“I don't get wrapped up in any of the algorithm or the games or the feed or the posting. I want to know the artists who we're working with and like them as a person.”

As Chief of Staff at Atomic Form, Melissa Kapnick has built her career on meaningful relationships with artists rather than social media metrics. Her unique approach to preserving digital art history comes from a deeply personal place and challenges conventional Web3 networking strategies. We spoke with Melissa about how her family history informs her work, why she avoids Twitter, and how she's using AI to enhance–not replace–human connection.

Your path to Web3 wasn't straightforward. How did you end up at Atomic Form?

Melissa: My career path is based on my philosophy of “I just want to have fun with what I'm doing and enjoy my work.” I've done everything–I was a yoga teacher, did door-knocking B2B sales, had my own marketing firm, worked in education with kids, and then moved into ed-tech and startups.

I got involved with Atomic Form through consulting. I was working for a different company doing go-to-market strategy and validating the market for them. We hit it off so well that at a certain point, Atomic Form was like, “You should work for us full-time.” So I followed the dream and now I'm at Atomic Form.

Atomic Form preserves the history of digital art. Why is this mission so important to you personally?

Melissa: My mom is an artist, and that's part of why the mission is so personal and deep for me. She wasn't always an artist but she retired and went back to it. Then she had a devastating stroke and after that, all we had was a list of exhibitions but we didn't have which pieces were at what shows and which awards they won. We kind of lost that history.

When I think about working with artists to tell their stories, it's so personal for me because you don't know what's going to happen. And you want to preserve that history. History is happening now—it only becomes history once we move into the next moment. No one should lose those moments. It's not just about the sale price. It's about the legacy that people are leaving.

You've mentioned you don't personally use Twitter, which is unusual in the Web3 space. How do you approach community building differently?

Melissa: I'm not a Web3 native and I'm also not a social media native. I don't even use Twitter. I think that's probably the most interesting thing about me in Web3. I have our Atomic Form Twitter and I have a pulse on what's going on, but I focus on the interpersonal connections with each artist.

I don't get wrapped up in any of the algorithms, the games, the feed or the posting. I want to know the artists who we're working with and like them as a person. I think that my interest in other people and my empathetic interpersonal skills help artists bring their best, most genuine selves to the conversation.

How do you build community when you're not focused on traditional social media channels?

Melissa: We've done it in a non-traditional way. Traditionally in Web3, you have Telegram groups or Discord or a dedicated place where your community lives.

What we've done at Atomic Form is instead focus on one-on-one interactions with people and now we're starting to do workshops and group onboarding. We've built community by having a really strong message–archiving and preserving history while it's happening on-chain.

As the product updates, we come back to them like, “You had this idea for our company two years ago and now we have this feature built.” Now we have this ecosystem where people talk to each other: “Oh, I did Atomic Form,” “I did it too,” “I have this on there.” For us, building community has been about providing high-quality interactions and services and rolling out the red carpet for every single person we work with.

Women in Web3 face unique challenges. Has your experience been different as a woman in this space?

Melissa: There's such a strong ecosystem of women in Web3 and it feels like an unspoken connection where we're all bringing each other up. Jenny from One Love DAO, at my very first NFT conference in NYC, literally took me by the hand and said, "I'm going to bring you around and introduce you to people." She just took care of me.

That's the other thing about women in Web3—it's this unspoken thing where we're all recognising that we're a bunch of badasses. It definitely feels special and different from other industries I've been in.

You've embraced AI tools in your work. How do you balance technology and human connection?

Melissa: ChatGPT hates to see me coming! I use it for everything. I have custom models built for all sorts of things—basically, every part of my job has some type of GPT for automation. I'm interested in doing high-level strategic work with people and my business, moving things forward in an impactful way. I can't do that if I'm doing minutia and little admin tasks.

I always tell people who are new to AI that you have to build some trust with it. You should fact-check it, and double-check its work in the beginning. That's how you get to know it and train the models.

What's a topic in Web3 that people aren't talking about enough?

Melissa: I'm starting to talk to people behind the scenes about AI agents and the way they're going to consume art. People are going to use them to purchase art, asking questions like, "What's the highest value piece I can get for less than this much in this style?" People don't know where to start when it comes to collecting, and these AI brokers are going to make it easier.

It's a catch-22 because it's happening no matter what. This is the direction things are going. But I think it feels taboo because it's a weird thing for an artist to think about—the concept of an AI bot buying your work or discovering your work.

By adding off-chain history to on-chain identifiers, as we do at Atomic Form, you make yourself more indexable for these AI agents. Because then you have in plain text, not in a string of numbers and letters and transactions, the context and the story. So I want people to know that adding their work on-chain will help them with discovery but I don't want to scare them that AI bots are coming for their artwork–but they are.

What's next for you? Do you have a vision for your future in the space?

Melissa: With Atomic Form, I always want to stay on the cusp of talking to customers and bringing feedback into our product, making sure it's always built on the voice of the artist. If that's who our user is, that's how it should be built. I think that's why people like it so much.

For me personally, I want to do more art. I'm so inspired by talking to and working with all these artists. I can see myself doing some type of collab with my mom bringing her work on-chain. I'd like to work with other artists in her generation to help them bring their art on-chain and digitise their work.

Melissa Kapnick is Chief of Staff at Atomic Form, where she helps preserve the history and context of digital art. Follow Atomic Form at @atomicform or Melissa at @KapnickMelissa.

Melissa Kapnick is Chief of Staff & Go to Market Expert at Atomic Form, a company that attaches off-chain history to on-chain identifiers, preserving the stories behind digital art. Follow Atomic Form at @atomicform or Melissa at @KapnickMelissa.