This short case study will compare two recent NFT launches, t00bs/y00tlist and FlareMC. t00b/y00t is the yuckiest of degen garbage, while FlareMC was meticulously planned out by a "doxxed team of professionals." Aaaaaaand you can guess what happened.
That's right — the degen garbage raised millions and the "doxxed team of professionals" flopped.
As a web3 project founder looking for the right time to drop, I have to pay close attention to these things. The first takeaway: "dUh NfT sPaCe" is a movie in that understanding it requires suspension of disbelief. If you try to make sense of it using logic and reason, you'll kill yourself.
[Case in point/sideline: The only type of NFT space project that is really guaranteed to sell out is a project that creates trading tools for NFT trading. But here's the bullshit — these trading tools won't help you make any damn money because they are based around data, and success in NFTs is not about that at all! So why do the trading tool projects continue to sell out even though they don't work? Because people think they should work even though people know the space is all about emotion! That's the suspension of disbelief required to get the stupidity in this space!]
Anyway, sideline over. Let's get to the comparison.
Project Description
t00bs — extension of degen project Degods (good luck translating this roadmap, which is just a copy of BAYC style riddle-me-this bullshit)
FlareMC — web3 esports team led by Zews, an established esports team developer, has a roadmap with actual words on it
Project Mint Performance
t00bs — minted out 15,000 units in minutes; raised at least $4 million for DeGods team
FlareMC — at the time of writing (about 12 hours after mint start), 1248/5555 minted, raised around $120,000. This represents a loss of around $180,000, as the team claimed to have spent $300,000 on getting the project up and running.
Marketing
t00bs — team members did interviews in masks where they had quotes like, "we tried some shit...we don't want to do no mid-shit"
FlareMC — hired a team of known advisors, did Twitter Spaces in which they explained their plans, showed off finished NFTs before mint day
So Why Did FlareMC Tank and t00bs Succeed? What FlareMC Did Wrong.
1. You have to understand NFT people.
Tl;dr — Buttoned up professional is boring to NFT people. NFT People like big ideas better than well-thought out plans.
Why?
The folks buying NFTs at this point, in a bear market with volume down 99% from ATH, are privileged enthusiasts. They have money to burn, and they want to get involved with world-changing events. This is the not the crowd that's worried about what they're going to eat tomorrow. They are trust fund babies, spoiled college brats, 30something neckbeards with no bills because they're wife-less in Bumblefuck, Idaho, and other kept kids who can afford to lose thousands and dream ideologically with no repercussions to their daily lives.
2. The FlareMC team were working off of a cynical investment premise.
During the fail Twitter Spaces FlareMC held as they saw their mint going down in flames, they made a couple of very telling statements:
a. "We came to retail because we didn't want to go to selfish VCs."
The FlareMC team held this tired notion of VCs being controlling, and that was their excuse for coming to NFT retail first. BUT — their roadmap has a plan to go to VCs eventually, so this is hypocrisy. I know the sponsorship business. FlareMC was trying to do what most NFT projects do — attract VC money by showing product-market fit with retail. FlareMC also misread NFT people as some sort of counterculture people who would be impressed by saying 'fuck VCs.' Dude, half these motherfuckers are the nephews and cousins of VC owners. They're as status quo as can be.
Bottom line: If you have serious product, go to serious investors (VCs). If you have retard product, go to retard investors (NFT retail).
b. "We deserve a paid mint because we put so much money in this/we have doxxed professionals/we showed utility first."
NFT people say they care about this bullshit, but t00bs didn't have any of this going and they raised millions. NFT people use the "doxxed founders" bullshit as an excuse when they don't want to invest in something that's not popular. And the second you say you deserve a paid mint, you lose. NFT people think that's socialism or some shit, which is full on hypocrisy for silver-spoon shitheads, but hey, you're coming to them for their money.
3. FlareMC didn't respect the market.
FlareMC made a fatal mistake on mint day. They allowed WL and public mint to mint AT THE SAME TIME. Well, that only works if WL (which they oversubscribed 8X, according to the team) sells out like immediately. What ended up happening is that they created a spread. When WL got done minting, they immediately posted the FlareMC NFTs on Opensea to flip, and they priced those NFTs between the spread. This meant new public buyers could go straight to Opensea and get the NFT for less than the public mint price. This, of course, stopped people from minting new NFTs.
FlareMC attempted to correct this mistake by lowering the public price to the WL price, but it was too late. On top of that, the WLers got mad because they felt disrespected after the public mint price was lowered, and they were right. Now the people who worked for WL got no advantage during mint.
The big takeaway: More than anything, this is a market. People are going to do what benefits their wallets first. If you do something dumb like create a spread on mint day, you ruin all of the hard work you did in the months prior in seconds.
What t00bs Did Right.
1. t00bs built an audience first.
t00bs was an extension of the already successful Degods project. Because the team already had its community, they didn't have to hire a lot of outside advisors who act as mercenaries, honestly. The advisors for FlareMC got paid no matter what, and we're not even in a stage of maturity in this market where advisors even have to state their deliverables. When you use outside marketing, they have no skin in the game. BUT! They get 3-5% of your mint if it does well.
NFT people love organic marketing, and the Degods community provided all the organic marketing t00bs needed to succeed. FlareMC marketing was full of bots.
2. t00bs created artificial scarcity.
t00bs created a y00tlist that you had to apply for in order to get permission to mint. Creating this artificial scarcity made people really excited to be included in this exclusive club if they got picked. The premise for picking was merit based, but that wasn't the case. The t00bs team was picking girls with naked Twitter profiles and popular NFT people. Basically, they were letting the already popular people into the new club, which made other NFT retail desperate to get in as well. The application list hit 75,000, and t00bs had their pick of the litter from there.
3. t00bs had fun and dreamed big.
If you go look at interviews from @Frankdegods, they are irreverent and fun. He's wearing a mask over his face and cussing up a storm. You might ask, why would people invest in a project if the founder doesn't seem to be taking anything seriously? Because NFT people don't take anything seriously. That doesn't mean they don't want to get things done. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be serious to get things done!
@Frankdegods was talking big and having fun. And even when the mint screwed up for t00bs even worse than it did for FlareMC, everybody still supported t00bs. Because there was no premise of everything going perfectly. Having fun releases you from the need to be perfect.
What's more, the interviews were done on shows that have cult followings within the NFT retail community. Basically, NFT retail community members create shows that speak directly to that audience, reflecting its attitudes back to it. Get in this flow, and you get your mint sold out.
Takeaway for Success as an NFT Founder
Have fun.
Have more fun.
Get to know people. You can get community members to do the same shit that advisors who charge $5000/month do. But they have to like you because they are having fun with you.
Respect the stupid. Stupid is fun, and you don't have to be super serious to get shit done! As a matter of fact, focusing on raising your overall energy level and just being happy drives more productivity than an attitude of grindworkgrindworkgrrr-lookatmeimworkingoshardwow
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