So you’ve seen the successes, you’ve heard the numbers, but are you prepared to launch an NFT project and take the right steps to get it to the moon?
If you’re thinking about launching an NFT project in 2022, then theres 5 things you have to think about before doing so – and this isn’t some characterless SEO article btw, this is real and coming from somebody who has helped projects win and watched competitors lose this year… So in no particular order, lets go:
1. The project’s purpose
Gone are the days when one could simply create a derivative project with 10k images and sell out. In 2022 to sell an NFT you’re going to need to have a community gathered around your project keeping it healthy. One of the best ways to grow a community like this is to provide multiple paths to entrance and inclusion.
If your project involves multiple interest bases then you are more likely to captivate and keep members. For example if you are wanting to create a project about, say, Fish… and you have 10k lovely artistic pictures of fish ready to go, what sets you apart? What are people going to talk about in the discord? Wen more pic of fish? No. You need to focus your community on real world benefits. We are a fishing community. We are an exotic fish collecting community. We are a community where 10% of all profits go towards the preservation of fish around the great barrier reef.
The NFT is simply a facet and engine for your community.
2. The art
Now i know i was just saying that the art is simply one part of the project. But it is important. There is a large percentage of the population that has no eye for aesthetics. They don’t care if the art is objectively awful. These people are often loud and conscientious, so you would be forgiven for thinking they are the majority. They are not.
The human condition strives towards beauty. If you’re going to get people to buy something from you, don’t you want it to be beautiful? To say something? Don’t you want your twitter full of people posting pictures of their NFTS proudly displaying on their smart TVs and wallpapers and smart fridge doors and projected upon their bedroom roof so they can gaze upon it?
Yes. Make sure its beautiful. Make sure it makes you feel something. Make sure that nobody can criticise your project for being derivative, or tasteless, or any of the thousands of critiques other collections could and should engender.
3. The curated community
One of the important things we have seen this year is the act of community curation. Your communities are important and should be pruned and gardened. Certainly grow the membership, but don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.
Theres a technique in fashion marketing where over the course of time, if you are able to distribute your clothes to skaters, then their less cool friends catch on, then the older brothers and sisters catch on, then the 30 year olds catch on, and then the dad who’s past his peak and is still trying to be cool starts wearing it, and by this time everyone’s wearing it. Start from the top down. Make your whitelist qualify its applicants. Ask what can you bring?
Why should you be part of this cool ass exotic fish collecting community?
4. The content
Yo. Controversial take alert: Web3 content is lacking. Crypto twitter is good, but only from the accounts that DGAF. Theres a slimy, unctuous vibe from the majority of web3 content because you can tell they’re trying too hard. Trying too hard to gain followers, traction, clout, whatever. Every tweet is over the top marketing, or re-hashing of ‘wagmi, fren, degen, gm, ngmi’ It’s so over for these accounts and projects.
This was the first gen of web3 content and i believe the pioneers of the next gen will take on a more sophisticated air of not giving a f. A generation of projects where web3 and crypto is not the end goal, but a means to achieve their projects aims. By joining in your project, people should be enthralled into a world of interest, side-quests, cool people, and hilarious content.
‘We are the coolest exotic fish collecting community in the world, we simply use Ethereum because it allows us to create non fungible tokens with which we trade amongst ourselves…. What does gm mean?’
5. The story
Humans are story tellers and it’s hard for us to conceptualise what things are without a story. Too many times I stumble across a project that has such an intricate lore and set of values that I feel carsick. But then being linked onto a mint site that has a picture of a microwave and a ‘mint now for .2 eth’ button is equally as off-putting.
Make sure to let people know your story. What is your project why does it matter. What are you doing it for and who are you. Why is this about rare fish. Why YOU. And then keep repeating it in different ways. Show some passion and show some narrative. We wanted x, but then y happened, so we now have z!
’I used to sell exotic fish in little bags on a pier in the middle of nowhere, but then NFTS came along and I wanted to share my love of exotic fish with the rest of the world and after 2 years of building the community, here we are’
To conclude
This is not an exhaustible list of things you have to think of before launching an NFT collection in 2022. However you need to differentiate yourself in this market so taking these points into consideration is a great place to start.
Every market rewards creativity, personality and passion. Don’t let the optics of the current web3 & NFT market cloud your perceptions of whats cool or interesting, because if you think it, then chances are others will think it, and they will reward you for trying. So go out there and build the best damn exotic fish NFT collection and community!