global expansion strategy for community development including KPIs, roadmap, budget and resources
- Developed corp. relationships, new hires, and client leads, opened new offices at: Israel, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, UK, India
- Grew team by recruiting 7 hires from personal network
- Sourced and met with 441 contacts/clients including funds and strategic partnerships for token advisory services
- Lead community design strategy for 7 companies raising to the tune of $48M

**Associate - F50 Fund; Nov 2014-Jun 2015**
- Built 5 founder funnels, grew active members to 25K within the first 3mo through strategic engagements
- Created a partnership structure, funnel and closed strategic relationship deals with Limited Partners and portfolio companies
- Conducted due diligence for 3 cohorts of startups

**Associate, Wealth Management - Credit Suisse; Aug 2014-Oct 2014**
- Cold-called 100 institutional investors per day, converted 24.1% into leads
- Received tactical training in account management and options trading
- Built new and maintained established relationships with investment funds and client accounts

**Banker, Community Banking, Wells Fargo Labs, - Wells Fargo, N.A.; Jun 2013-Jul 2014**
- Executed access to capital, lending, and payment products to institutional accounts and SMBs
- Created analytics of payments industry, joined Wells Fargo Labs, STARS Champion Award Q1, 2014
- Sold 13 private banking products daily, managed portfolio, awarded Gold status (Q2 - Q4) and President's Club Award Q2-Q3

## Some DevRel Examples

### Programming

[Coordinated DAO grants program](https://forum.metacartel.org/t/metacartel-grants-offboarding-hand-off/1240)

[Created social media campaign for donations to women's builder education](https://bounties.gitcoin.co/grants/615/meta-gamma-delta-dao-funding-women-led-initiative)

[Created strategy for The Graph Ambassador program](https://thegraph.com/blog/curator-program-launch/)

[Launched and ran Google Developer chapters in Bay Area and NYC](https://www.meetup.com/cloudnyc)

[Coordinated and designed digital collectables summit recruiting lead speakers](https://www.modernfandoms.com/program) (Xbox, Fandom.com, VeeFriends)

Piloted developer [template marketplace](https://twitter.com/magic_labs/status/1631049452747096064?s=20) and [bounty program](https://magic.link/posts/open-source-nextjs-nft-template)

Coordinated creative ETHDenver [2023](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dPubO2USCcj-u2mSnPqkc50ogiZGBZmX/view?usp=sharing) and [2022](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tally-presents-puppy-playtime-tickets-265454249807) booth and activities

[Grew Discord retention by 283% + launched mods program and increased guild sign-ups by 3x](https://discord.com/invite/f5G36jeKb2)

### Content

[Technical blogs](https://dev.to/sydneylai)

[Writer for The Defiant crypto news distribution channel](https://thedefiant.io/author/sydney-lai)

[Launched podcast to 3 seasons, 29 guests, 5 figure streams](https://open.spotify.com/show/4o0NoDaCj9OB9om6ugq7sv)

### Talks
[How to onboard your first 100 developers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZRcM15tMfI)

[Building community in niche markets
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4EdXc36KrA)

[University programs with Polkadot](https://twitter.com/sydneylai/status/1185185025727303681)

[How to build an NFT Wallet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zy7XfDnev0)

## Awards + Fellowships

2023 1st Place - Sozu Haus hackathon
2022 4th Place - Hack House Hackathon
2022 Web3 Founders, Launch House
2021 Community Builder Fellow, OnDeck
2019 Bounty Winner - ETHDenver
2019 1st Place - HackLibra, Global Facebook Libra Hackathon
2019 1st Place - Startup Weekend NYC Financial Inclusion
2019 1st Place - Fortnite, Microsoft Tournament
2017 Social Innovation Fellow, StartingBloc
2016 2nd Place - Audacy, People's NewSpace Company
2016 TEDx Speaker, TEDx Redding
2016 LGBT Technology Leader, The White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy
2016 Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship
2014 Microsoft Winner - Salesforce $1 Million Hackathon
2014 2nd Place - Startup Weekend B2B
2014 Wells Fargo Gold Award Q2, Q3, Q4
2014 Wells Fargo President's Club Award Q2, Q3
2014 Wells Fargo STARS Champion Award Q1
2012 The German Academic Exchange Service
2012 Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program
2012 Cal in the Capital Fellow

## Fun

Weird: Movie extra - Steve Jobs (2015)
Games: Fortnite, Splinter Cell, Hitman, Last of Us I/II, NHL, Metroid, YuGiOh, Pokemon
Enjoys: Economics, urban development, bicycles, circuit hacking, languages, NPR, Pokemon, running, performing arts