The Secret Way to Connecting with NFT Influencers, the Right Mindset, and More!

When you go hang out with like-minded people, eventually opportunities pop up. You create those own, your own opportunities by doing that. All right, so today we are going to talk about a couple of things. We're gonna be talking about a really effective way to secure collaborations with kind of the biggest influencers, whether they are in the NFT space or whether they're in the crypto space or just anywhere in general. I'm just gonna share a couple of experiences. Hopefully that'll be helpful for you. Also, I am going to be talking about one of the added focuses for us as a marketing agency on the Single Grain side, I'm also going to be talking about something, something incredible, which I can't talk about too much, but it's taken up a good chunk of my week. So that's February 19th, 2022. Real quick, my name is Eric Siu. I'm the creator of the Leveling Up Heroes NFT project. And I'd like you to hit the like button and the subscribe button before we start to help us grow. And here we go. So this week, a couple of amazing things happened. I had a dinner with the Doodles founders. I also had a dinner with the founder of Milo, which does crypto mortgages. We had a founders dinner as well. And so, you know, the Doodles dinner was great because we got to meet with Evan, who's the founder, Burnt Toast, who's the artist, and also Alfie, who's the motion artist, and also met with Fiona from the team. And I was introduced from my friend Eric, who is— who's a lawyer here in Miami. Great guy. And also Gianni from JPEG Morgan actually showed up there as well. So it was a good time. And, you know, being able to connect with everyone there, just listening to their story, just kind of listening to them talk, being present with them just goes such a long way. Because again, even if you have that, those, you know, that touchpoint for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or even for, you know, we're there for a couple hours, it goes a long way because it then builds a real relationship. You know, Zoom to me is just a transaction, right? And so similar deal with the founder of Milo Credit, which again, they do crypto mortgages. So if you have a bunch of crypto, they'll basically give you alone on your crypto within 30 days. So I had dinner with him at, um, at an Italian restaurant, uh, in Miami called Casa Tua. And, you know, it was a casual thing and it was, it was cool because I got to learn a lot about him. I got to learn his story. He got to learn mine as well. And, um, you know, just from that conversation alone, we're figuring out other ways for us to collab together. And then the, the other one is, you know, meeting with a bunch of other founders. Um, these people are more kind of in the, the tech space and the investing space as well. So very different groups of people. And so you might be wondering, okay, Eric, what's your point around all this stuff? So my point is this: for you to also get into these types of rooms, to have these dinners, there's always some opportunity to capitalize on. So I'll start with Milo Credit first. So I was at the Bitcoin, the North America Bitcoin Conference in Miami a couple of weeks ago, and I was checking out the booths with one of my friends and we're just looking around. And then he was like, hey, did you see the booth where they talked about crypto mortgages? I was like, what are you talking about? So we walked over and turns out we can actually get, you know, you get a loan on your crypto so you can let the crypto continue to appreciate. You don't have to liquidate it. And it seems like a no-brainer to me and it seems like they're doing well. And so I wanted to get the founder on the podcast. So I just had my assistant reach out and then we scheduled a podcast interview. And then from the podcast interview, then I said, hey, why don't we just go grab food or something like that? And we did that. And it's just It let it started with my friend who's in another group. He was like, "Hey, why don't you come check out? Are you gonna go to the North American Bitcoin Conference? There's free tickets or whatever, right?" And we signed up for that. So it's about being opportunistic. And then, you know, I was in one group which led to this thing, to this conference, and then us looking around, and then us being curious, and then me thinking about the different angles, right? So there's always an angle, but you have to be in the right place at the right time. So that's why I say serendipity is so important. And when you go hang out with like-minded people, eventually. opportunities pop up. You create those own— your own opportunities by doing that. So that's with Mean Low Credit, and, uh, that's with Joseph, the, the CEO. Now on the other side, let's, let's talk about Doodles for a second. So I think they have the most original art in the NFT space. To me, it's the most original. And just having the conversation with, um, Scott, uh, who's Burnt Toast, the artist, and also, um, the rest of the team, is just— you can tell the passion that's there, and they're very grounded, right? You know, the, the fame, so to speak, you know, hasn't really gotten to them yet. I haven't really seen, like, any ego, right? Like, any massive ego or arrogance there. And so, you know, how did that— how did that go about? Okay, well, you know, I'm friends with Eric, right? And Eric actually represents the Doodles now as a lawyer and so, you know, what happened was a couple months ago when I first moved to Miami, I started to do dinners. I always do dinners, right? In LA, I do dinners every now and then. I just like doing dinners because as an extroverted introvert, I need to recharge, right? And I don't like going up to a bunch of people. I— I just like getting a small group of people, high quality, curating the group, and that's that. And so, I actually met Eric from Clubhouse a long time ago. So, again, it's touchpoints. It's being at the right place at the right time, connecting with him there. And then we had both moved to Miami from LA, right? And then we, you know, grabbed a couple meals together, had him come to my dinners. We hung out a couple of times before and we actually became friends. And he's like, yo, like, you've been great with the dinners and all that. And so, like, I'd like you— I'd like for you to come to this one. And here's the other thing, like, when you get invited to these things, you take the opportunity because other times, you know, this year or in the past 12 months or so, I'd be— I'd get invited to things and you realize one thing: people aren't usually gonna extend that many invites out to you. You gotta take them, right? And so, you know, if you reject one, you're most likely not gonna get a second one, right? So taking these things, you know, seizing the opportunity, that's another thing. But again, it's being at the right place at the right time and then seizing the opportunity. Did I want to stay home? Did I want to just watch TV instead? Yes. But, you know, that's what I did. And so that's the doodles one. And then the third one would be, again, similar thing. So my friend Jason Yeh, who's a— he's a venture capitalist, and we were actually both— I'd invested in a company called Maven, which is the education company. We were both part of the same cohort in terms of kind of, you know, we're learning how to teach cohort-based courses. And, you know, we were all in a Slack together and he mentioned that he was coming to Miami and we just hung out at Joe and the Juice, which is like a little juice place downstairs in Miami. And, you know, we hit it off. And from there, I mean, he introduced me to a couple of things. I introduced him to a couple of things too. I got on calls for him. Like, we're just kind of knowledge sharing as well. But you can tell we're aligned, you know, even though he's an investor and then I'm kind of more of like a, you know, let's just say like a creator entrepreneur type of deal. You know, he's like, hey, look, I'm doing this dinner, right? And that dinner had amazing people there. You know, I'm not gonna name drop for this one, but just amazing people at that dinner. And so again, that's seizing the opportunity and just reaching out to each other and say, hey, why don't we just do a quick meet and greet? 'Cause even if you meet for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes or so, it goes a long way, right? And I think, you know, for me coming from the gaming world, you know, which I consider kind of the metaverse back in the day, right? The natural inclination would be to just wanna sit at home and just chill, right? But again, human beings like doing business with human beings. So that's what it takes. And so, even if you're starting at the very beginning right now, it's just putting yourself in the right place at the right time. And then, you know, you'll slowly level up the relationships that you have and then you'll get to a level where it's like, you'll find— you'll be like, whoa, how am I even in these dinners? Like, how did this happen, right? But it's really just seizing the opportunity at the end of the day. So, that's that. And then the other thing I want to talk about too is kind of what I'm learning from this focus. I have a marketing agency called Single Grain. And, you know, even though we serve mostly software companies and, you know, big tech and e-commerce, focusing on Web3. So to me, when an agency focuses, the ultimate focus is one focus, right? But I do think an agency can focus on 3 to 4 categories and really hone in on those and not try to serve everyone. But, you know, creating our NFT project, you know, we have a lot of people reaching out to us and we also have a lot of exchanges reaching out to us as well. And, you know, you know, different Web3 companies reaching out to us because we understand the space, right? And so to be able to occupy that, to say, hey, you know, why don't we try being one of the top Web3 firms out there on the marketing side? We can see it's about jumping on the right rocket ship at the right time, right? Because a lot of, you know, dollars are going into that space right now. There's a lot of building going on in that space right now. And, you know, I would say just like NFTs, I think a lot of these companies are going to go to zero. But, you know, some of them are going to become kind of the next Amazon, the next Google, or the next Facebook type of deal. And then speaking of the company, you know, There's only one thing I could say about this right now, and I will record a video. Maybe, maybe, maybe I will record a video in the future. But I'll just say this, you know, your reputation can be burnt instantly and it takes years to build it up. And so, you know, some people— this kind of carries over into the Web3, the crypto space right now. It's just a lot of the stuff in the NFT space right now are short-term cash grabs. It reminds me of the ICO boom back in 2017 or so. And, you know, I'm kind of sensing the same thing right now. And so, you know, you're better off— I mean, if you're a crafty person or if you're a clever person or a smart person, you're better off using those smarts to do good with it. And to have a long-term outlook is a path that's road less taken, right? We'll just put it that way. And when you go for short-term cash grabs, sometimes you end up burning relationships and, you know, there's collateral damage. People end up getting hurt. And so that's just something that I had to deal with this week and You know, without giving up too much, uh, too much information here, I'm just gonna leave it at that. But, um, don't forget to hit the like and the subscribe button if you enjoyed this. Let me know what you think I might have missed in terms of, you know, connecting with people. Or let me know who else you think I should throw dinners with in the near future. Drop that into the chat below and we'll see if we can make that happen. Catch you later. Bye.