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Omi - Community Lead Application

What's the most impressive thing you've built or achieved?​

Edge City Denver 2024 — a seven-day developer experience (hosted alongside the ETHDenver blockchain conference) that became the talk of the town.

I was the lead organizer. We attracted 3,000+ attendees in a heavily competitive event environment. Our post-event survey showed 4.6/5 average satisfaction, with the majority giving perfect scores. I had friends telling me this was the best event they'd ever been to.

What made it impressive: I designed the programming, recruited speakers, and built the buzz from scratch using content, word of mouth, and on-the-ground energy. The Edge City Telegram became THE nerve center of the entire ETH Denver within days. We sold $25K in tickets while competitors struggled to fill even their free events.

With Edge City Denver, I got a chance to introduce thousands of people to the concept of “pop-up cities/villages”, events that bring together pioneers across disciplines (e.g., AI, crypto, biotech, etc.), to co-live and co-create together for 2+ weeks. We also engaged the local community, securing partnerships with 7 businesses near or adjacent to the venue, and the Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, stopped by for a tour too!

The event demonstrated my core ability: turning emerging technology and niche communities into cultural moments that people can't stop talking about. This is exactly what Omi needs.

Read/Listen to my experience building this event (and others) here: https://www.garysheng.com/stories/zuzalu

Dancing Pineapple (2014-2016): 24 concerts and parties across NYC and LA over 2 years. Helped make an entire genre (tropical house) go mainstream and booked breakthrough artists like Dom Dolla (we booked his first US show!).

Learn more about my experience building Dancing Pineapple here: https://www.garysheng.com/stories/dancing-pineapple

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Civics Unplugged Events (2019-2022): Organized hundreds of virtual and in-person events training 2,000+ youth leaders across 70 countries. Pivoted the entire organization from in-person to digital in weeks during COVID.

Learn more about my experience building Civics Unplugged here: https://www.garysheng.com/stories/civics-youth-empowerment

Zuzalu Montenegro (2023): Major contributor to the 2-month pop-up city experience. Organized 10+ events during the experience, creating programming that became central to the community.

ZuConnect (2023): Co-organizer of a two-week-long event that had 500 attendees in Istanbul. Hosted a hackathon at the end.

Edge City Denver (2024): Lead organizer of a week-long event that had 3000+ attendees in Denver.

Learn more about my experience building these tech events here: https://www.garysheng.com/stories/zuzalu

Mew @ Anime NYC 2024: Led production for a crypto meme coin's first major North American activation at Anime NYC. Negotiated the booth, designed and fabricated the physical space, recruited and managed 8 volunteers, found and paid influencers. Created a custom scavenger hunt that attracted 161 participants competing for $8,500 in prizes. Despite never having created a fabricated booth or being an anime fan, I delivered exceptional results entirely outside my comfort zone.

Learn more about my experience building this activation here:

https://www.garysheng.com/stories/product-growth-consulting#mew-anime

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The First Supper (Alpha Schools context): High-stakes dinner event bringing together education innovators, influencers, and billionaires.

Learn more about my experience building this event here:

https://www.garysheng.com/stories/alpha-schools#first-supper

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The pattern across all these: I use events to make niche things feel exciting and important.

Have you hired and managed a team of 10+ people? Tell us more. Where did you find them, what did they do, how much did you pay?​

Yes — multiple times across different contexts:

Google Cloud (2015-2019)​

  • Team size: Managed 3 direct reports on front-end software engineering team
  • How I found them: Google recruiters
  • What they did: Front-end development on Google Cloud Platform
  • Pay: Well-compensated by Google standards (standard Google engineering salaries)

Civics Unplugged / Dream DAO (2019-2022)​

  • Team size: Managed teams of 12-20+ seasoned professionals as well as high school and college-aged contributors at any given time, to ensure the flourishing of thousands of people that age
  • How I found them: Marketing the communities well on X (primarily), partnering with organizations that had access to civic-focused, tech-focused, youth-oriented communities. Then discerning who could contribute meaningfully through one-on-ones and assessing intelligence and motivation.
  • What they did: Recurring roles to keep the community thriving — event coordination, content creation, community management, curriculum development
  • Pay: Ranged from a few hundred dollars per month for smaller roles to $3,000/month for significant contributor roles

ZuConnect & Edge City Denver (2023-2024)​

  • Team size: 15-20+ contributors per event
  • How I found them: Sourced from reputation of past events, email lists, getting people excited through compelling storytelling about what we were building
  • What they did: Event production, speaker coordination, community management, on-ground logistics
  • Pay: Mix of compensation models depending on what contributors wanted:
    • Discounted or free event tickets
    • Free lodging during the event
    • Cash stipends for specific roles
    • Access to the community and network (often the most valuable)

Mew @ Anime NYC (2024)​

  • Team size: 8 contributors for the three-day activation
  • How I found them: Recruited through personal network and network of the Mew team
  • What they did: Booth staffing, scavenger hunt coordination, attendee engagement, on-ground logistics
  • Pay: Cash stipends

My Management Philosophy​

I'm most effective managing contributors who have intrinsic motivation to be part of an ecosystem. The key is finding people who are genuinely excited about the mission, not just collecting a paycheck.

I believe in managing with maximum context sharing. For each event, I create detailed contributor guides - single sources of truth that everyone can reference. This means I'm not being hit up all the time with the same questions, and contributors can move faster because they have clarity. I do this for attendees too when events are complicated and/or multi-day - comprehensive guides that reduce confusion and enhance the experience.

I use one-on-ones (and, ideally, in-person time) extensively to understand motivation, assess intelligence and cultural fit, and maintain clear communication about expectations. The people who thrive on my teams are self-starters who need direction and support, not micromanagement.

For Omi, this means I can build and lead the Ambassador Program the same way I've built movements before: find the right people, give them meaningful ownership, create clear documentation that scales, and build an ecosystem they're genuinely proud to be a part of.