Unlocking The Playbook w/ Luca Netz (How the Pudgy Penguins Plan to Conquer the World)

Welcome back to another episode of NFT catcher podcast. We'd like to remind everybody that nothing on the show is meant as financial advice and to please do your own research. Thank you and enjoy the show. Now the subject is NFT. They're known as non-fugible tokens or NFTs. NFTs are floating in popularity. This is a technology that will never change the way people interact. So it is happening whether you understand it and like it or not. You have now joined Jenny from the blockchain and Michael Keane on the NFT catcher podcast. What's up everyone and welcome back to another episode of the NFT catcher podcast with me Jenny from the blockchain and my co-host Michael Keane. For today's interview, we have Luke and Net CEO of Pudgy Penguins joining us. Luca, welcome to the show. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we are so pumped. Michael shout out to Michael for actually setting this one up. Do you remember you remember we met in Vicon? Where's that? I remember. Like I was like, do you remember now? Like sometimes you probably you probably met 500 people, thousand people that week. He's too famous for you. I probably did. You were sitting right you were sitting right next to D's. Yeah, we were I don't know if you were, but I was partaking in the whatever he had gone on over there. I was too, but don't tell anyone. No, no, never. We didn't talk about it any of the other episodes. So don't wait. There you go. That was good time. So yeah, glad to have you on, brother. Yeah, man, thanks. Thanks for having me and I'm super stoked to talk to you guys day. No doubt. Yeah, we're pumped to have you on. We have a ton of questions repaired, but we do want to start this out by asking you what we ask all of our guests, which is how you got into web three to begin with. Ah, I got into web three. Ah, let's run it back. I was just I had some friends talking about it. I was pretty big into crypto Twitter since 2017. And I was running out of wall space and shelf space because I love to traditionally collect. And my mom actually calls me a order of cool stuff. And I bought my first NFT on nifty gateway. And the second I bought it, I got the bug. I was plotting on my digital screens and how I was going to put this in a movie theater. And I can't really explain it to you, but I just naturally knew this is just a better way to collect. Go down the rabbit hole. I start collecting, you know, things from like ferocious. And, you know, some of the other awesome, amazing one of one artists. And then OpenSea comes around with PFPs. And this is not a video podcast, but in front of me, there's six giant monitors in which while I was a CMO gel blaster, I was just trading these freaking NFTs like a wild animal. And I just fell in love. I got the bug. So I think it really just stemmed initially from the desire to collect to just what it is today. And this freaking behemoth of a of a space with so much upside to so much potential, it just needs the right people to build it. Nice. And then at some point, which I don't when did you buy Pudgy penguins? I bought Pudgy penguins in April of last year. So about 15, 16 months ago now. Oh, wow. All right. So literally the beginning of the bear market, that's impressive, man. But you think of like that was literally like the moment the bear started because it was right. It started the bear market. No, no, what I'm saying is, and the floor was what was the floor when you bought it? 0.8 or 0.75? That's you can keep going, but that's pretty insane. That's something that I mean, with what else has gone on in the space since then, I see a smile on your face. That's pretty insane. That's pretty insane. Yeah, it's funny. You bring it up because the actual day we transacted was the top ticket ease. Like we sent the payment at their bread. Eve. And it was down only ever since. And even our worst force, we knew coming into this, we'd have to build a real business like I just I just knew NFT royalties weren't sustainable. But I thought they would be able to sustain me until I was able to, you know, make real money, which just product developments, you know, naturally to do it right takes 12 months, you know, like build up the right brand. And because there was nothing in Pudgy penguins, it was really a dope character, but there was no foundation, no, no, nothing like it. I bought assets. I didn't buy a business. And so standing up the business, creating the products, it was hard. It was hard. We got I remember our worst forecast. I was like worst case scenario. This thing makes 50 grand a month and that can cover our brood in the deep depths of the bear. You know, amongst all those blacks one of them. So I think there was a couple of months that Pudgy penguins made like 15 grand. I was like, and it came into the point where I was ready to put another half a million dollars into funding the business because I was like, I'm not going to, you know, I came in here to win. I'm not going to just, and spend this thing just to lose. But it ultimately, we got bailed out a couple times by some big announcements and some big moments. But it was hard. I'm so glad we're on the other side of it. Most mostly on the other side of it. So walk me through the the thought process when you first bought Pudgy penguins because you buy Pudgy penguins 15 months ago for $2.5 million. And, you know, why did you decide to buy out an existing project instead of starting your own and why Pudgy penguins? Yeah, I saw a early clip early on of Gary V saying, like, understand the responsibility of starting an F2 product. This is not something you can do lightly. And I, you know, if I'm going to be frank, I think the moment for me that really maybe take this space seriously, as I knew boardache was raising the valuation that you were raising before they announced it. And I was like, if these guys pull it off, which by every metric they should, right, every revenue metric, etc., like they should be able to pull it off, which they did. Then this is being looked at like a very serious business and a very clear disruptor to technology and collectibles. And so if you put those two markets together and you kind of think of, you know, where we are today, when I knew that that raise was going on, I was like, Oh my God, this is everything that I thought this could be at like real capital and real investors are like backing that vision. And so it's not just need like day dreaming at not, you know, in the during the day or like dreaming at night, there's like something very real going on here. And that ultimately led me to believe that these are real businesses and real brands and real companies. Now, I had no intention to buy an NFT project. I actually tried to buy one of my friends NFT projects before Pudge, and he wasn't having it. I was like a whole Twitter fight. It's not a story that many people know. But when that sailed, I guess I was just doing my thing. And then by the grace of the universe, one day, I'm scrolling through Twitter and I see people bidding on the Pudgey Penguins IP, I think being he offered a million bucks. And I thought to myself, Pudgey Penguins was my first PFP that I ever bought. I picked a Pudgey penguin over a board ape and all the others, because I thought that Pudgey Penguins had the highest upside, because if you look at traditional collectibles and IP, cute has the highest addressable market. And I think has the highest room for demand. And because there's such a finite supply of these NFTs on the bottom, the one that's going to create the most demand is going to be the one that has the most people buying the NFT, which ultimately leads to higher price appreciation. That was my thesis when I bought Pudgey Penguins is my first PFP NFT. And I just always saw the vision. So keep in mind, I came from a company called Gelblaster before this, which I was, you know, their biggest investor and CMO at the time. And that really exposed me to the world of toys and IP and characters. And that was baffled about how many giant IP brands and giant character brands there were that none of us on this call know about, but make billions of dollars. I just couldn't believe it. Like it's just it's a world that I could name you five IPs that are worth billions of dollars that you probably have no familiarity. And Pudgey Penguins, if you look at it from a traditional perspective, has all of the ingredients that make a traditional IP succeed, Pudgey Penguins had it. Like it had all of those traditional ingredients. Now beyond that, it had all of the Web 3 and Crypto Native ingredients that also may, you know, board apes and similar project succeed. It had a die hard community, a die hard meme culture, whales that you just couldn't buy. Like there's, there's so many affluent and influential and powerful crypto native people that own Pudgey Penguins. And if I went to go raise $100 billion and started an NFT project, like there's no guarantee that those people buying it. And that's really, really important. And they had also been through all of the chaos and the turmoil that should have really nuked the thing. I mean, the fact that I bought it and it had a 0.75 East floor screams volumes when an NFT community finds out that their founder suck that there's no future utility. They've all nuked to zero or 0.1 or nothing, right? Pudgey Penguins had every fud giant boulder come their way. And it had a 0.75 East floor. Like that was a type of tenacity and resilience that I hadn't seen from any other project. And so you combine all of the ingredients from the, what it makes, what does it mean to have a successful traditional IP brand? And then all of the ingredients is to like, what does it mean to have a successful web three, you know, crypto brand? And Pudgey Penguins had all of those ingredients. And all it needed was somebody just to cook them, the right chef at the helm of the kitchen. And so ultimately I offered them $2.5 million, expecting that we wouldn't negotiate, but it didn't. I was willing to spend a lot more on it. And they accepted it and the rest is history. Wow. A pretty crazy story. I mean, that says it all. I actually want to go back a little bit further with you. Because I've heard a handful of your interviews now. And I'm always impressed. And especially kind of your startup story. Like I know you started with Ring Doorbell when they had about 20 people. And, and he watched it grow to 2,000 people. He talks about that a little bit, what you learned. And then I want to get even into Von Doich, because I've heard you say some things about that. That's really interesting. But what did what did you learn from Ring and watching it grow like that? Yeah, that was a crazy one. Because I dropped out of high school. I basically wanted to get a business degree. And I got I was a good student. And I got three B's that were like 88 to 89's. And my mom was really struggling to pay the bills at this point. I had just turned 16. And I said, well, I want to be a business man. But I have to go into debt to get my business degree. The likelihood of me getting a scholarship is slim. But a business man wouldn't go into debt to get a business degree. It seems very counterintuitive to what a good businessman would do. So I said, well, I got to leave. I got to go join the workforce. I printed a hundred resumes. And I went up and down Fairfax and Melrose and handed them out. I wanted to get a job at a street mayor brand. No luck. I take my behind to tech-round Santa Monica. I start handing them out. No luck. It's actually the second to last door that I went to was the most rinky-dy-dink shitty office in tech row, which for people who know the ring office in Santa Monica knows what I'm talking about. It was a shack. And I walk in and I give my resume to somebody in a couple of days later. They say, hey, you got a job. We need somebody to help pack boxes. I said, great. I could pack a good box. I actually was the first person there. I actually opened up the ring offices every morning, or at least my section of the office. I decided to wake up at 5.30, get on the bus at 6 a.m. And I was there at 6.30, 6.45, opening it up for the 7 a.m. 8 a.m. group. And I was listening to a bunch of really awesome speeches from Harvard alum, Stanford alum, trying to get my education pack and boxes. And the way the ring setup was packed boxes in the lower floor and all the engineers above me would like watch me. And they started to take a lot of likings to me. So Noel and the lead engineer started really like, you know, taking a proof, like just taking a liking to me. And then I moved up to RMA, which was like a diagnosing problems with the product. So he kind of pulled me out, saw me as a hustler, pulled me out, put me into RMA. And I shit you not. I bird and saw everything actually, believe it or not. As crazy it is as a person who's packing boxes. I saw Jamie, Jamie at a room where he would punch multiple holes and walls. There was like a hole like a bunch. And these guys, you know, whether it's through directly or not, you whisper through the grapevine just because working it off, it's how it is. Everyone knows everything, especially small, such a small environment. These guys should have gone under like three times. They grew so fast. You know, what I learned, I didn't really have the wear with all to really digest. Like if I was there now, I would have just totally absorbed like a sponge. What I think Ring really did for me was give me the desire and motivation to build a big company. I think prior to that, I had always wanted to make money. I wanted to be rich. That was my goal. I was like, I need to be rich. I'm poor. I need to be rich. So let's figure it out. And then when I left Ring, I was like, I want to be an entrepreneur and I want to be a CEO. Like I saw what he did. I saw the trials and tribulations and just him coming out on top of it all. I was like, dude, I want to be you one day. And that ultimately led me to starting my own business, which was selling jewelry online. And since you brought up on that, we can get into that. I was really successful. I sold that business when I was 19, kind of became a self-made millionaire at that moment. So a huge fluctuation in a matter of 18 months from when I started my business to when I sold it. And then I started my next company, which is monetizing social influence. Influencers had millions of followers. They were broke. So I was like, let me build product brands around you. In hindsight, it was like the very early versions of like what Mr. Beast is doing. Except I was 1920 and I didn't have the experience to really stand it up the way that it showed up. But I was like totally out of that curve. The business was a cash cow business. We went to go sell it. It had no brand equity because I basically was just a manufacturer and and babysitter. You know, if an influencer didn't promote that month, we'd make no money. If they did, it would make five million dollars like crazy swings of revenue. And so that business ultimately led me to Von Dutch, which I walk into the into the into the flagship store on Melrose one day during like the whole chrome hearts height. And I was like, you guys must be crushing it because like I see everyone wearing your stuff because like chrome hearts guys are like the next chrome hearts. It was like we're making nothing. And I was like, what? And he's like, I'm we're making nothing. So I worked out what felt like the deal of a lifetime. I basically did like a gross revenue deal. And I said anything about X amount of money every month, I want a percentage of jobs. They took it because they weren't making anything. So what I promised them was like to the moon. And by the time I left, they were making millions of money. And I was like, so this was the great comeback to the Von Dutch comeback in 2020. You're like favorite rapper celebrity was definitely rocking it. And that was all my doing. And that to me was the real moments where I was like, holy shit. I have a playbook and I have a superpower. Because if I owned Von Dutch, I would have been set for life. Like what I did there, took it from like, took it from like, basically going under to like, hey, this company now is easily worth a hundred billion bucks. Like I'll based on this turnaround and based on these revenue numbers that like I created that. There was no other cook in the kitchen. There was no other X factor anomaly. Like it was solely me. And then I was like, well, I actually got a pretty good playbook. Got into gelblaster replicated the playbook. And I was like, oh, shit. Now, so gelblaster does nine figures a year. So like, it's a hundred million dollar plus a year of business and revenue. So I was like, fuck, the playbook is now two for two. And my experience with the Von Dutch ultimately gave me the confidence to buy Pudgy Penguins. Because I'm not necessarily an inventor or a creator of things. I'm a pusher of things. Like I know how to make things go and to great, create awareness around it. And so the experience with Von Dutch backing it up with gelblaster ultimately gave me the confidence to buy Pudgy Penguins. Because I was like, this is no difference than gelblaster and no difference than Von Dutch. You know, it turned out to be a lot different. But the thought process prior was like, this is no different. I just do what I activate what I call the playbook. And then just rinse and repeats. And so far, so good, the playbook's definitely a full effect. What can you tell us about the playbook? Oh, the playbook is super proprietary. I can't. Where did you learn like the like your recipe for the playbook? Like, what kind of help do formulate that? It was the influencer monetization business. Because I was living with, so I was, I was this young 19 year old, 20 year old, making all of these influencers rich, taking them from poor to rich. So like, I had this, that was like the my career maker. And being with them, influencers, as elite marketers, they're just like elite, the most elite. They leverage their personal brand to do it. But like content and marketing, like how they frame it. It's really just like a marketing, really a marketing masterclass, if you know what you're doing. And I lived with that too. So like I lived in the homes of some of the biggest influencers on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube at the time. And so it was just like digesting all of that information for two to three years, split testing on our own stores with different strategies, right? Like leveraging, you know, certain audiences, you kind of, when I got into Von Dutch, I was, I would reference like, okay, let's do this, because I remember we did this Jake Paul Miranda, we did this. You know what I mean? Oh, let's do this, because I remember Supreme Patty did it a lot. And like, let's do this, right? And so you take all of these like little like things that really worked with these influencer stores, then you apply it to a brand and it works the same. And I'm like, oh shit. And then so you take the best of it. And you kind of like, there's a chronological order to how you activate it. You just put it like I have in my mind, like exactly step one through 20. And based on, you know, certain milestones, you just activate certain parts of the playbook. It's very interesting. And also, you're, so you also have, if two YouTube channels that I saw, the A Glue Company, which is kind of like the Pudgy Penguins YouTube channel. And then building in public, which is totally reminding me of, I don't know if you watched like the Note Boys or anything, but okay, you do. So MTV Jesse, now he split from the Note Boys and he kind of started his YouTube channel Sunday, where he's literally just building in public. Like, it very much reminds me of that. It's just so really good. It's kind of like a, just a great YouTube plus. It also has like a little bit of reality TV component, because you have people like talking to the camera like, wow, this is really high quality for not even that many people watching it. Like you guys are just, you know, I mean, building in public and just kind of doing things that you think will be good. What, what's, what was like the inspiration behind, I guess, that YouTube channel? So it's kind of ironic, because during Jell Blaster, I was at the full-set office every day. And so Jesse's actually really, oh my god, so funny. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah, so like, the early full-send or on this channel, like I'm in a lot of those videos. And I actually learned a lot from him as well. That actually, the idea for that really came from, hey, Web 3 wanting transparency. Like you kept on hearing, you know, Web 3 users screening for transparency. So me, I, I want to, I want to be number one. I'm going to be number one. So what are the paths to get there? Like, give the people what they want. The Web 3 people clearly want transparency. Okay, well, if that's what you want, then I'm going to try to give that to you to the best of my ability. You know, how about we just throw a camera? You know, I've been with these influencers since day one. And now these videos are made. Let's just do our version of that. And, and give them that transparency. So you know, every month, you know, like, I'm not twiddling my fingers. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm working 12, 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Let me try to document this the best of our ability to like give you some trust to build trust and confidence and transparency around what we're doing. And give you a little bit of that behind the scenes look. And, that was kind of the logic and the thought process behind it. I actually wasn't, you know, I actually probably could have thought of it earlier if I was thinking of my times. But I just kept on seeing on the Twitter feed. We want transparency. We want transparency. So I'm like, all right, you want transparency. Like, no more transparent that a vlog or cap in the month with some behind the scenes videos in between. Yeah, it's incredible. Like, the, the quality of it too is insane, which makes me wonder, like, how many people are on your vise's team? Like, how many people are, are working with you guys at Pudgy Penguins? We're like 30 now. Damn. We're pretty deep. Some of them are part time. I'd probably say like 25 people full time. We're probably going to get rid of a couple of people just to kind of create that urgency and just be like, hey, like, you know, but other than that, 25 full time people 30 in total, including part time. And, yeah, we've definitely got a good, good little unit going. There's going to be some people that listen to that and be like, uh, better start working. Yeah, but it's start putting some work in. That's all right. I like that. I like that. Got it. Got to, yeah, you need sense of urgency. Like, you know, okay, I'll ask another question that I'll pass about to Michael here. But so in the backgrounds, I have my, my Pudgy Penguins figurine. Um, and you guys just went so hard, so fast. I feel like which is obviously, you know, part of your strategy. And I just feel like you guys are everywhere. I mean, first of all, you could buy Pudgy Penguins figurines and plushies on Amazon, which is amazing. Actually, just today, my, um, one of my co-workers, it's his birthday and he has a Pudgy Penguin. That's like, who he's had representing him. Like, that's his PFP for like over a year now. And I just ordered a, uh, a Pudgy Penguin figurine for him. But anyway, so yeah, Amazon, I mean, that's insane that you guys are on Amazon. You guys are everywhere. I just saw a post on Twitter. If someone's saying like, um, taking a picture of a Pudgy Penguin plushie on the shelf and they're like, I can't believe I'm seeing a physical NFT, uh, you know, products in a third world country like on a shelf. This is insane. How did you get into like, all the stores in Amazon? Like, what, how did that happen? So it's interesting because over the next six months, you guys will probably want to do another interview because the, the stores that are going to stock Pudgy Penguins, I think are going to shake up the entire space. I think nobody knows what's coming, uh, especially open the next couple of months. And so what you see now is nothing to what you'll see, uh, you know, three to four months from now. And so that I'm really excited. We have a lot of good partners. Like again, I, I built my career on working smarter, not harder. Even though now I'm working really smart and really hard, uh, like, I put people in position to help us. And so retail monsters, a partner of ours, they have, you know, over $50 billion in, you know, sales across companies that they've partnered with. They're just, get you in the door wherever you need to go. PMI or master toy partner with the same, you know, keep in mind gel blasters and every Walmart Best Buy Costco and Target nationwide. So a lot of these people, I like, you know, this is the, this is where experience, I guess matters. I come from this world consumer products. So a lot of it is, you know, when you have big wins like gel blaster, people take you for your word. And if I tell them there's going to be another big win, they're going to do it. And so, you know, they're, I want to make sure that Pudgy penguins are everywhere. But I do want to like limit the supply. Like supply is really important, making sure that there's collectible features swapping out skews. There's a lot of, there's a lot of lift to this more than I think people can imagine. But it's, uh, I guess a lot of good relationships, a lot of good partners, a lot of hustle, a lot of grit and tenacity. And if I want something, I'm going to get it. So if I want a retailer, if I want to be in a certain country, best believe that I'm going to make it happen. And, um, I think, uh, all of those things considered, I think ultimately led us to where we are today. But you've seen nothing yet because the, you know, we're, we're definitely in a lot of specialty retailers. A lot of, you know, probably big retailers internationally. But over the next six months, I have a number. It's too much alpha, but we're going to be in thousands of retail stores internationally and domestically. And in some of the biggest names in the world. So, uh, I'm really excited for that moment. Beesh. That's crazy. Yeah. I'm excited to see your guys' journey. You definitely have that, like, entrepreneur, like you, I used to go to a ton of entrepreneur events and you just surmined me of like that. Oh, to me, I want to entrepreneur, like super, super motivating, like just want to just go hard, go all the way, do the most. Um, but Michael, all right, I'll give it back to you. Cool. That's all awesome stuff. I think I heard you say, I listened to your interview on coffee with captain. It was very good. But I think I heard you say, and I might have got it wrong, that the Pudgy Penguins and the little Pudgies will basically have the same utility. Just one is the OG collectible. Did I hear that right? Or can you kind of explain what your vision for the ecosystem is with the two collections? Yeah, I think Pudgy Penguins is our, is our North Star. It's our first edition. It's, you know, any main character will always be a Pudgy penguin. But there's subordinate characters and there's, you know, little Pudgies, I think, also target a younger audience. You know, I, I, I'm actually, we're kind of doing a little bit of a restructure internally. We want Pudgy Penguins to be just a little bit more mature and then little Pudgies be a little bit less mature. And so we can kind of get, I don't want to neglect the older audience. And there's a lot of kid adults that are buying our products. And I want to just like curate the brand a little more deeply. Before a utility perspective, they're like our mutinapes, like little Pudgies are very much like our mutinapes. There are, you know, little bro or helper to your big Pudgy. They're important. They get you into our events. They get you licensing opportunities. But they will always be more skewed for the big Pudgy. If I have an event and it's older only, then let's say there's a thousand people, 700 people or 750 slots will be available to big Pudgies, 250 to little Pudgies. If I do licensing, you know, and I'm licensing 10 characters, seven of them will be big Pudgies, three of them will be little Pudgies. And so there has to be that like hierarchy. And at the end of the day, like big Pudgies will always be the face. But I see a world where little Pudgies really attract and excite that that younger demographic. And I think eventually if you get into like, you know, what does it look like to make products for, you know, the three year old and the four year old and the five year old. Right now, I think our, you know, our plush can be any age. But, you know, there's like certain, you know, products that I think bowed younger and I think little Pudgies will ultimately be that. And big Pudgies will be like, if you're the big brother, if you're the father, if you're the mother, like you're the big Pudgy. You know what I mean? And then the little one is your little guy, right? And so that's kind of how we're looking at it. And I try to make it as fair as possible without neglecting and segmenting sort of not. It makes sense. Would you consider have you considered purchasing any other IP in the web three space, maybe something that a founders abandoned? And secondly, I'd like to know the one you tried to buy that you mentioned. That was like a Twitter word that people don't know the story if you want to shout that one out. But I'd love to know your thought on future. Yeah, it was my friend's project called Spooky Boys. I was like, it's a super deep story, but I tried it. And what was the other question? Sorry. That's okay. Have you considered what you consider? Do you have any kind of on your wish list of what you may purchase in the future to add to the ecosystem? Yeah, I think, you know, the way the Pudgy world shakes out is they all live. They live on an inartica we'll call it. And then a piece of that broke out ultimately to the Berg and the Berg, you know, they were trying to get back home and the Berg, you know, floats around the world in hopes of being reconnected to the promised land or to their homeland. And as they travel, different characters wash a shore that like leaves room for new characters to kind of incorporate. I know who I would buy next if I were to buy it, but I'm not going to say because it's a really small collection. And so it's too much of a minute if I were to do it. Well, you could say now we're not going to come out for a couple days. No, no, no. But it's, I have an understanding. But I it's like I can't build like the igloo companies that take on the Walt Disney company, right? Like the more iKees will come. I can't make that until like Pudgy Penguins is my Mickey, right? I can't even think of new characters until like Mickey is established like Mickey is the man Mickey is the guy. Everyone knows Mickey. The holders are so happy and you know everything that they possibly could have dreamed of has come to fruition. Like I am, I have to accomplish what's right in front of me before I go somewhere else. Or Donald shows up. Yeah, but I have an idea and I know where I would go. Okay. Cool. I foresee that happening for sure. I foresee that happening. I love it. Yeah. Cool. You got any Jennie or should I ask a couple more? Okay. So something that you you tweeted in March and then you recently retweeted. I'm kind of curious about is you tweeted project overpass which you are like speculating like, what does that mean? Like I'm just trying to figure it out and I'm just curious if you have any alpha for us as to what that means. Yeah. Project overpass is a product that I've been working on for a long time and is really a gift from us to the wet three space and it ultimately solves our biggest problem internally. To give you some insight, it's common knowledge in the community and it's not too far away. So I might as well tell you all the lines of what it is. It's basically an IP rights marketplace where I as a project founder can pay hundreds of holders through a couple clicks of a button for an upfront payment for the right to use their penguin in an asset. And so why does that matter? Well, I have to go build a real business. I have to go do this because I have to make real revenue and I have to be sustainable and I can't be forced to be put in a position where I have to mint more NFTs to fund the company. Why that matters because supply and demand is very real. The less supply I have in my digital ecosystem and the more demand that I create, the more they'll appreciate and price and I want to have collect digital collectibles that are worth a lot of money. I want that for our holders for our collectors. I want that for our ecosystem because I think it leaves a lot of room for growth and opportunity. Beyond that, I need to create this revenue stream to be able to or I need to create these products to be able to create a deeper emotional attachment to the underlying asset. Like it's just it's unequivocal. It's necessary. It needs to happen. You know, right now digital collectibles, I don't think are in a place where people get emotionally attached the same way that a physical product can kind of do that. And it's really just about creating touch points from now until that. And so you have to create a sustainable revenue stream. You have to create a product that has a deeper emotional attachment and you ultimately have to be independent of macro variables screwing you i.e. Ethereum price dropping 90% or royalties being removed from that. However, when I go make a business that makes 200, 300, 400 million dollars a year, how does that benefit the holders? That's what the holders asked me. And I thought to myself, well, you're right. Other than the obvious, which I just broke down to you, sustainability, supply and demand, all of the ingredients that I think are necessary for an NFT product to succeed, how can I take this a little deeper? How can I democratize IP and make this for the people by the people? And what does that mean? Like, to understand the NFT user, you have to understand what they really want. And what they want is they want their collectible to appreciate and value where they want more collectibles that are worth of value. That's kind of been the grooming of the NFT space up until this point. You know, the top projects, you guys a perfect example, as kind of said, the standard like every person who's owned a board eight has gotten a million dollars in free stuff that they've given their board apes. That's what people want, right? That anchor has been set. But creating things that are thin air like tokens and NFTs and just dropping it in people's wallet is a really lazy and lame solution to monetary value accrual. It's just lame, right? And it's also not sustainable. Think about if I were to air drop people in a bear market, more NFTs, that's only going to sink the whole ship. That's only going to make all the NFTs less valuable. So in reality, that monetary gain that the user wants, they really don't want it because it's going to screw the whole thing. I mean, they might want it for a short-term trade, but I'm not optimizing for short-term traders. I'm optimizing for believers. And believers, though they want monetary gain in their heart and soul, you know, how do you actually share that value and that success? How do they kind of intertwine? And to me, the solution's been licensing, right? If I built a $300 million a year toy business, I need to make more characters, I need to make more content, I need to make more stickers, I need to make more everything, right? And when I make those products, rather than making and drawing my own Pudgy Penguin, I can just go to one of the holders and say, hey, you own your NFT. That is your character that I extended the license that you can now monetize using that character. I want to pay you $500 for the right to use your Penguin in a billboard for advertising, where I want to pay you $10,000 to turn your penguin into a figure, or I want to pay you, you know, $1,000 to turn your penguin into a gift and then it gets us billions or tens of millions of views. Because when I make $300 million a year, right? Like through the toys and through this product, through the leveraging the community, the communities helping me make this money, I'm returning that value and saying, hey, rather than just me absorbing everything and taking everything, I'm going to share in the success and how I can share in that success is through licensing. The problem was as we did this, we were the first products to do this, like major products to do this, we license our toy line for PMI. So all the toy that's behind you right now is actually an NFT that lives on the blockchain and every time one of those cells, that person makes money in perpetuity, right? So they get a royalty payment for that. But the issue with that whole process was it took me a month and a half to sign 16 people and it was a huge lift and a huge penguin in the ass and it costs a lot of money. And so I was like, this is a really big problem and if my vision ultimately has to succeed, there has to be a web three way to license IP. And so project overpass was conceptualized by our amazing CTO's name is Lorenzo, basically set up a presentation and it was like, aha moment. It was like, this solves the biggest problem because the truth of the matter is, is any NFT project that's a PFP that's a character has to be making content on socials to grow their brand has to be making merchandise to create sustainability, right? They have to do these things. But when they do it, they don't need to neglect their core audience when they do it. They can actually share the value. Now, does it mean I can give holders 50% of sales on toys? Of course not. That's fiscally irresponsible. The business is going to die. But right now in web three, when other brands that are not Pudgy Penguins and web three make collectibles, no one gets paid for it. There's no democratization of IP, democratization of IP. There's no sharing in that growth in this product making. There's no community brand building. It's literally me saying, hey, I'm big brand. I'd make all this money. I'm going to sell you some more collectibles and some more figures. Pay me 300 bucks for it, right? That's not the web three way. So we had to build a platform where with a couple clicks of a button, a brand, a user, an NFT company can go to their holder base and basically say, we want to do, we want to bring this value back to you. And so in the beginning, it's all going to be available to Pudgy Penguins just because I want to make sure that we get that value. But then eventually, I'll open it up to all the communities and I'll just take a percentage on the transaction, basically be like, hey, this is saving you thousands of dollars of legal fees and thousands, you know, a huge headache and time and effort. I'm honestly giving you a value proposition that you really need for your community. And that's project overcast. And I think that to me, it's going to be one of the great moments and NFTs in terms of what an NFT project has done for the space, because I can't point to three bigger tools that an NFT project has shipped for the greater good of the community. The only thing that I think that comes up to par is like 721A from a zookey. And this is like on par with that. It's its own protocol, its own infrastructure. It's like a really deep, you know, you basically dock you signed documents on chain. It's really fucking badass. I think people are going to be really surprised and happy with that product shipment. And that's probably our next big rollout coming pretty soon. It's just product overpass. Wow. That's huge. That's very exciting. And thank you for sharing that with us. I know that, you know, maybe you share more than you want to. I don't know, but hey, NFT catcher product exclusive. Let's go. Yeah. The one thing that comes to mind, I guess, which, I don't know, it's not really the same thing at all, but board jobs like have you heard of that. Yeah. And they kind of just like, okay, if there's any jobs where, you know, you can license your board eight out, then they'll just tweet it out. And it's on their site and stuff. But, but that this is very exciting. I'm excited. Now I wish I was a Pajee Penguin holder. But that's okay. Maybe I'll get a little Pajee. Maybe I can get a little Pajee. Yeah. What's the floor? It's a little little. Yeah. Let's take a look. I think point four. That's a good, that could be a deal right there. Yeah. It's affordable. Michael, do you have any, do you want to ask anything? Going through your guys Twitter, somebody posted something. There were guys walking through somewhere in Asia and it said like Pajee's Asia. And you guys are proud that what do you, what are some of the most important markets over there for you? And what do you guys do to foster those markets? Yeah. Asia is so important for us. And it's so right because they love the penguin. They love the Pajee Penguin. And I have no experience in Asia. They love the 888 number two when you guys are 88888, right? Or we're like perfectly positioned for culture. It's one that I tried to nurture to the best of my ability. I need to do a better job. Our team needs to do a better job. But it's a place that when Pajee Penguins ultimately becomes a multi-billion dollar brand, a huge part of it will be because of Asia. They, they like, again, I'm just not native to it. And so I haven't even dominated North America. The problem is is I haven't dominated what's right in front of me. What I know I can dominate. And so like until I do the acts, I'm always like one foot in one foot out. But we did a stand-up or we did a stand-up on Friday. And I told our sea level group like this is whatever the plan is, we need a better plan. Because I mean, we need to do a better job here. Thankfully that our Pajee Asia community is like so badass. Like they're just such a badass group of people. I can't wait to go over there and just get them dinner, breakfast, and lunch as many times as I can. Because they just take initiatives. The culture there is so fascinating. And I have so much respect for the Asian culture because they just get shit done. And they just do. And they're like, dude, like they take matters into their own hands. And that's just the vibe that I get from the Pajee Asia community. A lot of what you're seeing is self-induced. Like they did it all. Like there isn't much that we've done there other than like, you know, higher-couple people, you know, set up the infrastructure, you know, spend money where we can and where we can afford to. But nurturing that is a huge priority for us. I think we need to do a better job at it moving forward. But it's the biggest region outside of North America for us. And I ultimately think our parabolic sasses can come from the east, not the west. Where particularly? Where do you see? Where's a lot of your community? Our two hot spots right now are Singapore and Hong Kong. But Malaysia and Thailand are growing my crazy. I came up with a lot of Malaysia and Thailand. So it seems to be the places that are that have like English-speaking familiarity that seem to me. So like Hong Kong, very English, Singapore speaks a lot of English. Malaysia and Thailand don't know, but it seems like they spent a lot of English based on the interaction with the community members that I found. And so that seems to be like obviously like I can't go and create amazing taglines and foreign languages. I don't know how, you know, like it's like automatic discrepancy. So I would probably tackle the the eastern markets that have the best speaking English user base. Probably even my first approach. Now I was expecting to hear like sole career because I know they're one of the most advanced cities, one of the most technologically advanced cities. So it's so in Japan, so in Japan, so in Tokyo would be like your first natural grab. But it's so competitive that I almost don't even want to go there because like I came and believe the IPs that are in Japan. I mean, I'm competing against the best of the best. And then all of their money there, right? So like, let me go to the places where like IP isn't dominating. And let me go dominate it that have like the English speakers, but in principle, you're right. But if you peel back the layers, you'd be more advantageous for me to go to like a Singapore and Hong Kong first, then try to bring those that wind, those sales of that wind to Japan and soul with some leverage, you know, no doubt. Yeah. Okay, I got one more question before we go into our rapid fire segments, gas wars. I'm kind of curious if you guys keep in contact with Cole Ethereum at all. Not as much, not that much, but he texts me here and there. I respond. We chit and chat and tells me he likes things. He tells me he doesn't. I appreciate his opinion. He's very honest. Always somebody I respect. I respect him as a collector. He's like a really good NFT. Oh yeah. Yeah. So like we'll sleep on that side of him. Like Cole, Cole knows how to buy NFTs. And so I just respect his opinion. I mean, I can't even call my mom every week. So like for me to keep it like a trip with Cole is like a is asking a lot. But anytime he gets me up, I respond. Okay. Cool. All right. Michael, are you ready to go into the gas wars? Are you having any? No, I think I am ready. I think I am ready. All right. So Luca, basically we're each going to ask five quick, rapid-fire questions to kind of, I don't know, just spice it up and end the end of the show. So all I'm going to go first. Okay. What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? Snails. Okay. Tyler says there's four ends of motivation. My question to you is what are you most motivated by out of these four? Materials slash money, mating, mastery, or momentum? Mastery. Okay. All right. What is your favorite conspiracy theory? My favorite one that I like, my imagination likes, or my favorite one that I think is weird. However you like to answer. I will. I'm the second. The second one. Whatever you think. Okay, Jennie's right. The one that I think is real is there is definitely everything that we see, I think, is like completely, I was totally against this, but what I've been seeing lately, there's totally puppet masters behind the whole thing, like writing the whole show that you don't need to them. I was totally against that. I was like, no way. President, show president, now I totally don't believe it anymore. After seeing the whole Biden thing, I'm just like, there's no way he's making any decisions. We're not going to open my eyes. There's something deeper behind the scenes that we're not familiar with. The whole shadow government of people running the show has to be in the bureaucracy, the military industrial complex, the whole I hear you. I hear your brother. Okay. I guess this is a much different question, but if you had a thing, if you had to sing karaoke right now, which song would you pick? Lose yourself. I am in it. Classic. What movie or TV series do you believe has influenced your life the most? Narrow toe. Narrow toe. Damn, we've had these questions all long. Sometimes they're like, oh, shit. We ask too much of a hard question. I don't know if I have everything. Why am I sleeping? I don't know. Is that anime? Yeah, it's anime. It's like I'm Arto Zomaki for anybody listening. That's my life. I'm Narrow toe Zomaki. Nice. Something to look up. Do you have any routines you used to improve your energy and focus? Sleep early, wake up early. What time do you go to bed? I used to go to bed at 8 p.m. Wow. Oh, my. That is anymore. Now I'm up until 2, 3 a.m. That's what I would do to keep my energy and my focus. It's not to say that I now I'm just pulling into the deep reservoirs of my tank. All right, punks or apes? Punks. And I have a lot more apes than I do punks, but this is the one thing that will stand the test of time no matter what. Right. Right. Yep. I hear that. What's one of your pet peeves? Compliments. I hate when people compliment me. Really? You don't take compliments as well. Hate it. Really? That's crazy. All right. All right. We're not going to compliment you that. If you could time travel to any period in history, when would you travel to? Wild West. Wild West. Nice. All right. I think this is the number five, right? Yep. There's a list. Okay. It's the last one. Okay. What is the most used emoji on your phone right now? Fire emoji. Okay. Okay. Cool. Well, look at it. Thank you so much for joining us. You're on the NFT culture podcast. We appreciate you. It's actually one thing. This is actually a really terrible interview. I don't really look at it. They didn't really share this. Yeah. This one sucks. Honestly. Yeah. So bad. Yeah. It doesn't like to be complimented. It doesn't like to be complimented Oh true. Yeah. I was actually about to compliment them. Okay. Yeah. That's why I cut you off. Yeah. This wasn't like an above average. I don't even know if we're going to put it out on. We might have to scrap this one because this was not very good. But he didn't say that he likes. We doesn't like to be the reason. Okay. Okay. So yeah. That was very fun. I'm always impressed here in your chat. Here in your talk. Telling your story and your passion and your knowledge. And I believe you're a young guy. It seems compared to me at least. And it's very impressive. And I can't wait to watch lots of story unfold. I think you're going to accomplish all the things you say you're going to. Well, thank you, Michael. Thank you, Jennifer. It was a pleasure speaking to you guys today and thank you for your time. Sorry for being late. No. You're good. All right. With that said, thank you all for tuning in and we will catch you in the next episode. Peace. Thank you for tuning in to the NFT catcher podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something new about the exciting world of NFTs. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe to our podcast on Apple Spotify for wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you really love what you're hearing, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform. If you want to stay up to date with the latest news and insights from the NFT space, be sure to follow us on all the socials at NFT catcher podcast. You can follow Jennifer at Jennifer underscore studio and Michael at NF ticket. I'm reproducer Andy and I'm at AJC 254. Our theme songs by It's Just Lose. We always appreciate your feedback and support, which helps us reach more people and bring you informative and engaging content about NFTs. We look forward to bringing you more great NFT content in future episodes. Thanks for listening. Peace.