Jeff “Jiho” Zirlin | Co-Founder of Axie Infinity — Turning Your Community into True Evangelists

In this episode of BeaconLayer Podcast, Kenzi Morikawa, Sachi Miyasaki, and Diksha Wells speak with Jeff Zirlin (“Jiho”) about his early days in Web3, building Sky Mavis, and launching Axie Infinity alongside Trung Nguyen, Tu Doan, Aleksander Larsen, and Andy Ho.Jiho talks about what it’s like building deep in a bear market — being “small and unrecognized,” but still stubbornly confident in the founding team, the long-term vision, and the community they were assembling. A core goal from the beginning was to create a Web3 community that rewards both technical contributors and people willing to learn. His founding principle captures it perfectly: childhood nostalgia can be one of the most compelling on-ramps to educate people about Web3.The conversation also gets real about the hard parts: keeping the product moving while coordinating expectations with a passionate community. Jiho shares one of his biggest learnings — in Web3, you’re constantly thinking about what actions you’re trying to coordinate with the outside world, and whether you can truly deliver what you announce. That’s where aligned incentives, economic design, and the cold-start problem stop being theory and become survival skills.Today, Axie Infinity is one of the most recognized play-to-earn NFT games in crypto. Tune in as Jiho dives into the play-to-earn economy, what he focuses on day-to-day as Chief Growth Officer, and how to turn a community from “users” into the network’s strongest evangelists.