User experience and accessibility are both critical factors that should be focused on. Listen to your guests, Amanda Archer and Nicole Rochette, as they discuss their passion and goal of breaking down those barriers through empowerment. They dive deep into their objectives in creating more of an equitable space and a community-first approach. In this episode, Eric Siu joins them to discuss creating more opportunities for people in the NFT space. His critical insights center on the magic happening at leveling up heroes and NFT projects on a mission to build the next generation of entrepreneurs. Tune in to know more about their roadmaps, mindset, and excellent skills so you can have an idea of how to craft your vision too!
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Listen to the podcast here
First Apes Wives Club, And More – Feat. Amanda Archer (Women Of The Metaverse) & Nicole Rochette (Dapper Labs), Plus Eric Siu From Level Up Heroes NFT
This is Amanda Archer and Nicole Rochette. We’re representing First Ape Wives Club, the empowering NFT collection built for accessibility through Dapper. We’re on the show that’s helping to make all of your futuristic dreams more accessible. Keep reading.
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NFT curious readers, read this episode and find out how the FAWC Founders took a killer resume, deep relationships and core values that rock and crafted one of the most anticipated drops of 2022 and why buying a pickle factory would ever be anyone’s real dream come true and how veteran marketer and podcaster Eric Siu is taking his passion for education to the next level through NFTs. All this and more on this episode.
Don’t forget that we put a little soiree together called NFTLA that brought out thousands of the world’s most innovative doers in the NFT space. Head on over to 2023.NFTLA.live to get on the whitelist for tickets to our bigger, bolder and better but also as an intimate and impactful event happening in Los Angeles from March 20th to 23rd, 2023. See you there.
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This episode features Amanda Archer, Founder of Women of the Metaverse and Nicole Rochette, Head of Art Partnerships at Dapper Labs. Let’s hear a little bit about each of them. Amanda founded Women of the Metaverse or WOTM in 2021 as a new creative studio, NFT collective and development incubator to support women founders entering into the Web3 generation. With experts and artists from the worlds of tech, lifestyle, arts and entertainment, Amanda prioritizes projects that support female representation in film, TV, art, music and the world of crypto.
Her first NFT PFP collection, First Ape Wives Club or FAWC, is launching in September 2022. It includes custom lines of cosmetics, jewelry, events and merchandise in both the metaverse and real world. As part of her company’s commitment to supporting women, Amanda has dedicated 5% of the company treasury to organizations that also support female representation and creators.
Amanda also serves as Vice President, Talent and Business Development at the Hollywood film studio, Fandomodo Films, where she is actively producing several feature films later in 2022. Not to be outworked by anyone, Amanda also owns a PR firm, Archer Publicity, that has represented some of the biggest Hollywood personalities including Paris Jackson, Katherine Jackson, Prince William, Priscilla Presley, Hugh Jackman, Carmen Electra, Paris Hilton, Nicky Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Crystal Hefner to name a few. Let’s hear a bit about Nicole next.
Nicole Rochette is the Head of Art Partnerships at Dapper Labs. Her focus is on helping the transition of galleries, artists and creators into the crypto space and building a vibrant ecosystem tailored to them on the Flow Blockchain. Prior to Dapper Labs, she spent over one decade working in creative production, helping brands and digital artists elevate their stories through creative work and bringing them to life. She has worked with brands such as Dior, Aston Martin, Stella Artois, Patta and more on numerous campaigns in both physical and digital spaces. It’s so great to hear everything that’s up with all of you. It’s a lot. Welcome to the show. We’re glad you could fit us in.
Thank you for having us.
That’s amazing to accomplish. Welcome.
Here’s a shout-out to our friends at AE Studio for putting us all together. We met in real life and Abbot Kinney heard about this project. We were like, “This needs to be discussed on the show.” It’s so great to have you both here.
It’s going to be awesome.
Thank you so much.
I met Josh over drinks at AE Studio.
This is one of the drawbacks of us being in different parts of the world. We miss out on the things that are happening in each person’s locale. I’m in Chicago. Jeff is in Sarasota, Florida. We do seem to miss out on quite a bit of fun stuff going on over there and that Venice Beach microcosm of things going on.
I get the FOMO as well. I feel like everything is happening in LA. I’m based over in Lisbon. I peek behind the curtain. You’re always going out and having a great time.
I’m glad to play a role in it with NFTLA. I want to jump in here about First Ape Wives Club. You’re crafting a project there. It’s about fun but also about impact. It’s in the metaverse and IRL. I want to know how did that idea come about. What’s the genesis story there?
I was talking about First Ape Wives Club and how it came about. It’s a true real-life version of the movie The First Wives Club. That movie was about women who had been in relationships with men and been let down. They came together to empower each other and created a business to empower a community of women. One of my best friends, Farah Kaan, who’s the other founder of FAWC was in Puerto Rico having some personal issues.
I was flying out there as her best friend. Through wanting to get sucked into something new, we discovered the NFT world. We both got crazy about it and created a business to empower each other and her to know that as women, we can do things on our own, have exciting businesses and support other people, women, men and communities to inspire them to have a better experience.
With Puerto Rico, you’re naming another place there where the interesting stuff is bubbling up with crypto, NFTs and Web3 all the time. It’s a different environment than the Abbot Kinney or Venice Beach thing going on. Josh and I got to visit there together on a trip. It was pretty enlightening. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in Puerto Rico.
It’s an exciting crypto community. We have been spending a bit of time with people out there. Some pretty cool things are happening. There’s no Uber Eats or Uber but you can still get by in life out there.
There’s Uber. At least we got Uber over there. It takes a little longer.
I thought we were with a pretty intelligent group of people but we weren’t intelligent enough to realize that we were all calling the same Uber driver. That was both racking up the rates for Uber and making the trip take longer. We would all book the Uber at the same time when we left the party. We would see the Uber car that’s supposed to be ours leave where we are, go to where everybody else was going, come back and then pick us up. We paid the extra money request.
The algorithm does not work on that scale very well. There are some amusing moments from that trip with Uber including when we had to go to a show and had five Ubers cancel on us. We had to delay the show.
It was probably the same Uber five times that canceled on us.
I do have a way of continuing to get money out of you and Puerto Rico.
This is such an exciting project concept, Amanda. You’ve had an opportunity to work with powerful female leaders in arts and entertainment for a long time. I’m excited to learn more about your vision of FAWC at the very core. What are some of the utilities and ownership perks that are going to be linked to your NFT collection?
The first question about those powerful women is that we plan to bring them in as ambassadors and as part of a utility for our FAWC NFT holders. We’ve got Oscar winners, princesses, royalty ambassadors, actresses, directors and people who have created some of the biggest shows on the planet. They will all be coming into our community to work with mentoring programs, AMAs and speeches.
If we have cool forums, we want to livestream them, educate and break down the barriers that people have experienced trying to break into the entertainment world. On top of that, the utilities that we are giving people like automatic access as soon as they onboard with us are a bunch of lifestyle perks. We have partnered with a couple of the world’s leading travel companies who are very exclusive. You need to be referred memberships to get into these groups.
We have access to over 1,400 five-star hotels globally. These brands include Peninsula, Baccarat, Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La and Virtuoso. In any city, you’re going to have access to our perks. The perks programs at these hotels complimentary upgrades, $100 for food and beverage in the room where you stay, complimentary transfers in some hotels and notes and cakes from the general manager welcoming you. You do feel like it’s very VIP status.
Not only do you get to have access to Hollywood and that kind of thing but you’re going to be automatically given the lifestyle perks that those people experienced through VIP connections. We are opening that up as well as a global concierge team for anything else that you might need. We’re setting up ticketing programs with global promoters.
I’m yet to announce that but it is with the biggest ones in the world so that we will be able to give you quick access to the best ticketing and pre-release. If it’s coming up and you didn’t get them but you need to get to The Rolling Stones in Paris, we can get you those tickets last minute. We’re coming out with this perks program. We want to rival the Black Amex of this world and give it to people in the Web3 space.
What a list. That’s normally a three-year roadmap. That’s what you have coming out of the gate. You get some influencers behind some of these projects but what we’re talking about here with these folks being intimately involved at the very jump is impressive. Nicole, here’s a question for you. Besides not wanting a serious case of FOMO, what got Dapper Labs excited about this project?
I had pretty good access to Amanda through a friend of ours who heard about the project and introduced us. One of my objectives in Web3 is to create more of an equitable space. That’s also leaning into female-led projects in particular. When I heard about Amanda, Farah and the amazing work that they’re doing, it’s community-first and there’s so much utility baked into it that I had to lean in. My role within our ecosystem is a little bit like a crypto cupid or a matchmaker. My objective is to find these projects and help build out the resources that they need to be successful. From that point on, we have been shepherding and navigating the Web3 ecosystem together. I’m excited.
That was super important for us as well to find that shepherd role because in the NFT space, finding legitimate and trusted professionals to work with was something that we wanted because we know how important the structure and longevity of our businesses are. We were lucky to fall in to play with Dapper because that has been hugely beneficial.
With such an amazing new group of partners, the killer roadmap that you’ve laid out, as well as this core functionality, with your vision and the impact that you want to have on Web3 and the metaverse, how do you think about that? How far-reaching do you want what you’re doing to go?
Bridging the gap between Web3 and a wider community is something that we want to help break down those barriers because one thing that a lot of people listen to is Hollywood and entertainment. That usually can help impact a wider community using that but also diving into this community idea, which to me as a company is hugely beautiful and valuable to be able to have a community of people. You can help further their careers and experiences in life, give them good guidance and create a fun brand. Everyone is having fun at the same time. It’s an everyone-wins business for the community too.
I would build on that to say that this is driving empowerment and carving out space. Web3 can be so echo-chamber-y, exclusive and nuanced. The way that FAWC is looking at the Web3 world is through the lens of an experience with a little bit more levity and lightheartedness. It’s about being tongue in cheek and off the cuff. I don’t think that’s an audience that has been spoken to too much, especially through the female lens.
It opens it up to a wider audience and shows that it doesn’t have to be complex. One of the things we work on is user experience and accessibility. Breaking down those barriers through that empowerment is access to the incredible resources and benefits of FAWC but it’s also a Web3 technology. This is the direction we’re going. This is a conduit and a vehicle to get more people involved in that story.
There’s something to this formula of fun, familiarity and ease of use. Dapper with Top Shot nailed that. They won this iteration of NFTs in August 2020 when I bought my first pack and they dropped those Moments. You’re carrying that forward. It’s a whole other level, Amanda, that you’re working on here. You’re taking it to the next level.
I’ve been surprised at how few projects do genuinely bring that together in an authentic way, given it has been a couple of years since we have opened this next tranche of companies and development in the NFT and Web3 space. It’s exciting to hear about your plans here that bring these things together. It’s so evident how authentic it is, also given your resources to tap into all those relationships.
Here’s something to hook up to. I get to make a business out of it.
It’s so cool to see those elements come together.
Touching on the NBA Top Shot usability that I liked, that was one of the things that drove us to Dapper. We have that same Dapper Wallet set up. We’re excited to be able to offer that to our community. People who are breaking in because being able to have an email address and your credit card is super excellent for some of the ladies out there that want to join the Web3 community.
There are some value-based words that have jumped in here and there like user experience, usability and things like this. Inclusion I’m sure is part of what we’re talking about here. Is there anything specific that you outline when you think about core values or a message that you feel is core to what you’re doing with FAWC?
Female empowerment is one of them but it’s empowerment in general for the community and also being able to have fun at the same time. We want to do great things but we want to have a good time doing it. That’s something in inclusivity around the globe and making sure that everybody can have an experience. This experience is not going to be 1% of our members. This experience is going to be available to 100% of our members and their friends.
I resonate with that as well in general. As we embark into this creative community that we believe is the next phase of what’s going on in that creator economy, it’s going to take these messages getting to people where it awakens the empowerment of who they are outside of what they have been told they should be. Projects like this speak to that for sure.
September 2022 is when this collection drops. How is that going to work?
As you know, the market is continually changing. At FAWC, we ride the wave but we are going to do a whitelist VIP launch in Ibiza at the Six Senses on September 12th, 2022. We’re going to go live from there with a party. We’re partnering with Project Zero climate change groups. We’ve got some ambassadors from them like Kate Moss and Pixie Geldof coming out to Six Senses.
It should be a good old time. We would love to update everybody from there. Hopefully, on our social channels, we can show some live footage up and get a little bit of fun happening and excitement around the brands, in the media and anywhere else that we can. We will do a little VIP whitelisting thing and do the main drop when that’s ready to go. Nicole, what do you think?
Breaking Barriers: When we discovered the NFT world, we both got crazy about it and created a business to empower each other and her to know that as women, we can do things on our own and support other people to inspire them to have a better experience.
To your point, “Ride the wave,” it’s going to be great to have the event in Ibiza. I also low-key have never been there. I’m very excited about being able to be there in the flesh. In terms of dates, we’re aiming for a mint at the end of September 2022. We will take it from there.
You alluded to this before. The animated film and series from Fandomodo are on the roadmap too. How far along are you? What can you tell us about that? That sounds like a cool element of this entire project.
Coming from the entertainment backgrounds we have, that was an automatic inclusion to come up with something like that. Anthony Kaan, who’s one of our CoFounders in Fandomodo, of which I’m also a Partner, has got very extensive experience in leading digital in the entertainment world. He ran the digital at Relativity Media back when that was a big deal. He also made the first web series for Disney.
He has run some of the biggest brands in the world at CAA like Marvel, Coca-Cola and things like that. Bridging the gap between digital and entertainment is hugely in his wheelhouse. We’re looking to attach some alien voices and things like that from our network to bring these Ape Wives to life. It’s a development in progress we hope to update on soon.
There’s no trailer being released necessarily but keep an eye out.
We’re still finalizing a lot of things for the design because we keep going and getting our Wives ready for the launch. The development process is underway but the animation is yet to come because we have to fine-tune a few things first.
What else can you share that might be next on the roadmap for FAWC? What do you have cooking? Is there anything you can share? If there is anything you’re not supposed to share, you can tell us.
We have some parties in the works because that’s part of our brand. We will have our first FAWC house in Tahoe in 2022. We’ve got this amazing property there for a few days. That is regularly rented by the likes of Justin Timberlake and lots of Hollywood people. It’s on the water. We also have a boat to get everyone together, do workshops, have a launch and invite some of our community and the other NFT community leaders out to try and develop things together.
We want to see what everyone is up to. We want to dive into being at the forefront of the trends that are happening for metaverse as they happen. We want to keep working with all the other founders out there to keep ahead of the curve and keep our community updated and our technologies moving at a good rate so that we provide everything everyone wants once we get to the metaverse.
You alluded to this but from March 20th to 23rd, 2023, you’re going to have this incredible party in LA.
Is that NFTLA?
AE and all the celebs are going to be there.
All are going to be there in a big way. It’s amazing. It’s going to be great.
We will bring our celebrities. You will bring yours. Dapper has got a few. We’re going to hopefully go large with Art Basel in Dapper as well. A lot is going on out there. It’s a big celebration time. We will be through the hard part of the market. It would be a good time to celebrate. I hope to get everybody into a big party out there. We’re starting to think about that but expect us for sure.
I’m super excited. I would love to ask both of you. As you look at the industry and how you came up with this concept, what has been inspiring to you? There’s NBA Top Shot and World of Women. We had the Cofounders on the show. They have done a lot. I would love to get your perspective on what else has inspired you along the way.
We have been closely tracking Aku and Micah Johnson’s journey. We love how it’s so community-based. It’s about casting a wider net and speaking to all audiences. His story is so well-built and ever-evolving. That has been a great thread for us. Here’s a huge shout-out to the work that he’s doing there. Internally, we have been working on projects as well that have quite a bit of synergy.
One of them that is coming to Dapper Labs is called Seeds of Happiness. The mission is art for a purpose. It’s spreading happiness through art. It’s about experiences, interactivity, on and off-chain and charitable giving. All of these components are what I call the alchemy of a successful NFT project. We have been coming full circle and bouncing off what we’re doing at FAWC. That’s super exciting and inspiring as well.
Amanda, is there anything to add there?
I take Nicole’s advice.
We have been looking at female-led projects across BFF, World of Women and all those great things. There’s so much going on in the ecosystem. It’s still a very exciting time.
I’m excited to see what’s to come as well because I feel like there has been such a shift in what people want since the market changed. There’s a major shift happening in what’s about to be released. I’m excited to see all these projects come out because there’s going to be more purpose, utility, structure and professionality. I’m excited about this next phase coming out.
I’ve never been more excited about this industry. We get hundreds of requests to be on the show every day. These people have been building. It’s so interesting what mainstream America thinks about the space. You hear announcements like the big one that Dapper Labs is partnering with Meta. You realize that this is just beginning. The utility is growing. We should feel a little pressure to be innovative. That’s healthy for any burgeoning industry.
It’s going to make the industry better and make the user experience and what the offering is a lot better. It’s better for the end consumer. We hope to give that experience over to our community. They’re the people that were working hard for.
Readers, buckle up and get ready because it’s coming directly to you here. It’s super exciting. Let’s shift gears a little bit. Let’s talk a little bit about your perspective on some questions in segment two. We like to call these Edge Quick Hitters. It’s a fun and quick way for us to get to know you a little bit better. There are ten questions. We’re looking for short, single-word or few-word responses but we will dive in a little deeper here and there. We will switch you up halfway through. We will start with Nicole. Nicole, question number one, what’s the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
Pogs.
Do you still have some in a box somewhere in the house?
I hope I do but I don’t know where the box is.
Amanda, how about you?
It was high-end molasses. That’s the first thing. I was very young. I had a tiny haul. I was buying that.
Question number two, Nicole, what’s the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
It was pet-sitting services. I had little business cards my grandparents made me. It never materialized but I went around trying to sell.
Amanda, how about you?
I embarrassingly used to crochet squares and sell them to my neighbors. They’re little blankets. I would knit them if you prefer.
Question number three, Nicole, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
It’s plane tickets for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding.
That’s exciting. Is it any place fun?
London.
Amanda, how about you?
I’ve purchased coffee with no lunch yet.
Question number four, Nicole, what’s the most recent thing you sold?
It’s called Very Bad Beads. They’re made badly and they say bad things but I have one.
Here’s a shout-out to Very Bad Beads. Amanda, how about you?
I would like to say an Ape but we’re not there yet. I don’t sell a lot of things but I sell my time sometimes in a very professional manner.
Nicole, question five, what is your most prized possession?
It’s a sculpture my mom made.
Do you care to tell us what the sculpture is?
Breaking Barriers: The utilities we give people automatic access to as soon as they onboard with us are a bunch of lifestyle perks. We have partnered with a couple of the world’s leading travel companies, which are exclusive. You need to be referred to memberships to get into these groups.
It’s a woman figurine that lived in her garden for 30 years. She’s missing body parts but it lives in my library.
Amanda, how about you?
It’s my dog. I have a little dog called CJ. He’s everything.
Did I meet him at the studio?
Yes, the second time. He came. He’s a celebrity. You will all get to meet him. He’s having a nap.
Amanda, we’re going to switch to you. Question number six, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service or experience that’s for sale, what would it be? What do you have your eye on?
I’m such a community-type gal. I want to get a FAWC private jet because, with our hookup service, we’ve got everything that you want but we don’t have that. I want to get one for our community. It’s got a logo.
I always love at least looking up the private plane and jet costs. I went to Canada. I had to make a short flight to visit a friend. The drive seemed like it was going to be outrageous. It was like, “There is a little airport there. Are there any private planes to go there?” I was surprised at how inexpensive it would have been. It was too expensive for me but not as expensive as I would have thought to get a private plane.
NFTs have gone well for you then.
There’s the story of Jesse Itzler founding Marquis Jet. If you haven’t learned about that, it’s a pretty cool story if you ever hear him tell it. Check that out.
If anyone has been flying, they will agree with me on this because I don’t know everyone has been flying. Has everyone got a horror story?
It’s brutal. My girlfriend got stranded in Arizona for 24 hours without her luggage in 116-degree weather.
Nicole, let’s kick it over to you. If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service or experience, what would it be?
This is a hard one for me because I wanted to say something philanthropic but it’s not necessarily up for sale. I’m going to have to land on a pickle factory so we can relish in all that FAWC life. I also like pickles.
Amanda, question number seven, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
It’s having no limit in my way of thinking because a lot of people put limiting beliefs on things. If you could take that away and people could believe they could do anything, they would have a lot more to do and have more fulfilling lives. They can be like that.
Nicole, how about you?
I was going to say wanderlust for traveling but to Amanda’s point, it’s also that mental wanderlust to keep exploring.
Question eight is the flip side of that. If you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, Amanda, what would that be?
I would pass that question to five of my best friends. Sometimes I think too much and jump to conclusions. Maybe I have to get better at that because then it’s called anxiety. I work on that all the time.
What do you mean by that? I’m just kidding and playing around with the concept of jumping to conclusions. It’s a subtle joke.
Nothing is happening but you think about five things that could happen but probably won’t happen. Don’t think like that.
I would love to make a joke about the jump-to-conclusions map from the Office Space movie but there’s nothing there for me. I can’t do it. Nicole, what do you have? What would you eliminate?
I have Foot in Mouth syndrome. I say the absolute worst thing at the wrong time.
Question number nine, Amanda, what did you do before joining us on the show?
I’ve been on business calls. I was on a very interesting call with a sustainability expert, John Picard. There was a lot of interesting information. It has been a business day. It’s a work day.
You’re getting it done. Nicole, how about you?
It feels a little bit like a Monday. It’s full-on. I got out of the office for lunch. I had lunch with the family. That was nice.
Amanda, here’s the last one. Question ten, what are you going to do next after the show?
In all FAWC behavior, I was hoping to get down to AE Studios for tequila shots. I’m still waiting to hear from them but if not, I’ll go to a SoulCycle class and behave myself.
We’re going to do Zoom tequila shots afterward.
We can do that. I’ve got to go get tequila.
You don’t have to worry about driving home. That’s nice.
Nicole, what are you doing next?
I’m in Wisconsin. There’s a lake in front of me. I’ll probably look at the lake and chill out.
Is it warm enough to go to the lake?
I haven’t tried but it is hot. It’s humid. There’s this heat. There are mosquitoes but it’s beautiful.
It looks like we’ve got a little bonus question. Who threw that one in there?
That was me. It came up to put you on the spot, Amanda. It’s not a very difficult question but one I’m curious about. With all the attributes of your First Wives, what is your favorite one that you’ve created and why?
A few of them hopefully will have these hats. It has Apeshit written on it. I loved that because people always say that women go crazy. They go a little bit apeshit. I thought we should have a bit of fun with how crazy we can be. I love the Apeshit hat. I also like the ones that smoke weed because we live in California. We promote that kind of thing.
Nicole, do you have a favorite?
It’s the Apeshit hat. I had one but I gave it to Mickey.
I have none left.
Mickey has the only Apeshit hat. There you go.
That’s going to be a favorite on the merch marketplace coming to you. I’ll get them over to your office.
When they come out, please put us on the list. That’s Edge Quick Hitters. Thanks so much for sharing with us. We appreciate it. It was lots of fun. Eathan, the word on the street is we’ve got a pretty special Hot Topic.
Breaking Barriers: Finding legitimate and trusted professionals to work with was something that we wanted because we know how important the structure and longevity of our businesses are.
Our Hot Topic to launch here centers on the magic happening at Leveling Up Heroes, an NFT project on a mission to build the next generation of entrepreneurs. The project is the brainchild of renowned entrepreneur, fellow podcaster and investor, Eric Siu, who was able to raise Single Grain, an SEO agency he bought for $2 into a powerhouse virtually in every marketing sector. Eric found that applying a gaming mindset and skills to real life makes the process much more enjoyable so he created Leveling Up Heroes. How’s it going, Eric?
I’m grateful to be here. Thanks for having me and for the nice intro. My team wrote that. It makes me blush.
It’s great to connect again. It has been cool learning about your journey. Here’s a shout-out to Zach for connecting us and telling us a little bit about what you’ve been up to in the space. This has been all about real utility in the industry and building projects to last. Certainly, you’ve demonstrated that with your podcast. We would love to know more about the project and what inspired it.
In Leveling Up Heroes, the primary mission is to train and invest in the next generation of entrepreneurs. You think about Y Combinator. They’re an accelerator. They help the Stripes and Dropboxes of the world. The story is I was at an investors’ conference called Capital Account. I was talking to a guy. He started this company called Entrepreneur First. This was years ago. He’s based in the UK. What they do is they focus on putting entrepreneurs into a boot camp for about three months or so and then pair them with a cofounder afterward. As of 2022, their portfolio is worth about $10 billion or so.
I do believe there need to be more accelerators like this. We’re all entrepreneurs here. Everything around the room that you see is made by entrepreneurs or driven by their vision of them. That’s the mission behind it. My background is in online education. We have people on the team that has worked in education. It makes a lot of sense to do that. It’s going to be a free mint.
We have seen that trend a bit. We love that perspective of building value and getting people involved. It’s about building community and making it easy for folks to get in and participate. Talk to us a little bit more about the mission here and why that’s so important to you. We have seen tons of your content. You live and breathe this stuff. Talk to us about that mission and how you articulated it as part of this particular project.
Fundamentally, I love learning and teaching. I want my tombstone to be like, “This guy was a good teacher.” That’s what excites me. That’s my drug. I love throwing these events and these dinners. I can talk about that later. I love seeing people connect and the magic that happens from it. Everything is built on top of relationships. If you’re going to build wealth at the end of the day, you own equity or a piece of a business. That’s how you build wealth.
I want more people to understand that because I do believe it’s not a zero-sum game. It’s leveling up your habits first and your knowledge. It’s not like people are smarter than anybody else. I don’t think some of these billionaires are necessarily smarter. They have played the game better and there are some things that they know that most people don’t know.
You think about reach. One of the coolest things I say frequently is it feels like more than ever in history that opportunity is at folks’ fingertips worldwide regardless of resources. In often cases, it’s about awareness some time and effort to learn and build knowledge. It feels like we’re in that spot. As you think about it through that lens, how do you envision reaching these people? How do you find these people in places where maybe they’re not necessarily aware that these kinds of resources are there? How do you build that awareness?
There’s a saying, “The teacher will appear when the student is ready.” There’s a handful of podcasts that I do. Marketing School and Leveling Up get about 2.1 million downloads a month combined. I started a new one called Creators of Web3. Podcasts are great. I was looking at my LinkedIn stats. There were a million impressions in July 2022. There are all these games. There’s always a new social platform that comes. I get to learn how to play the game. I do believe that we will reach the right people if we need to.
It’s about consistency at the end of the day because when I look at Marketing School, I’ve been doing that podcast for years. I’ve been podcasting for many years. Anybody that has built a great business has stayed consistent with it and doesn’t get all distracted. In the very beginning, we get all distracted. You want to try all the new things but eventually, you keep compounding. I have a bust of Warren Buffett over there. It reminds me to not be an idiot and to think long-term. Most of the time, he keeps me on track.
Remember that we are idiots. Warren Buffett is notorious first for saying, “Your IQ reaches a certain level when it’s dangerous when you think that you’re smart.”
Eric, you went to NFTLA. We planned that thing in pretty record time for the size of the event but we wanted to do more, especially on the social impact and the education front, which are two areas that we’re doubling down. We’re exploring ways to get some education in the mix for teens and even principals because you get the principals excited about Web3. Amazing things can happen. It’s a real multiplier. We should talk about that. I’ll connect you to the guys that want to do something there.
I’m detecting that maybe there’s going to be a POAP created for perfect attendance at one of these schools we engage with.
Both your project and what Amanda is working on personifying to me the opportunity to break down barriers to create more opportunities for people in the space. I’m excited. Is there anything else about your roadmap that you wanted to share with us?
Josh, I can add something similar to what you and Eathan were talking about. Talk about incentives. One thing we’re doing at my company is if people fill out their time-tracking sheet or their employee engagement survey on time on Fridays, they get paid $5 in Solana. That has driven employee engagement rates up by 200% on one app and about 40% on another one. Talk about POAPs and incentives. There are so many different things that we can do. That’s not related to Leveling Up Heroes but the free mint is coming on the 16th of August 2022. There are going to be 12,345 unique heroes that are all tied to gaming history.
Are these heroes gender-identified? Are they gender-amorphous?
They’re all gender-identified. There are 30 characters. You have male and female. You have 60 of them. There are so many different traits.
Amanda, it seems like you can snag some female heroes. It’s a free mint so it’s even better. Eric, I don’t know if you caught the word but there’s going to be a big launch party for a FAWC in Ibiza. We’re all busy but get your jet over there.
When is that happening?
September 12th, 2022 is the deal. I heard Kate Moss might be there and some other cool folks.
I just came back from Spain but I’m down.
There’s the Web3 spirit.
Kate Moss, Pixie Geldof and some other people are coming out from London. We would love to have you out there if you’ve got time to make it.
I’m down. It’s an excuse to come back. Thank you for the invite, Amanda. Thanks for bringing it up, Josh.
I love the theme of two projects trying to educate the masses and break down walls. I’m glad you could both be on the same show.
Thanks for having us. Amanda, I’ll add you on LinkedIn.
I love that. Thank you so much. I’m trying to keep up with LinkedIn, Twitter and all these things. I’m usually on Instagram with my entertainment friends but I’ve got to get a little bit savvier. I’ve been spending a bit more time over there.
LinkedIn and Twitter are perfectly fine. There’s too much stuff.
I wanted to roll in because we’re such big fans of podcasts. Since we have Eric here and he has been podcasting for so long and had such success with it, get a little bit into that topic for our readers’ benefit. Can you tell people the interesting benefits you’ve seen in podcasting? They’re counterintuitive. From your experience, what are you finding out that people should know about but don’t?
I’ll give an example. As a marketer, it’s the hardest channel to grow by far but it’s the most rewarding in my opinion. The relationships that you build are deep because you’re building relationships at scale. I was holding the door for someone and the guy was like, “Are you Eric from Marketing School?” Right behind was another guy. Not that I’m famous or anything but you build these bonds, you skip the formalities and you’re friends. That’s powerful. Plus, the other thing I’ll say as a market that’s exciting to me is when you’re watching a YouTube video, you can easily get distracted but your retention on the podcast is much higher because they’re usually working out, driving or something.
It has been a fun format people ask why didn’t we do Clubhouse or Twitter spaces. We are coming up with the NFTLA Twitter spaces concept that we will launch soon but we love podcasting for its purity, the ability to go deep with the guests and the format. There are so many awesome things about podcasting.
It can live online for a long time too. We can go back and listen to the episodes. They’re good libraries of information.
We give people recommendations on flights of podcasts. I met the head of a fashion school, “Here are the six podcasts we did on fashion.” She was like, “That’s perfect.” There are a lot of bennies there.
It lives online for a long time. We have seen some of our earliest episodes continue to rack up views, which is interesting to us how far people reach back to some of these guests and topics that we discussed. We want to give Eric an opportunity to let folks know where they could go to follow you and the project. Anybody that doesn’t know, let’s let them know where to go.
I appreciate the opportunity here. It was nice meeting everyone. Follow @LevelingUpNFT on Twitter. You can follow me @EricOSiu on Twitter.
For the last piece, we will be doing a fun giveaway. Eric, do you want to give a little background on the giveaway that we structured?
I was talking to Eathan pre-show. I believe it’s going to be a contest. Eathan, you look like you want to talk. Go for it.
We have something written down here. There are 200 to 400 AL for the audience with a unique free mint link for the show’s audience. The way that we will implement that is we will put out a contest like we typically do in our socials. People could keep an eye out there for the deets on how to earn those things by following whatever we come up with together. That’s where we’re at with that.
Eric Siu of Leveling Up Heroes, thanks so much for joining us. We do appreciate it.
Thank you. Have a good one.
We have this other Hot Topic that is relevant if you wanted to touch on it.
There’s this platform that is not new but has a new name called Meta. It has teamed up with Coinbase and Dapper Labs. This is in the speak. We have been hearing about the buzz. They have partnered with Coinbase and Dapper Labs for NFTs on Instagram. They’re rolling out the NFT integration on Instagram to more than 100 countries across Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas. It also announced it will support wallet connections with Coinbase Wallet, Dapper Labs and NBA Top Shot. This is a big deal. It’s a little bit of an overlap with what we’re talking about and the people involved.
It’s a big deal. We did not plan this. This news dropped. There are a couple of key parts of this that are interesting. One, users are going to have the ability to post these collectibles that are minted on Flow according to the release and connect their digital wallets to share the digital collectibles. Also, Meta is trying to be more inclusive as we know and be authentic to the space.
Instagram is going to be compatible with five different wallets, Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust, Coinbase Wallet and Dapper Wallet. It’s great to see them thinking big in terms of compatibility and interoperability. This is a move in the right direction for them. Nicole, is there anything you can say about this besides the fact that you’re excited as well?
I’m super excited. It’s huge. It’s a great sign that we’re getting this mass adoption of Web3, especially rolling out to these platforms that we’re so familiar with. It means that FAWC holders will be able to share their assets from their Dapper Wallet. Any asset that’s within the Dapper Wallet will be able to be displayed to the viewers and verified in that space. I’m excited about it. It’s a big deal. It has been a long time coming. There’s a lot of groundwork underway to pave that space but it’s great.
Breaking Barriers: That’s something in inclusivity around the globe and ensuring that everybody can have an experience. This experience is not going to be 1% of our members. This experience will be available to 100% of our members and their friends.
It feels very bold when we have been hearing about what’s going on with the change of the name to Meta. It felt like it was a bold move but it didn’t feel as bold as going into the Web3 and the crypto space as this thing is. To be honest, it feels authentic. There’s an authenticity to the decisions of what to do, who to partner with and stuff that feels refreshing. It reminds me of when we were in Davos hearing about reps from Facebook hanging out at the Polkadot house, talking deeply about crypto, NFTs and things like that and listening to what’s going on and the movements that are happening. It’s a fascinating step.
People are always down on Facebook, now Meta, trying to make moves in Web3. You’re missing the big picture here. This is about trying to turn to create adoption for people and bring folks that have no relationship with Web3 into the space. This is a massive company with an amazing technical depth of talent.
The users over there on Instagram and Facebook are everyday people.
It’s going to move the space forward with 100% certainty. It’s very narrow thinking. These folks are like, “They’re Web2.” They named their company Meta. They are going to drive it forward. There’s 100% certainty they’re going to do that. This is a reflection of that. This is just the beginning, I’m sure. I wish more people were more optimistic about the impact that Meta can have on the space and not just look at how you go sideways. This is a great indication of how good things can come.
It’s also a big move for Instagram. We have seen Snapchat take a tumble for not being as innovative as TikTok. It has been cool to see Instagram step up to the plate as a big company and be innovative. This is a big move for them saying, “Don’t forget about us. We’re still here.” Some people love TikTok but Instagram is a very different use case and utility than TikTok. It has a lot of deep fans in the space.
A lot of good content lives there. People are not going to get rid of it. They love their content so much.
When I talk to creators in LA, they’re immediately like, “Let’s connect. What’s your Instagram?” It’s not like, “What’s your Twitter, email or TikTok?” It’s like, “What’s your Instagram?” Instagram is still relevant in this community. This is a big move.
I’m 100% aligned with that. That resonates so true. If you’re in the Web3 community, people are like, “What’s your Twitter handle?” Outside Web2, it’s very much like, “What’s your Instagram handle? I don’t need your phone number necessarily yet. We’re not there.” This is demonstrating that there is going to be mainstream adoption of this. You’re going to start seeing your friends that were potentially NFT holders that weren’t necessarily talking about it at dinner parties because they didn’t want you to change seats.
They’re going to want a Dapper Wallet and an Instagram post. They’re going to want it.
You’re going to start seeing your friends flex and then you’re going to want to be part of that movement.
They’re going to be like, “I’m in the FAWC community. Check out my Instagram.”
It’s huge. It’s a big step towards mainstream adoption.
That’s exciting stuff. What a great show. This has been a ton of fun.
Before we wrap though, we do have to give a little love to some of our audience, which we like to do every episode. Eathan, do you want to give a little shout-out?
We represented them with 1 YouTube video or 2 doing some collaborations. They made a guest appearance on a show that we did live during NFT.NYC. We’re shouting out WeDream World for adding excitement to the NFT industry with their augmented reality app and being supportive of the space as well as our mission of building the future. We appreciate their support online. We see them a lot on socials integrating with us and in real life as well. We collaborated with them on an event in NYC.
They’re building this app, which is pretty cool. It transports you into a virtual hybrid reality where you can showcase your NFTs in the gallery and auction them in real life. It’s a place where you can have an immersive experience in augmented reality. We think it’s pretty cool. You can check out more about WeDream on social. Look up WeDream. You can find out more at WeDream.World.
Before we do wrap though, we’ve got to make sure that our readers know where to follow each of you as well as the projects that you’re working on. Where should we send them?
We have a Twitter handle @FirstApeWives. The Instagram is @FirstApeWivesClub. Go to our website, FirstApeWivesClub.io. It will link you to everything. Register your email if you want to hear about what we’re up to or get in first into whatever the process is as we go. We will keep you updated via the website and all the channels linked there.
You can follow me @Miss_Rochette on Twitter and @_NiceHoles_ on Instagram.
If you want to follow me on Twitter, it’s @AmandaRulez.
Check it out. Big things are happening in these two. We appreciate you sharing everything with us. We also appreciate that you’ve been very generous and have made five FAWC NFTs available for our audience through a contest. We’re going to run this giveaway. It’s going to be fun. Keep an eye on our socials for that. We will note that 1 of those 5 winners who will be randomly selected will also have an elite membership to FAWC. Keep an eye out. We will talk about all the ins and outs of that and all the goodies that come along with it. That’s massive. We do appreciate that. That’s generous of you.
We have reached the outer limit at the show. Thanks for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventures on this starship so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers to make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing EdgeOfNFT and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- 2023.NFTLA.live
- Women of the Metaverse
- Dapper Labs
- First Ape Wives Club
- Fandomodo Films
- Archer Publicity
- Flow Blockchain
- AE Studio
- NFTLA
- Top Shot
- Dapper Wallet
- Project Zero
- Art Basel
- World of Women – Previous episode
- Aku
- Seeds of Happiness
- BFF
- Leveling Up Heroes
- Single Grain
- Y Combinator
- Entrepreneur First
- Marketing School
- Leveling Up
- Creators of Web3
- @LevelingUpNFT – Twitter
- @EricOSiu – Twitter
- Coinbase
- Coinbase Wallet
- Rainbow
- MetaMask
- Trust
- Davos – Previous episode
- Polkadot
- NFT.NYC
- WeDream.World
- @FirstApeWives – Twitter
- @FirstApeWivesClub – Instagram
- FirstApeWivesClub.io
- @Miss_Rochette – Twitter
- @_NiceHoles_ – Instagram
- @AmandaRulez – Twitter
- Spotify – Edge of NFT
- iTunes – Edge of NFT
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