Advice Line with Monica Nassif of Mrs. Meyer's
Plus, how candor has been a more effective press strategy than talking points for (the literal) Mrs. Meyer.
First we meet Allison in California, seeking marketing ideas for her novel wig designs which aren’t done justice by photos alone. Next, Nick in Idaho wonders whether retail expansion or content development is best to grow his children’s toy and book franchise. And finally, Ben in Virginia considers options like acquiring a nearby company to grow his chandelier cleaning business.
Thank you to the founders of Encelia Hair, Randimals and Chandelier Cleaning VA, for being a part of our show.
If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode — where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders — leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.
And be sure to listen to the founding story of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day as told by Monica on the show in 2025.
This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce and John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.
You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com or on Substack.
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Crypto Pump & Dumps Have Become the Ugly Norm. Can They Be Stopped? - Ep. 834
The Movement Labs scandal exposed more than just one bad deal – it pulled back the curtain on a widespread problem in crypto: how some market makers, founders, and VCs play games to make money — whether the project succeeds or not.
In this episode, Laura speaks with José Macedo of Delphi Labs, Omar Shakeeb of SecondLane, and Taran Sabharwal of STIX to explain:
How market makers are supposed to work, and how they operate in crypto
Why insider selling is more common than you think
How projects like Movement, Mantra, and others exploit launch day hype
Whether VCs often enable this behavior with side deals that retail never hears about
And what the industry needs to do to fix this broken system
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Bitwise
José Macedo, founder at Delphi Labs
Omar Shakeeb, cofounder of SecondLane
Taran Sabharwal, founder and CEO of STIX.
Movement Labs:
Unchained: How MOVE’s Contracts Put a Pump and Dump Into a Legal Agreement
CoinDesk: Inside Movement’s Token-Dump Scandal: Secret Contracts, Shadow Advisers and Hidden Middlemen
Market making:
The Chopping Block: Can Crypto Clean Itself Up? Market Structure, Trust, and Regulation
Mantra Founder Is Burning 150 Million Tokens. Would He Try to Get Them Returned?
ZachXBT Ties REEF Founders to OM Token Crash
Timestamps:
👋 0:00 Intro
🤝 1:51 What Omar’s and Taran’s companies do
🎭 3:40 How market making works and how crypto twists the model
⚠️ 9:35 Why crypto’s market maker incentives are broken by design
🛠️ 16:25 What it would take to fix shady market maker behavior
🚩 26:20 How some founders exploit launch day hype to dump on retail
🧠 38:11 Did Mantra’s JP pull off a “genius” move or manipulate the market?
🔍 42:22 Whether crypto traders do any research before apeing in
💸 52:48 How founders are incentivized to dump their own tokens
🏦 59:09 Why VCs may be fueling this problem with insider deals
📉 1:02:37 What crypto needs to learn from traditional finance
✅ 1:06:13 The biggest fixes the industry must prioritize to stop these scams
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Inside Crypto's Liquidity Chess Game | Evgeny, Nick, & Omar
In this episode, Santi and Jason sit down with Omar and Nick from SecondLane and Evgeny from Wintermute to dive deep into the underbelly of crypto token markets. They explore the lifecycle of a token from seed rounds to secondary markets to public trading, discussing the critical role of market makers, the impact of token unlocks, and the evolving sophistication of crypto funds. The group also examines the current state of the market, retail and institutional dynamics, and the importance of treasury management and team communication for token projects.
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Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from Katherine Ross and David Canellis.
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Arbitrum is a game-changer for daily Ethereum's users and developers, offering top applications and lower fees. As the leading scaling solution with 600+ apps, explore Arbitrum’s Portal to find your perfect fit. Interact with the home of DeFi, a flourishing NFT and creator ecosystem, and a rapidly growing Web3 gaming hub – Arbitrum has it all.
Get started at:
portal.arbitrum.io
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SKALE is a modular, AppChain network that offers zero gas fee transactions and instant finality. Tailored for ease of development and onboarding, SKALE's configurable EVM chains enable next-gen use cases in gaming, AI, DePin, and others. With over 20,000,000 users having saved over $6 Billion on gas fees, SKALE is the blockchain for mass adoption.
Bridge to SKALE at portal.skale.space and stay up to date with the gasless blockchain at @skalenetwork
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Timestamps:
(00:00) How Tokens Trade
(05:16) Role of Market Makers
(09:23) What's Wrong with Tokens?
(18:59) Importance of Token Unlocks
(22:51) Token Auctions
(31:58) Picking a Market Maker
(36:05) Aura Ad
(36:40) Skale Ad
(38:11) Where are we this cycle?
(58:50) Crypto Fund Sophistication
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Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
Data, data everywhere and not a stop to think
Cribl is a data management platform. Check out their sandbox or explore their products.
Cribl Stream is their vendor-agnostic observability pipeline.
If you’re new to the term, the observability pipeline is a crucial component of the cloud-native world.
Connect with Nick on LinkedIn.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:23 The Data Landscape and Generative AI
06:08 Incumbents vs. Startups in the Data Space
07:46 Challenges of Data Storage and Exfiltration
09:38 Securing Large Warehouses of Data
12:21 Data Quality and ETL Pipelines
16:05 Measures of Data Quality for Gen AI
22:04 Cribl’s Role in the Data and Observability Space
26:20 The Pros and Cons of Richer Observability Monitoring
28:11 Closing Remarks and Shoutout
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Sending bugs back in time
Mariposa is a toy programming language that has time travel as a primary feature. Bugs are a thing of the past (literally)!
Miss having a physical keyboard when thumb-typing on your phone? Well, you’re in luck.
Over at CES, LG Electronics wants your devices to have “affectionate intelligence.” Whatever it takes to make AI more human-centric and empathetic.
Omar used to work on the Backstage project at Spotify, so we quoted him in our article on it.
Now he works on personalization, including Discover Weekly, which drops a new mixtape on you every Monday like a hipster with a crush.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.