How to Sell out Your NFTs Guaranteed with this Genius Marketing Strategy

A lot of people are really zoomed into the monkey pictures, the ape pictures, and JPEGs specifically. But in reality, NFT is a technology, underlying technology that serves so many different purposes. And that's something that I'm so, so excited about is because we can see how things become a lot more efficient. And this entire new industry is being born right now under our eyes, literally, because never has it been ever before where you can claim Digital ownership over an asset online.

Hello, hello everyone. Today is— we're gonna be— it's a couple weeks before NFT NYC, so this week we're gonna be talking about a handful of interesting topics. Crypto never sleeps, very interesting stuff. Um, and, uh, Will, before we start, uh, how How are you doing? It's been a little bit. I've been traveling quite a bit. How are you?

I have been incredible because our launch is coming right up. The next phase of what we have been working on for The Littles. It's super incredible to see the response that I get from people I share it with. You know, being able to work on a project for the last 6 months, a lot of times you put your head down and you're building, building, building. And I know it's such a cliché. People are just like laughing at you like, oh, you're building. But it's like so hard to show the progression because you're, you're taking like 10 different pivots every single week or every single decision you make, you're always pivoting around the problem. And, and in this market, you don't get rewarded for any changes. You need to come off as being super polished and being ready to go and hit the, hit the floor running. So I'm really excited about that.

You know what? Let me share something real quick. For those of you that are going to be able to see this video, I'm going to share my screen real quick. Will, I don't even know if you've seen this, but take a look at this chart over here. So those of you that can the video, and I'll explain for audio too. There's basically this green line that's an incremental line that keeps going up and to the right, but it's very incremental progress, right? And then the other— and this is on the x-axis, right? So there's x and y-axis. On the y-axis, there's another line that's kind of like a slope. It's like a hill, right? And this is basically where crypto was as an ecosystem in the last couple years. Everything was going skyrocketing up and to the right, and then now everything's going down, but everyone's like, crypto's BS, DeFi is dead. And so you can see everything's going down the hill right now. And then the green line on the x-axis just continued to go up and to the right. And what that basically says is that's what actual progress is. And builders are actually just going to focus on incremental progress. They're going to look at the green line, whereas the media, their job is to drive hype, right? It's to drive attention, to drive clicks. And so now everyone's like, oh my God, this crypto thing's all BS, haha, like told you so. So have you seen this one?

I have. I actually have. Yes. And it's very, very interesting. I often get challenged with thinking which one is the best approach. I'm always tempted to be like, oh, you can just hype it up and, you know, you're gonna get hailed as a hero, but then how long is that gonna last? And I always kind of come back to my original thesis, like, slow and steady, just continue to put in the work. And because like the conversations that we've been having, it's like, think in decades, think in decades. And that allows us to really center ourselves in the line of why we're building what we're building and how we approach the different build as well, whether it's hype tactic, FOMO, or whatever the case may be, or you just want to build quality product for people to love and enjoy to support you.

You know, I was watching a video on the plane yesterday and it was one of Gary Vee's 4Ds. And so he's got this 4Ds thing where people will pay him like, I think, $10,000 or so and they sit in a room with him for like an hour and like 10 people are in there, right? And then he made an interesting comment about like every single company, he thinks every single company will create a mascot down the road, right? So for example, Littles has a mascot, Leveling Up Heroes, you know, there's a mascot too. And just creating these brandable characters that can last for the long term because people can, can identify with these mascots, right? So I think that's going to be something really interesting, and it's going to take time to build all this stuff, the, the IP and all that. I'm sure you're, you're thinking about games, you know, I'm thinking about toys and all these things. So all these things will, will slowly happen over time. So maybe, maybe something really practical we can start with first, Will, is we're both going to NFT NYC, and then we can talk about kind of what our plans are, and then to make it practical for people, how people can make the most out of these conferences. So, um, do you want to lead off first and maybe tell us a little bit about what NFT NYC is, and then we can just, you know, go back and forth?

For sure. So for those that don't know, NFT NYC is one of the biggest NFT conferences out there, um, and basically all the people that are in NFTs would be around this city hosting different events. Multiple different projects are hosting big events for non-event-goers because NFT NYC is a conference. They're hosting, I think like 15,000 different speakers, collection of 4 days of speeches varying from artists to the tech, to collectibles, gaming, you name it, they have it there. And there are going to be 7 different venues around town hosting these talks for the 4 days. But majority of the people that go are not really going for the talks because they can actually go and stream this. online? Why are people going? Well, I think this is where you can bring a lot of insight as well, Eric.

Yeah. So, I mean, did you go, did you go to the first one last October?

No, I was not even, oh, I was barely in NFTs back then.

So, oh, okay. Yeah. Wow. Fascinating. So, okay. I went last October and so that was the very first NFT NYC. And my bet was that this would be like a South by Southwest, which is like a tech conference that Continually grew over time. And now like a lot of people in tech go there every year. It largely, it felt like that, right? Like a lot of crazy things were just popping up. Like Gary Vee would do like an impromptu meeting with Beeple and it was set up right next to the hotel I was staying at. So it was easy to just walk down and watch kind of the conversation. Gary did a fireside chat with Beeple. And so, you know, for me, what I found that was really interesting with NFT NYC was more so the side events and the people, More so than going to the actual talks. Um, because the thing is, they, I think they have like 1,500 speakers or so. Right. And so I would watch some of the talks and, um, I think it's, it's good that this event's bringing people together, but I would say a lot of the talks were probably, um, average or below average. I hate to say that. Um, but I just want to make sure that people get the most out of their time. Right. Um, and if it's your first one, you know, feel free to check it out, but you know, if I'm going to go to these things, I'm always betting on the people and I want to maximize kind of going deep. With these people. So what we're doing at a high level is we're doing a private dinner. And so Will's going to be coming to the dinner with his wife, Cass, and a lot of great people are coming to dinner, right? Like from, you know, I'll name drop a couple just because it's just so you understand kind of how I'm trying to connect the dots here. So Keith Grossman from Time, right? Nadia from Pussy Riot. And then you have Matt Liu from Origin Protocol, just to name a few. Um, but my goal here is to say, okay guys, like we're coming together. Let's just do a dinner. I'll set everything up. Like we'll do it in a private room. Let's connect people. And, um, you know, magic happens from that.

Right.

So dinners are kind of always like the staple for me for these events. And then we are doing a, we're doing a happy hour and we're, I think we have about 150 people registered right now. So we're capped. We might increase that number depending on if we can get a sponsor or not. So that's a little hack. Think about getting a sponsor, um, for any event that you host. Um, and then other than that, I'm going to a handful of, um, holder events. Like I, I hold a Moonbirds. I'm gonna go to one of their David Blaine events. And I'm being very selective about where I go to. And the final thing I'll say before I pass it over to you, Will, is I think pacing yourself, not feeling like you have to go to every single thing. My goal when I travel or when I go to any events is just like one big thing per day. And that's it. I don't want to plan it out too much because I want to let serendipity take over. And that's where the magic happens. So those are my thoughts out the gate. Will?

So much things to unpack on that. And by the way, I thought that last conference was in June, which is why I'm like, oh, I was just dabbling in it, but I totally missed that it was actually in October. And that was when I was like balls deep in it. So for the record, now I think that for the regular goers, being able to hit all the events is gonna be very, very difficult because it's always gated with— for community members. But the side events is so, so eventful to even go to. And for me, my approach is very, very different when I go to these events. Like, I want to pack my day to go to like 8 different events and whatnot, because I wanted to— I want to meet the people that I need to meet. And usually they're at multiple different events. And at the same time, being able to have a fluid schedule as well, that if you were to miss an event, it's going to be okay. Because as you said, let serendipity take over and magic happens. And that's precisely what we did. And it just Works really, really well.

I think, Will, you make a good point too. Sorry to interrupt. I think it's booking as many or reserving as many things as you can, but what you're looking for is optionality, right? So then you make sure that you have it reserved. So it's kind of like you plan for the worst but hope for the best. So the worst case scenario is like you go to those events, which is kind of a good case scenario anyway, but sorry, keep going.

No, yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think like with this approach for NFT NYC for The Littles, which is our project, We approach it in a very different way. And the reason why we're approaching it in different ways is because first of all, the blue chips would have their big, big parties, multi-day event. Like for example, Bored Ape, they have the ApeFest 4-day event. Doodles have their 4-day event. Cool Cats have their 4-day event. So it's very, very hard to outbeat them in hosting an event that like wows your community. And at the same time, you also want to be able to make some noise that you're representing the brand at a place where everyone is showing up at. So for us, we're going to have a meetup, which is going to be a 10 to 12 coffee shop meetup environment. So then that way the community can really get together and bond. Like, these are like PFP faces that we've been seeing for months, and now we get to really connect with each other. And I think there's so much magic in seeing people in real life, especially as a founder, you need to connect with your people because when they see you, there's this invisible injection of confidence in your passion towards the project and your vision towards the project. And that is irreplaceable through words, through podcasts or video. Like every time I go to these conferences, my confidence level and conviction in crypto and NFTs goes, shoots up like 200%. is crazy and keeps me going, which is why these events are so, so important for our holders. Now, at the same time, what we have done is we have created these 8-foot-tall statues of our mascot, to your point, JoJo Bears, and they're going to be traveling around town to different events. So then that way we can have a presence, we can show our face, we can introduce other communities to the Littles ecosystem. And currently we have, uh, confirmed location-wise, we have the Time event. We're going to be at the Time event. We're also going to be at the Times Square billboard by the American Eagle. We're going to be at the Shopify location. We're going to be at the KaijuKing event. We're going to be at the CyberKong event. We're also going to be potentially your event, potentially. We still need to jam it up with your team, um, and a few more events that we're still in the talks. So then that way this becomes a big giant treasure hunt That is going in a span of 4 days achieves the same result, but in a budget-friendly manner.

Yeah. You know what's funny? I mean, all the things you're talking about, let me just ask you a question. I'm sure people, 'cause this is the thing that just popped in my head. How are you learning about all these events? The KaijuKingz one, the CyberKongz ones, the TIME one, right? 'Cause people like, they're like, it's like looking at a big menu at Cheesecake Factory. You just don't know what to pick. So how are you finding these?

Well, for me, I look at it from 2 different angles. One angle being the Web2-specific angle of partnerships where we can we can leverage their name, quite frankly, to add credibility to our brand. So being able to be at American Eagle, that itself is a credibility piece. Same thing with Shopify. So these are relationships that we have set even from NFT LA, to your point about meeting quality people, having deep relationships. I think that's exactly where it's paying off after 3 months. That's the Web2 angle. The Web3 angle I'm really approaching it from a way of our partners. So Time is one of our partners. If for those that is the first time hearing about The Littles, we have an official partnership with Time Studio to create a children's animation series. And that's the reason why it's a very easy convo to be like, hey, do you— do we want to have this partnership? Because we're technically a big family. And it becomes a really easy yes. Same thing with Cyber Kong and Kaiju King's SubDucks as well, because These are the partners that we officially partner with. So being able to tap into their community is, is everything, and it allows us to have this network effect.

That's amazing. Yeah, I think there's something to be said about collaborations, partnerships. At the end of the day, you're really— it's kind of 1 1 3, right? So anyway, I hope that was helpful for everyone with kind of our NFT NYC plans. There's more events obviously this year. There's Art Basel, a lot of things that are coming down the pipeline, but Focusing on one event at a time. Now, a couple of things to talk about. So maybe the next one is around the crypto bill that is being proposed, at least in the United States. So just to give some context on this one, I believe it's Senator Loomis, and I think she partnered up with somebody else, but there are a handful of things that they proposed. And I think this is probably a good thing. And, um, there are a couple of highlights, right? So for example, um, there is— I'm just gonna read a couple highlights here. So basically, um, and before I do, I think it's important to understand that regulation is not necessarily a, a bad thing, um, because regulation then helps the institutions decide on what's— it's like, okay, this is what's okay, this is what's not okay, and now I can start to put money in, I can start to deploy capital into the space, and it basically lifts everyone, right? So a couple highlights, um, that I wanted to flag here, and then, Will, we can talk about it, but There are no taxes on crypto transactions that are under $200, which means you could go buy a meal with Bitcoin if you wanted to, and then you're not going to get taxed for it. And then also they're proposing that people will have the right to self-custody their digital assets, which is great. That means no one can just say, I'm going to take all your money. I'm going to seize all your assets. No government can do that, which is— you have senators saying this. I think they understand this is where the world is going. And then most crypto assets, they're proposing, will be viewed as commodities rather than securities. So what that basically means at a very high level is that the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, which is, I mean, they typically will regulate securities, it's actually going to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. So I don't understand too much about it, but it's just to understand that, hey, if it's not going to the SEC, that's actually a good thing because the SEC has been highly against crypto, very anti-crypto, and they want to regulate as much as possible. With this, this means the SEC is not really going to— they're not going to oversee this. The 4th and 5th thing from my side, and then I'll turn it over to you, Will, for your thoughts. Mining taxes, right? So miners will now be taxed after they sell. Right now, crypto is being taxed basically the moment that you mint something, that you mine a Bitcoin, it gets taxed, right? So this is actually going to be good long-term for people's income. And then I think this one's very important given the whole Um, you know, Terra Luna thing. Um, stablecoins must maintain a 100% reserve, right? And they have to disclose how much and which assets are in the reserve. So I think this would be good. Um, I'm still kind of unclear on what Tether is holding, which is another stablecoin. So, um, Will, at a very high level, what are your thoughts?

I actually really, really, um, I think that this bill is, is really good for the entire crypto market because it, once again, as you were stating, These regulations provide a lot more clarity for people. Once there are rules in place, the organizations would now be able to inject a lot more money into the space, because if it's not clear, your money can be gone the next day. And so these— all these rules specifically, I would say, like the stablecoin maintaining 100% reserve, that part is so good for the industry because that means that your stablecoin would need to have enough liquid assets in the reserve to cover all the stablecoins. Really not much like an algorithmic type of stablecoin where, as we see in Terra Luna, it just completely collapsed because it's just a big, big Ponzi scheme pretty much that, hey, you know what, let's play chicken. Who's willing to have their money in there, take the 20% APYs and hope for the best? This is not the case now that, you know what, Your crypto money needs to be backed by real money. Incredible. I think this is a really great step towards the right direction.

Yeah. I think the United States, people generally continue to look to the United States for things like this. So the fact that executive order was signed saying, hey, let's really try to— we understand that crypto's the future. Let's make sure that we protect our people as well. And then this this proposed bill that they've been working on for months, it seems largely positive. Um, and so I'm, I'm very hopeful for it, and I hope these regulations pass sooner than later because that means that institutional money starts to come in. Um, any other thoughts around this before we move on?

The last point actually I do want to cover is that is like, that shows a lot of understanding and the, of the ethos from the government is the fact that they're proposing full control of the digital asset. Something I want to dive in a little bit deeper is because what it means to have full control of your digital asset means that currently in the financial system right now, our money in the bank is not really in our full control. The government can come down and freeze your account anytime they want for any reason that they want. And we've seen this play out in the Canadian border issue that was happening. And now for the fact that they are proposing to let the holders have full control of digital assets really is in line with the reason this exists. The cryptocurrency exists is because it's decentralizing. There's no one person that can control anything. And this is definitely once again going towards the right direction.

Yep. I'm very excited for it. I hope it passes sooner than later, but still it's got to go to the House and all that. So it is what it is. And Couple other things. So, Will, you marked kind of this one around tech giants moving into NFTs. What are your thoughts around this? What's going on here?

Ah, this one is really interesting. So with the tech giants going into NFTs, specifically Salesforce launching their own platform for minting, selling NFTs, Samsung launching their Discord. Actually speaking of Samsung, like we're in close touch with Samsung as well. So it's interesting that the plans that they have for just dipping their toes into this arena. It seems like that they're, they're in it to do a big, big thing. Just to share some behind the scenes, they actually have an agency that deals with all their crypto kind of initiation and activations. Now, that's not the interesting point. The interesting point is that within that agency, they have another agency that deals with cryptocurrency specifically and NFTs specifically. So that just gives you an idea how big this entire agency is and how big of a commitment they have towards this industry.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's exciting. We've already seen kind of Instagram talking about it, right? Twitter's already done— I mean, I wouldn't consider them like a publicly traded company, but they aren't one of the FAANGs, right? Um, without Netflix. I never understood why people included Netflix in there. Um, but I think point being is, is people are accepting this as the way to go. I mean, Salesforce, right? Salesforce is, um, Salesforce is actually opening up NFTs as well. Um, so, you know, NFTs aren't just the JPEGs at the end of the day. I was talking with a group of entrepreneurs last week. I was like, look, this stuff is really going to take off when there's more real-world utility. I think the art aspect is great, but also think about your medical records, right? Can you rent out or sell your medical records to certain healthcare providers, uh, and maybe collect like a, like a recurring, uh, like fee from it, right? Um, you can volunteer that information. Or if you graduate from like my, my college, maybe I, instead of giving you a diploma, maybe I airdrop you a diploma, a soulbound token that can't be taken away, right? So I think the tech giants understand that this is just a starting point and there's going to be a lot more utility because the blockchain at the end of the day It's just a— it's a ledger, right? And NFTs make it, make it more kind of, um, it's easier to grasp, um, when you start with art first, and then you kind of just continue to, to grow from there. So it makes a lot of sense. Um, other than that, do you have any other, um, points or thoughts around this, Will?

No, I think like you, you hit the nail on the head by, by saying that, because NFT itself, a lot of people are really zoomed into the monkey pictures, the ape pictures, and, and JPEGs specifically. But in reality, NFT is a technology, underlying technology that serves so many different purposes. And, and that's something that I'm so, so excited about is because we can see how things become a lot more efficient. And this entire new industry is being born right now under our eyes, literally, because never has it been ever before where you can claim digital ownership over an asset online. Now we have the ability to do so.

Exactly. I mean, people don't like change, right? I remember again sitting in that room of the 60 entrepreneurs and you have people saying, I can right-click save it, you know, the monkeys are stupid and all that. But to your point, It's the underlying technology. People love to hate on something when it's new. People love to hate on things that they don't understand. But when you look beyond the art itself, which is important because art's a good way to onboard users into this ecosystem, it's what are people really going to do? And I will tell you right now, I have friends that medical, selling your medical data, that's actually a startup that my friend's building right now. My other friend, he actually helps people make dresses or like, um, really fancy looking outfits out of trash. And the, the outfits look amazing, right? And he wants to figure out how to make those into NFTs. Kevin O'Leary has once said that, um, you know, watch companies, like really luxury watch companies, want, um, people to have an NFT tied to each watch, right? So this is just technology. And, um, you know, the sooner that, um, maybe the sooner that you experience it, you get to make a decision for yourself. Um, obviously you're listening to creators of Web3, so you probably believe in it already. But I think if you're talking to any loved ones, like, hey, like, why don't you just go out there and experience it yourself? first, then you can, you can make a judgment call. But before you actually even have anything, before you've built any scar tissue, I think it's probably a little unfair to judge anything.

And to, to close off with this point, sometimes like I wonder, am I the crazy one? And then when I look at, you know, Salesforce, Samsung, Snapchat, Instagram, all these big companies making moves, trying to figure out how to utilize this technology within their ecosystem to deepen the relationship with them and their community and their users, then we know for a fact that we are going towards the right direction and that we are still, we're still all learning. And this is what levels out the playing field for the regular Joes like ourselves.

Yep. Crypto sponsors. So the arena of crypto sponsors, what are your thoughts around this?

Oh dude, I think like in the next few years, crypto would dominate everything and anything in terms of sponsorship. Like we already see it in Formula 1. We see it in basketball courts, like football stadiums and everything. And as the fight for land grab goes more and more mainstream, these crypto companies that have billions of dollars raised and whatnot, they're going to go and promote through every channel and medium ever possible.

Yeah, I have a, so I have a couple of thoughts around this. So I think in 10 years we won't be saying crypto. Uh, it's just gonna be part of the internet. This is just another layer on the internet. Um, and I do think what we're seeing right now with like FTX, Crypto.com, you know, all these crypto companies sponsoring everything, I think that's gonna start to go away. Because here's the thing, when you look at Coinbase, for example, these transaction costs, like, they have to come down, right? Crypto wasn't built to take these large transaction costs. Um, and, you know, Brian Armstrong himself had said like if he were to do Coinbase over again, he'd probably make it decentralized. Um, I think what's interesting from a marketing perspective is the game that FTX is playing right now. I live in Miami. They have FTX Arena. They are spending a ton of money with branding, and it's actually working because they— I think last month I was looking at some of the data. I think they overtook Coinbase for a month, or maybe they were number— yeah, I think they overtook Coinbase as the number 2. Binance is obviously number 1 in the world, but then you have Coinbase typically, and then there's FTX. And so the branding seems to be working. seems to be working. Um, so I think a lot of these exchanges that are sponsoring a lot of money right now, crypto sponsors Formula 1, they have, um, um, Formula E Staples Center in, in, in Los Angeles. Um, I think they, some of them might be going into a precarious position because if you're like, if you're a company that doesn't have a strong balance sheet and then you have like the $700 million bill for the basketball stadium, uh, you're in trouble. Right. And so I don't know how, how much some of these are going to be able to hold on. I think FTX will stand the test of time. But what I think is, again, we won't be seeing crypto much. Maybe a potential thing is FTX will buy like a Crypto.com out of their kind of stadium agreement for pennies on the dollar somehow. I don't know how this all will work, right? But I think it's just a couple of things to think about. I just wanted to plant the seed for people.

Yeah. Well, I don't have anything else to add on that note because I'm all over Goblin Town.

It's—

do you want to talk about that?

Yeah, talk to me about that. I've been seeing that all over chat. I just, I've been traveling so much the last couple of weeks. So what is going on with that? It seems like it's a project that took off like What is it exactly? Why is it taking off?

It's something that I've seen like from free mint all the way up until 5 ETH. And it's such a great case study. And by the way, disclaimer, I hold zero. I'm not a— I admire it from afar in terms of how they built this. Do I envy it? No, I do not envy it. I feel like it's catching lightning in a bottle. In essence, in the last week or two, there has been a project called Goblin Town that has minted. It's a completely free mint, um, and they do not have a Discord, they do not have a website. All they have is Twitter. No nothing, no utility, no nothing. Uh, CCO, that means that you can use the image however you want. Um, and that's the premise of Goblin Town. Now, what did you hear about this project?

You know, I didn't— I— so I, again, looking at the JPEG Morgan chat, they're all talking about it. I— here's what I did here before Goblin Town. I was actually having, um, having lunch with Avery, the president of VaynerNFT, and I was like, what are you super excited about right now? And she said, I'm really excited about free mints. So like you just mentioned the word free mint, and I didn't know Goblin Town was a free mint. So maybe we can talk about that because it seems like a lot of people feel like free mints are going to be like a trending thing. Um, so I, I just don't know enough right now, but, um, yeah. Yeah.

So I think like their rate, like why they're gaining so much attraction Is there's just a few ways of looking into this is because first of all, I think they really kickstarted the free mint meta. The way they communicate through Twitter, I think is so brilliantly done, is that they change up their font. So you see these like big, big fonts and these really small subscripts and whatnot. And that's like kind of them mimicking how the goblins talk. And that itself is so new on Twitter that if you're scrolling through your feed, you would see this immediately pop up. And it's like, oh, like these fonts are completely different. And this becomes a way for them to be able to build a clout following. And also another thing that really got people's attention is their Spaces, which is incredible because they have thousands of people going on Twitter Spaces, making goblin noises for hours and hours and hours. And I'm like, literally there were thousands of people in there and I'm like, I don't get this. I really don't get it. But then yet this is their way of gaining attention. And specifically in the PFP NFT space, it's all about attention. The more attention that you have, the more in demand the project is. So from merging the, the whole sound on Twitter to the way they use their languaging and also their fonts is how they really differentiated themselves amongst everything else out there. Now, at the same time, I feel like that the timing of this project came out in such a good time because right now we're in a, in a big prolonged bear state and people need stuff to degen into. And this project really reminds me of Cryptoads. Are you familiar with cryptoads?

Yep.

Way back, it's all about the vibes. Like when, when you ask people about like, hey, why did you pay 10 ETH for a cryptoad with literally zero utility? What's the roadmap and whatnot? Everyone would answer you, vibes. That's just what it is. And, and I think this is exactly how, um, Goblin Town is, is in terms of comparison-wise.

You know, I think what's, what's interesting is the CCO. So Creative Commons means like people can do anything they want, right? And so I think to, um, to release something out like this for free and then people basically get to own each one and do whatever they want with it, um, that creates more marketable moments. And the fact that it's free is a marketable moment. Um, CCO leads to more marketable moments, plural. And, um, you know, people are doing spaces, making noises and all that. And like, that's, that's creating more word of mouth too, right? So that, that's more marketable moments. So I think, I mean, a free mint, at least to my understanding, is exactly what it is. It's, it's free, right? Um, and it's, it's potentially a way, like if it's something that's remarkable, which in this case it is, right? Because you have people making goblin noises, then more people will talk about it and then it just blows up. And I look at the floor price right now on OpenSea, it's 4.45 ETH from something that's free. So do I think stuff like this will last for the long term? Probably not. I think a lot of this is hype, right? And to your point, I think it's lightning in a bottle. So I think if you are very creative with how you go about, you know, doing free stuff, then, then sure, right? I think, um, but this is an interesting case study. So yeah.

Super interesting. And at the same time, um, we, we need to understand and know the fact that before Goblin Town came out, there were thousands of other projects that were also free mint. So do not look into creating projects like, oh, this is the meta, this is like, um, the, the roadmap. I think it's all about the time. Timing is a really, really big thing. Luck is also another really, really big thing. There's so many people that put in Real tangible work that has worked months to create a really great project, and yet they don't even have nearly as much attention or support from the community than Goblin Town. So I think it's just super interesting to see. What do I think of it? I think it fits a very, very specific type of demographic, and those people, they already made the money in Um, in this project, which is the reason why it's play money for them. It's house money. So they don't care holding as long as they, they want to. But to go in at this level, I, I don't think so.

Yeah, I think there does need to be a reset long term with these prices. Um, like, you know, 4.45, you know, as of today, that's about, uh, $7,500 or so in US dollars. Um, so I, I think there still needs to be a reset. Um, I, I still think the market has further down to go. That's just my take on it, I think. But again, going back to the chart that we reflected on earlier today, I think it's just builders are going to continue to build, focus on incremental progress. This stuff is interesting. It's a case study. Also, if you want to increase your luck surface, I mean, you just work harder, right? The harder you work, the luckier you get. Place yourself in the right areas, and that is what it is. Final thing I wanted to talk about, Will, before we get out of here. What are your thoughts? I mean, so right now, A lot of tech companies are mandating hiring freezes. And a lot of, like Coinbase, for example, they're rescinding job offers. So I actually was looking at a site and they showed like who they actually rescinded. And actually we have our team taking a look at, on the agency side, we have our team taking a look at who we might want to hire, right? Because these are people that have been vetted and unfortunately their job offers have been rescinded. So the other thing too is, I was in another entrepreneur's chat. And then people are saying right now, like, you have companies like Tesla, Meta, you know, Google right now who are— they're cutting people, they're cutting 10 to 15%. And it's not because they don't have money. It's just like, they're— one of the reasons is like, oh, they're using this as like a guise to just cut the people that they wanted to cut anyway.

Right.

That's one of them. The other one is generally like they're preparing for what's about to come. And the third one is like, um, you know, they're overspending anyway. So they actually have to make these, these cuts. Right. So, um, what are your thoughts around all this?

It's really interesting to see it from a founder's perspective, and I tend to reflect on my personal actions and feelings as a founder because we have a treasury that we're working with. And even just a month ago, like, the ideas of expansion, the idea of opportunity, the idea of land grab and talent was so optimistic. It was always about go, go, go, looking at how we can take on the next opportunity. It feels like that. The gravy train won't stop. It just feels like that we're always building and there's opportunities coming in, money's flowing in, market is thriving. And within just a month of time, reflecting on how I have been acting as a founder and what my thoughts are like, I want to make sure that I'm around for, as you said, like for decades. So how can I survive the upcoming winter and the uncertainties? Like, this is— these are things that are oftentimes like I'm always thinking about. I'm like, Where, what are the necessity? Who are the necessity in terms of hires? What projects and opportunities is going to be able to move the needle? And these are things that I'm thinking about. So, and I'm only in charge of a small team. I can't think about how I can't even imagine these big companies, what they're running off of, their burn rate. And like with talent earlier, when the market was thriving, it was always about like, not just the dollars, even if you have paying top dollars, you can't even hire great talent. back then, just a couple months ago, it was the fight of talent. Now it's a very different ball game, and it's just to show that all these companies are just preparing for the winter.

Yeah, these, these cycles, they, they ebb and flow, right? And so what was an employer— employees market is now very much an employer's market again. And I will tell you kind of behind the scenes, when I talk to founders and investors, um, they are— they're, they're kind of in defense mode right now. And then they're also gonna— they understand that they're gonna get their pick of the the, the litter later, right? When it comes to hiring the best talent. Um, and so cycles happen, they happen, they go up and down. What I would just say is from a practical standpoint, just making sure ideally you have 6 to 12 months of expenses. Um, protecting your income is the number one thing, right? Protect your income. Um, and then if you're fortunate enough, you know, maybe you can start like some type of side hustle. This, you know, great things are built during, you know, times of, uh, of crisis, right? Um, and then if you're fortunate enough after that, maybe you have some leftovers, you can invest some of that capital into things that you believe will be around for the long term, right? You know, this, this game is, is really not different. It's just that, you know, every 40— or sorry, 60 to 80 years or so, like, you know, people that understood the game, learned the game, they die, and then there's a new, new, uh, group that comes, right? But just understanding over the years what's worked is long-term, patient, sustainable growth, not trying to trade all the time, um, but trying to, you know, believe in what you, um, think will be around for the long term, right? Which is why you see Will doing what he's doing with the Littles and, uh, what we're doing, doing with Leveling Up Heroes. Um, any final thoughts, Will?

Yeah, I think like now's the market that is primed for builders. Now you have the time to think, there's a time for you to learn. You don't feel like that you're missing out on things, which in essence, it kind of forces you to make really rash moves. Now you have the time to be like reflecting, connecting, networking with people, and at the same time really build, build something useful in the marketplace. So when the next cycle goes up, you already have 6, 12 months of quality work. You're not coming to the market with an idea. You're coming to the market with real team, real network, and real product that you can show for and to really ride that next cycle up. And that's where we want to be in the next year, 2 years to come.

All right. So that is it for this episode. Please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe from your whatever podcast listener that you're listening to, because it does help us grow. And, you know, we, our teams put in a lot of time and effort for this one. So if you want to continue to hear more, please do that. It helps us. And hopefully see you at NFT NYC at one of our respect— respective events. And, uh, yeah, we'll catch you next week. Peace.