Laura Minquini, Founder of Athena DAO at ETH Denver · DeSci, Women's Health & Funding the Gap

0:00Well, hello everyone, and welcome to this interview. We’re here in ETH Denver, representing We Them Media, myself, Gabrielle, Julian, Foran, and Amir Sirsu, and we’re here doing interviews to document people of color in Web3, and what they’re up to to help people better understand what is Web3, what does the reputation look like here, and what are people that are representing people of color doing in this space, and why. And so today we’re at the DeSci Summit here in Colorado at East Denver with Lorah, one of the founders of Athena DAO. Are you the only founder? I guess technically I’m the founder, but then because it’s a DAO, there’s a lot of other people that contribute. Yeah. And my second person on board that is like the co-signer is Inez Santos Silva. She’s in Europe right now, but it was first me, then second her, then a bunch of other people that have been so important to make this happen.

0:51And so it’s technically with DAOs it’s hard because you know in venture capital and in Web3 and in companies they believe in like the founder-led movement and a DAO is a part of that but it’s also just a lot of people that make it happen so but yeah I’m so thrilled to be your first interview and especially congratulations for getting this project going and being here doing this so thank you so much I’m glad to be part of that too I really appreciate that. I feel like the journey is kind of starting. I feel like this is the beginning of definitely a higher production value. Overall, I’m excited to be doing Web3 content here, but also to go back home and do like more local content and also be able to use the same tools. So I’m like so thrilled and so appreciative of you being here with us. And yeah, I’m really intrigued to hear about how Ethan has been for you so far. How has it been?

1:41So, I arrived very late because my flight was canceled, so it’s been like go, go, go. And unfortunately, I’m only here for two days and a half, so I have to try to make the most of it. But even going to the events, you realize that there’s like a very big culture here. ETH Denver has been going on for a while, so some people, they are like OGs of ETH Denver. It’s a conference that people that have been coming here a long time say it’s grown so much. and then there are people that talked about how it was during the bull run versus like how it is now, which is maybe a bull run.

2:19So it’s very interesting, but I think it’s so great to have it in a place where there’s space and it’s a nice scenery. It’s warm enough and, you know, it’s still winter technically in most of North America and it’s still it’s a nice vibe. And you feel that people are like super excited to be here. It kind of kicks off the year of conferences, I feel like, for crypto, yeah, Web3 I would definitely say so, I came to eThinver last year as well And I actually wanted to do content, but I felt too shy So I didn’t really do any interviews with anybody But I feel like that was really, like, for me, like, oh, wow

2:52Like, I should be going to more of these conferences I feel like I met so many cool people I feel like all the questions I have on, like, the technical side Or even just areas I don’t know Like, I first heard of DeSci last year, like, my last day of eThinver And I went home, like, what is that? You know, like, where’s the money in that? I don’t really understand And so, I was pretty excited last night when someone approached us and it’s like, oh, you guys come to the summit, you know, publishing is being disrupted. That’s what we’re interested in and just like to better understand the space.

3:14And then she’d already expressed interest in Athena DAO. And to see that you’re speaking today was definitely super exciting. And yeah, I’m excited to see things come full circle in that way. And I love to hear how you got into Web3 more broadly. And I know you said you worked in like luxury goods before coming into this space. And yeah, I’m really. Yeah. So my career was completely different. I started in fashion editorial and the creative side of things. I moved into business, then I was doing trend forecasting for luxury groups, so funnily enough, LVMH, Bernard Arnault that I mentioned in the talk, LVMH was one of my clients, Louis Vuitton, and I worked with a couple of other companies in the group doing brand and go-to-market strategies, and from that I had an opportunity to start a company myself, we were the first company to do licensed fashion design cases, like we work with super big companies like

4:05Cases for like phones for phones for Apple. Yeah. So we took, you know, we were selling to Apple, Amazon, and also we did all the special cases for like Neiman Marcus back in the day and Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, suffragists. We did collapse with Pierre Hardy, which is like a really big shoemaker, Giovanna Battaglia. And then we even did a prototype for, oh my God, why is I, why am I banking out in the shoes that everybody wants to have with the red soles, Louboutin. We even did that, but that gave me an exposure of really running a consumer business. And I got into Deci through, I, during the pandemic, you know, it was a bull run.

4:48So I understood like Ethereum, Bitcoin was a new way to accrue value or to store value. You know, people have had like their economy, I mean, 2008 was a big moment when the economic crash happened and other ones have happened. and so people have looked for other ways in which they can either store value or create value. And crypto became that, I think, during the pandemic. So I was not into the NFT craze. I was not into like the four screens and trading. But from my work in longevity, because I’m very passionate about it, I learned about Vita DAO, which is the first bio DAO in decentralized science, DSAI.

5:28I didn’t know that. I never knew what Vita DAO was. I was always confused. So they basically, Vita DAO was the first one to launch and the design movement in terms of funding really kicked off with that. Now there’s the tooling and all these other projects that are very separate from funding. But I became a contributor to Vita DAO and I just, as I said in my talk, I realized that, wait, there’s not that many women here. And wait, we’re still addressing some of the same things that we were addressing before in legacy systems And I became very aware of reproductive longevity, which is everything that impacts women

6:09And I realized that the funding wasn’t there, that we’re also not talking about it enough I didn’t know about this either until I learned it like three years ago And then I realized a lot of women don’t know about this And then I thought, well, we need to get women into Web3 and we need to get women interested into this space. So that was part of the inception of Athena DAO because I feel like it was a lot of the same people still getting the upside in Web3. And that means that we need to, hey, we’re just going to have to create our own thing to

6:43also get other people involved. And I feel very strong about women getting into Web3. The barrier of entry can be very tricky, even for men, you know, getting a wallet, understanding sending like a token, getting a token, not getting an NFT, the whole notion of you’re like the self-custodian, if like you send it to the wrong wallet, it’s gone. And there’s so many intrinsic difficult things in Web3. And then so many technical developers, very incredibly smart people. but then they’re talking all to themselves and you’re like this is not how we’re gonna board like the next 1 billion people we will get on board them when we make it very simple or when it’s about something that women care about

7:30and we all care about our health yeah right yeah I really think like hearing uh your panel downstairs I was really I would say moved or I think it really clicked for me when you were talking about about how people are spending $40,000 in these bags, for example, and these are things they don’t need and things that they just simply want. And there are things that women need to have things that they want to have children, you know? There’s a market, but there’s no product to acquire because the funding’s not there. They’re giving us, I just want to add to this and something that I always say is that

8:03guys make fun of girls from aligning our chakras or crystals and incense and creams. it’s because that’s all there is like you go to the doctor and the doctor says sorry but there’s no way to diagnose your endometriosis other than eight operations or sorry but there’s no treatment for picas or sorry your hormones or sorry you’re a woman we don’t know or you’re a woman just take it yeah so what do we do we go find like crystals to see we can align on like hormonal period like our hormones and feel better yeah but if we had

9:01That’s because that’s what’s about. Like you said, it’s an incumbent of what’s being offered. And we’ll do anything to try to feel better. or if you’re in a lot of pain, so what if buying tons of makeup and putting it on makes you feel better? That’s what you’re going to do. Yeah. The fact of the matter is it’s women are spending that capital. So that capital is available. So biopharma or industry saying, oh, but there’s no market. It’s absurd. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m really excited for what you do. And I’d just like to continue to learn more about the femtech space because I feel like I am very bullish and I’m very excited to see like what problems are resolved even just to better understand the existing problems. I don’t remember like the researcher or the scientist downstairs who is speaking but I know like Gabrielle does work around endometriosis. I love her question. Yeah. And I’m excited to see to learn about like what she’s doing as she continues on her like scientific journeys. I feel like. Well, I think she’s going to join Athena down now. So very excited about that because for us, our mission is to also get more women in science.

10:07even working with this kind of ecosystem because our network is really great in terms of the researchers, you know, like Dr. Joshua Johnson, he is, he’s leading one of the best labs working reproductive longevity in America. He’s here at Colorado University. He’s collaborated with us. And then I feel that a lot of women that are either going into medical school coming out or researchers in STEM and biotech, that they get exposed to this network is great because it also opens the door. And I think one thing that D-side did really well, for instance, in longevity is open doors And that’s what we want to do, open doors for women, for women of color, for men, men of color

10:50Everything, you know, but our focus is obviously already giving a much easier entrance for women Where we also try to make it very simple Like if all you want to do is subscribe to our newsletter because that’s what we’re used to That’s all it takes You don’t have to have a well-in, you don’t have to be on Discord. If you talk about us, even if you don’t have any, you’re not necessarily involved, it’s already a major thing. And I want to say something, specifically for women of color, that it’s 2024 and women are still dying, giving birth, and this disproportionately affects women of color. And to me, that’s insane, because it’s 2024 and we’re having AGI.

11:34Like, finally, sentient AI, and we can’t figure out how women can have children without dying? Mm, safely, yeah. It’s like, it doesn’t make sense. Yeah, and you’re saying it’s just like poor distribution of resources. Yes. And I think it’s really exciting that what you’re talking about really is starting to help people coordinate, coordinating people, coordinating resources to start to address these problems with people who are value aligned and driven to actually make the difference. Yeah, because if they’re not going to make it happen for us, we’re going to make it happen for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you’re like, you’re a leader in a movement.

12:07And what has it been like for you kind of co-creating this community and this movement inside and under the umbrella of Athena DAO? Super exciting. I think there’s a lot of work to do in terms of education. And even as I said it in my talk, I think the hardest part is sometimes even the fact that women don’t know this. You know, because for instance, you’re going to medical, you’re going to go to medical school, but a lot of my, even my girlfriends, when I got into this, they’re like, why are you doing that? There’s already apps. There’s already IVF. I’m like, first of all, IVF is still too painful.

12:41It’s 40 years, it’s 45 years old IVF, and it’s still not very efficient. Women that freeze their eggs, it’s still very painful. All those hormone treatments, very expensive. So it’s very prohibiting if you’re not middle class or upper middle class, you cannot get IVF because it’s just so expensive. Is it a quarter million dollars that you said downstairs? Well, if you do up to like five cycles, like it can go 150. There’s people who spend up there a quarter. It’s like 30 to 45, $60,000 per cycle. And if you don’t get the baby then, then you have to do the whole cycle again. The hormones, all of that stuff.

13:22So if you don’t have that kind of money. Yeah, and traditionally, I take it it takes more than one cycle? Or people want more than one child? Well, the problem is that we are also not educating women into their fertility. The reality is that by 35, it’s already very hard. And a lot of women are going to get their eggs frozen, I mean, the egg freezing too late. So already then, by then, the eggs are not as good quality. And by the time they actually try to do the IVF, they’re even older. So when you think of those two combined, the efficacy rate keeps going down

13:58So the older you are, the harder it’s going to get And the older you froze your egg, the harder it’s going to get too And that efficacy rate is crucial because that’s where the magic happens In terms of being able to have the kids And a lot of women come out of it with no success So it’s tricky because you’ve been freezing your eggs You’re 25 years old, nobody’s talking about it a lot of women today don’t even want kids like that’s a reality and the other part is that our economy is not so great for young people you know our parents owned their homes when they were 25

14:35or there was economic mobility and most people right now at 25 they’re like i don’t even make enough to like live never mind buy a house and have a baby so it’s not even in their you know in in their frame of thought. So by the time you actually have money in your 30s, we start seeing the problems. I understand. And by that time, it’s almost too late. It’s like there’s something else. Well, it’s just every day, every hour, every year reduces the chance of that happening. And I guess my final question kind of ties back to what you were speaking about initially around being kind of founder-centric as a startup versus a DAO.

15:15you kind of speak to there being a difference and I’m really like I haven’t heard a lot of people speak about that difference. I’m really curious about how you see that difference, especially how you approach leadership inside of Athena DAO inside wanting to make a difference for a lot of a lot of people, you know, intersectional community. Well, I mean, I guess I’m the founder because I got the first steps going and I’m still like the first person going to make a lot of the pitch. But I always say that I wouldn’t have made able to a lot to make a lot of this happen if I hadn’t had the researchers that are in our core team with me.

15:46I’m very passionate about the science, pushing scientists, funding the science, and pitching the notion that this is important, but I’m not a scientist myself, right? So I don’t think anybody would have trusted me saying this is the science we should fund if it hadn’t been me alone. And that’s a very powerful tooling about DAOs, is that you can bring people that are so motivated, that have the expertise to work in this for a period of time. you know our science and deal flow team which is the one that I was mentioning to you most of the people working there do five to ten hours a week and they do it on their own like

16:24independent we have weekly tasks reach outs follow-ups and all of this and it’s very powerful tooling because some of them are labs some of them are in industry some of them are in school and and they’re still motivated to come do this with us and push things forward. So that is the coordination that Web3 brings that is very powerful tooling that doesn’t happen in a startup because in a startup you have to hire 10 people and you’re the founder and you guys have to set certain metrics to raise more money. In a DAO it’s almost the same. You have to figure out how to get the funding, all these things, but the coordination is

17:05is completely different and the motivations are completely different. I know that was my last question, but hearing you speak more about, I guess, the breakdown inside of AthenaDAO, how did you guys come to determine structures for coordination inside of the DAO? I feel like that is still a big question. What is the most efficient way to coordinate in this really proving ground, like you are proving concepts for coordination, evidently in a space where there’s not a lot of innovation already happening? In the end, you have to think of it as coordinating multiple startups in one Oh, okay Because each working group is almost like its own startup

17:39And you have to have, at least in what we’ve done Very specific KPIs, which you always talk in industry

17:50And metrics of success I think one thing is that in Web3, there’s a lot of talk about community equity, decentralization, we’re all in this together, but in the end to get it done there’s going to have to be very specific people leading each project, having what is the end goal, and almost working it like any corporation. And I’m sorry to say the word corporation for a DAO, but if you want to actually get researchers to believe you, funders to believe you, other stakeholders that you need them to collaborate with you, you will have to show a level of professionalism that you would do with any

18:36other institute, like regular institute, whether it is industry or academia. I see. And so you’re really saying that having these different groups to coordinate with allows both for a more heightened reputation of people that are coming from different points, different values. You still need like one, like a couple of stewards, you still need leadership, like it cannot be flat, because flat can go very wrong. You’re still going to need somebody that can say, hey guys, are we on time? Or hey, what is the next thing? That’s super important. And I’m saying, I’m not saying that it has to like me, but that’s why I said each group,

19:15it is because every group has its own mandates. Yeah. And that is the thing about DAO is that, well, we’re also not so huge yet. So to come talk to me in a year or after a bull run, when you have thousands of people joining and then you’re like, how do we coordinate all of this? Because for us, it’s been very good to build during the bear time because it’s truly people that are motivated that join, you know, it’s there, there’s no upside. it’s in the bull run when everybody’s like I want to get some of this that gets tricky because there’s just tons of overflow.

19:50And how do you keep people motivated? How do you keep them engaged? How do you make sure that they get out of it what they want to get out of it while also contributing? I mean, it’s exciting, but it is it is kind of still I’m sure you’re going to talk to a lot of people that have their own theories of how we make this happen. Yeah. But I mean, I appreciate it. even like inside this project you know like I tried to have like different channels in my discourse we could coordinate different committees and it’s like only five people really are in my discord doing stuff in the first place

20:18and it’s like why do we Julian’s like why do we have all these channels I feel so overwhelmed

20:23I’m like I’m always like kill that channel kill that channel like nothing’s happening and there’s nothing worse than a chat like a crickets in the channel you know I’m like why is it only one channel yeah and that’s kind of we’re leaning towards now it’s like oh I guess I should just have one we should do one thing at a time as opposed to me doing different things with different people who are not as silly like like committed to doing it all the way through in the first place. And it takes that four, three committed people. It took that for us. And that’s how we grew.

20:53It just takes a team, like a small team that are like, let’s go, yeah. And then you expand the circles, but it takes that. And I feel like that’s been a big part of why I’ve been so focused on community first, because I feel like finding people that are value aligned and excited about it, I feel like finding those people first rather than trying to do it, finding people that maybe don’t care as much or trying to make it work, I feel like finding those people, I feel like it’s going to make it go so much faster when we do finally sit down on the table and I feel like coming here last year and being like in a space of, okay, I’m going to meet the black people versus this year coming and like having my girlfriend, obviously Julian as well, one of my like core community members here is like super excited.

21:29and I feel like it’s very, very full circle to see, you know, who’s excited about what I’m up to and supporting me and yeah, and even just hearing you speak about like the multiple startups, I feel like it’s so like inside of one DAO, it’s like really about like accountability, right? On each individual project and making sure that someone is actually accountable. Cause I feel like if I’m the person accountable for five channels in the discord, then it’s not really likely that I’m going to be on top of anything. It gets crazy because you start working like 14 hour days and you’re like, okay, this is

21:56cute for three, six months, but if this is going to be my life, I better just own the entire now, which is not a choice, you know? Yeah. Like that’s not what it should be. Yeah. So creating those pods of people that are accountable from within that first core and then expanding, even say people, they want to feel that they’re valued and they want to feel independent. that’s another thing in Web3 that’s super important that people have agency and I think a lot of it is A-B testing because you can get one thing right and you can get a lot of things wrong but you just have to keep trying yeah yeah trying and iterating and I feel like that’s what we’ve been doing and I really appreciate you sitting down with us Gabriel do you have any more specific questions around like Athena DAO and kind of being somewhat interested I’d love to give you the floor to ask some questions to bring in your space

22:48I kind of just wanted to tie it back to kind of the streamline of the interviews, highlighting voices of color, and you were mentioning the health disparities and just like lack of the inclusion of women of color in research. So I was wondering what initiatives does Athena DAO take to not only increase the amount of people of color that are the researchers, but also including research that is focusing on people of color as well, if any. Well, I mean, the first layer of it is already making sure that women are included, right? And let’s start with, like, I was saying today that there was this meme that our partner

23:27Molecule show, which is, Web3 is hard, biotech is hard, so DSI is very hard. And I said, well, DSI with women’s health is like Olympic effort, super hard, super, super, super, super, super hard. So the first part is already making sure that women are brought into the space and women are included. Then the second part is obviously trying to find when we’re doing those when we’re looking at more specific clinical trials and inclusion is trying to see how we can put incentives that would make sure that we’re paying attention to other in the cities and geographies. So one thing I wanted to mention for instance the most complete biobank in the world is in the UK

24:11because it’s nationalized health care, right? It’s centralized. So they’ve been able to collect a lot of data, but a lot of that genomic data doesn’t include a lot of samples from people of color. And one thing that we have to do is actually start to find people like more studies in Africa, more studies in India, in Southeast Asia, even Latin America to get all those sample sizes because obviously how there are things that happen to certain genotypes, types that don’t happen to others. And paying attention to that is super crucial. So how do we onboard those scientists across the globe that will be able to help us with that?

24:51Even in the US, I think that there are projects that are specifically working on that and we become more attuned to it. But it’s a monumental effort in terms of even access to healthcare. That’s also very restrictive as to who has the dollars to get, you know, we were saying I think the big thing is that having children it is a fact that you have more access to healthcare that prevents you from dying when you have a child and that in 2024 this is still happening is not correct so us ourselves we try to onboard obviously more people in other areas that are not just in North America we’re very happy that we have people in Asia

25:32We have people in India, in Mexico. So we’ve really had the reach out in terms of very different ethnicities. We had somebody in Africa, but she kind of dropped out, so we’re sad we need to find. And one person is not enough. We really need to work also on onboarding different chapters in people that are able to focus on those areas and onboard more of those scientists so that when we’re looking Working and Funding and Research, the focus is working with those different phenotypes and those kind of very intentional collection of data. You have to be intentional. That’s the biggest thing.

26:15And, you know, I’m once again super honored that you’re here with us. I think it is incredible to meet a Mexican woman founder here in this space, you know, building an international community that’s committed to building things that serve a whole population. So, thank you so much. Thank you! And let’s do this in Spanish!