Roll is building the world’s first social money

We’re all familiar with dollars, euros, and pounds. And yet, user-generated content represents a new form of economy from which one could build a digital currency, also known as a “social money”. Social money is pricing an individual’s value based on his/her choices as such, as opposed to traditional money pricing products or services. You find the idea strange and perhaps difficult to understand? I talk about it in more detail with Bradley Miles, the founder of a person-centered digital currency startup, Roll, in addition to authoring #BreakIntoVC and a Columbia University grad.

Introducing Bradley Miles, a Columbia Grad author turned VC turned entrepreneur

A Columbia graduate, Bradley Miles took numerous economic classes at Columbia University with professors who had written the Econ textbook. Bradley intended to become a venture capitalist. He formed and entered sveral associations and penned a book on the matter titled #BreakIntoVC, a hands-on, practical and actionable guide presenting the skills and what it’s like to be a venture capitalist. He joined a VC firm and quickly realized that he wanted to devote the next 10 years of his life building something meaningful. And that’s when he cofounded Roll, a blockchain infrastructure for social money.

A social money is person-based digital currency

Only 15 years ago, no one would have imagined the user generated content market to exceed $100 billion with YouTubers, bloggers and influencers creating content and fueling advertisement on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. 

Quoting The Experience Economy, Bradley mentioned that this development embodies a broader change as we’re evolving from building products to selling experiences. But the next step is moving to transformation such as going to college, writing a book or endeavoring in a personal growth program with lasting transformative effects. Value is migrating from tangible assets, to experiences, transformative journeys and finally the value of an individual. Now, if the future of the economy is manufacturing transformative journeys, then, who might be the buyer?

Bradley Miles believes that investors deciding to back one individual over another based on the transformation choices they make on a weekly basis. If an individual’s choice proves judicious, then the total value of the coin will increase; if not, total value will decrease. 

Bradley is developing social money and a digital currency infrastructure to value a person’s choices. 

Building one’s own social money. Assume the “Guillaume Currency”, also known as “Guillaumes”

I set up a coin reflecting my value on the market with a scarce number of available coins ; say 1000. Assume that then that I decide to price each coin at one dollar. This would mean that the total value of this digital currency reaches $1000. 

• Now, I make several beneficial decisions like taking on a new job or getting an advanced degree in college or writing another book. Then, some might believe that these are valuable decisions. They would agree to buy coins at a higher price than that of one dollar; its a current value. That’s how a personal choice may affect the coin value.
• On the other side, assume that I make several poor decisions. In this case, Guillaumes’ owners will be willing to sell them to a lower price than one dollar, thereby decreasing the total value of my name-bearing coin. 

Bradley Miles’s favorite books

We discussed books that Bradley Miles enjoys most. Crucial Conversations shows how to solve conflicts where emotions run high. Steve Blank’s Four Steps to Epiphany provides actionable advice to customer development. Bradley is reading Deep Work to focus one’s intention and minimize distractions like social media or text messaging. Rest explains why resting build the mental strength to take on long-term towns challenges.

Finally, he also talked about The Thank You Economy. The best advice one could give to any entrepreneur would be to thank those that count in their lives. When working on this book, he would publish articles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium among others. Whenever he would get a like or a clap, he would reach out to his audience and thank them personally. That made all the difference and helped him build a stronger network, find investors, like Gary Vaynerchuk, author of The Thank You Economy.