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Julian Holguin, CEO of Doodles, discusses the evolving landscape of digital collectibles and the potential of NFTs to transform media and entertainment. He emphasizes the importance of community-driven storytelling and the integration of Web3 technologies in creating engaging, immersive experiences for audiences.
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Key Topics Covered:
- The Evolution of Media and IP Development: Julian Holguin discusses how his experience at Billboard during a time of disruption in the music industry prepared him for leading Doodles, emphasizing the need for media companies to adapt to new digital landscapes and engage audiences in innovative ways.
- Community-Driven Storytelling and NFTs: The conversation highlights the importance of leveraging community engagement and user-generated content in building IP, with Doodles focusing on creating immersive experiences through short-form content and upcoming animation specials.
- The Future of Digital Collectibles: Holguin envisions a future where NFTs and digital collectibles are integrated into everyday life, gamifying the entertainment experience and allowing fans to create and share content tied to their favorite IP, ultimately blurring the lines between digital and physical ownership.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@edgeofnft/
Episode Highlights:
- "I started to learn a little bit about NFTs and blockchains through NBA Top Shot in late 2020. What fascinated me about that product was it was a traditional IP in the NBA that was monetizing moments, replays, digital experiences in new ways." - Julian Holguin
- "We believe building internet native on-chain IP is the future. NFTs were the start. That was an amazing way to build an early community, an amazing way to kind of create like the grail collectibles that will always stand the test of time if we continue to grow." - Julian Holguin
- "If you really think about the way we operate as a society today, everything's gamified. Everything's on social media. People are competing for likes. People are competing for engagement." - Julian Holguin
For the full transcript, see further below.
People and Resources Mentioned:
- Julian Holguin LinkedIn
- Doodles App Website
- Doodles LinkedIn
- Burnt Toast Instagram
- Pharrell Williams Webpage
- Lil Wayne Webpage
- Lil Yachty YouTube
- Andrew Gertler @andrewgertler
- Scott Martin Website
- Billboard Website
- Golden Wolf Website
- NBA Top Shot Website
- Farcaster @farcaster_xyz
- Dapper Labs Website
- Candle Media Website
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About Our Guest:
- Bio: Julian Holgan is an influential figure in the music and media industry, currently serving as the CEO of Doodles, a leading brand in Web3 entertainment. He stepped into this role in early 2022, bringing with him a wealth of experience from his extensive background in digital publishing, social media, broadcast television, and live events.
- Website: Doodles App
- Twitter: @doodles
- LinkedIn: Julian Holguin
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Full Episode Transcript:
Julian Holguin: Hi, this is Julian Holguin of Doodles. We are making the world of digital and real life entertainment more colorful and joyful. You're tuned into the Edge of NFT, adding color and joy to conversations about the world of Web3. Keep listening.
Richard Carthon: Hey, Web3 Curious listeners, stay tuned for today's episode to learn how the opportunity to build successful IP through NFTs and original content is just getting started.
Josh Kriger: And why NFTs are misunderstood and the potential they hold for brands to grow their fandom is unlimited.
Richard Carthon: And finally, what attribute has been most critical to the career success of today's guest?
Josh Kriger: All this and more at the Edge of NFT. Cue the intro.
Intro: Welcome to the Edge of NFT, the podcast that brings you the top 1% of Web3 today and what will stand the test of time. We explore the nuts and bolts of the business side and also the human element of how Web3 is changing the way we interact with the things we love. This podcast is for the dreamers, disruptors, and doers who are pumped about this ecosystem and driving where it goes next.
Richard Carthon: Welcome to the Edge of NFT, the podcast by Josh Krieger, Jeff Kelly and Ethan Jenny and taken over by a bunch of other hosts like myself, Richard Carthon. It's another production of the Edge of Company, a quickly growing media ecosystem, empowering the pioneers of Web3 tech and culture and responsible for other groundbreaking endeavors like Outer Edge Innovation Festival in L.A. and Riyadh.
Josh Kriger: This is Josh, and I'm truly excited to share that today's episode features Julian Holguin, an influential figure in music and media who currently leads Doodles as CEO, stepping into the role in early 2022. His extensive background spans digital publishing, social media, broadcast television and live events, enriched by notable tenure as the president of Billboard. At Billboard, Julian was instrumental in evolving the brand from a traditional music trade magazine into a global multimedia experience, engaging music fans worldwide. His early career saw him in key roles at industry giants such as MRC Studios, Dick Clark Productions, and NBCUniversal, where he honed his expertise in transforming media and entertainment.
Richard Carthon: Doodles exists at the forefront of Web3 entertainment, specializing in transforming ordinary media consumption into vibrant, immersive experiences. Launched in 2021 by a world-renowned artist, Burnt Toast, Doodles has grown and evolved from a simple idea to an ever-expanding universe of stories, products, and experiences. Doodles has successfully collaborated with a number of global brands, including G-Shock, Adidas, and Crocs, and has hosted thousands of visitors at its immersive experience at Camp Chicago. The brand is renowned for its colorful and engaging characters crafted to spark joy and foster community engagement. At Doodles, the focus is in setting new standards in storytelling, aiming to color the world with joy through a blend of live and digital experiences, original content and lifestyle products.
Josh Kriger: So, Julian, welcome to the show.
Julian Holguin: Josh, thank you for having me, man. I'm excited to be here.
Josh Kriger: Yeah we we it's been a minute. We had a chance to tell the world about your Doodles Studio, which is really a major revolution in sort of how creators and sort of holders could get together in terms of IP. And we'll talk about what you guys are up to next and how things have gone since then. But first, I'd love to sort of hit a little bit more on your background, which I find really fascinating. um, billboard being an iconic brand. How did your experience there prepare you for leading Doodles, uh, to the world of sort of web three digital collectibles and all the other fun stuff you have cooking.
Julian Holguin: Yeah, thanks for that. I love answering that question because I think my experience there is ultimately what led me to Web3 and led me to understand why I think it's going to be so instrumental in the way media companies and content creators and franchise owners go to market and engage audiences in the future. You know, I got to Billboard when it was in probably the worst time of its history. If you remember in the early 2000s, the music industry got very severely disrupted by digital. And when the advent of digital consumption came around, the record labels had a very hard time making money. their business model got changed overnight. And because of that, Billboard's business model was changed overnight because the biggest clients of Billboard were record labels advertising in their magazine. And when I had gotten to Billboard, that had already happened. The bottom was for Billboard. So that preceded the print industry revolution when print magazines stopped delivering the kind of revenue that they did when advertisers really shifted to digital. So when I got to Billboard, my opportunity there was really interesting because it was at the bottom. There was only one way to go up and we at the time had an opportunity to kind of just focus on the future and test new things with the IP. And I didn't really have to worry about plugging the holes. I didn't worry. I didn't have to worry about fixing the bleeding and figuring out how to replace revenue because it was already all gone. I had the opportunity to really lean into digital and fan experiences and create kind of the future of what digital media was ultimately going to look like. So I got to the company. It was being run by print industry executives, old school music industry executives. It was a stodgy, dusty trade magazine. And I just remember hearing from people, why are you going to Billboard? I haven't even heard of that brand in years. That's not where I see you going from NBC and the BBC to Billboard. So I never forgot in my interview I was researching for the interview there because I was always curious. They are the official charts, the rankings. Everybody knew them for that. There was a lot of brand awareness. But I'll never forget landing on their YouTube channel and seeing Justin Bieber doing acoustic versions of his new song, getting 30 million views, 40 million views on Billboard's YouTube channel. Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran. And I was like, this is not industry-facing content, this is consumer-facing content. Fans want to see this kind of content, this unplugged version of their favorite artists. And the access that Billboard had, because it is the Bible for the music industry, was really unprecedented. So all that's to say, I had some ideas to basically shift the content that Billboard created and to shift the experiences that Billboard was trying to bring to market. So we started focusing on music fans. We started focusing on social content. I started doing a ton of business development with the social media companies, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. And we started to reach audiences in really new ways. We started to monetize our audience in new ways. So we went from basically, long story short, single digit million dollars in revenue when I was there too close to nine figures in revenue when I was leaving. And we did it through developing new ways to monetize digital content, developing new ways to engage digital audiences. And because of how much the media industry changed in that 10-year span from 2010 to 2022, Basically the biggest constant was being nimble. Twitter gave you a massive revenue opportunity one year and then it could go away the following year. Same thing with Facebook. Everybody poured a lot of money into Facebook Live when they were prioritizing that and people were getting grants from Facebook to create that content. but the next year they could deprioritize that product. So there was a lot of platform risk in kind of going all in in one place. And what Billboard was able to do was create a hub on Billboard.com but leverage the best of all of those digital platforms to create new ways to monetize, but never rely on them solely. So we started building up a branded content business before the term branded content was even coined. We were getting artists and brand campaigns. We were clearing rights. We became a full service ad agency that really specialized in music. And then we utilize distribution platforms like TikTok, like Instagram, like Facebook, like Twitter, to actually push that content out there. And we became a real opportunity for brand partners to get access to the music industry, to get access to artists in a way that they never really knew how to do before. So Billboard became pretty much a leader in that respect. And It was kind of my drive to figure out what was next, seeing around the corner, how were we going to create new and innovative product that was going to interest advertisers? We built charts with Twitter that had ad product built into it. We did the same thing with Snapchat. We built so much product that ultimately ended up engaging users in new ways and helping us monetize in new ways. And then that also kind of coincided with how live companion viewing apps started really becoming a big thing for television, experiential and AR filters and all of these new things where Billboard was in a very interesting position to test and learn constantly. And that's ultimately what led me to Web3. I started to learn a little bit about NFTs and blockchains through NBA Top Shot in late 2020. And what fascinated me about that product was it was a traditional IP in the NBA that was monetizing moments, replays, and digital experiences in new ways. So I just started to learn a little bit about it. And there were a lot of parallels to the billboard charts and the fact that chart positions are basically moments for artists. And I was figuring out a way. It was the tentpole asset at Billboard at the time. I was trying to figure out a way. How do you monetize the charts? How do you bring fans and artists closer together? Because the chart experience is so passive right now. The artist basically just takes a screenshot of the chart. puts it on social media, and then the fan comments. And that's kind of the extent of the experience. What would happen if every time Dua Lipa hit number one or Taylor Swift debuted 10 songs in the top 10 of the Hot 100? How can you create collectible moments for her fans to be a part of that experience and own part of that moment? and create more connection between the artist and the fan in that way. And I started working with the Dapper Labs team to actually build out that infrastructure. I was working with a guy named Andrew Gertler, who's Shawn Mendes' manager, so actually he was very big in the space at that time. So early 2021, Dapper and I actually seeded a company together, and, and we got to building that product. And for that span of 18 months that we were bringing that product to market, we did a big partnership with The Weeknd and Autograph. It was kind of the first iteration of it. And then we structured a massive deal with Universal Music Group to bring a lot of these moments to market. We did a huge thing around the Billboard Music Awards with Pepsi. And at that time, I just started to network in space. I started to meet people. And the PFP craze was so obvious to me. It was like, most of this stuff is not good because the art is not good and it's going to go to zero. But for the really good art and the really good teams, this is the new way to incubate IP, like blockchains, Web3, fungible tokens, NFTs. There are so many interesting ways to deepen the connection between creator and community. And I just, I really couldn't stop thinking about it. So I met Scott in early, early 2022, a couple months after they launched the project, met the other guys, Jordan and Evan, and it was pretty clear that they needed help. It was a NFT project that took off, but how do you turn an NFT project into a company and a company that's trying to compete with entertainment juggernauts? And that is ultimately, um, kind of what started our relationship. I just helped them a little bit here and there. I was actually not in, not in like the mode of leaving my, like really kind of, I was in the prime of my career at the time. Um, but that happened to coincide with a bunch of venture capital interest in the space and, uh, and an opportunity to raise a bunch of money to start what we believe to be, kind of the future of entertainment companies. So that's long winded, uh, um, intro into, into my background. I'm happy to dig in on more, but that's kind of how I got here.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, man, I appreciate you sharing all that with us. I didn't know the full history there. And I find it to be really fascinating. You know, not only from a spectator perspective, but as the co-founder of a media and event company in Web3, I can relate to a lot of what you experienced at Billboard, right? There's been so much need for us to reinvent how we sort of maintain and create value from attention in this space, from our newsletter to our website, to our IRL events, to also using new formats, right? About two years ago, YouTube was an afterthought for us. And now we have over 130,000 subscribers on YouTube. And then we just did a partnership with Maiko, which is a you know, watch and earn platform we're really excited about. They were just in our previous episode. So what I got out of what you shared there was a little bit more personal and different, which is, um, that what we've had to do is the nature of being tenacious in the media. And it's the same tenacious sort of constant focus on iteration and creative partnerships that is applicable to sort of running Doodles that you're now sort of in the driver's seat. So thank you for sharing all that.
Julian Holguin: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the media business has changed so much in the last 10 years. And you know, you saw things explode towards success, like BuzzFeed and Vice and then get torn down all within that same 10 year period. And it's been a really interesting time. And for the people that have been paying attention to how quickly consumer behavior changes, being nimble, I think, is a superpower in today's media landscape.
Richard Carthon: Absolutely. And on the subject of being nimble, obviously, since joining in 2022 to 2024, a lot has happened. Just to speak on the last time that we caught up with the Doodles team, the team just premiered at the Doodles studio. So since that moment, can you just give us an update on what's the progress been with using NFTs to tell original stories and developing IP?
Julian Holguin: Yeah. I think the media industry is challenged right now, and you're starting to see this in a pretty material way. And everybody knows this, at least anecdotally, but attention has shifted from social, sorry, attention has shifted from the box office and linear, and I'm speaking mostly about character IP, but it shifted from the box office and linear television to social and streaming. And the tech companies are definitely winning the streaming wars right now, like Netflix, Apple, Amazon. But the cost of acquiring users is getting really difficult because people spend most of their time in social environments. And to pull them out of that, it's very difficult. And more increasingly, people are spending time in gaming environments too, right? Like Fortnite, Roblox, et cetera. The probability of you making an investment as a media company to stand up a new franchise, it's low right now. It's a very risky investment. And what you're finding is that a lot of old IP or is getting recycled, right? Or a lot of adaptations are happening. So you're seeing more Ghostbusters movies and more Garfield movies and more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies. And like, that's the function of great IP. It's timeless. It can be recycled. But I think people are starting to notice that there's fewer and fewer original stories being told in mainstream media. And that's a problem because if you're an independent creator that has stories to tell, The way you go about doing that is not really clear. And if you're going to go get a deal with one of those big companies to get your content financed and distributed, you're giving up most of your upside and a direct relationship with your audience. And if you're a media incumbent, it's not even clear that you can stand up new franchises on your own because the flywheel is just breaking down. Like there are no network effects built in the way that they used to be. So we think that there's a new way to develop IP. And we think tokenized ecosystems are core to that. First, you have to lead with social media. We really believe that the network effects of our society live on social. And if you're not connecting with people on social in an authentic way, you're losing relevance. And that means social needs to be one of the products, not just a marketing channel to push people towards your product. We think user generated content is massive and something that a lot of people sleep on. If you really think of the top, top IP in the world, Marvel, Game of Thrones, community and user generated content is a hallmark of that IP. What gets people from movie to movie and season to season. it's the fan theories, it's the speculation, what's going to happen next, it's all the fanart, etc. And then if you can create really good tentpoles, right, like in our case, it's going to be music videos and films and things like that. But if you can create like these big moments that can galvanize a community and create an event, out of content going to market, you really have the makings of an internet native IP that can truly scale and stand the test of time. Well, the thing that really kind of makes it stand out, as far as the old school model is concerned, is tokenizing that attention and that culture through NFTs, through fungible tokens. Holders of those assets basically own a part of the culture and the attention that that media company or that character universe is creating. And if you could figure out a way to incentivize people through intrinsic motivations, like being a fan, really wanting to be a part of that community. And then there's extrinsic motivations to be involved in that too, earning points that can be redeemed for things of value, assets going up in value, your collectibles getting more and more relevant over time. That's something that I don't think really exists in the current media model. And that's why we believe building internet native on-chain IP is the future. NFTs were the start. That was an amazing way to build an early community, an amazing way to kind of create like the grail collectibles that will always stand the test of time if we continue to grow. And then we'll start to tokenize other aspects of our ecosystem. And we've already done that with our avatars and other things like that. So that's kind of how we think about it.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, no, appreciate you breaking that down for us. And you kind of went over a few things that I want to. I want to double down the conversation around these music videos and entertainment, all this stuff. What are, what are some of the exciting ways that you're leveraging community driven storytelling? You mentioned these things. I want to know more about these and other projects that you're working on to expand your IP.
Julian Holguin: Yeah. So the first, um, So we prioritized short form content because short form social video is the most consumed content in the world right now. Back in January of 2022, we acquired an award-winning animation studio called Golden Wolf. They have specialized in short-form advertising and short-form content production for some of the biggest companies in the world, Netflix, Disney, Epic Games, Nike, et cetera. So we acquired them as a very strategic move in the idea that An internet native IP needs to be on always through short form content. And who better to do that than an animation ad agency that's been doing it for some of the best brands in the world. And then starting to incubate and develop the IP and the stories with that approach first. That is the tip of the spear. So we started to do that. We built a very big following on YouTube. We have a pretty good following on Instagram. We're getting there with Snapchat and TikTok. But our YouTube channel, just as an example, has 170 million views. We do about 4 million views every single day. And we're really just starting to go. But what's next is that ten pole media that I was referencing. So we are actually about to go to market this summer with our first animation special. That's also accompanied by an original soundtrack. Pharrell Williams is co-producing the entire experience with us. All the music is by him. We have Lil Wayne, who's going to be on the soundtrack. He's voicing characters. Lil Yachty is voicing characters. He's also going to be on the soundtrack. Coy LeRae, a couple of other artists that aren't announced yet. And it's this really incredible audio visual experience that is built for social with music and culture and all of these things baked into it. And we are going to market it with major brand partnerships. We're distributing the music through Sony. We have a partnership with Sony Music to distribute. And there's just a lot of, a lot of incredible tentacles to the way we're actually going to be bringing this animation special to market. And that is going to be the thing that really kind of opens one Web3's eyes to like, okay, wow, this is what real IP being built out of Web3 looks like, but also just like, entertainment fans. We have some of the best artists in the world, and this is going to be the first time that I think a really familiar product is being brought to market. So we're very excited. Big, big month, big few months coming up.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, that's great stuff, man. So there's an interesting sort of situation here. We have you're sort of looking at Doodles as a media brand. We're a media brand. We're both taking advantage of YouTube, which is very traditional Web 2.0 technology. What are your thoughts on all these folks in Web 3.0 trying to push the envelope with non-traditional technology, whether it's Farcaster or what Faber is doing? You know, they have this decentralized social network coming up. We also have players like Mico, which I mentioned, and sort of this, this blend of being a web three brand that has to play nice with web two, like content providers that are distribution channels that people use every day, but also wanting to sort of co-create with your community in a more direct way. It's an interesting balancing act.
Julian Holguin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think as an IP, it has to be all of the above YouTube, we can monetize through advertising there and we do, and it's great. Um, but the reason we publish content on social media and YouTube, it's because it's where the majority of our global population is. The trick is really getting those people to come into a platform that you own, which in our case is the studio. And then you kind of, condition them to be part of other collecting loops, other engagement loops. So our hook to get people's attention is the short form. Our hook to get people on the platform is going to be our tentpole media, because there are going to be other ways that you can engage with that media directly on our platform, token gated experience that only having an account and certain NFTs will get you. And that's kind of when you start to really create that like a gamified entertainment experience that I think is really only possible through Web3 and tokenized ecosystems and real collecting loops. But you bring up Farcaster, like that's a core strategy of ours. Like we're one of the first PFP brands that's really publishing content there in a very consistent way. We work with Zora. So like we're very much kind of There are opportunities to engage with audiences in many different ways. And we're even distributing content through wallets right now. We did a commemorative mint to celebrate our move from flow to base. And that content was actually distributed through Coinbase Wallet. People minted it for free. And we were able to reach 30,000 unique mentors just through that. We only have 55,000 unique holders of our original collection. So the idea that we had 30,000 unique people means we engaged with new people that are part of the base community. So I think it really is all about you can't create one piece of content and then cut it up for every platform. Every platform has different user behaviors. Web3 platforms are no different. And we're going to continue to kind of incubate across every medium we can. You have to take your bets, obviously, because you can't be an expert in everything. We haven't really done much in Roblox and Fortnite, but that's a goal of ours one day. We just have to get really good at the stuff that we're working on now, and then we can expand.
Richard Carthon: Yeah, I love it, man. I love that y'all are putting together really amazing content, meeting new audiences where they are, bringing in the Web3 opportunities in various ways by airdropping content directly to wallets. That's really awesome. And a lot of people, unfortunately, have been saying like NFTs are dead. Obviously, we disagree for several reasons, but we think rather that NFTs are more misunderstood. Why do you think the general public has this misunderstanding for NFTs and the opportunities that not only NFTs provide, but some of the different opportunities that are in Web 3 that are available.
Julian Holguin: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the problem is that NFTs went viral for all the wrong reasons in 2021 and 2022. It was only about price and clout and digital flexing. And the digital flexing, frankly, was really only about the price of the underlying asset. And when those prices crashed, like crypto assets do, they're pretty volatile until I think the space matures a little bit more. the perception of those things is that they're dead. And that couldn't be farther from the truth, like Doodles, Azuki, pudgy penguins, like we've never been more alive. And I think the narratives that are going to dominate this cycle are not going to be about NFTs necessarily as an asset class, but brands that were born from Web3 that have assets that are really intrinsically valuable to communities. And yes, just like game worn sports memorabilia and things that age over time, those assets in my opinion, like other collectibles and like other art, the more cultural significance they have, the more positive price action will be associated with that. So for us, we're doing fun, interesting, novel things with technology. We're creating that kind of members only club in the original collection and you have this asset that basically started the whole thing. The whole world doesn't need to know that an OG Doodlesis the most expensive thing or whatever it might be. that like it's more of an if you know, you know thing. But if we try to take the original collection and just surface it to the world and people have to fund a MetaMask wallet with crypto and then figure out how to buy that thing, it's just not gonna work. You need to build a funnel. You need to create an opportunity for people to come into an ecosystem in a pretty frictionless and familiar way. And that be the thing that people are kind of led to is fun. And I think the user experience just wasn't there. It wasn't ready for when all of this stuff went viral. And I think that's going to be a very different dynamic when I think like kind of retail comes back into this space. So we're just looking at having fun experimenting with things like minting art, social art, minting movie posters and album posters. Having fun on the blockchain is a very real thing. And it's what drove me to this space in general. I think there's, people who crave an experience. And I think, again, a lot of the narratives are going to be different this time around.
Josh Kriger: Let's flip the conversation to brands and what brands need to do to have success in this space. This has been an ongoing conversation for multiple years, and we've had some of these brands on the show from Adidas to Hennessy and LVMH and whatnot. And we know we're all familiar with what Pepsi did and, and there's projects now, like we just had a show with Motiverse where, uh, all these traditional car brands are coming into Motiverse and creating cars that can be passed through different games. So I think there has been a theme with these sort of early pioneering brands of having fun, um, starting small. Those are lessons learned, that is not that. are not that opaque. Let's talk about what brands do need to know at this point that isn't often discussed publicly. What are the conversations you're having with brands now? What do you think the opportunity is for them to sort of dip their toe in the water that maybe wasn't even there six months ago? And how do you sort of respond to these brands when they look at the current market and their apprehensiveness?
Julian Holguin: Yeah, I think again, like that time frame just set everybody up for so many unrealistic expectations. I think about brands more than anybody. If like at that time, every music person was like, how do you turn that into an NFT? Every brand was like, what's our NFT strategy? Like every company was trying to come up with an NFT strategy. And because everybody was just so afraid of missing out on that run, everyone was minting everything. So you would get like really, really crappy projects doing millions of dollars in volume. And for the brands that were able to kind of capture some of that lightning in the bottle, They were kind of heroes at their companies, like, look what we were able to do. And they're getting invited to speak at board meetings and they're looking incredible, right? And then the space crashed and everybody got burned and it didn't look so great. So all of these teams that got funding and built out Web3 infrastructure and Web3 teams, As fast as it happened, it got taken away even faster. And now there's a lot of apprehension from brands to really dig into this space. And for the brands that have kept teams intact, they're not getting funding because the way that these companies looked at these brands at the time was, no, you are creating the funding. You're able to go out and create revenue that we've never even seen before. So I think that's a challenge for a lot of companies right now. And a lot of what brands put together at that time wasn't very good, wasn't very novel. And it's because there was a lack of understanding of the technology, lack of understanding of the culture in the space, how this culture is evolving, what this space was at the beginning of the bear market to where we're at today. I mean, I feel like I've aged 15 years in the last two years. And if you haven't been paying attention and you haven't been in it, you're even more unprepared today than you were back then. But there are some brands that are doing it really well. There are some brands that are still leaning into this space. I think Adidas is absolutely one of those. We had a conversation with Crocs when we did our partnership with them, like, don't go do your own project and set yourself up for failure. Work with a premier partner in the space Get some positive sentiment around the culture and set yourself up for success when you want to launch your own thing. Do the research, like really, like really learn what works here really and test it out and test it out through a brand like Doodles. Like that's one of our biggest selling points to partners is to use us to enter this space. We don't just partner with anybody. We need it to kind of creatively and strategically aligned with what we're trying to accomplish, but We believe that if a brand, whether it be like an individual digital artist, like an X copy or a fallacious, whoever it might be, or a brand like a Doodles or an Azuki, like partner with us to come into this space, learn what success looks like, get a taste for like real community, get a taste for how the, how the process of bringing something to market should really work. And it's not even like we have all the answers, like this is all still so new to everybody. But I think you're going to, I think what we've found is that for the people that have really stuck around, they've gotten a lot smarter. And I think they're going to make some really good strategic decisions. I think the challenge is going to be You know, how are these companies going to continue to fund these brands when it's not just about, sorry, these Web3 teams at these brands, when it's not just about the money that they can make? Because Web3 and blockchain infrastructure and NFTs is about so much more than the amount of money you can bring in. It's about incubating communities in new ways. It's about connecting infrastructure at companies in different ways. It's about loyalty programs that are antiquated. that would be much better built on a chain. So I think everything, people are going to get smarter and smarter about how to use the infrastructure and use the technology. I think we're just still extremely early, but for the people that are moving first, I think it will pay off in a really material way.
Richard Carthon: I think so as well. And you brought up a tremendous amount of great points and one that one word that just kept coming to my head, like over and over, like throughout, like this conversation has been the word disruption, right? So all the way back to billboard, when you're having to go through that transition over the last 10 years and, and how attention is being gathered and how you grow and do that. Disruption doesn't mean it happens overnight, right? When I think about when social media first came to the market, a lot of people didn't think it was gonna work or be here long term, then next thing you know, it took over. And it's the biggest thing like Facebook, like it was a slow trickle and eventually became the biggest thing. Then it got knocked down by Instagram. Then it got knocked down by Snapchat. Then it got knocked down by TikTok. So like within disruption, there will always be even more disruptors, but there's always a big catalyst move. And I feel like in a lot of ways, NFTs are a blockchain catalyst in technology and in the culture of how people interact and deal with IP, I think that's going to continue to evolve. So again, like NFT is super early. We're still super early in this process, right? And so all these people who think like it should just be disrupted overnight and like the greatest thing ever, like people forget that old crypto, NFTs, etc. are blockchain startups. Startups take time. You don't just wake up and all of a sudden, it is the greatest thing and everything has taken over. So all that to say, when you think about how NFTs can potentially go and disrupt or change traditional media models, how do you think that's slowly going to shape over the next couple of years?
Julian Holguin: I think it's going to take a while for people to look at on-chain IP development as one of the core go-tos. Think of Moonbug. Are you guys familiar with them? They own Cocomelon and Blippi. They were acquired by Candle Media. It's like a kids' viral YouTube animation brand in kids' toddler age.
Josh Kriger: You're gonna speak to two guys without kids, but I'm sure some of the folks on our team know about them.
Julian Holguin: It's an internet-native animation company, started on YouTube, and got massive. It is probably one of the most valuable animation companies in the world right now. Um, and they started in a very, very non-traditional way. It was on YouTube and it blew up at the right time and a whole industry sprouted from it. Um, and now it's owned by candle media, which also owns hello sunshine and a bunch of other media properties. So, My point in bringing that up is it took a few years for YouTube to become a place where you could start character IP. That was not typical until things like that were the catalyst to make it happen. It's going to take Doodles or one of our other peers in this space to really break out for people to see the vision here. And that I think is kind of not unfortunate is that's just the reality of any new technology, especially as it relates to IP, you need that breakout, it needs to be obvious that this is the way to incubate IP, and then a lot of people will start to do it. So if comic books, And graphic novels and creating toy lines and all of that stuff is a way to develop IP that can ultimately be licensed into a number of different verticals. On-chain NFTs, fungible tokens, like those ecosystems. are not very far off. I think things evolve much faster as time goes on. So I think we're actually pretty close. And who knows, we literally might have it this summer when we bring the big media that we have planned to the table.
Josh Kriger: All right. Well, appreciate that teaser. So we got to talk about memes for a second, because, like, I'm just super curious if you think this is IP or, or something else. And you know, how all these mean, or I should say these mean coins, right? They're launching, I just heard a statistic that there are 1 million tokens launched last month. uh, which is, which is crazy. And projects like pump.fund have certainly accelerated this progression. How, because you mentioned fungible tokens and, uh, both non-fungible tokens we saw the, the, the challenges and sort of the aspirations of the Bored Ape Yacht Club with, um, Ape Chain. What are you thinking about fungible tokens in relation to the IP conversation we just had? And how do these meme coins fit into the grander landscape? Is this a fad or is it just going to grow?
Julian Holguin: I don't think it's a fad. I think like anything, whether it's NFT collections, content creators like any kind of asset like that, the vast majority of them will be worthless, even if there's like hundreds of thousands of likes, or sorry, thousands of dollars of trading volume a day. Like, I just don't think most of this stuff will sustain. But there will be a few that do. And I do believe that fungible tokens that are built on attention, which we're seeing kind of the early iterations of with meme coins have a really significant place within an IP ecosystem. And you could look at creators or musicians or character IP as an IP ecosystem. So you're finding that it's very easy to spot when a celebrity wants to come in and just extract a bunch of money. versus a celebrity that comes in and is actually like investing their time in developing culture around that attention asset, which is ultimately a meme coin. I think the thing that's interesting is that there's like really, really crappy memes that are turning into multi-million dollar market cap coins. And I think that is a fad just like it was with any NFT collection that promised any sort of utility kind of pumped at that time, I think you'll find the same kind of crash with meme coins. But I do believe that these types of tokens have a real future in IP ecosystems, I think even more than anything in IP ecosystems. And I think it's just going to be about the best teams executing and building around these things. So I've actually, while I think most of it is not real, I've actually been very encouraged with what I've seen around the space and how it's kind of reacting to this.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of interesting IP being created for sure. It's a shame that so many of these tokens are rug pulls and so much of this is a casino of gambling, but the fundamental sort of IP being created out of it is really, really interesting. So before we get to know you a little bit better in our next section, just wanted to touch on the next five years. How do you see digital collectibles integrating into everyday life beyond what is on the market today?
Julian Holguin: Yeah, it's for me, it's really about gamifying the entertainment experience. So if you really think like everybody thinks in-game assets are really like the utility for NFT IP. And I don't think it needs to be looked at in such a narrow way. If you really think about the way we operate as a society today, everything's gamified. Everything's on social media. People are competing for likes. People are competing for engagement. You could be the biggest content creator in the world. or you could be a random person with 200 followers like that. And by the way, like for better or worse, this is just the way the world is right now. Like you get some sort of rush when you share content and people like it and people comment on it and people communicate with you. So much of our community and our like human interaction is online right now. So, In my opinion, where NFTs go is creating digital identity, specifically for character IP like Doodles, creating digital identity around that IP. How do you mash up marvel and bitmoji or pokemon and bitmoji if we're creating avatars Doodles avatars that you can customize with all these nfts you get the adidas pack one year you get you know some space Doodles pack another year and basically you take these things you collect your favorite looking avatar that you possibly can and The idea that the only utility avatars have is in games, I don't really subscribe to. Think about the way people communicate on social media today. They use stickers, they use GIFs, they use Instagram Reels, they use YouTube Shorts. So imagine an IP that has tooling for you to customize this character tied to a brand that you love, that all of your favorite artists are involved with, that a lot of your favorite brands are involved with. And then you can utilize that thing that you collected to create content to communicate with your friends online. Like, that is where we're going with it, incentivizing people to create user-generated content, to create community. And then ultimately rewarding those people for participating in our ecosystem, whether it is creating an avatar, sharing content directly within the studio, buying merchandise, going to one of our live events, creating real collecting loops that enable people to have fun with their friends tied to an IP that they love. That is where we believe it's going. That's where we think the new flywheel is going. And if we can do that with Doodles, and Doodles is our toy story, what's our Monsters University? What's our cars? How do we become the Pixar of the future? That's really where we think it's going in the next five years. And we think that the consumer experience is going to get better. What about when you have a VR headset on or an AR headset on that is going to get smaller and smaller, the hardware? And all of a sudden you have NFT collectibles flying all over your room and you're sending them to your friends, like, and you're hanging out with your friend. Like we just believe that the whole experience is going to get online and digital worlds are going to get blurred and ownership is going to mean something. And digital collecting is just fundamentally more efficient than physical collecting. So that's, that's kind of how we look at it.
Josh Kriger: I love it, man. The one thing you didn't include there is like one of these animated Doodles running for president, actually getting elected and being powered by AI with you in the background. So who knows?
Julian Holguin: Maybe that's maybe that's on the table, too.
Josh Kriger: All right. Well, let's see. But I guess that's going to happen. We need to know if you're sort of the right guy to be at the helm behind. So we're going to do something called Edgequick Hitters, which is the next segment of our show.
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Josh Kriger: Edgequick hitters are a fun and quick way to get to know you better. There are 10 questions. We're looking for just a short single or few word response, but feel free to expand if you get the urge. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. Question one. What is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
Julian Holguin: I got money for my birthday. I think I was 11 years old. or nine years old. I can't really remember the exact age, but I got a Sega Game Gear and that was everything for me for a long time.
Josh Kriger: That's cool. I had a Sega and a Nintendo, but I couldn't keep up with all the innovative technology. So now I just play games on my phone. There you go, man. It happens fast. So the second question, what is the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
Julian Holguin: I don't know, I think the first thing I ever sold, my buddy got a bunch of knockoff Beats headphones that we sold to a bunch of our friends. I think it was like junior year or sophomore year of high school or something like that. I think that was probably the first thing I ever outright sold.
Josh Kriger: Nice. Before Amazon, that was a legitimate high school business.
Julian Holguin: It was. It was. It actually did okay.
Richard Carthon: Nice. So for the next question, what is the most recent thing that you purchased?
Julian Holguin: Most recent thing that I purchased? Basketball gear for my son. He's really into basketball right now. I Love the Miami Heat. Take him to a bunch of games and we just did a family trip to New York. for the weekend. And I grew up in New York, so I love taking the kids there. And we went to the NBA store, and I got him an old school Michael Jordan jersey, got him a couple Jordan shoes, and he is ready for his first week of basketball camp this week. So that was the last thing I purchased. He was pumped.
Josh Kriger: Let him know that in spite of the fact that the Celtics are going to have three championships in a row, he should still keep his loyalty to the Heat. Are you a Boston fan? Yeah. Oh boy. It's been a fun ride this year.
Julian Holguin: I'm sure. Congrats. I'm a Yankee fan and a New York sports fan, so I could never be too happy for you.
Richard Carthon: I'm a Yankee fan, so we can bond on that at least. What is the most recent thing that you've sold?
Julian Holguin: Most recent thing I've sold. I sold a watch pretty recently to buy more Bitcoin.
Richard Carthon: Nice. Honestly, I think that's not a bad trade like there's some really cool watches
out there, but look, with more Bitcoin, you can get all the watches you want.
Julian Holguin: So I mean, I sold the watch and Bitcoin was at like 30. So it's done all right for me so far.
Richard Carthon: Yeah, it looks like it was the right move at the time.
Josh Kriger: Nice. I made some moves around that point too. Not financial advice. What is your most prized possession?
Julian Holguin: Not the watch. Definitely not the watch. My community is going to want me to say my
Doodles NFTs, which are very near and dear to my heart. But my family, I'm a family man through and through. My kids, my wife, like I can't live without them.
Josh Kriger: There you go. And if you could buy anything in the world, digital physical service experience that's currently for sale, what would it be?
Julian Holguin: I mean, I've had my eyes on an alien Doodles NFT for a while. I haven't haven't been able to quite get my hands on one yet, but I'm definitely eyeing that down. I. I doubt that's the only thing or the thing that I would buy, but I don't know that I could think of another one off the top of my head.
Josh Kriger: Well, if that's not public knowledge, the show is airing for like 10 days at least. So I would snag it before the word gets out. Yeah. OK.
Richard Carthon: Awesome. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
Julian Holguin: I'd honestly say being nimble has been the biggest driver of my success, like thinking you know everything and doing things the way that they've always been done. That's my biggest pet peeve in business when people tell me what we know is how we do things. It's like how is that true? Our world is changing faster than it ever has. And if you think what works today is going to work a year from now, it's just not true. And that can apply to business, that can apply to parenting, that can apply to anything. And I just think like, being a sponge and constantly trying to learn and not being too tied to anything is such a superpower in a world that is just changing faster and faster every year. So I would say that's probably the biggest thing that I would do that I would pass down. And it served me well. And I hope I can continue on that trend.
Richard Carthon: Yeah, I think being nimble is amazing and helps with driving ingenuity. Also helps with pursuing opportunities that most people miss on opportunities because they just don't recognize them or are too afraid to leave the comfort of what's in front of them. So I think that is definitely a good one. On the other side of this, if you could remove or eliminate one of your personality traits for the next generation, what would it be?
Julian Holguin: Uh, I mean, that's like, uh, that's like one of those interview questions that you never expect to get. I, uh, uh, like job interview questions. Let me, uh, let me think about that one for a second. Um, sometimes I'm overly optimistic, but I don't know that I would. I don't know that I would want the next generation not to be. I feel like the times we're in, we need more optimism. I feel like everybody's doom and gloom these days. I don't know, man. That's a tough one. I might be able to circle back to that one.
Josh Kriger: No, I think optimism is a great trait. Elon just spoke at Cairns the other day and asked about both sides of AI. And he's just like, well, it actually comes down to probabilities. But I think optimism is necessary to sort of put probabilities, to sway probability in the favor of what makes the world better. At the end of the day, a little bit of optimism doesn't hurt. So question nine, what did you do just before joining us on this podcast?
Julian Holguin: We had a. project management call, like a team-wide project management call that we do every
two weeks for our film and soundtrack to go to market. And we published, I think in that meeting, we published a tweet, like a new announcement tweet, where we announced that Lil Yachty was actually joining the cast and roster of artists that are going to be on the soundtrack. So that was I think Twitter's reacting to it as we speak right now. So that was what was happening right before this.
Josh Kriger: Good times. And what are you going to do next after the podcast? Probably check Twitter. But what else?
Julian Holguin: Yes, I will. I will definitely check X. As a matter of fact, wrap up a little work and go home, play some basketball with my son. Nice.
Josh Kriger: Richard, do we have a bonus question this time?
Richard Carthon: We do. Um, so we always like to finish with a fun bonus question and, uh, we have an amazing branding person in front of us. So why not ask a question about what is your favorite tradition like web to brand and why favorite web to brand, um, favorite web to brand.
Julian Holguin: I mean, I've been a very, very big fan of Adidas my entire life. Like I started playing soccer very young and like having like Predator cleats back then was like the official ones that the athletes actually used on the pitch. That was like, that was huge. I always kind of aspired to get there. And that was, It was really like Adidas has been with me my entire life. But I'd say if I had to pick one off the top of my head, I have a lot of Adidas sneakers, a lot of Adidas like workout gear so that's probably where I would lean.
Josh Kriger: Nice, that's great. Well, this has really been fun, Julian, getting to know you better. And before we jet, it'd be great to hear a shout out on your end, which is a segment that's really meant to call out someone in your orbit that maybe doesn't get as much spotlight attention as they deserve that sort of contributing to your world in some way or not. So who is your shout out of the day?
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Josh Kriger: Like at my company? Could be your company, personally, whatever you want.
Julian Holguin: Um, I mean. Well, yeah, anything I want. My wife, I mean, she gets all the praise she needs at home from me, but I would not be able to do what I do without someone that really understands the entrepreneurial journey like she does. She's an entrepreneur herself, but we've had to make a lot of sacrifices to make this move. You know, both financial sacrifice, just life sacrifice, like we moved our family across the country. And without a partner that really kind of sees the world the way you do and believes in a vision that you two have together, it's really hard to do what this job takes. It's a grind. So I'm sure if you have significant others, you can kind of attest to that. But it's been a pretty crazy couple of years, and I could not have done it without her.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, I can definitely echo. Shout out to my better half. But shout out to Mrs. Hogan, wherever you are, if you're listening. For our viewers and listeners at home, where do folks go? Obviously, they can just Google Doodles and find a million links, but where can they find you on X? And if they want to go down the rabbit hole of the Doodles community, where should they start?
Julian Holguin: Yeah, I would start at our web app, Doodles.app. You know, you can follow us on Instagram at the Doodles, YouTube at We Like the Doodles and Twitter X at Doodles. So all that's aggregated on the website. So I would start there, sign up, and have some fun. And, and yeah, we'd love to, we'd love to welcome some new people to the community for sure. Cool. And what's your X handle?
Josh Kriger: At Doodles. All right. Well, thanks, Julian. We've reached the outer edge. Do that again. All right. Well, thanks, Julian. We've now reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFT for today. Thanks for exploring with us. We've got space for more adventures on the Starship. So invite your friends or recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey also much better. Hal, if you're listening, go to Spotify or iTunes right now. Rate us and say something awesome. If you're watching this on YouTube, join over 130,000 other followers by hitting the subscribe button and passing this episode on to a friend or two. Also, be sure to check us out on our newest platform, myco.io. That's M-Y-C-O dot I-O. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great Web 3 content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us today.
Outro: The views and opinions expressed on Edge of NFT reflect solely those views and opinions of the show hosts and its guests. Please make sure to do your own research. Our show is not financial advice. You understand that you are using any and all information available on or through this podcast at your own risk. Whenever making financial decisions, we recommend doing your own research and talking to your accountant for financial advice. From time to time we may feature sponsored content on the show for which we receive value and we may share links for which we receive a commission if you make a purchase through one of those links. Refer to our website www.edgeofnfk.com for our full disclaimer, terms and conditions, and privacy policy.
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