An interview with Chris Lahaye, co-founder, and dev with Lemonade.Social
Chris Lahaye is based in Utrecht in the Netherlands and is co-founder of Lemonade.Social – a platform for online and IRL events. His surname is French and refers to The Haig and he previously studied engineering before getting a masters in computer science.
While he now works full-time on Lemonade Social, it began life as a small startup some four years ago. Two of his other co-founders were based in Barcelona and wanted to see if they could help creators monetize and connect with their fans. Traditional social platforms such as YouTube or Facebook would only really provide revenue for the actual platform unless the creators had managed to build huge followings.
Lemonade.Social was named for the old-fashioned lemonade stand beloved by baby boomers and operated at the end of the yard by children. The concept was to link creators with their fans – but using technology to build marketing lists, collaborate with other creators, split payments, and sell products – with NFTs as the main ticketing and revenue-generating product.
“Of course, four years ago it began as a real-life project. My other two founders invited creators such as buskers to provide a home concert in their room and Ipshita Kumar started cooking dinners. It was soon apparent that real incomes could be earned by connecting fans and diners directly with the creators and in Ipshita’s case, the chef.”
What started as an experiment in supporting creators was almost killed off by lockdowns but the emergence of Web3 allowed the platform to go up a gear, especially with the introduction of NFTs.
“We are now bridging the gap between Web 2 and Web 3 and enrolling creators onto our ecosystem.”
Lemonade.Social can offer creators the opportunity to mint NFTs directly from its platform and then sell them on whatever marketplace they choose.
“Lemonade’s marketplace supports direct purchases, auctions and can enable royalty splits should more than one creator work on the same project. These royalty splits are persistent wherever the NFT is resold across different marketplaces.”
Another feature available on the platform is POAPs or proof of attendance protocol.
“But we don’t treat it just like a static thing – we see creators using POAPs to allow their community access events, enjoy exclusive membership, receive free gifts etc.”
It is important for Lemonade.Social to point out that creators own their own data, although the platform also offers in-house data analytics to help creators better understand what their community is doing and where they are most active.
Most recently a B2B conference hosted their event on Lemonade.Social. The conference organizers were able to white label the conference using their own domain, name, and branding. Live chat is also a feature, a question box, and speed dating functions, as well as audio/video rooms where delegates can break out into micro-groups to have a conversation.
“We are also working with a B2C festival in India so the idea of live streaming and watch parties for talks and shows is very popular.”
“We approach our development with a view to removing friction for users. Most creators have no knowledge of blockchain and we don’t think they should be aware of the underlying tech. In developing Lemonade, we saw gas fees as a friction point and so we provide gas fees for the creators instead – they don’t even need to open a wallet. We give every user a Lemonade wallet so if they have NFTs or POAPs then they can store them and see them in the platform wallet.”
Lemonade.Social aims to be chain agnostic and until recently has worked with EVM-compatible chains. However, it has just finished integration with Unique Network from the PolkaDot ecosystem.
Unique did this by creating an EVM compatibility layer. There are general industry challenges such as the lack of a distinct NFT standard – such as the EVM ERC 721 standard.
“We had to build some workarounds but the result is that Unique has come up with a new spec which is pretty exciting. With ERC 721 the standard is in the smart contract but with Unique they’ve built the standard onto the blockchain directly. It’s baked in, if you will, which was a challenge but which is also really cool and means creators can now look at dividing up NFTs amongst other features currently being built out.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with the Unique team – they are very smart and work really fast. Of course, we need to timetable the new features to fit in with the production releases of the two chains but we can’t wait to look at the features offered through building on the native blockchain.”
Lemonade hopes to continue to work closely with Unique Network to enable higher Web3 adoption while actively building and driving sustainability initiatives together.
It is focused on a number of key areas such as establishing use for POAPs and showcasing NFT utility at IRL events with token gated access to events, content, product drops. Together with Unique they will also look to enable decentralized record labels by empowering artists and musicians to collaborate on limited edition Phigital Vinyls.
“We are also looking at the possibilities of shared NFT ownership, where we can provide fractionalised ownership of NFTs, making Web3 and digital assets more accessible to the community,” says Lahaye.
Alex Mitrovitch, CEO of Unique Network, welcomes the close cooperation between the two companies: “With Unique Network’s capabilities and Lemonade’s user-friendly web3 infrastructure, we’re excited to be building infrastructure to empower creators and onboard the next billion users into web3 in a way that is inclusive and sustainable.
Other planned activities include IRL events and conferences where together they plan on creating events & experiences focused around education and culture that help grow the Unique and Polkadot developer and creator ecosystem in new markets.
Finally, the two companies are focused on bringing Web3 to the real world and providing a platform for heritage and iconic institutions & organisations to adopt Web3 technology, and allowing guests to unlock POAPs on check-in and provide NFT memberships.
While the creators on the Lemonade platform do not have to know the underlying technology they can choose their preferred chain via logos when building their ecosystems. In addition to Unique and PolkaDot, Lemonade.Social has also integrated with Ethereum, Moonbase, Binance Chain, Arbitrum, and Polygon.
While the creators on the Lemonade platform do not have to know the underlying technology they can choose their preferred chain via logos when building their ecosystems. In addition to Unique and PolkaDot, Lemonade.Social has also integrated with Ethereum, Moonbase, Binance Chain, Arbitrum, and Polygon.