27: Women in Crypto, Top Female Leaders, & SurgeWomen.io // Denise Schaefer & Juliette Chevalier

Our CityDAO Podcast episode today focuses on women in crypto. We welcome our guests Juliette Chevalier and Denise Schaefer, Co-Founders of Surge. Concerned by the lack of participation from women within the crypto space, Juliette and Denise decided to build a community with one goal in common: to help each other grow.

Software Engineer and programming teacher, Juliette works as a Developer Advocate at Aragon, helping engineers build the future of work through DAOs. She and Denise met online through a Web3 online course, and have been building Surge remotely ever since.

Marketing, branding, NFT-enthusiast, Denise came up with the idea for this project after diving into a self-educating crypto journey. She realized the capabilities of Web3 and became passionate about making it more accessible to women everywhere.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

• 2:10 Juliette: explains what Surge Women is all about. One of their goals is to bring in more women to the Web3 space.
• 5:26 Juliette: talks about the issue of discrimination against women.
• 6:35 Denise: started Surge Women because they wanted to create a community for women and place where they belong.
• 9:54 Denise: shares her insight on why crypto and Web3 are male dominated.
• 11:36 Juliette: set up a Women’s Learning to Code Day event that gave her the idea of starting Surge Women.
• 14:09 Denise: became aware of CityDAO through Chance, who is also a member of the Surge Women community.
• 15:37 Denise: Surge Women started as a passion project and has been around for 8 months. They are currently growing and their social media community has about 25,000 people.
• 16:46 Juliette: Some of the hot topics in the Surge Women community were stablecoins, NFTs, DAOs, Defi, and more.
• 18:10 Memebrains: Being more closely resonated with his female energy, he had to transition to his male alpha energy when he had his construction business. He believed that having a female energy in his male dominated company is good for the business.
• 20:49 Denise: have been connecting women with organizations across Web3 that wants to hire female talents.
• 23:11 Juliette: discusses about the Surge Women roadmap during this bear market.
• 27:10 Denise: the bear market has been good for Surge Women because they have this opportunity to weed out the people who are only in the community to make profit.
• 30:56 Denise: the best part of Surge Women for Denise is reading all the positive testaments and feedbacks from the community members.
• 32:24 Juliette: it has been an amazing experience for her being a part of building the brand and selling the product.
• 33:43 Juliette: One of the biggest challenges for Juliette was during their NFT drop.
• 35:02 Memebrains: his first pick for the most influential woman in crypto is Caitlyn Long, who is the co-founder of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition.
• 36:39 Juliette: offers her first pick for the most influential woman in the crypto space.
• 37:11 Memebrains: his next pick is Hester Peirce who is a commissioner working with the SEC.
• 37:49 Juliette: her next top pick is Li Jin, who is one of the co-founders of Variant Fund. Juliette is a big fan of her work.
• 38:24 Memebrains: for his third pick, he chooses Elizabeth Stark, the CEO of Lightining Labs, which speeds up the Bitcoin network.
• 39:18 Juliette: Sabina Beleuz is another person that Juliette truly admires in the crypto space.
• 41:36 Juliette: wrapping up her list, she mentions several influential women whom she admires dearly.
• 42:00 Memebrains: wraps up his list and reveals his top pick for the most influential woman in crypto.

Key Points from the Interview:

1. Juliette: “At Surge, we’re really focusing on making sure that we’re securing women’s place within the crypto industry. This has been dear and near to our hearts, both Denise and I have been involved in crypto communities and constantly just seeing that there weren’t enough women to hang out with, geek out with, and really making sure and asking ourselves constantly that question of how can we bring more girlfriends and more women into the space.”
2. Denise: “The best part, the fuel that keeps me going, that makes me excited to wake up every day and go to work is hearing back the testimonials from community members and how they’ve benefited from Surge. Right? Talking to women who are now working in Web3 because they found someone through the Surge community and found their job.”

Resources Mentioned: